Ok, truth be told, I’m getting tired of blogging about the conference. I think the first three days filled my head with so many great ideas, I could hardly fit anything else in toward the end.

Most of the presentations on the last two days were about specific projects. The projects were incredible, but I was much more excited by the theory discussions than the details of actual projects. What does that say?

What I did take away from the last two days of the conference was a big sense of hope that Integral is a powerful tool for reframing problems and taking new perspectives. I was especially impressed with Anna Cowen’s work in South Africa and Anne Caspari’s work in Syria. They both seem to be using Integral to solve unique problems. Keep up the good work, ladies!

I also felt that we had built a very strong community space by the end of the conference. It was very sad to see everyone go home. I look forward to seeing many of the same faces at the Integral Theory Conference in August.

(Sorry about this anticlimactic conclusion to the conference blogging. I’m just not feeling it anymore.)

(Just another thing we talked about in Istanbul.)

Integral loves perspectives. So let’s look at God from three places:

I - This is the perspective of Buddhism. I can realize my own Buddha-nature. I am all. I am God. Nice!

You - Most popular religions take this perspective: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. I can pray to God and have a relationship with him (or her). I can know God and connect with him. God loves me and I love God.

It - Taoism and nature mysticism take this perspective. The Tao, the Way, the Universe is divine. When you see the Infinite in a beautiful sunset or the night sky, you are taking this perspective.

Most people naturally gravitate toward one of these perspectives. All three are valid paths, but its important to realize that there are other dimensions to the divine. Infinity is multi-faceted, to say the least.

Learning about the three faces of God was very helpful for me. I have always leaned toward the third-person perspective, which is woefully underrepresented in Western culture. Consequently, I’ve never been able to get into mainstream religion and thought I was an atheist for a long time. Now I can see that my perspective is just another way of looking at God and it is just as valid as the first and second-person perspectives. Hooray!

Day Three of the Integral Without Borders Conference was the first day of presentations. I am not going to attempt to recap each presentation in its entirety. I will give you the interesting points that stood out to me.

Vernice Solimar - Integral Spirituality and Social Change

Love = expansion = transcend and include

Love = capacity for presence

How love is expressed at various altitudes:

• Red - Love is power. Domination/submission.
• Amber - Helping, serving, loyalty
• Orange - Self-love, self esteem, self reliance, values freedom & justice
• Green - Love another by empathizing with their path, dialog, holding space for another
• Teal - Understand levels of love, interconnection of all beings, each person’s truth is a partial truth
• Turquoise - Everything as a dynamic unfolding of consciousness

Carissa Wieler - Integral Perspectives on Resilience

Resilience = Being present to paradox

In individuals resilience looks like bouncing back from challenges and being present to ambiguity and loss.

In systems this is the capacity to absorb resistance, to change and develop.

Panarchy: growth -> conservation -> release -> reorganization. Think of a forest. It grows and settles. Then a fire comes along and it has to restart. It’s capacity to thrive in this cycle is its resilience.

Lisa Chacon & Julian Gonzalez - Towards an Integral Theory of Human Needs

This was a very interesting presentation of Manfred Max-Neef’s fundamental human needs as an alternative to Maslow’s hierarchy. I’ve always been sort of fascinated by Maslow’s nifty pyramid, but lately it hasn’t been sitting well with me. After Lisa and Julian’s presentation I have a lot of new ideas on this topic. Let’s begin by looking at Max-Neef’s needs, which arise simultaneously, not hierarchically (with the possible exception of Subsistence for obvious reasons); in no particular order:

• Understanding
• Identity
• Freedom
• Affection
• Transcendence
• Subsistence
• Protection
• Creation
• Idleness
• Participation

A person can have a poverty in any of these areas which they will attempt to fill with satisfiers and sometimes false satisfiers. For example, to satisfy my need for affection I might find a fulfilling relationship. Or I might sleep with a prostitute, which would be a false satisfier; I’d feel better for a little while, but the poverty would not really be alleviated.

I have a lot of thoughts on this topic that I will dedicate a full post to. I look forward to hearing more from Lisa and Julian at the Integral Theory Conference in August.

Emine Kiray - Integral Politics: The Islamist Movement and the Recent Political Crisis in Turkey

This was fascinating, but very complicated. The best I can offer is a post by Emine on this topic from last year and my encouragement to come to the Integral Theory Conference so you can hear her talk firsthand.

