Mindfulness is a learned skill that offers profound benefits in all situations. The practical techniques described here can by used by anyone to refine the attention, improve relationships, and generate transformative insight into the nature of experience. The material is drawn from a retreat given by the author, addressing a broad audience of people from all walks of life.

Balancing the Mind, Alan Wallace, Snow Lion Publications, Paperback, 2011, $24.95

Born in Pasadena, California in 1950, Alan Wallace was raised and educated in the United States, Scotland, and Switzerland. In 1968, he enrolled in the University of California at San Diego, where for two years he prepared for a career in ecology, with a secondary interest in philosophy and religion. However, during his third year of undergraduate studies at the University of Gsttingen in West Germany, his interests shifted more towards philosophy and religion; and he began to study Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan language.

In 1971, he discontinued his formal Western education to go to Dharamsala, India, where he studied Tibetan Buddhism, medicine, and language for four years. During his first year in Dharamsala, he lived in the home of the Dr. Yeshi Dhonden, personal physician of H. H. the Dalai Lama. Throughout his stay in Dharamsala, he frequently served as interpreter for Dr. Dhonden, and under his guidance he completed a translation of a classic Tibetan medical text. In 1973, he began training in the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, in which all instruction, study, and debate were conducted in Tibetan.

In 1975, at the request of the Dalai Lama, he joined the eminent Tibetan Buddhist scholar Geshe Rabten, in Switzerland, first at the Tibet Institute in Rikon, and later at the Center for Higher Tibetan Studies in Mt. P?lerin. Over the next four years, he continued his own studies and monastic training, translated Tibetan texts, interpreted for Geshe Rabten and many other Tibetan Lamas, including the Dalai Lama, and taught Buddhist philosophy and meditation in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France, and England.

At the end of 1979, he left Switzerland to begin a four-year series of contemplative retreats, first in India, under the guidance of the Dalai Lama, and later in Sri Lanka and the United States.

In 1984, after a thirteen-year absence from Western academia, he enrolled at Amherst College to complete his undergraduate education. There he studied physics, Sanskrit, and the philosophical foundations of modern physics, and in 1987 he graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa. His honors thesis was subsequently published in two volumes: Choosing Reality: A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind (Snow Lion: 1996) and Transcendent Wisdom: A Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life (Snow Lion, 1988).

Following his sojourn at Amherst, he spent nine months in contemplative retreat in the high desert of California. Then in 1988, he joined the Tibetan contemplative Gen Lamrimpa to assist in leading a one-year group contemplative retreat near Castle Rock, Washington, during which ways were explored for refining and stabilizing the attention.

In the autumn of 1989, he entered the graduate program in religious studies at Stanford University, where he pursued research in the interface between Buddhism and Western science and philosophy. These studies are closely related to his role as an interpreter and organizer for the "Mind and Life" conferences with the Dalai Lama and Western scientists beginning in 1987 and continuing to the present. In 1992, sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute, which he helped to found, he traveled widely in Tibet, conducting a preliminary survey of living Buddhist contemplatives. In 1995, he completed his doctoral dissertation on attentional training in Tibetan Buddhism and its relation to modern psychological and philosophical theories of attention and consciousness. A modified version of his dissertation has been published under the title The Bridge of Quiescence: Experiencing Tibetan Buddhist Meditation (Open Court Press, 1998).

During the period 1992-1997, he served as the principal interpreter for the Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche, a senior Lama of the Nyingma Order of Tibetan Buddhism. During this time, he translated five classic Tibetan treatises on contemplative methods for exploring the nature of consciousness. From 1995-1997, he was a Visiting Scholar in the departments of religious studies and psychology at Stanford University. During this time, he and his wife, Dr. Vesna A. Wallace, produced a new translation from the Sanskrit and Tibetan of the classic text A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life (Snow Lion, 1997), and he also conducted research for his primary academic work thus far, The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Consciousness.

