My interest in the Begley book is really part of an ongoing inquiry into the area of mind games &emdash; or rather the challenge of pushing mental ability to its human potential (self-realization), or healing from debilitating condition (depression, for instance), or warding off the effects of aging (I am 58 years old).

The Dana Foundation, a first-rate place for scientific information on the brain, recently posted Experts, Dalai Lama Discuss Meditation for Depression about a conference at Emory University in Atlanta last week. This conference was a continuation of the dialogue between the Dalai Lama and scientists that Begley wrote about. There was a similar conference, The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation, organized with Georgetown University here in Washington in 2007.

What has struck me is that I've been moving in this direction for more four years, well before I started reading about these trends in neuroscience, mental health and wellness. I was on the right track. Probably, this meme had not gelled so cogently into an explicit message or I was picking up strands of the news and associated them in my mind. After all, this kind of research has been going on for more than 20 years. But is even more mind boggling is that I can sit on my mat and experience this same practice in a very personal way.

Labels: health, meditation, reading