The Guru in Our Own Minds (Mark Epstein, M.D.)
b"\\u201cBut the true guru, you know, the Buddha came and turned all that inside out. You know the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths and the word he used, \\u201cthe Noble,\\u201d that came out of that, like the Brahmans were the Nobles. But the Buddha was like, no, the Nobles aren't, it's not that priest over there, lighting the fire, the sacred fire, the noble thing is like your own ethic, your own internal ethic, your own loving heart is the noble thing. The Buddha was all about that. He was a good, you know, cognitive therapist in that way, turning, turning people's concepts inside out.\\u201d\\nSo says Mark Epstein, a psychiatrist and Buddhist who has written several brilliant and beautiful books about the Venn diagram of meditation and therapy. In his latest: THE ZEN OF THERAPY, he reveals more of his own backstory, how as a young med school student trying to bridge the gap between his role as a doctor and his love of Eastern spirituality he came to help Dr. Benson study meditation and its benefits for the body. He opens the books though, by explaining that meditation is not a panacea, it is instead a rare opportunity to get quiet with yourself, to observe your own mind, and to process your emotions.\\nIn the ZEN OF THERAPY, Mark recounts a year of therapy sessions where he was able to provide psychotherapy paired WITH Buddhist insights\\u2014it\\u2019s a wonderful and fascinating book\\u2014I personally LOVE reading about peoples\\u2019 therapy sessions\\u2014and it offers many takeaways for anyone, including the ways in which we fixate on our childhoods rather than focusing on the evolution of our own identities, and where our own resistance to change can point the way to healing. OK, let\\u2019s get to our conversation.\\n\\nMORE FROM MARK EPSTEIN, M.D.\\nTHE ZEN OF THERAPY by Mark Epstein, M.D.\\nADVICE NOT GIVEN by Mark Epstein, M.D.\\nTHE TRAUMA OF EVERYDAY LIFE by Mark Epstein, M.D.\\n \\nTo learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy\\n \\n Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices"