From VC, he tells us that Frank Visser has a blog.

Good - it always seemed to me that Visser has been a fairly objective investigator of the Wilber Work.

It will be interesting to see where his blog goes, and what types of thoughts he shares.

The instructions here worked for me.

I have a few different mail accounts, Yahoo Mail being one of them.

It is an interesting use of RSS feeds - I have to say, I like how they show up - it's pretty similar to how they show up while using Mozilla Thunderbird, so pretty practical.

This is the week that there is a good chance that Congress will vote on the concept of Net Neutrality. 

Here is a simple video explanation of what ISP's controlling what services run through there pipes could mean.

Now while some of the threat is being exaggerated, the truth is most of what is in that video IS a possibility.   Ironically enough, the YouTube service, which is delivering this video, could be affected.

Also, from a political standpoint, this is an issue where the internet right and the internet left, seem to agree.

So, if you are blogging, link people to Save The Internet.

None of these various cool internet applications that are coming out, should be handicapped, by an ISP limiting the priority ACCESS to the application.

Rommel - (and just what should I call him nowadays?  tilde C?) has an interesting article on his version of integral practice. 

An easier way to describe it, rather than getting all technical (3P for you and me!) might be "mashup flows".   This means doing two different things together when possible. 

I think everyone does this to a degree - running, as an example, is a great way to combine Zen and exercise.

I specifically like to "get clear" in moving activities, as I like to bring the clarity of sitting and awareness to my active activities.

Rommel briefly touches on another subject - that is the practice that is completely at odds with the society in which you find yourself enmeshed.  He references polyphasic sleep, as an example of this.

This is always an interesting one - because different societies have different practices in which they are enmeshed. 

If you are at a retreat for awhile, the fact that 300 plus people are involved in meditation, BECOMES the world - and thus sitting isn't so "strange".  

But the point to not always be so self-involved in "your" practices is well-taken, and very true.

However, sometimes I like going against the grain. 

I've always has a certain attraction to types like the character in Beetlejuice, Lydia - "I myself...am strange and unusual".  (And as a teen, I had a thing for Winona!  Back before she became the postergirl for shoplifters...)

Pongsathorn has been delving deeply into the "academic" side of integral thought, in particular, drawing out some of the details of the Integral Spirituality draft, and, I assume, what will be present in the new Integral Spirituality book.

You need to spend time with this, translating the variables into perspectives - but I offer up the links, for those who are interested:

Integral Math and Order of Mind - Part I

Integral Math and Order of Mind - Part II

Complexity, Spirituality, Reinterpretation

(Quick cheat sheet - instead of the world resting on turtles all the way down, the world is perspectives - all the way down!  Take that Bertrand Russell!)

As I pointed out a couple of days ago, "shifting perspectives" has quite an impact on how consciousness is experienced to the person - or p1 - 1st person perspective.  

The important question is how deep this goes - and how to stay grounded, I suppose, and in the real world, as perspectives shift.

Also, I have the sinking feeling if I talk about this a lot, I'm going to start sounding very lawyerish - example:

"The party of the 1st part - er sorry - the perspective of the 1st person, would like to embrace the perspective of the 2nd person, without reference to the 3rd person's perspective.

However, this gets problematic when..."

More than simply an overview such as this, however, I still say what will radically push things forward, is for all practices, a disciplined intake, reporting, and assessment methodology.  This will be delivered over web 2.0 at some point, and will radically transform the ascending nature of revelation - from the Bald's One's head, into a bottom-up, more egalitarian practical revelation of what works. It's just a matter of time.

Just follow the link.

Some of these are desktop based, rather than simply needing an internet connection - but the audo and video editing will be needing a computer for awhile...

Because we all know, it's a slippery slope.

I've been paying attention recently to both daily Advaita teachings, and moments of "stepping back", into the space of Big Mind, on an ongoing, daily basis - in addition to regular meditation.

In addition to this, I am practicing the 3-2-1 process, on a regular basis (given time) when issues come up.

The best way to describe these processes, is to view these processes as "perspective shifts".  Recognizing that the "snake" that scared you -

is actually a rope.

Recognizing that the person who may have upset you, and deconstructing that "picture", with the meaning embedded in that picture, with antother meaning that evokes understanding, sympathy, and peace.

This perspectival shift - I've been pretty surprised how powerful it is.  It's something like a magician's tool for consciousness.  Both for the recognition of non-duality that it brings, as well as - sometimes - the dissolution of an interpersonal annoyance.

Because of these ongoing perspective shifts, the perspective experienced by me, is more and more this ongoing openness, this experience of timeless ground.

And then the stream of insight that flows from that.


Now, this flows in and out.  The recognition of ground as the essence of being.  But it is becoming interwoven with daily consciousness, on a deeper and deeper level.

And really, this recognition isn't deeper, or different, than the initial 2 month awakening experience in India.  (Actually, it's less deep.)

I still don't know if this is "enlightenment", but the ongoing flow of peace, subtle energy, and insight flow - when this recognition is active - beats normal consciousness.

I also don't know the depth of these shifts. 

There are two ways that I think about this. 

"A shadow of the real thing".  The recognition of Ground that is experienced, is a shadow of what "real" enlightenment looks like.  (It's possible, though it doesn't feel that way.)


"Recognition gets deeper", This recognition, goes through various waves, sometimes peaceful and stable, sometimes bringing one into deeper experiences and shifts in consciousness.

