What I’m coming to lately is an end of life conviction that there is more to consciousness than what is produced in my little head, or yours,” says James George in a heart-opening interview in this  Winter 2014 issue of Parabola. The ninety-six-year-old former Canadian diplomat and spiritual elder explains that we can become whole—as individual beings and as a planet—only by learning to become receptive to a greater consciousness. The awareness in us that is receptive to this greater consciousness is called Rigpa in the dzogchen practice of Tibetan Buddhism (compared to Sem, our ordinary, automatic state of awareness)— and George explains that it is contact with this, our second, sacred nature or “basic goodness” (as the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa called it), that we need to help us heal ourselves and the Earth. Fortunately, basic goodness is not a scarce resource. Jacob Needleman relates in this issue how he discovered it in an auditorium full of adolescents bursting with questions rooted in what it can mean to be a human; Sheila Donis, interviewed here, encountered it in young people throughout her career as an educator. It is to be found in a vast crowd walking a pilgrimage in India; and among the homeless on city streets.

The word good is descended from the Indo-European ghedh, which means to unite or join (echoed in “to gather��� or “together”). All of the offerings in this Goodness issue resonate with this ancient meaning. There is an echo of the call to come together, within ourselves and as a people, in the words of Brother Priyananda, a disciple of Yogananda; in an essay about ancient and contemporary ways to help heal our wounded warriors; in an exploration of the deeper meaning of fairy tales. In the words of Sister Joan Chittister, OSB, writing of the crucial need to save real seeds: “In every seed lie the components of all life the world has known from all time to now.” Please enjoy the goodness to be found here.

—Tracy Cochran