The Painful Truth: A Path Toward Peace by Ratson, Gary Allan, MD

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer

A bird sings because it has a song"

-Joan Walsh Anglund

Apropos of Joan's brilliant metaphor, this book is not a prescription for health, an instruction for meditation, or a spiritual teaching. It is actually full of challenges, mistakes, and hard-won insights. But since discovering the greatest human experience during a ten-day Vipassana retreat, singing from the rooftops seems like a pretty good idea.

The Painful Truth is a spiritual biography of sorts, from a medical heretic of sorts. This experiential journey picks up where the intellectual story ends. As an accidental sequel to The Meaning of Health, it follows the great good fortune of stumbling upon a path to inner truth unavailable back in the world. Paraphrasing David Hawkins MD, this is a personal PhD where the subject of study is consciousness itself.

Despair and disappointment with the medical model of health motivated a decade of self-study. Mind-body medicine, ancient healing traditions, and spiritual psychology helped cobble together a healthier worldview. But just writing about the essence of healing did little to embody the necessary purpose, love, responsibility, and freedom. Enter Vipassana meditation.

Once the door cracked open on this road less travelled, the length of time or level of difficulty would not matter. Success was in the certainty of knowing where the light was and securing a worthy vehicle. Sharing these insights, the reader is taken inside the adventure, step by step. With no childhood peak experiences to kickstart consciousness like so many mentors, this brown-bagging story of a blue-collar Buddha logging the long hours is relatable.

Meditators and non-meditators alike will save time and effort by clarifying and simplifying the path forward for whenever and whatever degree inspiration strikes. The Buddha sought to relieve human suffering by cultivating a peace that prevents overdosing on pleasure. The Painful Truth faces that sorrow with the knowing faith in a genuine healing power.

"Don't let school interfere with your education."

-Mark Twain