by Deirdre Collings

There are some intriguing similarities between the 2,500 hundred-year-old search for happiness through Buddhism and the hundred-year-old search for happiness through psychotherapy. Both Buddhism and psychotherapy are interested in making our lives better through a process of self-understanding. Buddhism and psychotherapy also share a concern with suffering and the means of relief and release from that suffering. In that sense, there is commonality between the two, for both traditions are really approaches to the mind and place a lot of emphasis on the idea of self-exploration, self-understanding and self-knowledge. While Buddhism and psychotherapy are not exactly the same - Buddhism is traditionally concerned with changing the consciousness of socially adjusted individuals while psychotherapy is concerned with changing the consciousness of disturbed individuals - a fruitful dialogue between the two has begun to take place in recent years. E-Vam Institute is itself preparing to host its sixth Buddhism and Psychotherapy Conference in 2003.

This issue of Ordinary Mind features a number of teachers who have begun the assimilation of the teachings of Buddhism and psychotherapy. The Venerable Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche, the founder of E-Vam Institute in Melbourne and New York, is the ninth incarnation in an important lineage of spiritual masters from Tibet. Karen Kissel Wegela is a psychologist in private practice and director of the M.A. program in Contemplative Psychotherapy at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where she has taught for over twenty years. Professor Padmasiri de Silva is currently a Research Associate in Buddhism and Ethics in the 'Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology' at Monash University. Guy Claxton is Visiting Professor of Learning Science, and Director of the Development of the Research Initiative on Culture and Learning in Organisations at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol. Guy is also an internationally renowned writer, consultant, lecturer and academic, specialising in creativity, education and the mind.

This issue also includes an interview with Richard Gombrich, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford and a Forum from the 2001 Buddhism and Psychotherapy Conference on gaining insight into the nature of mind, with Wendy Finster, Malcolm Walley, Guy Claxton, Kathleen Gregory, Geoff Dawson and Ven. Ivan Milton. In addition to the usual features, there is a review of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's recent seminar in Melbourne is also included, along with some views on Buddhist practice by inmates of the Maximum Security Prison in Western Australia.

Ordinary Mind hopes that this selection of talks on the assimilation, comparison and contrasting of Buddhist psychology and the psychotherapeutic application of western theories of mind stimulates your interest in the potential of this rich field of human endeavour. With this issue, we move on from our feature series on the main traditions of Buddhist practice, to more encompassing themes on Buddhism and its applications in the western world.