Gen Lamrimpa, born in Tibet in 1934, spent most of his life in meditative retreat in Dharamsala, India. He is the author of Calming the Mind, one of the clearest books in English on shamatha meditation.

B. ALAN WALLACE has authored, translated, edited, and contributed to more than forty books on Tibetan Buddhism and culture, as well as on the interface between science and religion, and he has spent many years in solitary meditation retreat. Having trained for many years as a Buddhist monk in India, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, and the United States, he then earned a BA in physics and the philosophy of science and later a PhD in religious studies. After teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he founded the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies and more recently the Center for Contemplative Research.