In this special mini-episode, Dr. Larry Ward shares his reflections on the 2024 US election through the lens of the teachings and practices offered in Beyond the News.

The aspiration of this podcast series is to help people develop the skillful means to respond thoughtfully, rather than react impulsively, to what we see and hear in the news. As the US election approaches, Dr. Ward invites us to revisit the episodes to discover practices that help us stay safe, grounded, and intentional in our actions, both online and in-person, over the coming days and weeks.

As Larry shares, "Every election by its nature brings possibility, anxiety, and hope. This is true for society to ever grow in the improvement of itself for its citizens....Our heads matter, yes they do. Logic matters, yes it does. But neither matters as much as our hearts, because the heart can go further and see wider than the mind can ever imagine.”

BONUS: This episode ends with a new poem from Larry, A Message to the Ego That Wants to Rule the World.

Support the show

Beyond the News is made possible through the generous support from Hemera Foundation and the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation. You can help us continue our podcast offerings by giving to thelotusinstitute.org/donate. Your generosity is a gift that supports our programs and events, and the Lotus Institute's global community of friends like you. In gratitude.

Self-knowledge is about understanding and opening to the potential that is rising to the surface of your life. In the series finale, Dr. Larry Ward outlines the key takeaways from the past 9 episodes, while sharing a few personal stories and poetic wisdoms along the way.

For Dr. Ward, Beyond the News was a journey of discovery and an invitation to learn to listen to our bodies and minds as we listen to the world through the news. The stories and events in each episode served as a vehicle for a larger teaching: as humans, for us to find resiliency and joy in challenging times, we must change our way of seeing and looking at things.
 
Quotes:

• “Our thinking flows like a river. To master your potential is to understand how you think.”
• “We have within us the potential of all humanity.”
• “If millions of us each make a small change, we can make a huge difference. Do not let yourself be confined by your fears for the world.”
  
  

Beyond the News is made possible through the generous support from Hemera Foundation and the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation. You can help us continue our podcast offerings by giving to thelotusinstitute.org/donate. Your generosity is a gift that supports our programs and events, and the Lotus Institute's global community of friends like you. In gratitude.

What role does fear play in defining the limits of your heart and mind?

Our fears, be they related to abandonment, powerlessness or environmental and social crises, can block us from realizing our true potential. They set boundaries to the capacity of our hearts and minds to be creative and free. Doom scrolling and consuming too much distressing news only serves to amplify these fears and anxieties.

In this episode, Dr. Ward outlines the steps we can take to begin moving from fear to freedom. The first step is to develop an awareness of our fears and how they define not our physical limitations, but our inner limits. By understanding how to respond to these fears, we can transform our relationship with them, and begin to overcome the narratives and thought patterns that impede our evolution.

“When you let go of hanging on to your fear, you let go of the limits that are blocking you and you gain a better understanding of what you are here on this planet to help with.”
—Dr. Larry Ward

Practices to go deeper:
Journal about your life and your relationship to the news and current events by using these prompts:

• What are your current fears, and how do they block you?
• How do you stand in the way of the purpose and meaning of your precious life?
• What stories or habits are keeping you from your next adventure?
• What is your mantra for this moment in your life? 

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Beyond the News is made possible through the generous support from Hemera Foundation and the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation. You can help us continue our podcast offerings by giving to thelotusinstitute.org/donate. Your generosity is a gift that supports our programs and events, and the Lotus Institute's global community of friends like you. In gratitude.

Close your eyes and picture your mind as a garden. There, planted deep in the soil are seeds or imprints. Imprints like anger, jealousy and hatred, or joy, generosity and compassion. When we listen to or read the news, these seeds have the capacity to rise to the surface and affect how we think, speak and act. 

The practice before us, says. Dr Ward, is to grow our awareness of how to water the wholesome seeds that will lead us to a shared place of justice, wellness and harmony.

Go deeper with this practice:

First, enjoy 5–10 minutes of mindful breathing and coming home to yourself. Then, as in a guided meditation, invite yourself to look into your heart and mind and ask yourself the following 4 questions:

• What beautiful, wholesome fruit has arisen that blesses your life, and the life of others, with goodness?
• What seeds in your life need more attention?
• What seeds have emerged that you do not want present in your life?
• What unwholesome seeds, like anger, fear or jealousy, do not dominate your life?

“If we continue to explore the discovery of self-knowledge that the news can give us, we can discover amazing things about ourselves, and not be carried away by the narrative and rhetoric of the news we encounter.”

—Dr. Larry Ward

Beyond the News is made possible through the generous support from Hemera Foundation and the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation. You can help us continue our podcast offerings by giving to thelotusinstitute.org/donate. Your generosity is a gift that supports our programs and events, and the Lotus Institute's global community of friends like you. In gratitude.

