It has been several weeks since returning from what I like to call my ongoing second medical education in the East - in this case 7 weeks of retreat attending teachings in India and Nepal. This second medical education is focused on the gaps in my traditional medical education. These gaps are found in the left side of the integral map in the area related to the development of consciousness and wisdom and loving kindness and compassion - two foundational aspects of traditional healing approaches but largely missing in ours. It is our 500 year old western focus on biology that has caused me to go halfway around the world for this essential aspect of my education both as a person and as a practitioner.

Returning home to life's daily demands is always a test of what one has learned. Will I fall right back into old ways that are deeply ingrained in my mindstream or will what I have learned and practiced create new groves in my mind that have more stability and might even overide set patterns?

My experience has been that there is always a bit of falling back, an experience which has led me to honor the tenacity and endurance of habitual patterns and to be far more patient with myself. There is less mindfulness of the moment, less sensitivity, and more in the way of mechanical reactivity. There is less openness, spaciousness, peacefullness, and reaching out to others. But now for the good news. Although there is perhaps a 30% drop off in what I have learned there is also a 70% retention which adds up over years. The world does not seem quite the same, my motivations are more admirable and wholesome, my concern for others enhanced, an inner peace more sustained, a hardiness that is more able to resist inner and outer adversities, and an intensified understanding and committment to the mental attitudes, understandings, speech, and actions that constitute a life of health, happiness, and wholeness. I progressively know that the expansion of consciousness and heart is the path to a larger life of human flourishing. As the results accrue, initial faith has turned into confidence and confidence has turned into certainty.

What I have also learned is that the best way to sustain and grow the wisdom and compassion, that is at the foundation of a larger life and health for the practitioner and his or her clients, is to continue the three part process of study, reflection, and practice each day. It takes a lot to change our habits and dysfunctional ways of living. But it takes even more to suffer the suffering of meaninglessness, doubt, confusion, disturbing emotions, the inevitable process of disease aging, and death - an accepted but unecessary sufffering - and the deep longgin that there is more. And this is not to mention theloss of an enduring peace, delight, and wholeness that is possible with a life of full consciousness and heart.

I have found it equally important to regularly re-ignite this educational process with retreats that could last a day, a week, or longer. Retreat allows one to leave the push and pull of daily life behind for a short period of time in which the focus is ezxclusively on ones own life - ones own growth and development.

Over the years I have learned that a life of authentic, profound, and vast health, happiness, and wholeness is attainable, but like any other skillful attainment it requires ongoing learning and practice. This is why a larger health - one that goes beyond the biological - to alleviate all suffering and promote human flourishing - requires our personal effort and committment. If we want thi ssort of meaningful health and life we must do it by ourself. It cannot be done for us by practitioners - conventional or alternative - or remedies and therapies alone.