In 2014, the evening before a much-anticipated meeting with the Dalai Lama, it was tough to sleep. Throughout the night, I woke up feeling anxious. I had never presented to a global leader, let alone someone I held in such esteem. I knew sleeping would help me feel prepared. I also knew I was unlikely …
Series Archives:
Disentangling Self from Pain
I was in awe the first time I held Rage Against the Machine’s CD, The Ultimate Sacrifice. Featured on the cover was Malcolm Browne’s World Press Photo of the Year (1963) of the Venerable Thích Quảng Đức. Đức, a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk, was seated in a perfect lotus position, his body engulfed in flames. …
Well-being is a Skill
The short phrase—well-being is a skill—is a simple yet radical conclusion that comes from more than 25 years of research. Just like any other skill, if you practice it, you will get better. Plasticity, a Key Insight from the Biological Sciences The changes that come from any practice happen through learning. Neuroscience research has taught …
Breaking the Cycle of Addiction
It was spring 2005. I was sitting in a large audience at the XIII Mind and Life Dialogue in Washington, D.C., listening to different scientists converse with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and wondering what to do. I was in the second year of my residency training in psychiatry and had recently declared to a …
Mindfulness and Depression
Yucca brevifolia. I was practicing walking meditation among them in Joshua Tree National Park in the winter of 2010 while co-leading a residential five-day retreat workshop on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) with Zindel Segal. With the 30 clinicians attending, we shared the principles and practices of MBCT to prevent depressive relapse and invited them to …
Embodiment
Most of us grow up thinking the body is a flesh and blood organism made up of parts and systems. It is something that is described and researched, an object to be known. Rarely do we think of the body as something that knows things. Rarely do we ask the body for answers. Does the …
Strengthening Attention
“The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is compos sui if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. But it is easier to define this ideal than to …
