3 X 5's: Index Card Wisdom from Best of Books

INTENTION Lynne McTaggart (2007). The Intention Experiment:                                            Using your Thoughts to                                            Change your Life and the World. McTaggert is a journalist providing an exhaustive review of the scientific literature on intention...she describes this research by breaking down the research into readable story form...this is the first 200 pages followed by the most useful part of the book, the "experiments" which translate the research findings into "best practices" for intention experiments that anyone can perform.  Some of the best practices include: creating a comfortable private space, powering up with meditation, becoming mindfully aware of the present moment, focusing on compassion, stating a ...

DEEP LEARNING Ken Bain (2021). Super courses:                               The future of teaching and learning. Bain is a history professor and researcher of teaching and learning...this is his third book in a series: What the best college teachers do (2004), What the best college students do (2021), and now Super courses (2021).  Bain's focus is DEEP LEARNING through asking/answering questions, solving problems that are important, intriguing, beautiful and fun. Insights from multiple disciplines reveal characteristics common to super courses that facilitate deep learning:  working on projects that are personally meaningful,  allowing redos after receiving feedback and before any formal evaluation,  giving control via choices on what to learn to increase intrinsic motivation,  increasing collaboration with others in an atmosphere that encourages mutual learning,  finding others...

FRIENDSHIP Andrew Greeley (1970). The Friendship Game. Greeley is a Catholic priest and sociologist, and at the time of this writing, as a young parish priest, he is writing about friendship as an invitation to ecstasy, a promise of delight, the gift of self, an inducement to play that requires self-revelation, risk, comedy, solitude and silence together to discover our real needs, a special type of demanding of time/energy for the friendship and a demanding that the friend grow into their best self, to be patient with uncertainty and conflict, offering displays of tenderness and protection, and most of all love for one another.  Greeley also includes some sobering advice: we tend to take the unresolved issues from our family of origin and transfer them to our friendships (beware of treating your friend like your father or mother), there is terror in looking into the eyes of another and risking movement in the direction of friendship, but there are also rewards of great joy and fun...

LETTERS Andrew Greeley (1964). Letters to Nancy Greeley is a Catholic priest and sociologist, and in 1964 he is a young priest, only later did he become the story teller of romantic and Godly love novels that he is best known for.  Greeley provides priestly advice to young Catholic women by writing a series of letters to one particular young women (another book published one year before this one addresses young men in a similar letter writing format:  And young men shall see visions , )...the advice ranges from theology and philosophy to college and career to relationships and sex. Some main ideas: be faithful to the Christian VISION, live life in cooperation with the voice of the Holy Spirit, say YES to your true self, channel the powerful sexual energy into loving others, be a good human being (mature, grow, develop, use your imagination) before you enter into a lifetime partnership with another, combine contemplation with action, live simply trusting that G will take care o...

CELLULAR HEALING Joyce Whiteley Hawkes (2006). Cell-level healing:                                                      The bridge from soul to cell. Joyce is a biologist who began studying cells with the electron microscope in the early 1970's and published numerous scientific papers before having a near death experience that changed the focus of her life's work to helping people heal on the cellular level.  cells have information, action, power, and communication characteristics that we can become aware of...she suggest how to identify and clear blockages in the body and uses the principle of "flow" to heal cells with gratitude and compassion...many sections of the book have instructions entitled: "bridge to healing." for removing blockages, imagine a cloud covering a mountain breaking up until a clear sky is created, or imagine melting ice in the...

DEATH & LIFE Peter Koestenbaum (1976). Is there an Answer to Death? Peter was my philosophy of existentialism professor when i was an undergraduate at San Jose State University back in the early 1980's. He was the most dynamic, charismatic, and fascinating professor i ever had. He would stride into the lecture hall with cane and thermos in hand, and lecture straight through to the end of class, only occasionally pausing for questions...he talked of life, death, philosophy, psychology, theology, and quantum physics! In this book, Koestenbaum guides us into the experience of our transcendental ego, our cosmic consciousness, the stream of consciousness that always was, is, and will be...he does this via immortality exercises about death. some of the immortality exercises are: identify at what age you will die, how you will die, writing an autobiography, making a list of unfinished business...in considering our fear and anxiety associated with death, we can accept our finitude and ...

PEACE WARRIOR Dan Millman (1992). No Ordinary Moments:                                     A Peaceful Warrior's Guide to Daily Life. Millman is famous for his semi-autobiographical book, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior when, at the height of his gymnastic career in college, he suffers a debilitating motorcycle accident, and begins his long journey of recovery with "Socrates," an older man that works the night shift at a local gas station, learning how to live the life of a peaceful warrior.  This book elaborates, expands, and provides practical exercises to develop the knowledge and skills of the way of a peaceful warrior. There are 37 activities (i did all of them). As a summary statement: we need to use our conscious self to take care of and guide/direct our basic self (child/instinctual self) by cultivating positive habits in service of our high (spiritual) self.  There are many q...