The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – Ensō (zen circle).

Japanese philosophy is fascinating. An Ensō, a zen circle is one of the simplest shapes, but philosophically it’s one of the richest symbols. Thinking about the philosophy of a circle is really thinking about what it means for something to have no beginning, no end & no privileged point. A circle represents natural beauty & completeness. Unlike a line, which stretches outwards or a polygon, which is made of parts, a circle is a single, uninterrupted whole. It stands for the idea of unity, clarity & everything belonging together without fragmentation.

A circle has no starting point. Wherever we begin tracing it, we will return. This makes it a symbol of eternity & infinite cycles. Many traditions connect the circle with the endlessness of time, the cosmos or the divine. The circle mirrors nature’s rhythms – seasons, birth & death, day & night. It challenges the idea that life is purely linear progress. Instead, it suggests repetition, return, rebirth & renewal.

Every point on a circle’s edge is equally distant from the center. No point is more important than another. This uniqueness symbolises fairness, balance, equality or a society without hierarchy. The circle invites the question – where is the center? In human terms, we often search for a center of our identity, meaning, insight or consciousness. The circle represents the relationship between our inner self (center) & the outer world (circumference). In geometry, the circle is considered as the most perfect shape. Yet, it is also abstract. No perfect circle exists in nature.

One of the most famous Buddhist circles is samsara. The endless cycle of birth, death & rebirth. The goal of Buddhism is not to perfect the circle, but to attain enlightenment (nirvana). The circle becomes the wheel of life, sharing the realms of existence, the path out of samsara. The wheel is literally circular because it shows how life keeps repeating itself until wisdom breaks the cycle.

In Zen Buddhism, the circle is expressed through an Ensō (円相). A hand-drawn circle made in one brushstroke. It represents the emptiness, completeness, the present moment, enlightenment, simplicity & the natural flow of life. A perfect circle is not required. In fact, imperfections show the beauty of impermanence. The circle is both full (a complete shape) & empty (the space inside).

This reflects the Buddhist teaching that despite the emptiness, everything is interconnected & whole. Wholeness includes the imperfect. So, the circle is a symbol of non-duality. Form & emptiness are not separate. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Buddhist traditions use mandalas, which are circular meditation tools as representations of the mind.

What an Ensō represents in Zen is compassion, enlightenment & awakening. An Ensō symbolises a moment of realisation, of being fully present in the moment. The circle contains nothing inside & that nothingness is meaningful, full of potential or possibilities. In Zen, the emptiness is not a void. In the void is everything. It is openness, it is fertility. Everything arises within it. The circle is complete, unbroken. It represents the unity of all things, the interconnectedness of life.

An Ensō is drawn imperfectly, with uneven ink or an intentional open gap. It reflects the Zen teaching that nothing is perfect & that beauty exists, even in imperfection. This relates to wabi-sabi, the aesthetic of imperfect simplicity. An Ensō is drawn in one breath, in one stroke. It captures the moment, just as it is. It is meditation in motion. A simple circle, drawn with mindfulness to express beauty, belief, emptiness, wholeness & impermanence as a mirror of the mind, in the present moment.

“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless like water” – Bruce Lee. Fluidity is the essence of inner freedom & peace. An Ensō is the art of seeing into the nature of our own being. It’s a spark, a realisation. Stillness, being present in the moment is the key. The beauty of an Ensō is found in simplicity & tranquility, in a sense of the all embracing harmony of things. “There are only two ways to live our life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle” – Zen masters.

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – humour.

“A sense of humour is just common sense dancing” – William James

“Humour is the affectionate communication of insight” – Leo Rosten

“Laugh as much as possible, always laugh. It’s the sweetest thing one can do for oneself & one’s fellow human beings” – Maya Angelou

“A sense of humour is the best indicator that you will recover. Sustain that & you have hope” – Andrew Solomon

“A good laugh & a sense of humour overcomes more difficulties, dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing” – Laura Wilder

“Like a welcome summer rain, humour may suddenly cleanse & cool the earth, the air & you” – Langston Hughes

“Humour can make a serious difference. In the workplace, at home, in all areas of life. Looking for a reason to laugh is necessary. A sense of humour helps us to get through the dull times, cope with the difficult times, enjoy the good times & manage the scary times” – Steve Goodier

“To be a philosopher, just reverse everything you have ever been told & have a sense of humour doing it” – Criss Jami

“Through humour, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. Once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it” – Bill Cosby

“Progress is nothing but the victory of humour over dogma” – Benjamin Casseres

“Don’t wish me happiness. Wish me courage, strength & a sense of humour. I will need them all” – Anne Lindbergh

“Fancy degrees are easy to find, a sense of humour, not so easy” – Sarvesh Jain

“The first step towards true enlightenment is to lighten up on yourself” – Bashar

“A sense of humour is essentially a sense of perspective. It is an understanding that comes from a true sense of proportion. Humour is not a matter of laughing at things, but of understanding them. At its highest, it is a part of understanding life. It is an ability to see ourselves as we are” – Nivard Kinsella

“A sense of humour, being born of perspective, bears a near kinship to philosophy. Each is the soul of the other” – Will Durant

“Surviving the dangerous times require a sense of humour” – Robert Ferrigno

“Without a sense of humour, you are blind to so much in this world. To human nature. To the absurdity of so much that we say & do” – Steven Erikson

“Life is way too short, so try to enjoy every minute of it, with a good sense of humour” – Christina Scalise

“I think, the next best thing to solving a problem, is finding some humour in it” – Frank Clark

“A well-developed sense of humour is the pole that adds balance to your steps, as you walk the tight rope of life” – William Ward

“If you could choose one characteristic that would get you through life, choose a sense of humour” – Jennifer Jones

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – humour.