Karen O’Brien - Climate Change Adaptation

Karen is trying to bring an Integral awareness to her work on climate change. Essentially, until we address the problem through all four quadrants, we will not be able to solve it. Again, you can hear more about this at the Integral Theory Conference. Can’t plug it enough.

That’s it for Day Three! See you tomorrow for Day Four.

I *heart* Big Mind! Zen Master Genpo Roshi devised the Big Mind process as a bridge between East and West. It combines Zen Buddhist practice with Jungian archetypes to allow one to reach higher states of consciousness quickly. On Day Two of the Integral Without Borders Conference in Istanbul, we were treated to a full day of Big Mind facilitated by Genpo Roshi’s student and fellow Zen master Diane Hamilton. This was my favorite part of the conference.

The facilitator of Big Mind asks the group to call upon and speak as different voices they have within themselves. Here’s how:

Facilitator: I would like to speak to the voice of the Skeptic.

Group: (shifts position to reset the mind and body as the Skeptic)

Facilitator: To whom am I speaking?

Group: The Skeptic

Facilitator: And what is your job?

Group: To be skeptical.

From there the facilitator will ask a series of questions to illuminate that voice’s role in your life. In the case of the Skeptic, you might learn that this voice is useful in helping to protect you from false information, however it is always skeptical and never satisfied. This is an aspect of yourself that is never trusting, however it is not who you are at the core.

There are a number of videos on YouTube showing Genpo Roshi facilitate Big Mind. You can also follow the course at Integral Naked if you are a member.

Now for my personal experience using Big Mind.

We began with the voice of the Controller. As soon as Diane asked for that voice, I knew I was in for trouble. The Controller is a very strong and very problematic aspect of my personality. It was very easy for me to embody the Controller, but also very uncomfortable. My whole body tensed up, as the Controller I was not going to let Emily out of my clutches for a second. Later we did the voice of the Protector. This was much more comfortable for me as my Protector voice tends to deal with outside threats by being apathetic and detached, whereas my Controller is convinced that I am about to fly off the handle unless it keeps me bottled up tight. See the difference? Both are problematic, but the Protector’s tactics are much less uncomfortable.

Next we did the Skeptic. This was also easy for me and very comfortable. This voice used to be much stronger in my life, but it has calmed down over the last year or so. No problems here.

Then Diane asked us to go to the Wounded Self. Huh? I could not find the Wounded Self anywhere! I was trying to summon this voice, but nothing came out. The rest of the group easily found their Wounded Selves and seemed to get very sad in this voice. I was at a loss. This happened again when we were asked to find the Victim and Egocentric Compassion. See a pattern? I am generally unwillingly allow myself to feel that I am damaged or that I have been wronged. I usually think everything is my own fault or that I deserve it. No Wounded Self, no Victim, no Egocentric Compassion. If I can’t recognize my own Wounded Self, how can I recognize it in others? This makes it very difficult for me to feel compassion towards individuals’ suffering. Big Mind pointed all of this out to me.

We also did the Innocent Child, which I loved although some people could not get into, the Oppressor, Compassion, and Forgiveness. With some of the voices we explored different altitudes: egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric, and Kosmocentric. This was very interesting, let me take you through an example.

Egocentric Compassion: I can (presumably) feel my own suffering and see how I have been wronged by other people and life circumstances. I can extend love towards myself at this level.

Ethnocentric Compassion: I can feel the suffering of my people, my family, my nation and any other group I identify with. I can extend love toward my people.

Worldcentric Compassion: I can feel the suffering of all of humanity, this includes “oppressor” groups like Nazis.

Kosmocentric Compassion: I can feel the suffering of all living things, of all non-living things, of stars, of ideas, of beings in other realities. I can love all of it. My compassion is infinite. This is also known as Big Heart.

Fun! Later we were in the middle of Forgiveness when the afternoon prayers began in Istanbul. The conference was held right next to the Hagia Sofia, so the prayer was extremely loud. Diane asked us to sit in Forgiveness and listen to the prayer. So there I am as Forgiveness, listening to this beautiful Muslim prayer and suddenly I slip into Ethnocentric Wounded Self and I have all these visions of 9/11 and the towers falling. It was totally bizarre. Then I felt this big Forgiveness for what happened on 9/11 and I started to cry. I didn’t even know that I cared that much about 9/11. It was crazy.

