I'm not much of a fan of self-help books. I find myself reading them, but I criticize them the entire time I'm reading. In this one, though, I found little to criticize. It's one of the best introductions to meditation I've read. It's practical and applicable to most situations. I also found that it helped me be patient with myself while learning the art of meditation, which I think is key for me to keep practicing.

One of my only complaints is about some minor inconsistencies within the text (eg, Borysenko says at one point that there are no negative emotions, then a little while later explains an exercise based on exploring "negative emotions" and "positive emotions."). There were also more typos than I would like to see in a printed text, but I recognize that that's fairly nit-picky.

One of my favorite lines from the book is a paraphrase of Bernie Siegel: "coincidence is merely God's way of remaining anonymous."

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Borysenko, co-founder and director of the Mind/Body Clinic at New England Deaconess Hospital/Harvard Medical School, describes the clinic's ten-week program for learning to "mind the body" through a medical synthesis of neurology, immunology, and psychology. She provides step-by-step instructions to the clinic's techniques while suggesting how they can be adapted for individual use. Combining meditation, breath control and stretching exercises, and mindfulness, and drawn from work with patients aged 17 to 93, these techniques help ease the stress of illnessparticularly illness caused by stressby exploiting the body's natural capacity for healing. Readers who master them can achieve an admirable balance between inner self and environment. Jodith Janes, ( )