Jo Confino's guest appearances

Jo Confino

Interviews by Brainard Carey

Daily Detroit

Impact Journey with Julia S

The Way Out Is In

Donald Trump

Michelle Obama

Rob Paulsen

Bryan Cranston

Jonathan Merritt

Kevin Johnson

Kevin Allison

Nick Allen

James Lipton

Gordie Howe

Kurt Metzger

Jason Hall

Brad WIlliams

Kim Kardashian

Brian Kelly

OwlTail

What did it take to start a first-of-its-kind sustainable business section at The Guardian? And why leave the big city life to live in a monastic community? Journalist Jo Confino describes his journey from covering finance and business to the next frontier in this time of crisis: mindfulness, compassion, feeling our suffering. As the podcast Jo hosts says: the way out is in.   THE IMPACT. Jo Confino: - Bridges many worlds: executive coach, facilitator, journalist, and sustainability expert. - Was Executive Editor of What's Working at HuffPo, executive editor of The Guardian and chairman and editorial director of Guardian Sustainable Business - Is a Partner at Leaders’ Quest, partnered with UN Development Programme on a consciousness and systems change initiative, and sits on the Boards of various climate organizations. - Is a mindfulness advocate, has worked closely with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic community in France Plum Village, and now hosts their podcast The Way Out Is In. - Gained his MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice at the University of Bath.   THE JOURNEY. In our conversation, we explore: - Early influences: the desire to make sense of the world - Changing things at the edge: how he did that at Guardian Sustainable Business - The next edge for anyone working on the climate and social crises: consciousness - What does climate have to do with mindfulness: getting personal, feeling the feelings - The wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh: connecting to our own suffering and the suffering of the world - The thousands of choices we can make every day

What did it take to start a first-of-its-kind sustainable business section at The Guardian? And why leave the big city life to live in a monastic community? Journalist Jo Confino describes his journey from covering finance and business to the next frontier in this time of crisis: mindfulness, compassion, feeling our suffering. As the podcast Jo hosts says: the way out is in. THE IMPACT. Jo Confino: - Bridges many worlds: executive coach, facilitator, journalist, and sustainability expert. - Was Executive Editor of What's Working at HuffPo, executive editor of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/international" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> and chairman and editorial director of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/about-guardian-sustainable-business" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Guardian Sustainable Business</a> - Is a Partner at <a href="https://leadersquest.org/who-we-are/people/jo-confino/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Leaders’ Quest</a>, partnered with UN Development Programme on a consciousness and systems change initiative, and sits on the Boards of various climate organizations. - Is a mindfulness advocate, has worked closely with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic community in France <a href="https://plumvillage.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Plum Village</a>, and now hosts their podcast <a href="https://plumvillage.org/podcasts/the-way-out-is-in/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Way Out Is In</a>. - Gained his MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice at the University of Bath. THE JOURNEY. In our conversation, we explore: - Early influences: the desire to make sense of the world - Changing things at the edge: how he did that at Guardian Sustainable Business - The next edge for anyone working on the climate and social crises: consciousness - What does climate have to do with mindfulness: getting personal, feeling the feelings - The wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh: connecting to our own suffering and the suffering of the world - The thousands of choices we can make every day

