Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking
World  Meditation in action  By Roger S. Gottlieb  Suddenly, it
seems, meditation is all the rage. Prestigious medical schools
(Harvard, Duke, etc.) have whole departments devoted to
“Integrative Medicine” in which meditation plays an essential
part. Troubled teens are given a healthy dose of mindfulness and
their behavior improves. Long-term prisoners in maximum security
prisons have gone on ten day meditation retreats, sitting for 12
hours a day in a makeshift gymnasium ashram. There is meditation
for alcoholics and heroin addicts and overworked corporate
attorneys, for those facing death from untreatable illness and
for those nearing the day when, with the grace of God or Nature
or Luck, they will give birth. Studies have shown that
meditation helps in medical conditions from depression to
diabetes, psoriasis to high blood pressure to the side effects
of cancer treatments.  How come?  Spiritually, meditation’s
efficacy stems from the power of the