This is a challenging, beautiful book by friend and mentor Mary Ann Iyer, MD (previously, Mary Ann Wallace). Dr. Iyer has been practicing and teaching insight meditation for over 40 years. She is also a board-certified physician and has founded an integrative medicine center in Oregon.

Dr. Iyer (formerly Wallace) in this book writes of patients who suffered from physical pain and seeming disease, but found through work with Dr. Iyer that the causes of the diseases included fixed mental constructs and emotional imbalances. This work is called mindbody medicine and integrative medicine. You can heal the wounds of the past and from current habits and patterns of acting that are not in alignment with your heart’s purpose. As Dr. Iyer writes, “We must look at every facet of life with deep reverence. Every molecule of form that shows up in our experience brings us an opportunity to embrace life with love, compassion, and respect. If we do that, we will turn within ourselves with that same deep love and compassion.”

When we turn within with deep love and compassion and look at the mental constructs and associated emotional pain, what we find is that the constructs are not actually here. They are insubstantial, old stories about the past that are really not here now; they are done, gone, and serve little purpose other than what we have learned from them. What is left is a sense of profound innocence and vast love.

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