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The Attention Revolution, Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind
Shamatha meditation is a method for achieving previously inconceivable levels of concentration. Author B. Alan Wallace, an active participant in the much-publicized dialogues between Buddhists and scholars, has more than 20 years' practice in the discipline, some of it under the guidance of the Dalai Lama. This book is a definitive presentation of his knowledge of shamatha. It is aimed at the contemporary seeker who is distracted and defocused by the dizzying pace of modern life, as well as those suffering from depression and other mental maladies. Beginning by addressing the inherent problems that follow from an inability to focus, Wallace moves on to explore varying levels of meditation. The result is an interior travelogue that recounts an exciting, rewarding "expedition of the mind," tracing everything from the confusions at the bottom of the trail to the extraordinary clarity and power that come with making it to the top.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
December 23, 2016
When I bought the book, that was because I thought: "Oh yes, I could really do better in so many aspects if I could focus my attention better." (And also because my wife is a Buddhist and therefore we have a general interest in the topic.) When I opened the book, it was clear very soon that the book was not made for me. It introduces the ten steps of meditative insight that lead to a stage of Shamatha where attention is sustained, perfect and effortless. Out of these ten stages, the first two can be achieved with part-time practice and fit into the schedule of a working person. The remaining stages require long periods of hermitage. I didn't even attempt the beginner's exercises (yet), though Wallace says that even those would lead to some improvement of one's well-being.
Yet, the book is interesting in its own right, even without following the exercises. Wallace has a background in science, psychology and Buddhism, and he has the gift of describing progress in awareness and introspection in a way that engages the reader and conveys a rough idea. (A rough idea is already good enough, because one can imagine that advanced mental concepts are labeled by words that cannot be fully grasped by novices or the unintiated: "Words used to describe such states of consciousness must give some idea to nonmeditators and novices of what takes place when high degrees of attentional balance are achieved. But it is a great mistake to assume that just because one has a layperson's knowledge of the meaning of these terms that one has understood what they mean in these rarefied contexts.") The book is also interspersed with some philosophical remarks and short discussions of dualism or ethics, which also work well for the casual reader.
In our family we have discussed if "Revolution" is an appropriate word for a book on slow, steady, gradual progress by means of meditation. It certainly is not - or only if strip the violent connotations of the word and revert to the original meaning of turning around. On the other hand, Wallace probably really needed a strong enough word to sum up what can be achieved when reaching the state of Shamatha, which is arriving with a sense of pressure on one's head, even though there is no influence on the outside of one's head.
The practical instructions of this book are really just for strongly motivated persons, but I really hope I'll come back to this again soon and least try my luck with the very first stage of Shamatha meditation.
Yet, the book is interesting in its own right, even without following the exercises. Wallace has a background in science, psychology and Buddhism, and he has the gift of describing progress in awareness and introspection in a way that engages the reader and conveys a rough idea. (A rough idea is already good enough, because one can imagine that advanced mental concepts are labeled by words that cannot be fully grasped by novices or the unintiated: "Words used to describe such states of consciousness must give some idea to nonmeditators and novices of what takes place when high degrees of attentional balance are achieved. But it is a great mistake to assume that just because one has a layperson's knowledge of the meaning of these terms that one has understood what they mean in these rarefied contexts.") The book is also interspersed with some philosophical remarks and short discussions of dualism or ethics, which also work well for the casual reader.
In our family we have discussed if "Revolution" is an appropriate word for a book on slow, steady, gradual progress by means of meditation. It certainly is not - or only if strip the violent connotations of the word and revert to the original meaning of turning around. On the other hand, Wallace probably really needed a strong enough word to sum up what can be achieved when reaching the state of Shamatha, which is arriving with a sense of pressure on one's head, even though there is no influence on the outside of one's head.
The practical instructions of this book are really just for strongly motivated persons, but I really hope I'll come back to this again soon and least try my luck with the very first stage of Shamatha meditation.
January 9, 2018
Nunca havia lido um livro de acesso ao público em geral que explicasse os benefícios do desenvolvimento da concentração para a meditação, algo que concordo plenamente. A descrição de cada um dos estágios para se atingir a concentração perfeita é clara, mas talvez não muito fácil para iniciantes que nunca ouviram falar no assunto. Os capítulos sobre a Ioga do Sono trouxeram muitas coisas que eu já conhecia através de outras leituras, mas em termos diferentes. Se você quer sair um pouco da "modinha" superficial sobre meditação, leia "A Revolução da Atenção: Revelando o Poder da Mente Focada", de B. Alan Wallace e aprenda como a prática séria e contínua é o caminho para atingir os resultados efetivos da meditação.
September 11, 2008
Fascinating tour of the 9 nine stages of shamatha, the ultimate achievement of which Tibetan Buddhist thought considers necessary before Vipassana or insight meditation practice training is even begun. That's apparently a very strict interpretation, because according to the author, the achievement of shamatha - which apparently results in a perfectly "healthy" mind - able to focus laser like attention on anything one wishes - is exceedingly rare in the modern world - especially in the West. Most people will only ever reach the second, maybe the third stage - because the amount of time and effort required to reach each stage - which are clearly defined by certain "signs" - increase exponentially with each successive stage. To proceed past the third stage requires one to emulate the lifestyle of the archetypal cave-dwelling yogi, which I can't help finding slightly depressing. Not that daily meditative sessions of 30 minutes or so will not benefit one's health - modern science has just recently begun to document a variety of positive effects of developing such a daily habit - but Wallace seems to be cautioning us that ultimate "liberation" will require considerably more time and effort..
January 18, 2018
Meh.
While this book has some interesting information it's completely impractical. About 80% of the methods and practices discussed require years of full time practice, that is not now and again for years, but essentially leaving modern life and retreating to a monastery and doing nothing but meditating all day. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It just is of no use to people with families who aren't independently wealthy. If you want to learn about different stages of Buddhist meditation from an intellectual standpoint, this is a good book. If you want to actually learn how to get past basic mindfulness, go get a proper teacher. If you want to unlock the power of the focused mind this one isn't for you.
While this book has some interesting information it's completely impractical. About 80% of the methods and practices discussed require years of full time practice, that is not now and again for years, but essentially leaving modern life and retreating to a monastery and doing nothing but meditating all day. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It just is of no use to people with families who aren't independently wealthy. If you want to learn about different stages of Buddhist meditation from an intellectual standpoint, this is a good book. If you want to actually learn how to get past basic mindfulness, go get a proper teacher. If you want to unlock the power of the focused mind this one isn't for you.
September 13, 2021
The book title can be a bit deceiving as the revolution of attention implies, in the book, training your attention through meditation practices. Furthermore, the author details the 9 stages of achieving Shamatha (a state of mind completely free from distractions). Even though most us can only reach level 2 or 3, it is inspiring to see what can happen in your mind & body throughout these stages. He talks about Samadhi (concentration), Vipassana (clear seeing) and has a fascinating chapter on lucid dreaming.
February 20, 2009
A well-written guide to meditative concentration practice, interweaving traditional wisdom with a solid scientific perspective. My only quibble is that much of the book concentrates on hard-to-reach advanced stages of concentration, for which the book by itself is an insufficient guide in any case.
October 22, 2019
This is an excellent book on meditation and the path to achieving shamatha. I plowed ahead and finished the book though I truly have no place reading, or understanding, past page 50.
October 27, 2021
What's yours favourite book on meditation and mental experiences??
Author explains briefly the concept of meditation, attention span of humans and various related concepts through quick and easy examples. The book is extensive and elaborate read if you're looking for deep search on this topic. It worked like a practical guide for me on meditation and mind attention span understanding.
Loving kindness, compassion, emphatic joy, equanimity, how can we control and balance our emotions by some ways is the biggest takeaway for me from this book.
Book contains various Buddhist assertions and practices that we can follow in our day to day lives for focused attention in the tasks, by minimising the products of modern technology.
From the book, we can draw conclusions on how the Buddha and Buddhist practices if implemented,can certainly add-up huge positive change in life.
Author explains briefly the concept of meditation, attention span of humans and various related concepts through quick and easy examples. The book is extensive and elaborate read if you're looking for deep search on this topic. It worked like a practical guide for me on meditation and mind attention span understanding.
Loving kindness, compassion, emphatic joy, equanimity, how can we control and balance our emotions by some ways is the biggest takeaway for me from this book.
Book contains various Buddhist assertions and practices that we can follow in our day to day lives for focused attention in the tasks, by minimising the products of modern technology.
From the book, we can draw conclusions on how the Buddha and Buddhist practices if implemented,can certainly add-up huge positive change in life.
July 18, 2020
Превосходный учебник - и в превосходном переводе, что с такой литературой случается, квы, нечасто, поскольку продаинутые переводчики на язык изложения не обращают внимания. Хотя материал здесь известен и пройден, чувствую себя как в детстве перед началом учебного года, когда залпом прочитываешь самые интересные учебники.
