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The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind Paperback – April 13, 2006
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Beginning by pointing out the ill effects that follow from our inability to focus, Wallace moves on to explore a systematic path of meditation to deepen our capacity for deep concentration. The result is an exciting, rewarding "expedition of the mind," tracing everything from the confusion at the bottom of the trail to the extraordinary clarity and power that come with making it to the top. Along the way, the author also provides interludes and complementary practices for cultivating love, compassion, and clarity in our waking and dreaming lives.
Attention is the key that makes personal change possible, and the good news is that it can be trained. This book shows how.
- Print length224 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWisdom Publications
- Publication dateApril 13, 2006
- Dimensions6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
- ISBN-109780861712762
- ISBN-13978-0861712762
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Editorial Reviews
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"This is the best kind of practical manual: a balance of clear instruction, theoretical background, and personal sharing. Alan Wallace never talks down to you; his calm authority, borne of years of practice under the best of teachers, shines through. I recommend this book to those of any spiritual tradition--or none--who wish to grow as human beings." -- The Reverend Anthony Freeman, Editor of the Journal of Consciousness Studies
"An indispensable guide, not only for anyone who attempts to meditate, but for all those who aspire to cultivate a more harmonious relation to the agent that determines the quality of every instant of our lives: our own mind." -- Matthieu Ricard, co-author of The Monk and the Philosopher and of The Quantum and the Lotus
"Scholar, scientist, and adept practitioner Alan Wallace teaches the faculty of attention in a clear, concise, and profound manner. This book is a brilliant comprehensive analysis on the stages of the development of attentional balance and will be a classic in the field." -- Joan Halifax, abbot of Upaya Zen Center and author of The Fruitful Darkness
"Attention is perhaps our most precious commodity. Alan Wallace provides a tutorial of a rigorous form of attention training, shamatha meditation, described in Buddhist texts and practices. Wallace notes that current interpretations of meditation practices such as mindfulness may not reflect the [Buddha's] original intent. In the current rush to apply many Eastern traditions to our Western culture, some very important elements of the original teachings and practices run the risk of being lost. This careful study of shamatha is likely to lessen such losses." -- Susan L. Smalley, Ph.D., Professor, UCLA School of Medicine
"A useful and stimulating resource for experienced meditators, while for those newer to meditation it gives an interesting and sometimes inspiring overview. The book is structured around each of Kamalashila's ten stages of meditation, with interludes outlining important supportive practices. There are also some instructions on how to achieve lucid dreaming as a basis for dream yoga-making the dream state a basis for insight. [...] The book contains much that could enrich the practice of anyone who already meditates regularly." ― Wildmind Newsletter
"This is a bold little book. Its subtitle is a boast and a lure, echoing the muscular self-help books that promise to make you better, stronger, faster. But The Attention Revolution is a cleverly disguised book about pure shamatha meditation, which Wallace defines here as 'a path of attentional development that culminates in an attention that can be sustained effortlessly for hours on end.' Wallace is a former monk and translator for the Dalai Lama, and now a scientist and religious studies scholar who's logged thousands of hours on the cushion. Currently he's drumming up support for The Shamatha Project, a one-year residential retreat for thirty people that will involve scientific evaluation of the subjects before, during, and after the retreat. One imagines that this book could be the participant manual. The Attention Revolution follows a rigorous ten-stage framework described by the eighth-century Indian Buddhist contemplative Kamalashila, but Wallace repeats often that you don't have to subscribe to any particular creed to experience the benefits of shamatha-you just have to do the work." ― Shambhala Sun
"Are you in a chronic state of distractedness? Maybe you think it is just part of modern life, yet there is an answer. It's called meditation. But this is not just another book on meditation. Attention is the key: identifying just what it is that requires attention, and how to focus on it. Analytical yet practical, Wallace's style conveys very clear instructions with calm authority." ― Mandala
"The mind falls into two ruts, excitation and laxity, and both are hindrances to attentional development. [In The Attention Revolutlion,] Wallace reveals the value of meditation techniques developed in India and Tibet and explains why he is convinced they can help us all improve the faculty of attention. With great elan and rigor, he explores the ten stages of attentional development from directed attention all the way to shamatha, the last stage which may require 10,000 hours of practice. Wallace also includes interludes on the meditative cultivation of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity, tonglen (giving and taking), lucid dreaming, and dream yoga. Along the way, he offers cogent observations on genuine happiness as a symptom of a healthy, balanced mind." ― Spirituality & Practice
"Alan Wallace--ex-monk, Tibetan translator and big-wig scientist--explores how we (don't) pay attention in The Attention Revolution. You put it down feeling that meditation isn't about some existential leap to another ethereal plane, but rather the gradual and incremental development of what is ours to begin with." ― Elephant Journal
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : 0861712765
- Publisher : Wisdom Publications; First Edition (April 13, 2006)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 224 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780861712762
- ISBN-13 : 978-0861712762
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #123,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #463 in Buddhism (Books)
- #518 in Stress Management Self-Help
- #841 in Meditation (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
B. Alan Wallace began his studies of Tibetan Buddhism, language, and culture in 1970 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.
