Shyalpa Tenzin RinpocheWhat an amazing interview with Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche about his new book entitled “Living Fully“.  The essence of the Rinpoche’s book is the importance of each breath and the life force and joy in each breath.

Now I am aware that at the pace we move in the Western world, understanding the importance of our breath is so essential; but really how many of us pay attention to our breath or are aware of the gift of each breath.  When you distill the message of this book into these terms and the simplicity of what we all take for granted you begin to see the beauty and transformational power within the message of “Living Fully”.

As Rinpoche state in “Living Fully” “Whether we realize it or not, our deepest aspiration is to experience the richness and fullness of our being in every moment. Each of us has the capacity to live fully, but how do we recognize our potential? ”  In my interview with Rinpoche we discuss the many desires and attachment we have to the physical world and how these desires and attachments really are not bringing us happiness and joy and distract us from “Living Fully“.

Happiness and joy are fulfilled when we look deep inside and content with who we are regardless of all of our worldly possessions.  As Rinpoche mentions in “Living Fully” instant pleasure is not the true way to enjoy our freedom.  When we know how to surrender, we can truly appreciate our freedom. This ability to surrender comes from a disciplined approach to life.  Surrender is not submitting to a higher authority, like an army recruit saluting a drill sergeant.  Rather, we surrender when we give up trying to satisfy all of our hopes and expectations.

If we abandon our efforts to fabricate a “perfect” world, we all experience genuine freedom that is not corrupted by endless craving or something better.  Understanding the philosophy and practice of the Buddhist way is quite simple.  Finding our essence of our precious human nature is learning how to live in the moment, enjoying each and every breath and the joy that it brings.

While this might sound like utopia, because we are all aware the plethora of distractions our material world brings, it  would certainly be nice to not just capture these moments but to become one with them permanently without programming our brains to remember how to remember what it feels like.

So if you are so inclined and want to learn from a master then I would recommend that you read and emerse yourself in the teaching of Rinpoche.  His new book is delightful, and something all of us in the Western world need to become more aware of how important the aspect of something as automatic as our breath teaches us about the joys of life.

 

If you would like to learn more about the book click here to be directed to the Rinpoche’s website or listen to a YouTube interview with the publisher Marc Allen at New World Library by clicking. here. Enjoy this great and inspirational interview with a wonderfully compassionate man.

Rick Hanson Ph.D.Author Rick Hanson is one of my favorite authors, and he has created a great new little book entitled “Just One Thing, Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time”.  Rick is right on when he speaks about practicing. In my estimation it is the operative word,  one must start the practice, because practice is the only thing that will continue our ability to improve and reach heightened states of consciousness.

In my interview with Rick we discuss the daily practices that Rick has articulated in his book.  These practices are mainly inside your mind and are designed to support and increase your sense of security and worth, resilience, effectiveness, well-being, insight, and inner peace.  Some of the practices include taking in the good, protecting your brain, feeling safer, relaxing anxiety about imperfection, not knowing, enjoying your hands, taking refuge, and filling the hole in your heart.

Rick states that it’s a two-way street: as your brain changes, your mind changes; and as your mind changes, your brain changes.  This means–remarkably–that what you pay attention to, what you think and feel and want and how you work with your reactions to things all sculpt your brain in multiple ways.  The details are complex, bu the key point is simple: how you use your mind changes your brain–for better or worse.  There’s a traditional saying that the mind takes the shape it rests upon; the modern update is that the brain takes the shape the mind rests upon.

For instance, you regularly rest your mind upon worries, self-criticism, and anger, then your brain will gradually tak the shape–will develop neural structures and dynamics–of anxiety, low sense of worth, and prickly reactivity to others.  On the other hand, if you regularly rest your mind upon, for example, noticing your’re all right right now, seeing the good in yourself, and letting go–three of the practices in this book–then your brain will gradually take the shape of calm strength, self-confidence and inner peace.

