We interrupt this silence with an actual report - although we shall probably go silent again.

From MicroPersuasion:

Deliberate practice - at least as a concept - is relatively new to me. However, little did I know it's something I have been at for years. Perhaps the same is true for you. Regardless of your passion, it's something that - when applied - is surefire road to success.

The basic idea isn't rocket science. Basically, anyone with just even a little bit of natural talent in a given domain can master it in about 10 years by methodically practicing the essence of their craft two hours daily (including weekends) and measuring their progress from one day to the next.

The concept was developed by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson at Florida State University. It's becoming popular in sports and business. It's a big reason why Tiger Woods, Alex Rodriguez and Warren Buffet continually get better. They practice on building their strengths every day in a meticulous way. (The links on their names cite relevant stories. The best piece I have read on the subject is this one from Fortune.)

This is still very much, my guiding principle.  Of course, I'm not an "expert" per se, in anything.  The integral concept here, is to apply one's effort, focus, and perception, on a daily basis, to different areas of one's life - from spirit, to community, to health, to love, to yes, one's chosen vocation of expertise. 

I've been silent now, as really, as I envision the next steps of Integral Practice to be the following:

Report on one's chosen practices, in various areas of life.  Making sure to be "doing the work", of course.

Create a group, who joins in, at least one of the practices, and also create a transparent mode of reporting results, in the chosen practice - be it weighlifting, diet, meditation, or a breakthrough weekend.

Since I can be somewhat lazy, there is a gap between the vision, and the execution, no matter how motivating the speaker, or how smart the "personal growth for smart people" articles are, from various...erm...smart people!

Given this, the daily blogging on what's happening in the world, simply holds very little interest for me, unless it's focused around corroborated results and reporting, based on good feedback and evaluation principles. 

I'm still working on that problem.  It's taking up a lot of my spare time, contemplating and working on this challenge.  A community driven site centered around "deliberate practice reporting" - thus separating the wheat from the chaff in change techniques.

This now ends this service announcement.  This blog will now return to it's regularly scheduled silence, until further interruptions are warranted.

Taking some time from silence, to post about the JFK Conference in Integral Theory.  In the Bay Area, so I have no excuse!

I fully hope and expect to meet lots of my online pals, in person.

Thanks to Bill for the heads-up.

Saw this explanation of "writing funny" from The Dilbert Blog.

Made me wonder - how well do spirituality and being funny go together?  If "being funny" is a skill - and thus has it's own line of development - can you be 2nd tier funny?  Enlightened funny?

Dilbert points out six essential elements of humor:

Clever
Cute
Bizarre
Cruel
Naughty
Recognizable


The cute, cruel and bizarre elements - a bunny with a bazooka, is the example.   Not really apropos for spiritual discussion. (Prove me wrong here - someone write a deeply wise spiritual story about a bunny and a bazooka!  Please?)

Most of the spiritual teachers I have met actually are good-hearted people who love laughing.  But they weren't really that funny - cute and clever, at the best.

But the rip-roaring comedy seems to stem from two parts smart-@ss, mixed with the elements above.

And smart-@ssery isn't usually a very spiritual thing - usually it's the 'lesser developed' narcissistic aspects of one's personality that is the smart'@ass. 

Stuart Davis seems to be the best representative of 2nd tier smart-@ssery we have so far -and he does it great, in my opinion.  Of course, at the same time, he's a total narcissist exhibitionist.  BUT - tt does seem most of the time though, he manages to be a total narcissistic exhibitionist, while being a fully relational human being and not a complete introvert, despite his claims. (you have to scroll down in this entry, past a lot to get to his frank admittance, but it's worth it, because it's a great blogpost.)

To be fully human, and fully enlightened, I do think "true" humor (not the fake stuff/fake laughs we do to paper over wounds) is one of the most valuable gifts we get from others, and one of the most integral/whole.

If true, this is actually good news.

The static-character research is typically based on a definition of personality comprising five features, called the five-factor model, including openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

While these factors are important to a person's character, Dweck argues they aren't the definitive word, and results generated from the model could be missing subtle, yet critical, aspects of personality. She will present her research this week at an annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in Washington, D.C.

"My point is that there's a really big in-between area that they don't talk about, and these are the crucial beliefs that people develop as they grow and learn," Dweck told LiveScience in a telephone interview.

From the always must-read Integral Options.  Bill is simply a monster (in a good way), both physically and in terms of his prodigious blog output, as well as his constantly valuable speedlinking.

The rest of us simply are not worthy.  But I'm cool with that.

From Graham.  I need to try something like this. 