The way out (of this crisis) is in - Jo Confino, Journalist

Welcome to episode 39 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives. For the first time, the presenters, Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and journalist Jo Confino, haven’t picked a topic – instead, they are responding to questions from you, the listeners!  In the spirit of Plum Village and its Zen tradition of public Q and A sessions, the two presenters encounter a wide range of topics, from light-hearted ones, like an appreciation of Vietnamese soup, watching the World Cup in the monastery, and other joyful moments in the community, to heavier ones such as anger; honoring grief; transformation; vulnerability; the fear of losing somebody precious and the preciousness of time; changing the narrative about happiness; interbeing; practicing mindfulness in schools; and the aspiration of love.  Their responses include practical examples and draw on both personal experiences and wisdom from the Buddhist Sutras and Thay’s teachings, like the Five Remembrances and the Four Noble Truths.   To give you a taste of this episode, here are some of the questions covered: How do monks and nuns remain mindful while taking care of many children during the summer retreat? How can we cope with people we find difficult? How can we practice forgiveness when we have been badly hurt? Does anger have a purpose? Do Zen monks engage in any forms of entertainment, or is life a big stage with lay people as the entertainment? How can we be compassionate, forgiving, and open to people while also protecting ourselves?  Oh, and any ideas why monastics shave their hair? The episode ends with a short meditation guided by Brother Phap Huu. Co-produced by the Plum Village App:https://plumvillage.app/ And Global Optimism:https://globaloptimism.com/  With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation:https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/ List of resources The Happy Farmhttps://thehappyfarm.org/  The Plum Village hamletshttps://plumvillage.org/about/plum-village/hamlet/  Sister Chan Khonghttps://plumvillage.org/about/sister-chan-khong/  Rains Retreathttps://plumvillage.org/retreats/info/rains-retreat-2022/  Karuṇāhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karu%E1%B9%87%C4%81  Sutras: ‘Discourse on the 5 Ways of Putting an End to Anger’https://plumvillage.org/library/sutras/discourse-on-the-five-ways-of-putting-an-end-to-anger/  The Way Out Is In: ‘Meditating on Death (Episode #26)’https://plumvillage.org/podcast/meditating-on-death-episode-26/  Śāriputrahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C4%81riputra  Dharma Talks: ‘True Love and the Four Noble Truths’https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/true-love-and-the-four-noble-truths/  Quotes “Present moment, precious moment.”  “The very fact of awareness is the start of change.”  “Be mindful of your capacity. How much can you love? How much suffering can you handle? And how ready are you to face that difficulty? And it’s not about neglecting, it’s about identifying and then making sure that we are developing our stability to continue to generate the energy of love and compassion. So the beauty that I hear in all of these questions is the aspiration to love.”  “We have to be mindful of our grief. Grief is an expression of vulnerability also. And what I’ve learned from the passing of my own teacher is that vulnerability and grief is also an expression of love. We feel loss, and we feel empty, and we feel such sadness because there was true love in that relationship.” “Whenever I’m with the children, I have to shift gears; I have to tap into their energy and tap into who they are. And that is your practice. Your mindfulness is the mindfulness of the children. So remove your expectation that they have to sit in stillness.” “Compassion is a very powerful energy. But to have compassion, we have to have understanding. So we have to see the person suffering and understand why they behave in such a way, even though it is so, so bitter.”  “I want to recognize the suffering, see the root of the suffering, and then transform the suffering. And that clarity can offer kindness. So anger is an emotion that, in Buddhism, we see as a hindrance to our liberation; it’s not just negative, but that energy provides more wrong action than right action.” “If we recognize – and I love this in the teachings about this continuation – that, actually, our life doesn’t end when life ends, that the people we love are still in us, that their actions in their life, their kindness, what they’ve developed, what they’ve built, what they’ve cared about, are still with us. And to recognize that it doesn’t end; it continues and the reverberations of one person’s life go forward in so many ways. We can see and embrace that.”  “I see you’re angry; let’s look at that anger. Can we identify why we’re angry? And then can we work on that situation, rather than working on that anger? Because sometimes when we’re angry, we don’t even know why. And so mindfulness is to become aware of the source of our anger and then to work at the source.”  “We know that everything is impermanent. So our face will change, our skin tones will change. Our bodily form will also change. But what we can always keep alive is the love that we have, the freshness that we generate, the stability that we can offer to ourselves and to the ones that we love, as well as our calmness and stillness. And that is a beauty that you cannot buy. That’s a beauty that you can only generate through practice.”  “The moment of meditation is actually giving us a chance to stop, feel our body, feel what is happening. Maybe we can even say we feel the emotions from all of our thinking, from all of our procrastination. And it’s different from looking deeply.”