November 26, 2022
The book gives a pretty good overview of different mindfulness and meditation practices and also discusses lucid dreaming. I wish the author gave more detailed examples. So I would give it 3,5 stars. The most interesting parts from the book for me are:
If involuntary thought mainly dominates your behavior then focus your mind on the mindfulness of your inhalation and exhalation.
Meditation is a balancing act between attention and relaxation.
Counting respirations - counting each breath in and out as one so you can anchor your mind away from wandering off.
Vividness has 2 prerequisites - relaxation and stability. Underlying all these aspects of attention must be a foundation of equanimity without which strong attentional and emotional fluctuations will likely persist indefinitely. Equanimity serves as an antidote to 2 afflictions of the mind - attachment and aversion. Attachment includes clinging to the serenity of shamata and aversion can arise by regarding all distractions to your practice including other people as disagreeable obstacles to your wellbeing. The essence of equanimity is impartiality. It is equanimity that allows love and kindness, compassion, and empathetic joy to expand boundlessly.
Although you are loved by some people, a great number of people feel indifferent towards you or don’t like you. Each person wants to find happiness and freedom from suffering. A person to whom you feel love, affection and attachment, has their own desires, fears, hopes. Now step back and attend to this person from outside - this person is not true source of your happiness, joy, security, which can only arise from your own heart and mind. Now bring to mind a person, who wants to deprive you from happiness or bring you harm, a person with whom you feel conflict. Imagine stepping into this person’s perspective, being this person from the inside and experiencing their hopes and dreams, fundamentally they want to find happiness and freedom from suffering. Now step back and attend to them from outside, with the realization that they are not the source of your distress or anxiety. If you feel uneasy or angry in relationship to this person, the source is in your own heart, not in the other person. Realize that there is nothing inherent in a stranger, loved one, a foe that makes the other person fall into one category or another. Circumstances, relationships change and it’s the flux of circumstances that gives rise to the thoughts this is my enemy or loved one. Expand the field of awareness to embrace everyone in your immediate environment - their hopes, fears, aspirations, yearnings. Each person is as important as all others. Shifting circumstances brings us together and also causes us to part. Recognize that each person is fundamentally like yourself and virtually everyone feels to be the center of their world.
Mindfulness has the characteristic of remembering, its function is not to forget, it’s manifested as guarding. Introspection has the character of non-confusion - its function is to investigate, it’s manifested as scrutiny. Asanga offers the view of those as - mindfulness and introspection are taught, for the first prevents the attention from straying from the meditative object, while the second recognizes that the attention is straying.
Let your mind be gracious host amidst unruly guests. In the Shamata practice of mindfulness breathing, you let go of your thoughts as soon as you detect them and return your attention to the breath. Now instead of letting thoughts go, you let them be. Avoid any kind of attraction to and repulsion from any mental imagery, don’t even prefer absence of thoughts to the presence of thoughts. They are not the problem. Being distracted by and grasping onto thoughts is the problem.
At times, when we become fixated on something, our minds seem to become very small. Trivial issues lume up in our awareness as if they are very large and important. In reality they haven’t become large - our minds have become small.
What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. The world of waking experience doesn’t exist independently of our experience of it (like a dream). The lucid dream state check enables you to determine whether right now you are awake or dreaming. During the waking state the physical world that you experience is not entirely dependent on your own mind. For example a paper on the table is produced by other people and doesn’t depend on its existence for your perception of it. If you turn your head for a moment, the paper and ink still exist although your visual appearances of them don’t. If you are dreaming right now, the paper wouldn’t have any existence besides your perception of it. So if you momentarily close your eyes or turn your head away, the paper wouldn’t exist at all - being out of sight it will be out of mind and it would cease to exist. If you are dreaming, when you redirect your gaze back to the paper, words change most of the time. So if by second or third time reading the words do change, then you certainly are dreaming. By conducting these state checks during your day, you can determine whether you are awake or asleep and this habit may carry over your dream state.
Instead of letting go thoughts, banishing them from your mind, let them be without deliberately influencing them in any way. You simply maintain constant mindfulness of the space of the mind and whatever events occur in that space. When thoughts arise, let them play out their course, regardless of their nature or duration. In the end they can only disappear back into the space of awareness from which they initially arose. Consider that since these things which are without permanence, stability or immutability have no inherent nature - they are like illusions. Whenever you experience anything as existing independently of your conceptual framework, recognize its dream-like nature and in this way you can begin to become lucid during the waking state.
The general basic stand of buddhism is that it is inappropriate holding a view that goes against direct experience or to reject something because one has not yet found a compelling empirical evidence for it. Maybe such is temporary inaccessible because appropriate instruments for detecting it have not yet been developed. An open mind is crucial to both buddhist and scientific inquiry and more than that it is vital to examining carefully issues that deeply challenge our most deep-rooted assumptions.
If involuntary thought mainly dominates your behavior then focus your mind on the mindfulness of your inhalation and exhalation.
Meditation is a balancing act between attention and relaxation.
Counting respirations - counting each breath in and out as one so you can anchor your mind away from wandering off.
Vividness has 2 prerequisites - relaxation and stability. Underlying all these aspects of attention must be a foundation of equanimity without which strong attentional and emotional fluctuations will likely persist indefinitely. Equanimity serves as an antidote to 2 afflictions of the mind - attachment and aversion. Attachment includes clinging to the serenity of shamata and aversion can arise by regarding all distractions to your practice including other people as disagreeable obstacles to your wellbeing. The essence of equanimity is impartiality. It is equanimity that allows love and kindness, compassion, and empathetic joy to expand boundlessly.
Although you are loved by some people, a great number of people feel indifferent towards you or don’t like you. Each person wants to find happiness and freedom from suffering. A person to whom you feel love, affection and attachment, has their own desires, fears, hopes. Now step back and attend to this person from outside - this person is not true source of your happiness, joy, security, which can only arise from your own heart and mind. Now bring to mind a person, who wants to deprive you from happiness or bring you harm, a person with whom you feel conflict. Imagine stepping into this person’s perspective, being this person from the inside and experiencing their hopes and dreams, fundamentally they want to find happiness and freedom from suffering. Now step back and attend to them from outside, with the realization that they are not the source of your distress or anxiety. If you feel uneasy or angry in relationship to this person, the source is in your own heart, not in the other person. Realize that there is nothing inherent in a stranger, loved one, a foe that makes the other person fall into one category or another. Circumstances, relationships change and it’s the flux of circumstances that gives rise to the thoughts this is my enemy or loved one. Expand the field of awareness to embrace everyone in your immediate environment - their hopes, fears, aspirations, yearnings. Each person is as important as all others. Shifting circumstances brings us together and also causes us to part. Recognize that each person is fundamentally like yourself and virtually everyone feels to be the center of their world.
Mindfulness has the characteristic of remembering, its function is not to forget, it’s manifested as guarding. Introspection has the character of non-confusion - its function is to investigate, it’s manifested as scrutiny. Asanga offers the view of those as - mindfulness and introspection are taught, for the first prevents the attention from straying from the meditative object, while the second recognizes that the attention is straying.
Let your mind be gracious host amidst unruly guests. In the Shamata practice of mindfulness breathing, you let go of your thoughts as soon as you detect them and return your attention to the breath. Now instead of letting thoughts go, you let them be. Avoid any kind of attraction to and repulsion from any mental imagery, don’t even prefer absence of thoughts to the presence of thoughts. They are not the problem. Being distracted by and grasping onto thoughts is the problem.
At times, when we become fixated on something, our minds seem to become very small. Trivial issues lume up in our awareness as if they are very large and important. In reality they haven’t become large - our minds have become small.
What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. The world of waking experience doesn’t exist independently of our experience of it (like a dream). The lucid dream state check enables you to determine whether right now you are awake or dreaming. During the waking state the physical world that you experience is not entirely dependent on your own mind. For example a paper on the table is produced by other people and doesn’t depend on its existence for your perception of it. If you turn your head for a moment, the paper and ink still exist although your visual appearances of them don’t. If you are dreaming right now, the paper wouldn’t have any existence besides your perception of it. So if you momentarily close your eyes or turn your head away, the paper wouldn’t exist at all - being out of sight it will be out of mind and it would cease to exist. If you are dreaming, when you redirect your gaze back to the paper, words change most of the time. So if by second or third time reading the words do change, then you certainly are dreaming. By conducting these state checks during your day, you can determine whether you are awake or asleep and this habit may carry over your dream state.
Instead of letting go thoughts, banishing them from your mind, let them be without deliberately influencing them in any way. You simply maintain constant mindfulness of the space of the mind and whatever events occur in that space. When thoughts arise, let them play out their course, regardless of their nature or duration. In the end they can only disappear back into the space of awareness from which they initially arose. Consider that since these things which are without permanence, stability or immutability have no inherent nature - they are like illusions. Whenever you experience anything as existing independently of your conceptual framework, recognize its dream-like nature and in this way you can begin to become lucid during the waking state.
