Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber is one of the most widely read and influential American philos­ophers of our time. His writings have been translated into over twenty languages. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber is one of the most widely read and influential American philos­ophers of our time. His writings have been translated into over twenty languages. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

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GUIDES

Two Vital Books for Our Era of Polarization

It will come as little surprise to you that we are not publishers of political tracts. Yet, in this era of polarization, in the U.S. we approach a fraught election season and across the world we are seeing shifts across the political spectrum that are characterized by visions of the past, present, and future which can be deeply concerning, depart from objective truth, and whose motivations and goals are often murky. In many ways these political crises we see around us are rooted in a collective spiritual crisis, and this is very much in the center of our publishing wheelhouse.

With this in mind, we wanted to share two relatively recent and vitally important books that have a lot to say about present visions of leadership and a realignment of our societies that serve as models to appreciate, reflect on, and explore. Neither are political treatises per se. Yet they both point to a way forward for all of us that is positive and hopeful.

Politics and Conscience in an era of polarizationThe first is a profile of what true leadership, shorn of self-serving ideology, can be.  In Politics and Conscience: Dag Hammarskjöld on the Art of Ethical Leadership, Roger Lipsey has provided us with an example of true leadership based on the life and work of this pivotal figure who, with grace and poise, led the United Nations as Secretary General during the incredible polarization of the post-war era.

As readers of his now-classic diary, Markings, are aware, Hammarskjöld understood political leadership as an honor calling for resourcefulness, humility, moral clarity, and spiritual reflection.

In this accessible handbook, acclaimed biographer Roger Lipsey details the political and personal code by which Hammarskjöld lived and made critical decisions. What emerges is the portrait of a man who struck a remarkable balance between patience and action, empathy and reserve, policy and people. Structured through short sections on themes such as courage, facing facts, and negotiation, Politics and Conscience offers a vision of ethical leadership as relevant today as it was in Hammarskjöld’s time.

As the author writes,

Hammarskjöld was a breakthrough. His thought and conduct in office represented a profound and needed renewal. He was an example for all who care for enlightened, courageous politics in the public interest. There is so much to understand from him. But he need not be taken as a model. There is a difference between appreciation and imitation. Appreciation leads one to find one’s own, to honor the example without undertaking the impossible and needless task of being and doing as he or she was and did. The classic question still asked by some at the UN — What would Dag do? — is an invitation to reflect, not to imitate.

Politics and Conscience

$18.95 - Hardcover

By: Roger Lipsey

Post Truth in an era of polarizationThe second is Trump and a Post-Truth World by Ken Wilber.  This is not a post-mortem on the years since Trump came on the scene.  Rather, it is a short but incredibly incisive analysis of where our society has backslid in our evolution.  As Wilber writes,

“if we are going to come anywhere close to ending the di­sasters of . . . a society defined by its culture wars . . . a society of ethno­centric enthusiasms claiming ultimate value, a culture wracked by indecision anchored in post-truth confusion, a society where fully half of its members hate the other half—then we are going to have to move from a culture of no-truth to a . . . deliberately developmental culture.”

It is this developmental culture and how each of us can contribute to building it within our communities and society that this book describes in rich detail.

We hope both of these books inspire you.

Trump and a Post-Truth World

$14.95 - Paperback

By: Ken Wilber

More Books for an Era of Polarization

The Rules of Victory

$26.95 - Paperback

By: Barry Boyce & James Gimian

The Art of War

$14.95 - Paperback

By: Thomas Cleary & Sun Tzu

Sage Leadership

$19.95 - Paperback

By: Thomas Cleary

The Art of Peace

$9.99 - Paperback

By: John Stevens & Morihei Ueshiba

...
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On Compassionate Conversations

Compassionate Conversations

One of the most gratifying and encouraging developments on the recent cultural scene is that, after literally decades of polarizing and increasingly nasty culture wars, there are individuals who do not simply join in the fray and thus only contribute to the mess, but rather have started to actually stand back and seriously reflect on the situation. They point out not just how one side is totally right and the other side totally wrong but how all sides are actually limited, partial, and broken in their own ways. In pointing to a larger, more inclusive, more whole perspective that is equally friendly to all parties, they are usually and loudly disowned by all sides. But they are almost certainly pointing to a much deeper truth here, and one I believe we need to take very seriously. In a sense, they are pointing directly to a tomorrow in which society has become much more coherent, integrated, and meaningful.

Yet, as important as these voices are, almost all of them are still missing at least one very important piece of the puzzle.

Take Douglas Murray, for instance. After writing the very perceptive The Strange Death of Europe about the serious problems caused by the recent massive influx of immigration into Europe, he authored The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity. Although admittingly tilting to a center-right politics, Murray outlined some of the serious problems and limitations that have thus far plagued the public discussions of LGBTQ, gender, and racial rights. As important as some of these insights are, in Murray’s final analysis, all he can do is essentially what all the other parties in the debate end up doing—namely, outline his own position and then advocate strongly for it. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s the essence of public conversation. But when it comes to creating an overarching framework that could actually unite and integrate the various warring parties, Murray basically says, “We just don’t know how to do this.”

