The Center for Buddhist Studies Weblog

Super Mind Sunday

While millions of Americans were watching the Super Bowl last month, B. Alan Wallace was speaking in the Mind & Supermind lecture series at Santa Barbara City College (Podcast & PowerPoint slides below).

Standing before an audience of those clearly indifferent to the exploits of Peyton Manning, Wallace took a certain delight in drawing an analogy between ordinary life and American football.

'Like a quarterback dodging tackles to get to the goal line, we're seeking pleasurable jobs, acquisitions, people, places to live, through the avoidance of unpleasant stimuli.'

Unlike these more preternatural forms of pleasure, Wallace advocates a "genuine well-being" that is the cultivation of a mental balance not contingent upon outside factors. It is a mental state that is arrived out through a process of "knowing the mind," that involves both introspection and extrospection—what Wallace has labeled "contemplative science."

Wallace is quick to argue that what he is proposing is not merely a modification of the Buddhist meditation he studied for many years as a monk. It is a rigorous integration of the strengths of age-old contemplative traditions and contemporary science. With academic degrees in both physics and religion, it is an endeavor for which he is uniquely qualified (click to see his CV).

Over the years Wallace has published several books on the interface between science and religion. In his most recent, Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge (Columbia University Press, 2007), Wallace offers a concise introduction to the philosophy and methodology of contemplative science. And though it isn't being transmitted via a high-definition plasma screen, you can listen to a podcast of his winning lecture on contemplative science below.

Click to hear podcast (mp3 18.3 MB) >>
(Compliments of Santa Barbara City College)

See Powerpoint slides (pdf 256 KB) >>

Click to see where Alan is talking next >>

Buy Alan's new book >>

Professor Dalai Lama

The fourteenth Dalai Lama-Tenzin Gyatso recently accepted his first university appointment from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Receiving the invitation earlier this month from Vice Provost Dr. Holi Semetko in India (see image below), he is reported to have said:

"I look forward to offering my services to the Emory students and community. I firmly believe that education is an indispensable tool for the flourishing of human well-being and the creation of a just and peaceful society, and I am delighted to make a small contribution in this regard through this appointment."

The appointment is the most recent development in the highly successful Emory-Tibet Partnership; a unique initiative spearheaded by Dr. Satya Dev Negi (a.k.a. Geshe Lobsang Negi). With stellar faculty members such as John Dunne and Sara McClintock, the program also enjoys a special relationship with Tibetan Buddhist institutes of higher learning based in India, including the Drepung Loseling Monastery and the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala.

His Holiness will deliver his inaugural lecture at the University this October where he will also be participating in a conference on science and spirituality. To find out more go to http://www.dalailama.emory.edu.