The general basic stand of buddhism is that it is inappropriate holding a view that goes against direct experience or to reject something because one has not yet found a compelling empirical evidence for it. Maybe such is temporary inaccessible because appropriate instruments for detecting it have not yet been developed. An open mind is crucial to both buddhist and scientific inquiry and more than that it is vital to examining carefully issues that deeply challenge our most deep-rooted assumptions.
March 25, 2024
Excellent, generous guide to mediation that I think would be helpful for someone in any school of Buddhism. It’s my second read in ten years and find it just as helpful. Techniques, signs of stabilization and warnings of how you can get off track are all there. To me, it’s an irreplaceable reference and I’m looking forward to finally delving into his subsequent works. It would be good for a beginner who is interested in the lifelong progression of meditation and I would argue, great for long time practitioners to perhaps understand where they are and the path a little better. Can’t wait to read his next books finally.
July 13, 2019
This is an excellent and practical overview of the 10 stages. I highly recommend this book to people who have read Culadasa's Mind Illuminated, as this is a more realistic and less pompous overview of the same thing. Wallace is, as always, precise, eloquent, systematic and speaks from his abundant experience.
August 4, 2011
Great book!!! It teaches meditation skills and how to concentrate. I am a Christian...so some of the Buddhist stuff I needed to let slip by, but if you go through the first couple of levels you will be amazed!
December 17, 2015
Понятная и прозрачная методичка (sic) по шаматхе и випашьяне, годится даже для людей, которые впервые слышат о дыхательных практиках. Писано сильно практикующим человеком с двумя высшими (западными) образованиями и многолетним опытом протяженных ретритов по шаматхе.
March 23, 2016
Libro interesante para entender el shamata desde el punto de vista del budismo tibetano. Hay cosas que resultarían sorprendentes incluso en una película de ciencia ficción pero eso espolea la imaginación, que nunca es malo!!
September 3, 2012
I really enjoyed ths, but given my own progress, it was quickly beyond me in its instructions
December 14, 2023
2023
When the student is ready the teacher will appear, and say wtf you said brb 3 years ago.
Notes
Beginning Stages: Minding the breath
1. Directed attention
Posture of vigilance: sternum raised, sensation of respiration that goes straight into belly on inhale. Pot-breathing - fill pot from the belly bottom up. Ease. Still. Vigilant.
Buddha: breathe in experience the body. Breathe out experience the body. Breathe in soothe the domain of body. Breathe out soothe the composite of the body.
Purify stream by stopping flow of contaminants - recursive disruptive thought/emotion that returns respiration to natural flow.
Conative (faculty of desire) deficit (apathy), hyperactivity (fantasy obscuring reality) and dysfunction (craving)
Loving kindness: what do I want to receive from the world? What person do I want to become? What do I want to offer to the world?
2. Continuous attention
Count breaths, arouse attention (vs laxity) on in-breathe and relax attention (vs excitation) with out.
Difference between tactile sensation of breath (as appear to ‘bare attention) vs mental imagery of what your body looks like.
Buddhadasa anapanasati mindfulness with breathing - attend to field of tactile sensations, and attend with breathing.
Compassion: Meditation as bhavana - cultivating the mind.
3. Resurgent attention
Mindfulness directing awareness supported by introspection for control of attention.
Relaxation through sensation of breath throughout the body. Stability of attention through sensation of breath in the belly. Vividness through tactile sensation on nostrils, like foliage over roots of relaxation and trunk of stability.
The raincloud that cleanses dust. Peaceful sublime mind not because of object of attention - breath - but from nature of mind brought to balance by neutral object like breath. Buddhagosa and Asanga’s temporary crutches of patterned breath counting (1-4, 1-5, 1-6; 10-1, 1-10; 2,4,6,8 etc).
Biofeedback - subtler breath needs more vivid attention. Heavy limbs, tingling, vibration, heat, telescopic vision, detached body,
Two sticks rubbed for fire cannot be rubbed now and then and resumed later.
6 prerequisites for training: Supportive environment; Few desires and contentment (elephant can relax and be still in a pond while the cat must frantically swim or sink - without equilibrium we sink to laxity or swim to restlessness); Few activities; Ethical discipline (examine behavior to note consequences of actions on harmony with others, harmony with natural environment, psychophysical harmony); Dispense with compulsive thoughts.
Empathetic Joy: Summon a person exuding good chear, who enjoyed great fortune, who inspires you with virtue - generosity, kindness, compassion. Same for your life - inspiring periods, virtuous moments
4. Close attention:
Attentional stability has a gravity, so gusts of involuntary thought (coarse excitation), sensory distractions cannot buffet it. Mindfulness achieved - basis for single-pointed (focused attention) samadhi. Asanga - nonforgetfulness of the mind, ie nondistraction. Vasubandhu - not losing object of mind. Vipassana’s modern mindfulness as ‘bare attention (nondiscriminating) vs Indo-Tibetan non-distraction closer to Buddha’s sati.
Buddhagosa - sati is not-floating, not-losing. Guarding the gate of the eye. Face to face with the object. Shamatha cultivates mindfulness, vipashyana applies it (4 presences of mindfulness - satipatthana)
Medium excitation (meditative object displaced to periphery by involuntary thought) like radio-station that can still be heard but muffled and interrupted by another station vs coarse excitation’s static or total-shift to other station.
Mindfulness of breathing with the acquired sign: A chemist separating out superimpositions from pure strain of tactile sensation - fades physical borders of the body. Breathing represents air-element of lightness, needs to be replaced by an acquired sign (uggaha-nimmita) for air - star, lotus, cobweb, cloud, wheel, moon, sun. If it disappears, return to breath.
Buddhagosa’s Path of Purification: physical/sensory impression can achieve stability, but signs/mental-objects give vividness.
Buddha’s Perfection Of Wisdom to Shariputra: Potter knows long revolution is long, short revolution is short, thus it is with the breath, through introspection (monitor and overcome imbalance of mind) to achieve nonobjectification
Vividness can achieve fraction-second of pure perception from senses before concepts take over. 600 pulses of cognition per second - continuum out of which all perception, conceptualization emerge. Non-ascertained awareness takes in but does not present. Attentional stability is how many bits of ascertained-awareness are on object of focus. Vividness can increase number of bits of ascertained-awareness vs non-ascertained: rem-sleep but not stable.
Interlude: Equanimity as antidote to attachment and aversion.
Intermediate Stages: Settling the mind
5. Tamed attention
Involuntary thoughts still arise, but a river funneled through a gorge rather than a cascading waterfall. Coarse laxity, tibetan word: sinking, into recesses of mind. Arouse attention like stringing lute to proper pitch with balance by introspection (monitor quality of attention - non-confusion vs the non-forgetting of mindfulness)
Introspection to investigate. Asanga - mindfulness keeps attention from straying, introspection recognizes that it has strayed. Shamatha as training wild elephant - tether of mindfulness and goad of introspection. Prajnya (metacognition).
Mental imbalance like craving, anxiety, stress, frustration are altered states of consciousness - settling the mind in its natural state: bliss, luminosity, non conceptuality.
Practice: Vase breath (fill belly vase on inhale, but leave it soft/rounded on exhale, converge prana into central channel of abdomen to settle. Without distraction (a kestrel motionless facing the wind) or grasping (the sky, allowing all things to pass through). Object of mindfulness as space of the mind. Object of introspection as quality of attention focused on mind. Fall from pristine awareness (rigpa) to dualistic grasping. Motionless like a corpse. Quiet like a lute with strings cut. Unmodified mind like primordial space. Body speech and mind.
Limpid mind: pool of water that is transparent and brightly-lit.
In the seen there is only the seen. Body not as substance but as matrix of sensory phenomena. When the mind is free of grasping, it provides no target like the sky provides no target for the missile. The mind as a gracious host for unruly guests. Stability of attention not in relation to any object of focus: fusion of stillness and movement.
If mind seems empty, arouse vividness to uncover subtler mental events, or space of mind.
Interlude: Tonglen (giving and taking): visualize pristine awareness as glowing orb in center of chest (healing power of awareness), and difficulties/sufferings as dark cloud obstructing your true nature/quest. Inhale - Draw darkness into heart to be extinguished. Visualize blessings/transformations - light from heart suffuses body on each out-breath. Do this for person you like, neutral, hate.
6. Pacified attention
Medium laxity (remain on object of attention but with low vividness) or subtle excitation (faintly hear different station/static) - involuntary thoughts like river slowly through a valley, or butterflies (less weighty). General relativity: objects warp size of mind, with no objects mind is infinite space. Dread/fear of vacuum as you lose identity (false sense of independent/controlling ego) - discerning intelligence without emotional charge.
