One of the major puzzles of our time is that while human consciousness,our immediate experience of life, is the thing that most distinguishes humans, consciousness has been shunned and neglected as a topic of study by Western mainstream science. In the last few years, however, many scientists have come to recognize that questions about the nature of consciousness are actually central and crucial to understanding the world, even in areas like physics. So there is a field of psychology, the transpersonal psychology which develops a new area in studying human consciousness and the spiritual experience, arose in early 70s. Since its focus on the spiritual development, Buddhism is then introduced. But, through the transpersonal psychology, will Buddhism be accepted and become a part of Western culture, like that in China, Tibet, Japan, and Korea? Are there anything need to be adjusted to fit with Western culture and science? Here, you may get some answer from our interview with Dr. Charles T. Tart, a leading scientist and transpersonal psychologist, through Internet.

INTRODUCTION OF DR. CHARLES T. TART

Dr. Charles T. Tart is currently a Core Faculty Member at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, as well as Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Davis campus of the University of California, where he served for 28 years. He is internationally known for his psychological work on altered states of consciousness and as one of the founders of transpersonal psychology. He has written a dozen books and published more than a hundred articles in scientific journals. His two classic books, Altered States of Consciousness (1969) and Transpersonal Psychologies (1975), became widely used texts that allowed these areas to become part of modern psychology.

THE INTERVIEW

Q: From what I have learned about the transpersonal psychology, I find there seems to be some connection between transpersonal psychology and Buddhism. So would you please tell us about the difference and the common between them.

A: Transpersonal Psychology is a young discipline, hardly more than 25 years old. It was started by Western psychologists who saw that the total ignoring and denial of the spiritual side of people by mainstream psychology and science was not only missing something vitally important, it was also damaging to people. A whole culture was, as it were, actively denying the reality of people's Buddha nature and so sinking deeper into samsaric activity.

Many of us knew there were spiritual realities that it was vital to learn about and we were very attracted to Eastern disciplines like yoga and Buddhism, especially because they had methods for actually transforming oneself, not just abstract beliefs about how one ought to be. Some seekers were able to get deeply involved in various Eastern disciplines and those disciplines did change them into more spiritual people. Many of us found that the cultural differences made it hard to really understand and get involved in Eastern disciplines, though, and we also realized that any and all spiritual systems were deeply embedded in the particular cultures they evolved in.

Thus transpersonal psychology has a primary aim of investigating and understanding spiritual realities is a more general and scientific way than by adopting any particular spiritual path, and the hoped for outcome will be to develop spiritual practices that are more effective for more people than the traditional ones tied to membership in a particular culture.

Q: How to integrate Buddhism and Western culture?

A: There has been a problem in many of East-West dialogues conducted so far: they have had much less long range impact than is possible and needed because they have really been monologs, not genuine dialogs.

A true dialogue is a wondrous interaction for helping all parties involved in it find greater understanding and wisdom. Each party must, of course, feel that there is something for us to learn, that there are gaps, imperfections, inefficiencies in our own knowledge: otherwise there is no point in a dialogue.

If Buddhism is to have a strong impact on Western culture it must attract and interact with large numbers of the best minds in the culture. For that there needs to be true dialogue, not just monologically teaching the Buddhist view to a relatively small number of sympathetic or curious Westerners.

Buddhism will change and adapt in its Western manifestations, of course, just as it has historically changed and adapted when it went into, for example, Tibet, China, and Japan. Traditional Buddhists must devote much energy to maintaining the tradition, especially when political events in the East threaten its survival, but the question is how much effort by traditional Buddhists will be put into making the Western adaptation of Buddhism truly effective? How much genuine dialog will take place to promo this?

I hope it will be quite a lot! We need help from Easterners who are manifesting learning, enlightenment and intelligence in mutually respectful dialogue that touches all our hearts, not just monologs that clash with Western cultural values and don't really effectively communicate.

Q: At the end, would you like to say something for our readers?