The phrase "a place of healing" struck a chord in me when I first heard it in 1973, and in many ways, it's what led to my lifelong career in hospice and palliative medicine. Let me explain. I was a medical student in the early 1970s, or, should I say, a disillusioned medical student, and about to leave medicine to pursue an interest in movie making and the humanities. One day, I was sitting with a mentor figure, whom I'd just told of my decision. He listened carefully and the

On August 9, 2025, I had a brief audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Ladakh, India. As I stood waiting in line, holding my white kata scarf in both hands, I looked around. Hundreds of Tibetan pilgrims, dressed in traditional attire, stood or sat on every side, awaiting their turn. We were in a grove of tall poplar trees, which gave dappled shade, their leaves fluttering like green wings. From somewhere in the distance, I could hear chanting that waxed and waned, “Om

Hi everyone, I am writing this just one week after my beloved mentor and dear friend, Joanna Macy, died at the ripe old age of 96. While...

This is to let you know that I am offering a new series of The 7-Step Deep Resilience Program with the non-profit Mindful Heart Programs...

This new, special event that I am offering with the non-profit Mindful Heart Programs begins on March 12, 2025, at 7 pm PST and continues...

Announcing a new, special event that I am offering with the non-profit, Mindful Heart Programs: A 7-Step Program to Deep Resilience...

Today I was thinking that how we picture our mind is like a mushroom. We take it to be the white button we see pushing up through the...

Hello everyone, I'm so happy to be sitting down at last to write to you and want to begin by updating you on my new book, Becoming...

One of my favorite poems is by the late Irish poet and Noble Prize Winner, Seamus Heaney: St Kevin and the Blackbird. St Kevin was an...

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let...

In beauty I walk, With beauty before me, I walk, With beauty behind me, I walk, With beauty above me, I walk, With beauty all around me,...

This short chapter is in Edward Bastian’s book, Meditations for InterSpiritual Wisdom: Practices and Readings Drawn from the World’s...

This chapter, which I co-authored with my wife, Radhule Weininger, is published as a chapter in the book, Whole Person Care: A New...

This article was published as an editorial in the journal Palliative Medicine in December 2003.  In it, Kearney and Balfour Mount talk...

This article was published in the Journal of The American Medical Association (JAMA), in March 2009.  In April 2009, the article was...