big red robe

I BREWED Big Red Robe oolong today for my Peaceful Habits group, a tea often reserved for honored guests in China. “We’re honored guests,” one of my patients said. I said, “Of course you’re honored guests!” The tea was rust brown and smelled like toasted coconut, and when we drank it, it seemed to land squarely in the center of our hearts with a warm and mellow glow, like we were being wrapped in a big red robe.

peacefulness app

My app for iPhone and iPad -- it's called Peacefulness -- is now available on the App store. It's free at the moment, mostly because I haven't taken the time to change the price yet. But I'm going to change it soon, so get it before it's $0.99!! And drop me a line if you do download it and use it. I'm eager to hear how it's working out in the world.

daily peacefulness practice

photo: jetheriot

earth day

images courtesy audubon society

To celebrate Earth Day I gave a bird quiz to the residents at Touchstone. These are all birds that can be found on the campus. The residents tried to match the name to the picture of the bird.

peaceful habits e-book

Kindle edition available here on Amazon

ebook description

Meditation isn’t for everyone. It’s true. As a neurologist who specializes in brain injury and stroke rehabilitation, I can assure you. Half of my patients are too confused or too disoriented to meditate. They’d forget the instructions as soon as I finished giving them. And the other half are too distractible. Their attention spans are so short they can’t sit still, much less sit still and meditate, for more than a few minutes at a time. I’m not exaggerating when I say that a formal meditation practice is beyond the reach of virtually every person I treat. It’s too complex. My patients need something simpler. That’s what this small book is about.

invisible mockingbird

"Today we're going to learn how to notice," I said. "Today we’re going to practice noticing.” Then I stopped talking and we started practicing noticing right away. Since you can't practice noticing with nothing, I made a pot of coconut tea, and we used it as our something-to-practice-noticing-with.