Daniel Goleman

MindScience

What is the subtle relationship between mind and body? What can today’s scientists learn about this relationship from masters of Buddhist thought? Is it possible that by combining Western and Eastern approaches, we can reach a new understanding of the nature of the mind, the human potential for growth, the possibilities for mental and physical health?

MindScience explores these and other questions as it documents the beginning of a historic dialogue between modern science and Buddhism. The Harvard Mind Science Symposium brought together the Dalai Lama and authorities from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, and education. Here, they examine myriad questions concerning the nature of the mind and its relationship to the body.

• Buy

The Attention Revolution

As featured in Psychology Today.

Meditation offers, in addition to its many other benefits, a method for achieving previously inconceivable levels of concentration. Author B. Alan Wallace has nearly thirty years’ practice in attention-enhancing meditation, including a retreat he performed under the guidance of the Dalai Lama. An active participant in the much-publicized dialogues between Buddhists and scientists, Alan is uniquely qualified to speak intelligently to both camps, and The Attention Revolution is the definitive presentation of his knowledge.

Beginning by pointing out the ill effects that follow from our inability to focus, Alan moves on to explore a systematic path of meditation to deepen our capacity for deep concentration. The result is an exciting, rewarding “expedition of the mind,” tracing everything from the confusion at the bottom of the trail to the extraordinary clarity and power that come with making it to the top. Along the way, the author also provides interludes and complementary practices for cultivating love, compassion, and clarity in our waking and dreaming lives.

Attention is the key that makes personal change possible, and the good news is that it can be trained. This book shows how.

• Read Now
• Buy

Ecology, Ethics, and Interdependence

Engage with leading scientists, academics, ethicists, and activists, as well as His Holiness the Dalai Lama and His Holiness the Karmapa, who gathered in Dharamsala, India, for the twenty-third Mind and Life conference to discuss arguably the most urgent questions facing humanity today:

• What is happening to our planet?

• What can we do about it?

• How do we balance the concerns of people against the rights of animals and against the needs of an ecosystem?

• What is the most skillful way to enact change?

• And how do we fight on, even when our efforts seem to bear no fruit?

Inspiring, edifying, and transformative, this should be required reading for any citizen of the world.

• Buy

Being Human and a Buddha Too

Coming soon! This book will be available in August 2023. Enter your name and email below to be notified when this book is available for purchase.

In writing that sparkles and inspires, Anne Klein (Lama Rigzin Drolma) shows us how to liberate our buddha nature to be both human and a buddha too.

This first volume in the House of Adzom series centers on Longchenpa’s seven trainings in bodhicitta, our awakened mind, the ultimate purpose of our practice and training. Anne Klein’s original composition masterfully weaves in Adzom Paylo Rinpoche’s commentary and Jigme Lingpa’s five pith practices and commentary on the trainings, in keeping with Longchenpa’s skillful integration of sutra, tantra, and Dzogchen, to resolve our most challenging questions about what awakening involves and how it relates to the truth of our human situation right now. As foundational teachings for Dzogchen practitioners, the seven trainings are framed as contemplations on impermanence, the adventitiousness of happiness and its short duration, the multiple causes of death, the meaninglessness of our worldly activities, reliance on the Buddha’s good qualities, the teacher’s pith instructions, and ultimately nonconceptual meditation on bliss and emptiness, clarity and emptiness, and reality itself.

• Buy

Tibetan Calligraphy, Part 2

The Wisdom Academy is very pleased to announce that next year, we’ll be bringing out our next course with master calligrapher Tashi Mannox. Stay tuned for further announcements!

• View

Tibetan Calligraphy, Part 2

• View

Dzogchen: Ten Key Terms

The Wisdom Academy is very pleased to announce that this year, we’ll be bringing out an online course with master translator Malcolm Smith. Stay tuned for further announcements!