But we do know.

Enter the book Compassionate Conversations by Diane Musho Hamilton, Gabriel Menegale Wilson, and Kimberly Myosai Loh. What’s so extraordinary about this presentation is that it not only addresses the fundamental issues involved in these debates, it does so using a framework that can actually unite and integrate the various parties in the fractured culture wars. Thus, what you will take away from this book is not just a series of incredibly useful skills to help you advance genuinely compassionate conversations, nor just the combined wisdom of three extraordinarily gifted facilitators who have spent their professional lives working as conflict counselors, mediators, and interpersonal guides. But, just as important, you will find an unusually helpful framework that will straightforwardly show you why “everybody is right”—or more accurately, why everybody has ideas that are “true but partial”—everybody—and thus there really is a way to make room for all the parties that are engaged in this brutal and polarizing conflict.

The catch is, each side has to genuinely recognize the ways that it is indeed “true,” but also the ways that it is definitely “partial.” Essentially all sides recognize that the other sides are “partial,” but almost nobody wants to acknowledge how the other sides are also “true.” Yet, as I often point out, no human brain is capable of producing 100 percent error—and thus, it literally follows that each of us has some degree of truth—but that truth is indeed partial and can always be expanded by including other perspectives. It is a failure to acknowledge that obvious reality that has produced the profound deadlock at the very core of the culture wars. And hence, the necessity for a meaningful framework that itself will make this truth come alive by providing a bigger picture in which all sides have some genuinely important contributions to make.

Just as important is understanding the attitude, actions, and skills that can fruitfully apply this unifying framework and make it a vibrant reality for all. And that is especially what you will find in page after page of this book. In chapters with names such as, “What We Have in Common,” “An Exploration of Difference,” “Talking about Social Privilege,” “Politically Correct,” “Becoming Wholehearted,” and “Freedom Here and Now,” you will find example after example of wondrous conversations helping individuals, groups, and even nations come to terms with the fact that reality is just a little bit bigger than any of them thought, and that a genuine peace in their own conflict requires not only a direct and authentic realization of an honest self‑esteem but an expansion of their own esteem to embrace a multiplicity of other perspectives.

All of us, indeed, are true but partial.

The unifying framework itself is composed of several factors. Two of the most prominent, as the authors explain, are Zen Buddhism and Integral Theory. Zen is fairly well‑known and embodies one of the oldest and most effective spiritual practices for helping individuals realize an awareness that is more open, awakened, enlightened, and free. This is an awareness that is both fully transcendent and deeply immanent. Transcendent, in that it helps people let go of their narrow, partial, and limited views in favor of an awareness that is more radically encompassing, whole, and inclusive. And immanent, in that it is nonetheless an awareness that is the very core of our everyday mind, fully present here and now. This type of radically open awareness—versions of which are often called “mindfulness”—can be used in an enormous number of settings to help individuals as well as groups become more relaxed, alert, grounded, and expansive, and the authors put this all‑embracing awareness at the very core of their work.

Integral Theory is a metatheory that has many historical precedents and is today embraced by thousands of people around the world. Although there are numerous individuals who have contributed to its present‑day form, my name is usually mentioned as its major founder. But the stated aim of Integral Theory (or technically, Metatheory) is to provide a meaningful framework that can unite virtually any type of human understanding. To give only one example, when it comes to the important field of developmental psychology, Integral looked at over 100 different developmental models, East and West, ancient and modern, and then did a meta‑analysis of all of them to determine the most commonly accepted features in each. This created a general overall developmental spectrum that has an enormous amount of evidence. (You’ll see how the present authors use this developmental spectrum in just a minute.)

The point is that through these types of comparisons, Integral Metatheory has been able to spot several extremely fundamental elements that various types of human understanding (maps, models, and theories) all have in common. These fundamental integral elements are known by many names, one set of which is: Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, and Showing Up.

“Waking Up” is indeed exemplified by practices like Zen Buddhism, as well as many of the other great meditative and contemplative schools around the world (Vedanta, Taoism, Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, Sufism, and so forth), all of which involve some form of “enlightenment” or “liberation” or “awakening” to a fundamental reality (hence “Waking Up”). Although there are various degrees of Waking Up available to people, one of the very highest forms is universally said to be that of “being one with everything” (a state that is often said to reveal, by whatever name, an ultimate Ground of All Being). We have to be careful here, because Waking Up itself is not any traditional religious stance, mythic story, or fundamentalist zealotry—it’s much more what the common phrase today calls “spiritual but not religious.”

But one thing is certain: when you really are one with everything, you are no longer exclusively identified with your own limited self—and thus your awareness becomes incomparably roomier and more open.

This is an excellent place to ground any conflict resolution, mediation, or growth‑enhancing endeavor. The authors make abundant use of this radical openness.

But they also realize that, as profound as Waking Up can be, it’s not the only kind of important truth there is. You can authentically experience being one with everything, and yet this will not give you any specific information about any individual thing in particular. When people thousands of years ago first experienced some of these authentic Waking‑Up or “oneness” realizations, they would indeed feel that they were one with the sun and one with the earth and one with the moon and the stars. But they still believed that the sun circled the earth, and that the earth was flat, and that the stars were holes poked in an overhead dome. They might indeed have directly realized a Ground of All Being, but since that Ground is fully and equally present in every single thing in the universe, it tells you nothing specific about any particular thing. The “oneness” was very real; it’s the “manyness” that wasn’t well understood. And this is still true of Waking Up or Enlightenment or Satori experiences today, and thus Waking Up needs to be supplemented with other forms of truth.

Such as Growing Up. This refers to the developmental process that I previously mentioned, where individuals have been found to grow or evolve or develop through various stages or waves of increasingly more mature and inclusive forms of identity. I mentioned the more than 100 models of this process that Integral has carefully analyzed, and although some models have more stages and some models have fewer, on average most models have found around 6 to 8 major stages of human development—growing and maturing from infancy through childhood into adolescence, adulthood, and elderhood. Now technically this Growing‑Up process refers to stages of interior development—stages of self or values or worldviews that all humans go through. (Some of these developmental models have been tested in over 40 different cultures worldwide—including Amazon rain forest tribes, Australian aborigines, and Harvard professors—with no major exceptions yet found, although individuals themselves are each at different stages. Indeed, these overall stages are clearly an important aspect of any human understanding.)

Now the strange thing about these waves of Growing Up is that you cannot see them by introspecting or looking within. These stages are part of the self that is doing the looking; they are not things that can themselves be looked at. All of us are at some of these stages right now, but most of us have no idea that this is so. For this reason, these stages weren’t even discovered until around 100 years ago. And for just that reason, we find none of these stages present in any of the world’s great religions or meditation systems, and thus one thing that you will not learn from any religion is how to actually Grow Up.

So what are some examples of these actual stages? I mentioned that on average there are around 6 to 8 of them that are most commonly given. But these can be summarized and simplified in various ways, and one of the most common is to summarize them in 4 broad, general stages. Thus, a person’s identity moves from egocentric (identified only with itself) to ethnocentric (identified with an entire group, clan, tribe, or nation) to worldcentric (which, unlike ethnocentric, attempts to treat all people fairly, regardless of race, color, sex, gender, or creed; in an early or modern form, it’s marked by rationality and a scientific method, and then a later or postmodern form, marked by egalitarianism and multiculturalism), and finally to integrated or integral or Kosmocentric stages of growth (identified with all beings and aware of, and integrating, the previous stages themselves).

Overall, a move from “me” to “us” to “all of us” to “all beings.”

You might immediately be able to see that today’s culture wars are indeed primarily a war between three of those stages—the traditional or ethnocentric (often magic or mythic), the scientific or modern worldcentric (usually rational), and the later postmodern or multicultural diversity (very pluralistic or even relativistic). Traditional ethnocentric wants special privileges for its group or tribe; modern rationality wants equal opportunity for all; and postmodern pluralism wants equal outcome for everybody. In various forms, those are indeed the three most widely contested values in the culture wars. But what none of those values offers is an integrated or Kosmocentric viewpoint, which can indeed integrate or unify all of them.

That is the fundamental perspective of this book, and by adopting this bigger picture that makes room for all of them, the authors are able to successfully facilitate the many battles between each of them. This is part of their unifying framework or bigger picture, and it does indeed make room for all.

A bigger picture that also includes “Showing Up.” Showing Up simply refers to some of the most fundamental and important dimensions or perspectives through which anything can be viewed; and thus for each of us to be able to fully show up for our lives, we need to include all of these or else we’re missing out on some of our most crucial realities. Our lives never feel fully whole because we’re actually not including the whole. As with the other major elements of Integral, there are many different names for these perspectives. Traditionally, they are referred to as “the Beautiful, the Good, and the True,” or art, morals, and science. These turn out to be correlated with 1st-person pronouns (defined as “the person speaking”: I, me, mine, which includes the “Beauty in the eye of the beholder”); 2nd‑person (“the person spoken to”: you or thou, which includes how we are supposed to ethically treat each other, or the “Good”); and 3rd‑person (“the person or thing being spoken about”: he, she, it, its, which includes the objective Truth of science). Since an “I” and a “you” make a “we,” these three dimensions are often referred to simply as “I, we, and it.”

