Making Waves and Riding the Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom is about working to bring about a more just, compassionate, and sustainable world, while pursuing the inner growth to support and deepen this work. Over the course of his distinguished career, Charles Halpern founded the first public interest law firm, created a unique law school to train public interest lawyers, and became the first president of a major charitable foundation that established a distinctive grant program integrating social justice advocacy and contemplative practice.

He started out content to accumulate knowledge, academic recognition, and professional success, relying on the considerable cognitive skills that he inherited and sharpened at Harvard College and Yale Law School. Later, in his years of public interest advocacy and institutional innovation, he had a growing intuition that something was missing, and he sought ways of developing wisdom that complemented the analytic, critical mode. These explorations—through meditation, vision quests, and interaction with wise teachers-- began as an avocation, and led Halpern to the conviction that the practice of wisdom is critical if we are to address successfully the challenges of the 21st century.

This inspiring narrative describes the evolution of a left-brain, aggressive attorney into an effective social entrepreneur-activist who brings a wisdom perspective to all his relationships. The cast of characters runs from Barney Frank and Ralph Nader to Ram Dass and the Dalai Lama.

With wit and self-deprecating humor, Halpern describes the teachers he encountered and the landmarks and guideposts he discovered on his journey, in a way that will be helpful to readers who are searching for meaning and effective social engagement in their own lives.