From 1997-2001, Alan Wallace taught in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he held classes on Tibetan Buddhist studies and the interface between science and religion. His most recent academic books are The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Consciousness (Oxford University Press, 2000) and Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground (Columbia University Press, 2003), and his latest popular book is Buddhism with an Attitude: The Tibetan Seven-Point Mind-Training (Snow Lion 2001). After leaving UCSB in June 2001, he spent six months in a solitary contemplative retreat in the high desert of California. He now lives in Santa Barbara, where he is creating an Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Consciousness, and he teaches Buddhist philosophy and meditation throughout Europe and North America.

	Contents: MINDING CLOSELY: The Four Applications of MINDFULNESS
	Preface	xiii
1.	INTRODUCTION	1
	Balancing Theory and Practice	1
	Matrix of Skillful Means	2
	Shamatha: Cultivating Meditative Quiescence and Samadhi	3
	Vipashyana: Achieving Insight through Mindfulness	4
	A Good Heart: Cultivating the Four Immeasurables	5
	Emptiness and Dependent Origination: Exploring the Ultimate Nature of Reality	6
	The Great Perfection: Accomplishing Buddha Nature	7
	Path of Insight	7
	Many Methods	7
	Real or Not	9
	Four Noble Truths	11
	Complementary Perspectives	15
	Seeing Out	16
	Seeing In	17
	Seeing Beyond	19
	Settling the Body, Speech, and Mind in Their Natural States	20
	Guided Meditation: Settling the Body in Its Natural State I	20
	On Familiarization	22
	Contemplative Science	23
	Direct Observation	23
	Instrument of Refinement	24
	Complementary Understanding	26
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness I	27
	On Seated Postures	29
2.	ENGAGING IN PRACTICE	31
	Contemplative Expedition	31
	Practical Matters	32
	Matters of Form	33
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness II	34
	On Supine Postures	35
3.	WHEEL OF DHARMA	37
	Truth of Suffering	37
	Blatant Suffering	38
	Suffering of Change	38
	Suffering of the Aggregates	40
	Benign Grasping	42
	Four Close Applications of Mindfulness	43
	Mindfulness of the Body	43
	Mindfulness of Feelings	44
	Mindfulness of Mental Events	46
	Mindfulness of Phenomena	46
	Casual Efficacy	49
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness III	54
	Mental Faculties	54
	Mindfulness	55
	Introspection	58
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness IV	60
	On Maintaining Sanity	61
	Contemplative Inquiry	63
	Stressing Relaxation	64
	Three Marks of Existence	65
	Direct Knowledge	68
	Highest Goal	70
	Unified Science	70
	Pursuit of Wisdom	77
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness V	80
	Cultivating Cognitive Balance	81
	Untangling Projection from Perception	83
	Science of Happiness	85
4.	PLATFORM OF SHAMATHA	89
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of the Breath I	90
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of the Breath II	92
	Dependent Methods	93
	Ethical Foundation	94
	Samadhyi Platform	95
	Vipashyana Method	97
	Mindfulness of the Breath	100
	Sweet Abode	101
	All-Purpose Vehicle	102
	Essential Instructions	104
	Achieving the First Dhyana	105
	Free of Obscurations	106
	Luminous Glow	109
5.	MINDFULNESS OF THE BODY	113
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of the Body I	114
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of the Body II	117
	On the Elements	118
	Internally, Externally, and Both	120
	As It Is	123
	Experiential Worlds	125
	Self No Self	128
	Guided Meditation: Falling Sleep I	131
6.	MINDFULNESS OF FEELINGS	133