• Enroll

Dzogchen: Ten Key Terms

• Enroll

Freedom through Correct Knowing

• Enroll

Shaila Catherine: Beyond Distraction (#158)

This episode of the Wisdom Podcast features Shaila Catherine, who has been practicing meditation since 1980, with more than eight years of accumulated silent retreat experience. She has taught insight meditation since 1996 in the U.S. and internationally, dedicating several years to studying with masters in India, Nepal, and Thailand. She is the founder of Bodhi Courses—an online Dhamma classroom, and Insight Meditation South Bay—a Buddhist meditation center in Silicon Valley. Shaila has completed a one-year intensive meditation retreat and trained in jhana, metta, samadhi, and vipassana practices. Shaila is also the author of Beyond Distraction, Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity, and Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhāna and Vipassanā.

Beyond Distraction is also available as an upcoming Wisdom Academy online course!

In this episode, host Daniel Aitken and Shaila discuss 

• what distraction and intention mean for meditators at every level of experience;
• ‘wholesomeness’ and mental states rooted in greed, hate, and delusion;
• mindfulness, the construction of identity, and recognizing conditioning;
• realistic strategies for overcoming restlessness and distraction as presented in her new book Beyond Distraction;
• her experience with deep meditative states and practical wisdom we can apply now;
• shifting habitual patterns and thoughts by identifying and examining them gently;
• wisely approaching concentration and the joyful cultivation of insight; 
• and much more!

Remember to subscribe to the Wisdom Podcast for more great conversations on Buddhism, meditation, and mindfulness. And please give us a 5-star rating in Apple Podcasts if you enjoy our show—it’s a great support to us and it helps other people find the podcast. Thank you!

• Listen

The Dharma of Well-Being 2

Welcome to The Dharma of Well-Being 2! In this three-part course, drawn on insights and methods from both the Buddhist tradition and Western psychology and philosophy, Lama Alan Wallace invites you to investigate the causes of both genuine unhappiness and genuine well-being.

In this second module, Lama Alan explores the wisdom of the second turning of the wheel of Dharma, and the deeper causes of mental distress and mental well-being. Lama Alan introduces the deepest root of suffering: grasping to inherent existence. The Middle Way teachings of the Buddha’s second turning of the wheel of Dharma look at the nature of identification and the way phenomena exist. Understanding how the self is perceived, we can reveal the process by which we form attitudes and behaviors in our relations to other sentient beings. With this deflating of self-centered delusion, we are brought into accord with reality and able to inspire well-being for all, including ourselves.

While not necessary, we recommend completing The Dharma of Well-Being 1 before engaging with parts 2 and 3.

In this second program, you will learn about:

• the nature of identification and the way phenomena exist;
• dependent arising;
• the nuanced view of Mādhyamaka Prāsaṅgika philosophy;
• holistic well-being;
• the transformation from renunciation to bodhicitta;
• turning within for satisfaction and cultivating selflessness;
• and more!

Lama Alan Wallace, internationally renowned for the clarity and profundity of his teachings, invites you to explore the inner causes of suffering alongside the causes of genuine well-being, and learn practices and techniques that will help you on your journey to develop genuine and lasting well-being.

• Enroll

Cortland Dahl: Meditation and Neuroscience (#157)

This episode of the Wisdom Podcast, recorded live as a Wisdom Dharma Chat, features Cortland Dahl speaking with host Daniel Aitken. Cortland is a scientist, translator, and meditation teacher who offers workshops and leads retreats around the world. He has practiced meditation for nearly three decades and has spent time on retreat in monasteries and retreat centers throughout Japan, Burma, and India, including eight years spent living in Tibetan refugee settlements in Kathmandu, Nepal. In addition to his work as an Instructor for the Tergar community and Executive Director of Tergar International, Cortland serves as Research Scientist and Chief Contemplative Officer at UW-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds and the center’s affiliated non-profit, Healthy Minds Innovations. Cortland is actively involved in scientific research and has published articles on the impact of meditation practices on the body, mind, and brain. He has also published twelve books of translations of classical texts on Buddhist philosophy and meditation.

Cortland and Daniel discuss:

• Cort’s journey to the Dharma, struggling with childhood anxiety; 
• discovering relief through establishing a meditation practice;
• Cortland’s years in Asia, connecting with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche;
• returning to the West and academia via the emerging contemplative sciences field;
• using technology to support the unfolding of inner experience;
• and much more!

