I love Mark Morford. Well, I love his writing. Though I'm sure if I met him I would develop an instant crush and want to hang out with him all the time. Another reason to move back to San Francisco. He is smart, irreverent, insightful, soulful, funny.

This week, Mark wrote about a recent study that shows that meditation stimulates the parts of the brain where compassion and empathy originate and generally makes the meditator a more positive person.

This is my favorite part:

Did you already know of such benefits? I'm guessing you did. Hell, here in NorCal meditation is so widespread and normalized it's actually available in the Whole Foods bulk aisle. I do believe over in Berkeley and parts of Marin County you are actually required by law to meditate at least twice a week atop your handmade zafu cushion in your Zen rock garden next to your carefully restored BMW 2002 as you listen to slightly cheesy wind chime music on an iPod-enabled Bang & Olufsen 5.1 home theater system just before you pour yourself a nice glass of Sonoma chard, or the police come and politely take away your Tibetan Nag Champa incense holder for a month.

Ah, but I suppose this is not the case nationwide. I imagine the practice is still widely considered, even after all these millennia and all these studies and teachers and perky New Age bookstores and all the obvious proof that meditating has little, really, to do with religious belief, it's still thought of as some sort of hippie cultish pagan anti-Christian Satanic frou-frou thing more aligned with monks and bells and Hindu wackiness than with everyday gul-dang gun-smokin' 'Merkin life.

And hence I guess we actually still need studies like this to lend validation to a timeless wisdom which, if disseminated more widely, could actually improve the health of the nation. Hey, every little bit helps, right? Enough studies and enough serious medical journals bring alternative ideas like meditation to the fore and maybe, just maybe, we could nudge the culture away from mania and obsession and road rage and a zillion Prozac prescriptions as the only means of coping with the trudging maelstrom of daily existence. You think?

Read the article, I implore you. It will make you laugh, it will make you grab your iPod and start meditating immediately. It will make you think that finally you have found the column that you would write if the San Francisco Chronicle would let you. It will make you want to read more of Mark Morford. And that may just make you fall a little bit in love with him too.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:25 AM