Quote #8

"Questioning is the track on which the centered person moves."

-Stephen Batchelor

From someone in my program

Out of its context, which was a response to a question I had posed to her-

Hydrogen and oxygen atoms bind at the level of energetic charge to embody wetness, water molecules form, vapor condenses, clouds become heavy with potential for rain, the droplets surrender to the embrace of gravity and fall to first saturate the earth and then to run together. Rivulets become streams which carve their own beds, co-creating a landscape as the drive toward more unity creates river systems moving torrents of water toward an unbounded ocean. And at every instant the system is dynamically alive; every aspect is simultaneously arising and shifting to the next phase of expression, infinitely re-turning to itself as a self-organizing, self-renewing, self-disclosing whole.

Embedded in the whole system, the wetness doesn't know itself, but what if that aspect of being could wake up and become aware of the miracle I see when a wave crashes to the shore, or a fine mist of evening fog bathes my face in its own Presence? What if the wetness had only one purpose, which was to touch my Original Face, and be praised? From that perspective praise might be in the form of my own interior awareness - I aware of wetness as wetness; and then a conversation of appreciation for the mutual caress of mist and my permeable skin where an exchange is always taking place; and then a weather report or a hydrologist’s analysis of a watershed system expressing the same capacity for self-disclosure in the form of empirical data. I suspect there is always rejoicing in heaven whenever and however we dance in the mist.

The Anxious Mind.

An interesting article in the NYTimes, about research positing that anxious people are born with a predisposition towards anxiety.

There are discussions about how to deal with anxiety as well. As somebody with a fairly high level of anxiety, (historically...I don't think I'd fit in the most anxious group, but I'd certainly fit in the next one) though, there's something to be said about actively engaging your anxiety.

Over the last six years I've begun to use anxiety as a sort of red-flag. When I get anxious about something, it locates an issue I've got to deal with psychologically, and is often helpful in tagging shadow material, something I don't know that I'm worried about. This has also led me into meditation, both sitting, and energy-based (qi gong, t'ai chi, yoga, etc) and has been instrumental in my growth as a person for sometime.

My anxiety levels are much, much lower now than they were six years ago, but I'm not, as the article seems to suggest is the only cure, simply managing them. I've used them to head directly at those things that make me fearful, and as a way to locate areas of tension in the body.

I can't imagine I'd be the only one for which this would be extremely helpful.

Dreams of Intimacy

So I had a dream the other night, after coming back from my retreat for school, where I fell in love with one of my classmates (I'm not entirely serious.) In the dream, I was sitting at a table in a restaurant with a classmate from college who I was actually totally obsessed with, but in the dream the two of them were conflated; it was both of them.

We were talking, and then we stood up and embraced, and I felt the most powerful intimacy, that we were both open to each other, not hiding from each other, and I think, really, this is a great way to explain intimacy--it is the feeling of not holding back, of being fully open with another person. You wouldn't find that in the dictionary, though. It's the feeling of being fully present with somebody who is being fully present with you.

I think it's this sense of intimacy that's really missing from our modern sense of the word, which too often assumes a sexual relationship. There was nothing sexual about the embrace in the dream, we were just both present to each other.

It was beautiful.

Ice and frightening.

Skip maybe just to the second half if you're impatient.

One Party Democracy

An Op-Ed from Thomas Friedman, which picks up on something I had been talking about here, in regards to the political differences between the US and China, and how health care is being dealt with.

Reading the title I had thought Friedman was going to talk about how much both parties are so influenced by corporate money that in effect the government had turned into a corporatocracy, but perhaps later.

READ

An Op-Ed in the NYTimes, from Harold Bloom, this century's most prominent literary critic, someone himself who I need to read a few times to begin to understand.

Get Lost. In Books.

More than ever in this time of economic troubles and societal change, entering upon an undergraduate education should be a voyage away from visual overstimulation into deep, sustained reading of what is most worth absorbing and understanding: the books that survive all ideological fashions.

There is general agreement on the indispensable canon: Homer, Plato, the Bible, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Milton. From the 19th century until now, keeping only to English and American authors, a slightly more arbitrary selection might include Blake, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens, George Eliot, Hardy, Yeats and Joyce in England and Ireland. Among the Americans would certainly be Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Hawthorne; and in the 20th century, Faulkner and the major poets: Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, Hart Crane.

Many of these authors are difficult and demand rereading, but that doubles their value. A freshman may have read Shakespeare before, but the richest and most available of all writers is also the most profound and elliptical. Rereading “Hamlet” and “King Lear” should teach a student Shakespeare’s mastery of the art of leaving things out.

To think well you must rely, in part, upon memory, and possessing Shakespeare and Joyce, Montaigne and Whitman means that you can recall much of the best that has been written.

Whatever our current travails, we now have a literate president capable of coherent discourse, but too many other politicians are devoid of syntax and appear to have read nothing. Aggressive ignorance in aspirants to high office is another dismal consequence of the waning of authentic education.

Harold Bloom, a professor of English at Yale and the author of the forthcoming “Living Labyrinth: Literature and Influence,” has been teaching since 1955.

The Samatha Jhanas

Again, my apologies for the formatting. Go to the link at the bottom if interested.

Via Shaman Sun:

Steps leading to jhana/dhyana
There are 9 steps in concentration training leading to shamatha (pali samatha) as explained in Alan Wallace's "The Attention Revolution." What follows is a brief overivew of this map with 9 steps, 6 powers, and 4 types of engagements featured in Wallace's handbook, with additional notes on terminology from different sources (such as "Mahayanasutralankara" and "Shravakabhumi" by Maitreyanatha/Asanga,"Bhavanakrama" by Kamalashila etc.).

	Step	What is achieved	Power by which that is achieved	What problem persists	Attentional imbalances	Type of mental engagement	Quality of the experience	Involuntary thoughts
1	Directed attention	One is able to direct the attention to the chosen object	Learning the instructions (skt. shruti)	No attentional continuity on the object	Coarse excitation	Focused	Movement	Flow of involuntary thought like a cascading waterfall
2	Continuous att.	Attentional continuity to a chosen object up to a minute	Thinking about the practice (skt. asaya)	Most of the time attention is not on the object	Coarse excitation	Focused	Movement	Flow of involuntary thought like a cascading waterfall
3	Resurgent att.	Swift recovery of distracted attention, mostly on the object	Mindfulness (skt. smrti)	One still forgets the object entirely for brief periods	Coarse excitation	Interrupted	Movement	Flow of involuntary thought like a cascading waterfall
4	Close att.	One no longer completely forgets the chosen object	Mindfulness, which is now strong	Some degree of complacency concerning samadhi	Coarse laxity and medium excitation	Interrupted	Achievement	Involuntary thoughts like a river quickly flowing through a gorge
5	Tamed att.	One takes satisfaction in samadhi	Introspection (skt. samprajanya)	Some resistance to samadhi	Medium laxity and medium excitation	Interrupted	Achievement	Involuntary thoughts like a river quickly flowing through a gorge
6	Pacified att.	No resistance to training the attention	Introspection	Desire, depression, lethargy, and drowsiness	Medium laxity and subtle excitation	Interrupted	Achievement	Involuntary thoughts like a river slowly flowing through a valley
7	Fully pacified att.	Pacification of attachment, melancholy, and lethargy	Enthusiasm (skt. virya)	Subtle imbalances of attention, swiftly rectified	Subtle laxity and excitation	Interrupted	Familiarity	Involuntary thoughts like a river slowly flowing through a valley
8	Single-pointed att.	Samadhi is long, sustained without any excitation or laxity	Mindfulness, introspection, enthusiasm	It still takes effort to ward off excitation and laxity	Latent impulses for subtle excitation and laxity	Uninterrupted	Stillness	Conceptually discursive mind is calm like an ocean with no waves
9	Attentional balance	Flawless samadhi is long, sustained effortlessly	Familiarity (skt. paricaya)	Attentional imbalances may recur infuture	Causes of those imbalances are still latent	Effortless	Perfection	Conceptually discursive mind is still like a great mountain

* Coarse excitation: attention completely disengages from the medit. object. Medium exc: involuntary thoughts occupy the center of attention, while the medit. object is displaced to periphery. Subtle exc: Medit. object remains at center of attention, but involuntary thoughts emerge at periphery of attention.
* Coarse laxity: Attention mostly disengages from medit. object due to insufficient vividness. Medium lax: Object appears, but not with much vividness. Subtle lax: Object appears vividly, but attention is slightly slack.

More here at Dharma Overground.

Anxiety and Procrastination

My apologies for the formatting. Not sure what's going on.

A great article I picked up from Integral Options Cafe.

Meditation has helped me greatly with this, personally. I have always
been a terrible procrastinator, and have relied on various things to
veg-out. The anxiety that comes up when I want to get something
done is the same across the board, felt when I see something I want
to eat, say, or when I have to deal with someone I don't want to talk
to, or approach someone when I'm afraid to. With observation, it
disappears (though this takes practice, and the observation often
must be fairly constant.) This in itself is a large part of my practice.
When I feel anxious, I watch the sensation, and later try and figure
out what about the situation was making me feel anxious so I can
uproot it.

Don't Delay

Understanding procrastination and how to achieve our goals.

by Timothy A. Pychyl

Giving in to feel good: Why self-regulation fails

Focusing on regulating mood can lead to self-control failure in other areas.

We give in to feel good. Give in to what? Food, shopping, drinking, smoking, gambling, and, you guessed it, procrastination. The problem is that focusing on regulating our moods and feelings can lead to self-control failure in other areas.

"Giving in to feel good" is the first part of the title of an important paper written by Dianne Tice and Ellen Bratslavsky (complete reference below). Anyone interested in knowing more about issues of the self and self-regulation should search out resources, and there are plenty, written by Dianne Tice or Roy Baumeister, or their students. I have quoted Roy's work before, and I will again given his prolific prominence as a psychologist.

Procrastinators will tell you that the task they're facing (avoiding) is difficult, and it creates bad feelings like anxiety or general emotional distress. Putting off the task at hand is an effective way of regulating this mood. Avoid the task, avoid the bad mood. This is what Tice and Bratslavsky refer to as "giving in to feel good." We give in to the impulse to walk away in order to feel good right now. Learning theorists would even add that we have now reinforced this behavior as the decrease in anxiety is rewarding.

Of course, this short-term strategy has long-term costs. The last-minute efforts that become necessary when we put off the task usually mean a sub-standard job overall (although not always, and this is a classic reward to the procrastinator and very memorable). More importantly, as Tice and Bratslavsky explain, "the final and overall level of negative affect is likely to be even greater than if the person has worked on the task all along" (p. 152). We actually feel worse later!

In fact, earlier research conducted by Tice & Baumeister across two academic terms demonstrated that procrastination caught up to students in the second term. Whereas in the first term, the non-procrastinators were more stressed, by second term the costs of procrastination became obvious for the procrastinators in terms of course performance, stress and illness.

The message of their research is clear. Putting off a task to control immediate mood results in problems later. They demonstrate this across a number of domains as I noted earlier, including eating, drinking, smoking, gambling, shopping and procrastination. When we give primacy to addressing our emotional distress, we usually do so at the cost of self-regulatory failure. They summarize this key idea with,

"People will engage in behaviors that may be self-destructive (gambling, excessive shopping, overeating, smoking, procrastinating) if the behaviors make them feel better in the short term. Thus, emotion regulation may have a special place in the field of self-control, because emotion regulation takes precedence over other self-control behaviors and even undermines other self-control efforts" (p. 154).

The message to each of us should be clear as well. If we focus on our feelings in the short term, we'll undermine ourselves in the long run.

I've been teaching my 3-year-old daughter this. A typical "lesson" goes something like this.

Me: "Sweetie, it's time to pick up your toys before we go."
[Mood now visibly changing.]
L: "I don't feel like it. I don't want to."
Me: "Sweetie, according to Dianne Tice and Ellen Bratslavsky it's not the best strategy to focus on your feelings now, it's . . . sweetie?? Where are you?"

Ok, so it is about delay of gratification, and we do (should) learn this early in life. But, the evidence seems to show that we all can (and do) act like 3-year-olds at times.

In fact, we may spend a lifetime acting like a 3-year-old, and rationalizing it to ourselves the whole time. I don't feel like it. I need to feel better in order to act. First, I need to feel better.

No you don't.

In fact, your feelings will follow your behaviors. Progress on that task will improve your mood.

For example, new research where introverts are instructed to act extraverted shows that the introverts who act extraverted also feel happier (an affective advantage of extraverts). We'll talk about this more in the near future.

For now, the message is, don't give in to feeling good, get going instead - don't delay!

Reference

Tice, D.M., & Bratslavsky, E. (2000). Giving in to feel good: The place of emotion regulation in the context of general self-control. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 149-159.

Quote #7

Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.

-St Francis of Assisi

I read an interesting take on this quote today from the 99th Monkey rephrased like this:

Grant that I might not so much seek to be loved (and understood) as to love (and understand.)

Wow, "real" America is batshit insane.

Three Articles from Esquire:
Is Obama a Fascist?
Obama Birther's Movement Quotes
Obama Birth Certificate Update

"It was pus exploding from a wound."

This is frightening because it really is the end for these people. They have no power other than guns, and no recourse but to violence. While that is a scary thought, the upside is that if they do lash out, that could be the end of the influence of the whacko-right in the country. They are wounded.

Creativity, a baby's world, and happiness.

Occasionally I get behind in my blog reading, and sometimes this creates fortunate coincidences. Like, now.

First, an article in Scientific American about how babies see the world. (both SciAm and the Shambala Sun articles are off Integral Options Cafe.)

"As adults when we attend to something in the world we are vividly conscious of that particular thing, and we shut out the surrounding world. The classic metaphor is that attention is like a spotlight, illuminating one part of the world and leaving the rest in darkness. In fact, attending carefully to one event may actually make us less conscious of the rest of the world. We even know something about how the brain does this: connections from the prefrontal part of the brain both enhance our perception of the attended event and inhibit our perception of other events. And there is a chemical basis for this, too. When we pay attention to an event certain brain chemicals called cholinergic transmitters make a small part of the brain more flexible and “plastic”, better at learning, and simultaneously other inhibitory transmitters actually make irrelevant parts of the brain less flexible.

If you look at baby’s attention you see a related but very different picture. Babies and young children are much worse at intentionally focusing their attention than adults. Instead, they seem to pay attention to anything that’s unexpected or interesting – anything they can learn from. We say that children are bad at paying attention but we really mean that they’re bad at not paying attention – they easily get distracted by anything interesting. And young brains are much more generally “plastic”, more flexible and better at learning than adult brains. Young brains are bathed in the cholinergic transmitters that enhance attention in adults, but the inhibitory transmitters that damp consciousness down haven’t yet come on line. If you put all that together it suggests that babies consciousness is more like a lantern than a spotlight – that it illumines the entire world around them.

Finally, you can think about what adult experience is like when we put ourselves in the same position as babies. When we travel for instance, we are suddenly surrounded by an unexpected new world and, instead of just focusing on the important things, we take in lots of information at once. That actually makes us more vividly conscious of our surroundings, not less. I think that for babies, every day is like first love in Paris."

Also, on play and pretending:

"...they seem to use their imagination the way that creative scientists do. One of the big new ideas about how babies learn is that they use what computer scientists call “Bayesian inference”. That means that you imagine lots of different possibilities and test how likely each possibility is.

When we have a theory of the world, we can not only say what the world is like now, we can also explore what would happen if the world was different. We can ask what would happen, for instance, if there was a rocket that traveled close to the speed of light. In fact, the ability to imagine these possibilities is one of the biggest advantages of understanding how the world works. Because we imagine, we can have invention and technology. Its actually play, not necessity, that is the mother of invention."

In a second article from Scientific American, researchers look at a way to increase creativity, and find that making something psychologically distant from oneself (anything not happening here, now, and to oneself is psychologically distant) increases creativity around the problem, which makes sense. How playful would you feel if you were trapped in a room slowly filling up with water? You'd probably be freaking out.

It also accords with the candle study, explained in the video below from TED talks:

Basically, people have to figure a simple task out. There are two groups, one given money if they complete it quickly and one not given any money. Classically, you'd expect the group given money as a reward to do better, but they do worse. See, the task they have to do involves some creativity. Giving people money apparently takes away some of their playfulness. (The talk is actually on motivation and the twenty-first century work place. I might talk about it in a later post, it's good.)

One more from TED: something I've put up before:

Finally, an article from the Shambhala Sun on happiness.

Now we can get to the point. It seems to me that the mode of consciousness described in the first article is not unique to babies, we're just educated out of it, at least when we're facing concrete and tangible problems, but we have access to it at anytime, and can certainly train to enhance it (the guys on "Who's Line is it Anyway"come to mind). Of course, the restricted, focused consciousness is just as important, we'd never become adult without it, but we're losing something when we ignore it, something that (as the first video explains) is increasingly needed in our world, and which might be linked to happiness. Or perhaps over-reliance on the focused method of consciousness, the "get-the-loot" consciousness, as the article puts it, causes us to ignore those million little things that are uplifting in the day.

Indeed, though the article in the SS doesn't present it in this light, we need both of these kinds of consciousness to be successful, and in meditation are training both: a simultaneous rigid focus on an open and innocent ("virgin", the article says,) state-of-mind. This could be why both the first and the last article are concerned with paying attention. Children are paying attention to everything, and if you're unhappy, maybe you're just not paying attention.

But children are not enlightened, nor are they all-in-all more conscious than adults (well, healthy adults.) The combination of the two is something attained through growth. As the SS article says, the "get-the-loot" mindset is always looking for something exterior, an experience or thing, while happiness comes from the inside. Babies don't have this, they aren't differentiated from their environment yet.

Remove the pillars of your belief in this world and look around a little bit, at least every once in a while, I guess is the take-home message.

Dark Flow, and limits to knowledge

An oddly written but interesting blog entry about something called "Dark Flow."

The phenomenon is pretty interesting in itself, apparently hundreds of millions of stars are all rushing (relatively) towards one spot on the outer edges of the known universe, something no one saw coming (hence, "Dark.")

I'm more interested, though, in the reaction:

"This is giant on a scale where it's not just that we can't see what's doing it; it's that the entire makeup of the universe as we understand it can't be right if this is happening. Which is fantastic! Such discoveries force a whole new set of ideas onto the table which, even if they turn out to be wrong, are the greatest ways to advance science and our understanding of everything."

Which, I think, is spot-on. Too often we assume that our models of the world are correct, and we fight to keep them. Rarely does something come along that beggars some sort of contrived explanation.

I think one of the hallmarks of integral awareness (though it is in the healthy scientific consciousness that it first pops its head up) is the knowledge that we don't really know anything, except that we're here, and here is us.

Tarantino and the Ol' Switcheroo

I walked out of "Inglourious Basterds" about an hour ago. If you haven't seen it and think you might, I wouldn't read this now, but I would give the film four stars, out of four. Go see it and come back.

Violent, yeah? Oddly enough, I went to go see this movie with my mom, honestly can't tell you the last time I've seen a movie with her, let alone in the theater. In any case, all my mom would say was "that was so violent." (She'd never seen a Tarantino film before. She actually suggested this.)

Of course, that was the point- the violence was grotesque, and it served the purpose of the film, which was humanitarian. There's a juxtaposition of the violence of the movie (fairy-tale) and the violence the Nazis perpetrated in real life. This movie was a scalping of the Nazis, doing exactly what Goebbels had thought he was doing to film (there's the one line about beating the Jews at their own game.) It dehumanizes them in the worst way, because its dehuminization is a fantasy. Hitler's face getting blown off in the end, all the Nazis getting raked by machine gun fire, is the last laugh, it is the vengeance of the Jew that the main female character proclaims as she taunts the theater-goers to stare into her Jewish face (which is, of course, perfectly blonde-haired blue-eyed aryan.)

But doesn't the violence dehumanize us as much as the Nazis are dehumanized, and so tear apart the whole point of the movie? Again, no, it's a fanciful fiction, which makes the real violence of WWII that much more horrific. Hitler can portray himself as beautiful. In our film, he is disgusting, pimply and old, wearing a cape, a cartoon. That's what you get for being a supreme asshole.

Well, again, I've just seen this an hour ago. It still hasn't quite sunk in, and there's much more in the movie, but that was my first take. What do you think?

Mythic Religion and Containment of the Power Ego

A great post from Integral Options Cafe:

The Benefits of Religion

from Integral Options Cafe by WH

Yesterday morning I was being a slacker and not doing homework, so I watched Top Gun, which was on some cable station or another. I really dislike Tom Cruise so I had never seen this flick, but I had heard that it offered a great object lesson in memetics.

Maverick (Cruise's character) is a hot-shot young pilot, but he is very cocky and takes too many risks to show off his skills. Eventually, through no real fault of his own, his best friend and co-pilot dies on a training mission.

Iceman (Val Kilmer) is the rival pilot, equally as talented, but he flies within the rules of the Navy pilots training program, one of which is to never leave your wingman. Iceman eventually wins the Top Gun competition among the pilots in training. Maverick eventually submits to the military structure and saves Iceman in a real life firefight.

Maverick represents an ego-centered memetic stage of development, while Iceman represents a more authoritarian memetic stage. The film demonstrates through (melodrama and bad acting) that the power-drive of the ego needs some strong containment within authority structures to allow it to reach its potential.

By now, you may be wondering what this has to do with the benefits of religion.

Over the weekend, a video made the rounds online of a pastor up in Tempe (just outside of Phoenix) saying he hates Barack Obama and wished him dead. This same man and some of his congregation had shown up at Obama's speech a little more than a week ago armed with assault rifles and handguns.

Here is the video:

Popout

This video has resulted in a lot of despair about the role of mythic religion in our culture. You can read some of the discussion the video generated at my friend Stuart's Facebook page.

Many people feel that mythic religion has outlived its usefulness, or that it is no longer an appropriate developmental response to a complex world. This is not wrong, but it is only a partial truth. In fact, the mythic worldview is losing its power, and that is partially why those infected with a more malignant version of this developmental meme are reacting with fear-based violence.

However, not all religion is bad, and not all religion is malignant. As is the case with the military structure portrayed in Top Gun, mythic religion offers a structure to contain the power-drive of the raw ego. But mythic religion is only one form of religion (and here we are talking specifically about Christianity, not Islam, Judaism, or other religions). There are many rational, egalitarian, and even some integral stage Christians. It is not Christianity that is the problem.

The problem, rather, is that some of the people who adhere to a fundamentalist religious dogma also adhere to a very rigid and hateful form of ethnocentrism. The result is a profound fear of the other, and the other is anyone who does not share their specific values and beliefs about the world.

In the example of this clown up in Tempe, the other is Obama - because he is liberal, because he holds some postmodern relativist values (a woman's right to choose what happens to her body), and quite possibly because he is black. The Phoenix metro area is already well-known nationally for its fear/hate of all people who are not them, as Sheriff Joe Arpio demonstrates on a regular basis.

When religion in this country isn't infected with this ethnocentric hatred, it performs valuable roles in society. It has been inner city churches that have done the most to help those involved in the tribal and ego-based power drive of gang culture grow out of that. Even Malcolm X, although his faith was Islam, found containment for his power-drives in the authoritarian structure of religion.

In the same way that sports teams or the military provide that rule-bound structure to contain the raging egos of young men, so does mythic religion. When well-meaning but misguided liberals worked to disempower inner city churches in the sixties and seventies, it was the the neighborhoods that suffered for the lack of religious authority.

And none of this even touches the benefits that religion has for its believers. Churches provide community, comfort, and certainty. While we may not share their values or beliefs, most of these believers are good citizens. The few hateful people should cause us to condemn the whole religion.

It's strange that I find myself, an atheist, defending religion so often against other atheists. This is not the first time, and it likely won't be the last that I make these arguments, so I guess it part of what this blog is about - an integral approach.

Moment of Zen, Kennedy Shrug

At Orbit48.

Not sure how to embed this, so you'll have to head there. But it's worth it.

Quote #6

Mencius speaks to Republicans blocking health care reform:

"Talk is easy when you don't have to get the job done."

-Mencius



From The Useless Tree, an excellent blog on Chinese philosophy in the present day.

Seeking truth from whatever...