But let’s not forget Big Mind itself. When we got to the voice of Big Mind, we had already been working up the altitudes. Big Mind is a sort of non-dual state where you identify as everything, as the Kosmos, as infinity, or as the Tao if you prefer. It was pretty trippy, needless to say, especially for a non-meditator like me. Big Mind is being all and Big Heart is loving all. I had a much easier time with Big Mind, but everyone was different. Big Mind felt a little cold for some people.

That about wraps up Day Two and Big Mind. I highly recommended trying Big Mind for yourself. My descriptions pale in comparison to the actual experience.

Day One of the Integral Without Borders Conference was dedicated to getting everyone updated on the latest in Integral Theory. I am not going to go into the basics of theory; if you’re not familiar you’ll have to read up elsewhere.

First we discussed zones (please see the graphic). Zones break the four quadrants down further, giving us more perspectives to consider. We can examine the inner and outer realms of each quadrant:

1. Inside of “I”: introspection, how I’m feeling/thinking
2. Outside of “I”: structuralism, what I’m feeling/thinking
3. Inside of “We”: collective joy/humor, mutual understanding, solidarity
4. Outside of “We”: culture, etc.
5. Inside of “It”: autopoesis, “the dashboard of a frog”
6. Outside of “It”: science, materialism
7. Inside of “They”: social autopoesis, how a tree communicates with the forest
8. Outside of “They”: systems, political science, economics, ecology

We had a big discussion about zones 5 and 7. They are mysterious and confusing to even the most dedicated theoreticians. If you have ideas, send them my way.

Another theme was social holons, and how they are a bit different than other types of holons. Individual holons (people) are members of social holons, not components. More simply: you can take the homie out of the ‘hood, but you can’t take the ‘hood out of the homie. Unlike other types of holons, you can remove smaller holons from a social holon without compromising its integrity. For example, if I decide Ken Wilber is a crackpot and leave the Integral community, the Integral community does not cease to exist, whereas if atoms ceased to exist all the holons above atoms would cease to exist. Similarly, if a social holon makes a change, let’s say societal norms shift, the individuals in the social holon do not have to adopt the change. If my community decides that Amish bonnets are fashionable, I do not have to participate in that trend, however my pancreas cannot decide to stay home when I go to work. Make sense?

Social holons are related to another new topic in Integral Theory: Integral Politics. There are four dimensions to consider when evaluating a political movement:

1. Internalist/Externalist: Am I responsible for my own suffering (conservative, pull-yourself-up-by-your -bootstraps thinking) or does the structure of society cause my suffering (liberal, social justice, the-system-is-corrupt thinking)?
2. Individualistic/Collectivist: Think Ayn Rand vs. Soviet Communism (sorry if that is a biased example)
3. Transformation/Translation: Let’s change to something new vs. Let’s fix what we’ve got
4. Altitudes

So according to my analysis, the American Republican Party would be Internalist, Individualistic, Translative, hovering between amber and orange altitudes. Interesting.

Something else to consider: the socio-economic structure (LR quadrant) of a country is the most important indicator of its social average. Look at the US, in farming communities with light industry you find primarily amber world views, while in a place like San Francisco, with a white-collar information economy, you find orange and green.

Of course, Georgian politics came into my mind during this session. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Georgia’s economy fell from heavy industry to subsistence farming. This dragged down the overall social holon from emergent orange to just barely hanging onto amber, with many people in red. So Saakashivli comes along, a thoroughly orange if not emergent green kind of guy. In order to get into power he had to appeal to Georgian nationalism (God knows there’s no lack of that) which is a very amber tactic. Once he got into power and tried to make all kinds of orange reforms, the red/amber Georgians weren’t quite so enthusiastic (taxes?!). The discrepancy between the Georgian government’s altitude and the Georgian people’s altitude explains why the Rose Revolution is on rocky footing at best. A similar story followed the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

That about sums up Day One of the conference. Forgive my amateur explanations and analysis of Integral Theory. If you have corrections or would like to clarify something, please do so in the comments.

Merhaba, friends! I’m back from Istanbul with tons to share about the trip and the Integral Without Borders conference. I’m going to give you an overview today and get down to specifics over the next week or so.Istanbul was beautiful. If you haven’t been, go. I didn’t get to do much sightseeing, but hit the major monuments and made it over to the trendy Taksim area. It may be hard to believe that anyone could drag their attention away from a city like Istanbul to focus on a conference, but it was easy in this case. The six day schedule was packed with cutting edge Integral Theory, spiritual inquiry and discussion of projects being implemented around the world. Here is an overview of the schedule:

Day One: Review of Integral Theory & the latest ideas from Ken Wilber

Day Two: Big Mind/Big Heart with Diane Hamilton (this was fantastic!)