Read Humour, Seriously: Why Humour Is A Secret Weapon In Business & Life. An average four year old laughs as many as three hundred times per day. The average forty year old, by comparison, laughs three hundred times every three months or so. The collective loss of our sense of humour is a serious challenge afflicting people & organisations globally. We may be losing the levity entirely in a sea of bottom lines, slide decks & mind numbing conferences. Our sense of play is repressed by a dizzyingly complex & dynamic professional environment. We go to work leaving our sense of humour & so much more of ourselves, at the door.

Today’s employees yearn for more authentic, inspiring & human leaders. Aspirational, yes, but also flawed. Humour is a powerful leadership strategy to humanise oneself, to break down barriers, to solve challenges, to build trust & balance authority with approachability. The presence of fun or humour in the team interactions predicts more functional communication, higher team performance, both in the moment & over time. Playful cultures allow teams to thrive, even when the stakes are high & the times are tough. President Eisenhower said, “a sense of humour is a part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.” Inspirational.

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – humour.

“A day without humour is a day wasted” – Charlie Chaplin. Humour is the quality of something that makes people laugh, smile or feel amused. It’s a way of seeing or expressing things in a funny, playful or entertaining manner. Humour can come from many sources like jokes, comedy, irony, sarcasm, funny situations & wit. “Life is too important to be taken seriously” – Oscar Wilde.

Humour is socially important because it helps people to refresh, to connect with others & to cope with stress. “Humour is mankind’s greatest blessing” – Mark Twain. It enables the body to relax & rejuvenate. It is the best medicine. “Laughing is & will always be, the best form of therapy” – Dau Voire. Humour can make challenging situations feel lighter. It motivates us to stay positive during tough times. “If I had no sense of humour, I would long ago have committed suicide” – Mahatma Gandhi. If we can laugh at it, we can live with it. “Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious” – Peter Ustinov.

“Humour is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity” – James Thurber. Sharing fun builds trust, collaboration & closeness in a team. It breaks tensions, makes social interactions more enjoyable & allows people to express ideas in a non-judgemental way. Humour encourages creative thinking, imagination & new perspectives. In essence, it brings joy, connection & relief. “Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age & dreams are forever” – Walt Disney. The secret to humour is surprise.

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – search.

“He who has a why to live, can bear almost any how. Search” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“Live the questions now. Search & trust” – Rainer Maria Rilke

“The search itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart” – Albert Camus

“Not until we are lost, do we begin to understand ourselves” – Hermann Hesse

“Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes” – Carl Jung

“I am not sure who I am, but I search anyways” – Pablo Neruda

“Knowing others is intelligence, knowing yourself is true wisdom” – Laozi

“To come to what you do not know, you must go by a way which you do not know” – Kabir

“The search for truth begins in your heart” – Rickson Gracie

“Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke in a constant search for truth” – Barbara Streisand

“A wise man once said that all human activity is a form of play. And the highest form of play is the search for truth, beauty & love” – Arthur Clarke

“Trust the unknown. Trust yourself. Let go of searching for answers & the answers will appear” – Brittany Burgunder

“Each new day brings new opportunities. You have to really search to be able to find these opportunities” – Lailah Gifty

“The meaning of life is found in the search for meaning” – Mircea Eliade

“Search on earth for what you cannot find in the sky, search in the sky for what you cannot find on earth. The important thing here is to never accept not being able to find what you are looking for” – Mehmet Murat

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – search.

Read In Search Of Ourselves: Exploring The Origins, Meaning & Future Of Human Existence. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? It’s a common question, it’s true. But, who hasn’t thought about it at least once in their life? The question of our existence, origin or destiny has been the subject of deep reflection & fascination by humanity’s greatest thinkers for thousands of years. More recently, by scientists.

The questions have been the same since we began to think. The answers have not. Quite the opposite. An incredibly insightful, profound exploration of identity, consciousness & the human journey towards self understanding. It guides us towards clarity, compassion & stillness to re-discover what it means to truly be.

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – search.

The philosophy of search explores searching as a defining human behaviour, evolving from the ancient pursuit of absolute truth to a modern, AI-mediated digital experience. At its core, search is about how & why we look for things that we feel fascinated or curious about – truth, meaning, solutions, happiness or even ourselves. Plato shared that we can only search for what we don’t know or understand, but must know enough to recognise it when we find it. This creates a paradox. How can we search for something if we don’t know what it is? Hence, search lives somewhere in the middle spaces between ignorance & knowledge.

