The Twelve Tenets

These tenets support both individual fulfillment and collective wellbeing. The goal is not perfect adherence but honest engagement. Use these principles as reference points for reflection, growth, and dialogue.

Practice Compassionate Wisdom

Seek understanding before judgment. Combine kindness with discernment. Remember that suffering is universal - respond to others' pain (including your own) with both empathy and practical help.

Embrace Intellectual Humility

Hold your beliefs lightly. Stay curious about what you might be wrong about. Welcome evidence that challenges your assumptions. Distinguish between confidence in your methods and certainty about your conclusions.

Balance Personal Growth with Service

Develop your unique gifts and authentic self, but not at others' expense. Your well-being and others' well-being are interconnected. The healthiest individuals contribute to healthy communities.

Respect the Web of Existence

Recognize your interdependence with other humans, other species, and the natural systems that sustain life. Act as a temporary steward rather than an owner of the resources you use.

Cultivate Inner and Outer Peace

Work to understand and transform the sources of suffering within yourself - fear, hatred, greed, rigid thinking, delusion. Create conditions for peace in your relationships and communities. Address systemic injustices that create suffering.

Make Connections Across Difference

Actively work to understand people whose backgrounds, beliefs, or experiences differ from yours. Look for common humanity beneath surface differences. Practice the difficult art of disagreeing without demonizing.

Seek Truth Through Multiple Ways of Knowing

Value both empirical investigation and intuitive insight, rational analysis and embodied experience, scientific method and contemplative practice. Different questions may require different approaches to knowledge.

Embody Courageous Integrity

Align your actions with your deepest values, even when difficult. Speak truth to power when necessary. Take responsibility for your choices and their consequences. Admit mistakes and make amends.

Question Systems of Power

Remain vigilant about how authority operates in your life and society. Support structures that serve human well-being; challenge those that serve only the powerful. Remember that you too can become corrupted by power.

Honour Tradition and Innovation

Learn from the accumulated wisdom of previous generations while remaining open to new understanding. Preserve what serves life; transform what causes harm. Meld ancient insights with contemporary knowledge.

Create More Than You Consume

Whether through art, ideas, relationships, children, or service - contribute meaningfully. Leave the world better for your presence.

Face Mortality with Grace

Accept the reality of aging, loss, and death while fully engaging with life. Use awareness of impermanence to appreciate the present moment and focus on what truly matters. Find ways to transcend the ego's boundaries.

Practice Notes

For Individuals:

• Choose 2-3 tenets that most challenge your current patterns
• Practice them as experiments rather than rigid rules
• Find communities that support this kind of growth
• Reflect regularly on how you're living these principles

For Communities:

• Use these as starting points for dialogue about shared values
• Adapt them to fit your specific cultural context and circumstances
• Create accountability systems that are supportive rather than punitive
• Model forgiveness and learning from failure

For Society:

• Design institutions that make ethical behavior easier rather than harder
• Educate for wisdom and character, not just technical knowledge
• Create economic and political systems aligned with these principles
• Regularly evaluate whether our structures serve human well-being