An anecdote at the CF Intergalactic Headquarters :) was covered by a local newspaper -- Positive News.  --Bhoutik

What would you do if a colony of bees took up residence in a wall of your home? Harshida Mehta faced just that issue recently.

Harshida hosts "Wednesday" meditation in her home in Santa Clara, California on Wednesday nights. It was one thing for bees to swarm around her patio on and off for years when it was just her family at home, but with guests arriving on a regular basis, she and her husband finally decided something must be done. A little internet research showed that honeybee populations are disappearing at an alarming rate around the world.

Harshida read that no one knows why this is happening but a mysterious disorder called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) could even affect the availability of the food we eat.

But what to do? Harshida had learned long ago from her mother in Gujarat, India that every animal on the planet plays an important role. She knew that somehow the bees must be saved. Thus began the search for a natural way to collect the bees and help them keep their rightful place in the ecosystem.

Happily, word of mouth - and possibly some good karma - brought Lothar Schicker to Harshida's home. This elderly gentleman explained that the bees had probably come in through the roof and made their way into a wall through a tiny hole. Harshida was greatly relieved that, whereas all professional services offered only the option of eliminating the bees with chemicals, the beekeeper had a better solution.

Harshida watched as the beekeeper spent the next one and a half days carefully removing the bees from her home. He opened the wall up and then used suction technology to meticulously draw the bees into boxes, with a great dealt of patience and, as Harshida says, "a large dose of kindness."

Lothar drew out more than 20,000 bees, and gave them a new home.

Not long after, Harshida was able to greet her guests with a gift the bees gave back. Before giving the customary Wednesday night meditation opening, she addressed the group with the words, "In today's lemonade, you will taste the gift of honey ... from those very-local bees for whom this was home for many years."

Below are last week's Tweets for CharityFocus. Spread the good!

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Last summer, when I was in Berkeley for the Metta Mentors program, I had the blessed opportunity to attend my first Wednesday in Santa Clara. Since then, for the next 12 weeks, Wednesdays were sacred, and instead of Wednesdays being fit into my schedule, my schedule was planned around Wednesdays. These silent evenings not only energized me but they also kept me grounded in my journey and gave me an opportunity to practice 'Being'. They were powerful and transformative.

While leaving Berkeley in August 09, Nipun had planted a pay-it-forward seed and I always held this dream of hosting Wednesdays in my hometown --  Mumbai. After my return to India, on many occasions, I thought of hosting these magical Wednesdays but was always discouraged by the critical inner voice -- it’s a big responsibility, what if I am unable to continue, or do it regularly?  I have crazy working hours and I hardly stay in Mumbai. I am not ready yet -- at least not to create something as powerful as Wednesdays in California. How will Grand-Dad take it? My house is not quiet for 5 mins; how will there be a disturbance-free environment for one hour? I cannot sit for half an hour; how will I host meditations for an hour? So on and so forth. Basically a lot of excuses and mental drama.

For the last two weeks, I have been home on a break, once again standing at a crossroad in life trying to figure out which path to take next. I was struggling with my daily sits and was being very irregular. And then I came across Viral’s article: ‘ A Heart of Patience’.   Reading that, two things particularly really stood out for me.  First that when we think we know, we expect to find a solution in the direction in which we are looking; when we don't know where to look, we remain open to all directions.   Second that it's best to let go of our tendency to fixate on outcomes we'd like to see, and in time-frames in which we'd like to see them, because we don't always know what is best.

And then the final push came when I read a notification from iJourney.org that read: "A volunteer has expressed interest in joining your local 'Mumbai' meditation group.  If you are already hosting a group, do send them more information; otherwise, perhaps you could explore starting one." :)

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In the mid-1960s, Daniel Kahneman lectured to a group of Israeli air force flight instructors about how rewarding positive behavior works and punishing mistakes doesn't.

An irritated flight instructor gets up and says, "I've often praised people warmly for beautiful executed maneuvers, and the next time they do worse.  And I've screamed at people for badly executed manuevers, and by and large the next time they improve.  Don't tell me that reward and punishment doesn't work."  Other flight attendants agreed.

In an aha-moment, that ultimately led to his Nobel Prize in 2002, Daniel Kahneman realized a startling fact: the screaming preceded the improvement, but contrary to appearances it did not cause it.

How can that be?  The answer lies in a phenomena called regression towards the mean.  That is, in any series of random events, an extraordinary event is most likely to be followed by, due purely to chance, a more oridinary one.  So student pilots all had a certain ability to fly the planes; with training, their skill level was improving slowly but not noticeable from one manuever to next.  Any especially good or bad performance was thus mostly a matter of luck.   If a pilot made an extraordinarily good landing,  odds were that he'd perform worse the next day; and if his instructor had praised him, it would appear that the praise had no benefit.  On the other hand, if the pilot made an extraordinarily bad landing, odds were that he'd perform better the next day; and if his instructor had punished him, it would appear that the critcism did him some good.  The apparent pattern would be: student does well, praise  does no good; student performs poorly, instructor yells at student, student improves.