It is the beginning of a New Year, and we can all use great ideas to help us establish better patterns and habits that help and serve us.  I hope that you will read Rick’s new book “Just One Thing” because he provides the reader with 52 new practices to help you become more mindful, centered and develop peace and bliss in your life.  What a wonderful thing!!!

 

If you would like more information on Rick Hanson, please click here to be directed to his website or click here to go to his Facebook page.  He also has some great videos at Youtube.

Patricia MonaghanIf you are looking for a comprehensive guide to mediation then you might want to check out “Meditation the Complete Guide” by author Patricia Monaghan.  In my recent interview with Patricia we discuss the techniques that she and her co-author Eleanor Viereck have provided for the readers both from East and West to calm the mind, heal the body and enrich the spirit.

Meditation the Complete Guide covers indigenous traditions, yoga, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other modern forms and mixed practices.  This guide book truly is for the person who wants to explore the options and learn more about the practices.  As the authors articulate in the book, meditation means many things to many people.  To some, it means simple relaxation.  To others, it means a deep blissful surrender to the diving.  It can be the rigorous following of a prescribed path or the exploring of a method unique to the individual meditator.

Knowing that no one meditation technique is right for everyone, and that one’s goal for meditation can change over time the authors wrote this guidebook to help readers understand their options. Meditation can be approached in three major ways: medical, martial, and spiritual and this guidebook deals with each of them in turn.

The medial approach to meditation includes all healing, therapy, wellness, and health maintenance goals. The martial approach to meditation is geared to the enhancement of performance.  This includes by is not limited to sports. Sports psychologists us imagery and relaxation techniques in training programs for all kinds of athletes.

The third approach to meditation is spiritual.  Spirituality is aliveness, according to Joseph Campbell, the foremost interpreter of myth of our time.  Spirituality may include religion but is not limited to the world’s religious traditions.  The goal of mediation, like that of may spiritual traditions, is to create a balance among the mind, the heart, and the body–or between the body and the soul.

 

Whatever your reasons for meditation, “Meditation the Complete Guide” with author Patricia Monaghan is an excellent reference book.  If you want to learn more about the practices of meditation please click here to be directed to Patricia’s website.  Enjoy this great interview with author Patricia Monaghan.

John Ratey MDI know that their has been lots of talk recently about our brain health.  Recently I had the honor of doing a podcast with John Ratey MD, the author of a book entitled ” Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.” In our interview together we discuss the many benefits and correlations to exercise and our brain health.

I know that many of us do not think about the “brain muscle” when we are doing our exercise programs, but the fact of the matter is that our exercise program has as much importance to keeping our brains sharp and clear as it does on building the other muscles in our body.

In a landmark study, aerobic exercise was shown to be as effective as antidepressants.  That women who exercise lower their chances of developing dementia by 50%.  Exercise even sparks new brain-cell growth, and it happens on three levels. First, it optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation; second, it prepares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another, which is the cellular basis for logging in new information, and third, it spurs the development of new nerve cells from stem cells in the hippocampus.  The evidence is incontrovertible: aerobic exercise physically transforms our brains for peak performance.

The world seems to be getting more and more stressful these days, and the correlation between exercise and stress reduction is not big news to anyone.  But the importance that the exercise plays in improving our brain function is big news!!!.  The face that we’re much less active than our ancestors only exacerbates matters.  Just keep in mind that the more stress you have, the more your body needs to move to keep your brain running smoothly.

The next time you exercise, or more importantly decide to skip exercising think again.  Your brain really needs you to put in extra hours on the treadmill or biking to perform at peak levels.  If you want to learn more about exercise and your brain you can visit John Ratey’s website by clicking here.  There are many articles and references that I know you will find of value.

I hope you enjoy listening to my interview with author John Ratey MD about ” Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.”

Elloitt Dacher MDDr. Elliott Dacher has been a guest at Inside Personal Growth previously.  I am honored to bring him back again to speak with us about his new book entitled ” Aware, Awake, Alive-A Contemporary Guide to the Ancient Science of Integral Health and Human Flourishing“.  Prior to his deep work in the Indian modalities of health and healing, Dr. Dacher practiced Western medicine for over 21 years seeing over 50,000 patients. Over this period of time, Dr. Dacher was finding that for many of his patients that the conventional ways of Western medicine were not have a lasting and sustainable healing impact that he would have liked to have had.

