(Following is adapted from an item I wrote for the interesting new blog WhatMeditationReallyIs.com. I think it will be of interest here) When I become the Czar of Worldwide Words, I’m going to abolish the word “meditation.” Isn’t that an odd way to start a blog on meditation? Gets your attention, though. I will write [...]
Continue reading about That Word “Meditation:” What Does it Mean?
Dr. Charles Tart Mindfulness Dr. Charles T. Tart, Mindfulness, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Lecture 5, Part 5 of 18 parts. To start class from beginning, click here. CTT: Now once in a while, the transpersonal does get through to us. So one way to grow is to hope to have an overwhelming transpersonal experience that [...]
Continue reading about Inviting Spirit by Reducing the Noise
At my San Diego Rigpa Fellowship retreat last week, lama Sogyal Rinpoche, in teaching about the nature of the unenlightened, ordinary mind (sem in Tibetan), mentioned how perception can be distorted, especially by strong emotions like anger. Naturally if you can’t perceive the world accurately, you’re going to do things that will have unintended and [...]
I wrote the following (do they still call it blank verse, or has poetry changed since I was in high school a zillion years ago?) while on a 10-day retreat last week with Sogyal Rinpoche, the Tibetan lama who wrote the best-selling Tibetan Book of Living and Dying a few years ago. My wife and [...]
For many years I’ve been taking Buddhist teachings from Tibetan Lama Sogyal Rinpoche. I don’t call myself a “Buddhist,” or an any kind of “ist,” as I think about and try to practice various teachings from many paths and perspectives. I do find Buddhism appealing as it’s so psychological in its emphases, and Sogyal Rinpoche [...]
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Dr. Charles Tart Mindfulness Dr. Charles T. Tart, Mindfulness, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Lecture 5, Part 3 of 18 parts. To start class from beginning, click here. That takes us over to the upper right hand corner diagram of what can happen with Vipassana meditation, and two big things are happening in the way I [...]
All of you know one of my main goals in life is to help genuine science and genuine spirituality interact in ways so each helps the other. An interesting aspect arose in discussion with colleagues recently, that I wrote my friend Shinzen Young, meditation teacher, about. Some of you might find this interesting, it’s about [...]
Continue reading about Sutta to the Kalamas: Mind Opening or Mind-Manipulating?
Some of you may know the web radio show Buddhist Geeks. Various Buddhist teachers are interviewed about once a week on cutting edge aspects of Buddhism, fitting it into modern times, etc., with the “geek” emphasis on what works. The show’s host, Vincent Horn, interviewed me a year or two ago at my wife’s urging, [...]
I have been involved in a discussion on a professional list of “spiritual leaders” about the evidence for reincarnation and, more generally whether science has any value in casting light on spirituality and religion. One of the list members, an ordained Christian minister, wrote that he had a difficult time understanding my mentality. Where was [...]
Continue reading about Science and Spirit: Where I’m Coming From and How I’m Doing It:
A colleague and I have been corresponding about meditation research and our personal experiences of meditation. He recently wrote me that it’s a widespread belief that in meditation, a person can observe their own thoughts. That idea didn’t make sense in his personal experience, as for him, thoughts were a process, not an “object” you [...]
Continue reading about Meditating on Thoughts or Observing Thoughts