The purpose of lojong, a traditional Mahayana Buddhist practice of training the mind, is about transforming one's attitude and expanding one's sense of self to encompass the greater whole. In this modern presentation of lojong practice and Atisha's Seven-Point Mind Training, author, translator, and Buddhist practitioner B. Alan Wallace gives readers a framework from which they may cultivate the qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, and insight while diminishing harmful habits and ways of thinking. "All of us have attitudes," Wallace explains, and "attitudes need adjusting." The practice of lojong is therefore presented as a method to shift our attitude away from our problems, anxieties, hopes, and fears toward an expansive sense of joy and well-being that springs from the very essence of Mahayana--bodhichitta.

Art of Transforming the Mind: A Meditator's Guide to the Tibetan Practice of Lojong, Alan Wallace, Shambhala Publications, Paperback, 288 pages, $24.95

B. Alan Wallace trained for many years as a monk in Buddhist monasteries in India and Switzerland. He has taught Buddhist theory and practice in Europe and America since 1976 and has served as interpreter for numerous Tibetan scholars and contemplatives, including H.H. the Dalai Lama. After graduating summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he studied physics and the philosophy of science, he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Religious Studies at Stanford University. He has edited, translated, authored, and contributed to more than thirty books on Tibetan Buddhist medicine, language, and culture, and the interface between science and religion.

Preface	7
The First Point: The Preliminaries	13
The Second Point: Cultivating Ultimate and Relative Bodhichitta	65
The Third Point: Transforming Adversity into an Aid to Spiritual Awakening	191
The Fourth Point: A Synthesis of Practice for One Life	217
The Fifth Point: The Criterion of Proficiency in the Mind-Training	229
The Sixth Point: The Pledges of the Mind-Training	237
The Seventh Point: The Precepts of the Mind-Training	253
Conclusion	273
Meditation	275
The Aphorisms of the Seven-Point Mind-Training	279
Notes	282
Bibliography	285