Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 I first tried to meditate in 1973, between my sophomore and junior years of college, when I was working as a research assistant for a cardiologist at Boston City Hospital. meditation was given scientific credence by the work of Dr. Herbert Benson and his coauthor Robert Keith Wallace.

#2 I was happy to have a prestigious summer job working with Dr. Benson, who was open to my abstruse interests. I knew that he was doing my father a favor by taking me on, but I surprised him by talking at length about the placebo effect, a subject I had explored and written about during the previous semester in my psychophysiology course.

#3 I did not feel engaged by the meditation technique that Dr. Benson was using with his patients, and I did not see how it could be the be-all and end-all of what meditation was about.

#4 The placebo effect is when a patient believes in a treatment, and that belief helps them recover. I was drawn to meditation for the same reason I was interested in placebos. The placebo effect points to the body’s capacity to heal itself, helped along by some combination of trust, faith, and human empathy.