“This powerful book is full of love and intimate wisdom. Full of rich stories and deep guidance, it is also a map of the human heart and the best in all of us.”
– Roshi Joan Halifax
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu (スティーヴン・マーフィ重松) is a subtle and winsome teacher. I had the privilege of being in the student seat last fall at a conference where he was teaching. The first words I remember him speaking were in reference to the Japanese word ‘ma’, which he translated as the space that is the space between things. Inviting each attendee to take on the practice of listening by feeling and holding the spoken words before responding. I remember letting out a big sigh of relief (and of celebration) and recognizing that he was not a typical presenter seeking to bombard listeners, but to create space. It takes a subtle artist to create space within another person, Murphy-Shigematsu is such a person. He expands the meaning of mindfulness into the embodiment of heartfulness, and structures his latest book, From Mindfulness to Heartfulness: Transforming Self and Society with Compassion in such a way to ground the reader in the basic elements of heartfulness and ways to cultivate heartfulness from which compassion action can spring forth.
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu is a psychologist with a doctorate from Harvard University, and training in clinical and community psychology, yoga, meditation, and Chinese medicine. He’s been a Fulbright scholar, was a professor at the University of Tokyo and at Stanford University he co-founded the LifeWorks program in contemplative and integrative education. Also at Stanford, he teaches in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.
You can learn more about Stephen at murphyshigematsu.com or follow him on Twitter (@DrShigematsu) or Facebook (@DrMurphyShigematsu).
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EPISODE SHOW NOTES
Books by Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
- From Mindfulness to Heartfulness: Transforming Self and Society with Compassion
- When Half Is Whole: Multiethnic Asian American Identities
- Synergy, Healing, and Empowerment: Insights from Cultural Diversity
- Japan’s Diversity Dilemmas: Ethnicity, Citizenship, and Education
- Multicultural Encounters: Case Narratives from a Counseling Practice (Multicultural Foundations of Psychology and Counseling)
Resources Mentioned
- Roots by Alex Haley
- ‘Ripple’ by The Grateful Dead
- ‘A Precious Human Life” by H.H. Dalia Lama
- Serenity Prayer
People
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
- H.H. Dalai Lama
- Black Lives Matter
Highlights
- Your Father was a storyteller and who were the listener, what did you learn from your post as listener?
- What drew you to going to Japan?
- What was it like to have the vision be realized when you stepped foot on Japanese soil?
- Did you know you would be living with your Grandmother when you moved to Japan?
- The importance elders
- What does the word sensei mean? How do you use it in your classes?
- What do you mean by being aware of the sensei in everyone?
- I was eager to read your book from the first time I heard you speak about it. Your book is titled From Mindfulness to Heartfulness: Transforming Self and Society with Compassion. As you well know, mindfulness is all the rage for self-help or productivity purposes. You articulate heartfulness as including mindfulness. If someone where new to the term, heartfulness, how would you explain it to them?
- Can you speak more to why you set-up practices at the end of each chapter?
- What practices help ground you?
- What is the Serenity Prayer saying about acceptance to you?
- How does working for justice intersect with heartfulness?
- You have write about being an embodied bridge between East and West, experiences of being marginalized and privileged, what has holding these different experience taught you?
- We always pair an episode with a drink, what drink of choice goes best with this conversation?
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