Discover your personal path to bliss

"This book will give anyone interested in the spectrum of core meditative practices stemming from the Buddhist tradition but in essence universal the deepest of perspectives on what is possible for us as human beings as well as excellent guidance in the essential, time-tested attitudes and practices for actualizing our innate capacity for wisdom, compassion, and well-being, right here and right now."

—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Coming to Our Senses and Full Catastrophe Living

"In Genuine Happiness, Alan Wallace displays his rare talent in boiling down the complex to the clear and in guiding readers through a practical path to contentment. A gift for all moods and seasons."

—Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

"This lucid and rich book offers brillant, wise, and accessible teachings on the essentials of four core meditation techniques that lead one to genuine joy and happiness. Alan Wallace's years of practice and teaching shine through every page, as with ease and great humanity, he brings to the reader the possibility of liberation."

—Joan Halifax Roshi, abbot of Upaya Zen Center

"Genuine Happiness is a treasure chest of wisdom: clear, inspiring teaching jewels. It is an excellent support for any student of meditation."

—Sharon Salzberg, author of Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience

In today's overstimulated world, many are realizing that happiness gained through material wealth and frivolous conquests is short-lived. To achieve long-term happiness, you must access your own bountiful resources—housed in your heart and mind. In Genuine Happiness, longtime Buddhist practitioner Alan Wallace shows you the path to bliss.

Drawing on more than three decades of study under His Holiness the Dalai Lama and sixty other teachers, as well as 2,500 years of Buddhist tradition, Alan Wallace guides you step by step through five simple yet powerful meditations to help you focus your mind and open your heart to true happiness. Featuring a Foreword by the Dalai Lama, this book will help you discover that it is possible to experience genuine happiness every day.

As you incorporate the meditations from Genuine Happiness into your life, you will discover that the joy you've sought has always been only a few meditative minutes away.

Wallace, founder of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, explores key Buddhist meditation-related concepts that aid the "conquest of our inner obscurations" and "present a path to inner fulfillment and human flourishing." He first examines several particular methods—such as "mindfulness of breathing"—for cultivating shamatha, a state of "meditative quiescence" in which people's capacity for attention is refined and stabilized. They can then use these techniques to make a direct, delusion-free investigation of their own bodies, feelings and thoughts. These insights, in turn, help them nurture hearts of compassion and equanimity and, ultimately, realize more advanced teachings such as cultivating bodhichitta (a "spirit of awakening"), dream yoga and a highly developed meditation technique known as dzogchen. Wallace's discussions are usually clear and helpful (on why meditation works: "sustained, continuous effort can actually reconfigure your brain"), and his questions invite readers to see for themselves if his assertions resonate. Moreover, each chapter contains guided meditations to help readers encounter the teachings more directly. Nevertheless, the text can become dense and self-referential, and if readers miss a particular point early on, the effectiveness of later sections may be lessened. The result is a solid—if advanced—examination of some key Buddhist meditation techniques that will appeal to the serious student more than the casual seeker. (Apr.)(Publishers Weekly, February 28, 2005)

“[Genuine Happiness]…is a practical guide.” (Publishers Weekly, February 14, 2005)

In our search for happiness, we need not look far. True happiness is not found through the conquest of nature or the acquisition of wealth and fame—it is found within by realizing the potential of our own hearts and minds. In Genuine Happiness, Alan Wallace, scholar and longtime Buddhist practitioner, helps you embrace the joy within through the unique power of meditation. Based on his thirty-four years of study and practice under the guidance of sixty teachers from the East and West, Alan Wallace describes a range of Tibetan meditation techniques from the simplest mindfulness of breathing to the exalted methods of Dzogchen.

Encapsulating the most promising principles of Buddhist teachings, Genuine Happiness outlines the five essential Tibetan meditations that will help you achieve greater happiness:

• Meditative quiescence: mindfulness of breathing, settling the mind in its natural state, and cultivating awareness of simply being aware
• The Four Applications of Mindfulness (of the body, feelings, mind, and phenomena): the fundamental teachings on the cultivation of contemplative insight
• The Four Immeasurables (compassion, loving-kindness, empathic joy, and equanimity): the heart's path to genuine happiness
• Dream yoga: both daytime and nighttime practices
• Dzogchen: the Great Perfection

Featuring a foreword from the Dalai Lama, Genuine Happiness will help you collect and focus your mind away from the dullness and compulsive agitation of daily life. Through these Buddhist techniques and meditations, you will discover how to train your mind to delve into deeper and deeper states of awareness. Each chapter begins with a guided meditation, introductory material, and thoughts for further contemplation.

Through practice, understanding, and Alan Wallace's guidance, you will learn to follow the path of genuine happiness to its source—by tapping your inner natural resources to the fullest.

B. ALAN WALLACE, P h.D., a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970, has taught Buddhist theory and meditation throughout Europe and North and South America since 1976. He devoted fourteen years to training as a Tibetan Buddhist monk and was ordained by the Dalai Lama. Wallace also earned an undergraduate degree in physics and the philosophy of science at Amherst College and a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford. He lives in Santa Barbara, where he founded the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies.