B. Alan Wallace

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B. Alan Wallace

Bruce Alan Wallace (born April 17, 1950 ) is an American scholar and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism . His books cover Asian and Western scientific, philosophical and contemplative methods of inquiry, which often refer to the relationship between science and Buddhism. He is the founder of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies.

Childhood, youth and education

Wallace was born into a family of devout Christians. His father was a Baptist theologian. At the age of 13 he developed a passion for science, especially ecology, inspired by a science teacher. When he was 18, he enrolled at the University of California, San Diego. Wallace began studying the Tibetan language and Buddhism at the University of Göttingen in 1970 and continued his studies in Dharamsala, India, where he was ordained a Buddhist monk by HH the Dalai Lama in 1975 .

Career

Wallace continued his studies and began teaching at the Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies in Mont Pèlerin, Switzerland from 1975 to 1979 and then devoted four years to full-time meditation. In 1987 he was a participant and interpreter at the first Mind and Life Conference and continued in this role until 2009.

In 1987, Wallace earned a BA in Physics, Philosophy of Science, and Sanskrit from Amherst College , followed by a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University . His dissertation dealt with the cultivation of sustainable voluntary attention in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. He taught for four years in the religious studies department at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Wallace founded the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies in 2003, dedicated to integrating the scientific and contemplative exploration of consciousness. Together with Clifford Saron, Wallace developed the Shamatha project in which 60 people took part in a meditation retreat for 3 months, in which Wallace acted as the teacher and Saron as the scientific director of the study. Research on the effects on attention, emotions and well-being, as well as biomarkers, has been published in many scientific journals.

Wallace has taught a wide range of Buddhist meditations worldwide since 1976, has acted as an interpreter for many important Tibetan lamas, including HH the Dalai Lama, and works at the interface between traditional forms of Buddhist meditation and the humanities. Since 2010, Wallace has led 8-week retreats to train students in the meditative practices of Shamatha, the Four Immeasurables, Vipashayana and Dzogchen . Wallace is the driving force behind the creation and development of the Center for Contemplative Research in Tuscany, Italy. The aim, in collaboration with contemplatives and scientists, is to combine the meditative experiences from the perspective of the first person with the methods of science obtained from the perspective of the third person.

Selected Works

Books on Buddhism and Science

In English

  • Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic: A Manifesto for the Mind Sciences and Contemplative Practice, New York: Columbia University Press, 2011
  • Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009 (Also published in Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Tibetan translations)
  • Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and Spirituality. Co-authored with Brian Hodel. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2008 (Also published in Dutch and Spanish translation)
  • Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007 (Also published in German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Tibetan translations)
  • Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007 (Also published in Portuguese, Korean, and Thai translations)
  • Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground. Edited by B. Alan Wallace. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003
  • The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000
  • Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain-science and Buddhism. Edited by B. Alan Wallace, Zara Houshmand & Robert B. Livingston. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1999 (Also published in Dutch, Portuguese, Korean, Spanish, French, Chinese and Italian translations)
  • Choosing Reality: A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind. Revised edition. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1996. Re-edition of Choosing Reality: A Contemplative View of Physics and the Mind. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1989 (Also published in French and Korean translations)

In German

  • Physics and Consciousness: An Approach to the Subjective Knowledge of Reality, German first edition of the English original edition: Hidden Dimensions . Crotona Verlag, 2018

