Into the Magic Shop, by James Doty
I really enjoyed this book, part auto-biography, part introduction to mindfulness, meditation and visualisation. Dr. Doty is a clinical professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University and the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University School of Medicine. His book is about how as a poor young boy, he was taught some invaluable life-lessons by the lady he met in the magic shop. She taught him how to 1. relax your body, 2. tame your mind, 3. open your heart and 4. set your intent in order to achieve your goals in life. He practiced and visualised how he would be a rich doctor and it cam true however as he hadn't opened his heart he lost everything and this is when the compassion started playing a big role in his life. Now he has turned things around and has opened a department for the research into the relationship between mind and heart; it is The Center for Compassion And Altruism Research And Education, an affiliate of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. He works together with the Dalai Lama… I guess the compassion aspect has truly been integrated!
“Another mystery of the brain is that it will always choose what is familiar over what is unfamiliar. By visualizing my own future success, I was making this success familiar to my brain. Intention is a funny thing, and whatever the brain puts its intention on is what it sees”