Welcome to episode 39 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master <a href="https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Thich Nhat Hanh</a>’s deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives. For the first time, the presenters, Zen Buddhist monk <a href="https://plumvillage.org/people/dharma-teachers/br-phap-huu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Brother Phap Huu</a> and journalist <a href="https://www.instagram.com/joconfino/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jo Confino</a>, haven’t picked a topic – instead, they are responding to questions from you, the listeners!  In the spirit of Plum Village and its Zen tradition of public Q and A sessions, the two presenters encounter a wide range of topics, from light-hearted ones, like an appreciation of Vietnamese soup, watching the World Cup in the monastery, and other joyful moments in the community, to heavier ones such as anger; honoring grief; transformation; vulnerability; the fear of losing somebody precious and the preciousness of time; changing the narrative about happiness; interbeing; practicing mindfulness in schools; and the aspiration of love.  Their responses include practical examples and draw on both personal experiences and wisdom from the Buddhist Sutras and Thay’s teachings, like the Five Remembrances and the Four Noble Truths.   To give you a taste of this episode, here are some of the questions covered: How do monks and nuns remain mindful while taking care of many children during the summer retreat? How can we cope with people we find difficult? How can we practice forgiveness when we have been badly hurt? Does anger have a purpose? Do Zen monks engage in any forms of entertainment, or is life a big stage with lay people as the entertainment? How can we be compassionate, forgiving, and open to people while also protecting ourselves?  Oh, and any ideas why monastics shave their hair? The episode ends with a short meditation guided by Brother Phap Huu. Co-produced by the Plum Village App: <a href="https://plumvillage.app/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://plumvillage.app/</a> And Global Optimism: <a href="https://globaloptimism.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://globaloptimism.com/</a> With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation: <a href="https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/</a> List of resources The Happy Farm <a href="https://thehappyfarm.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://thehappyfarm.org/</a> The Plum Village hamlets <a href="https://plumvillage.org/about/plum-village/hamlet/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://plumvillage.org/about/plum-village/hamlet/</a> Sister Chan Khong <a href="https://plumvillage.org/about/sister-chan-khong/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://plumvillage.org/about/sister-chan-khong/</a> Rains Retreat <a href="https://plumvillage.org/retreats/info/rains-retreat-2022/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://plumvillage.org/retreats/info/rains-retreat-2022/</a> Karuṇā <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karu%E1%B9%87%C4%81" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karu%E1%B9%87%C4%81</a> Sutras: ‘Discourse on the 5 Ways of Putting an End to Anger’ <a href="https://plumvillage.org/library/sutras/discourse-on-the-five-ways-of-putting-an-end-to-anger/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://plumvillage.org/library/sutras/discourse-on-the-five-ways-of-putting-an-end-to-anger/</a> The Way Out Is In: ‘Meditating on Death (Episode #26)’ <a href="https://plumvillage.org/podcast/meditating-on-death-episode-26/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://plumvillage.org/podcast/meditating-on-death-episode-26/</a> Śāriputra <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C4%81riputra" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C4%81riputra</a> Dharma Talks: ‘True Love and the Four Noble Truths’ <a href="https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/true-love-and-the-four-noble-truths/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/true-love-and-the-four-noble-truths/</a> Quotes “Present moment, precious moment.”  “The very fact of awareness is the start of change.”  “Be mindful of your capacity. How much can you love? How much suffering can you handle? And how ready are you to face that difficulty? And it’s not about neglecting, it’s about identifying and then making sure that we are developing our stability to continue to generate the energy of love and compassion. So the beauty that I hear in all of these questions is the aspiration to love.”  “We have to be mindful of our grief. Grief is an expression of vulnerability also. And what I’ve learned from the passing of my own teacher is that vulnerability and grief is also an expression of love. We feel loss, and we feel empty, and we feel such sadness because there was true love in that relationship.” “Whenever I’m with the children, I have to shift gears; I have to tap into their energy and tap into who they are. And that is your practice. Your mindfulness is the mindfulness of the children. So remove your expectation that they have to sit in stillness.” “Compassion is a very powerful energy. But to have compassion, we have to have understanding. So we have to see the person suffering and understand why they behave in such a way, even though it is so, so bitter.”  “I want to recognize the suffering, see the root of the suffering, and then transform the suffering. And that clarity can offer kindness. So anger is an emotion that, in Buddhism, we see as a hindrance to our liberation; it’s not just negative, but that energy provides more wrong action than right action.” “If we recognize – and I love this in the teachings about this continuation – that, actually, our life doesn’t end when life ends, that the people we love are still in us, that their actions in their life, their kindness, what they’ve developed, what they’ve built, what they’ve cared about, are still with us. And to recognize that it doesn’t end; it continues and the reverberations of one person’s life go forward in so many ways. We can see and embrace that.”  “I see you’re angry; let’s look at that anger. Can we identify why we’re angry? And then can we work on that situation, rather than working on that anger? Because sometimes when we’re angry, we don’t even know why. And so mindfulness is to become aware of the source of our anger and then to work at the source.”  “We know that everything is impermanent. So our face will change, our skin tones will change. Our bodily form will also change. But what we can always keep alive is the love that we have, the freshness that we generate, the stability that we can offer to ourselves and to the ones that we love, as well as our calmness and stillness. And that is a beauty that you cannot buy. That’s a beauty that you can only generate through practice.”  “The moment of meditation is actually giving us a chance to stop, feel our body, feel what is happening. Maybe we can even say we feel the emotions from all of our thinking, from all of our procrastination. And it’s different from looking deeply.”