Books on Tibetan Buddhism

In English

  • Open Mind: View and Meditation in the Lineage of Lerab Lingpa, Somerville, MA Wisdom Publications, 2017
  • Dudjom Lingpa's Visions of the Great Perfection, Volumes 1-3, Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2015
  • Dreaming Yourself Awake: Lucid Dreaming and Tibetan Dream Yoga for Insight and Transformation, Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2012
  • Stilling the Mind: Shamatha Teachings from Düdjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2011
  • Fathoming the Mind: Inquiry and Insight in Düdjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2018
  • Minding Closely: The Four Applications of Mindfulness, Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2011
  • The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind. Foreword by Daniel Goleman. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2006 (Also published in Chinese, Catalan, Italian, German, Indonesian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and Mongolian translations)
  • Genuine Happiness: Meditation as a Path to Fulfillment. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005 (Also published in Spanish and Russian translations)
  • Buddhism with an Attitude: The Tibetan Seven-Point Mind Training. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2001 (Also published in Dutch, Italian, Finnish, Spanish, and Portuguese translations)
  • The Four Immeasurables: Practices to Open the Heart. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2010. Re-edition of The Four Immeasurables: Cultivating a Boundless Heart, 2004; re-edition of Boundless Heart: The Four Immeasurables, 1999 (Also published in Italian, French and Dutch translations)
  • Balancing the Mind: A Tibetan Buddhist Approach to Refining Attention. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2005. New edition of The Bridge of Quiescence: Experiencing Tibetan Buddhist Meditation. Chicago: Open Court Press, 1998
  • Tibetan Buddhism From the Ground Up. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1993 (Also published in Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Korean translations)
  • The Seven-Point Mind Training. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2004. Re-edition of A Passage from Solitude: A Modern Commentary on Tibetan Buddhist Mind Training. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1992 (Also in Italian translation)
  • Tibetan Tradition of Mental Development. Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. Sherpa Tulku, trans. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 1974, 1976, 1978; rev. eds. 1985 & 1992 (Also published in Italian translation)
  • Spoken Tibetan. Co-authored with Kerrith McKenzie. Mt. Pèlerin, Switzerland: Center for Higher Tibetan Studies, 1985

In German

  • The Mindfulness Revolution: Activate the Power of Concentration. German first edition of the English original edition: The Attention Revolution. Frankfurt am Main, OW Barth, 2008
  • The liberating power of attention: a workout. Revised new edition of the German first edition under the title: The Mindfulness Revolution (see above), Edition Steinrich, 2012

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wallace, Bruce Alan: The Cultivation of Sustained Voluntary Attention in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism . 1995 ( online [accessed August 3, 2019] dissertation).
  2. ^ Paulson, Steve (Nov. 27, 2006) .: Buddha on the brain. Salon, March 24, 2016, accessed on July 29, 2019 .
  3. ↑ B. Alan Wallace: GENUINE HAPPINESS: Meditation as the Path to Fulfillment. Publishers Weekly, accessed August 3, 2019 (English, ISBN 978-0-471-46984-1 ).
  4. ↑ a b Alan Wallace | Awakin Call. Retrieved August 15, 2019 .
  5. ^ Mind & Life Dialogues. Retrieved August 15, 2019 (American English).
  6. ↑ Steve Paulson: Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion and Science . Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-978150-8 ( google.de [accessed August 14, 2019]).
  7. ↑ Alumni | Page 3 | The Ho Center for Buddhist Studies. Retrieved August 15, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Louis Komjáthy: Introducing Contemplative Studies . John Wiley & Sons, 2017, ISBN 978-1-119-15669-7 ( google.co.uk [accessed August 15, 2019]).
  9. ↑ To make a killing in the markets, start meditating | Financial Post. Bloomberg News, by Katherine Burton and Anthony Effinger, via Financial Post, May 29, 2014, accessed August 14, 2019 (Canadian English).
  10. ↑ Shamatha Project. Retrieved August 15, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Tadas Stumbrys: Book review: Dreaming Yourself Awake - Lucid Dreaming and Tibetan Dream Yoga for Insight and Transformation, by B. Alan Wallace. In: International Journal of Dream Research. 6 (1): 69-70. doi: 10.11588 / ijodr.2013.1.10038. Retrieved on August 14, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Courses. Retrieved August 15, 2019 (American English).
personal data
SURNAME Wallace, B. Alan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wallace, Bruce Alan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American scholar and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1950