Remember to subscribe to the Wisdom Podcast for more great conversations on Buddhism, meditation, and mindfulness. And please give us a 5-star rating in Apple Podcasts if you enjoy our show—it’s a great support to us and it helps other people find the podcast. Thank you!

• Listen

Histories of Tibet

Coming soon! This book will be available in July 2023. Enter your name and email below to be notified when this book is available for purchase.

The thirty-four essays in this volume follow the particular interests of Leonard van der Kuijp, whose groundbreaking research in Tibetan intellectual and cultural history imbued his students with an abiding sense of curiosity and discovery.

As part of Leonard van der Kuijp’s research in Tibetan history, he patiently and expertly revealed treasures of the Tibetan intellectual tradition in fourteenth-century Tsang, seventeenth-century Lhasa, or eighteenth-century Amdo. The thirty-four essays in this volume follow the particular interests of the honoree and express the comprehensive research that his international cohort has engaged in alongside his generous tutelage over the course of forty years. His inquisitiveness can be experienced through every one of his writings and can be found as well in these new essays in intellectual, cultural, and institutional history by Christopher Beckwith, Yael Bentor, the late Hubert Decleer, Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Jörg Heimbel and David Jackson, Nathan Hill, Isabelle Henrion-Dourcy, Matthew Kapstein, Todd Lewis, Kurtis Schaeffer, Peter Schwieger, Gray Tuttle, Pieter Verhagen, Michael Witzel, and others.

• Buy

Living Treasure

Coming soon! This book will be available in June 2023. Enter your name and email below to be notified when this book is available for purchase.

Senior scholars and former students celebrate the life and work of Janet Gyatso, professor of Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School. Inspired by her contributions to life writing, Tibetan medicine, gender studies, and more, these offerings make a rich feast for readers interested in Tibetan and Buddhist studies.

Janet Gyatso has made substantial, influential, and incredibly valuable contributions to the fields of Buddhist and Tibetan studies. Her paradigm-shifting approach is to take a topic, an idea, a text, a term—often one that had long been taken for granted or overlooked—and turn it inside out, to radically reimagine the kinds of questions that might be asked and what the answers might reveal. The twenty-nine essays in this volume, authored by colleagues and former students—many of whom are now also colleagues—represent the breadth of her interests and influence, and the care that she has taken in training the current generation of scholars of Tibet and Buddhism. They are organized into five sections: Women, Gender, and Sexuality; Biography and Autobiography; the Nyingma Imaginaire; Literature, Art, and Poetry; and Early Modernity: Human and Nonhuman Worlds. Contributions include José Cabezón on the incorporation of a Buddhist rock carving in Central Asian culture; Matthew Kapstein on the memoirs of an ambivalent reincarnated lama; Willa Blythe Baker on Jikmé Lingpa’s theory of absence; Andrew Quintman on a found poem expressing worldly sadness on the forced closure of a monastery; and Padma ’tsho on Tibetan women’s advocacy for full female ordination. These and the many other chapters, each fascinating reads in their own right, together offer a glowing tribute to a scholar who indelibly changed the way we think about Buddhism, its history, and its literature.

• Buy

The Two Truths in Indian Buddhism

In this clear and exemplary approach to one of the core philosophical subjects of the Buddhist tradition, Sonam Thakchoe guides readers through the range of Indian Buddhist philosophical schools and how each approaches the two truths: ultimate truth and conventional truth. In this presentation of philosophical systems, the detailed argumentations and analyses of each school’s approach to the two truths are presented to weave together the unique contributions each school brings to supporting and strengthening a Buddhist practitioner’s understanding of reality. The insights of the great scholars of Indian Buddhist history—such as Vasubandhu, Bhāvaviveka, Kamalaśīla, Dharmakīrti, Nāgārjuna, and Candrakīrti—are illuminated in this volume, with profound implications to the practice and views of modern practitioners and scholars.

The Vaibhāṣika, Saūtrāntika, Yogācāra, and Madhyamaka schools provide a framework for a continuum of philosophical debate that is far more interrelated, and internally complex, than one may presume. Yet we see how the schools build upon the findings of one another, leading from a belief in the realism of external phenomena to the relinquishment of any commitment to realism of either external or internal realities. This fascinating movement through philosophical approaches leads us to see how the conventional and ultimate—dependent arising and emptiness—are twin aspects of a single reality.

