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5/26/08 What is a "me."
Ki-breathing for an hour... Followed by a short audio selection from Ken McCleod (search iTunes podcasts for Unfettered Questions or here). Then a kettle of parsley-green tea and reading a section in Chris Curtis's new book, Letting Go.
As I sit by the open sliding glass door at dawn, with the cold air and bird song freshening the room, I am struck by my resistance to the "flow of the Universe." First I notice how I control my attacks in aikido practice so I can control my ukemi and protect myself. There is no sense of letting go into the universal river of ki and surrendering my isolated, protective (paltry) control.
Images of attacking and falling and rolling. Moments of joyous randori with lots of huge forward rolls. I recall times when I suddenly found myself returning to normal consciousness (control) after a flurry of arms and turns and spirals and rolling. But I see that choosing to dive into a way of being without control but with an openness to the universe, while racing in to grab nage, is not something I've sought.
Then the vista deepens... I see that all my life I have been "in resistance" to the universe. I have been separated and in a subtle mode of protection from all-that-is. In fact, I can define myself as the accumulated resistance to the Universe. My relative self, (Jp. shoga) IS resistance to Universal flow and rhythm. I relate to all the other relative selves around me from this shallow, separated, limited consciousness, and we all tacitly agree that this is normal. I have built a successful self within this narrow poor resistance. And nearly everybody buys it.
How refreshing it is to train and interact with Masters and Sensei's who have no need to validate or agree with the relative self (nor conflict directly with it), with those who's concern is with absolute oneness, the Truth of complete connection, and allowing Universal Ki to move.
As I rest deeper in the infinite One-Point, I feel like I am standing at the top of a high waterfall and am opening my arms and allowing myself to fall... Into surrender to the Universe Itself. Rather than my small self (shoga) running my life, I let go more into the unknown emptiness. Control is an illusion, a shallow fantasy the small self (Jp. taiga) desperately clings to. Really, the Universal Ki flow and rhythm has been there all the time, I was doing all the contracted resistance. I was isolating myself and then noticing that within that isolation, I WAS SEPARATE and needed protection.
How refreshing to let it go and rest in Great Doubt and Great Trust. I can be responsible for myself and at the same time allow Universal Ki-Mind to move through. I can surrender control and let taiga move. I do not have to try and figure it out within my limited self's constrained thinking. I can open and allow things to move and develop and stay right on the moment with it all. Keep one-point.
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2/29/08 the Reality of Connection
"The supreme challenge of a warrior is to turn an enemy's fearful wrath into harmless laughter." - O Sensei
This quote points to the spirit of our aikido, that mood wherein we smile as we receive the attack and move -- not to avoid, but to connect -- in harmony.
As we train, we develop the capacity to receive without submitting, to be open without resistance, to move appropriately without attempting to control. We move with the river of Universal Ki with no separation; no subject, no object, just joyous harmony in motion.
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2/20/08 Self-Liberation
"Everything's natural tendency is to self-liberate. That's the good news. Whatever is held is what keeps total realization from happening. So when you don't seem to be self-liberating, you are holding on to something static, ideas or memories. It could be a big moment twenty years ago, or it could be a tiny moment yesterday. If you are holding an identity, an idea, opinion, judgment, blame, victimhood, guilt, etc., this will get in the way of self-liberation. You can stop holding these stories by de-framing, not re-framing them." - Adyashanti
This is so fine; this self-liberation. Only the persistence of our re-contraction keeps us from moment to moment self-liberation. Like enlightenment is not a goal, it is a verb, our relative identity is also a verb, constantly grasping itself into persistence.
If one holds onto the integral model, then it is just more translation, just more reframing. It affirms identity if held this way. Use it well in the relative world, and drop it when dissolving into the infinite. Be wary of the ego-identity using the integral material to prop itself up and feel more masterful.
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1/19/08 Intellect Re-Purposed
This morning during the last few moments of my hour ki-breathing, In a flash I saw/felt the transcendent purpose of intellect. Right after the flash, I heard myself think, “Intellect serves God.” (This is particularly odd, as I tend to avoid the G-word and the baggage surrounding it.) I realized that until that moment, my intellect had been serving my relative identity, point of view, and ego. All the cleverness, The sharp wit, all the nuance and complexity were serving my small self and its needs. Intellect was enmeshed within a system of behaviors and habits that kept me isolated and appeased, it continually fortified self-identity.
Falling out from that insight: I can choose to be mindful and connected and empty, and allow intellect to serve the moment’s appropriate expression arising from vast Universal Mind. Intellect was a coping strategy in life, supporting ego, now it was a highly developed tool in service of the Infinite.
