Wallace - Mind in the balance : meditation in science, Buddhism, and Christianity

Table of Contents

THE COLUMBIA SERIES IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

The Columbia Series in Science and Religion is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Science and Religion (CSSR) at Columbia University. It is a forum for the examination of issues that lie at the boundary of these two complementary ways of comprehending the world and our place in it. By examining the intersections between one or more of the sciences and one or more religions, the CSSR hopes to stimulate dialogue and encourage understanding.

ROBERT POLLACK
The Faith of Biology and the Biology of Faith

B. ALAN WALLACE, ED.
Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground

LISA SIDERIS
Environmental Ethics, Ecological Theory, and Natural Selection:
Suffering and Responsibility

WAYNE PROUDFOOT, ED.
William James and a Science of Religions: Reexperiencing
The Varieties of Religious Experience

MORTIMER OSTOW
Spirit, Mind, and Brain: A Psychoanalytic Examination of
Spirituality and Religion

B. ALAN WALLACE
Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge

PHILIP CLAYTON AND JIM SCHAAL, EDITORS
Practicing Science, Living Faith: Interviews with Twelve Scientists

B. ALAN WALLACE
Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness

PIER LUIGI LUISI WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF ZARA HOUSHMAND
Mind and Life: Discussions with the Dalai Lama on the Nature of Reality

For Sarah and Troy, and all who are seeking greater understanding and meaning in life

In the fall of 2006, my stepdaughter, Sarah Volland, wrote to me with a request. She began by commenting that she was utterly content with her life as a whole, including her level of material prosperity. What she really wanted now was to improve the quality of her interior life and her mind, and she asked me to write a book that would offer guidance in this regard, and that she could eventually share with her son. She wanted a book that would benefit her family and anyone else seeking knowledge in order to bring their life to a whole new level.

She put this request to me not only because of our close relationship but also because of my unusual background in Eastern and Western approaches to understanding. Over the past thirty-eight years, I have been blessed with many profound personal teachers, including the Dalai Lama and other extraordinary contemplatives and masters of meditation. Ordained as a monk by the Dalai Lama, I trained for fourteen years in Buddhist monasteries in India, Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Switzerland. During my time as a monk and since, I have devoted years to solitary meditation in the Himalayan mountains, Buddhist monasteries, deserts, and in my home in California. In addition, I received my undergraduate education at Amherst College in physics and the philosophy of science, earned my doctorate in religious studies at Stanford University, then taught for four years in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since 1990, I have collaborated with multiple teams of research cognitive scientists at major universities, exploring the effects of meditation on mental and emotional balance and well-being, and have established the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies to promote such research. Over the years, I have translated and written many books intended for Buddhist scholars and contemplatives, philosophers and scientists.

But Sarah asked me to write a book for readers like her, one that would address the fundamental questions about the nature of the mind and human existence without using the technical jargon of Buddhism, science, and philosophy. She wrote that when she was younger, she had always felt that she was born to do something truly great and meaningful, and she thought those feelings were unique to her. But through many friendships and relationships, she was surprised to discover that most of her close friends and companions had all had those same feelings, that they are here for a special purpose. But not many people seem to ever discover or fulfill that purpose. She felt there must be a reason that we have a calling for greatness, but unfortunately, those feelings fade with age and without good answers to our questions.

She has been a Christian for most of her life and feels that she has learned and experienced many great things from this religion. But she senses that there is much more to know and discover. And her deepest intuition tells her that meditation will be the purest and most profound form of prayer that she can experience. For this reason, she wishes to learn the truest and oldest forms of meditation, as well as the history and origins of those practices. By engaging in meditation, she hopes to find answers to questions we all ask: Who am I? Are we simply the roles we are currently playing in our lives, as parents, spouses, and members of society? Or is there much more to each of us on a deeper level, which is not just a product of our environment? Do we exist as anything other than our bodies? Are we born into sin and evil, and can human nature be transformed so that we are completely good and feel at one with God?

Knowing of my long collaboration in various research projects with cognitive scientists, she also asked what neuroscientists who have studied expert meditators have to say about their accomplishments. On the basis of such research, what accomplishments can we expect to reach in the modern world, given our current lifestyles? What levels might exist beyond that? And what benefits do ordinary people get when they meditate regularly? What problems do they encounter, and how do they overcome them? Can an agnostic benefit from meditation? Is there a quick-fix meditation version for busy people who are leery of any organized religion?

I was deeply moved by her request, and this book is what I have to offer in response, drawing from the wisdom of my many teachers and mentors in the East and the West, including Buddhist and Christian scholars and contemplatives, philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and physicists. I have found greater joy in writing this book than in anything else Ive written. I would write a chapter and send it to Sarah for her review. She would read with a critical eye, often asking for clarification of difficult points, additional material that I had not thought of, revision of sections she felt were not well expressed, and deletion of material she thought was irrelevant. In all the writing Ive done over the past thirty-five years, Ive never had a better editor, one who was so deeply interested in the material, so supportive of my efforts to share what I had learned, yet who never flinched from offering pointed criticism whenever she felt my writing was unsatisfactory.

Following the opening chapters on the origins of meditation and scientific studies of its benefits, part II presents a sequence of paired chapters focusing on meditative practices and their related theories. The chapters on practice are intended to provide an overview of a gradual path of meditations that are equally relevant to and compatible with both Christianity and Buddhism. They begin with the most rudimentary training in mindfulness and culminate in the most advanced practices designed to fathom the innermost nature of consciousness and its relation to the world at large. Readers wishing to explore these practices may do so by reading the instructions and then trying them out, or they may purchase a CD of recorded instructions for each technique to listen to while learning how to practice. This CD is available from the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies (http://sbinstitute.com). Those who venture into this sequence of meditations should not expect to experience the results of all of them simply by trying them a few times. The full benefits can normally be gained only with years of rigorous practice under the guidance of a qualified teacher.