We turn our attention to thought patterns and the narratives and stories we tell ourselves as we encounter the news. On average, a young adult can have over 6,000 thoughts in just one day. And when we attach an emotion to one of these thoughts, it can become real to us and affect how we feel. By learning how to pause and examine our thoughts more closely, says Dr. Ward, we can gain control over the narratives we create and learn to live with greater equanimity and awareness.

Go deeper with this practice:

In this episode, Dr. Ward mentions the 5-steps to unpack your thought patterns: notice, accept, name, embrace and investigate. First, enjoy 5–10 minutes of mindful breathing and coming home to yourself. Then, as in a guided meditation, invite yourself to look into your heart and mind and ask the following questions:

• Notice: What thoughts arise in you as you hear and see a story in the news? 
• Accept: Can you receive and accept the response that comes up in your body and mind?
• Name: What name can you give to that pattern of thought?
• Embrace: Can you embrace what you discover in yourself? Can you embrace the mirror of your thoughts?
• Investigate: Why was that story so powerful for me? Where did the energy of this one thought pattern come from?

The news stories mentioned in this episode took place around May 2023. The teachings within each story are timeless.

Beyond the News is made possible through the generous support from Hemera Foundation and the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation. You can help us continue our podcast offerings by giving to thelotusinstitute.org/donate. Your generosity is a gift that supports our programs and events, and the Lotus Institute's global community of friends like you. In gratitude.

Our views are not fixed monuments. They are directional, flexible and open to learning. In this episode, Dr. Ward, invites us to pause, look deeply, and consider how we may change our way of seeing and looking at things so that we may live together in wellness, justice, and harmony. 

To study and observe our views can help us understand how our beliefs and identities are interconnected. And if we are open to changing our views and recognizing their impermanence, says Dr. Ward, we can move together towards individual and societal transformation.

Go deeper with these practice questions:

• What assumptions about your daily life have changed since the Covid pandemic?
• How open is your mind? Are you willing to receive what you've never thought of before?
• What views are you considering to let go of or have already let go of? And why?
• What views do you want to pass on to future generations?

The current events mentioned in this episode took place in March 2023. The teachings behind each story are timeless.

Beyond the News is made possible through the generous support from Hemera Foundation and the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation. You can help us continue our podcast offerings by giving to thelotusinstitute.org/donate. Your generosity is a gift that supports our programs and events, and the Lotus Institute's global community of friends like you. In gratitude.

"Are you sure?"... Perception, the process of recognizing and interpreting, holds immense power. It shapes our lives, our worldview, and how we interpret the news.

Before reacting to the stories you hear, pause and ask yourself, "Are you sure?" This simple yet profound question became a lifelong practice for Dr. Larry Ward, inspired by his teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, the founder of the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism.

Nothing can happen without our mind being involved in what comes in and what comes out.  And when we cling too tightly to perceptions, says Dr. Ward, we close off the possibility of life itself. True perception is found in a clear mind and an open heart. Release from the thickets of opinions that flow out of modern media.

Go deeper with these practice questions:

• What news stories reinforce your perceptions?
• What challenges how you perceive the world?
• Whose voice is missing from this story?
• What feeling tones were invoked in you when you read the headline? What did you feel in your body?
• Who will feel better, and who will feel worse, as they read the story?

Beyond the News is made possible through the generous support from Hemera Foundation and the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation. You can help us continue our podcast offerings by giving to thelotusinstitute.org/donate. Your generosity is a gift that supports our programs and events, and the Lotus Institute's global community of friends like you. In gratitude.

Continuing the discussion from episode 3, Dr. Ward delves into the societal implications of how we respond to the feeling tones we experience when consuming the news. Feelings of pleasantness, unpleasantness and neutrality are a natural and normal part of being human. Like clouds, they come and they go. 

Yet when we scroll through our social feeds or listen to the news, we can unconsciously develop reactions to these feelings that drive our ego and shape our definition of self and others. The practice is to remain open and aware of the movements of our body and mind, so that we do not get seduced by neutrality or stuck in the pursuit of power and desire.

Notes:

Non-reification: Reification is the act of treating something that is abstract, like an idea or ideology, as if it were a concrete thing. The practice of non-reification helps us to ensure we do not get caught by our feeling tones, that we see concepts and ideas as impermanent. 

Skillful attention: Mindfulness practice of learning about the systems of our body and mind, and how they impact our presence in society.

Beyond the News is made possible through the generous support from Hemera Foundation and the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation. You can help us continue our podcast offerings by giving to thelotusinstitute.org/donate. Your generosity is a gift that supports our programs and events, and the Lotus Institute's global community of friends like you. In gratitude.