“If I give alms to the poor, they call me a saint.
If I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”

~ DOM HÉLDER CÂMARA, BRAZIL’S “ARCHBISHOP OF THE POOR”

Rebecca Ryan reflects on Radicalization – October 2020

“If I give alms to the poor, they call me a saint. If I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”

~ Dom Hélder Câmara, Brazil’s “Archbishop of the Poor”

I have always believed in social justice, always donated to organizations committed to equity. But it wasn’t until I watched a video of George Floyd being killed under a police officer’s knee that I became radicalized.

Wait, does the word “radicalized” scare you?

It scared me the first time I used it. But it freed me, too. It freed me to be more ambitious about what I want from police, the legal system, and myself. 

What is a radical?

Radical: adjective (especially of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough: a radical overhaul of the existing regulatory framework

In Linguistics, radical denotes or relates to the roots of a word.

In Music it means belonging to the root of a chord.

In Mathematics it means the root of a number or quantity.

In Botany radical is of, or springing direct from, the root or stem base of a plant.

Imagine you were diagnosed with cancerous tumor. Would you instruct then surgeon, “Just take out a little, the least invasive amount.”? 

No, you wouldn’t. You would say, “Take it all! I want it all out!”

That’s what it means to be radical, it means you want to get to the root of an issue, you want to understand and treat it thoroughly. You don’t want to read about tumors. You want to treat and heal tumors.

Zen Leadership both calls us to radical leadership and arms us for it. Radical leadership requires courage – or in the words of Zen Leadership “fearlessness.” 

Go on, you radical. 🙂

~ Rebecca Ryan

Today is e-Resonate for 99¢ day!

You’ve already done so much to help us launch Resonate. We feel grateful for your investment and want to give you the chance to help others find Ginny’s brand-new book.

For one day only, Amazon is going to drop the price of Resonate’s e-book version to just 99 cents! We’d love it if our friends helped apply the principles of resonance on October 21 to push Resonate to a tipping point where it gets noticed. And at 99 cents, there’s not much downside. So please share the news with friends, or maybe even buy them copies.

To get this great deal, go to the Resonate page on Amazon.com on October 21, click on the Kindle version, and buy an e-copy for just $0.99! If you’d like to buy some for friends, you can do that too (here’s how) as long as they’re in the same country you are.

Thank you!

Webinar: The weight of Suffering – Oct. 26

How much do thoughts and feelings weigh? This might seem like a silly question, since we cannot place these things on a weight scale. But we all know that some thoughts and feelings (the thought of death, the emotion of grief) are heavier than others. In this talk, Geoff Kantou Ashton Roshi will examine the relationship between suffering and weight—from the weight of our thoughts and feelings to the heaviness of the muscles that support these thoughts and feelings. The webinar will explore what we can learn from the weight of suffering in our Zen training. 

The webinar (7:30-8:45pm CDT) will occur immediately after evening Daily Zazen (7-7:30 pm CDT) on Monday October 26. After Daily Zazen, we will switch to a different Zoom link for the Webinar. To participate in the Webinar, please register here. Events through Chosei Zen are donation-based and open to all regardless of ability to pay.

Lots more going on at the Virtual Dojo! Keep in touch to learn about webinars and online Zen training events here. In particular, check out these:

• Zen and Shakuhachi Webinar on Sun., Nov. 1 (7:00-8:30pm CST). Joe Pittelli will play shakuhachi (bamboo flute), during evening Daily Zazen and afterwards, he and Wayne Honda Roshi will present and answer questions about using shakuhachi for Zen training and hara development. 
• Hara Development Webinar on Mon., Nov. 9 (7:30-8:45 PM). In this highly experiential webinar, Ken Kushner Roshi will discuss and demonstrate the importance of developing the hara (lower abdomen) in Zen, the martial arts.

Embodiment conference library – half off!

For those of you who have been following The Embodiment Conference, you know what a seismic scale of embodied teachings have come together across ten different channels, over 10 days and more than 1000 instructors. You also know it’s been impossible to catch it all, which is why owning the library of recordings makes so much sense. Enjoy and learn from world class teachers on your own schedule. For the next week – until Oct 27 – here’s a link where you can get the recordings at half price (from $149). If you haven’t already, register and you will be taken to a page where you can get the deal on the library.

Resonate review contest: fabulous prizes!

We are doing everything we can to make Resonate resonate! Please leave a review on Amazon, per the instructions above. Take a picture, send it to [email protected] and we’ll send you a beautiful Resonate bookmark! Plus you’ll be entered in a drawing to received other fabulous prizes!

The Science of Global Coherence webcast

Join IZL CEO, Ginny Whitelaw on November 5 at 1 pm ET for a post-election recovery webcast as she hosts Rollin McCraty, Research Director of HeartMath Institute and one of the moving forces behind the Global Coherence Project. Rollin will speak on The Science of Global Coherence: What it is, why it’s important and how we can play our role in creating a better world.

Ginny and Rollin will also explore questions like:                                                                            

·  how it is that meditation can have an effect at a distance

·  how coherent waves might help “incoherent” people settle down

·  what’s most important in this time if we want to resonate a better world

What will resonate as Ginny and Rollin bring together science, spirituality, and leadership? Register here to receive your ticket to a front row seat in the Zoom room to find out.

and now for something completely different

A cute little musical reminder from our good friend James Blachly. Animation by Lembit Beecher, music by Joseph Boulogne and Lembit Beecher, and performed by Lembit Beecher, Brad Balliett, Ben Roidl-Ward, Maddy Wildman and Karen Ouzounian