The main point, as the authors explain, is that anytime we confuse and conflate any of those perspectives, we will get into serious trouble and almost certainly generate an enormous number of conflicts (with others as well as ourselves). If we confuse “I” and “we,” either the “I” will try to dominate the “we” and become pushy and bullying, sometimes monstrously so; or else “I” will succumb to massive conformity with the “we” and a consequent herd mentality, afraid to stand up for itself or even speak its mind. If we confuse “I” and “it,” we will mistake our subjective values and opinions for objective facts, leaving us open to becoming one of those insufferable know-it-alls whom pretty much everybody despises (their motto is “The last time I was wrong was when I thought I made a mistake”).

As the authors demonstrate, a simple clearing up of these fundamental confusions will go an enormous way toward resolving many of our most recalcitrant and difficult conflicts, and make compassionate conversations all the more likely.

Then there’s “Cleaning Up.” This refers to the various ways that individuals can recognize, integrate, and heal their shadows. (“Shadow” refers to repressed or dissociated material that becomes split off or alienated from consciousness and relegated to the “unconscious,” where it generally causes enormous pain and suffering.) Shadow material is often projected onto others, so while I seem to completely lack any of the nasty shadow quality, others seem full of it. If I repress my own hypercontrolling qualities, for example, I know somebody is an overcontrolling monster, but since it can’t be me, it must be somebody—anybody—else, and suddenly the world seems full of people trying to control me and tell me what to do, and I react angrily to all of that—which does none of my relationships any good and gets me into more conflicts than I can count on appendages. This, needless to say, is a very difficult and delicate area for any mediator or counselor to explore (especially since it directly implies that those things that I loathe in the world around me are those things that I first loathe in myself—nobody really wants to hear that). But it’s only a slight exaggeration to say that almost every conflict in existence has some degree of shadow material present, and all you will get by ignoring it is a failure to resolve the conflict. The authors of this book, at any rate, are generous enough with their clients to fully include shadow material if warranted.

I think you can start to see how all of these areas that I have briefly outlined are incredibly important for any successful conflict resolution, mediation, or simply growth and development in general (in oneself or with others). These areas point to elements that all of us have but few of us recognize as well as elements that are present in virtually all conflicts but rarely engaged (so the conflict remains unresolved). Yet there isn’t a human being alive, I don’t believe, who cannot truly Wake Up, Grow Up, Clean Up, and Show Up. How astonishingly rare it is to find any of those—let alone all of them!—in any sort of counseling or growth‑facilitating process. This is one of the genuine gifts that this book offers.

At the same time, I don’t want to overemphasize this general framework, either the Zen or the Integral Metatheory.

Rather, at the core of this book is the brilliance and enormous talent of three rather extraordinary people, who have dedicated their lives to deeply engaging the most difficult topics and important issues of our times.

They did not get their sagacity from any of these component elements, much as they have incorporated them. The insights are theirs. The brilliance is theirs. The wisdom is theirs. The compassion and concern and care are all theirs. And in the beautiful wonder of their presentation, I think that we can finally see the actual contours of a tomorrow where compassionate conversations are the very core of our society, where an all‑inclusive love is the coin of the realm, where we embrace each other in all of our dialogues, and where the radiance of awareness shines on us all like the light of a thousand suns—with not a single one of us left untouched. In this, we see the very next stage of our own evolution, where culture wars have given way to culture harmony, where compassion is in the very air we breathe, and where each of us is absolutely and indisputably one with everything.

Welcome to tomorrow.

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Compassionate ConversationsCompassionate Conversations empowers us to transform our conversations into opportunities to bridge divides and mend relationships by providing the basic set of skills we need to be successful, including listening, reframing, and dealing with strong emotions. Addressing the long history of injury and pain for marginalized groups, the authors explore topics like intersectionality, power dynamics, and white fragility, allowing us to be more mindful in our conversations. Each chapter contains practices and conversation starters to help everyone feel more prepared to talk through polarizing issues, ultimately encouraging us to take risks, to understand and recognize our deep commonalities, to be willing to make mistakes, and to become more intimate with expressing our truths, as well as listening to those of others. Learn more about the book.

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"Radical Compassion" Free eBook

This free eBook is available from the following vendors:

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Tibetan Buddhism, In celebration of Naropa’s fortieth anniversary

What is compassion?

Much more than just being nice, compassion is about looking deeply at ourselves and others and recognizing the fundamental goodness we all share. It’s about opening up to the vulnerable space inside every one of us and letting our barriers down. And it’s about daring to be present to ourselves and others with genuine love and kindness.

Empowering personal awakening and social change, it might be the most radical and transformative thing we can do.


Empowering personal awakening and social change, it might be the most radical and transformative thing we can do.

The cultivation of compassion has long been at the core of Naropa University’s mission, since its origins in 1974—and its students and faculty have been leaders in contemplative education with heart.

