The Coming Interspiritual--Archive Edition

Seed of Spirit SOIL of the WORLD

by Marc Ian Barasch It’s said that in meditation, you should practice as if your hair is on fire.But what to do when the world is on fire--its forests burning, people famishing, the web of life rending, the climate tipping toward chaos?

Several years ago, I wrote a book, Field Notes on the Compassionate Life, a journalistic foray into the deep backcountry of empathy and altruism. I didn’t realize then how much the words I put on the page would get under my skin. But hanging out with the folks who do the heart’s heavy lifting—workers in homeless shelter, kidney donors, people who forgave their mortal enemies—changed me. I no longer felt content to bounce media signals off the satellites. I wanted to step up to the bodhisattva vows I’d taken in my twenties.

I decided to perform an ad hoc metaphysical experiment. I’d “ask the universe” to reveal the best way I could do palpable good somewhere, somehow, for someone. Mix one part wu-wei,