The inner alchemy of watchful awareness — Alchemy is happening right under our breath, in our bodies. Food and water turning into bone, muscle, and other bodily cells and tissues is nothing short of a miracle. Nature guides the body in this process of transmutation of energy. Just as nutrition from organic matter helps the body grow…

A page from a doctor’s diary Standing atop the Hoover Dam, a massive concrete edifice rising a quarter of a mile above the Colorado River, I couldn’t help marvel at human ingenuity. Below my feet, enough concrete to build a four-foot-wide sidewalk around the earth filled a narrow canyon. The…

What advertisements teach us. — “[A]dvertising is the original sin of the web,” says Ethan Zuckerman, the inventor of the pop-up ad, a form of digital advertising universally resented. Advertisers learn about our tastes and preferences by deploying invisible algorithms that stalk every click and scroll. The objective is to make us buy their product…

The vaccine meets a virus “Show me your proof?” A strange question coming from a fortune-teller. Waiting for the rain to stop, I sought shelter under an awning patched in places with plastic grocery sacks. The unseasonal rain had caught many, including myself, by surprise. It interrupted my trip to…

Do the two ever intersect? In the mind, the past and the future are not dry abstract lists of experiences that we can divide into two columns but a rich tapestry resembling a fine Persian rug. We take the past with us when we dream of the future. Conversely, thoughts…

Making the mind more productive — It is well known in the business world that every meeting has a hidden cost. The number of participants and their hourly wage determine that cost. By limiting the time and number of participants, discussions turn more productive, reducing organizational costs. Jeff Bezos instituted a policy at Amazon that limited…

A Short Story — The day I learned how to drive a car is etched in my memory for all the wrong reasons. You see, I come from an illustrious family of automobile lovers, starting with my grandfather. …

And so it went… — The newspaper rustled in my small, eight-year-old hands. I was so enchanted by an article on how to meditate, I didn’t notice that my cousin had entered the room. “What are you reading?” he asked, looking over my shoulder. “Nothing,” I replied, snapping the paper closed. …