When Ananda asked the Buddha if having good friends was half of the holy life, the Buddha corrected him: "Not so, Ananda. Having good friends, good companions, good comrades is the whole of the holy life." Not half. Not an important part. The whole.   This is not exaggeration or poetic flourish but a statement about how human beings actually become who they're capable of becoming. It is certainly true in my life. We don't develop trustworthiness in isolation, perfecting ourselves in some...

So many privileged people these days talk about "feeling safe" as if safety is an external condition, not an internal state.  There is a disease of distrust in others, definitely a result of a consumer-motivated culture where one constantly wonders: what are you trying to sell me? We scan every interaction for the transaction hidden beneath it, the angle, the manipulation. We've become expert threat-assessors, building elaborate systems to protect ourselves from being fooled, used, or...

September 2025 We're in what I would describe as a cultural autoimmune response, where we attack parts of our own social body as if they...