	Heart's Cradle	133
	Guided Meditation: Loving Kindness I	134
	On Aspiration	137
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Feelings I	138
	On Close Scrutiny	140
	Investigating Feelings	141
	Prime Movers	141
	Three Poisons and Three Virtues	145
	Body and Mind	146
	Layers of Confusion	148
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Feelings II	150
	On Stillness	151
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Feelings II	153
	Real-Time Mindfulness	154
	Settling the Mind in Its Natural State	156
	Guided Meditation: Settling the Mind in Its Natural State I	157
	On the Space of the Mind	159
	Guided Meditation: Settling the Mind in Its Natural State II	161
	On Observing Feelings	162
	Ground States	163
	Habitual Ground States	164
	Natural Ground States	165
	Discovering the Substrate	166
	Relative Feeling	168
	Genuine Happiness	168
	Guided Meditation: Falling Asleep II	172
7.	MINDFULNESS OF THE MIND	175
	Natural Balance	175
	Guided Meditation: Balancing Earth and Wind I	176
	Relinquishing Control	179
	Ego Unemployment	181
	Bashful Maidens and Circling Ravens	184
	Guided Meditation: Settling the Mind in Its Natural State III	185
	On Creativity	186
	Mind Zone	188
	Question of Intent	188
	All in Mind	189
	Guided Meditation: Balancing Earth and Wind II	191
	Acting Intentionally	192
	Crux of Karma	193
	Substrate Consciousness	196
	Realms Apart	196
	Nature of Freedom	199
	Compassionate Choices	200
8.	MINDFULNESS OF PHENOMENA	205
	Space Between	205
	Guided Meditation: Balancing Earth and Sky I	206
	On the Ground	208
	Creating Reality	209
	Not in Your Head	211
	Absurd Reduction	215
	Stage of Experience	216
	Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of the Substrate I	219
	On Practice Space	220
	Heart-Mind	221
	Subtle Evidence	222
	Awareness of Awareness	223
	Guided Meditation: Awareness of Awareness I	224
	On Being Aware	225
	Sign of Mind	227
	Clearly Knowing	228
	Visualizing Mind	230
	Shining Brightly	231
	Zero Point	233
	All Configurations	234
	Guided Meditation: Awareness of Awareness II	239
	On Lucidity	240
	Passing Signs	242
	Shifting Gears	243
	Walking Mindfully	245
	All Phenomena Included	246
	Guided Meditation: Open Presence I	247
	On the Eyes	248
	Grist for the Mill	248
	Undirected Attention	250
	Present-Moment Awareness	251
	Fusing Stillness and Motion	251
	Guided Meditation: Open Presence II	252
	On Proper Preparation	253
	Open Mindfulness	255
	Wisdom and Skillful Means	256
	Strategic Categories	258
	Mental, Physical and Other	259
	Five Hindrances to Liberation	260
	Causal Interactions of the Five Aggregates	261
	Six Sense Spheres	262
	Seven Factors of Enlightenment	263
	Four Noble Truths	263
	Spirit of Awakening	264
	Guided Meditation: Open Presence III	266
	On Progress	267
	Pattern Recognition	268
	Guided Meditation: Open Presence IV	270
	On Heroic Endeavors	272
9.	MIDDLE WAY VIEW	275
	Objects and Appearances	275
	No Thing Itself	276
	Deconstructing Phenomena	278
	Measurement Matters	279
	Veil of Appearances	281
	Dependent Origination	282
	Guided Meditation: Open Presence V	286
	On Golden Cages	286
	Cognitive Relativity	288
	Who's Asking?	288
	Making Time	292
	Emergent Features	293
	Guided Meditation: Awareness of Awareness III	295
	On Actual Accomplishments	296
	The Direct Path	296
	Overview of the Path	296
	The Result	300
	Guided Meditation: Open Presence VI	302
	On Radical Healing	303
	Powers That Be	304
	Paranormal Possibilities	305
	Starting Where You Are	307
	Guided Meditation: Loving-Kindness II	311
	Guided Meditation Practice Sequence	313
	Citations of Texts from the Pali Canon and Commentaries	317
	Notes	319
	Selected Bibliography	327
	Index	329