Brother Phap Huu and Jo Confino Answer Questions from Listeners (Episode #39)

The HuffPost, formerly known as the Huffington Post, was in Campus Martius in Detroit capturing stories from Detroiters as part of their Listen To America Tour. They're visiting 25 cities across the heartland of the country to get a beat on what people actually care about. It's an interesting experiment in outreach. So we talked Editor to Editor, with Jer having a conversation with Jo Confino. At HuffPost, Confino is Editor of Impact &amp; Innovation and Editorial Director of their solutions journalism project, What's Working. We get into the challenges of solutions journalism - how it's harder than chasing down the crime stories of the day, and it's not always about positive stories. Also, breaking down the mental barriers that some journalists have. Apologies ahead of time for a little wind noise. We recorded on location for this one.  If you like the show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-detroit-news-byte/id1220563942?mt=2 Also, thanks to our network, Podcast Detroit: http://www.podcastdetroit.com A link to HuffPost's What's Working: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/whats-working

The HuffPost, formerly known as the Huffington Post, was in Campus Martius in Detroit capturing stories from Detroiters as part of their Listen To America Tour. They're visiting 25 cities across the heartland of the country to get a beat on what people actually care about. It's an interesting experiment in outreach. So we talked Editor to Editor, with Jer having a conversation with Jo Confino. At HuffPost, Confino is Editor of Impact &amp; Innovation and Editorial Director of their solutions journalism project, What's Working. We get into the challenges of solutions journalism - how it's harder than chasing down the crime stories of the day, and it's not always about positive stories. Also, breaking down the mental barriers that some journalists have. Apologies ahead of time for a little wind noise. We recorded on location for this one.  If you like the show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-detroit-news-byte/id1220563942?mt=2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-detroit-news-byte/id1220563942?mt=2</a> Also, thanks to our network, Podcast Detroit: <a href="http://www.podcastdetroit.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.podcastdetroit.com</a> A link to HuffPost's What's Working: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/whats-working" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/whats-working</a>

Solutions Journalism And The HuffPost Listen To America Tour Visits Detroit with Jo Confino