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 [...]
[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?
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
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?
(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?
Once in a while I stop to think about what my spiritual practices are and where they might be going. Not that my conceptions about it are anything final, but just as a guideline to myself, at the moment, and possibly of use to others. So on the Rigpa Fellowship retreat last week, I was [...]
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 [...]
Listening to some Buddhist teachings for dealing with emotions last night, and to fellow students’ understandings these teachings, I put together a number of things that struck me is saying something about levels of dealing with emotions. The first level, what we might call the level of not particularly dealing with an emotion, is the [...]
Continue reading about Dealing With Emotions: Levels of Practice in Buddhism and Gurdjieff Work
My wife Judy and I are at a 10-day Tibetan Buddhist retreat in San Diego this week (November 26 through December 6, 2010), run by Lama Sogyal Rinpoche and his Rigpa Fellowship organization. We’ve been coming to these retreats for more than 20 years, and I have enormous respect for Rinpoche’s knowledge and compassion. But [...]