Readers of this blog and of my books tell me they like to hear about my personal psychological processes, how they affect my spiritual and scientific work, rather than only “Professor Tart’s” reasoned conclusions about such things. It’s easy for me to write in the latter style, that’s what gets rewarded in science. This apparent [...]
As I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago(April 9, 2012), I went back to lovely Asheville, NC for a week of video lecturing at the invitation of GlideWing.com, a company that produces online workshops on various spiritual, psychic and psychological topics. Having watched a workshop they’d done with Tibetan Lama Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, [...]
Ever since I was a child, dreams have fascinated me. Where did they come from? Good ones were marvelous. And flying! I had to slowly learn to fly over many dreams as a kid. First running and jumping, somehow slowing down the float back to earth. Then creating a little airplane around me – I [...]
Continue reading about Hovering on the Threshold of the Dream World
For all that I have heard various Buddhists teach about the unnecessary suffering that comes from getting overly attached to anything, I still get too attached to too many things. Like thinking I’ve got my life schedule in order and running well, and then reality comes along and disrupts things. So I’ve really been in [...]
I try to put something interesting here each weekend. I know that’s what most readers want, and it’s good discipline for me to write regularly like this. [I'd like to have time to be able to respond more often to readers' comments too, but my time is generally all taken up with writing and teaching] [...]
Continue reading about Teaching Meditation and Mindfulness: How Well Can It Be Done Online?
This is a qualification of future writings about Buddhism that I’ll refer folks too, lest they take me as a traditional “authority” on the subject….. [In this and subsequent postings, I'll be writing about Buddhism, but such writings of mine always need to be qualified. I'm not a Buddhist scholar, for example, nor am I [...]
Continue reading about Me and Buddhism – Stimulation, Not Authority
[In this and subsequent postings, I'll be writing about Buddhism, but such writings of mine always need to be qualified. I'm not a Buddhist scholar, for example, nor am I at all "enlightened" and thus speaking from deep interior knowledge. Yet I am a sincere student of this particular path of spiritual development (as well [...]
Continue reading about Thought is Bad? Enlightenment Means Not Thinking?
Pain and Suffering: Some years ago I came across and was very impressed by Shinzen Young’s approximate algebraic formulation of the relationship of suffering to actual physical pain and psychological factors (see http://www.shinzen.org for relevant writings or his book, Break Through Pain: A Step-by-Step Mindfulness Meditation Program for Transforming Chronic and Acute Pain). Having a [...]
Dr. Charles Tart Mindfulness Dr. Charles T. Tart, Mindfulness, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Lecture 5, Part 10 of 18 parts. To start class from beginning, click here. CTT: What other attempts have people been making to be mindfully present in the ordinary world? Student: The other day I was thinking about states of consciousness and [...]
I’ve recently been in correspondence with a young graduate student who has been dismayed to find out how much subjectivity can occur in her life when she is supposed to be a scientist, training in a hard, respected physical science. I think many people in general, who are overly impressed by science, as well as [...]
Continue reading about Ideal science and Real Science: Don’t You Dare Question My Objectivity!