What counts as a good way to search – reason, experience, intuition or science? When should we begin or stop searching? Search isn’t just intellectual. It’s quite emotional, personal & lived. Kierkegaard shared that search is subjective or tied to choice. Nietzsche’s search for meaning meant creating new values, not just finding pre-existing ones. Searching is never neutral. We always search from within a horizon of our assumptions, experiences, knowledge, beliefs, biases or history. We don’t just find answers, we interpret them. Today, search is also literal with AI. Does easy access to answers weaken deep searching & our curiosity?

The philosophy of search also asks – why do we search? Does the value lie in the finding or in the seeking itself? “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question” – Eugène Ionesco. In Western philosophy – truth, knowledge or meaning is something out there. Often objective, external & discoverable. “The search for truth is more precious than its possession” – Albert Einstein. In Eastern philosophy – liberation, harmony or awakening is something already there. In Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen or Daoism, we’re not hunting the truth, we’re just removing illusions. We are what we seek. When searching stops, seeing begins.

Western thought is active, linear or goal oriented – ask questions, build arguments, accumulate knowledge & progress towards conclusions. Searching looks like movement forward. Eastern thought is receptive, circular or fluid – quiet the mind, unlearn patterns, let go of striving, return to the self. Searching looks like stillness. Looking outward is movement, looking inward is return. It’s either thinking & solving or listening to intuition & instincts. Two diabolically opposite views. Blessed are those who can truly balance the two. “I am not seeking, I am finding” – Pablo Picasso.

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – resilience.

Read Rules Of Resilience: 10 Ways Successful People Get Better, Wiser & Stronger. What if we could learn the secret to thriving no matter what obstacles, setbacks or challenges come our way? Whatever we want in life, the difference between success & failure is resilience. Fortunately, the skills of resilience can be learned.

In the Rules Of Resilience, Valorie Burton, CEO of the Coaching & Positive Psychology Institute, shares how to build or strengthen our own personal resilience system. Offers simple strategies to conquer challenges, overcome failure, achieve greater happiness & succeed with higher levels of satisfaction. She reveals how to enhance our level of mental & emotional fitness, enabling us to achieve our life goals in a healthy, fulfilling & meaningful way. Transformational thinking.

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – resilience.

Read Resilient. These days, it’s hard to keep up pace with the world around us. So, it’s vital to grow strengths inside like self-worth, patience, kindness & joy. These make us resilient as the foundation of lasting well-being. With an amazing blend of neuroscience, mindfulness & practical psychology, New York Times bestselling author Dr. Rick Hanson shares how to deal with stress or challenges to pursue our dreams with a deep sense of belief, capability & contentment.

A simple, practical guide full of concrete suggestions, experiential practices, personal examples & insights into the brain. Warm, encouraging & down-to-earth, Resilient offers a step-by-step approach grounded in the science of positivity. We learn how to overcome the brain’s negativity bias, to replace it with self-compassion, creativity, hope & inner peace. Inspirational.

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The blog will pick a word of the week, to share & explore the selected word. Here’s an expression for the word – resilience.

“Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare” – Angela Duckworth

“It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. We always fly back to the first principles of hope & harmony” – Greg Kincaid

“Persistence & resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult challenges” – Gever Tulley

“It’s your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself that determines how your life’s story will develop” – Dieter Uchtdorf

“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down & got back up again” – Nelson Mandela

“A good half of the art of living is resilience” – Alain Botton

“Grief, vulnerability & resilience live together” – Michelle Obama

“Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly” – Robert F. Kennedy

“When we learn how to become resilient, we learn how to embrace the beautifully broad spectrum of the human experience” – Jaeda Dewalt

“Resilience is very different than being numb. Resilience means you experience, you feel, you fail, you hurt. You fall. But, you keep going” – Yasmin Mogahed

“Resilience is based on compassion for ourselves, as well as compassion for others” – Sharon Salzberg

“The most certain way to succeed is to stay resilient, to always to try just one more time” – Thomas Edison

“We all have battles to fight. It’s often in those battles that we are most alive. It’s on the frontlines of our lives that we earn wisdom, create joy, forge friendships, discover happiness, find love & do purposeful work” – Eric Greitens

“Like tiny seeds with potent power to push through tough ground & become mighty trees, we hold innate reserves of unimaginable strength. We are resilient” – Catherine DeVrye

“No one escapes pain, fear or suffering. Yet, from pain comes wisdom, from fear comes courage, from suffering comes strength, if we have the virtue of resilience” – Eric Greitens

“Resilience is knowing that you are the only one that has the power & the responsibility to pick yourself up” – Mary Holloway

“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm” – Winston Churchill

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward” – Martin Luther King Jr

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this, you haven’t” – Thomas Edison

“We are stronger, gentler, more resilient & more beautiful than any of us can imagine” – Mark Nepo

“Most of the important things in this world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying, when there seemed to be no hope at all” – Dale Carnegie

“Where there is no struggle, there is no strength” – Oprah Winfrey

“Out of difficulties grow miracles” – Jean de la Bruyere

“One has to understand that braveness is not the absence of fear, rather the strength to keep on going forward despite the fear” – Paulo Coelho

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