Lion of Freedom by Daisaku Ikeda

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There is something very special about Nelson Mandela’s smile. It is honest and pure, full of gentle composure. There isn’t a single line on his face that would suggest anything cold or harsh. And yet it embodies the convictions and strength of character of a man who has led his people to freedom.

He was brimming with confidence when we met in Tokyo on a July afternoon in 1995. It was our second meeting, a little over a year since he had been elected president of South Africa. He seemed to have grown stronger and wiser with the passage of time, as a mighty, deep-rooted tree continues its ceaseless growth. His bearing offered living proof of the saying that high positions, which make small people smaller, make great people greater.

The “dangerous criminal” who had been imprisoned for 27 years for high treason had emerged from that prison to become president of his country. He symbolized the fact that justice, which had been locked away for so many decades, had finally begun to reign again in South Africa.

Cause and Effect by Daisaku Ikeda

Photo Credit: http://feross.org/japan/

As life undergoes the eternal repetitions of birth and death, it expands in a free and dynamic fashion, always charged with limitless potential for self-improvement. This view of eternal life accords with the Buddhist philosophy of causality.

Living organisms eternally go back and forth between life and death, which
are themselves but two phases of existence. The causes formed by a person in the present become manifest as effects in the future.

Kūmāré - The True Story of a false prophet

I recently had the absolute pleasure watching this film, created by a young film maker Vikram Gandhi.

Vikram grew up in a very religious family and experienced much of what it was to be a Hindu through prayer and ritual. 

When he was at college he lost himself to a degree in the temptations of what life often has to offer young people his age.

He always felt that religion was something people did to make them selves feel better, that the myriad of gurus and self help practitioners were only kidding themselves.

What was so incredible about Vikram's story is that he became a victim of his own success, because what he was pretending to be, he became.

Happiness Revealed with Louie Schwartzberg

When I graduated UCLA, I moved to northern California, and I lived in a little town called Elk on the Mendocino coast, and I didn't have a phone or TV, but I had U.S. mail, and life was good back then, if you could remember it. I'd go to the general store for a cup of coffee and a brownie, and I'd ship my film to San Francisco, and lo and behold, two days later, it would end up on my front door, which was way better than having to fight the traffic of Hollywood. (Music) I didn't have much money, but I had time and a sense of wonder. (Music)

Pollination by hand in China

Photo Credit: Eric Tourneret

In China, in the world's pear capital, it is the farmers who carry out the pollination of the trees: costly and painstaking work that replaces the bees killed by pesticides, Neonicotinoids specifically.

The city of Hanyuan, dressed in the finery of the white blossoms on the pear trees, could make us believe in the eternal China with its red and black brick roofs and the grandeur of its foggy landscapes. But don't let yourself be misled. It was agricultural reform instituted by the "Great Helmsman" that made the city the pear capital of Sichuan at the beginning of the 1980s. Perched at 1600 metres altitude, Hanyuan transformed its rice paddies into orchards. At the time, pears sold for 4 to 5 times the price of rice because China had to feed its population, which had tripled in ten years, going from 400 million to 1.2 billion. Today, with 7% of the world's cultivated land, the country has to feed 22% of the world's population.

Walking across America with Andrew Forsthoefel #humanrevolution

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About Walking Across America: Advice for a Young Man

I decided to walk across the country for several reasons. Producing an hour-long radio essay about it was not one of them. When I left home, I had no idea what would become of the tape I hoped to record.

Goldie Blox - helping little girls be more then princesses.

GoldieBlox, is a toy company founded in 2012 by Debbie Sterling, a female engineer from Stanford University. Engineers are solving some of the biggest challenges our society faces. They are critical to the world economy, earn higher salaries and have greater job security. And they are 89% male. We believe engineers can’t responsibly build our world’s future without the female perspective.

Hope for a better future, and you are part of the solution.

Many dont realise just what a prolific writer Daisaku Ikeda really is. Reading articles like this. Well, listening in my case as I find listening much better for me on the account of my dislexia.

Still, when I listen and read his articles and hear his passion for people who create change, it inspires me so much to continue doing the work that I do, to help and encourage others accomplish their dreams.

I used to feel a little resentful of myself and of others achieving, I often felt like all I ever did was help other people achieve their dreams.

When I realised that that was my gift, helping other people see just how amazing they really are. I have been blessed with a gift to help others draw out their potential.

Through my own inner transformation, my own seeking spirit, I was able to find what I was looking for.

The crazy thing is that its a very simple concept, so simple that people refuse to believe its possible.

A Message of Hope by Daisaku Ikeda

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Click here to listen to the Message of Hope by Daisaku Ikeda on Hazel Henderson

Dr. Hazel Henderson describes her wide-ranging activities as an environmentalist, an author and an economist—as those of a “futurist.” She also insists that her ideal is to be a complete person. I find her approach deeply inspiring. Only humans envisage a better, more valuable future and make efforts toward its realization. To believe in the future is to believe in humanity. A futurist is engaged in the scholarship of hope.

Traditional economics is based on a very pessimistic view of human nature; it is assumed that people are essentially selfish, that our actions are motivated solely by the urge to maximize profit. But, Dr. Henderson questions, what about all the things people do without any thought of gain, the acts of “caring and sharing” that she has witnessed time and again? Traditional economics focuses only on competitive activities in which currency is exchanged. But what about spontaneous acts of collaboration and cooperation, the work of volunteers and citizens groups that enhance the quality of life for people? What about the gifts of nature itself? What about the energy generated by the sun, without whose warmth and light, life on Earth would be unthinkable? Shouldn’t these also be accorded value?