“Don’t throw away your suffering. Touch your suffering. Face it directly, and your joy will become deeper. You know that suffering and joy are both impermanent. Learn the art of cultivating joy. Practice like this, and you come to the third turning of the Third Noble Truth, the “Realization” that suffering and happiness are not…
Tag: spirituality
With Liberty and Justice for All
A recent news story about a New York school allowing students to recite the pledge of allegiance in Arabic sparked controversy across the country. It appears that many were upset by this, and the school ended up apologizing for allowing it. My question is why? The school had been reciting the pledge in different languages…
Taking Time for Quiet Solitude
Have you ever found yourself in a stretch of time in which you feel that your mind, emotions, and body are overhwelmed with continuous stressors and an underlying sense of never resting? The past several weeks have felt this way for me; I have frequently fallen asleep worrying about something and waking up with my…
Morning Mantra
One of my favorite things about the blog community is that I get to read some pretty insightful, creative, and thought-provoking ideas on a regular basis. It offers me something that television cannot; an endless supply of ingenuity and classy writing. I peruse the “Freshly Pressed” articles almost daily and have a short list of…
Food vs. Faith
I never really thought about the way diet impacts spirituality until I was older. My family always ate meat, but to different degrees and of different varieties. Even my family members in India ate meat for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t always like that; when my mom was a child, they barely…
Immortality & Ethics: The Henrietta Lacks Case
In May 2018, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery installed this portrait of Henrietta Lacks while three of her grandchildren looked on. The fascinating story of this important woman was revealed in Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010). I initially read this book during residency, then revisited it two years ago for a…
The Sour Taste of Force-Feeding: Gitmo Hunger Strikers
“Where a prisoner refuses nourishment and is considered by the physician as capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such a voluntary refusal of nourishment, he or she shall not be fed artificially.” …
The Tragedy of Elephant Tourism
Overall, our time in Thailand was exceptionally relaxing and enjoyable. I am sad to say we did have one quite unpleasant experience, and it is something I feel the need to write about so that others can hopefully be better informed than I was. On our last full day, we were scheduled to go on…
The Dangers of Uninformed Autonomy
“There is a dignity in dying that doctors should not dare to deny.” [ Anonymous] Today, a patient I have been helping to take care of died. I and the medical team knew that she would die soon, but for the past 18 days, we have been sticking little bandaids on various components of her…
Lessons from (other people’s) faith
“God has no religion.” Mahatma Gandhi Approximately one week into my elective in Palliative Care, I am learning to bite my tongue when it comes to discussions on religion and faith. My own religious persuasion has evolved and devolved over time, and I cannot pinpoint any specific game-changing factors in the process. What I do…
Three
Being a medical student in North Philadelphia and then going on to residency in New Orleans have shaped my view of medicine and the vast injustices people face. Most of my clinical rotations in medical school dealt with the underserved and uninsured population. These are hands down the most challenging patients to treat for reasons…
pen . paper . storm 