• Read Now
• Buy

Sounds of Innate Freedom, Volume 3

This is the third volume in an historic six-volume series containing many of the first English translations of the classic mahāmudrā literature compiled by the Seventh Karmapa. Sounds of Innate Freedom: The Indian Texts of Mahāmudrā are historic volumes containing many of the first English translations of classic mahamudra literature. The texts and songs in these volumes constitute the large compendium called The Indian Texts of the Mahāmudrā of Definitive Meaning, compiled by the Seventh Karmapa, Chötra Gyatso (1456–1539). The collection offers a brilliant window into the richness of the vast ocean of Indian mahamudra texts cherished in all Tibetan lineages, particularly in the Kagyü tradition, giving us a clear view of the sources of one of the world’s great contemplative traditions.

This third volume contains twenty-four texts, the bulk of which are dohās by Saraha and commentaries on them, as well as works by other renowned Indian Buddhist mahāsiddhas such as Nāropa, Kṛṣṇa, and Śākyaśrībhadra. The extensive commentaries brilliantly unravel enigmas and bring clarity to the songs they comment on as well as to many other songs of realization in the series. These expressive songs of the inexpressible offer readers a feast of profound and powerful pith instructions uttered by numerous male and female mahāsiddhas, yogīs, and ḍākinīs, often in the context of ritual gaṇacakras and initially kept in their secret treasury. Displaying a vast range of themes, styles, and metaphors, they all point to the single true nature of the mind—mahāmudrā—in inspiring ways and from different angles, using a dazzling array of skillful means to penetrate the sole vital point of buddhahood being found nowhere but within our own mind. Reading and singing these songs of mystical wonder, bliss, and ecstatic freedom, and contemplating their meaning, will open doors to spiritual experience for us today just as it has for countless practitioners in the past.

• Buy

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s Stages of the Path, Volume 2

Coming soon! This book will be available in September 2023. Enter your name and email below to be notified when this book is available for purchase.

Central to Buddhism is knowing our own minds. Until we do, we are driven by unconscious, often destructive desire and aversion. We couldn’t have a better guide for inner transformation than the Dalai Lama.

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s Stages of the Path, Volume 2: An Annotated Commentary on the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Words of Mañjuśrī is the second volume of the Dalai Lama’s outline of Buddhist theory and practice. Having introduced Buddhist ideas in the context of modern society in volume 1, the Dalai Lama turns here to a traditional presentation of the complete path to enlightenment, from developing faith in the Dharma to attaining the highest wisdom. This book, compiled by the revered Tibetan lama Dagyab Rinpoché, comments on the Fifth Dalai Lama’s stages of the path titled Oral Transmission of Mañjuśrī. The volume will appeal to all readers interested in the Dalai Lama’s works, both those new to Buddhism and those looking to deepen their understanding of the Tibetan presentation of the Buddhist path.

• Buy

Realizing the Profound View

The eighth volume in the Dalai Lama’s definitive and bestselling Library of Wisdom and Compassion series, and the second of three focusing on emptiness.

In Realizing the Profound View the Dalai Lama presents the analysis and meditations necessary to realize the ultimate nature of reality. With attention to Nāgārjuna’s five-point analysis, Candrakīrti’s seven-point examination, and Pāli suttas, the His Holiness leads us to investigate who or what is the person. Are we our body? Our mind? If we are not inherently either of them, how do we exist, and what carries the karma from one life to the next? As we explore these and other fascinating questions, he skillfully guides us along the path avoiding the chasms of absolutism and nihilism and introduces us to dependent arising. We find that although all persons and phenomena lack an inherent essence, they do exist dependently. This nominally imputed mere I carries the karmic seeds. We discover that all phenomena exist by being merely designated by term and concept—they appear as like illusions, unfindable under ultimate analysis but functioning on the conventional level. Furthermore, we come to understand that emptiness dawns as the meaning of dependent arising, and dependent arising dawns as the meaning of emptiness. The ability to posit subtle dependent arisings in the face of realizing emptiness and to establish ultimate and conventional truths as noncontradictory brings us to the culmination of the correct view.

