Jonathan Star took twelve years to master the nuances of ancient Chinese in his quest to produce a remarkably lucid and evocative English translation of Lao Tsu’s brilliant masterpiece of wisdom. Guidance in the subtle art of attaining mental and emotional balance pervades Star’s brilliant translation of Lao Tsu’s timeless poetic volume of Taoist philosophy on how to lead a centered life.
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The Practice of Forgiveness, Pt 2
When we nurse grudges, the person clinging to a resentment often pays a high price in anxiety, hostility, perhaps depression. What follows from that for many people, says Robin Casarjian of the Lionheart Foundation, are health-related symptoms. “And it stops you,” she says, ‘from really being able to be fully present to yourself, and to other relationships. So forgiving frees you. Forgiveness frees the forgiver.” This insight informs her fascinating work with inmates in prison, at-risk youth and others.
The Practice of Forgiveness, Pt 1
Author and prison therapist Robin Casarjian reframes the act of forgiveness not to condone hurtful behavior, but as a shift in perception that allows us not to take someone’s else’s misconduct so personally. Casarjian has spent decades teaching forgiveness. Drawing on her own experience of having been abused — and learning how to move on — she noticed that some people don’t regard forgiveness as an option for themselves. The implication, she says, is “I’m not going to do a favor” to someone who was hurtful. In fact, she says, forgiveness is a favor we do for ourselves. “We do it to release ourselves from the negative power that somebody has over us.”