But there has also been a notable increase in recent years of these applications by a much wider slice of psychotherapists - far greater interest than ever before.

The human brain is by no means fully formed at birth. It continues to shape itself through life, with the most intense growth occurring during childhood.

Empathic, emotionally intelligent work environments have a good track record of increasing creativity, improving problem solving and raising productivity.

If you do a practice and train your attention to hover in the present, then you will build the internal capacity to do that as needed - at will and voluntarily.

Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action.

Directing attention toward where it needs to go is a primal task of leadership.

As a freshman in college, I was having a lot of trouble adjusting. I took a meditation class to handle anxiety. It really helped. Then as a grad student at Harvard, I was awarded a pre-doctoral traveling fellowship to India, where my focus was on the ancient systems of psychology and meditation practices of Asia.