Nature of Healing : Writings from the World's Spiritual Traditions

This collection of essays by Anatole Broyard, Joseph Bruchac, Norman Cousins, John Donne, Kat Duff, Maya Deren, Thich Nhat Hanh, Helen M.

Luke, and others draws from many disciplines and points of view to offer a powerful perspective on health and healing, disability and disease, doctors and doctoring, Eastern and Western medical theories and treatments, and the final step in the healing process -- consciously confronting the inevitability of death.

Patients with cancer, AIDS, alcoholism, chronic fatigue syndrome, paralysis, and other debilitative and chronic diseases give their personal accounts of facing and, in some cases, conquering illness.

More than mere inspirational anecdotes, these are thought-provoking explorations of a difficult subject that encourage a re-examination of views on sickness, health, and the path between them.