MSI Press Blog

  We live in a world that loves compartments. Work here, family there, creativity somewhere else — as if life were a set of tidy boxes stacked on a shelf. But the truth is, nothing stays in its box for long. Everything leaks, overlaps, influences, and transforms everything else. The conversation you had with a friend shapes the tone of your next meeting. The way you care for your animals teaches you patience with people. The frustration you feel in one area of life often reveals what’s missing in another. Every thread touches every other thread. When we start to see life as a web instead of a grid, the patterns become clearer. The failures we thought were isolated turn out to be connected to our growth. The random encounters that seemed meaningless become turning points. The small kindness we offered ripples outward in ways we’ll never fully see. Connection is not just a spiritual idea — it’s a practical truth. The health of one part of our life affects the others. The energy we br...

Excerpt from Good Blood, Edition 2 (Schaffer): Foreword by Arjia Rinpoche I was enjoying the sun rays shining through the giant red wood trees after a stormy winter day in Mill Valley when my dear friend Naomi walked up the stone steps with an attractive lady. She introduced her as Irit. Right after our introduction, Irit and I got into a long conversation about our backgrounds. Suddenly, I found myself in memory lane feeling as if I were right back in Tibet in the 1950s. But then quickly I realized I was still in Mill Valley -- just telling my story. Both Irit and I felt deeply connected, and from that moment on, we were able to develop a close friendship because we had shared our memories. Even though, we were from different cultures, we had faced similar challenges in life. When I was a small boy in Tibet, I had been wrenched from my secure monastery during the Religious Reform Movement of the 1950s and made to divest myself of my monastic robes and attend a Chines...

  Precerpt (excerpt prior to publication) from   Pathways to Inner Peace  by Diane Dreher, currently available on pre-order. Introduction If you’ve been longing for a deeper sense of connection, you’re not alone. We are living in challenging times. Years of rapid change, the COVID pandemic, natural disasters, and political uncertainty have disrupted our lives. Many of us have lost loved ones, connections with friends and colleagues, familiar routines, and a sense of personal security. Psychologist Pauline Boss, PhD, says that we’ve suffered “the ultimate loss: the loss of trust in the world as a safe and predictable place” (2022, p. 4; Dreher, 2023). There’s an epidemic of loneliness in our world and a dramatic rise in anxiety and depression ( Murthy & Chen, 2020; World Health Organization, 2022, 2024) . An increasing sense of loneliness and disconnection has rippled through our world, with disastrous consequences. Research has found that loneliness actually can...