My personal opinion is that the neutral position on the mood spectrum—what I called emotional sea level—is not happiness but rather contentment and the calm acceptance that is the goal of many kinds of spiritual practice.

I'm not against high-tech medicine. It has a secure place in the diagnosis and treatment of serious disease.

I've always been willing to take risks and chances. Often I'm on talk shows and hosts will ask 'How do you feel about it, when people say you're controversial?' And I say that, 'I think if I stop being controversial, I wouldn't be doing my job.

To be clear, I worry as much about the impact of the Internet as anyone else. I worry about shortening attention spans, the physical cost of sedentary "surfing" and the potential for coarsening discourse as millions of web pages compete for attention by appealing to our base instincts.

By keeping my hand in that, it's the way I keep learning. The main way you learn in medicine is by practicing and working with patients.

We're all affected by music. It has the power to inspire, uplift us, change our moods, and even alter consciousness.

Conscious breath control is a useful tool for achieving a relaxed, clear state of mind.