How can we build lives that are meaningful, psychologically rich, emotionally fulfilling, and ethically wise?
How can we build communities where we flourish together with people who are very different from us? Join Zen priest and clinical psychologist Seth Zuiho Segall in conversation with Rabbi Emerita Shira Milgrom about his new book, The House We Live In: Virtue, Wisdom, and Pluralism. Seth will welcome questions and comments from our audience.
Copies of The House We Live In will be available for purchase and signing.
This event is free; however, we ask you to RSVP here for planning purposes.
About The House We Live In: Virtue, Wisdom, and Pluralism
The values of liberalism, pluralism, and democratic governance are under sustained attack from right-wing Christian fundamentalists, white ethnonationalists, and economic populists. At the same time, liberal democracies are failing at cultivating and transmitting the values, wisdom, and virtues that are the perquisites for individual and collective flourishing. Liberal democracies seem increasingly unable to negotiate diverse visions of the good life rooted in regional, ethnic, racial, religious, generational, and socioeconomic differences. Aspiring autocrats and media organizations exploit these divisions to enhance their power and profit resulting in increased tribalization and affective polarization.
Solving these problems requires a renewed understanding of human flourishing and the wisdom and virtues that make it possible. The House We Live In explores the commonalities underlying three classical approaches to virtue ethics—Aristotelean, Buddhist, and Confucian—to develop a contemporary flourishing-based ethics capable of addressing the problems of liberal democracies. The book examines the moral and intellectual virtues that promote flourishing, the diversity of ways in which we may flourish, and the factors all flourishing lives share. It shows how a flourishing-based ethics can serve as a corrective to the historical Western overemphasis on individualism at the expense of community. Finally, it addresses problems in domestic and foreign policy and the difficulties in talking to each other across the political divide from a flourishing-based perspective. The book is a reaffirmation of pluralism, the liberal democratic tradition, and the necessity of a pragmatic approach to living together despite seemingly incommensurable differences.
“It would hardly be an exaggeration to call this brilliant and beautiful book one of the most important works of our time.” - Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, Buddhist scholar and translator of Pali Buddhist texts
“Segall is a gifted writer with encyclopedic knowledge, keen insights, and flowing prose. The reading public who are concerned about the general state of affairs in America should be very interested in this book.” - Tao Jiang, Author, Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China
“To address our increasingly global crisis, we urgently need the kind of globally informed ethics that this book provides.” - Stephen Batchelor, author of After Buddhism: Reimagining the Dharma in a Secular Age
About Seth Segall
Seth is a clinical psychologist who served on the faculties of four universities including nearly thirty years on the clinical faculty of the Yale University School of Medicine. He is also an ordained Zen Buddhist priest who leads Pamsula Zen of Westchester and teaches at the New York Insight Meditation Society. Seth’s other publications include Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings (2003), Buddhism and Human Flourishing: A Modern Western Perspective (2020), and Living Zen: A Practical Guide to a Balanced Existence (2020) along with chapters in The Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation (2022) and the Handbook of Positive Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality (2022). Seth is a contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, a review editor for The Humanistic Psychologist, and the science writer for the Mindfulness Research. His blog (www.existentialbuddhist.com) contains essays on Buddhist topics. He is currently writing the encyclopedia article on Buddhism and Western psychology for the St. Andrew’s University’s Encyclopaedia of Theology.
About Rabbi Emerita Shira Milgrom
Rabbi Emerita Shira Milgrom served as rabbi for Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains for thirty-seven years, building a community of activism, joy and spiritual courage. She has served as keynote speaker at major American conferences on youth leadership, women and feminism, and problems of the aging and the elderly, and is the editor of a unique prayer book used in Jewish settings across the continent. As a rabbi and a former head of the interfaith White Plains Religious Leaders she pioneered notable events that brought the Black and Jewish communities of White Plains together in common purpose. She has also played an active role in helping resettle Syrian immigrants, promoting Israeli-Palestinian and American Jewish-Muslim dialogue, and making Kol Ami a LGBTQ-friendly spiritual community. She reflects a generation of rabbis who passionately create extraordinary encounters with Jewish texts, rituals, and traditions that merge the intimate and personal with a grand vision of the Jewish people.