The Dharma of the Nervous System

The Dharma of the Nervous System

Hospitals are a difficult place for me to enter. Years of painful personal history have made them that way, and despite the work I’d done to heal it, walking through a hospital lobby recently, I found myself suddenly tearful, heart pounding, hands trembling. I sat down, pressed my feet to the floor, found a soothing nature photograph on the wall, and began to breathe more consciously—naming the sensations and emotions as they arose, noticing how…