Nine Life Lessons

Buddhist monk Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is the happiest man on Earth.

In brain scans, researchers noted that Mingyur’s neural activity showed off-the-charts levels of activation in the left prefrontal cortex, an area associated with positive emotions such as happiness, enthusiasm and joy.

In other tests conducted when he was 41 years old, his brain reportedly “resembled that of a 33-year-old”. He also laughs a lot.

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Short Film: Waska

The plant medicine hayakwaska (ayahuasca), marketed as a mystical shortcut to healing and enlightenment, is an example of what the Indigenous storyteller Nina Gualinga, sees as commodification and extractivism in the Amazon.

Nina is from the Kichwa people of Sarayaku, Ecuador, and she speaks with the memory of her shaman grandfather about the ongoing cultural appropriation, environmental destruction and marginalisation of her people, questioning our very relationship to the Earth and the quest for healing

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