The Book
What in the World is Going On? Wisdom Teachings for Our Time offers a rich description of how fear has permeated our lives. Fear creates endless suffering in every life, and blocks our awareness of our interdependence with each other. Manjushri, the great Tibetan deity of wisdom, explains how to open ourselves to the compassion at the very heart of the cosmos, healing ourselves and our communities. He encourages us to awaken our heart center and welcome the new consciousness.
Recent Teachings, Talks and Interviews
Through Penny Gill, Manjushri has continued to offer Teachings in support of our own developing wisdom and understanding of what is going on in our world. These will be posted here along with occasional pieces by Penny Gill and others.
On Healing: Each Path Has Its Own Gethsemane
The path of deep healing, of becoming whole, can be arduous. It asks everything of us, including profound surrender to what actually is present in our life. I have learned so much about surrender this long time of Covid, both for myself and for our world. This is a sermon I gave April 25, 2021….
I’ve been startled to learn, during this long year of Covid, how deep healing reveals such astonishing freedom. Here is a favorite story, which has challenged me over the years. Many years ago, circus trains criss-crossed the United States. The performers and their props were in some wagons, and their animals had their own cages….
Our weekly Circle of Island women has been sharing stories of our favorite winter activities, when we were kids. We laughed so hard imagining each other ice skating, sledding out of a second story window, building snow forts, and hurling snowballs at irritating siblings. We had first met in our library, the island’s living room,…
A Time to Grieve and a Time to Plant
Penny’s sermon this morning responds to these very fraught times in the country, A Time to Grieve and a Time to Plant. In your comment, it would be wonderful if you would please include which seed you plan to plant these next weeks and months We are many, and it would be deeply encouraging to…
About Manjushri
Considered the great Bodhisattva of Wisdom, Manjushri is a central figure in Tibetan Buddhism. He holds a sword over his head, ready to cut through ignorance and delusion.
He arrived, unbidden, to Penny Gill years ago, and offered to give her an alternative view of the contemporary world and its major problems.
About Penny Gill
Penny Gill, retired Dean of the College and Mary Lyon Professor of Humanities at Mount Holyoke College, taught political science for 45 years. She has long been interested in several spiritual traditions, as well as the work of C.G. Jung. She now lives on Madeline Island, one of the twenty-two Apostle Islands in western Lake Superior, where she continues to receive Teachings from Manjushri and Kwan Yin.