At the end of an essay on the American painter David Salle in Janet Malcolm’s new collection, Forty-one False Starts, Salle asks the author, “Have you ever thought that your real life hasn’t begun yet?” It’s a sentiment many of us share. Increasing numbers of my psychotherapy clients complain of a life in which they play a bit part. They…
I just finished rereading A Heart Full of Peace, a wonderful book on Buddhism and the spiritual life written by Joseph Goldstein, one of the premier meditation teachers in the United States. Goldstein, along with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg, was instrumental in bringing classical Buddhism from the East to the West in the last several decades of the twentieth…
Early one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I was feeling overwhelmed by my overscheduled life. I’m an exceptionally busy person: I have two children and am responsible for their school lives, activities, and everything else that goes into being a mom; I take care of my elderly and ailing mother; I run a real estate company and am accountable…