• Read Now
• Buy

Khandro Kunzang Dechen Chodron: Immersion in the Ngagpa Tradition (#154)

In this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, recorded live as a Wisdom Dharma Chat, host Daniel Aitken is joined by Khandro Kunzang Dechen Chodron, student of the great Nyingmapa Tsa-Lung and Dzogchen master, Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche. Khandro Kunzang left behind a promising career in the early 1990’s to pursue her practice of the Dharma and became a novice nun in the Drikung Kagyu lineage, studying under Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen and H.E. Garchen Rinpoche. In 1998 she met Acharya Dawa Chhodak Rinpoche while attending a Dharma healing seminar. Between 1999 and 2009, Khandro Kunzang received the entire cycle of teachings and empowerments of the Rigdzin Sogdrub lineage from Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche, and completed many retreats under his direct supervision.

In 2011, Acharya Dawa Chhodak Rinpoche bestowed the Tri-Don (enthronement ceremony) conferring authority to guide and teach others, and giving her the title of Khandro. Since the passing of Lama Dawa Rinpoche in 2017, Khandro Kunzang divides her time between teaching and traveling tours throughout Europe and Mexico, serving as the Executive Director for Saraswati Bhawan, leading retreats and teachings at P’hurba Thinley Ling in Iowa; heading the P’hurba Peace Mandala Project International; and offering teachings, guidance, and support to students world-wide.

Khandro Kunzang and Daniel discuss

• Khandro Kunzang’s early Buddhist journey, beginning in Vermont with the book Sky Dancer about Yeshe Tsogyel;
• Dharma Protectors and drive on the spiritual quest;
• nature spirits, omens, and divination;
• the Ngagpa ordination tradition in Dolpo and throughout the Himalayan region;
• meeting Acharya Dawa Rinpoche in Oregon and her enthronement as a Khandro;
• her reckoning with Himalayan cultures and patriarchal traditions;
• and much more!

Remember to subscribe to the Wisdom Podcast for more great conversations on Buddhism, meditation, and mindfulness. And please give us a 5-star rating in Apple Podcasts if you enjoy our show—it’s a great support to us and it helps other people find the podcast. Thank you!

• Listen

Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics, Vol. 3

Deepen your understanding of meaning and truth with the third volume of the Dalai Lama’s esteemed series Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics.

In this third volume the focus turns to exploring the philosophical schools of India. The practice of presenting the views of various schools of philosophy dates back to the first millennium in India, when proponents of competing traditions would arrange the diverse sets of philosophical positions in a hierarchy culminating in their own school’s superior tenets. Centuries later, relying on the Indian Buddhist treatises, Tibet developed its own tradition of works on tenets (grub mtha’), often centered on the four schools of Buddhist philosophy, using them to demonstrate the philosophical evolution within their own tradition, and within individual practitioners, as they progressed through increasingly more subtle expressions of the true reality.  

The present work follows in this venerable tradition, but with a modern twist. Like its predecessors, it presents the views of seven non-Buddhist schools, those of the Samkhya, Vaisesika, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Vedanta, Jaina, and Lokayata, followed by the Buddhist Vaibhasika, Sautrantika, Cittamatra, and Madhyamaka schools, arranging them like steps on a ladder to the profound. But rather than following in the sharply polemical approach of its ancient predecessors, it strives to survey each tradition authentically, relying on and citing the texts sacred to each, allowing the different traditions to speak for themselves. What, it asks, are the basic components of the world we experience? What is the nature of their ultimate reality? And how can we come to experience that for ourselves? See how the rich spiritual traditions of India approached these key questions, where they agreed, and how they evolved through dialogue and debate. 

This presentation of philosophical schools is introduced by His Holiness and is accompanied by an extensive introduction and survey by Professor Donald Lopez Jr. of the University of Michigan, who is uniquely qualified to communicate the scope and significance of this literary and spiritual heritage to modern readers.

• Read Now
• Buy

Shila, Samadhi, and Prajna

• Enroll