From Zen Habits:

Thanks to Integral Options for the link.  Good advice for integral practice.

For myself, sporadically keep various goals.  Sometimes it is better, sometimes worse. 

That's something you don't see the Steve Pavlina's of the world talk about. 

For me, there are three versions of what to do - "what I must do", and "what I want to do that's rewarding", and "what I do that fun, but an empty time waster". 

1."Must do", includes things like going to work, cleaning up, paying bills, etc. 

2. "What I want to do" are the various integral practices that make for a fulfilling, balanced life.  Exercise, meditation, volunteering, playing my guitar, learning a language, tech study, etc.  Even better, expanding my career, finding the next opportunity, integraly study, etc.

3. "What I have fun doing that's an empty time waster" is things like browsing the internet for hours on end, playing a video game, reading a pedestrian sci-fi novel, etc.  Watch movies, comedy shows with my sweetie.

I'm not too bad at the first category on the list.  And some of the activities that would be in category 2,  I do well - I meditate regularly, and I exercise regularly.  But some of the other goals there, I do much less.

Now category 3?  3, I'm pretty good at.  If I spent as much time on category 2, as I do on category 3, wow, I'd be an accomplished guy!!    (Internet, and the tv, as wonderful as it is, is a great tool for mental masturbation).

My longterm goal is to substitute more category 2 activities, for category 3 activities.  In terms of time.

And I've done a lot on this ground -

a.  Visualized my motivations - daily
b.  Setup umpteen schedules for activities.
c.  Started a regular practice of activities - that then falls away.
d.  Attempted various, and different, structures, to do more  activities. 

Still, 3 always ends up being what i do more of. I fall of the wagon.  I get distracted (except for meditation and exercise).  I go for three days, then go three days off, or a week off.

I've probably gone on a self-improvement kick - attempting to do more of category two activities more than category three activies - more than one hundred times in my life.

It's REALLY annoying to read these self-improvement guys, such as Pavlina, who basically don't acknowledge the move towards the baseline, of human nature.

Funny enough, I'm old enough now, that I don't "beat myself up" about doing less of category 2 than category 3.  First off, lots of time I spend "doing nothing" is spent in a pretty incredible place, where the "I" slips away, and only Being is happening.

But it is also pretty clear that the inherited habits (my own childhood background, was lacking both in any form of wealth, or much actual examples of spending a lot of time in category 2), tend to dominate actual living, the activity of this body.

Which is a shame, really - as the information on "how best to live", is pretty much all over the internet.  Working with resistance, changing those habits, moving out of baseline - as Wilber has said, what ACTUALLY causes change, in a person, what ends up actually motivating a person, despite the tens of thousands of hours of research, is still a mystery.

A very interesting post at Parzifal's Blog.

I think this has been linked to before, but what is interesting about this, is that this attempt to define what is spiritual intelligence, and what defines that, is backed up with research that has been compiled through various workshops.

The results utilize the framework of the quadrants, as well as the framework of competencies and assessments, and an attempt to separate out levels - or consolidate ALTITUDE.  Very consonant with Integral Spirituality.

I also simply like the SQ distinction as well.  As multiple intelligences go, why not an SQ?  And the assessments which measure it?

An update on Google Reader, and blog reading.  I find the new setup of Google Reader to be incredibly useful - while at the same time, I haven't abandoned My Yahoo.  Still, the ease of reading one line synopsis, tagging the articles, sending out, etc - very nice.  I find I can manage a lot more feeds, without getting bogged down.

I'm going to put a permanent link to the Integral Wiki blogger feed, and put it prominently on this site - if anyone sees a site on the Integral Wiki blogger list, that isn't coming through on the feed, make sure to let me know.

I saw this article about Calling Bullshit, over at the Watchdog blog - it is an article mainly about the vapidness of our current press, especially as it comes to being stenographers for the White House, rather than skeptical inquirers.

I will fess up - I am built in a skeptical way - if I perceive something that strikes me as B.S., not truthful, I immediately am psychically galvanized.  "What is going on?"  "Why did they say that?", or even better "WTF?"

This particular voice - this identity - is a particularly strong identity in the awareness field comprising myself.

Now, I do have SOME space from this voice.  Especially when you sit in meditation, and as the chattering mind runs down, runs out of places to hide, I get treated to a spectacle of the "bullshit detector mind", inside of me, and seeing in a sense, just how shallow that particular voice can be.

The problem is - this voice is very very useful, to me, and very, very valuable.  That ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, to make determinations about people, positive and negative, to be truthful and blunt with oneself - it really is quite a good survival mechanism in the world.  Even in the job situation, to see a path through to a clean product.

