Got a heads up from Vince about a new paper from Ken Wilber, available to all, called What is Integral Spirituality.

Not a breezy read - not that it should be.

It's always important to remember that Ken's main function is as a theorist, and this paper reminds me of this - here's a section -

"For you advanced students out there, notice that the 8 methodologies are really giving us perspectives on perspectives on perspectives. For example, meditation involves the inside view of an interior view of an individual view. Francisco Varela’s approach to biological phenomenology is the outside view of the inside view of the exterior view. Hermeneutics is the inside view of the interior view of the collective view. And so on.

This leads to a new type of mathematical notation that we sometimes call “integral math,” which replaces traditional variables with perspectives. (For you not-so advanced students, don’t worry about this section.) Using the shorthand of 1st person (for the inside in general) and 3rd person (for the outside in general), then Varela’s view is 3-p x 1-p x 3p (a third-person conceptualization of a first-person view from within the third person or “objective” organism). Meditation is 1-p x 1-p x 1p (or the inside view of the interior awareness of my first person). Spiral Dynamics, as it relates to an individual,
is 3-p x 1-p x 1p (a third-person conceptual map of the interior awareness of a person), and so on. It can get much more complicated than that, with many more terms, but those are some examples for a start (you can actually build a type of mathematics here, with the equal sign representing “mutual understanding or resonance”)"

Got that? 

Link here.

The text at the bottom of the shirt says:

"She wanted to stop reading it- but she had nothing better to do! Produced by average people who seem to think their lives are interesting. Filmed in thrilling HTML-O-Scope with exciting new fonts!"

Yep.  That about covers it...

A very good article by John Heron, that I want to focus on one particular part, quoted below:   more »

This is a funny story - if you go to MeditationCity, you will find a host of previous post from THIS blog, Integral Practice, posted over at Meditation City.   more »

Here's a great introduction to Intelligence Reframed, a book I've been reading.

It's actually a very good book - a compendium of how different intelligences show up, in practice and neurologically.  There's also talk about some of the practical applications, which is why it relates to Integral Practice. 

I'll post a review on this book later in July.

Also - this site may go temporarily dark at the end of the month. The traffic on the site has continued to expand geometrically, to the point where my monthly allotted bandwidth is running out.  (Thanks everybody, for reading!) I'll probably upgrade the contract, so I get more bandwidth, but I will do this next month, and let this month run out.  The first month of blogging was November, and this month is running 10 times the traffic of that month, and 4 times the traffic of the month of February. 

So thanks!

I've posted before on deep meditative trips into consciousness, but today I posted a more complete history of experiences of non-dual over at Generation Sit.

Please read it, check it out, feel free to comment. 

While anyone reading this probably already knows, the Integral Spiritual Center has launched their website. 

If you go to the ISC teachers page, it looks VERY impressive.  A good article with some original thoughts on this, was posted by Tuff Ghost.

But go see for yourself - I definitely want to run down and watch, but this isn't open to the public.

This `simultracking' requires a judicious and balanced use of all four validity claims (truth, truthfulness, cultural meaning, functional fit), each of which is redeemed under the warrant of the three strands of valid knowledge acquisition (injunction, apprehension, confirmation) carried out across the dozen or more levels in each of the quadrants -- which means, in shorthand fashion, the investigation of sensory experience, mental experience, and spiritual experience: the eye of flesh, the eye of mind, and the eye of contemplation: all-level, all-quadrant.

From an Integral Theory of Consciousness, Wilber 97 - by way of IntegralWiki.

The integral research project is encapsulated by this paragraph. 

I hope to post some examples, (starting simply) of a claim and practice, using all the four validity claims, while mentioning the path (practice) of knowledge acquisition.

On Integral Theory and it's progenitors.  I particularly like the quick listing of various thinkers in integral, and I hope to add more soon. 

Also, this was posted by M. Alan Kazlev, who maintains kheper.net, which has a smorgasbord of goodies.  In terms of adding content, he is the man, just look at recent changes. 

You go Alan!  (UPDATE:  You'll need to scroll down a bit, as Goethean has responded to my earlier hopes  (Yes!)

Heads up on this Business Week Article - anyone who has been reading here, already knows a lot about this, but it is a good read. Also, in this vein, Michael has set up the new Integral Wiki - a compilation of a couple of two other integral wikis he has set up. Here's the announcement.   more »

(Wink wink, nudge nudge, ON))

Well, it seems this site was left off the Blogebrity list.  Even Coolmel, the IntegralPundit, was left off.   HOW CAN THIS BE??

Clearly there is an anti-integral conspiracy at work...


(Wink wink, nudge nudge, OFF)

The most profound shift that will take place in training over the next three years is a movement away from traditional, formal, course-based learning (classroom or online) and towards clever integration into the workflow of learning-enabling tools like Instant Messaging and informal collaboration processes. From Parkin's Lot. A quick distinction that everyone is familiar with - the distinction between knowing and ability. Learning is the transition from knowing something to greater and greater ability in something.   more »

For the creative film types out there, welcome to ACTLab TV.  Create your own station, film your own stuff. 