Day Three: Presentations on Integral Spirituality, resilience, human needs, Turkish politics, and climate change

Day Four: Presentations on projects in Peru, AIDS in Uganda, Integral Africa, waste management in Ethiopia, and social power dynamics

Day Five: Presentations on projects in Syria, South Africa, Chile, sex work in Vancouver and Integral coaching

As you can see, the topics were quite varied. It was really inspirational to meet people from around the world who are dedicated to making a difference. It was also great to hang out with fellow Integral-heads. People actually laughed at my jokes referencing Spiral Dynamics! Love it!

This conference was exactly what I needed to get excited to the Integral Psychology program at JFK. I really felt welcomed into the Integral community at the Istanbul conference. I encourage anyone who is even casually interested in Ken Wilber’s work to attend the Integral Theory Conference in August. It is being hosted by JFKU near San Francisco.

More to come on the conference. Feel free to send me your specific questions so I can be sure to cover everything.

OMG. Our two favorite topics in one.

In this video Ken Wilber is asked some questions about the Singularity. He talks more about brain implants than anything else and doesn’t really address the Singularity question. Even though it’s not the most informative video on either the Singularity or Integral studies, I just had to post it.

Thanks to Holons for bringing this to our attention.

For those readers who are interested in Wilberian Integral Theory, the First Biennial Integral Theory Conference will take place in August near San Francisco. It’s pretty reasonably priced, especially if you are a student and live in the area. I’ll most likely be there.

(Thanks to Integral Options Cafe for bringing this to our attention.)

Welcome to the latest installment of Integral Explorations! Ha. Really though, this is going to be another Ken Wilber related post, so feel free to skip it if you’re getting Wilbered-out.

I just read a very nice little intro to Spiral Dynamics from the Fall/Winter 2002 issue of What is Enlightenment? magazine. Spiral Dynamics is a theory of human development that uses an evolutionary spiral to explain behaviors of individuals, societies and systems. Here are the six first tier stages of spiral development:

Beige - Instinctive. Survival is the only concern. Examples: bushmen, infants.

Purple - Magical. Keep the spirits happy. Examples: tribalism, New Age magic.

Red - Egocentric. Personal enjoyment trumps all. Examples: rebellious youth, epic heroes.

Blue - Authoritarian. Life has meaning and purpose. Laws enforce this purpose. Examples: religious fundamentalists, old school military families.

Orange - Achievist. Self interest, striving to get ahead. Examples: capitalists, Ayn Rand.

Green - Egalitarian. Inner peace, collective harmony. Examples: hippies, political correctness.

These first six stages make up the first tier and are separate from each other, although there can be a fair amount of overlap and regression. The second tier is made up of integral stages, which include and synthesize all of the first tier stages.

I’m not going to go into the second tier here, you can check out the article above or Wikipedia. What I would like to address here are applications and problems of Spiral Dynamics.

Laura and I have been discussing Spiral Dynamics for a month or so now. Our reactions to the theory are different. I find it very useful because I think spatially and it helps me visualize abstract ideas. Laura is uncomfortable with some of the possible implications its hierarchical structure. I think that both are perspectives are important.

In my work with foster youth, I have noticed a big disconnect between the children’s needs and the staff’s approach. I couldn’t articulate the issue very well until I put it into the context of Spiral Dynamics. Essentially, most of the staff is coming from a Green viewpoint while the kids are in Red. The staff expect the kids to jump to green, skipping over the vital Blue and Orange stages. The adults are constantly bemoaning the very system they expect the kids to buy into, like telling them the public education system is completely worthless and then expecting them to get up and go to school.

It might be impossible for people deeply entrenched in Green to advocate the Blue world view that the kids need to master in order to grow. I think the solution is to use a compassionate Green attitude to usher the kids into Blue so they can learn discipline and respect, which will help them to succeed in society.

Although, I’ve found Spiral Dynamics very helpful, Laura’s concerns about hierarchy are important to consider. Even Christopher Cowan’s (more on him later) official website notes:

Very well-meaning people are sometimes so highly ego-involved in preserving their high-status colors, even to creating an identity around ‘living the spiral’ just as others might organize.