From Jottings from the Granite Studio, a great Chinese scholar's blog. The last conversation is hilarious, and I have had innumerable conversations like it myself. (Qiu Shi, btw, means "seeking truth." For those of you who have never been to China, this is what happens when you're not taught culturally to think critically. Chinese people think, with few exceptions, that if they could just explain things correctly without the pesky western journalists lying and distorting things, everyone would love them. Shadow projection? Recently having lunch with my Chinese mom, she said to a friend about Japanese people, "they just don't like Chinese people." That's how I translate it, because that's what she meant. Literally, though, she said, "they just don't understand Chinese people," as if that would automatically turn them around.

"

For what it’s worth, David Bandurski and his team at China Media Project absolutely rock, and today’s commentary and translation of a bit of whiny blather from Qiu Shi on “people being mean to China” or some other such spray of sputum and self-pity is just the latest in a line of great posts. For what it’s worth, someone desperately needs to alert the editors of Qiu Shi as to the dangers of inadequate nutrition…poor sods seem to be suffering from a serious case of irony deficiency.

Leaving aside the whole point that very few people in the Chinese government understand, are willing to understand, or even want to understand how the media actually functions outside of PRC…the mother of all “dead horse” topics…There is this blissful piece of ineffable twaddle:

But in developed nations like the United States, some people now voice surprise at seeing that Chinese have mobile phones just as they do, and they ask ridiculous questions like, “You Chinese use mobile phones too?” Their understanding of China is trapped in the 1970s.

Yeah, maybe…but for every nameless American who “expresses surprise at Chinese using mobile phones,” I’ll give you 10 Beijingers who can’t wrap their skulls around the notion that a foreigner could read/speak/understand Chinese or is able to use chopsticks without jabbing themselves repeatedly in the eye socket.

A: “Oh, you can use kuaizi!?!?!? You are really lihai! Did YOU knOW that “kuaizi” is what we Chinese people call chopsticks!”

B: “Why thank you. In the nine hours I just spent at the Number One Archives going over a decade of Qing Dynasty court documents, the word kuaizi did not appear once. Thank goodness you told me that because otherwise I’d have had to eat with my toes.”

A: “Really, how did you read the material? It is all in Chinese!!!!* Did they translate them into English for you?”

B: [sound of head banging against table repeatedly]

(And yes, I’ve had this EXACT conversation. Many times.)

————-

*I’ll save the reaction when I say, “Yes, it’s in Chinese, but the really GOOD stuff is in Manchu” for another post.

"

Open Information and China

"China has become a dead-zone for any business planning on building an international online presence."

This is one of the two things (the other being pollution and lack of life) that I could not stand living in China.

From a great blog post at Chinasolved.com. So good, I'm posting the whole thing:

China’s Fractured Web Part III – Myths and Realities

At the time of this writing, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are still unavailable in Mainland China. YouTube has been blocked since March of 2009, and Facebook and Twitter have been dark for almost a month. There is no indication about when - or even if - the blockade of these sites will be lifted.

First, let’s put a couple of myths to rest.

Fractured Web Myth 1 – the Chinese internet blockade is a minor inconvenience that just about everyone can get around.
Fractured Web Myth 2 – the only ones affected are kids surfing for fun.
Fractured Web Myth 3 – it’s a temporary phenomenon
Fractured Web Myth 4 – it’s about national security - not an international business or trade issue.
Fractured Web Myth 5 – Chinese counterparts and substitutes already exist.

Myth 1 – It’s just a minor inconvenience that just about anyone can get around. Simply not true. There was a time when proxy servers were simple, effective and free ways to get around the Chinese internet blockade, but China’s technology has gotten better and better. Even some commercial VPNs (virtual private networks) that charge for access are being blocked now. The cost of going online in China wasn’t cheap to begin with, but going online in China is now becoming more expensive, slow and difficult. Another problem with VPNs is that they often require software to be downloaded – making online life even more difficult for those of you who have more than one computer. A handful of digiratti will take the time, trouble and expense to get around the blockade – the vast majority of Chinese netizens won’t bother.

Myth 2 – These social media sites are all just kid’s stuff. True, 90% of the bandwidth used by Twitter, Facebook and YouTube seems to be devoted to college-boy pranks and sophomoric banality - but that is rapidly changing. Twitter is being used as a news feed, marketing platform and communications-tool by serious, grown-up businesses. Facebook is emerging as one the best ways to build and maintain an online professional or customer groups – and a great advertising platform. YouTube videos, embedded in private sites, puts professional quality broadcasting within the grasp of small & medium sized businesses everywhere. The impact of China’s blockade is relatively minor for now, but business applications for the Google, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are growing fast. Businesses interested in marketing to or from China are going to find themselves at an increasingly significant disadvantage.

Myth 3 – It’s temporary. YouTube has been blocked since March 2009, and Facebook & Twitter have been down for over a month. In the 24-7 world on online commerce, that level of service interruption is total. YouTube may come back someday (or it may not), but no IT or Marketing department will ever again be able to rely on the platform in China. The same goes for Twitter and Facebook. Even Google has been restricted and hobbled to the point where it is not a 100% reliable business tool in China. For business owners the bad news is already in the market and they are responsible for finding a way around it. No one can claim ignorance about a risk that has already been demonstrated.

Myth 4 – It’s not a business issue. The 20th century benchmarks for international trade were how many containers or freighters one nation sent across the water to another. In the 21st century, it will be about data, viewers and users. The few big sites that have been blocked and hobbled in China are powering thousands of small businesses and driving the future of online commerce. China has become a dead-zone for any business planning on building an international online presence.

Myth 5 – Chinese replacements already exist. Sites like Tudou, Youku, Xiaonei, Kaixin, Baidu and a host of others already replicate the functionality of the blockaded sites – so it’s easy to say that the problem has already been essentially solved by the marketplace. Indeed, if it were possible to link Twitter and Xiaonei or Facebook and Kaixin, this argument would be valid – and represent an exciting opportunity. But the fact that the two internets are developing in isolation and segregation from one another creates diseconomies of scale. Companies wishing to bring their online presence to China will have to duplicate budgets and content – and overcome substantial hurdles as far as quality control and due diligence. Multiple platforms that cannot integrate with one another raise the hurdle rate for business and makes marketing to or from China so expensive and risky that it is now beyond the reach of most small business.

Towards Universality, Again.

From an entry on the Kill the Buddha blog:

"I’ve written too many novels, many too many, and as I get older I regret that when I was starting out, some forty years ago, I didn’t trust a vision of universality enough."

Signs that we are beginning to cope with the limits of postmodernism and resolve its distaste of Universals.

What is Integral Theory?

Explaining to a friend, I got a pretty good succinct explanation: "Integral Theory is the consolidation of all areas of human thought into one."

While not descriptive, it at least gets the idea across.

Quote #5

"The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."

- Abe Lincoln

Quote #4

"Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain."

- JFK

Appropriate considering my post here and his younger brother's recent death.

Quote #3

"The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned in no other way."

-Mark Twain

Killing the Buddha

A couple of days ago I found this wonderful online magazine. I'll let their manifesto speak for itself:

Manifesto

Killing the Buddha is a religion magazine for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the “spirituality” section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God. It is for people who somehow want to be religious, who want to know what it means to know the divine, but for good reasons are not and do not. If the religious have come to own religious discourse it is because they alone have had places where religious language could be spoken and understood. Now there is a forum for the supposedly non-religious to think and talk about what religion is, is not and might be. Killing the Buddha is it.

The idea of “killing the Buddha” comes from a famous Zen line, the context of which is easy to imagine: After years on his cushion, a monk has what he believes is a breakthrough: a glimpse of nirvana, the Buddhamind, the big pay-off. Reporting the experience to his master, however, he is informed that what has happened is par for the course, nothing special, maybe even damaging to his pursuit. And then the master gives the student dismaying advice: If you meet the Buddha, he says, kill him.

Why kill the Buddha? Because the Buddha you meet is not the true Buddha, but an expression of your longing. If this Buddha is not killed he will only stand in your way.

Why Killing the Buddha? For our purposes, killing the Buddha is a metaphor for moving past the complacency of belief, for struggling honestly with the idea of God. As people who take faith seriously, we are endlessly amazed and enraged that religious discourse has become so bloodless, parochial and boring. Any God worth the name is none of these things. Yet when people talk about God they are talking mainly about the Buddha they meet. For fear of seeming intolerant or uncertain, or just for lack of thinking, they talk about a God too small to be God.