As such, this voice can be very hard to disidentify with, as my self-identity - to the degree that I a identified with anything, has a big degree of identification with this voice.

Now, here's my sweeping statement - BLOGGERS especially, INCLUDING integral bloggers, have that voice in spades - it's not just me!! 

And I think there is some proof to this fact, given all the integral bloggers activity regarding Ken's Wyatt Earp post.  (yes, this means YOU reading this!)  Especially since a lot of integral thinking has to do with SYNTHESIS, as analysis.  When you engage in synthesis anlysis, you engage the limitations of one train of thought - focusing on the contradictions (and b.s.) of that particular train of thought for - hopefully - a higher view.

And the thing is, there are problems with this voice - there is bullshit in the bullshit detector, if you don't mind my language.  A few spring to mind -

a. Not all B.S. is equal.  To give an example, from the political world - what type of b.s. is more damaging - lying about a sexual encounter in the White House, or lying to the american public to get people into a war?  (I'm not providing answers to this, just laying out the scenario.) 
b. You can "fool" the b.s. meter, by appealing to the frame (this is a lie/self-contradiction) by setting up fake b.s. - we see this a lot in the current political market via smearing of opponents, dishonestly, or trumping up the charges, or blowing out of proportion an inconsistency in behavoir as a HUGE character issue.
c. The b.s. meter can be misapplied - for example, in one sense, b.s. and ethics are related.

Example:  Someone isn't "in integrity" between their stated beliefs and their actions - but recognized that , is not the same as saying that person is unethical.  So a sense of  "moral outrage", which is found when someone else transgresses against a moral value of another (moral turpitude!) - is often conflated with a straight out b.s. meter.  Thus people will accuse each other of this or that, or people will say "you are coming from an amber place - improve your colors - get your a$$ into violet!".

Or some such.

So, what does this have to do with integral, or with spirituality?

Well, I'm just exploring ideas right now (and by the way, saying "I'm just exploring, while true, is a good defense against the b.s. meter, because you aren't, you know, saying something authoritatively!), but here goes.

I'd like to see what an "integral b.s. meter" would look like.  Or, without the integral language, how a b.s. meter "should" work, from a higher consciousness place.  As I can't see us integral bloggers getting less attached to our b.s. calling (although it would probably be a good personal growth experiment, if I, for say three months, said nothing that was "critical", or pointing out the limitations of a particular point of view or action.  But given my job, that is nearly impossible.)

a.  Focusing on "the facts maam".  My main issue with the Wilber  Earpy posts, was the obvious misrepresentation of another's views.  While there were others who had some moral problems with the language, or the harshness, that didn't seem to come from a higher perspective, if you deem those as "subjective", then the obviousness of the misrepresentation of Frank Visser's actual post, was still problematic.

b.  Developing a "ranking scale" of b.s.  I think this would take awhile, but - it might be worth doing.  Does one episode of anger, suddenly discount 10 years of being a saint otherwise?  Can that type of judgment be made.  This is also important, in the spiritual community, as - should spiritual leaders have human foibles?  Should they always be exemplars of human behavior?  Are they allowed to laugh at bad jokes? Can they fart in public?     (I figure three bad episodes do disqualify a particular teacher.  Maybe even two - sorta like the "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me".)   Does repeated horrible integral analysis that misrepresents both facts, and then also lies by omission, discredit that analysis?  I could say this about a couple of integral bloggers out there - and back it up, based on MANY different instances of their writing - but I don't, for three reasons. 

1. In the spirit of comity (brotherly love!)
2. because hey, my perspective is limited, and
3. There are few enough of us, that it doesn't make sense to argue about angels on the head of a pin, right?

Lastly, when we engage our b.s. detector, it is important, from a spiritual perspective to remember "You are not that".   And - for me at least - distinguishing between that "outraged reaction" or "that's B.S!" and the fundament of awareness that is my true nature - that is important as well.   If my energy is in the b.s. detector, rather than enlightened awareness, then that is a problem. 

So, I ask the question - how would an "enlightened" or "integral" b.s. detector work?  I would REALLY appreciate some thoughtful responses to this post.

Thanks!

A pretty interesting video here - this is actually IONS contributing to the program that COTS does:

One thing about the Integral Life Practice - it includes:

Mind
Body
Spirit
Shadow

But - there isn't SOUL there - any good community practice must have some SOULfood, IMHO.

At least a heart practice, right?

I've practiced a few different heart practices, but I wonder - is there a specific INTEGRAL heart practice that people know about?  That takes as little as 5 minutes, up to 30?

I guess the "official" heart practice is Tonglen.

