Wired for Compassion

In the mid-seventies, psychologist Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., left teaching at Harvard to write "The Brain" column for Psychology Today. He then joined the New York Times, where he mad…

Play This Mind Game with Fruit and Nuts

Recently I was running a workshop on the MB-EAT program for therapists experienced in mindfulness meditation. We started with a mindfulness eating practice that focused on making c…

2002 Summer

Focusing on What Matters, Moment by Moment

“Many of the world's contemplative traditions teach that the normal mind is afflicted in various ways; that since it so readily brings us suffering and anxiety, it can't be deemed healthy.”

The Physics of Our Entanglements

Reality isn’t what it used to be.Historians disagree over precisely when it changed. Some say the year 1905. Others point to key events in 1964 and 1982. I think of it as a glacial…

The Ceremony at the Heart of "Salmon Nation"

About 18 months ago, an extraordinary woman came to my home on the Rogue River in southern Oregon. At age 83, Agnes Baker Pilgrim is the oldest living Takelma Indian and chair of t…

2010 March/April

Transformative Travel: Three Museums That Will Shake Your Soul

Here are three museums that take the notion seriously that who we are—spiritually, morally, ethically—is not a fixed thing. These museums plunk visitors into radical, intense, real…

2010 March/April

Create a Garden of the Senses

Sensory gardens look, smell, feel, taste, and sound beautiful. They are designed to be therapeutic for those with special needs.Yet the greatest healing of these magical places com…

2010 March/April

The Anatomy of a Haunting

We now know that microorganisms can leave behind an electromagnetic trace, so why not people? Here’s the new science of ghosts.In 1973 and 1974, something odd was evidently taking …

2010 March/April

The Case for Yogic Breathing

The mind has a terrible time telling itself what to do. Fortunately, science is catching up with yogic breathing wisdom.Since the time of Descartes (“I think, therefore I am”), mod…

2010 March/April

Be the Change

“You must be the change you want to see in the world,” said “Mahatma” Gandhi, who led India to independence and inspired human rights movements worldwide – all by dramatically livi…

2010 May/June

Transformative Travel: Finding a Dating Game That Works

There was a small notice in a throwaway paper in San Diego about the Hmong New Year in a public park in Kearny Mesa. I had known about the Hmong (pronounced Mong) mountain people f…

2010 May/June

Practicing Death

Marti was a bright, optimistic, attractive 40-year-old woman when she first entered a support group for cancer patients that I facilitated at the Center for Attitudinal Healing in …