Seeking “verticality,” fostering the belief that “higher is better” in all contexts, aspiring to the mythical “second tier,” following the “staircase” to enlightenment, are all examples of how people (especially when centralized around DQ (Blue) and ER (Orange)) can miss central aspects of a model and convert it into something entirely different. So this page is aimed at reinforcing a central aspect of SD which many superficial renditions overlook or dismiss: Graves’s concept of an emergent, cyclical, double-helix. The levels, however they be designated (colors, numbers, letter pairs, etc.), are the products of this interactive process. They are artifacts, not essence. Understand this principle and you begin to understand the theory, not just a model with handy color categories.

It is easy to get caught up in developmental self-congratulations or conversely paranoia about being stuck in the first tier. A clear head and grounded perspective are necessary for this kind of study.

But wait, there’s more! It seems that nothing Mr. Wilber touches can escape without controversy, so fasten your seat belts. Spiral Dynamics was introduced to the public in 1996 by Chris Cowan and Don Beck. Their work was based on the psychological theories of Dr. Clare Graves. Then what happened? The Kheper integral thought site says:

The foundation text of the modern Spiral Dynamics movement; introduces concepts like socio-cultural; evolution, business management, and that infamous vMEMES colour classification that has been so abused by the first generation of the Integral Movement sensu stricto movement (by which i mean Wilber & Beck and their uncritical followers) as a way of putting down everyone else (especially the hated “green”). Beck and Cowan had a falling out over this antagonistic first generation integralism, with Cowan arguing against Beck and Wilber’s “Mean Green Meme” and misinterpretations of Clare Graves original Spiral Dynamics. Wilber would in turn later split from Beck and reject the spiral in favour of a one-dimensional “altitude”. Nevertheless, this book, which dates to happier times, is an important foundation work in the modern Integral Movement.

This gets even more nasty. Not only did Beck file a lawsuit against Cowan, but Cowan and Ken Wilber had their own online mudslinging battle. This is all very convoluted, but the bottom line is that there are at least three versions of Spiral Dynamics with much bad blood between them. The only way to sort it will be to read more about each one.

And it’s another questionable incident involving Ken Wilber.

In researching JFK and Ken Wilber, I came across the Andrew Cohen question. Andrew Cohen is an controversial American spiritual leader who is often connected with Ken Wilber. I’m not the only one who has been concerned about Wilber’s endorsement of a potentially very shady character.

Here is a blog post from Integral Options Cafe on this very topic. The author’s concerns are very similar to my own:

It really hurts Wilber’s image to be associated with such a person as Cohen. It makes anyone who thinks about it skeptical of Wilber’s ability to distinguish good teachers from bad. And failing that, it makes one wonder — assuming KW knows Cohen is awful — if he is only associated with Cohen for the exposure he gets for himself and I-I in WIE?

Personally, I think Ken Wilber has more than enough exposure, but I do wonder why he would recommend a teacher like Cohen. Here is another criticism of Cohen and still another on the Wilber/Cohen connection.

So what is the big deal? There is a lot of documentation on Andrew Cohen’s questionable practices. From books by former students, to online chronicles of his shortcomings, even Cohen’s mother joins in the criticism. But maybe it all comes to down different strokes for different folks?

I checked out the foreward Ken Wilber wrote for Cohen’s book Living Enlightenment. Wilber is very upfront about Cohen being a “Rude Boy” who will shake you out of your complacency:

I have often heard Nice-Guy teachers say that Andrew Cohen is rude, and I think, “You don’t know the half of it.” I have often heard it said that Andrew is difficult, offending, edgy, and I think, “Thank God.” In fact, virtually every criticism I have ever heard of Andrew is a variation on, “He’s very rude, don’t you think?” And I smile the biggest smile you can imagine. If it weren’t for the Rude Boys and Nasty Girls of God Realization, Spirit would be a rare visitor in this strange land.

In fact, “rude” was the first word I used to describe Cohen when I told Laura about the video of him I watched last night. As you can see, he is not particularly articulate or gracious during the presentation, however, I really liked what he had to say. He explained my own frustrations with Buddhism better than I ever could.

This Andrew Cohen business (and criticism of Ken Wilber in general) is of particular interest to me as I applied to grad school in Integral Psychology. I will keep you updated on my findings, but I highly recommend watching the video here as a quick intro to Andrew Cohen. You can also find his official website here.