Through a series of serendipitous events Dr. Dacher ended up spending over 12 years going back and forth between the US and India studying the aspects of healing and what is termed in the book as “Human Flourishing”.   As Dr. Dasher state in the book ” to flourish is to move beyond the stress, dissatisfaction, and suffering that too often limits and diminishes our lives, and reclaim the profound well-being which resides at the center of our being.  That is our vision, a vision of human flourishing.

Even though each of our lives has an inner and outer aspect, they are usually unequally developed.  In modern times our focus has been on the outer aspects.  We have mastered an understanding of biology.  We know how to enhance our physical well-being, address physiological disturbances, reduce biological risk factors and promote high levels of physical wellness.  As mythologist Joseph Campbell reminds us, “where there was once darkness there is now light”.  We once knew very little about our biology, and now we know a great deal. But he also reminds us that, ” Were there was once light there is now darkness” There was a time we had a profound understanding of our inner life.  We could describe and traverse, as Plato did, the full development of consciousness from darkness to light, from confusion to wisdom. But in modern times that is no longer the case.  We have mastery of the outer world but we have simultaneously lost touch with our inner life.  It has become a buried and unseen treasure.

In Elliot’s book ” Aware, Awake, Alive” he provides the reader with a course of practice and study that is 10 weeks in length, along with more advanced material for those who master the basics and want to continue on.  This book and workbook provides the student with a complete overview of the journey to human flourishing—vision, path, fruition, and integration.   It also includes a CD to help the reader/student establish a stable and effective daily practice.

If you ready to transform your life completely, and have health, happiness and lasting bliss then you just might want to consider reading and studying the content of ” Aware, Awake, Alive” by Dr. Elliott Dacher.
I know you will enjoy this enlightening interview with someone who has devoted their life to helping us understand the miracles of how doing the deep inner work will assist in healing our bodies.  If you want to learn more about Dr. Dacher and his course please click here to be directed to his website.

Inside Personal Growth with Greg Voisen · Podcast 304: Embrace, Release, Heal: An Empowering Guide to Treating Cancer w/ Leigh Fortson I recently had the

Hank WesselmanI had the pleasure of interviewing author Hank Wesselman about his new Sound True book entitled ” The Bowl of Light“.  I must admit that Hank is a very interesting and well versed author on the aspects of Hawaiian Shamanism.  In my interview with Hank we discuss the development and long standing friendship with his Hawaiian mentor Hale Makua.  Hale Makua taught Hank over the years a number of spiritual insights that author Wesselman articulates in the “Bowl of Light“.

Hale Makua was a revered Hawaiian elder who brought forth from his ancestors many beautiful and powerful teaching to inspire and guide Hank to remember his spiritual gifts and provided him with an enhanced way of being. The Bowl of Light is filled with much of the wonderful wisdom that Makua had to share and now through the authors intimate and evocative sharing of his encounters with this great man, these teaching are available to those who did not have the pleasure of meeting Makua. Your heart will be warmed by the loving and supportive relationship that developed between them.

In my interview with author Hank Wesselman we discuss what Hale Makua revealed to him including how we can restore our natural diving radiance, referred to as the Bowl of Light.  We also discuss the three directives of the spiritual warrior–love with humility, live with reverence, and know with self-discipline.  This is a wonderful story that not only captivates the reader, but provides insightful wisdom on the spiritual teaching and practices of the ancient Hawaiian practices of Shamanism.
I hope you enjoy this wonderful interview with author Hank Wesselman.  I you want to learn more Hank has a wonderful website filled with references, blog entries and audio recordings–please click here.  I encourage you to visit Hank’s website and learn more about his encounter and long standing friendship with mentor and master spiritual teacher Hale Makua.