COMING TO OUR SENSES

A medical school teacher and expert on mindfulness and stress reduction, Kabat-Zinn reads a touching and coherent abridgment of his superb book. He is eloquent as he bridges the gap between Eastern approaches to mindfulness and the vocabulary of Western psychology. He says the immediacy of our sensations is more important than our thoughts about them, and more important than the past and future. The contexts offered for this advice reveal the author's cultural breadth and generous sensitivity to the bad habits of the Western mind. Without sentimentality or zealotry, the author's gentle voice offers a practical path that will reach around the intellectual obstacles we often put in the way of such guidance. T.W. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE/JULY 05]