Jeff Bridges Works To End Hunger

From the days of doing Werner Erhard’s est Training and co-founding the End Hunger Network, which, among other things, put on the first Live Aid concert, to his role in 2010 as national spokesman for No Kid Hungry Campaign, Jeff Bridges has been passionate about making a real difference in people's lives.

“Poverty is a very complex issue, but feeding children isn’t,” he said, unveiling an initiative that suits today’s political and economic climate because it requires no new money, or programs. Federally funded programs are in place but only half the kids eligible for a government-funded breakfast receive it, and only 15 percent of kids eligible for assistance during the summer get it. Bridges has signed on with Share Our Strength, a nationally recognized nonprofit, in what he says is “like a public-relations assignment,” to publicize the gap and get governors to commit to closing it.

Bridges has been involved in the hunger issue for a long time, and in 1983 helped found the End Hunger Network, which among other things staged the Live Aid concerts in 1985 and produced the movie “Hidden in America,” about a father who can’t provide for his children, starring his brother, Beau Bridges. Asked to be more specific about what triggered his interest in the issue, Bridges revealed that it goes back to “est” and the human-potential movement headed by Werner Erhard, who challenged his followers that once they knew the facts—that widespread hunger could be overcome—they shouldn’t look to others to solve the problem but should take action themselves.

From: The Most Significant Thing He’s Ever Done - Newsweek November 12, 2010

Presentation of His Holiness the XVI Gyalwa Karmapa

As head of the Kagyu Order of Tibetan Buddhism, which is the medium of transmission of the meditative teachings known as the mahamudra, His Holiness performed the ancient ceremony of the Vajra Crown during five presentations in four U.S. cities to more than 10,000 people in 1977. The sixteenth in an unbroken succession of Karmapas dating back to the 12th century, His Holiness heeded the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism and embodied, represented and guideed its accumulated spiritual energy.

Werner Erhard made a special trip to Sikkim, a small Himalayan province, to visit with the Karmapa. He was greeted with unreserved enthusiasm, inspired by His Holiness' boundless joy and

enlightenment and the wayswhich these qualities manifested in the people he serves. Werner invited him to be with est graduates and their friends during his upcoming visit to America. The Karmapa accepted with delight.

Werner Erhard introduced the Karmapa on four evenings sponsored by the Werner Erhard Foundation. As a special acknowledgement for est graduates, the Karmapa performed the 14th century Black Crown ceremony, in which few westerners have participated and that only he is empowered to perform. Tibetan tradition holds that a glimpse of the Black Crown ensures getting off "the wheel of life and death" in this lifetime.

The Werner Erhard Foundation in support of the world's rich spiritual and cultural heritage of transformation, presented His Holiness the XVI Gyalwa Karmapa in San Francisco on Feb 22, 1977, Los Angeles on February 26, 1977, New York on April 27, 1977, and in Boston on May 1, 1977.