Post by Admin on Aug 4, 2016 19:28:10 GMT -5
It can hurt to go through life with your heart open, but not as much as it does to go through life with your heart closed.
I just finished reading an interview by Kira M Newman, June 9, 2016, with Jim Doty, MD.
It starts like this:
Growing up, Jim Doty had many strikes against him: an alcoholic father, a mother with depression, a family living in poverty. But somehow—in a journey he recounts in his new book, Into the Magic Shop—he managed to overcome them.
Dr. Doty is now a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University. He founded and directs the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE), where the Dalai Lama was a founding benefactor. As a philanthropist, he has given millions of dollars to support health care and educational charities around the world.
He attributes his success partly to a kind woman named Ruth, who took 12-year-old Doty under her wing. Over the course of a memorable summer, she taught him techniques of mindfulness, visualization, and compassion that would transform his life. Now, with his book and with CCARE, he is sharing those practices (and the new science behind them) with others—and hoping to help them avoid his mistakes.
“It can hurt to go through life with your heart open, but not as much as it does to go through life with your heart closed,” he writes.
I interviewed Doty about the importance of teaching compassion along with mindfulness, the crisis of compassion in health care, and what’s coming next in compassion research.
Dr. Doty is now a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University. He founded and directs the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE), where the Dalai Lama was a founding benefactor. As a philanthropist, he has given millions of dollars to support health care and educational charities around the world.
He attributes his success partly to a kind woman named Ruth, who took 12-year-old Doty under her wing. Over the course of a memorable summer, she taught him techniques of mindfulness, visualization, and compassion that would transform his life. Now, with his book and with CCARE, he is sharing those practices (and the new science behind them) with others—and hoping to help them avoid his mistakes.
“It can hurt to go through life with your heart open, but not as much as it does to go through life with your heart closed,” he writes.
I interviewed Doty about the importance of teaching compassion along with mindfulness, the crisis of compassion in health care, and what’s coming next in compassion research.
To read the whole interview click HERE.
While I know I'm going to track down Doty's book, the reason I really liked this interview was two-fold: 1. It talked about the science beneath all the mindfulness wisdom we're trying to learn as MBSR grads, as mindful vet practitioners. 2. He talks about the dangers of Mindfulness practice without compassion; also, the natural progression from mindfulness to compassion to altruism makes so much sense to me, from the Buddhist perspective, and also scientifically -- it's a conclusion that can be honored by Buddhists and Atheist Scientists alike.
So...I'm going to find Dr Doty's book and read it. I'll let you know what I learn. But for now I have re-learned that all my mindful meditation, without compassion, is just so much mental gymnastics...I'm just sayin'.