Tricycle | Awake in the World

Buddhist scholar and teacher B. Alan Wallace is a prolific author and translator of Buddhist texts. With a B.A. in both physics and the philosophy of science from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Stanford University, he devotes much of his time combining his interests in the study of Buddhist philosophical and contemplative traditions and their relationship to modern science.

Wallace is founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, in Santa Barbara, California. Here he speaks in depth with Tricycle about what he considers an essential but widely misunderstood Buddhist practice: mindfulness meditation. Wallace argues that our poor understanding of the practice has profound implications for our meditation practice, and may very well draw us from the ultimate fruit of Buddhist practice—liberation from suffering and its underlying causes. The interview was conducted by email over the course of several months in 2007.