But this truthfully, isn't as effective as it should be.

I was speaking about this in our ILP Support Group, and one person said that, when he was working with a Buddhist master, the master said it was important to "pray to the Gods" before doing Tonglen, that your Tonglen would be EFFECTIVE.  And that this was very necessary.  (Being Western, he found it weird to pray to say, Amitabha.  But he did notice that his tonglen was more effective.)

At some point, there is going to need to be an "integral ritual", that involves the heart, prayer, (song perhaps?), as I believe humans basic physiology is built to commune in faith, in that way. This also has a double effect to bind communites together.

But - damn - what ritual is going to WORK for us integral types?  If any??

There was a lot to take in, of course.  A few quick thoughts, on somewhat new stuff, and just random comments.

a. Lots of jumping from concept to concept - it is muddled to see how they all go together - lines, states, stages, quadrants, zones.
b. The zone concept especially was utilized to a great degree.  It's a good concept as well. 
c.  One very good single page summary of Advaita Vedanta.  What I thought was interesting about the "5 Bodies" - gross, dreaming, subtle, causal, non-dual (I hope that is correct, typing from memory - I'll go back and fix this post otherwise).  Now, as the Advaitins always say, these states are ALWAYS ACCESSIBLE.  Accessible, now, to you.  (And Big Mind shows, this, as well.)  Ken Wilber then jumps to "growing" on the vertical level of the Wilber-Combs lattice, and how you advance through meditation and training,  but skips over a bit, how, if the non-dual body is accessible now, then meditation isn't necessary to access the non-dual.  Which again, is part of what the older advaitins teach, and part of what neo-advaitins teach. 

d.  I would say the crux of new concepts, at least what is leaned on a lot, aren't so new, but presented in a clearer, more coherent manner.  This again, would be the Wilber-Combs lattice, and  the eight zones (modes of viewing and studying the world).  

e. Shadow work is sort of thrown in there, but a great description of me-it, on the psychological level. 

f.  There was a lot of leaning on the concept of "stages", and that people are AT certain stages, however, I'm still not sure to what degree this holds up.  I still don't find many people who are "at" only orange, or "at" only blue, etc.  People seem to hold differing values, across the red/amber/blue/green spectrum, depending on an ISSUE.  It would be great if the type of Zone #2 and Zone #4 studies, could show that "in general" a person is at so-and-so stage, but I need to see it to believe it.  Because it could just as easily be, on the values issues that:

i. Values for different issues are at different levels - and this means that a person ISN'T at a particular level.
ii.  The various studies - Graves, Leovinger, Keegan - definitely show a one-way arrow towards greater complexity, and a greater depth, in people.  From the me to the us, to the universal.  However, one thing glossed over, is that if this in any way meshes with the SD concept of colors, and thus the Wilber-Combs matrix. 

Basically, I need to see that the various types of complexity and growth - morals, cognition, values, etc - share anything other than increasing complexity.  Could it be possible that someone could be at value stage orange, yet be at moral stage 3?   I think so, as you can find fundamentalists, fully committed to the mythic religious vision, who nevertheless are operationally, at the highest ethical level, in their personal behaviour.

A lot hangs on the answer to this question though, as Wilber universalizes, the "level" or "stage" a person is at, and collects the various different developmental lines, under the same rubric.

This would be the vertical side of the Wilber-Combs matrix.

No one I meet though, is "at" a stage.  People to me seem all over the place.  I'm not sure that stages work, in the real world.  (I'm probably wrong, but thought I would point that out.)

g.  I really like the small part - but very valuable - about upper levels of faith.  Not only mythic faith, but the "i-thou" love relationship, in spirituality, continuing always, even in the midst of realizing non-duality.  Don't skip over your heart, and the heart of the world!

h. At some point, I will bet money that this "full spectrum analysis", will make its way into various evaluation tools.  Already the tools used by corporate America are very, very, good, for example, when used for hiring both for pyche traits, and for skills traits.  I can only see this being an addition.

i.  By the same token, however, related to points h (evaluations) and f (assigning people at stages), I don't even know what stage I am at!!   Especially, as is claimed, "green" can mask a power drive of red (isn't red always about a power drive anyway?), and so be mean green, it will be interesting to see what smart, in-depth assessments can pick up about where a particular person is at.

What else have you seen from the book?  Your thoughts?

I wonder about the efficacy of Big Mind, 3-2-1 - well, for me, specifically about Big Mind. 

There is no doubt, that a perspective shift is engaged in, when Big Mind practice occurs.  As always though, as for my other big realizations, it fades away. 

