Meditation for Busy People | Dr Alan Wallace

[@JasonGafar]

Dr. Alan B Wallace - purely a breath of fresh air! He radiates so much Dharma.

[@themindfulyogaschool]

Brilliant - thank you for your clear and concise messages, always conveyed with kindness!

[@rameshhansaravendra]

Love this guy 💙. I could listen to him every day 🙏

[@seemapatilJapan]

Absolutely right. If you can take out time for your mental hygiene, meditation is one of the best practices. Even I was reluctant for so many years cause you dont see results for ages unlike brushing your teeth.

[@squamish4244]

That's the crux of the problem right there. It takes so long to see real results. We have to find ways of making the results available in a much shorter span of time. Hence all the neurotechnologies being developed right now to do just that. What if we could reverse-engineer the brains patterns of enlightened masters and get the same results as 100,000 hours of meditation in a much shorter span of time? It would change civilization.

[@DupesZakkas]

Absolutely gem of a gem 👌👌👌🙏🙏🙏🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️

[@indreamswake]

Loving these talks! Thanks so much!

[@LeonardoOliveira-pt7fs]

Thanks so much! Its beatiful, simple e true.

[@ladakondratuk4078]

Thank you very much for sharing this info!!

[@TheKrisvy]

The Telomere Effect Book brought me here! thank you !

[@ijaeger5884]

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@andresgduarte]

Thank you very much for sharing this info!! how would you recommend to focus a life were one wants to practice and give more priority to meditation but doesnt have the financial means to live?

[@mbemidio]

I wonder about this too. I think the masters would say that we need the bare minimum in terms of possessions to be able to meditate. But I also find myself thinking about this same question you asked. My job naturally speeds my mind up a lot, and I have a hard time slowing it down.

[@squamish4244]

@@mbemidio And let's face it -- the rest of us have to make a living. We just have to. We have jobs, families, chores...good lord, he acts like we magically have even half an hour of quiet time a day with screaming young kids. And then if we do, we have the energy to meditate. Alan Wallace was a monk for 14 years, from the age of 20 to 34, so his views are going to be strongly influenced by that. He already had powerful concentration skills and deep insight before he disrobed and married a woman with a small child. So he's leaving out the part about how he had a huge advantage over the rest of us, starting out. And when you're young, until you're 25, your brain is very plastic and much more easily molded by whatever you choose to do/whatever happens to you. This is why they start so many of those lamas out when they are like six years old, and it sure gives a leg up to someone starting when they're 18 or 20. They are working on various technologies that will be able to use visuals and sound to send us deep into a meditative state right off the bat. Imagine having access to that at home. So far it's only available at clinics, but I've had it done and wow is it effective. And the price is dropping fast. Plus a number of other methods that are being worked on in labs right now. So we'll see what happens.

[@ЧимитДоржиев-б5м]

Крутой чувак))

[@MMeyer945]

if you have time for face book you have time to Meditate....=)

[@JasonGafar]

"Some people lounging and staring at the sky." Hahahahahaha.

[@mael-strom9707]

If sitting meditation is not for you, try TaiChi or QiGong.

[@upholsteryface3160]

life is a mess .. and glorious .. and hateful .. and steering through it .. find love .. big breaks .. be in numb, try not to go to beer, porn, lack of exercise .. facing "what dimension" is frightful .. scary "meditation story" taken farther than just "beginnings .." what really is happening on earth, as we drive, and stop for traffic .. we don't get out and sing and dance, in any which way .. we want .. from our minds .. drive ..

[@jerry-mind-sky]

Great commentary, pure art!

[@sherab482]

Fool sure

[@squamish4244]

"Get over it"...What an unhelpful attitude. Meditation has had a 95% dropout rate over the course of one year in both modern and historical times. The student has always been blamed for quitting practice, but when the failure rate is that high, it isn't the student's fault. All traditional Buddhist paths have deep and systemic problems that need to be addressed to make them much more accessible to everyone. Sternly lecturing us doesn't do anyone any good.

[@Composer19691]

95% dropout rate? Says who, exactly? Take responsibility for your own meditation and don't blame the practice.

[@squamish4244]

Shinzen Young, renowned dharma teacher, just as qualified as Alan Wallace but far less traditional, makes that claim. Attendance at a dharma centre for any length of time will show how many people stop coming after one year. Shinzen is blunt about the gross inefficiency of present meditation techniques. "All of the paths we have now are not very good...They can be vastly improved upon. And as a result of that improvement we will see a democratization of enlightenment across the globe. And that's exciting and wonderful." He's right. Spiritual teachers and paths have nothing like the accountability that academic institutions must have. If your students are not getting results, you can't be fired from your position and your school won't close. Therefore, in Buddhism it is not considered questionable that in 2,500 years we have not succeeded in substantially improving on the methods the Buddha taught, or cutting down on an expenditure of time and energy so immense that you are expected to go on solitary retreat for long periods in order to get anywhere worth getting. That is not a workable solution to change the world in the 21st Century.

[@squamish4244]

This so frequently happens. I raise valid criticisms of the practice and apparently that is taboo, because I am not even responded to but ignored. Dogmatism is just as much of a problem in Buddhism as it is anywhere else.

[@Composer19691]

Not ignored. I just don't check my messages much. Spititual methods HAVE been advanced. No reason for solitary retreat. My own practice includes a blend of varied elements. Ive been meditating twice daily for years. In the 21st century we will see the blending of methods from many disparate traditions and sources. There's a vast amount of meditation techniques and methods that are fully compatible with Buddhist tradition, and far more short and practical than doing shamatha meditation for 4 hours a day. However, if one is exclusively tied to Buddhist tradition and methods, then I see your problem. This "...democratization of enlightenment across the globe" is what is going to happen. Spiritual practice is evolving as we speak, with the Internet being the library storehouse of all spiritual history (accessible to everyone) combined with 21st century interconnected social media communities. This century will see a cross pollination of techniques and methods being shared. This will result in more effective practices that reflect this hyper kinetic era we exist in.

[@squamish4244]

I also think neuroscience and technologies like VR and brainwave entrainment will play an enormous role. I had serious OCD that meditation did not have much effect on - it was too strong. One month of rTMS (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation) had a powerful effect in reducing it. It's very frustrating to me that such a public figure as Alan Wallace is so dismissive and even openly scornful of brain-based therapies or neuropsychiatric techniques in various talks and writings. Considering how powerful they are proving to be at even such an early stage, they will no doubt completely overhaul our approach to the dharma well within the lifetimes of most spiritual practitioners alive today. Not to mention that he is not actually qualified to talk about those things.

[@oscararborist]

Alan, you sound a bit resentful.

[@rohlay00]

Biased, that's all

[@ezeeproproperties8352]

If you label him as resentful, you will experience it as such. If you designate him as pleased, you will experience it as such. You literally live in the centre of your conceptually conceived of world.

[@squamish4244]

He's arrogant, for sure.

[@squamish4244]

He can be an arrogant prick at times. He seems to have a vendetta against physical science and against all the innovations that are changing the spiritual path, like psychedelics, neurofeedback and brain stimulation. He seems to be in denial that this stuff is happening and has HUGE implication for spirituality. After running into this attitude over and over on his videos, I got turned off by Alan. Like, grow up. Do you seriously think we're going to be using 19th Century techniques for taming the mind - the equivalent of using a carriage instead of a jet or rocket to get from A to B - forever? We're not even going to be using them 20 years from now, not by themselves. We live in a time when AI is on the verge of becoming more intelligent than us, and yet Alan is in denial about all of this. I say, deal with it. Get over yourself. Strangely enough, the Dalai Lama is open to the findings of neuroscience and any innovations to the path, whereas his student Alan Wallace is not.