Wisdom Dharma Chat | Lama Alan Wallace – Aug. 2025
August 13, 2025
In this episode of Wisdom Dharma Chats, host Daniel Aitken welcomes Lama Alan Wallace to discuss his new volume, Śamatha and Vipaśyanā, and to reflect on his formative years studying and practicing in India. Lama Alan shares stories from his rigorous training under eminent Tibetan masters, highlighting how these experiences shaped his understanding of the Mahāyāna path and the union of wisdom and skillful means. The conversation delves into the essential role of śamatha and vipaśyanā in overcoming the five obscurations, cultivating irreversible bodhicitta, and progressing toward full enlightenment. Lama Alan explains how these practices—rooted in centuries-old instructions—are equally relevant today, offering a powerful antidote to modern-day distractions and a path toward both spiritual awakening and psychological healing.
Daniel and Lama Alan also explore the intersection of contemplative traditions with science and mental healthcare, noting the limitations of modern education and research funding in addressing the mind’s deeper needs. They envision a renaissance in contemplative practice that integrates precise, empirical methods for investigating consciousness with the transformative compassion at the heart of the Dharma. Rich with insight, history, and practical guidance, this conversation invites practitioners to bring these timeless meditations fully into the context of contemporary life.
Meet Our Guest
Lama Alan Wallace
B. Alan Wallace is president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. He trained for many years as a monk in Buddhist monasteries in India and Switzerland. He has taught Buddhist theory and practice in Europe and America since 1976 and has served as interpreter for numerous Tibetan scholars and contemplatives, including H. H. the Dalai Lama. After graduating summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he studied physics and the philosophy of science, he earned his MA and PhD in religious studies at Stanford University. He has edited, translated, authored, and contributed to more than forty books on Tibetan Buddhism, medicine, language, and culture, and the interface between science and religion.
Alan is also the founder of the Center for Contemplative Research (CCR), which now has retreat center locations in Crestone, Colorado, and in Castellina Marittima, Italy. A new center is also being established in New Zealand. The CCR is dedicated to researching the role and methods of the ancient contemplative practices of Shamatha and Vipashyana, and their involvement in mental health and wellbeing, as well as their role in fathoming the nature and origins of human consciousness.
The CCR vision builds on the results of the Shamatha Project. It is guided by a Scientific Advisory Board that includes the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and biologist Steven Chu (Stanford University), neuroscientist and clinical psychologist David Presti (UC Berkeley), theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser (Director of the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth College), and philosopher Michel Bitbol (Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). Cognitive scientists at the University of Pisa, the University of Trent, and the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa are committed to conducting research in collaboration with the CCR.
For an introduction, listen to The Nature of Reality: A Dialogue Between a Buddhist Scholar and a Theoretical Physicist. In this public dialogue, Alan Wallace and Sean Carroll, a world-renowned theoretical physicist and best-selling author, discussed the nature of reality from spiritual and scientific viewpoints.
