B. Alan Wallace, Brian Hodel - 2011 - Stilling the Mind - Shamatha Teachings from Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence (220p).pdf

B. Alan Wallace - 2011 - Stilling the Mind - Shamatha Teachings from Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence (220p).pdf

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Wisdom Publications; Original edition (August 16, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780861716906
ISBN-13: 978-0861716906

n his previous book, The Attention Revolution, bestselling author Alan Wallace guided readers through the stages of shamatha, a meditation for focusing the mind. In Stilling the Mind, he uses the wisdom of Dzogchen--the highest of all the meditation traditions--to open up the shamatha practice into a space of vast freedom. Here, Wallace introduces us to Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence, one of the most cherished works of the Nyingma school from which Dzogchen stems. With his trademark enthusiasm and keen intelligence, Wallace makes obscure concepts intelligible to contemporary readers and allows us to glimpse the profound realizations of a great nineteenth-century spiritual adept.

About the author:
B. Alan Wallace began his studies of Tibetan Buddhism, language, and culture in 1970 (at the age of 20) at the University of Göttingen and then continued his studies over the next fourteen years in India, Switzerland, and the United States. After graduating summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he studied physics and the philosophy of science, he went on to earn his Ph.D. in religious studies at Stanford University. He then taught for four years in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and is now the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies (http://sbinstitute.com). He is also Chairman of the Thanypura Mind Centre (http://piamc.com) in Thailand, where he leads meditation retreats. He has edited, translated, authored, and contributed to more than forty books on Tibetan Buddhism, medicine, language, and culture, and the interface between science and Buddhism, including Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic: A Manifesto for the Mind Sciences and Contemplative Practice, Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity, and Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness.