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, [...]
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?
[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?
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 [...]
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?
I have been intellectually impressed for years with G. I. Gurdjieff’s claim that we have three distinct types of “intelligence,” namely our intellectual mind, what we usually think of as intelligence, our emotional mind, and our bodily-instinctive mind. I say intellectually impressed, because for many years this was primarily a set of ideas for me, [...]
Continue reading about Emotional Intelligence versus Emotional Seizures
(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
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 [...]