Our ailing civilization cuts us off from what truly matters. For some people, including myself, this causes deep distress.

Mindful Biology grew from my struggle with this dilemma. As a physician, I knew biology could help—at times via therapeutics and always by deepening my understanding. Yet it wasn’t enough by itself, so I sought guidance in a variety of spiritual traditions.

Buddhism and Quakerism aligned best with my values, philosophy, and Life science background.

Buddhism teaches us to see things “as they actually are” free of assumptions, projections, etc. Biology supports such realism with truths about our bodies and the natural world. Buddhism also values direct experience over mere concepts, while feeling into our biology connects us with present-moment, embodied experience.

Quakers sense a divine Light within each person, and many sense the same in nature. Biology bolsters this sensibility, inspiring reverence for all forms of Life, from cells to ecosystems. Quakers also oppose inequity, violence, and exploitation, while biology highlights Life’s deep commonality and the perils of overburdening our earth.

As Life science and spirituality grew together in my understanding and practice, Mindful Biology was born. It awakens spacious knowing, embodied caring, and earthly being. For myself and others, it has proven helpful for living in an ill society while drawing strength from our deepest values. 

Mindful Biology initially used lots of Life science imagery. My love of biological beauty spurred this choice, but I also had faith in the power of images to deepen our connections with our bodies and Life on earth.

Though valuable in some ways, imagery seemed less important as years passed. Time devoted to slide presentations limits time for meditation. Worse, engaging the conceptual mind reduces direct, felt contact with bodily experience. After struggling with this tension for some time, I've decided to cut back on program development.

I'm now awaiting discernment, possibly in the form of an opportunity or collaboration that will show me where to take the project next. In the meantimge, anyone wanting to get a sense of Mindful Biology can view the video class series or read my blog archive.

Currently, I am excited about free meditation clubs and occasional aging-focused mindfulness classes. In these communal spaces, we explore the challenges and promises of growing older as biological beings. 

Just as I realized it's time to pause Mindful Biology, I found a personally satisfying story that organizes bodily energies and domains. It borrows from many traditions, experts and sages, as well as my biology-based contemplative practice. It will seed the next stage of the project's evolution, if one comes. For now, only the basics follow.

The following two qualities seem co-emergent in experience, distinct but always together:

• Creative Aliveness: The flowing, experienced energy of body and nature – in all its potency and artistry. 

• Fertile Emptiness: Opaque to reflective thought, it is the silent womb of awareness, in which all experience grows. 

These two linked qualities are centered in three characteristic body regions and connect with the seven main chakras and other energetic phenomena.

• Spacious Knowing (brain & head): The powerful brain/mind that moves beyond history, science, philosophy and other frameworks to wise, nonverbal awareness. 

• Embodied Caring (heart & thorax): Heart-centered powers of compassion, empathy, and benevolence. 

• Earthly Being (abdomen & pelvis): A felt oneness with the planet and its depths of mystery.