Killing the Buddha is about finding a way to be religious when we’re all so self-conscious and self-absorbed. Knowing more than ever about ourselves and the way the world works, we gain nothing through nostalgia for a time when belief was simple, and even less from insisting that now is such a time. Killing the Buddha will ask, How can we be religious without leaving part of ourselves at the church or temple door? How can we love God when we know it doesn’t matter if we do? Call it God for the godless. Call it the search for a God we can believe in: A God that will not be an embarrassment in twelve-thousand years. A God we can talk about without qualifications.

Killing the Buddha insists that if religion matters at all it matters enough to be taken to task. We believe it’s high time for a new canon to be created, and that the Web is just the place to collect it. We refuse to accept the internet as a world wide shopping mall. We know intuitively it can be a sort of Talmudic cathedral, a tool of transcendence made of words. We’re here to build it. If the end result looks more like Babel than the City of God, so be it. Babel, after all, came close.

Thanks for reading.
- The KtBniks

Pifas in the news!

An article in the Times about Philly art, including PIFAS!

In related news, Gavin Riley at PIFAS tonight, 9pm, 5 dollar donation.

Health Care with Chinese Characteristics?

This morning waking up from a nightmare a fairly bitter and ironic thought struck me: health care reform would get passed in China.

Of course, the type of sweeping health care reform that we need in America with the type of coverage that we're talking about never could actually get passed over there- most of the populace (900 billion peasants) has never had anything resembling the type of care Americans with decent health care are accustomed to, and the political system is not in the business of giving away gobs of money and or services, and is corrupt beyond anything most Americans could imagine.

The thought was not realistic, just something of an amusement. Chinese leaders are said to be contemptuous of the weaknesses of democracy, and this whole issue is a prime example of why: this health care debate is a whole mess that never would have happened in their country. They don't realize that the strengths of our system lie in these very weaknesses, but that's not for this discussion.

To be sure, our democracy is ideally healthier than their "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" by ten, but that presupposes certain things, some of which have been in the balance for some time, such as a media disengaged from power, and some of which have come up short, such as education. (Shout out to Nate for this.)

Our sort of democracy presupposes an educated electorate, and by educated I mean up to the ability to think critically, rationality. Far from being rational, human thought is predicated on emotions, growing on their root. It is a human capacity, a possibility, but not an inevitability. It is something that people must be educated into, though I don't necessarily mean formally so. One does not teach rational thought like one teaches about the American revolution, one teaches rational thought in how one teaches about everything. It is cultural, not a subject.

Not that there aren't rational arguments in any direction on this debate. There are. But most people are not reacting against a public plan from some disinterested intellectual perch. They are reacting against a fear of change coming from people unlike them whom they don't trust. They reject a public option because they don't like black presidents, they are terrified of socialism, they are fearful of becoming a minority in their own country, and all of this could be summed up by saying they're terrified that they are losing their voice, and so their power. They are not alone; their fear is being drummed up by the greed of people who are benefiting from the current system and likely to benefit from any arrangement without a public option in the future, but the fear is there, and is accessible because of a lack of rational thinking. Democracy is born in rationality, and needs it to flourish. (For the Integral out there we are obviously talking about SDi 5 v SDi4.)

I feel as if these people who are de facto with the insurance companies on this have never actually had to deal with them before, having their coverage dropped for nothing, getting seventy percent of the allotted (already only one third of what's necessary) maximum reimbursement per week because their psychologist isn't in the network (someone I know), or having to sift through claims and do paperwork with most of their energy and all of their out of bed time during chemotherapy.

My family has gone through it as well. When my brother got Hodgkins disease in 2003, we routinely received letters from the insurance companies that his medication wasn't covered. Yes, for cancer. Even with excellent health care provided to employees of New Jersey (my mom), we had to jump through hoops. Thankfully we weren't one of the thousands affected by "rescission," which means cut from the rolls for some technicality just as we needed care, a practice illuminated in this excellent Nicholas Kristof piece. In it, Kristof talks about a health care executive that saw the light as he was preparing response propaganda for the Michael Moore film "Sicko," and testified in Congress about the methods used by insurance companies to purge the sick from their rolls. It's a sort of short tell-all, and it shows the depths of depravity of the system we have, if not necessarily all of the people operating it, and just how desperately we need reform.

But how?

I am praying that, as Howard Dean said, Obama has been rope-a-doping the Republicans, displaying that they're not really interested in sitting down and working out the kind of reform that we need, and therefore should be largely ignored. I'm looking for one of those powerful speeches to come just before the fall legislative session begins, outlining the necessity of reform, pushing the public plan as the only legitimate option, and calling out the opposition, all in a straightforward and rhetorically excellent manner as only Obama can do.

But as I said, I'm at the point of praying, and am not a religious man.

As lofty as my love of the country grew when it elected a black man with "Hussein" in his name, so hard will it crash back into tempered cynical realism if we get change all insurance companies can believe in, as evidence of it not mattering who you vote for, or why. For the economy, for the people, for business, and as a moral imperative, we need reform. I trust Obama knows this, but we're all seeing that he's somewhat uncomfortable leading against hard-nosed opposition. (Enneagram 9 with a 1 wing? Anyone?) It still isn't impossible, but make no mistake: this is the defining event of his presidency, and his life.

It's almost enough to make one wish for a government that could just magically take all the cars off the roads and shut down all the factories in the area for some large international event, contrary opinions be damned. Don't be afraid, America: it's not socialism, it's socialism with Chinese characteristics.

And Here's an Article Saying Much the Opposite of the Last

From Wired, Happy 150th, Oil! And So Long!

I tend to agree with this one more, and they note the economic cliff we're headed for if we have no way to transition from oil, whenever that day does come.

Thanks to Richard M. for the link.

What Peak?

If you dislike oil, do read this, an op-ed from Michael Lynch, an energy consultant. It tries to pop the theory of peak oil, at least in the short term.

But I'm not really writing about peak oil. Whether or not Mr. Lynch's logic is correct, the point of the idea of peak oil is that at some point in the future, oil will run out. Our entire energy system has to be prepared before this happens, or, especially if it happens during a period of exponential growth, we'll be screwed economically; it will bring everything down. This is going to happen one day. It may not be today, or tomorrow, or ten or even fifty years, but it is inevitably going to happen if humans are still around and we don't have any other way to power our machines. Oil is finite, and we are using more and more and more of it. Yes, putting significant economic resources into fuel programs which will create fuel still more expensive than oil makes little sense, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be working towards it gradually.

But in any case, I'm not writing about peak oil, I'm writing about this: this is pretty good news, and I, reading the article, felt bad about it.

This is good news! Oil powers the world's economy. Unless you are looking forward to dying of starvation or exposure or in a resource war or of any number of effects of the collapse of our civilization (and yes, there are some of you out there I know) this is good news. And yet, there is the feeling that it pushes off the golden age, a time when energy comes entirely renewable and people smile at each other on the street.

For sure, the effects of oil on the emission of CO2 can't be ignored, and this is probably why many people would be predisposed to disagree vehemently with this article.

I can't say that it's true, either, but I sure can't say that it isn't. (Brazil has recently found a bonanza of oil off of its coast.) And that's sort of the point. My feelings on the issue are entirely irrelevant. How many people, though, read the article and said, "fool!" or "well it's about time somebody made some sense," not because this is the definitive word, but because there is none. Experts disagree on this, as they do on everything.

This, of course, is a rather inflammatory issue, or at least a litmus test, but I feel that for most questions of opinion the majority of folks would react in a similar manner. There's no real consideration for the merits of the argument, or that one's previous position might not be solid. Who's to say that anybody's right, anyway?

Problem, singular, and integral (theory) solutions.

I've been saying this for years!

An Op-ed from Thomas Friedman. Beyond the corniness of Friedman, this is something that really needs to be said (which I guess could be true of much of Friedman's posts.)

The point of the article:

"We’re trying to deal with a whole array of integrated problems — climate change, energy, biodiversity loss, poverty alleviation and the need to grow enough food to feed the planet — separately. The poverty fighters resent the climate-change folks; climate folks hold summits without reference to biodiversity; the food advocates resist the biodiversity protectors...

'We need to stop thinking about these issues in isolation — each with its own champion, constituency and agenda — and deal with them in an integrated way, the way they actually occur on the ground,” argued Glenn Prickett, senior vice president with Conservation International. “We tend to think about climate change as just an energy issue, but it’s also about land use: one-third of greenhouse gas emissions come from tropical deforestation and agriculture. So we need to preserve forests and other ecosystems to solve climate change, not only to save species.'"

Notice the word "integrated" above. As I struggle to explain Integral Theory to everyone, one thing I keep coming out with is that it's mostly a different way of looking at things, a different set of lenses through which to look at the world, one which tries to take into account that reality is unified.

What this means is that if there's a problem, it's most likely either one of viewpoint, or one of orientation.

How can a change of viewpoint change everything?

Well, remember when fire was magic, some random event or act of the gods? Of course not. Every advance that we make occurs because of a shift in viewpoint, a greater, deeper, or wider understanding, or a more encompassing, more connected worldview.

There are no problems in the Universe. You have problems. There are two ways to eliminate them: externally and internally. If you no longer care about something (internal) it's not a problem. If you remove the external cause of the problem, it's not a problem. Both are important. You won't be a very good human if you ignore the external reality of problems. You'll probably starve to death. But you also won't be a very good human if you don't grow past some of your problems. You'll be waiting for your mother to feed you, and you'll starve to death. Both are shifts in viewpoint: you either change your view of what you are and what your relationship to the world is, or you change the way you look at the outside world, which changes what you can do to it and in it.

The shift in perspective that Friedman is discussing is from one where each act in the universe, or process (a series of acts and reactions through time) is basically unrelated to each other (SDi 5) to one which recognizes that every act has consequences for every other ongoing process, or that every process and system is linked to each other (SDi 6). You could also view this in terms of input and output, in the movement from an understanding of inputs and outputs occurring separately to one where every output is a different process' input, creating cycles.

Much of where modernity has gone awry is in disrupting cycles between the output of one and the input of another, creating waste, which doesn't exist in the natural world.

This is not to say that man has no right to tinker with what's there: as mentioned in the end of the article, we can make nature better, or rather, better for us, which is the process of solving problems externally. (Very simply, making a roof underneath which to hide from the rain.) What we need to understand is that instead of creating a different framework to solve every problem we have, we already have been given the perfect framework within which to work, we just need to recognize it as such.

Meditative visuals when tired. Lucid dreaming?

Recently when I have been tired I have noticed a fascinating phenomenon- I am not usually a visual person, that is, it is sometimes difficult for me to maintain mental images in my head. However, I have been meditating quite a lot recently, and when I have been tired, especially if I am not going to sleep but just resting my eyes, I have been paying attention to the shapes and colors playing behind my eyelids. The greater my focus, and greater my relaxation, (I am often meditating casually as I rest) the more real they appear, like the images that can guide you into dreams directly from waking, something I have frequently experienced since the time I was young. I have either been waking up to jot it down or falling asleep, but my goal is to be able to enter lucid dreams from this state, which I'm pretty sure is possible even though I have been as yet unable to control them.

Violent Right?

An article from Sunday's NYT by Frank Rich.

Rich, if you don't read him, is an excellent columnist, funny, scathing, sarcastic, and all in the straightforward service of screaming that the Emperor's got no clothes on. He is sharp and lucid as glass when it comes to historical analogies as well, which comes out in this article quite a bit.

One subtle undertone of the column is that the Right, for whatever reason, seems to be legitimized in the US in a way the Left never would be. Perhaps it is that huge swaths of the country are rural, or the sort of suburban sprawl metros that maintain a rural twang even as they reach a million people. Maybe it has to do with our pledge towards liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And surely there's something in it of the protestant ethos of individual responsibility and accountability and belief in a personal soul, which tends the "life" omitted above and that happiness to refer strictly to one's own, and which informs even our atheists' senses of self.

But whatever it is we surely would not be in this situation if there were an equal balance of Left and Right in this country, at least in so far as what is acceptable in the public discourse, or what is weighing down the levers of power. There does honestly seem to be a virtual tie in terms of the private views of the citizenry, wobbling back and forth every few years, but could you honestly imagine a scenario where far-left zealots caused enough of a stink to get anything on the ropes, let alone something (we're not even considering single-payer here) fairly centrist? They are ostracized, not eulogized as the equally imbalanced recent protesters have been, even with much grumbling about how incorrect their take on the contents of reform are. As Paul Krugman writes, it's almost insanity that the Right's 'government is satan always' rhetoric hasn't died off after the actual policies grown from it have failed beyond failure. The question isn't why the right is so loud- they're loud because they've got amplifiers. But why do they have amplifiers in sober thinking people?

That for some reason seems to be at the heart of this whole matter. America has been the greatest force of progressivism in the last two hundred and thirty-three years, through fits and starts, and yet it's as if every positive step is taken against the weight of a begrudging dragging boulder, and mitigated by terribly insensitive acts that would cause, I'm sure, quite a few people to blanch at the first clause of this sentence.

Maybe it's just energy- America and her people are both energetically progressive and energetically conservative, and we get the best and worst of both. Thanks to that. Without it the world would probably either be a right or left dystopian hell. But we could sure use a burst of progressive energy now.

And we'll need it seriously if we're going to get over the money, without which the situation just doesn't add up. Things are going the way they are because of money, and I think the real disenchantment with Obama now isn't just because of the flagging of the public option, it's because the only thing that could possibly be behind it is gobs of questionably earned money. I, for one, voted for the man mostly because I thought he could be the kind of rare person to point this out and step around it, which is really the only way to make this work in the long run. As an optimist I hold out hope, since the O-man's pattern so far has been staying out of the fray until everyone thinks the game is up, descending, and laying down the law, no strings attached, which is why so many people look to him as a sort of savior figure. The race speech, the clearest example of this pattern, is much less important in the long run than the current debate, but Obama must know this as well. My confidence in him would be destroyed if a bill passed that screwed me (no income no health insurance 27 year old male) but it remains, waiting for the man to work things out. He certainly has the ability to. It would be a shame if he didn't realize that, and it will ruin his presidency if he doesn't act on it.

Perhaps it's coming. Lefties are fairly outraged by all the blabber about the impossibility of passing real meaningful reform in the face of a bullying insurance industry, and if history is a guide the right is about to become more and more violent, something which can only discredit them (much of what Rich is saying.)

And Washington is not a campaign. That is, he'll need all the prodding from the left and discrediting of the right he can get to sort this out. A speech isn't going to cut it.

It's ironic that I lived through eight years of W and am only contemplating finding a Canadian woman to marry with a Democratic president.

Wide Moments

For you, what is the most natural trigger of reverence or awe?

What I mean is that when looking up at a sky full of stars, my mind hushes and melts into that expansiveness without my doing anything, a reminder of how grand it is to be alive and aware of it.

Coming home from Beijing I will no longer take that for granted; for sure the lack of stars in my life for the past seven months is the reason I noticed this. The stars and being surrounded by the smell of foliage at night bring me great peace.

On my birthday I woke up early and went to watch the sunrise on the seashore. It was overcast, so you couldn't see the sun over the horizon, but all of a sudden over clouds far away the sun came up a brilliant magenta color I'd never seen before, off the periwinkle of the clouds and the slate of the ocean, it was magnificent.

Also while hiking recently some friends and I were perched on the peak of a mountain in New Jersey watching the sun settle over mountains west, and the silence.

Again, for me, the stars are the most powerful, but all three of these recently have stuck in my mind. What, if anything, does it for you?

Quote #2

We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.

-H.L. Mencken

Quote #1

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal."
-- T.S. Eliot

A translation of this I would give is: "Amateurs borrow, professionals steal."

Round Two

I'm home!

Fresh Air! Full internet access! Books! Friends!

I haven't written on this site in more than three months because of the Chinese government's net nanny and my inability to get around it consistently, but here it goes.

There will be some changes to the blog, and I will be experimenting with quite a bit in the next year.

1- I would like to lighten up. There will be lengthy essays, there will also be cartoons, if they're apropos.

2- Something like Chycho.com (an interesting anarchist website) I would like to begin to create a web of meaning/information for Integral Studies, so quite a few posts, especially in the next few months or so, will be smaller chunks of a larger integrated whole, and may not make sense as-is. They'll be marked.

3- While one of the reasons for having this blog has always been to test out ideas and get them down on paper, as I am heading into a program in Integral Studies and trying to pen out a book, this will increase. Comments and criticism will be treated like VIPs.

4- Trying to pare my thought down and get direct. Nail me, if you like, for verbosity.

Okay!

What does it feel like to be Integral, and what are we doing?

Warning: Jargon.

Originally, this was a reply to a question on Open Source Integral, "What does it feel like to be Integral?" It deals with the question, as well as with what Integral is and what it's doing, also touching upon Ken Wilber's role in "integral." It's slightly modified.

To answer the question directly, integral probably feels different a little bit to everybody going through it, though I'd suspect there are quite a few similarities. There's an openness to experience, much less resistance (and so anxiety) to life and what's around, but the only real way I can say it is that I feel much more like myself: less like I have to act, and so much more willingly an actor, because it's fun. Maybe in short it's just that: simply more myself. I believe that's probably true for most, though what you've got to grow into and what blocks you need to remove are certainly different for everyone. A large part of the transition into integral for me has been allowing myself to open up to my emotions (though I would not say that's true for everyone,) and so life has become fuller; again, I feel like I'm more me more of the time now, and noticeably, joyfully so. Along with that there's the openness mentioned: all this richness and open emotion flows in and out. I'm much more aware and accepting of it, and much lest graspy or resistant to it-- that is, this fullness is equally a wonderful emptiness--there's an embracing and simultaneous awareness of what the mind would consider exclusionary opposites, for example, a grounded solidity in the midst of hundred-cycle-per-second change. When I do get anxious over something, or feel a tension in my body (1,000 times a day) I'm aware of it very quickly, and can note where it's coming from internally/externally, largely releasing it. There's also, for me, a marked sense of autonomy that comes from the release of anxiety about personal agency, along with a greater comfort in actually relinquishing any control over to the second by second rhythms of the world.

Other than that, I have to lightly disagree with a slightly dismissive tone in this thread [at OSI] in regards to Wilber. I do not worship Ken Wilber, though perhaps I used to, when I was jealous of him for the first couple of years after I'd read him for the first time. (Haven't we all been?) I'd love to have come up with AQAL, but actually coming into an integral level of being, rather than merely intellectualizing it, that's just not there anymore. I'm myself, and so better at that than KW could ever be, and joyous about it, because we're the same thing, and what's in store for me is just who I am. How could anyone else do it? Still, I feel much of the conversation here is bashing on or devaluing Wilber without a real appreciation. I certainly don't think that you have to understand Wilber to be integral (or even have ever heard of him) but you have to at least wrestle with him until you can definitively say where he goes awry. Some of the comments expressing a common sentiment against certain aspects of Wilber's variety of integral I think Wilber would whole-heartedly agree with, because he makes them explicit himself. They're not missing from his theory, they're in it.

In any case, I sympathize with the orignal poster, who mentions that a large awkwardness with the theory is the clunkiness and large amount of jargon. The language problem reminds me of my students here in China. In order to become comfortable speaking English they've got to learn a whole deal of commands and other 'class-functional' words just so we're using as little Chinese as possible (like, "what does that word mean,") that are usually more complex than their English level. There's so much to learn before you even get to really using it for yourself, and so i would suggest that the third-personness of the original poster's previous integral experience was because he hadn't gotten to the point where he'd internalized it, and that the yearning to do so from a personal standpoint likely shows that he's growing much more wholly into an integral awareness/living. It was third-person because 'not-you,' not because of any weakness in the theory (of course third-person,) but because he was still acclimating to the a gigantic instruction manual, so to speak. Anyone at an integral level of consciousness ought to recognize much of KW's work without having to talk and debate so much about it. I did much the same thing as he did, but never quite despaired about it. Now I see it as my intellectual understanding (where I could arrange and understand all that outside of me) helped to pull me up into an overall integral level of consciousness, beyond my simple verbal/rational mind.

In addition, there are quite a few areas where the main stream of Integral theory needs some retuning, in the very least as far as presentation is concerned. For example, the word "evolution." Evolution means reorganization of self in order to adapt to a changing environment, and so technically, yes, the higher up the spiral you go, the more evolved you are. Human evolution is taking place not only at the physical level, but at the mental level, and faster. Of course, for "8s," who are supposed to be tuned into how their actions are taken at each level, this word can't possibly be the right one. Talk about someone as being more evolved and you turn off most of the "lower tier," not just the greens. It's elitist in the worst way. This, of course, is only an apparent elitism-- the word as it's used within the integral culture is not a judgment of overall worth, but fitness, but try telling that to someone you're calling "less evolved." Is there a solution to this? I usually say people "with" a level 8 consciousness rather than "who have," but still. "Higher/lower," or "later/earlier," you're still going to run into the problem. In the trajectory of the universe, you see a clear trend towards systems of greater complexity which become better and better able to replicate and then improve themselves over time, from the primordial soup to humans, and then within the human mind. So how to say this without offending? This is what we're doing now, trying to figure out a way to pass this knowledge down the spiral in the best and most helpful way possible to facilitate further growth. But I also find that many integralists have a far less than humble attitude, and watching them speak about "higher levels" and this and that, one gets the sense that they are making overall value judgments, and are PROUD of it, which I think would be a mistake, something that may turn off quite a number of people who would otherwise be helped greatly. There's a technical term for the professors in college who lord their superiority of knowledge over their students rather than give them a patient, friendly hand: assholes.

But what would integral be without Wilber? Along with the above idea of a bottom-to-top development certainly anything that could legitimately be called integral has to deal with the four quadrants, that is, that every 'thing' that exists has four aspects, which are epiphenomenal, and yet separable. Why? I have spent years tracking this down, and the shortest answer is that reality is contradictory, that is, since the mind cannot grasp reality in thought, what is real will always seem to be contradictory, because the mind can't follow both logical conclusions. Too quickly because it's a different discussion and because you all likely know what I mean anyway: zero, one, and infinity are all actually three different conceptual ways of looking at the same thing, which is existence, consciousness. Try to think about one absolutely without the others: it doesn't work. A world of oneness without second would be a void with no differentiation, but even here the concepts collapse: that void would be infinite, that is, the void (0) of oneness (1) would still be infinite. Similarly, everything has an inside and an outside reality that are different and yet entirely the same, a plurality and individuality that are separable and inseparable. Ask "yes, but where's the last (ultimate) oneness," or "where's the lowest denominator," and you're thinking, and you'll never quite get it like that. The lack of any possible logical end in itself points to the truth in this. Without zero, no one, without inside, no out, without plurals, no singulars.

Similarly, I see a great difficulty in any integralism without the concession that reality is non-dual. It seems the very foundation of integral thought and life. The looseness and freedom and wonderful bursting emptiness of integral life comes with the experiential knowledge that the categories are only artificial approximations, and that every line drawn is only another way of illuminating the great unity, of which you are both a part and the whole.

So where are these complaints coming from, really?
What is Integral? What are we doing here?

Integral Theory (and the Integral Life) I think, is directed towards health, wholeness. That's the endgame, right? Integral Theory is a sort of map, a map of our species and our thought, but ultimately it only has use as a tool for our growth, as individuals and as a kind. That is, it is the first attempt at what the conveyor belt to a realized culture that Wilber sometimes talks about might look like. I feel as if many people here are critical of Wilber merely because it's the first time the whole map has been put together, and so, for lack of detail, their home isn't on it.

But there's rejection here where there could be shivering excitement. There's plenty of inference here about integral life beyond or outside Wilber, but I haven't really seen any thing concrete mentioned. We want to know what you're doing! If there's something missing, go live it! We're on the frontier, yeah? We're on the frontier of manifested consciousness as far as we can tell, so be pioneers! Wilber's model seems sparse only if you aren't filling in the gaps with your own engaged life. Of course there's so much to be done without him: he's only one person! His ILP box set perhaps seems like a poor representation of the possibilities of the integral life, but it's not meant to be definitive, it's meant to be suggestive, and that's made explicit. You have to engage with your own life to find the best ways to exercise and challenge yourself in every facet. How? Well, here's one example, the box set, (which I don't and haven't used) play around with it. (play)

The integral wave of consciousness is in its first stage as a mass phenomenon (not just isolated individuals), which means that you and I are determining what it is and means concretely and not just in the abstract, right now, but also means that 1- a lot of people are just coming into it from green and 2- b/c of this we're only starting in a large way to paint integral over structures which come from much earlier forms of consciousness. Hell, even the level-five worldview is still just opening over much of the world. Every person/culture that goes through it leaves their paw print. I feel like Wilber is being criticized for both not making the map more lush and interesting when he can only illuminate the views from his integral life and provide a larger framework, and also for laying the groundwork too thoroughly, as if telling you that when you're in college you'll have a great time, take a number of classes, be there for most likely between three and five years, meet plenty of interesting people, grow greatly personally and intellectually, etc. etc. preempts anything fun you'll actually do. We're all growing into greater recognitions of what reality is. That growth will be one-hundred percent personal, though the recognition is eternal. We may not have named this world, but it's ours for the making.

