Into The Magic Shop A Neurosurgeon's True Story of the Life-Changing Magic of Compassion and Mindfulness

Into The Magic Shop : A Neurosurgeon's True Story of the Life-Changing Magic of Compassion and Mindfulness
ISBN: 9781444786187
Publication Date: 9 February 2016

A prominent neurosurgeon uses his personal experience and cutting edge science to reveal how we can change our lives by changing our brains and our hearts.

James Doty grew up in California, deeply poor, with an alcoholic father and an invalid mother who tried to commit suicide. His life was a dead end until the summer he was 12, when he stumbled into the Cactus Rabbit Magic Shop looking for a plastic thumb. Inside he encountered Ruth, who gave him a series of practices designed to ease his suffering and manifest his desires. Her final mandate was that he make sure to keep his heart open and to teach these techniques to others.

Jim would go on to put Ruth's practices to work and experience extraordinary results - power, wealth, and expensive habits. But he neglects to mind Ruth's instruction to keep his heart open with disastrous results - until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him.

Part memoir, part science, part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us the extraordinary things that happen when we harness the power of both the brain and the heart.

About the Author

Dr James 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, which he cofounded with the Dalai Lama. As the Director of CCARE, he has spearheaded many research projects on compassion and altruism, and their relationship to the brain.

He is also an inventor and philanthropist, sitting on the board of a number of charities, including Friends of New Orleans (FONO) and the Dalai Lama Foundation of which he is Chairman.