Tibetan Buddhism, In celebration of Naropa’s fortieth anniversary


 leaders in contemplative education with heart. . . .

In celebration of Naropa’s fortieth anniversary, Shambhala Publications is pleased to offer these teachings on the path of compassion from a collection of authors who have helped shape the school’s unique and innovative identity, including:

  • Chögyam Trungpa on opening ourselves more and more to love the whole of humanity
  • Dzogchen Ponlop on how to cultivate altruism with the help of a spiritual mentor
  • Judith L. Lief on the common obstacles to compassion and how to overcome them
  • Gaylon Ferguson on awakening human-heartedness in oneself and society amidst everyday life
  • Diane Musho Hamilton on connecting to natural empathy and taking a compassionate approach to conflict resolution
  • Reginald A. Ray on spiritual practices for developing the enlightened mind and heart in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition
  • Ringu Tulku on the practices of bodhisattvas, those who devote themselves to the path of enlightenment for the sake of all beings
  • Pema Chödrön on building up loving-kindness for oneself and others with help from traditional Buddhist slogans
  • Ken Wilber on what it really means to be a support person, with reflections from his own life
  • Karen Kissel Wegela on avoiding caregiver’s burnout and staying centered amidst our efforts to help those in need and reflections on Naropa University and the meaning of radical compassion from longstanding faculty member Judith Simmer-Brown

For more information–Authors' Bios and Books:

Chogyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa (1940–1987)—meditation master, teacher, and artist—founded Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, the first Buddhist-inspired university in North America; the Shambhala Training program; and an international association of meditation centers known as Shambhala International. He is the author of numerous books, including Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the WarriorCutting Through Spiritual Materialism, and The Myth of Freedom.

Books by Chogyam Trungpa

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, born in 1965 in northeast India, was trained in the meditative and intellectual disciplines of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism under the guidance of many of the greatest masters from Tibet’s pre-exile generation. He is a widely celebrated teacher, known for his skill in making the full richness of Buddhist wisdom accessible to modern minds, and devotes much of his energy to developing a vision of a genuine Western Buddhism.

For more information, go to www.rebelbuddha.com.

Books by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Judith L. Lief

Judith L. Lief is a Buddhist teacher, writer, and editor. She was a close student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who empowered her as a teacher, and she has edited many of his books including The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma volumes and Milarepa. She has been a teacher and practitioner for over 35 years and continues to teach and lead retreats throughout the world. Lief is also active in the field of death and dying and is the author of Making Friends with Death.

Books by Judith L. Lief

Gaylon Ferguson

Gaylon Ferguson is a faculty member in both Religious Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies at Naropa University, in Boulder, Colorado. He is an acharya, or senior teacher, in the Shambhala International Buddhist community. After studying meditation and Buddhist philosophy with Tibetan master Chögyam Trungpa in the 1970s and 1980s, Ferguson became a Fulbright Fellow to Nigeria and completed a doctoral degree in cultural anthropology at Stanford University. After several years of teaching cultural anthropology at the University of Washington, he became teacher-in-residence at Karmê Chöling Buddhist Retreat Center, through 2005, when he joined the faculty of Naropa University.

Books by Gaylon Ferguson

Diane Musho Hamilton

Diane Musho Hamilton is an award-winning professional mediator, author, and teacher of Zen meditation. She is the Executive Director of Two Arrows Zen, a practice in Utah, and cofounder of the Integral Facilitator, a training program oriented to personal development and advanced facilitator skills. She is the author of Everything Is Workable and The Zen of You and Me.

Books by Diane Musho Hamilton

Reginald A. Ray

Dr. Reginald "Reggie" Ray is the cofounder and Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation and has been dedicated to the evolution and flowering of the teachings of Tibetan Tantra for more than four decades. A longtime student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, today Reggie brings a uniquely somatic perspective to Buddhist practice. Reggie is the author of many books, including The Awakening Body and The Practice of Pure Awareness. Reggie also offers online courses on somatic meditation and retreats in Crestone, Colorado. More on Reggie can be found at www.dharmaocean.org.

Books by Reginald A. Ray

Ringu Tulku

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche was born in Kham Lingtsang, in eastern Tibet, and was recognized by His Holiness the Sixteenth Gyalwang Karmapa as the incarnation of one of the tulkus of Ringu monastery, a Kagyüpa monastery in his home province. He studied with some of the most distinguished khenpos of the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions and received teachings from many outstanding masters, including Thrangu Rinpoche, Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and the Gyalwang Karmapa. He is the author of Path to Buddhahood and The Ri-me Philosophy of Jamgön Kongtrul the Great.

Books by Ringu Tulku

Ani Pema Chödrön became a novice nun in 1974, in her mid-thirties, while studying with Lama Chime in London. His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa came to Scotland at that time, and Ani Pema received her ordination from him.

Pema ChodronPema first met her root guru, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972 and studied with him from 1974 until his death in 1987. At the request of the Sixteenth Karmapa, she received the full bikshuni ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong.

Ani Pema served as the director of Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado, until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to be the director of Gampo Abbey. She currently teaches in the United States and Canada and plans for an increased amount of time in solitary retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.

She is interested in helping to establish Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West, as well as continuing her work with Western Buddhists of all traditions, sharing ideas and teachings. Her nonprofit, the Pema Chödrön Foundation, was set up to assist in this purpose.

Books by Pema Chodron

Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber is one of the most widely read and influential American philos­ophers of our time. His writings have been translated into over twenty languages. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

Books by Ken Wilber

Karen Kissel Wegela, PhD, is a psychotherapist and professor of contemplative psychology at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. A longtime student of Buddhism, she speaks to professionals about the connections between Buddhism and psychotherapy and writes a popular blog at psychologytoday.com. She is also the author of The Courage to Be Present: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Awakening of Natural Wisdom.

Books by Karen Kissel Wegela

Judith Simmer-Brown

Judith Simmer-Brown, Ph.D., is professor and chair of the religious studies department at Naropa University (formerly the Naropa Institute), where she has taught since 1978. She has authored numerous articles on Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist-Christian dialogue, and Buddhism in America. She is an Acharya (senior teacher) in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa. A practicing Buddhist since 1971, she lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Books by Judith Simmer-Brown

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Comprehensive Map of the Territory of You | An Excerpt from Integral Vision

Increasing Complexity Means Increasing Consciousness

Integral Vision

What Type: Boy or Girl?

The next component of the “Comprehensive Map of the Territory of You” is easy: each of the previous components has a masculine and feminine type. 

Types simply refers to items that can be present at virtually any stage or state. One common typology, for example, is the Myers-Briggs (whose main types are feeling, thinking, sensing, and intuiting). You can be any of those types at virtually any stage of development. These kinds of “horizontal typologies” can be very useful, especially when combined with levels, lines, and states. To show what is involved, we can use “masculine” and “feminine” as one example of types.

Carol Gilligan, in her enormously influential book In a Different Voice, pointed out that both men and women tend to develop through 3 or 4 major levels or stages of moral development. Pointing to a great deal of research evidence, Gilligan noted that these 3 or 4 moral stages can be called preconventional, conventional, postconventional, and integrated. These are actually quite similar to the 3 simple developmental stages we are using, this time applied to moral intelligence. 

Gilligan found that stage 1 is a morality centered entirely on “me” (hence this preconventional stage or level is also called egocentric). Stage-2 moral development is centered on “us,” so that my identity has expanded from just me to include other human beings of my group (hence this conventional stage is often called ethnocentric, traditional, or conformist). With stage-3 moral development, my identity expands once again, this time from “us” to “all of us,” or all human beings (or even all sentient beings)—and hence this stage is often called worldcentric. I now have care and compassion, not just for me (egocentric), and not just for my family, my tribe, or my nation (ethnocentric), but for all of humanity, for all men and women everywhere, regardless of race, color, sex, or creed (worldcentric). And if I develop even further, at stage-4 moral development, which Gilligan calls integrated, then . . .

Well, before we look at the important conclusion of Gilligan’s work, let’s first note her major contribution. Gilligan strongly agreed that women, like men, develop through those 3 or 4 major hierarchical stages of growth. Gilligan herself correctly refers to these stages as hierarchical because each stage has a higher capacity for care and compassion. But she said that women progress through those stages using a different type of logic—they develop “in a different voice.”

Male logic, or a man’s voice, tends to be based on terms of autonomy, justice, and rights; whereas women’s logic or voice tends to be based on terms of relationship, care, and responsibility. Men tend toward agency; women tend toward communion. Men follow rules; women follow connections. Men look; women touch. Men tend toward individualism, women toward relationship. One of Gilligan’s favorite stories: A little boy and girl are playing. The boy says, “Let’s play pirates!” The girl says, “Let’s play like we live next door to each other.” Boy: “No, I want to play pirates!” “Okay, you play the pirate who lives next door.”

Little boys don’t like girls around when they are playing games like baseball, because the two voices clash badly, and often hilariously. Some boys are playing baseball, a kid takes his third strike and is out, so he starts to cry. The other boys stand unmoved until the kid stops crying; after all, a rule is a rule, and the rule is: three strikes and you’re out. Gilligan points out that if a girl is around, she will usually say, “Ah, come on, give him another try!” The girl sees him crying and wants to help, wants to connect, wants to heal. This, however, drives the boys nuts, who are doing this game as an initiation into the world of rules and male logic. Gilligan says that the boys will hurt feelings in order to save the rules; the girls will break the rules in order to save the feelings.