But that world will be colored within this framework, at least as long as it takes to start to flesh the higher levels out, when we can see where the holes are. The truth, I feel, is that if we are to succeed in getting through the problems the world is facing today, we're doing it through Wilber's influence or we're not doing it at all.

So what are we doing? We've lived in a valley all our human life, sending explorers up and over the mountains occasionally, but not caring as a species (or needing, or able) to go see it. Wilber was not the first out there, but he was the first to come back and explain to a large group of us just what was to be gained outside of our valley and how to do it, and how some of the major explorers did it before us. In any case, we're the first sizable chunk of the population to have camped in the gigantic and fertile plain on the other side. So what do we do? Not a rhetorical question. Let's get some answers.

For me, at this point, I am trying to explicate to my understanding what integral is and means, both within the community, and to the rest of the world. I believe that we are in a transition period in the movement, between when the news really got out with Wilber and when there will be a core and sizable group of people at an integral level, and that it's crucial to get to the next stage: having a fair number of people with influence, or power, or authority, operating and creating at an integral level of consciousness before too long. Much of what I do on this blog is aimed at using real life examples to illuminate integral theory and promote, flesh out, and examine integral thinking. I am also doing the internal work necessary: rounding off my weaknesses and fears, augmenting my natural talents, meditating, etc. etc.

One thing I think very important is to have the language debate. Is there a way to discuss this in depth in terms more intuitive, or is there a point at which you just simply have to explain the theory (I've gotten this down to about a five minute spiel that works pretty well) outright? Unfortunately many people here, rejecting the language, reject the theory, it seems.

How do we keep this alive? Keep it going? I think it will have it's own natural momentum, whether here on the web or somewhere else, or (most likely) with no real centralized base, but spread all over the place. But the most important thing is that you bring your energy to it, of course. You don't have to write ten pages, but keep up with others, offer pointers or criticisms, and take it out to the world. Engage.

One more minor point off another comment: I agree that some of Beck's (and Wilber's) takes on the spiral are off-putting and need adjustment, but "second-tier" is certainly not bogus. There is a huge gap (I call it usually the existential gap) between the realization that the world is without inherent meaning (green 6) and that that's a good thing (Yellow/Teal 7.) Second tier consciousness, while characterized by many things, is rooted in the knowledge that we are both the subject and the object, and I don't think this is something that, on a tactile (and so effective) level, anyone on a six and lower can quite get. It is a leap.

Thinking Integral (Response to Shaman Sun)

I just read this piece the other day on a blog called Shaman Sun.

It's basically evaluating the totemic role Ken Wilber and AQAL play within "Integral Theory." Wilber's work has been criticized for several different things, some of them raised in this article, including, mostly, 1- it is too complicated, 2- it is too simplistic, and 3- it confuses the map with the territory, that is, it pretends itself to be life, and not merely representative of it.

I will try to defend his approach, as I see each of these arguments as perhaps not groundless, but at least misguided.

For number one, I have to admit I find it frustrating trying to explain all of the jargon involved in integral theory, but have been able to work out a five-minute version. Much of what I'm trying to do is explain this way of looking at reality simply, trying to get people to grasp some of it. Of course, to really get into it, some of the terminology is unavoidable; that is, it's there for a reason: it's certainly possible to explain, say, the difference between someone with a pre-conventional and post-conventional level of consciousness, and even why they may be confused by someone with a conventional level of consciousness, all without using spiral dynamic nomenclature, but to do the roundabout over and over again in every article or post or conversation is a real pain in the ass. I also suspect that any academic theory has much the same problem, which is what makes professors often such boring people outside of the classroom. Just kidding.

It is difficult to get to the meat and bones of an academic theory because the complexity is fairly high. However, just as with any theoretical "step-up," say, from pre-calculus to calculus, where there are a necessary group of skills/ terminologies to be mastered at the lower level in order to manipulate them at the higher one, once the terms are familiar, and what they stand for internalized as experiential knowledge, they are no longer so daunting. Certainly I am not the only Integral Student to see levels and lines and stages and states everywhere I look every day. BUT NOT LITERALLY (complaint number three.) I actually do think that for the complexity of our world, Wilber's model presents a remarkably simple, and yet accurate theory. Which brings us to-----

Number two- it's too simplistic. "With all the complexity in the world, all the randomness and messiness and infinite variety, how could a model ever get it right?" I actually think what Wilber's theory does so brilliantly is make room for all of the mess. It doesn't include it all, that would truly be too complex, but it makes room for it. It took me until the release of "Integral Ecology" to see a practical example of what Wilber talks about when he says that so much more research is needed, and that the AQAL framework can be applied to different areas of research, the operative word being "framework." AQAL itself may not be so messy, but it's just the outline. Integral Ecology (which, disclosure, I have only read a summary of and listened to an hour-long talk about between one of the authors and Wilber) takes that framework and then tries to see the messy study of ecology through it (there are over two hundred different "ecologies.") If it succeeds, it does what any good framework does: takes all that messiness and gives you a method of relating all the different pieces together in a (post?) logical way.

As for complaint number three, "but this isn't the world!" (closely related to the above) it seems to come from a relativistic standpoint used to making this objection against any system of thought. I am, however, still brought to near-confusion when I hear it, since Wilber says so clearly and directly that this map, and any map, is just a map, and enjoins the interested to personal practice beyond intellectualizing and philosophizing. It seems to me to be a keystone of the theory: enter into your own life to see, as it must be experienced. Along with the above, that's where the messiness comes in. Nobody is a level five. No society is at some particular level. It's all fluid. Another connected keystone is that reality is non-dual, and so, just as with the messiness above, it must be remembered that a) all of this applies to you and can be realized directly and b) all of the lines are, if not arbitrary, somewhat artificial. It is, in other-words, built-in to the theory.

Why has this been missed? Perhaps because explicating the framework itself has been Wilber's intention, and that this labor is so large that little room is left to mention the above, though it is slipped in quite often. If it takes five thousand words for a discussion that's the bulk of the chapter, and then there's one twenty word sentence in the chapter saying, "oh yeah, don't forget, this is only a map, you've got to observe how it actually fuctions in real life."

As for Manuel DeLanda, I must conceed ignorance of his work. It sounds interesting and it's certainly integral, but what do we mean by that word? AQAL is comprehensive. It is an integral theory in that it tries to tie everything together. But, there is another way to use the word "integral," and that is, "at the first stage of second-tier thought (Yellow/Teal in Spiral Dynamics SDi.)" DeLanda seems to be a lower-right quadrant (that is, based on the external nature/behavior of groups of people (or whatever holon you're looking at)) theory coming from the stage seven (integral) level of human consciousness. It is in this a way a huge improvement over previous views assuming the coherancy/individuality of holons, but is not integral in the broadest sense.

I do agree that the postmodernists come as a reaction against, a call that the Emperor's got no clothes, something important and necessary before you actually consider what the Emperor looks like naked, and that they had less to offer in this respect.

And no, Wilber doesn't exactly detail the relationships between every thing, other than to say that "it's all actually the same thing," but this is the key insight. Without this, there'd be no question of detailing, investigating, and discovering all of the details, because there'd be no one looking, and nowhere to hang them. Certainly Shamansun's call at the end for "a more dynamic theory of social science [to] emerge in the 21st century, one that is more analogous to the messiness [of] biological evolution," is to be heeded. But the theories that emerge, and continue to emerge, will be within the general framework established by Wilber, at least until it's fleshed out enough for us all to see what's there, and what's missing.