In 1988, Gen Lamrimpa, a Tibetan monk, led a one year retreat in the Pacific Northwest, during which a group of Western meditators devoted themselves to the practice of meditative quiescence (shamatha). This book is a record of the oral teachings he gave to this group at the outset of the retreat. The teachings are brought to life by Gen Lamrimpa's warmth, humor, and extensive personal experience as a contemplative recluse. An invaluable practical guide for those seeking to develop greater attentional stability and clarity, this work will be of considerable interest to meditators, psychologists, and all others who are concerned with the potentials of the human mind.


How to Practice Shamatha Meditation: The Cultivation of Meditative Quiescence, Gen Lamrimpa, Snow Lion Publications, Paperback,
160 Pages, $15.95

Gen Lamrimpa was a Tibetan Buddhist scholar and contemplative who has devoted more than thirty-five years of his life to solitary retreat in the Himalayas, including twenty-one years outside Dharamsala, India, where he died in 2003.

B. Alan Wallace spent fourteen years as a Buddhist monk, ordained by H. H. the Dalai Lama. He then earned his undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, in physics and the philosophy of science at Amherst College, and his doctorate in religious studies from Stanford University. His Columbia University Press books are Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity; Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness; Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge; and Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground. A prolific writer and translator of numerous Tibetan Buddhist texts, he is the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies.