Oh My goodness @madushanka, thank you so much. Alan Wallace did many retreats with Sri Lanka Theravada monks, he took robs with the order for a time, something like 17 years? He is also a scholar and a Dzogchen practitioner within Tibetan Buddhism. He studied with the Geluk and Sakya traditions which stress knowledge, study, and mediation. He has one of the best explanations of Shamatha meditation I've heard next to my own teachers <3

I was taught if one does not learn how to calm the mind into one pointedness for as long as one wants all other practices are pointless...hehehe Like learning how to be an archer ;-)
http://www.vipassana.co/What-is-Anapana
Your teachers taught you well, we all need to learn shamatha meditatin...or like me anapana meditation, which is basically the same thing...