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 [...]
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 [...]
I’ve described this experience earlier this year, but felt a need to put it into a less intellectual, more heart/poetic style, so…. “Meditating,” after a fashion Trying to relax with whatever arises, To not change it, improve it, dismiss it as not good enough. To “do” nothing. The meditation guide reminds us, “The search is [...]
Continue reading about Peace: A Second Song of Small Realization
Twenty five hundred years ago, Gautama Siddhartha, the historical Buddha, had some deep insights and created powerful techniques that would allow major reductions of human suffering. Traditionally the Buddha is said to found a total end to all suffering. Perhaps that’s true, perhaps it’s not. I don’t know, but certainly Buddhist meditation techniques and related [...]
Continue reading about Meditation, Monasticism, Buddhism, Materialism – Preliminary Thoughts
Background: Notes on an event in a 50+ year attempt to learn and benefit from spiritual practices…. For some years now, I have been trying various meditation techniques from many world traditions, particularly techniques which meditation teacher Shinzen Young has modified in various ways to make more sense to and be more doable by modern [...]
Continue reading about Experiences of Peace – or Was It Resting in the Nature of Mind?
Dr. Charles Tart Mindfulness Dr. Charles T. Tart, Mindfulness, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Lecture 5, Part 8 of 18 parts. To start class from beginning, click here. CTT: And that’s the problem with concentrative meditation. With concentrative meditation, some people can develop an enormous amount of concentration power, and they can get rid of pain [...]