Perhaps it is the nature of the beast - all realizations fade away - I shouldn't expect anything else, right?

What is so, is so.  And - that means "me experienced as me", and "other experienced as other" as well. 

I'm not sure, really.  I've had enough peak experiences, enough time in silent awareness, in meditation, watching the universe quite literally "rise and fall", as one breath, in one moment - it still seems strange that I so easily revert to "me against the world", objectifying and identifying myself with - er - myself...

I'm sure there is something I am missing there, so I decided to kvetch on it...

I clearly haven't been posting a lot here - mainly because I've been pretty busy.

But also, this particular blog has focused on the "basics", of integralism (when not veering to tech stuff and philosophy!)

For various dimensions, it is now pretty clear what the basic practices are.

Physical - I've blogged before - but 2 to 3 times a week, cardio, stretching, and weighlifting for exercise.

For diet - barring special circumstances - less carbs, and balanced eating.

Meditation - while there is a lot around the map here, the basic practices involved for integral involve:

Basic Zen/Vipassana sitting
BigMind/Advaita training
Compassion/Heart work


Now, of course, I'm missing a lot of the I-Thou meditations.  Perhaps I could blog them.

In terms of professional, career - one of the best books out there for this is Pathfinder, and What Color Is Your Parachute?

Both are passionate and practical, and give a very good sense of what are the gifts one has to GIVE, in terms of skills, abilities, and desires.

Psychological/interpersonal- while there are a lot of books out there, self-assessment is fairly easy to use, and I have also used this site to point to inexpensive therapeutic options.  And then there is the Shadow Work of the 1-2-3, as well as Byron Katie's work.  I could write more about relationship as well, but it is so easy for this to become narcissistic, in my opinion.

Now - community - this is probably one of the biggest lacks that I personally have, or have not written a lot about, and I've been attempting to address this through the Ken Wilber MeetUp, and organizing the San Francisco ILP Group. 

And then, when you do all the above, do you have time for rest, play, and creativity? Where is the balance?

I still believe there are things that are important for an "integral practitioner" to deal with - deeper delving into the interpersonal, dealing with MOTIVATION and destructive subpersonalities (just because all the practices are out there, doesn't mean you are doing them!), and also re-introducing some concepts into the integral community with ethics - such as "duty", "community commitment" etc.  A community is defined by the individuals that "take on" the duties of that community, and it is duty and volunteerism that is the glue of community.  Which conflicts a bit with "my/your integral growth".  And you want to keep away from any cultism, as such.

At any rate, opening up for questions - what integrally, needs to be worked on?  My integral growth, rather than "our" integral growth? 

I haven't mentioned Zaadz for awhile - but I am really liking the feature zPages and zBooks.

There are two reasons why:

a.  The tag implementation.  C4 I'm sure has explained this better than I can, but think of it as a graphical representation of what is most popular.  But implemented as a tag cloud, you don't only see the "top results", you see a whole "sky" of results, with the popularity being instantly visually recognizable.  (And since the tag cloud is a visual medium, immediately you perceive EACH tag in it's popularity.)

This in itself is a Wisdom of the Crowds implementation. as users tag what they like.  In addition however, you also get favorites -what people like, and reviews. What is favorite, what is top in currently reading, and the reviews, are all USER-CREATED content.  This means there are three levels of wisdom of the crowds here.

Same thing with zPages.  You start with a tag cloud, indicating the greater number of events, based on a particular tag.  This will indicate a tag you like, or that is frequently used.

In addition, once you click on the tag - say "life coaching" - you then are brought to a listing of people, businesses, that exist in YOUR area.

AND, these businesses are reviewed by users - with a scale, and with personal review.

Of course, the biggest to-do is for people to TAG and RATE people and businesses that you either LOVE or HATE. (And there must be a place for hate, right?)

Funny enough, there is a "Hollis Polk"  - psychic, spiritual counselor, life coaching, etc - that has three reviews on Zaadz right now, all positive.  Now three isn't a lot - friends could be bum-rushing the system with three - but, the reviews are glowing, and at this point, it is one of the more numerous reviews in San Francisco.

I hope more people begin utilizing this.  If you have a great group of 10000 people consistently utilizing, tagging, rating, and reviewing practices, books, people and places, that have improved their own life - well, the cream of the crop rises to the top, without effort.

I wanted something LIKE this - as you can see in this post - that post is from a year and a half ago - but the visual tag cloud implementation, and the different ways that one rates, is better than my initial contemplation!

At any rate, you will see me tagging up a storm over on Zaadz.  I'll keep you informed of how it is going.

Cross-posted at Zaadz