While those instructors in Kahneman's class thought screaming was a powerful education tool, in reality it made no difference at all. 

When I was growing up, I often heard the story of a dog under a king's chariot thinking that his manuevers are causing the chariot to turn; but that dog mistook corelation for causation.  Kahneman's story reminds me that our certainy about causation is often suspect too.  With causation and corelation both out of the window, Zen master Shunryu Suzuki's practice seem just right: "We must always strive to keep a beginner's mind."

The last two times I went for a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat, something remarkable happened at the end. Both times, people came up to me and said, “Your meditation was so solid.” Knowing how close I was to apologizing to my neighboring meditators for my dance on the cushion at some points, I asked (shocked and incredulous), “How do you know?” Pat came the reply, “Oh, everytime I opened my eyes, you were sitting rock-solid in front of me.” Gotcha. Didn’t know how to break it to them that they had done themselves great harm by looking at me and comparing. Given how much hard work I had to put in, I was so thankful that I didn’t open my eyes and look at others, or I’d make my work that much harder.

This is not meant to be an aha moment. The teacher, S. N. Goenka, warns repeatedly that students should not open their eyes during their practice, and once the session is done, they should avoid looking around while walking back to their quarters. At a certain point, he even explains (paraphrased), “When you see other students sitting like statues of Buddha, you feel do disappointed with yourself, that you create more negativity and go in the opposite direction of where we want you to go.” And yet, people break this directive, causing much misery to themselves. While I might feel good that I didn’t break this directive, the truth is, we are breaking this directive all the time off the cushion. How so?

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Our latest Tweets says a lot: "Individual ants don't possess the intelligence that is in the hive."  Sometimes it helps to step back and look at the hive.

Last time we posted McDonalds Numbers was 2008, so here is the 2010 version:

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The following speech was delivered by top of the class student Erica Goldson during the graduation ceremony at Coxsackie-Athens High School on June 25, 2010.  (Thanks, Conrad, for sharing it!)

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years..."  The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast -- How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path."

This is the dilemma I've faced within [our] education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

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It's real fun to see my parents get into small acts of kindness.

On Wednesdays, my parents host a community meditation night; serendipity usually brings 30-50 random people that will sit in silence for an hour, share aha-moments in the circle of sharing afterwards, and enjoy a full dinner in silence.  It takes a good amount of effort to put it on, and yet my parents always feel like they receive more than they give.

Usually, my mom insists on doing most of the heavy lifting for the weekly gatherings. But last Tuesday, two friends came over to help out with veggie-chopping, and our mission is to make it a memorable night for them.  My mom and I went to pick them up from the CalTrain station; we pluck two tiny flowers from a nearby plant, and as they arrive, we offer it to them with a greeting: "Welcome to Santa Clara."   They smiled big, and we did too.  Then we open their car door to give 'em chaufer-driven-limo treatment.  As they get in, we take out a box of nuts to snack on and joke, "This is till we get home."  We reach in 3 minutes. :) 

By itself, such small acts may not seem revolutionary, but it starts to change the eyes through which you look at the world.

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Our Sunday experiment involved a "public picnic" in Dupont Circle - an area in downtown Washington DC. Volunteers handed out goodie bags decorated with inspirational messages and filled with homemade baked good, food, CDs, smile cards, blank thank you cards, stuffed animals, and even $5 bills! We also had popsicles, water bottles, and of course FREE HUGS to give out to anyone walking by. Who knew that it could be so difficult to give things away with no strings attached!

Thank you to all the volunteers who came by on Sunday as well as all of the people who stopped by our "public picnic" to get a goodie bag, hug, water bottle, or a smile.

A couple years ago, I stumbled into CharityFocus on a Wednesday night, sort of out of the blue. A good friend of mine had been looking to meditate and Chris suggested Wednesdays. I signed up with the intention of accompanying my friend, who, ironically, never made it there that week. But I did. And since then my life has changed in subtly profound ways.

Over the past few years, I have somehow fallen into a world where I’m reminded on a daily basis that goodness does exist. Where strangers become family, greatness resides in the small, wisdom in the still, and where service has become not only the status quo, but also the driving force in my life, and a great source of joy.

It has come as a subtle shift. A kindness that sneaks up on you and shatters any protective shields of sarcasm or doubt. It’s disarming. And gentle. Like nudging a numb, hardened soul back to life. Or validating a young student’s desire to have faith in humanity. All with a simple act of giving. At first glance, it seems so innocent: smile cards, inspiring quotes. But the more we stick around, the more we realize there’s something deeper—something discerned and much more profound—going on.

In a way, I feel like I’ve tapped into a vast reservoir of ancient wisdom. I’ve come to realize that inside each human being lies the potential for goodness. A potential that comes out when we learn how to really love. When we begin to sit with ourselves—to look inside, accept, and be at peace with whatever comes up.

Recently, a poem came up. 

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