Just a few days ago I participated in an Art of Hosting training, after Helen insisted for a couple of times,and I'm very happy I did. (You can find a lot of pictures of the event here.)
Taking the train back to Berlin I wrote the following rave...

Art of Hosting is not a method, even though it uses state-of-the-art (post-)modern social technologies that make a lot of sense and help turn that sense into effective action - if that is what the participants wish.

Art of Hosting is also not a group dynamic process, even though it touches upon and at times celebrates the wonderful feeling of community that any group using authentic human interactions will experience.

Art of Hosting most of all is the expression of a way of being, a way of life, a way of being with others and situations as they unfold. Hosting reality as the host in Rumi's poem "The Guest House" does, welcoming each person, feeling, concept and situation as it wishes to appear. And more - not only welcoming but actively and appreciatively inquiring into whatever seems to be important to one.
And answering, responding from one's core, essence, heart - a true answer that, just a s a true question does, moves whoever participates in this delightful activity.
Seriously, lightheartedly, full of courage that can meet the issues of the moment head on - not hard and brittle but gracefully, as a dancer would meet an ancient dragon; not to cout it's head of but to engage him so much that he'll love to share his treasure.

Art of Hosting is an expression of people in love with life, humans, natural systems, and all kinds of organisations, even the dragon-systems breathing sulfuric fires as they are caught up in ancient loyalties to unfeeling rationality and hierarchy.

So yes, Art of Hosting is a way of being in love, as the artist is in love with the subject/object of his re-creation, and yes, as a true warrior is in love with his enemy, even risking his life to make peace before battle begins.

Art of Hosting is a clear way and bright view, a way of action that engages the whole human being.

So thank you all who have opened this Path with a Heart to me that is at times a method with a purpose and an effective tool to solve all manner of questions, without asking any of us to be other than just the way we are.

Thank you.

Tags: Artof Hosting, dragon, Helen Titchen-Beeth

New research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison finds that we can acquire a greater capacity for compassion through meditation training, in much the same way as athletes or musicians train to improve their skill.

We’re in the midst of a revolution in brain science. The long-held dogma that brain connections are unchangeable after age five, is being usurped with findings that the brain is more plastic than we thought.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison published a study in PLoS One this week, showing that our capacity for empathy can be learned and mastered – as one might learn to play soccer or piano. The skill here comes from meditation.

They studied the fMRI scans of 32 subjects, half were trained meditators including the Olympians of meditation, the Tibetan monks. The others were age-matched novices.

In the brain scanner, all were subjected to emotional sounds (like a baby laughing or woman screaming.)

They found that the insula (the area of the brain responsible for physical feelings of compassion) was highly active in the experts. And the right temporal-parietal juncture (an area connected to understanding anothers’ emotional state) was also much more active in experts than in the novices.

It may not be proof that we can turn a schoolyard bully into Ghandi, but it shows meditative training has a significant impact.

(source)

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.