Category Archives: meditation
No App For Happiness
Yoga guru and writer Max Strom has published a new book, No App For Happiness: How to Avoid a Near Life Experience, Skyhorse Publishing, 2013. Based on his TED talk in 2010, this important work offers incisive insights into the … Continue reading
Relaxation Response and Changes in Gene Expression
The Relaxation Response was described by Harvard University physician Herbert Benson in a 1975 best-selling book of the same name. The Relaxation Response or RR is the physiological opposite of the stress response, and Benson argued is as fundamental to … Continue reading
You’ve Got To Watch This Video
Mark Bertolini, Chairman and CEO of Aetna on CNBC “Squawk Box” discusses his experience dealing with injury and the role that mindfulness meditation, yoga, craniosacral therapy, accupuncture and naturopathy have had on his recovery. The initial segment is about the … Continue reading
Life’s Battles
One of the great gifts of mindfulness generated through meditation is increased resiliency. Lets face it: tough times are an integral part of life. We see this all around us. In the news we are dazed and numbed by repeated … Continue reading
do-be-do-be-do
In his 2011 book Quantum Doctor particle physicist Amit Goswami applies quantum theory to the underpinnings of allopathic medicine, Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine and homeopathy. As an allopathic physician I have struggled to get the morphogenetic representation of my vital … Continue reading
Yoga in the 21st Century: a book review
After spending months reading drafts of the pieces in this collection, I find myself feeling hopeful about the direction in which yoga is going. What I see in this collection is a fearless exploration of personal experience, an investigation of … Continue reading
Mindfulness is Good, Right?
The Dalai llama argues that human kind is inherently good and that mindfulness allows our inner goodness, or Buddha nature to shine through. As proof he cites the fact that even the most psychopathic sociopath could not have survived infancy … Continue reading
Now What?
Why is mindfulness important? It permits the invocation of a allocentric perspective called selflessness. Is this enough? What is so important about selflessness? I believe that selflessness is an essential step in the development of positive emotional states but while … Continue reading
So What?
What does this experience mean? I it more than an anecdote burnished and embellished by time? Is this anything more than a psychological trick, a stunt, a novelty? Does this have any relevance to our day-to-day lives? I think it … Continue reading
Zen and Neuroscience
I am currently reading Selfless Insight: Zen and the Meditative Transformations of Consciousness by fellow neurologist James Austin, M.D. In this remarkable work, Dr. Austin sifts through the burgeoning neuroscience of mindfulness and cuts through opaque layers of contemplative traditions … Continue reading