Practice - Naturalist of the mind: What is the mind. Where does this thought arise, where does it go, what comes in its place once it is gone. Observe with bare attention. Soon will not need to generate this first thought to locate attention. Increasing quantity and range of phenomena: discrete thoughts/images, nebulous emotions/moods,
Newton’s Tonglen - take demons and confine them to subjective mind (leave reality for science). Freud take demons out of subjective mind. Buddhist demon as externalized projection of afflictive tendency: hatred, greed, confusion, pride, jealousy.
Demons released by progress: Fire (intuition, enthusiasm, energy, inspiration) - agitation, instability, restlessness, intolerance, garrulous. Earth (stable, grounded, confident) - dullness, inertia, depression, uninspired. Water (fluid, ease, content, joyous) - clarity, unproductive, sensitive, drifting/weak. Air (transformative, curious, flexible, intellectual)- Harsh sensations, unstable, unaccepting, unfocused, anxious. Space (accomodative, balanced, tolerant) - vacuity, unconnected, superficial.
Interlude: Lucid dreaming daytime - Attend to representational nature of how we perceive reality. Heisenberg - what we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Lebenswelt of experience. Lucid dreaming 1. State checks (turn away to check for independent existence of object. Critical reflective attitude) 2. Check for dreamsigns (individual objects/scenes/people. Strong signs that defy reality. Weak signs that are improbable but possible) 3. Anticipating lucid dreaming.
7. Fully pacified attention
‘Gom’ or familiarity with the state of balancing and refining attention. Don’t even need to release involuntary thoughts, can let them be in space of the mind.
Practice - settling the mind in its natural state: observing the movement of the mind. Meditation on the relative nature of the mind: without suppressing thoughts, instead use them to find their direction of motion, their source, their destination - like a raven that flies from a ship, circles ever-widening circles and returns again to the start.
Mahayana - Temporary alleviation of hindrances (realization of relative nature of consciousness): meditation on conventional nature of mind. Theravada - Bhavanga (ground of becoming) relative vacuum state of consciousness, void of kinetic energy of thought, imagery and sense perceptions. In Dzogchen - alayavijnana, substrate consciousness (but not permanent or independent). As all stars are reflected in clear water, all phenomena appear in this empty, clear substrate consciousness. Dzogchen distinction between alayavijnana and alaya (the substrate itself, vacuum of the mind)
3 attributes of this natural state: bliss luminosity non-conceptuality become the antidote to the 3 defilements: ie see through craving to the bliss-an-sich (anticipatory reward as motivation), through anger to the luminosity-an-sich (energy, activity), through delusion to the non-conceptuality (Aufhebung?.. Still too material..)
Night-time Lucid Dreaming. Stephen LaBerge’s dreaming as perception without constraint of external sensory input, or perception as special case of dreaming constrained by external sensory input. Lucid D. then as answer to Wittgenstein private language, and language as special case of lucid-D where all private languages of each person dreaming can find some solid common ground. MILD mnemonic induction of lucid dream - resolve to wake and recall dream, wake and identify dream elements and resolve to return to the dream, return to sleep imagining return to the dream. DILD dream-initiated LD: become lucid inside dream by identifying dream-sign, or by nightmare-catalysis. WILD wake-initiated: briefly awaken and return fully lucid. Fix laxity (forget dream) or stability (wake up)
Advanced stages: Illuminating Awareness.
8. Single-pointed attention
Padmasambhava’s shamatha without a sign (no object, not breath nor space-of-mind, nothing) but attention itself.
Practice: mind as muscle (isometric) - concentrate and relax mind at will, noticing what is it that is concentrating.
Contrast with substrate consc: pristine-consciousness (rigpa / vidya) or primordial consciousness (jnana) indivisible from absolute state of all phenomena (dharmadhatu). Relative vacuum (alayavijnana) through shamatha, absolute vacuum through vipashyana - realization of unity of dharmadhatu - rigpa: the great perfection. Buddha - all phenomena are preceded by the mind. When the mind is comprehended, all phenomena are comprehended. When the mind is controlled, all phenomena are controlled.
Dream Yoga daytime: Madhyamaka’s Einsteinian relativity - all understanding of reality in relation to specific cognitive frames of reference. Buddha - in the seen there is only the seen, in the heard only the heard, in the sensed only the sensed, in the mentally perceived only the mentally perceived.
9. Attentional balance
Mind as mount meru
Practice: Padmasambhava - See the disappearance, like clouds from the sky, of thoughts relating to past, present, future; their flavor as wholesome, unwholesome, neutral; their causes, assembly and dispersal. Gain joy, luminosity and non-conceptuality.
Dzogchen and Mahamudra (Nyingma, Kagyu) see rigpa as present but obscured, to be uncovered (buddha-nature). Geluk and Sakya see it as potential, but must be cultivated. First Panchen Lama’s acclaimed ‘fusion of stillness and dispersion’ when vivid vacuity with no distinction between clouded-thought-state and clear-state. Shamatha as contemplative-tech (build telescope) vs Vipashyana as contemplative-science (use telescope to to find stuff)
Dream Yoga night-time: Recognize dream, maintain stability and vividness, but then be able to transform contents. 3rd stage, catalyzes nightmares, surrender rather than attempt to transform. Finally, let dream disappear and rest in a state of lucid dreamless sleep. 1. Falling asleep, 2. Dreaming 3.Waking is, for Tibetan buddhist 1. Dying 2. Bardo 3. Rebirth. Padmasambhava - 1. Sleeping-lion position 2. Bring forth yearning to enter dream-state 3. Fall asleep with no other thought. 4. Wake up and notice you cannot recall dream, and thus must not have any of daytime appearance appear in the dream tonight 5. Rinse and repeat 6. Enter dream-state 7. Recognize potential to transform: practice 8. Go to bank of great river, ‘since I am mental-body of dream, there is nothing for river to carry’, jump. 9. Be carried away by bliss and emptiness 10. Fire, precipices, beasts 11. See through fear: samadhi. 12. Orb of white light at the heart
10. Shamatha
Padmasambhava: oil-lamp unaffected by air - unwavering, vivid, single-pointed. Theravada’s anapanasati - go from with-sign (tactile senstaions of breath - parikamma nimmita) to acquired sign (uggaha nimmita) to counterpart-sign (patibhaga nimmita) that is whole quality of air element.
Buddha - shamatha as access to the first meditative stabilization (dhyana), immediate catalyst for samadhi that counters 5 avarana (obstacles) or nivarana (hindrances) - craving by single-pointed attention, malice by well-being, drowsiness by coarse examination, excitation by bliss, uncertainty by precise investigation
Practice: mmb jmb
Threefold training ethical discipline (right speech, action, livelihood - cultivate focused attention to balance the mind; concentration or shamatha (right effort, mindfulness, concentration to exert, balance the mind); wisdom or vipashyana. Tsongkhapa - vivid perception (vipashyana) depends on how bright the oil lamp is (shamatha).
5 mundane ESPs: clairvoyance (remote viewing), clairaudience, telepathic perception, mental control of elements, recollection of past lives.
2020
Why breath: It also has fewest variables so it gets really predictable really fast, then you can’t rely on the mind’s interest in finding patterns to stay attentive to breath, it is the same thing over again. This is when the mind has to invent concepts in order to make it interesting. For instance, I start noticing patterns in when thoughts begin to interrupt me, and patterns in the specific sort of thoughts that interrupt. The minute that happens I’m already delving farther into the past instead of refocusing on the present breath. Analysis rather than synthesis.
Difficult part of meditation is to create the substrate of space in the mind, rather than starting with the 1000 objects that each focus attention. Start with the substrate of empty space before populating it with objects.
Once through first 5 stages of being able to focus attention on an object like the breath, try focusing on the mind itself, for instance through asking the question ‘what is the mind’ and observing the results of the machinery of the mind churn through this question like Multivac on entropy.
Different people have different tendencies of attention, either excitation or laxity, and therefore different ways to fail at meditation. What is mine? Connect with the elements: Earthy realism, Fiery passion, Airy imagination, Watery emotion, Spacey curiosity.
Meditation of Monads: Think of someone, now invert perspective such that you interpret their suffering and quest for happiness, with you merely as something that happens to them. For instance, meeting someone is like two lines on a graph intersecting, can you reconstruct the line from this intersection point, and even extrapolate onwards as it diverges from yours? The degree of resolution of this perspective goes from projection (people want what I want, or want what I believe they want), to basic (all humans have certain universal drives and tendencies) to high (I really see this person’s individual differences in behavior, personality) to excellent (I really see this person’s individuality the way they see themselves). I have here reached the Monad. Do this for all people, and I have reached the idea of God.
Lucid Dreaming: Look away from text, look again, it should still be there. Remember to do it in waking hours, primes the mind to do it at night. If low stability of attention, will wake up soon as I realize I am dreaming. If low vividness, will forget as soon as I wake up. The dream state is inextricably linked with waking state meditative practice.
Neural correlate of meditative states is like the frequencies of vibrations from a symphony orchestra, losing sight of the musicians and conductor’s role in it. Taking that analogy further, theta meditation/binaurals are sympathetic inducements, extraneous to the body, like drugs, that can help you experience the end-state if you do so actively, but when done passively it becomes merely junk food for the soul.
Non-duality, a Kantian idea that removes subject-object duality and puts reality/consciousness only in the relationship between the two, and no independent existence outside one another. Also the Jungian idea of enantiodromia and the godhead realizing itself by first splitting. Relativity applied to mind.
When the student is ready the teacher will appear, and say wtf you said brb 3 years ago.
Notes
Beginning Stages: Minding the breath
1. Directed attention
Posture of vigilance: sternum raised, sensation of respiration that goes straight into belly on inhale. Pot-breathing - fill pot from the belly bottom up. Ease. Still. Vigilant.
Buddha: breathe in experience the body. Breathe out experience the body. Breathe in soothe the domain of body. Breathe out soothe the composite of the body.
Purify stream by stopping flow of contaminants - recursive disruptive thought/emotion that returns respiration to natural flow.
Conative (faculty of desire) deficit (apathy), hyperactivity (fantasy obscuring reality) and dysfunction (craving)
Loving kindness: what do I want to receive from the world? What person do I want to become? What do I want to offer to the world?
2. Continuous attention
Count breaths, arouse attention (vs laxity) on in-breathe and relax attention (vs excitation) with out.
Difference between tactile sensation of breath (as appear to ‘bare attention) vs mental imagery of what your body looks like.
Buddhadasa anapanasati mindfulness with breathing - attend to field of tactile sensations, and attend with breathing.
Compassion: Meditation as bhavana - cultivating the mind.
3. Resurgent attention
Mindfulness directing awareness supported by introspection for control of attention.
Relaxation through sensation of breath throughout the body. Stability of attention through sensation of breath in the belly. Vividness through tactile sensation on nostrils, like foliage over roots of relaxation and trunk of stability.
The raincloud that cleanses dust. Peaceful sublime mind not because of object of attention - breath - but from nature of mind brought to balance by neutral object like breath. Buddhagosa and Asanga’s temporary crutches of patterned breath counting (1-4, 1-5, 1-6; 10-1, 1-10; 2,4,6,8 etc).
Biofeedback - subtler breath needs more vivid attention. Heavy limbs, tingling, vibration, heat, telescopic vision, detached body,
Two sticks rubbed for fire cannot be rubbed now and then and resumed later.
6 prerequisites for training: Supportive environment; Few desires and contentment (elephant can relax and be still in a pond while the cat must frantically swim or sink - without equilibrium we sink to laxity or swim to restlessness); Few activities; Ethical discipline (examine behavior to note consequences of actions on harmony with others, harmony with natural environment, psychophysical harmony); Dispense with compulsive thoughts.
Empathetic Joy: Summon a person exuding good chear, who enjoyed great fortune, who inspires you with virtue - generosity, kindness, compassion. Same for your life - inspiring periods, virtuous moments
4. Close attention:
Attentional stability has a gravity, so gusts of involuntary thought (coarse excitation), sensory distractions cannot buffet it. Mindfulness achieved - basis for single-pointed (focused attention) samadhi. Asanga - nonforgetfulness of the mind, ie nondistraction. Vasubandhu - not losing object of mind. Vipassana’s modern mindfulness as ‘bare attention (nondiscriminating) vs Indo-Tibetan non-distraction closer to Buddha’s sati.
Buddhagosa - sati is not-floating, not-losing. Guarding the gate of the eye. Face to face with the object. Shamatha cultivates mindfulness, vipashyana applies it (4 presences of mindfulness - satipatthana)
Medium excitation (meditative object displaced to periphery by involuntary thought) like radio-station that can still be heard but muffled and interrupted by another station vs coarse excitation’s static or total-shift to other station.
Mindfulness of breathing with the acquired sign: A chemist separating out superimpositions from pure strain of tactile sensation - fades physical borders of the body. Breathing represents air-element of lightness, needs to be replaced by an acquired sign (uggaha-nimmita) for air - star, lotus, cobweb, cloud, wheel, moon, sun. If it disappears, return to breath.
Buddhagosa’s Path of Purification: physical/sensory impression can achieve stability, but signs/mental-objects give vividness.
Buddha’s Perfection Of Wisdom to Shariputra: Potter knows long revolution is long, short revolution is short, thus it is with the breath, through introspection (monitor and overcome imbalance of mind) to achieve nonobjectification
Vividness can achieve fraction-second of pure perception from senses before concepts take over. 600 pulses of cognition per second - continuum out of which all perception, conceptualization emerge. Non-ascertained awareness takes in but does not present. Attentional stability is how many bits of ascertained-awareness are on object of focus. Vividness can increase number of bits of ascertained-awareness vs non-ascertained: rem-sleep but not stable.
Interlude: Equanimity as antidote to attachment and aversion.
Intermediate Stages: Settling the mind
5. Tamed attention
Involuntary thoughts still arise, but a river funneled through a gorge rather than a cascading waterfall. Coarse laxity, tibetan word: sinking, into recesses of mind. Arouse attention like stringing lute to proper pitch with balance by introspection (monitor quality of attention - non-confusion vs the non-forgetting of mindfulness)
Introspection to investigate. Asanga - mindfulness keeps attention from straying, introspection recognizes that it has strayed. Shamatha as training wild elephant - tether of mindfulness and goad of introspection. Prajnya (metacognition).
Mental imbalance like craving, anxiety, stress, frustration are altered states of consciousness - settling the mind in its natural state: bliss, luminosity, non conceptuality.
Practice: Vase breath (fill belly vase on inhale, but leave it soft/rounded on exhale, converge prana into central channel of abdomen to settle. Without distraction (a kestrel motionless facing the wind) or grasping (the sky, allowing all things to pass through). Object of mindfulness as space of the mind. Object of introspection as quality of attention focused on mind. Fall from pristine awareness (rigpa) to dualistic grasping. Motionless like a corpse. Quiet like a lute with strings cut. Unmodified mind like primordial space. Body speech and mind.
Limpid mind: pool of water that is transparent and brightly-lit.
In the seen there is only the seen. Body not as substance but as matrix of sensory phenomena. When the mind is free of grasping, it provides no target like the sky provides no target for the missile. The mind as a gracious host for unruly guests. Stability of attention not in relation to any object of focus: fusion of stillness and movement.
If mind seems empty, arouse vividness to uncover subtler mental events, or space of mind.
Interlude: Tonglen (giving and taking): visualize pristine awareness as glowing orb in center of chest (healing power of awareness), and difficulties/sufferings as dark cloud obstructing your true nature/quest. Inhale - Draw darkness into heart to be extinguished. Visualize blessings/transformations - light from heart suffuses body on each out-breath. Do this for person you like, neutral, hate.
6. Pacified attention
Medium laxity (remain on object of attention but with low vividness) or subtle excitation (faintly hear different station/static) - involuntary thoughts like river slowly through a valley, or butterflies (less weighty). General relativity: objects warp size of mind, with no objects mind is infinite space. Dread/fear of vacuum as you lose identity (false sense of independent/controlling ego) - discerning intelligence without emotional charge.
Practice - Naturalist of the mind: What is the mind. Where does this thought arise, where does it go, what comes in its place once it is gone. Observe with bare attention. Soon will not need to generate this first thought to locate attention. Increasing quantity and range of phenomena: discrete thoughts/images, nebulous emotions/moods,
Newton’s Tonglen - take demons and confine them to subjective mind (leave reality for science). Freud take demons out of subjective mind. Buddhist demon as externalized projection of afflictive tendency: hatred, greed, confusion, pride, jealousy.
Demons released by progress: Fire (intuition, enthusiasm, energy, inspiration) - agitation, instability, restlessness, intolerance, garrulous. Earth (stable, grounded, confident) - dullness, inertia, depression, uninspired. Water (fluid, ease, content, joyous) - clarity, unproductive, sensitive, drifting/weak. Air (transformative, curious, flexible, intellectual)- Harsh sensations, unstable, unaccepting, unfocused, anxious. Space (accomodative, balanced, tolerant) - vacuity, unconnected, superficial.
Interlude: Lucid dreaming daytime - Attend to representational nature of how we perceive reality. Heisenberg - what we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Lebenswelt of experience. Lucid dreaming 1. State checks (turn away to check for independent existence of object. Critical reflective attitude) 2. Check for dreamsigns (individual objects/scenes/people. Strong signs that defy reality. Weak signs that are improbable but possible) 3. Anticipating lucid dreaming.
7. Fully pacified attention
‘Gom’ or familiarity with the state of balancing and refining attention. Don’t even need to release involuntary thoughts, can let them be in space of the mind.
Practice - settling the mind in its natural state: observing the movement of the mind. Meditation on the relative nature of the mind: without suppressing thoughts, instead use them to find their direction of motion, their source, their destination - like a raven that flies from a ship, circles ever-widening circles and returns again to the start.
