1. What is your answer to Albert Einstein’s question "Is the universe a friendly place or not??

2. What efforts have you made to make the world a more hospitable place?

3. Has inclement weather, such as a hard driving rain, changed your state of being? How did it alter how you felt about your surroundings?

3. Where in your life have you communicated with mechanical objects or with things in nature?

4. What do you consider to be sacred space in your life?

5. Share your responses to the segment about all the things that go on in the bedroom. What struck you that you might not have thought about before?

6. What can you learn from considering how you are towards your own body?

7. What might you do to be a better house guest on the planet such as purchasing an electric car, turning off the water while you brush your teeth or recycling more?

8. Which of the segments on this DVD about hospitality opened your mind about what this quality could mean for your spiritual life?

Possible Practices

1. Consider ways you might expand your practice of hospitality this week.

2. Make a special effort this week to be more hospitable to yourself.

3. When you hear a report in the media about environmental destruction, consider what you could do to help the environment immediately around you.

4.Journal about a time when you felt excluded because you were different or about a time when you excluded someone else.

5. Consider creating a sacred space in your life such as altar or a garden where you feel welcome and safe.

Visit the Hospitality homepage for more ways to practice this spiritual quality. Follow the links in the left column to:

  • a collection of quotations on compassion
  • book recommendations
  • book excerpts and teaching stories
  • film recommendations
  • music and art meditations
  • a daily cue, reminder, vow, and blessing for compassion
  • a prayer or mantra
  • personal explorations including imagery and journal exercises
  • practices and spiritual exercises
  • questions for discussion, storytelling, sharing
  • take action with household, group, and community projects
  • and more

Prepared by Persephone Zill with contributions from Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat