The Attention Revolution (B. Alan Wallace)
Attentional Applesauce
[My 2-star Amazon review of “The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Unfocused Mind by B. Alan Wallace.]
Even though I rate B. Alan Wallace’s Dzogchen text “Naked Awareness†as a good one (see my four-star review), which I include on my recommended Spiritual Reading List, I knew from analyzing its glossary that Wallace had not “cracked the cosmic code,†that he was not a member of “the spiritual cognoscenti.†Wallace’s function as “author†of that book was that of just translator-editor, so it doesn’t reflect the level of his understanding of Buddhadharma -- but “The Attention Revolution,†which is all his own writing, does, and, in a euphemistic word, that level is: “applesauce.â€
B. Alan Wallace, PhD, possesses an impressive academic background, in addition to considerable experience as a meditation practitioner and teacher, but this does not translate into illuminating Dharma, because, to the spiritually astute, it is clear that he lacks deep understanding of the En-Light-enment project.
The first major problem I encountered in “The Attention Revolution†is Wallace’s lack of understanding of the Buddha’s mindfulness (sati) teaching. Before I elaborate this, I’m going to quote the first part of a letter on the subject that he sent to Bhikku Bodhi, in late 2006, after “The Attention Revolution†was published. One has to wonder why he didn’t contact Bhikku Bodhi before he published his book. Here’s the first part of the letter, which is available at ShamathaDOTorg, under “Mindfulnessâ€:                     Â
“The reason I am writing you now is to ask you about the meaning of ‘sati’ in authoritative, pre-twentieth-century PÄli/TheravÄda sources. As you well know, in the current Vipassana tradition as it has been widely propagated in the West, sati is more or less defined as “bare attention,†or the moment-to-moment, nonjudgmental awareness of whatever arises in the present moment. There is no doubt that the cultivation of such mindfulness is very helpful, but, strangely enough, I have found no evidence in traditional PÄli, Sanskrit, or Tibetan sources to support this definition of sati (smá¹›ti, dran pa).â€
Wallace’s “The Attention Revolution†is about the practice of “shamatha,†which Wikipedia.org defines as “calming of the mind (citta) and its ‘formations.’ (Wallace, amazingly, doesn’t even define the term.) He, egregiously, relegates mindfulness (sati) to a secondary function, subsumed under shamatha. He writes,†“In the context of shamatha, however, mindfulness refers to attending continuously to a familiar object, without forgetfulness or distraction.†The Buddha did not teach this. According to WikipediaDOTorg (under the heading “Samathaâ€), “In the PÄli canon, the Buddha never mentions independent samatha and vipassana meditation practices; instead, samatha and vipassana are two "qualities of mind" to be developed through meditation†[meaning mindfulness].
Wallace’s shamatha teaching is based on Indian Buddhist Kamalashila’s “ten stages of of attentional development.†These sequential stages are: 1.Directed attention. 2. Continuous attention. 3. Resurgent attention. 4. Close attention. 5. Tamed attention. 6. Pacified attention. 7. Fully pacified attention. 8. Single-pointed attention. 9. Attentional balance. 10. Shamatha.
These stages are (to the cognoscenti) a joke, which is not surprising given that Kamalashila was a (lowly) Madhyamika Buddhist. Shamatha is simply stilling the mind (through one-pointedness attention), and in the Dzogchen Semde (or Mind Series) teachings, Shamatha is just the first stage of four: 1.Shamatha. 2. Vipassana. 3. Adaya (unbounded wholeness). 4. Anabhoga (spontaneous presence). In other words, the tenth and final stage of Kamlashila’a ten stages is just the first stage of Dzogchen Semde.
Those familiar with the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali will recognize shamatha as a synonym for “dharana,†which leads to “dhyana†(meditation), which culminates in “samadhi†(meditative engrossment). But Wallace overblows the practice of shamatha by conflating it with an “attention revolution.†For example, he writes, “Once the ninth level has been achieved, the meditator is ripe for an extraordinary breathrough, entailing a radical shift in one’s nervous system and a fundamental shift in one’s consciousness.†But Wallace’s description of this “breakthrough†and explanation of this “radical shift in one’s nervous system†is sketchy and skeletal. The Hindu Yoga traditions do a better job explaining this so-called “breakthrough,†which one might correlate with “higher†Kundalini awakening or being “initiated†by Shakti.    Â
At the beginning of the section Reflections on the Practice, Wallace, in order to explain the practice, provides “an excerpt from the Buddha’s explanationâ€:
“Breathing in long, one knows ‘I breathe in long.’ Breathing out long, one knows, ‘I breathe out long.’ Breathing in short, one knows, ‘I breathe out short.’ Breathing out short, one knows, ‘I breathe out short.’ One trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in, experiencing the whole body. I shall breathe out, experiencing the whole body. I shall breathe in soothing the domain of the body I shall breathe out, soothing the composite of the body.â€
Wallace, egregiously, doesn’t provide the Buddha’s full description of  this practice (perhaps because it does not support his samatha teaching).
Compare his version with the excerpt from F.L.Woodward’s fine text “Some Sayings of the Buddha†(see my five-star review):
“With the thought ‘In full body-consciousness will I breathe in’ he trains himself. With the thought ‘In full body consciousness will I breathe out,’ he trains himself. With the thought ‘Calming down my body-mind I will breathe in,’ he trains himself. With the thought ‘Calming down my body-compound, I will breathe out,’ he trains himself.
“Just as brethren, a clever turner or turner’s ‘prentice, when he gives a long pull (to his lathe-string) is aware ‘I am giving a long pull,’ or when he gives a short pull he is aware ‘I am giving a short pull,’ even so does a brother train himself (by conscious in-breathing and out-breathing).
“Thus he abides regarding body either in its inner or in its outer state or in both. He abides observing either the rise or fall of things in body, or the rise-and-fall of things in the body. Or else, with the thought ‘It is body,’ his mindfulness of body is established, just sufficiently for him to know its existence and to become concentrated. Thus he abides detached, and he grasps at nothing at all in the world.â€
The Buddha’s “real†mindfulness teaching (made clear from the above excerpt) is twofold: first, to establish integral mindfulness/concentration, and second, to uttterly let go and not grasp at anything. But Wallace doesn’t explain this. Morever, to the spiritual cognoscenti, it’s clear that this practice is a dialectic, with mindfulness/concentration being the thesis and lettting go/not grasping being the antithesis. The unstated synthesis is the Stream (Shakti, or Spirit, or Sambogakaya), which Blesses/Blisses and En-light-ens the bodhisattava, enabling him to achieve Bodhicitta, or Buddhahood, via the four Jhanas of a Stream-winner.
This book is entitled “The Attention Revolution,†but it is, at best, a remedial, reductive consideration of the subject of attention, and how it pertains to Enlightenment. Anyone writing a book on the subject would be remiss not to be aware of and include a consideration of Adi Da’s radical “attention teaching.†Here, from the book “The Liberator,†is a sample of the teaching:
“The process of direct Self [or Buddha]-Identification is a matter of yielding (or dissolving) of attention (or conditional self-consciousness) in the Source-Condition from (or in) Which it is presently arising.
It is a matter of Standing as Consciousness Itself (rather than turning attention outward, inward, or toward Consciousness Itself). It is a matter of passively allowing attention to settle (or relax, dissolve, and disappear) spontaneously in the Native (or Primal) and tacit Self-Apprehension on Being (or the Primal Tacit Self-Awareness of Happiness Itself). Thus, in the moment of arising of anypresent object of attention, That Being (Itself or Consciousness (Itself) to Which (or in Whom) attention and its present object (if any) are arising should be noticed (or Found), entered (or relaxed) into, and (Inherently) Identified with – most profoundly.â€
Because this review is already too long, I’ll put aside further critiquing of Wallace’s book, and conclude with an indictment of his understanding (or lack thereof) of Buddhism. Wallace writes, “The achievement of shamatha does not mean that you have realized emptiness, the bedrock insight necessary for Buddhist liberation.†Unbeknownst to the Madhyamika-infected Wallace, the realization of emptiness has nothing to do with Buddhist (or, for that matter, Hindu or Christian) liberation. Furthermore, why write a book promoting the practice of shamatha, if its achievement doesn’t yield “the bedrock insight†that you consider “necessary for Buddhist liberation�
[My 2-star Amazon review of “The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Unfocused Mind by B. Alan Wallace.]
Even though I rate B. Alan Wallace’s Dzogchen text “Naked Awareness†as a good one (see my four-star review), which I include on my recommended Spiritual Reading List, I knew from analyzing its glossary that Wallace had not “cracked the cosmic code,†that he was not a member of “the spiritual cognoscenti.†Wallace’s function as “author†of that book was that of just translator-editor, so it doesn’t reflect the level of his understanding of Buddhadharma -- but “The Attention Revolution,†which is all his own writing, does, and, in a euphemistic word, that level is: “applesauce.â€
B. Alan Wallace, PhD, possesses an impressive academic background, in addition to considerable experience as a meditation practitioner and teacher, but this does not translate into illuminating Dharma, because, to the spiritually astute, it is clear that he lacks deep understanding of the En-Light-enment project.
The first major problem I encountered in “The Attention Revolution†is Wallace’s lack of understanding of the Buddha’s mindfulness (sati) teaching. Before I elaborate this, I’m going to quote the first part of a letter on the subject that he sent to Bhikku Bodhi, in late 2006, after “The Attention Revolution†was published. One has to wonder why he didn’t contact Bhikku Bodhi before he published his book. Here’s the first part of the letter, which is available at ShamathaDOTorg, under “Mindfulnessâ€:                     Â
“The reason I am writing you now is to ask you about the meaning of ‘sati’ in authoritative, pre-twentieth-century PÄli/TheravÄda sources. As you well know, in the current Vipassana tradition as it has been widely propagated in the West, sati is more or less defined as “bare attention,†or the moment-to-moment, nonjudgmental awareness of whatever arises in the present moment. There is no doubt that the cultivation of such mindfulness is very helpful, but, strangely enough, I have found no evidence in traditional PÄli, Sanskrit, or Tibetan sources to support this definition of sati (smá¹›ti, dran pa).â€
Wallace’s “The Attention Revolution†is about the practice of “shamatha,†which Wikipedia.org defines as “calming of the mind (citta) and its ‘formations.’ (Wallace, amazingly, doesn’t even define the term.) He, egregiously, relegates mindfulness (sati) to a secondary function, subsumed under shamatha. He writes,†“In the context of shamatha, however, mindfulness refers to attending continuously to a familiar object, without forgetfulness or distraction.†The Buddha did not teach this. According to WikipediaDOTorg (under the heading “Samathaâ€), “In the PÄli canon, the Buddha never mentions independent samatha and vipassana meditation practices; instead, samatha and vipassana are two "qualities of mind" to be developed through meditation†[meaning mindfulness].
Wallace’s shamatha teaching is based on Indian Buddhist Kamalashila’s “ten stages of of attentional development.†These sequential stages are: 1.Directed attention. 2. Continuous attention. 3. Resurgent attention. 4. Close attention. 5. Tamed attention. 6. Pacified attention. 7. Fully pacified attention. 8. Single-pointed attention. 9. Attentional balance. 10. Shamatha.
These stages are (to the cognoscenti) a joke, which is not surprising given that Kamalashila was a (lowly) Madhyamika Buddhist. Shamatha is simply stilling the mind (through one-pointedness attention), and in the Dzogchen Semde (or Mind Series) teachings, Shamatha is just the first stage of four: 1.Shamatha. 2. Vipassana. 3. Adaya (unbounded wholeness). 4. Anabhoga (spontaneous presence). In other words, the tenth and final stage of Kamlashila’a ten stages is just the first stage of Dzogchen Semde.
Those familiar with the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali will recognize shamatha as a synonym for “dharana,†which leads to “dhyana†(meditation), which culminates in “samadhi†(meditative engrossment). But Wallace overblows the practice of shamatha by conflating it with an “attention revolution.†For example, he writes, “Once the ninth level has been achieved, the meditator is ripe for an extraordinary breathrough, entailing a radical shift in one’s nervous system and a fundamental shift in one’s consciousness.†But Wallace’s description of this “breakthrough†and explanation of this “radical shift in one’s nervous system†is sketchy and skeletal. The Hindu Yoga traditions do a better job explaining this so-called “breakthrough,†which one might correlate with “higher†Kundalini awakening or being “initiated†by Shakti.    Â
At the beginning of the section Reflections on the Practice, Wallace, in order to explain the practice, provides “an excerpt from the Buddha’s explanationâ€:
“Breathing in long, one knows ‘I breathe in long.’ Breathing out long, one knows, ‘I breathe out long.’ Breathing in short, one knows, ‘I breathe out short.’ Breathing out short, one knows, ‘I breathe out short.’ One trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in, experiencing the whole body. I shall breathe out, experiencing the whole body. I shall breathe in soothing the domain of the body I shall breathe out, soothing the composite of the body.â€
Wallace, egregiously, doesn’t provide the Buddha’s full description of  this practice (perhaps because it does not support his samatha teaching).
Compare his version with the excerpt from F.L.Woodward’s fine text “Some Sayings of the Buddha†(see my five-star review):
“With the thought ‘In full body-consciousness will I breathe in’ he trains himself. With the thought ‘In full body consciousness will I breathe out,’ he trains himself. With the thought ‘Calming down my body-mind I will breathe in,’ he trains himself. With the thought ‘Calming down my body-compound, I will breathe out,’ he trains himself.
“Just as brethren, a clever turner or turner’s ‘prentice, when he gives a long pull (to his lathe-string) is aware ‘I am giving a long pull,’ or when he gives a short pull he is aware ‘I am giving a short pull,’ even so does a brother train himself (by conscious in-breathing and out-breathing).
“Thus he abides regarding body either in its inner or in its outer state or in both. He abides observing either the rise or fall of things in body, or the rise-and-fall of things in the body. Or else, with the thought ‘It is body,’ his mindfulness of body is established, just sufficiently for him to know its existence and to become concentrated. Thus he abides detached, and he grasps at nothing at all in the world.â€
The Buddha’s “real†mindfulness teaching (made clear from the above excerpt) is twofold: first, to establish integral mindfulness/concentration, and second, to uttterly let go and not grasp at anything. But Wallace doesn’t explain this. Morever, to the spiritual cognoscenti, it’s clear that this practice is a dialectic, with mindfulness/concentration being the thesis and lettting go/not grasping being the antithesis. The unstated synthesis is the Stream (Shakti, or Spirit, or Sambogakaya), which Blesses/Blisses and En-light-ens the bodhisattava, enabling him to achieve Bodhicitta, or Buddhahood, via the four Jhanas of a Stream-winner.
This book is entitled “The Attention Revolution,†but it is, at best, a remedial, reductive consideration of the subject of attention, and how it pertains to Enlightenment. Anyone writing a book on the subject would be remiss not to be aware of and include a consideration of Adi Da’s radical “attention teaching.†Here, from the book “The Liberator,†is a sample of the teaching:
“The process of direct Self [or Buddha]-Identification is a matter of yielding (or dissolving) of attention (or conditional self-consciousness) in the Source-Condition from (or in) Which it is presently arising.
It is a matter of Standing as Consciousness Itself (rather than turning attention outward, inward, or toward Consciousness Itself). It is a matter of passively allowing attention to settle (or relax, dissolve, and disappear) spontaneously in the Native (or Primal) and tacit Self-Apprehension on Being (or the Primal Tacit Self-Awareness of Happiness Itself). Thus, in the moment of arising of anypresent object of attention, That Being (Itself or Consciousness (Itself) to Which (or in Whom) attention and its present object (if any) are arising should be noticed (or Found), entered (or relaxed) into, and (Inherently) Identified with – most profoundly.â€
Because this review is already too long, I’ll put aside further critiquing of Wallace’s book, and conclude with an indictment of his understanding (or lack thereof) of Buddhism. Wallace writes, “The achievement of shamatha does not mean that you have realized emptiness, the bedrock insight necessary for Buddhist liberation.†Unbeknownst to the Madhyamika-infected Wallace, the realization of emptiness has nothing to do with Buddhist (or, for that matter, Hindu or Christian) liberation. Furthermore, why write a book promoting the practice of shamatha, if its achievement doesn’t yield “the bedrock insight†that you consider “necessary for Buddhist liberation�
