The desire to transcend one's own ego boundaries, to share completely, even for a moment, the consciousness of another person must be a universal longing. It motivates many of our activities from taking drugs to making love, and lies behind the search for new ways of getting close to one another that is so intense in our society today.

The best way to detoxify is to stop putting toxic things into the body and depend upon it's own mechanisms.

My passion for gardening may strike some as selfish, or merely an act of resignation in the face of overwhelming problems that beset the world. It is neither. I have found that each garden is just what Voltaire proposed in Candide: a microcosm of a just and beautiful society.

Whenever the immune system deals successfully with an infection, it emerges from the experience stronger and better able to confront similar threats in the future. Our immune system develops in combat. If, at the first sign of infection, you always jump in with antibiotics, you do not give the immune system a chance to grow stronger.

Studies have shown that people who are physically active sleep better than those who are sedentary. The more energy you expend during the day, the sleepier you will feel at bedtime.

For many in the modern world, carving out time for both traditional seated meditation and exercise has become close to impossible.

In Europe, when tobacco was first introduced, it was immediately banned. In Turkey, if you got caught with tobacco, you had your nose slit. China and Russia imposed the death penalty for possession of tobacco.