How refreshing! How obvious! How simple!
Yet I could not see it until I saw it.
And now, I see clearly how I have used my intellect to keep the contraction of identity, well, contracted. I see how we relative identities conspire together to support each other’s contraction with clever and thoughtful conversation. The exchange of reasoned dialog... Being sensitive or being unilateral... It was all mostly an indulgent distraction from the deep rift and suffering we experience as relative identities... And the beyond-self truth of complete connection and oneness.
Even when we have not refined our awareness to the point of stable presence in Universal Mind, we still feel when someone is using their cognitive development to bolster their identity/ego. It can be obvious with the more crude efforts, or delicately subtle, articulate or vulgar... heroic, humble or guilt-laden, but we all feel the weaving of ideas and thoughts sustaining identity. Mostly we disregard the feeling, as we are doing the same thing, at the same time. But still, no matter how subtle, we are aware of it.
The tool of intellect is not the problem. Being fixated on using it to feed the persistence of ego is. When freed from this inappropriate use, intellect blooms into a brilliant and artful manifestation of the Universal Mind. It thereby skillfully serves the growth, development, and realization of all beings.
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12/23/07 Life Hacking
Part of the integral perspective is respecting your external-relative world self -- your UR and LR quads -- and thereby wanting to have the appropriate tool, technique, system and structure to effectively handle life's flow. We want to be fully in the world, but not attached and distracted by the world.
Below is a video of Merlin Mann discussing how to manage email. It is worthwhile to view, as the perspective he demonstrates applies to all of relative world stuff: computer Desktop clutter, office piles, closets and garages. It goes a long way toward getting us relaxed in the midst of the ever changing stuff.
If being relaxed while in the flow is not a priority; well, just skip this then.
Enjoy.
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12/12/07 Integral Connectedness
One of the pitfalls that confounds many of us as we navigate the transition from a Sensitive-Pluralistic level of adult development (Green altitude) into Integral (Teal altitude) is an over-emphasis on differentiation. Growing out of Green, we transcend the often excessive postmodern relativism, where all perspectives are heaped together with equal value in a heart-felt, but naive embrace, and we find the developmental stages revealed at Integral refreshing and insightful. In our enthusiasm for this newfound map, we can get swept into separating perspectives, dividing up views into developmental layers, categorizing, generalizing, and fragmenting human beingness. We can narrow our focus to only the differences between us and inadvertently lose that which unifies, that which connect us all.
This focus on differentiation almost always annoys and provokes Green. And perhaps rightfully so. The sensitivity for connection and unity-in-diversity that is learned at the Green stage of development is a profound capacity, and for some, fundamental in their self-identity. When someone at Integral-Teal begins talking about stages of development and stratifying people’s worldviews, this feels like hierarchical violence to sensitive, early-holistic Green. Furthermore, Integral-Teal can be quite zealous in its rebellion against Green, wielding the AQAL map sharply, cutting up that which was whole. Sensing this, Green backs away from Integral, like stumbling backward from a sword slashing demon. Sure it’s projection on Green’s part, but we can also be more skillful as we talk integral.
Furthermore, as we live at Teal and then Turquoise, we experience new depths of connection that are more profound and far more inclusive than what was known at Sensitive Green. In fact, the very scale that seems to fragment and divide, once digested, is a key that unlocks a more authentic connectedness. In Green, we are championing sensitive, pluralistic values, yet at the same time trying to change other culture’s not-so-sensitive ways. Wanting to give everyone a voice, yet wanting them to see and speak from an egalitarian, consensus building view. Green’s hubris (and all first 6 stages of development) is thinking they know better than all other perspectives: a uni-perspectival myopia. Green’s covert judgement about other’s inferior values fundamentally thwarts Green’s ability to connect to anyone other than Green.
At Integral-Teal we become fully aperspectival. We no longer grip our perspective so tightly. We can meet others at whatever level of development they are expressing, be it ego-centric, ethnocentric, or worldcentric. We can listen for healthy expression at any level and authentically connect there. At Integral Teal our compassion reaches many more than at Green. We no longer have a pluralistic values filter governing what we are willing to approve of and connect with. In this way, embodying the AQAL map and its stage conception opens up deeper and wider connections.
