Ran across a quote recently (didn’t get the author): The soul of culture is conversation. This can be extended possibly to: the quality of our culture is shaped by the quality of our conversations, as in, at the heart of superficial cultures are superficial conversations … at the heart of creative cultures are creative conversations.

A word for mentor in Chinese is yi zhi shi - someone we can take refuge in. In French, it is tueur - the stake that supports a young sapppling. In any language, it is someone we do well to thank daily. Perhaps the greatest gratitude is the selfless continuance of their gifts to others.

Thomas Mulready and I last night toured the Warehouse District dance club scene after listening to Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem with the Cleveland Orchestra. It was an amazing experience of contrasts — repetitive riffs on the club side rarely escaping the narrow confines of a single chord, on one hand, and on the other, a most moving and spectacular piece and presentation by chorus, orchestra, and international soloists, in many ways richer than the Messiah and more powerful than Beethoven’s 5th.

The NY Times this morning reports that America has been busy this past year increasing the number of people in poverty. Not to disappoint industrial age devotees, economic factors appear in the line-up of suspects. The practice of blaming money for poverty is like blaming stomachs for hunger. Very curious indeed.

Great chat yesterday about daily zen practice, which is decidedly not about one hour a day or week of ritualized anything, but living in a state of zen grace. Zen grace is the state of interbeing in which we’re paying attention to the immediate flow of the present.

To live otherwise is to live outside the present, the time and space where life is suffering. Every moment, reality invites us to be contactful — playfully curious. On the constant verge of humor, humility, and humanness.

This afternoon I attended the tribute to local social ministry godfather, Dick Sering. Here was an individual who touched more lives than one can count — a testament to the potential we all have for making a difference.

This week’s Wiki here at Gassho has accumulated a wonderful thread of conversation on the opposite of a culture of cynicism. Ten or so eulogies and two and a half hours later, anyone even in a partial coma would have gone away from this service transcending cyncism for hope, faith, and love. This was not a theorectical debate on the self-fulfulling power of optimism — it was undeniable, empirical evidence of what it means to have a vision that emanates from a heart that embraces the Infinite.

I’ve lately started to imagine a planet of people who share a common vision of a planet of harmony and abundance. It’s a world where people hold that kind of space in their shared mind. I have always been intrigued with the notion that our collective world is a perfect reflection of our collective mind.

This week’s Wiki Wednesday question is: What is the opposite of a culture of cynicism and how would we cultivate that?

In a workshop this morning I heard a common refrain in response to my presentation on a strengths-based (appreciative) approach to personal development. People are regularly surprised by the suggestion that we can’t do anything with our weaknesses; the only thing that matters is the attention we pay to our strengths.

Processing my stash through grocery checkout last night, Gina did a poor job of hiding whatever cloud of post-adolescent existential unhappiness she was in. Sympathizing with life’s peculiar way of burdening us, I asked if her suffering included any deaths, referencing people in my first circle who in the past few days lost significant others.

Realizing her issues about the quality of life did not approximate the loss of life, her energy shifted in a palatable way. At my exiting suggestion to keep breathing, baby, we got a genuine smile out of her. Not the last time life will reveal that it’s all about perspective. Keep breathing, baby.

Lessons from a zen teacher: The only way we can get to new outcomes is through new questions. The questions we use to organize and energize our experience create the spaces of our personal and collective lives. If we are struggling, it’s a clear indicator we’re working from questions that have the ability to create struggle.

If life seems to be more complicated than simply how we shape it through our questions, allow yourself to pursue more complicated perspectives and let me know how that works for you.