Mahayana - Temporary alleviation of hindrances (realization of relative nature of consciousness): meditation on conventional nature of mind. Theravada - Bhavanga (ground of becoming) relative vacuum state of consciousness, void of kinetic energy of thought, imagery and sense perceptions. In Dzogchen - alayavijnana, substrate consciousness (but not permanent or independent). As all stars are reflected in clear water, all phenomena appear in this empty, clear substrate consciousness. Dzogchen distinction between alayavijnana and alaya (the substrate itself, vacuum of the mind)
3 attributes of this natural state: bliss luminosity non-conceptuality become the antidote to the 3 defilements: ie see through craving to the bliss-an-sich (anticipatory reward as motivation), through anger to the luminosity-an-sich (energy, activity), through delusion to the non-conceptuality (Aufhebung?.. Still too material..)
Night-time Lucid Dreaming. Stephen LaBerge’s dreaming as perception without constraint of external sensory input, or perception as special case of dreaming constrained by external sensory input. Lucid D. then as answer to Wittgenstein private language, and language as special case of lucid-D where all private languages of each person dreaming can find some solid common ground. MILD mnemonic induction of lucid dream - resolve to wake and recall dream, wake and identify dream elements and resolve to return to the dream, return to sleep imagining return to the dream. DILD dream-initiated LD: become lucid inside dream by identifying dream-sign, or by nightmare-catalysis. WILD wake-initiated: briefly awaken and return fully lucid. Fix laxity (forget dream) or stability (wake up)
Advanced stages: Illuminating Awareness.
8. Single-pointed attention
Padmasambhava’s shamatha without a sign (no object, not breath nor space-of-mind, nothing) but attention itself.
Practice: mind as muscle (isometric) - concentrate and relax mind at will, noticing what is it that is concentrating.
Contrast with substrate consc: pristine-consciousness (rigpa / vidya) or primordial consciousness (jnana) indivisible from absolute state of all phenomena (dharmadhatu). Relative vacuum (alayavijnana) through shamatha, absolute vacuum through vipashyana - realization of unity of dharmadhatu - rigpa: the great perfection. Buddha - all phenomena are preceded by the mind. When the mind is comprehended, all phenomena are comprehended. When the mind is controlled, all phenomena are controlled.
Dream Yoga daytime: Madhyamaka’s Einsteinian relativity - all understanding of reality in relation to specific cognitive frames of reference. Buddha - in the seen there is only the seen, in the heard only the heard, in the sensed only the sensed, in the mentally perceived only the mentally perceived.
9. Attentional balance
Mind as mount meru
Practice: Padmasambhava - See the disappearance, like clouds from the sky, of thoughts relating to past, present, future; their flavor as wholesome, unwholesome, neutral; their causes, assembly and dispersal. Gain joy, luminosity and non-conceptuality.
Dzogchen and Mahamudra (Nyingma, Kagyu) see rigpa as present but obscured, to be uncovered (buddha-nature). Geluk and Sakya see it as potential, but must be cultivated. First Panchen Lama’s acclaimed ‘fusion of stillness and dispersion’ when vivid vacuity with no distinction between clouded-thought-state and clear-state. Shamatha as contemplative-tech (build telescope) vs Vipashyana as contemplative-science (use telescope to to find stuff)
Dream Yoga night-time: Recognize dream, maintain stability and vividness, but then be able to transform contents. 3rd stage, catalyzes nightmares, surrender rather than attempt to transform. Finally, let dream disappear and rest in a state of lucid dreamless sleep. 1. Falling asleep, 2. Dreaming 3.Waking is, for Tibetan buddhist 1. Dying 2. Bardo 3. Rebirth. Padmasambhava - 1. Sleeping-lion position 2. Bring forth yearning to enter dream-state 3. Fall asleep with no other thought. 4. Wake up and notice you cannot recall dream, and thus must not have any of daytime appearance appear in the dream tonight 5. Rinse and repeat 6. Enter dream-state 7. Recognize potential to transform: practice 8. Go to bank of great river, ‘since I am mental-body of dream, there is nothing for river to carry’, jump. 9. Be carried away by bliss and emptiness 10. Fire, precipices, beasts 11. See through fear: samadhi. 12. Orb of white light at the heart
10. Shamatha
Padmasambhava: oil-lamp unaffected by air - unwavering, vivid, single-pointed. Theravada’s anapanasati - go from with-sign (tactile senstaions of breath - parikamma nimmita) to acquired sign (uggaha nimmita) to counterpart-sign (patibhaga nimmita) that is whole quality of air element.
Buddha - shamatha as access to the first meditative stabilization (dhyana), immediate catalyst for samadhi that counters 5 avarana (obstacles) or nivarana (hindrances) - craving by single-pointed attention, malice by well-being, drowsiness by coarse examination, excitation by bliss, uncertainty by precise investigation
Practice: mmb jmb
Threefold training ethical discipline (right speech, action, livelihood - cultivate focused attention to balance the mind; concentration or shamatha (right effort, mindfulness, concentration to exert, balance the mind); wisdom or vipashyana. Tsongkhapa - vivid perception (vipashyana) depends on how bright the oil lamp is (shamatha).
5 mundane ESPs: clairvoyance (remote viewing), clairaudience, telepathic perception, mental control of elements, recollection of past lives.
2020
Why breath: It also has fewest variables so it gets really predictable really fast, then you can’t rely on the mind’s interest in finding patterns to stay attentive to breath, it is the same thing over again. This is when the mind has to invent concepts in order to make it interesting. For instance, I start noticing patterns in when thoughts begin to interrupt me, and patterns in the specific sort of thoughts that interrupt. The minute that happens I’m already delving farther into the past instead of refocusing on the present breath. Analysis rather than synthesis.
Difficult part of meditation is to create the substrate of space in the mind, rather than starting with the 1000 objects that each focus attention. Start with the substrate of empty space before populating it with objects.
Once through first 5 stages of being able to focus attention on an object like the breath, try focusing on the mind itself, for instance through asking the question ‘what is the mind’ and observing the results of the machinery of the mind churn through this question like Multivac on entropy.
Different people have different tendencies of attention, either excitation or laxity, and therefore different ways to fail at meditation. What is mine? Connect with the elements: Earthy realism, Fiery passion, Airy imagination, Watery emotion, Spacey curiosity.
Meditation of Monads: Think of someone, now invert perspective such that you interpret their suffering and quest for happiness, with you merely as something that happens to them. For instance, meeting someone is like two lines on a graph intersecting, can you reconstruct the line from this intersection point, and even extrapolate onwards as it diverges from yours? The degree of resolution of this perspective goes from projection (people want what I want, or want what I believe they want), to basic (all humans have certain universal drives and tendencies) to high (I really see this person’s individual differences in behavior, personality) to excellent (I really see this person’s individuality the way they see themselves). I have here reached the Monad. Do this for all people, and I have reached the idea of God.
Lucid Dreaming: Look away from text, look again, it should still be there. Remember to do it in waking hours, primes the mind to do it at night. If low stability of attention, will wake up soon as I realize I am dreaming. If low vividness, will forget as soon as I wake up. The dream state is inextricably linked with waking state meditative practice.
Neural correlate of meditative states is like the frequencies of vibrations from a symphony orchestra, losing sight of the musicians and conductor’s role in it. Taking that analogy further, theta meditation/binaurals are sympathetic inducements, extraneous to the body, like drugs, that can help you experience the end-state if you do so actively, but when done passively it becomes merely junk food for the soul.
Non-duality, a Kantian idea that removes subject-object duality and puts reality/consciousness only in the relationship between the two, and no independent existence outside one another. Also the Jungian idea of enantiodromia and the godhead realizing itself by first splitting. Relativity applied to mind.
September 12, 2020
This book is essentially an updated meditation manual with commentary interspersed between each stage of the practice. Wallace manages to bring an ancient tradition of cultivating concentration to bear on our current cultural crises of attention. He points out that attention is a skill, not a fixed attribute, which has tremendous potential to change one's life.
I've experienced the lack of attention skills in others pretty clearly, especially nowadays with phone technology sweeping over the world. I've noticed it in myself as well though in the past I would have prided myself on having pretty good attention skills. So my own experience has shown me how attention can grow and shrink as we go through life. No matter what level one is at, it's clear that having the ability to direct one's mind at any point has practical applications internally and externally.
Why not just practice something that requires attention to get better at like playing an instrument or something? People enjoy intense levels of concentration when they are engaged in their craft but once they are finished, it's back to the standard monkey mind, bouncing back and forth between different thoughts and associations. What if we could be awake to the world in every moment? How much fuller could we live? My thoughts as a parkour practitioner make me think of the moments during a jump which requires a sustained bout of focus or even balancing on a rail. I've noticed that I become fastidiously aware of every step I take on the rail and monitor my balance quite precisely. When I jump off of the rail, however, I go back to a dullness of mind with regards to that level of focus. Another extreme example I can think of is wing suit flying. Those people must be so connected to the present moment because every little movement is important and any mistake could spell death for them. These high levels of focus are apparently possible to induce by training the attention on its own. I find myself wanting this both for the reason of being more awake in life, experiencing it more fully, but also as a preliminary to further, deeper investigation of my own mind.