The other distinctions of the Integral AQAL map (quadrants, lines, types, stages & states) radically enrich our view of human being-in-the-world. The more we understand, the more we can connect, once we have embodied the distinctions. Just knowing the Integral jargon, the map, the categories, is only a naive beginning. At this point the intellectual knowledge can isolate and separate, especially in Green’s view. The evolving adult student of Integral struggles with the transcend and include process and must engage their inner shadow, the damage their self-system took on during development, the maladaptive beliefs and unexamined attitudes they have accumulated. Untying these knots of human trauma, miss-learning and personal stupidity from an integral perspective opens a deep relaxation in the bodymind and a consequent loosening of the fundamental contraction into separation. With this transformative leap to Integral, we become aware of amazing new levels of connection with all sentient beings.
This new level of openness and connection in Integral (and beyond) also opens us to Universal Mind even more, as we no longer grasp quite so tightly to our small ego’s perspective. One of the treasures of realized aperspectival development is the correlative acceleration of spiritual evolution. More and more of our sense of self is now centered in the transcendent, who we know ourselves to be is the absolutely clear and radiant connection fundamental in all beings. And as we practice resting in this state of awareness, the oneness of all that is becomes our experience, not a belief or a slogan, but a clear and stable perception.
Connection simply is. It is not something we do or think about. It is the air we breath. Experiencing this state of awareness has been available to men and women at all levels of development throughout history. Sages and saints have written about it. Their experience, completely authentic; their description, stage specific. Any recounting of an experience is interpretation, and all interpretations are governed by our developmental and cultural perspective. The more sophisticated the perspective (higher stages of development), the more nuanced, accurate and powerful the transmission.
But in our day to day life, as we deepen our integral awareness, increasing compassion dictates our being mindful of our already-always connection. We see when we contract from excessively pluralistic Green, and relax back into connection. And this is not some sappy, indulgent, boundry-less fantasy embrace. We can remain open and connected, even while moving with angry egocentric Red. Our awareness-in-connection, in fact, allows us to know and move and behave appropriate to the situation with much more skill and ease than any boundary we create while contracting and separating ourselves. Resting in the connection, with relaxed awareness, we can respond instantly and we do not add fuel to any conflict; we are, simply, a catalyst for harmony.
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6/21/07 Big Mind - Body Unification
Sitting for an hour ki-breathing... Drawing in Big Mind in a manner similar to Genpo's comments in his new book Big Mind Big Heart... In a flash I saw that breathing into my one-point was a stepping stone. Perhaps a more fully integrated mind-body did not necessarily occur at one particular location, the one-point, but was more of a shimmering field experience. Where the entire body was permeated, was lit up by the presence of Universal Mind or Big Mind.
At first this occurred as a kind of scintillating presence throughout my body, like tiny spots glowing...in my one-point, in my legs, in my arms. Then as I continued to breathe and relax I realized that this field of presence was not limited to what I usually called 'my body' but was also arising in the walls, the floor, the cushion... Unifying mind and body expanded to be the presence of awake Big Mind throughout body and all of physicality around me.
Then everything shifted into a micro perspective, and I noticed that these spots were not spots at all, but were more like tiny Buddhas. Similar to some thangka paintings I have seen with background fields of Buddhas, I was seeing thousands of small Buddhas within my body and within the world around me. The intensity of presence increased, I felt like parts of my body were more alive than they had ever been, and the solid world around me was filled with awareness and presence.
The meditation bell rang... I breathed and opened my eyes to the world. Everything was ordinary, the same, and yet completely different in a subtle way. I felt like I was walking in a world filled with realization. The floor was awake. The door was awake. Big Mind permeated everything.
As I walked from the dojo to the house, this subtle presence faded. My awareness changed and I was soon washing the dishes. And just that was fine too. It is a pleasure to release (non-seeking non-grasping mind) such expansive state experiences and allow the present to be in awareness fully.
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4/26/07 - The Cost of an Attitude
I'm in Gardena CA, at Shaner Sensei's Seminar... After Saturday’s session, late in the night, I was dreaming of being at some event or resort with my wife and other friends. In the dream it was very late, like 2am, and I did not know where my wife, Lisa, was. This was irksome and I was both annoyed and concerned. So I left the room and began looking for her. Soon she approached, jogging with a good friend along a desert canyon trail.
I confronted her, “It’s the middle of the night, where have you been? What is going on?!” The fact that it was light out was not questionable, after all it was a dream...
Looking at me, she smiled, “I am running with Amy.”
I was slightly relieved but still a bit annoyed, “Couldn’t you have left me a note or something!?”
While this exchange was happening, the two of them ran slowly past me on the trail. Lisa’s attention was on me, her face was turning to stay with me as she ran by. Her attention was engaged with my irksome attitude. I felt a slight frown on my face and an intensity in my eyes...
I watched as her foot strayed off the trail and into space. Instantly she fell straight down the vertical cliff, silently plummeting downward... My heart leapt into my throat and was torn apart. I felt myself, my life, my being, falling with her. Lisa was gone forever... I bent in terrible anguish and immediately knew I was dreaming, while still in the dream.
Instantly I was aware of
- Blaming her for being distracted, for losing her footing...angry...
- A complete and deep loss; she was gone... wrenching sadness...
- Seeing how reasonable and justified my attitude and concerns were...
- Yet it was my attitude that distracted her...
And in that moment I was shocked fully awake, and I sat up in the hotel room. Still breathing roughly, I realized that no matter how justified and appropriate my upset might have seemed, it was still an indulgence and the cost was extreme. Just holding to that attitude in the moment she was running by, drew her mind, trapped her attention, and she lost her footing. And I was not even that upset, just irked...
The cost of such a momentary attitude weighed on my heart. I knew it had been a dream, and I also knew I had received a strong insight.
Grasping even a reasonable position, no matter how normal and seemingly appropriate, cuts me off from the flow of a unified present. Attitudes arise, but I could simply touch them momentarily, lightly, and then allow them to dissolve, to change and pass. Obsessing over them, feeding them attention and energy, heating them up, or gripping them tightly can only lead to separation, disunity and suffering.
And not just within me. I have an effect on everyone around me. Everything is interdependent and mutually arising. Indulgence and attachment radiates outward and touches others, the effects causing new effects, and outward and onward it goes...
With that in mind, I got out of bed in the dark, set myself up with seiza bench, and began ki-breathing until sunrise. Resting in the very, very sharp, subtly changing presence of now. |
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4/10/07 Kensho
A letter I sent to Ken...
Dear Ken, integral consciousness sensei:
It is Tuesday morning, the sun flashes off the summit snows of Silver Peak to the north. This morning’s sitting was completely sublime, vast, joyful, empty. I have had momentary tastes of this, but nothing with this eternal duration and infinite reach. A full blown kensho... All the issues and questions I chewed on over the last year in my practice were instantly resolved and burned away. The content-less knowing was beyond all that I had ever known myself or consciousness to be. There were/are sweeping moments of gratitude like huge soft waves... Tears dripped down my face, yet I was unattached and the sitting and breathing and posture continued without effort. The wind in the trees not other than me. The rain on the roof over the dojo is my head. So simple. So ordinary. Yet utterly extraordinary.
With my first breath this morning, I opened (was opened...) to infinity and simply rested there, forever. I witnessed some trickling thoughts, an aching ankle... But always the presence, the suchness, the boundless-space opened and opened and opened. It was/is unequivocal. And now as I sit here thanking you, the presence continues to shimmer, resonate and extend.
It is clear to me that the ILP perspective: with the gradual, every day ki-breathing meditation; the sudden flashes of original nature from Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind; the Integral cognitive study; and the embodied aikido; all synergistically accelerated evolution. Not 30 years, not 5 years... But 18 months! This morning’s realization also rests on a lifetime of seeking and inquiring... Yet your amazing relative integral maps and transcendental pointing-out were essential.
In my perspective, enlightenment has evolved from a mythic, unreachable, unknowable, fantasy, into a grounded, vast, open, presence. The wisdom and sanity of your overview, humble and inspire. I am swept by gratitude. A deep bow northwards toward Denver and the shimmering brilliant stroke of your Integral Spirituality. And practice continues...
Thank you.
Shinpo uchu rei kanno soku genjo.
Steve Self
Durango, CO |
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3/12/07 From Infinity to Infinity
Two minor koans rested in the meditative ki-breathing expanse this morning. The first could be roughly stated as, “How does the relative body unify with infinite mind?” The second, “What does it mean to 'come from infinity and go to infinity' ?”
I began the session with first just stating the question, and then letting it go. I was not thinking about it or having an internal conversation around it as I sat ki-breathing. I just placed it into presence at the start and opened to whatever might arise.
Now, the most obvious and sensible answer seemed to be that infinite mind, universal mind, or Big Mind – call it what you want – includes all of relative mind. So unifying the two is really a moot point as everything is unified in Big Mind. Perhaps this response is technically correct, but it’s really just relative mind's conceptual projection regarding the question. There’s no presence or authentic depth in that answer. And a bit glib.
So I’m just ki-breathing, noticing when thinking/evaluating/planning emerges to entice my attention, and returning to one-point and breathing. The second question emerged as I exhaled completely, very relaxed, very empty, I opened to whatever might be there in response to “from infinity - to infinity”… And I noticed that my pauses at full inhale or full exhale began to extend without any effort. I felt a subtle presence of vast-extension in each cycle of breath. I simply sat breathing with an openness to whatever might arise in the presence of awareness holding the question. After a few more breaths, I felt a sense of breathing from infinity and then to infinity, both in the body and beyond the body. So in a way, it felt both embodied and beyond the body at the same time. And this was not confusing at all, it was a very natural development, just hard to talk about in words.
Then, in a non-linear way, I became aware that this feeling of being suspended between “from infinity” and “to infinity” could be found unified with(in) body, that my one-point was also contiguous with this feeling. It was formless and shapeless. Again, this seemed very simple and obvious in the moment’s experience. Talking about it after the fact is tricky and makes it sound more complex. This openness to infinity included body and included one-point in a wholeness, in a unity, that was effortless, and that was experiential not just conceptual. The question of how to unify relative body with infinite mind seemed simple in this new experiential context.
Then I found myself thinking about the experience, and no longer in the experience. A grasping or attaching to the experience pulled me out of the state. But that was fine. I saw the attempt to hold on to the feeling, to make something of what I had experienced, to credit myself. All of which immediately shut the transpersonal down and I was right back to relative mind concepts and thoughts of achievement. Noticing this, I went back to breathing and rested in whatever experience of unification and infinity that might arise.
As the session concluded, I considered movement in aikido coming from infinity and going to infinity. I could sense a possibility of agenda-less motion, of motion arising from somewhere other than my best laid plans or strategies. Yes, the foundation of 500 techniques I’ve practiced in the SBK curriculum was available, but whatever would happen as movement occurred was not scripted and not planned in the usual relative sense.
I could see the gap between what I do now and this possibility of moving from infinity and to infinity. I reminded myself that none of this was conclusion, everything was evolving and impermanent, and I would need to be open to whatever arose next.
All this on a morning when I nearly stayed in bed to sleep, when I was a bit cranky and slightly annoyed at the whole practice of ki-breathing.
Rei |
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12/21/06 Integral Skeptisim
Recently the I-I email news-zine HOLONS listed the web site: www.ted.com/tedtalks under the social systems quadrant. There are quite a few very cool video clips there...
In particular, I found the one featuring Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptics Magazine to be very useful from an integral perspective. In the clip he illustrates the dramatic degree to which subjectivity can sort and distort reality to fit both unconsciously programmed meaning as well as instinctually preferenced perception. His is the 8th down.
Any integral view or conversation must take into account this subjective meaning projection/distortion, both at the cultural and individual levels, and must respect the scientific method (quite distinct from scientism as discussed by Ken in The Marriage of Sense and Soul). Ancedotal stories and evidence are so often elevated to mythic or transcendental levels, and while we can respect the self that is making meaning in the elevation, their heart and their poetic inspiration, we do not need to respect the elevationism itself.
Yes, one can get trapped in a flatland extremist skeptic view, and many do, but there is a strong truth contribution that dispels the soft-headed thinking swirling all around us in an "integral skepticism." One need not drop authentic compassion and relatedness to embody and contribute these truths. AND, one can live within the anecdotal, the subjective, enjoying life while always remembering the myth of the given and the deeply permeating perceptual spin of subjectivity. Trust but verify. |
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10/3/06 Perspective Shifting Media
Last night before leaving for the dojo, I ran across this site:
Global Mind Shift
The link takes you to the beginning of the video presentation. I recommend all chapters highly! Requires hi-speed net connection, up to date browser with Flash Video capability, and your audio-out from the computer should be connected to good speakers. It is a beautiful aesthetic and cognitive journey.
I enjoyed the science-based view attempting to create a "new story" for modern man. Touching and inspiring, while also being partial - it preferences the upper right quadrant's empirical perspective and while it speaks to interiors, it ignores all spiritual-mystical experiences in the upper left. If viewed as the whole story it collapses into a flatland with no spirit... If situated in an integral model, it contributes a beautiful truth.
It would be wonderful to create another presentation, coming from the great wisdom traditions and presenting a post-postmodern spirituality (see Integral Spirituality) with the same style and aesthetic. Taken together a more complete, more integral vision would be evoked.
But it is a wonderful effort, the artist and designer(s) are to be commended. |
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9/11/06 Ki-Breathing
Sat for 45 minutes this morning, ongoing deep ki-breathing, as an expression of the infinite or Big Mind, rather than trying to achieve something, trying to get to some experience, trying to earn some insight, trying in any way. Thoughts came and went as always. Each breath was unique as was each moment, as I just sat aware.
I also became aware of (what seemed like) deeper layers of non-relaxed mind and body. The breathing, settling and awareness continues... |
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