Do I see Integral TV in anyone's future?

Opening my computer this morning, this is headline that greets me as Yahoo News opens:

Jackson Won't Share Bed With Kids Again

"Basking in the jurors' decision to acquit his client of all counts, Michael Jackson's lawyer said Tuesday the singer will no longer share his bed with young boys."

Yes, I think that might be a good idea.

About two weeks ago, had a poll here - I wanted to gauge the interest of what type of resources would be more useful - an open community site for integral, a posting of all integral sites, an independent knowledge maintenance, etc. 

And personally, I wanted to see if there was enough interest even to take the poll.

A couple of things -

a.  Not really enough interest to take the poll - at least not a lot of people took it. 

b. It was pretty tied across the board. 

c.  The poll wasn't as clean as I needed it to be, to gauge results.

Given the lack of interest at this point, even though there are 100 blogs related to integral, there really isn't a lot of pent-up demand for a community site, at this point.  (Although I thank Vince for the encouragement).

Also, since all the options were roughly equal, it if this is combined with the above, it means I should pretty much do what I want to do, given the time constraints I have.

Skillful Means Project - this has developed into a life of it's own, separate but related to Integral Practice, although I'll still keep posting updates here.

Fundamentally, the software application I'm envisioning exists only in parts - and the open source skill management framework, doesn't exist at all.

So I'm going to need to alter track a bit on that - either institute a partial solution that I'm not satisfied with, or wait/encourage/build, for an open source application project to do what the closed source projects do now.

Still, if you come back, you'll probably see partial solutions offered - I'll update on this site.

Lastly - I've expanded the list of "integral voices in the moment" that exists on the right.  You'll find 32 sites included, and a lot of the other Kosmic Blogger sites either have some interface issues, or simply haven't enabled an RSS stream.

Injuctions, apprehensions, confirmations, in various human dimensions.   more »

This was how I started the morning. A brief meditation, at 6:30 -6:50. A run - from Russian Hill, down to Polk Street, down to the Aquatic Park, around the west end of Fisherman's Wharf, and then powering back up Jones, up to home on Russian Hill. Shower, get ready for work. Leave the house, and WALK. It's a sunny/slight overcast day in San Francisco.   more »

Looks like audio is starting to be incorporated into the blogging world, through podcasts.

Check out Zencast. Already a podcast from Eckhart Tolle, and Thich Nhat Hanh.

Hat tip:  Anamnesis.

I'm glad to see some people out there doing some "it's" research for their meditation.

Francis is using the Wild Divine game for biofeedback practice, and will be documenting his results.  As well, he points to an interesting study at the Boundary Institute. 

Go check it out.

In the last month or so, I've been interested in the measurement aspects of the "its" dimension, for meditation and forms of integral practice - as such, I've been looking for these type of studies and programs.

This is particularly pertinent to ways and means of measuring skills, as what is needed for a Skillful Means project is a coherent manner to provide confirmation/disconfirmation, at the individual level, for the efficacy of various practices.

I came across this wonderful study, by Jean Kristeller, who combines meditation in a program for overeaters.

Also, here's a link to the paper (WARNING:  This is a PDF file). 

Lots of information for researchers in reference section as well.

A post from Personal Level that breathes clarity.  Go take a look, it's a treat.

Saw this post from Ideological Putty yesterday. 

But... I work with a lot of conservative Christians of the school that proving the literal truth of the bible is a must.

Recently, I got to hear about an experiment in which people claiming to have visions of Christ were hooked up to an EEG machine. When they said they were having the visions they registered brain wave patterns corresponding to waking mind and deep dreamless sleep. Simoultaneously.

The man adminstering the tests was a lapsed Catholic doctor, turned skeptic, now turned ferverent believer. And he got the exact same readings Ken Wilber got meditating. Without being aware of the Wilber experiment.

While there aren't any results listed, if the report is true, this is absolutely stunning, and something that I haven't read about before.

As Umguy puts it,

But what exactly is going on? Why such specific similarity? It feels very profound. Is it some kind of validation of the idea that all religions are getting at describing the same experience?

It would be very interesting, though impossible, to look at what happens in an EEG when people have "visits" from aliens, or what is going on with brain waves, or when ketamine is taken, or when other visions take place.

Is it the substratum of consciousness being experienced, that can actually taken a myriad of forms?  Perceived reality is generated from this substratum?

I still say that, for the "its" dimension of altered consciousness, and forms of higher awareness, there are some huge opportunities for collaborative discovery.

I've asked this once before, about four months ago - but what are people's experiences of brain-mind machines?  Which one's work?  What are the most advanced, etc? 

I'd love to get any feedback.