Spiritual literature throughout Eurasia converges in descriptions of an internal liberation from everyday worry, fixation, self-focus, ambivalence, and impulsiveness—one that manifests as freedom from concerns with the self, equanimity no matter the difficulty, a keenly alert “nowness,” and loving concern for all. In contrast, modern psychology, just about a century old, was clueless about this range of human potential. Clinical psychology, Dan’s field, was fixated on looking for a specific problem like high anxiety and trying to fix that one thing.