In a different voice. Both the girls and boys will develop through the 3 or 4 developmental stages of moral growth (egocentric to ethnocentric to world centric to integrated), but they will do so in a different voice, using a different logic. Gilligan specifically calls these hierarchical stages in women selfish (which is egocentric), care (which is ethnocentric), universal care (which is worldcentric), and integrated. Again, why did Gilligan (who has been badly misunderstood on this topic) say that these stages are hierarchical? Because each stage has a higher capacity for care and compassion. (Not all hierarchies are bad, and this is a good example of why.)

So, integrated or stage 4—what is that? At the 4th and highest wave of moral development, according to Gilligan, the masculine and feminine voices in each of us tend to become integrated. This does not mean that a person at this stage starts to lose the distinctions between masculine and feminine, and hence become a kind of bland, androgynous, asexual being. In fact, masculine and feminine dimensions might become more intensified. But it does mean the individuals start to befriend both the masculine and feminine modes in themselves, even if they characteristically act predominantly from one or the other.

Have you ever seen a caduceus (the symbol of the medical profession)? It’s a staff with two serpents crisscrossing it, and wings at the top. The staff itself represents the central spinal column; where the serpents cross the staff represents the individual chakras moving up the spine from the lowest to the highest; and the two serpents themselves represent solar and lunar (or masculine and feminine) energies at each of the chakras.

cadaceus

That’s the crucial point. The 7 chakras, which are simply a more complex version of the 3 simple levels or stages, represent 7 levels of consciousness and energy available to all human beings. (The first three chakras—food, sex, and power—are roughly stage 1; chakras 4 and 5—relational heart and communication—are basically stage 2; and chakras 6 and 7—psychic and spiritual—are the epitome of stage 3). The important point here is that, according to the traditions, each of those 7 levels has a masculine and feminine mode (aspect, type, or “voice”). Neither masculine nor feminine is higher or better; they are two equivalent types at each of the levels of consciousness.

This means, for example, that with chakra 3 (the egocentric-power chakra), there is a masculine and feminine version of the same chakra: at that chakra-level, males tend toward power exercised autonomously (“My way or the highway!”), women tend toward power exercised communally or socially (“Do it this way or I won’t talk to you”). And so on with the other major chakras, each of them having a solar and lunar, or masculine and feminine, dimension. Neither is more fundamental; neither can be ignored.

At the 7th chakra, however, notice that the masculine and feminine serpents both disappear into their ground or source. Masculine and feminine meet and unite at the crown—they literally become one. And that is what Gilligan found with her stage-4 moral development: the two voices in each person become integrated, so that there is a paradoxical union of autonomy and relationship, rights and responsibilities, agency and communion, wisdom and compassion, justice and mercy, masculine and feminine.

The important point is that whenever you use IOS, you are automatically checking any situation—in yourself, in others, in an organization, in a culture—and making sure that you include both the masculine and feminine types so as to be as comprehensive and inclusive as possible. If you believe that there are no major differences between masculine and feminine—or if you are suspicious of such differences—then that is fine, too, and you can treat them the same if you want. We are simply saying that, in either case, make sure you touch base with both the masculine and feminine, however you view them.

But more than that, there are numerous other “horizontal typologies” that can be very helpful when part of a comprehensive IOS (Myers-Briggs, enneagram, etc.), and the Integral Approach draws on any or all of those typologies as appropriate. “Types” are as important as quadrants, levels, lines, and states.

Masculine and feminine meet and unite at the crown—they literally become one.

Sick Boy, Sick Girl

There’s an interesting thing about types. You can have healthy and unhealthy versions of them. To say that somebody is caught in an unhealthy type is not a way to judge them but a way to understand and communicate more clearly and effectively with them.

For example, if each stage of development has a masculine and feminine dimension, each of those can be healthy or unhealthy, which we sometimes call “sick boy, sick girl.” This is simply another kind of horizontal typing, but one that can be extremely useful.

If the healthy masculine principle tends toward autonomy, strength, independence, and freedom, when that principle becomes unhealthy or pathological, all of those positive virtues either over- or underfire. There is not just autonomy, but alienation; not just strength, but domination; not just independence, but morbid fear of relationship and commitment; not just a drive toward freedom, but a drive to destroy. The unhealthy masculine principle does not transcend in freedom, but dominates in fear.

If the healthy feminine principle tends toward flowing, relationship, care, and compassion, the unhealthy feminine flounders in each of those. Instead of being in relationship, she becomes lost in relationship. Instead of a healthy self in communion with others, she loses her self altogether and is dominated by the relationships she is in. Not a connection, but a fusion; not a flow state, but a panic state; not a communion, but a meltdown. The unhealthy feminine principle does not find fullness in connection, but chaos in fusion.