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We have all been multitasking since before our ancestors came down from the trees, but now people's attention is constantly being distracted by an array of new inputs: email, text messaging, instant messaging and a hundred other things. Just think of the way in which many television programs now have multiple items on the screen at once. Many of us are suffering from information overload, and it would be very valuable to be able to improve our ability to focus our attention without putting ADHD medicines in the water supply.
This is a very interesting book by an interesting individual. B. Alan Wallace spent fourteen years as a Buddhist monk and was ordained by the Dalai Lama. He is also the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. He is the author of several other books, including the superb book Contemplative Science.
In this book he describes the ten stages of Shamatha meditation, a technique for developing extraordinary levels of attention and focus. As Alan Wallace describes it in the preface to the book, "Shamatha is a path of attentional development that culminates in an attention that can be sustained for hours on end."
Alan is a committed meditator who has spent the eight hours a day necessary to perfect the method. There are obviously not that many people who could - or would want to - dedicate that amount of time to the practice. But there is still plenty of value to the individual who can only dedicate a few minutes a day to the practice. As with most forms of mental or physical development, the returns that you get from this kind of meditation are strongly related to how much effort you can put in.
The ten stages are:
Directed attention
Continuous attention
Resurgent attention
Close attention
Tamed attention
Pacified attention
Fully pacified attention
Single-pointed attention
Attentional balance
Shamatha
Some books about meditation are a little dry and focused almost exclusively on the mind. Alan has done something very nice with this book: in between his explanation of the ten stages, he has inserted what he calls "interludes;" short ancillary practices that complement the training in attention. The first four of these interludes are designed to cultivate one of the four qualities of the heart: compassion, loving-kindness, empathetic joy and equanimity.
This is a book that you can easily read in a few hours, but you could spend years putting it into practice. As many of us have discovered, applying the basic techniques for just a few minutes a day can be very helpful. If you want to get all the way to the final stage it would require a great deal of time and effort, and ideally also a personal teacher.
The type of focus and attention that is developed by these methods was originally intended to focus inwards and to control and still the mind, but the techniques can be equally useful for focusing on things outside of you.
Alan Wallace has done us a great service by recording and explaining this method, and the book is well worth reading if you have any interest in trying to improve your own ability to focus and to pay attention.
Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life
There are some books promising "practice of jahnas" or "jahna achievement"; but I only trust in this one coming from a genuine realized practitioner.
What Wallace has gave us is a complete manual explaining the path of shamatha meditation training until the attainment of the first Dhyana (Jahna in pali). Which consist in a powerful samadhi.
Using the ten stages system established by the indian scholar Kamalashila, Wallace gives detailed instructions for the practice at the same time developing a very skillful dialogue between buddhist contemplatives methods and the scientists's one. Each chapter corresponds to one shamatha stage, each ends with a contemplative practice including the Four Immeasurables Dream Yoga and more. In chapter 8 and 9 Lama Alan introduce another two differents methods of shamatha as preliminaries to Dzogchen.
According to Wallace without attainment of shamatha it is impossible achieve vipashyana, vajrayana nor dzogchen. Shamatha is the foundation stone of all those practices that open the mind to the realization the Awakened state.
Wallace has the neurosurgeon precision when meditative instruction is about. The book is a supporting tool for all those who has the capacity to enter into several years of strict retreat. And you can complement it with Dreaming Yourself Awake: Lucid Dreaming and Tibetan Dream Yoga for Insight and Transformation
I'm very grateful to him for have written this book, which is a fundamental text for all of us following the yogi path.