Making Waves and Riding the Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom (AGENCY/DISTRIBUTED) - Tapa dura

"It was long believed that wisdom is to the soul what health is to the body. Charles Halpern has lived as if there is no distinction--that body, soul, wisdom, and health are one and the same in a life fully lived with great passion. This most creative of public citizens--lawyer, educator, philanthropist, catalyst of ideas and institutions--has put into practice what he writes in these pages. A nation wandering in the wilderness, as we are, could not ask for a better guide toward clarity and compassion."
--Bill Moyers, journalist

"Charles Halpern is uniquely qualified to give advice about how to work for a better world. His experience as a lawyer and social entrepreneur combined with the study and practice of mindfulness and Buddhist philosophy leads him to the conclusion that cultivation of wisdom and compassion makes for more effective activism. He challenges us to apply the lessons he has learned in our own lives and work. This book is highly readable, inspiring, and important."
--Andrew Weil, author of Healthy Aging and Eight Weeks to Optimum Health

"An honest, humorous, and profoundly illuminating account of one man's persistence in navigating the lessons of personal integrity, mindfulness, and balance while contributing successfully to greater wisdom and compassion in our social institutions. I highly recommend this book to anyone who cares about leadership and social change, and bringing the inner and outer arcs of one's life and work together into a life-serving and meaningful whole."
--Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Coming to Our Senses and Arriving at Your Own Door

"At a moment when many activists may feel overwhelmed and enervated, Making Waves and Riding the Currents provides strength, insight, a path. In describing the course of his own remarkable career, Charles Halpern provides a model for social transformation that rests on persistence, bravery, and the need for conscious reflection as an integral component of civic regeneration. This is a revivifying sourcebook of good causes, great ideas, and transcendent lessons about the personal and collective benefits of working in the public interest."
--Patricia Williams, Professor, Columbia Law School, and columnist for The Nation

"Nothing is more needed in the world today--yet more elusive--than wisdom. In this fascinating memoir of his life and work for social justice and environmental sustainability, Charlie Halpern shares with us his path of learning to integrate mind and heart in pursuit of wisdom. Enlightening lessons for each of us!"
--William Ury, coauthor of Getting to Yes and author of The Power of a Positive No

Over the course of his distinguished career, Charles Halpern founded the first public interest law firm, created a unique law school to train public interest lawyers and became the first president of a major charitable foundation that established a distinctive grant program integrating social justice advocacy and contemplative practice. He started out content to accumulate knowledge, academic recognition and professional success, relying on the considerable cognitive skills that he inherited and sharpened at Harvard College and Yale Law School. Later, in his years of public interest advocacy and institutional innovation, he had a growing intuition that something was missing and he sought ways of developing wisdom that complemented the analytic, critical mode. These explorations-through meditation, vision quests and group work - began as an avocation and led Halpern to the conviction that the practice of wisdom is critical if we are to address successfully the challenges of the 21st century.

With wit and self-deprecating humour, Halpern describes the teachers he encountered (the cast of characters runs from Barney Frank and Ralph Nader to Ram Dass and the Dalai Lama) and the landmarks and guideposts he discovered on his journey. The reader will see the ways that Halpern managed the competing pressures in his life - principle versus compromise, taking risks versus playing safe, demands of family versus the demands of career and so on. Similarly, the reader will see how Halpern confronted challenges to his integrity and judgment and remained centered despite forces pulling him away from balance and compassion. Halpern’s experiences and insights will be revealing to everyone who is searching for meaning and balance in life while seeking to build a more just, reflective and sustainable world.

Halpern offers inspired guidance for 'making waves' (disrupting established patterns of injustice and discrimination) and for 'riding the currents' (being sensitive to all circumstances and carefully reading and taking advantage of all the surrounding forces). And he shows how the 'practice of wisdom' (doing work aligned with one’s values while devoting time to meditation and other contemplative disciplines) can magnify people’s well-being, contributions and effectiveness.