apu Naik

Growing up poor in a desert in California, with an alcoholic father and a chronically ill and depressed mother, the author Jim Doty’s life was already pretty much in shambles. But today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University. Before he was able to accomplish this his life was going on negatively impacting him, until at twelve he went into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb. Where he met a woman named Ruth, the one who taught him exercises to overcome his sufferings and to achieve his heartfelt desires. Ruth’s final order to Jim Doty was that he should pass on her “magic tricks” namely meditation,mindfulness and compassion. Ruth was the one who gave the author his first glimpse on the extraordinary relationship between the brain and the heart. Doty would go on to put Ruth’s teachings into practice and achieve great things that he could only imagine as a twelve year old.But like all humans the author made a mistake too, he neglected Ruth’s most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with disastrous results—until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him. Part memoir, part science, part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us how we can fundamentally turn our lives around by first changing our brains and our he