Anyways, the layout of the book describes each stage of the meditation practice in fine detail. For each stage of concentration, there is a supplementary meditation practice designed to nurture positive states of mind like compassion, lovingkindness, vicarious joy, etc. Peppered in the later chapters are practices involving lucid dreaming. Apparently it is possible to be so awake in life that one can continue on even into the dream world. I love this analogy of the waking world the the dream world. Becoming lucid in a dream is akin to becoming lucid in the real world to "waking up" in a sense rather than slogging through one's life as if in a dream.
As each stage progresses we extend the amount of time we can attend to our meditation object and start to refine it more and more. The process is supposed to take months, even years for some people though. It all depends on how much time a person can spend refining the attention. To actually get to the highest stage of meditation requires months of going on retreat along with consistent practice. I think this is the part of the book that will lose a lot of readers because it puts a much larger demand on their time as most people who get into meditation are just trying to find a way to relax. It all begins with simply developing momentary attention, and culminates in the ability to maintain a more refined version of that attention for up to 4 hours at a time. It's fascinating that the actual purpose of meditation goes far beyond mere relaxation techniques. Relaxation is just the tip of the iceberg.
At the very least, refining one's attention has the effect of suppressing emotions, negative thought, etc. Though they may hang out beneath the surface, we can get the jump on our negative states as they arise, using the attention skill to let those fall away into the background. At some point along the path of concentration, one can diverge, moving toward vipassana (aka insight) meditation, rooting out out our mental afflictions, instead of just suppressing them. Seems like goal worth striving toward.
Toward the end of the book, I became somewhat dismayed because Wallace starts talking about the "mind powers." literally 99% of the book is practical advice and insightful commentary. So it is striking to see a discussion of telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation tacked on, it stands in stark contrast to everything else. As with all of the other wackier claims, unsubstantiated by sufficient evidence, I will leave such possibilities to their own devices until they become more apparent otherwise.
Regardless of the bizarre ending, most of the manual stands alone a highly technical meditation manual. It's quite nice to be able look at each stage of the meditation and have a particular sign to look out for to know where I've gotten to.
I've experienced the lack of attention skills in others pretty clearly, especially nowadays with phone technology sweeping over the world. I've noticed it in myself as well though in the past I would have prided myself on having pretty good attention skills. So my own experience has shown me how attention can grow and shrink as we go through life. No matter what level one is at, it's clear that having the ability to direct one's mind at any point has practical applications internally and externally.
Why not just practice something that requires attention to get better at like playing an instrument or something? People enjoy intense levels of concentration when they are engaged in their craft but once they are finished, it's back to the standard monkey mind, bouncing back and forth between different thoughts and associations. What if we could be awake to the world in every moment? How much fuller could we live? My thoughts as a parkour practitioner make me think of the moments during a jump which requires a sustained bout of focus or even balancing on a rail. I've noticed that I become fastidiously aware of every step I take on the rail and monitor my balance quite precisely. When I jump off of the rail, however, I go back to a dullness of mind with regards to that level of focus. Another extreme example I can think of is wing suit flying. Those people must be so connected to the present moment because every little movement is important and any mistake could spell death for them. These high levels of focus are apparently possible to induce by training the attention on its own. I find myself wanting this both for the reason of being more awake in life, experiencing it more fully, but also as a preliminary to further, deeper investigation of my own mind.
Anyways, the layout of the book describes each stage of the meditation practice in fine detail. For each stage of concentration, there is a supplementary meditation practice designed to nurture positive states of mind like compassion, lovingkindness, vicarious joy, etc. Peppered in the later chapters are practices involving lucid dreaming. Apparently it is possible to be so awake in life that one can continue on even into the dream world. I love this analogy of the waking world the the dream world. Becoming lucid in a dream is akin to becoming lucid in the real world to "waking up" in a sense rather than slogging through one's life as if in a dream.
As each stage progresses we extend the amount of time we can attend to our meditation object and start to refine it more and more. The process is supposed to take months, even years for some people though. It all depends on how much time a person can spend refining the attention. To actually get to the highest stage of meditation requires months of going on retreat along with consistent practice. I think this is the part of the book that will lose a lot of readers because it puts a much larger demand on their time as most people who get into meditation are just trying to find a way to relax. It all begins with simply developing momentary attention, and culminates in the ability to maintain a more refined version of that attention for up to 4 hours at a time. It's fascinating that the actual purpose of meditation goes far beyond mere relaxation techniques. Relaxation is just the tip of the iceberg.
At the very least, refining one's attention has the effect of suppressing emotions, negative thought, etc. Though they may hang out beneath the surface, we can get the jump on our negative states as they arise, using the attention skill to let those fall away into the background. At some point along the path of concentration, one can diverge, moving toward vipassana (aka insight) meditation, rooting out out our mental afflictions, instead of just suppressing them. Seems like goal worth striving toward.
Toward the end of the book, I became somewhat dismayed because Wallace starts talking about the "mind powers." literally 99% of the book is practical advice and insightful commentary. So it is striking to see a discussion of telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation tacked on, it stands in stark contrast to everything else. As with all of the other wackier claims, unsubstantiated by sufficient evidence, I will leave such possibilities to their own devices until they become more apparent otherwise.
Regardless of the bizarre ending, most of the manual stands alone a highly technical meditation manual. It's quite nice to be able look at each stage of the meditation and have a particular sign to look out for to know where I've gotten to.
November 23, 2021
Fiecare tradiție contemplativă a avut manualele sale de ghidare, îndrumările prețioase pe care practicanții avansați le-au oferit generațiilor următoare. Alan Wallace ne-a făcut tuturor un mare serviciu, sintetizând secole de înțelepciune practică pe calea shamatha într-un format accesibil, ușor de folosit, un tratat care să ne călăuzească într-o profundă călătorie interioară. Alan este în mod unic înzestrat pentru această responsabilitate: are o istorie intelectuală și meditativă remarcabilă. Când drumurile ni s-au intersectat prima oară, era un călugăr al tradiției tibetane budiste, practicând sub directa îndrumare a lui Dalai Lama. Când ne-am întâlnit a doua oară, studia filozofia științei și fizica cuantică la Colegiul Amherst. Când și-a luat doctoratul în religii comparate la Universitatea Stanford, publicase deja un lung șir de cărți de studiu, de la cercetări în metafizica științei până la traduceri ale unor tratate tibetane filozofice complexe. Însă de-a lungul acestui pelerinaj intelectual, Alan s-a pregătit pentru ceea ce ar putea fi adevărata sa vocație: de practicant și învățător al meditației. De-a lungul anilor, s-a retras periodic vreme de câteva luni pentru a aprofunda meditația la poalele munților Himalaya sau în zona semi-deșertică Sierra din valea Owens, California. Încet-încet, Alan a început să împărtășească și altora din practica sa, organizând retrageri de meditație shamatha.
September 3, 2017
La meditazione budinista
Se c'è una cosa che proprio non sopporto del buddismo, è l'eccessiva complicazione delle cose. Il cammino verso lo śamatha progredisce attraverso innumerevoli stadi e sottostadi e migliaia sono i pericoli della pratica. Attraverso queste decine di classificazioni si giunge finalmente alla padronanza, che chiaramente promette presenza mentale, felicità, benessere mentale e fisico, superpoteri etc ... (ovviamente, questo a detta dei buddisti...). Il che ricorda le millantate supercapacità degli antichi maestri di kung fu, secondo le tradizioni orali. In particolare il buddismo tenta di spiegare questo mondo e il successivo (o l'intermedio), come tutte le altre religioni. Se sonno e veglia rappresentano il ciclo di morte e rinascita nel microcosmo della vita, nel macrocosmo di vita, morte e rinascita, il periodo che precede la reincarnazione è simile al sogno, in cui non si avverte il corpo materiale. La meditazione aiuta il praticante a prepararsi a questa condizione che verrà dopo la vita. La mia visione dell'universo è differente, e preferisco quella ordinata del taoismo. nel frattempo continuo a rimanere scettico sulla effettiva funzionalità della meditazione. In particolare, non è dato sapere quante ore di meditazion si deve praticare, prima di raggiungere la consapevolezza e l'interpretazione dei segnali è soggettiva, chiaramente.
