Awakening the Mind

Book excerpt: Each moment of our lives, from birth to death, our brains are engaged in an endless symphony of patterns. In Awakening the Mind, Anna Wise reveals how a careful understanding of the four types of brain waves, and the practice of carefully designed meditation exercises that lead to a mastery of each type, can vastly improve everyday focus, memory, concentration, and overall mental awareness. Over the past three decades, Wise has measured the brain-wave patterns of spiritual teachers, artists, high-performing businessmen, athletes, and other highly creative and productive individuals. She discovered that, during periods of peak mental awareness and clarity, they all exhibited a specific brain-wave pattern in which the four categories of brain waves—alpha, beta, theta, and delta—combined in a distinct configuration. In this book, Wise provides meditation exercises specially developed to lead readers to achieve that heightened mental state referred to as the Awakened Mind.