Buddhist Geeks

B Alan Wallace, author of “The Attention Revolution” and “Embracing Mind”, joins us to discuss the initial results from The Shamatha Project—one of the most extensive studies on the long-term benefits of meditation practice ever conducted. The terabytes of data that were collected during the course of the retreat-study included physiological and psychological measurements, thousands of entries from student journals, and the ongoing evaluations from Dr. Wallace as he interviewed with the students. Find out what his evaluations were, and how deeply the yogi’s progressed over the course of their 3-month retreats. Also listen is in to hear Dr. Wallace’s perspective on the relationship between shamatha and vipassana, and whether deep states of shamatha are necessary pre-requisites for the advanced practices of insight found in the Buddhist tradition. This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Listen to Part 2: Unwavering Samadhi: Meditative Achievement and Its Impact in the World. Episode Links: The Attention Revolution