Se c'è una cosa che proprio non sopporto del buddismo, è l'eccessiva complicazione delle cose. Il cammino verso lo śamatha progredisce attraverso innumerevoli stadi e sottostadi e migliaia sono i pericoli della pratica. Attraverso queste decine di classificazioni si giunge finalmente alla padronanza, che chiaramente promette presenza mentale, felicità, benessere mentale e fisico, superpoteri etc ... (ovviamente, questo a detta dei buddisti...). Il che ricorda le millantate supercapacità degli antichi maestri di kung fu, secondo le tradizioni orali. In particolare il buddismo tenta di spiegare questo mondo e il successivo (o l'intermedio), come tutte le altre religioni. Se sonno e veglia rappresentano il ciclo di morte e rinascita nel microcosmo della vita, nel macrocosmo di vita, morte e rinascita, il periodo che precede la reincarnazione è simile al sogno, in cui non si avverte il corpo materiale. La meditazione aiuta il praticante a prepararsi a questa condizione che verrà dopo la vita. La mia visione dell'universo è differente, e preferisco quella ordinata del taoismo. nel frattempo continuo a rimanere scettico sulla effettiva funzionalità della meditazione. In particolare, non è dato sapere quante ore di meditazion si deve praticare, prima di raggiungere la consapevolezza e l'interpretazione dei segnali è soggettiva, chiaramente.
July 29, 2018
I'd really want to give this book four stars as it was well written and insightful, explaining Buddhist principles and samatha-meditation practice in a clear and modern way. Also using lucid-dreaming as practice into the nature of the mind: that's a brilliant idea.
I guess I belong the people Alan might think have "a dogmatic faith in science", but I didn't really like the strawman arguments against scientific knowledge in the end of the book. I really appreciate buddhist "go and see yourself" mentality when it comes to the mind (incl. attention, awareness, consciousness and other phenomena, maybe even clearer insights into social realms and humanistic sciences) but I wouldn't put scientific method in the same category as meditation as a source of knowledge, especially about metaphysics. There obviously are plenty of meditation books that make metaphysical / spiritual claims that are much more far-out or salient topic in the book and luckily this one isn't in the same category. But still, I would have liked it more if he concentrated only on describing samatha and the meditative practice.
Either way, if you either skip the last part or don't mind the philosophical discussion on "belief in science" in the end, I'd say it's a four-star book on meditation and worth to read.
I guess I belong the people Alan might think have "a dogmatic faith in science", but I didn't really like the strawman arguments against scientific knowledge in the end of the book. I really appreciate buddhist "go and see yourself" mentality when it comes to the mind (incl. attention, awareness, consciousness and other phenomena, maybe even clearer insights into social realms and humanistic sciences) but I wouldn't put scientific method in the same category as meditation as a source of knowledge, especially about metaphysics. There obviously are plenty of meditation books that make metaphysical / spiritual claims that are much more far-out or salient topic in the book and luckily this one isn't in the same category. But still, I would have liked it more if he concentrated only on describing samatha and the meditative practice.
Either way, if you either skip the last part or don't mind the philosophical discussion on "belief in science" in the end, I'd say it's a four-star book on meditation and worth to read.
December 27, 2020
I found this book to be really helpful, but I'm also glad I read it having some meditation experience. I don't think it would be the most accessible book for someone who has never meditated, although the writing is pretty easy to read and first few chapters are more broadly helpful. With all of the intensity of 2020, I felt like I was sitting down to meditate, but not really present a lot of the time. This book has helped inspire me in my meditations and I've been a bit more focused and able to sit for longer (sometimes!). I've had a few teachers who are students of/influenced by Alan Wallace, which helped me understand his writings and in turn, his writings help reinforce and clarify aspects of meditating from those teachers. I'd definitely recommend this for anyone in a similar situation!
January 19, 2021
This was a wonderful introduction to Shamatha meditation. The book is dense with information and written in an academic style however it manages to remain (mostly) accessible to people like me without background knowledge in this field.
This book has really helped with my novice practicing of meditation and has fueld my desire to try and focus my attention and also broaden my knowledge of Buddhism and meditation in general.
I read this book right through to the end despite some of the latter chapters started going a little over my head. I particularly enjoyed those latter chapters regarding lucid dreaming as this is something I've been interested in for a number of years.
I feel like this is a book I may revisit in a couple of years once I've developed some of the skills outlined in the earlier chapters of this book. I have already recommended the book to a few friends.
This book has really helped with my novice practicing of meditation and has fueld my desire to try and focus my attention and also broaden my knowledge of Buddhism and meditation in general.
I read this book right through to the end despite some of the latter chapters started going a little over my head. I particularly enjoyed those latter chapters regarding lucid dreaming as this is something I've been interested in for a number of years.
I feel like this is a book I may revisit in a couple of years once I've developed some of the skills outlined in the earlier chapters of this book. I have already recommended the book to a few friends.
November 11, 2025
Whilst the content is engaging and some of the practices laid out are very useful for creating a balanced mind, it is severely lacking in some regards. The author chose to use the name "The Attention Revolution" and use their PhD credibility to sell the book, making it seem like it would explore the scientific basis of the benefits of the practices; however, it is simply a spiritual book with a lot of religious references and uses religion as an authority for the practices. However, there is plenty of scientific evidence of the benefits of meditation, and I think the book would be much improved by devoting at least a chapter to exploring the neuroscience behind meditation, since this is a very interesting field and would help convert the more scientifically minded to a willingness to practice meditation.
January 27, 2018
It's clear that B. Alan Wallace is a great master and has so much knowledge to share. This a good book for understanding what Samatha and Vipassana meditations really are. At first I thought it was a bit boring and simple but then it got pretty interesting once getting to Vipassana practices. There are so many books about meditation, this a a good one on how to do it in order to improve our attention and wake up. It's easier to understand if some buddhist teachings are already on hand but not terribly hard for newcomers. It's just that there are so many references to the ancient teachings on India, The Buddha, his disciples and many more great masters. I never really understood the real difference between both meditation types and how to get from one to another. Now it's all clear.
October 29, 2024
This book helped me better understand where I am on my meditation journey and showed me the next steps. I have found it truly helpful and perhaps should have given it five stars.
However, the language is turgid at times and requires a good degree of familiarity with some fairly advanced Buddhist concepts. I found parts of it pretty confusing.
I also think that despite its stated attempt to bridge east and west this is mostly an explanation of eastern ideas in western terms. An interesting question for me is whether western thinking can be used to achieve some of the benefits of shamatha and vipassana with less effort than traditional eastern approaches. Wallace assumes not without a through test of the assumption - imo.
However, the language is turgid at times and requires a good degree of familiarity with some fairly advanced Buddhist concepts. I found parts of it pretty confusing.
I also think that despite its stated attempt to bridge east and west this is mostly an explanation of eastern ideas in western terms. An interesting question for me is whether western thinking can be used to achieve some of the benefits of shamatha and vipassana with less effort than traditional eastern approaches. Wallace assumes not without a through test of the assumption - imo.
October 30, 2019
The title suggests this could be just another self help book. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The publisher probably came up with it, and not the author. If you have just a superficial interest in meditation, this may not be your cup of tea. But if you want to explore the depths, this is an exceptional guide. It clearly outlines the steps and techniques involved in achieving a fully focused mind that is completely at your command. The process described requires no beliefs and is fully verifiable. That makes it suitable -no, indispensable- for any serious practitioner of meditation, secular or religious.
December 11, 2025
The Attention Revolution is a clear, grounded guide to understanding what focused attention can actually feel like when it’s trained with patience. Wallace breaks down the stages of meditative concentration without making them mystical or inaccessible, which makes the book surprisingly practical.
What stood out most is how honestly he acknowledges the challenges of staying present, while still showing how small, consistent practice can create real shifts in clarity and calm. It’s a thoughtful read for anyone who wants a deeper look at the mechanics of attention rather than quick mindfulness tips.
What stood out most is how honestly he acknowledges the challenges of staying present, while still showing how small, consistent practice can create real shifts in clarity and calm. It’s a thoughtful read for anyone who wants a deeper look at the mechanics of attention rather than quick mindfulness tips.
February 3, 2023
4.5
Short and practical guide to meditation.
Superbly helpful to a beginner in attempting to understand the road ahead.
It should be noted that Wallace focuses primarily on the cultivation of Shamatha, which can be viewed as the technology of meditation.
According to Wallace, Shamatha should be unified with Vipashyana - insight meditation, or the science of meditation.
Likely a book I will come back to time and time again in my budding meditation practice.
(and already it has helped me greatly in starting a proper practice)
Short and practical guide to meditation.
Superbly helpful to a beginner in attempting to understand the road ahead.
It should be noted that Wallace focuses primarily on the cultivation of Shamatha, which can be viewed as the technology of meditation.
According to Wallace, Shamatha should be unified with Vipashyana - insight meditation, or the science of meditation.
Likely a book I will come back to time and time again in my budding meditation practice.
(and already it has helped me greatly in starting a proper practice)
March 17, 2020
The book was hard to read, maybe just because I've just finished a novel before that. My opinion is that learning meditation or Shamatha by reading books it is the same as learning to drive a car or swim by books. You just got to do it. Theory without practice just scratches the itch and nothing more. My concern is that this book will scare off folks from practice that is needed so badly in our society.
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