Ep. 281 – Engaged Compassion Series: Jerry Colonna

Metta Hour with Sharon Salzberg

Be Here Now Network

Society & Culture, Sharonsalzberg, Metta, Salzberg, Meditation, Beherenownetwork, Buddhism, Religion & Spirituality, Beherenow, Compassion

4.6 • 682 Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2026

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Buddha taught a path of awakened living, but how does that manifest in today’s world of constant connectivity and widespread suffering?

How do we keep our hearts open without being defined or hardened by the pain that surrounds us, whether personal, collective, or historical? How do we navigate the paradox of holding both pain and joy, without mistaking suffering for punishment or personal failure? Can we infuse our compassion with wisdom and perspective to find the agency to take meaningful action in our communities? In her new series, Engaged Compassion, Sharon delves into these questions and more, engaging in candid conversations with a diverse group of teachers, activists, and changemakers.

For the inaugural episode, Sharon’s speaks with longtime friend and colleague, Jerry Colonna—a renowned coach, writer, and speaker who specializes in leadership, business, and the practice of radical self-inquiry. Jerry is the Co-founder and CEO of Reboot.io, a company inspired by the belief that work need not destroy us. He is also the author of two books: "Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up" (2019) and "Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong" (2023). For more than two decades, Jerry has championed the idea that work should be non-violent to the self, the community, and the planet. This marks his third appearance on the Metta Hour Podcast.

In this conversation, Sharon and Jerry speak about:

Suffering and the end of suffering
The Four Noble Truths
Sara Bareilles and Gavin Creel
Holding many things at once
Where resilience comes from
How generosity can appear in extreme loss
Jerry’s time in India after an earthquake
The dynamics of hope and fear
How we actually “get over loss”
Misunderstanding karma
Control veiled as “magical thinking”
How unworthiness leads to isolation
Compassion is not hierarchical
The Dalai Lama winning a Grammy
Suffering versus Extra Suffering
Facing our helplessness
The fixation with fixing things
Finding fuel for the long haul
Facing our nihilism

Additional Resources

You can learn more about Jerry’s work and his organization Reboot.io right here. This episode is also being release on the Reboot Podcast, which can be found right here. You can listen to Jerry’s first appearance on the Metta Hour in Episode 102, recorded in 2019 and his second appearance, Episode 229, recorded in 2023.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Metta Hour podcast with Sharon Salzberg.
0:15.4	I'm Lily Kushman. I produce this podcast. And today we're coming to you with a brand new series on the Metta Hour, Engaged Compassion.
0:26.6	With all that's going on in the country around the world, so much widespread suffering,
0:33.6	as well as our kind of constant connection through social media,
0:38.4	through the 24-hour news cycle.
0:42.2	Sharon felt inspired to do this new series as a way to apply so many of the tools
0:49.3	that she has learned through practice, through Buddhism,
0:53.4	as a way to keep our hearts open without being so hardened or so defined by all this pain that's around us,
1:03.0	whether that's personal suffering, collective suffering, or historical suffering.
1:08.0	So in the series, she is sitting down with different teachers, change makers,
1:14.8	thought leaders, and asking some big questions. How do we navigate the paradox of holding both
1:22.2	joy and pain? How do we avoid the confusion of suffering as some kind of a punishment or a personal
1:31.9	failure? How do we hold hope wisely? How do we infuse our compassion with wisdom and perspective?
1:41.9	And how do we find the agency to still find meaning, to take meaningful action, and to
1:49.3	stay really connected to our communities?
1:53.1	So we'll be airing a variety of different episodes in this series across the coming months,
1:59.7	and for the inaugural episode, Sharon is sitting
2:03.6	down with her longtime friend and colleague Jerry Colonna. Jerry is a coach, a writer, a speaker.
2:12.0	He's been on the pod a couple times before. He specializes in leadership, in business, in the practice of radical self-inquiry,
2:22.5	as he calls it. Jerry is the co-founder and the CEO of Reboot.io, and he's the author of two different
2:31.8	books, one by the same name, Reboot, and his latest,
2:36.2	which came out in 2023, called Reunion, Leadership, and the Longing to Belong.
	...

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