Using IOS, you will find ways to identify both the healthy and unhealthy masculine and feminine dimensions operating in yourself and in others. But the important point about this section is simple: various typologies have their usefulness in helping us to understand and communicate with others. And with any typology, there are healthy and unhealthy versions of a type. Pointing to an unhealthy type is not a way to judge people, but a way to understand and communicate with them more clearly and effectively. 

There’s Even Room for Many Bodies

Let’s return now to states of consciousness in order to make a final point before bringing this all together in an integral conclusion.

States of consciousness do not hover in the air, dangling and disembodied. On the contrary, every mind has its body. For every state of consciousness, there is a felt energetic component, an embodied feeling, a concrete vehicle that provides the actual support for any state of awareness.

Let’s use a simple example from the wisdom traditions. Because each of us has the 3 great states of consciousness—waking, dreaming, and formless sleep—the wisdom traditions maintain that each of us likewise has 3 bodies, which are often called the gross body, the subtle body, and the causal body.

I have 3 bodies? Are you kidding me? Isn’t one body enough? But keep in mind a few things. For the wisdom traditions, a “body” simply means a mode of experience or energetic feeling. So there is coarse or gross experience, subtle or refined experience, and very subtle or causal experience. These are what philosophers would call “phenomenological realities,” or realities as they present themselves to our immediate awareness. Right now, you have access to a gross body and its gross energy, a subtle body and its subtle energy, and a causal body and its causal energy. 

What’s an example of these 3 bodies? Notice that, right now, you are in a waking state of awareness; as such, you are aware of your gross body—the physical, material, sensorimotor body. But when you dream at night, there is no gross physical body; it seems to have vanished. You are aware in the dream state, yet you don’t have a gross body of dense matter but a subtle body of light, energy, emotional feelings, fluid and flowing images. In the dream state, the mind and soul are set free to create as they please, to imagine vast worlds not tied to gross sensory realities but reaching out, almost magically, to touch other souls, other people and far-off places, wild and radiant images cascading to the rhythm of the heart’s desire. So what kind of body do you have in the dream? Well, a subtle body of feelings, images, even light. That’s what you feel like in the dream. And dreams are not “just illusion.” When somebody like Martin Luther King, Jr., says, “I have a dream,” that is a good example of tapping into the great potential of visionary dreaming, where the subtle body and mind are set free to soar to their highest possibilities.

As you pass from the dream state with its subtle body into the deep-sleep or formless state, even thoughts and images drop away, and there is only a vast emptiness, a formless expanse beyond any individual “I” or ego or self. The great wisdom traditions maintain that in this state—which might seem like merely a blank or nothingness—we are actually plunged into a vast formless realm, a great Emptiness or Ground of Being, an expanse of consciousness that seems almost infinite. Along with this almost infinite expanse of consciousness there is an almost infinite body or energy—the causal body, the body of the finest, most subtle experience possible, a great formlessness out of which creative possibilities can arise.

When somebody like Martin Luther King, Jr., says, “I have a dream,” that is a good example of tapping into the great potential of visionary dreaming, where the subtle body and mind are set free to soar to their highest possibilities.

Of course, many people do not experience that deep state in such a full fashion. But again, the traditions are unanimous that this formless state and its causal body can be entered in full awareness, whereupon they, too, yield their extraordinary potentials for growth and awareness.

The point, once again, is simply that whenever IOS is being utilized, it reminds us to check in with our waking-state realities, our subtle-state dreams and visions and innovative ideas, as well as our own open, formless ground of possibilities that is the source of so much creativity. The important point about the Integral Approach is that we want to touch base with as many potentials as possible so as to miss nothing in terms of possible solutions, growth, and transformation.

Consciousness and Complexity

Perhaps 3 bodies are just too “far out”? Well, remember that these are phenomenological realities, or experiential realities, but there is a simpler, less far-out way to look at them, this time grounded in hard-headed science. It is this: every level of interior consciousness is accompanied by a level of exterior physical complexity. The greater the consciousness, the more complex the system housing it.

For example, in living organisms, the reptilian brain stem is accompanied by a rudimentary interior consciousness of basic drives such as food and hunger, physiological sensations, and sensorimotor actions (everything that we earlier called “gross,” centered on the “me”). By the time we get to the more complex mammalian limbic system, basic sensations have expanded and evolved to include quite sophisticated feelings, desires, emotional-sexual impulses, and needs (hence the beginning of what we called subtle experience or the subtle body, which can expand from “me” to “us”). As evolution proceeds to even more complex physical structures, such as the triune brain with its neocortex, consciousness once again expands to a worldcentric awareness of “all of us” (and thus even begins to tap into what we called the causal body).

That is a very simple example of the fact that increasing interior consciousness is accompanied by increasing exterior complexity of the systems housing it. When using IOS, we often look at both the interior levels of consciousness and the corresponding exterior levels of physical complexity, since including both of them results in a much more balanced and inclusive approach. 

triune

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