An example -

Sitting in bed a couple of days ago, there was a deep experience of lack of separation, at the emotional level.  There was an "UNrepression", associated with the experience of the ground.  So there was a light on the river of fear flowing - yet not felt - and also a river of love, tenderness flowing - but not often felt.

This faded, after 30 minutes or so - but the sense of these emotional waves as "endless", "depthless" (and thus bottomless) was very clear.

Will have more information later...

Getting to Integral Work.

I may comment more later, but life is busy busy busy right now...

3 great posts on interconnectedness and mutuality by Hokai:

Mutuality 1
Mutuality 2
Mutuality 3

I tend to think that a lot of our interconnectedness, is "invisible".  Simply being able to communicate with others, to SPEAK, or to THINK, means you are already enmeshed in, and owe a debt to, human society.  Just check out those rare cases of people "raised in the wild", and the total lack, and inability - to develop communication skills.

I've been reading Katherine at Dating God's posts and woes around here statistics course.

As usual, her posts resound with the incisive descriptiveness and zest of her prose - even in the midst of angst.

But I hope she can keep at it, if not with this teacher, than with another.

Now, this is a jumping off point - and isn't related to Kate at all, but this leads me to a long-standing annoyance I have, that I'm going to post about here.

I would like to - here - emphasize STRONGLY, just how important, yet minimized statistics have been in the whole unfolding of the human potential movement, the weekend workshop movement, and the self-help movements.

The use of statistics in any type of change program is THE FACTOR that separates:

The men from the boys
The integral from the boomers
The serious from the unserious
Authentic change management from the NEW AGE movement.

It truly shocks me to no end, how, for various self-help programs, various practices, etc, the main mode of collecting feedback is the testimonial.

The testimonial?

The FREAKIN TESTIMONIAL??

Because you know, testimonials, these have a well-respected evidence gathering capability. Starting from the TOOTH FAIRY, I believe...

Look, statistics research, statistical methods - the use and promulgation of statistics as a field of study was pioneered one hundred years ago, and has been in general use for over 50 in universities.

Would it KILL any of the self-help movement gurus to incorporate a statistical methodology in their change management programs?

And I may be wrong - but I do not see any of the big boys and self-help gurus - be it David Deida, or Integral Institute, or Deepak Chopra, commiting to a published statistical methodology of collection, regarding their change management programs.

Actually, on the Deepak Chopra - considering he is an MD, and I am sure he had to go through a rigorous statistics study program, I might be missing the published methods.  But there sure are not easily accessible.

Now, there are exceptions that prove the rule, of course. 

Andrew Weil's stuff.  Some of Michael Murphy's research at Esalen.

And I have to say - and here I agree with some of the famous disparaging comments of Wilber regarding California Institute of Integral Studies (although I don't know if this still holds, so don't hold ME to it now...) -

Here is the bottom line -

It is simply inexcusable for any type of change management program to NOT have a published statistics, including methods of data collection and analytic methodology, for the change management program being advocated.

Simply inexcusable.   And fundamentally unserious.  Any time that you run into some self-help method that lacks this - while the methods and community may have tremendous value - there is an immature and lack of rigorousness to the change strategy. 

Integral Institute is still in its infancy, but I am hoping that this academic element of rigorous statistical analysis of the change managment program of ILP, is also being setup.

Now of course, as the super-bright Katherine demonstrates, statistics can be hard.  And unfortunately, there is a conflict in the type of people who are well suited to statistics, and the  type of people who are attracted to the spiritual and holistic.

Still, the job can be farmed out, if necessary, right?

End of rant...

UPDATE - Also - for anyone reading this who is connected to the Integral Institute (or maybe have their blogs read by people at II - cough cough cough) - can you pass this on?

Please?

Per my last post - with Eric's help, with the various DIY tools for web 2.0 applications - the world of -

a. Interested people
b. spec designers
c. testers
d. coders

We could "collaboratively"  (I put this in quotes because it is usually the coders who do 90% of the work, while everyone else comes out with a FABU wishlist )  roll out a pretty robust tool, in about six months or so.

Anyway, check out Eric's tool.  He is kind enough, smart enough, and productive enough to get this moving.

I've been off and on testing out various software for tracking commitments to one's Integral Life Program - in whatever form this may be.

What I've looked at so far.

a. Life Balance program
b. Backpack
c. Integral Living
d. Basecamp
e. Harvest
f. Zoho Creator - where you can built your web app - without code!

Probably the best at the moment, for the little time I've been using it - SPECIFICALLY for tracking an ILP, Eric's Integral Living tool is pretty easy to use, and self-explanatory as well.

I'm going to keep testing this, because I have this hazy set of specifications in my head, that access to all of these applications is gelling into!

If you have a chance, read it.

And on understanding the causes of procrastination, rather than an action-based plan.

I'm not so sure.  I tend to view "understanding" as a whole-life psychological endeavor, that something like therapy is very useful for, to allow more freedom from childhood scripts, and mis-understandings held in the mind, and of course for simple allowing/healing.

That is very useful, but I think action-based plans - with of course right attitudes, which this approach strengthens - is more useful.

While this is normally VC's beat, there is an informative article at Integral World on Islam called The Many Faces of Islam. I have a feeling this might have been linked to elsewhere before, but it is the first time I've seen it. A few points -   more »

Apple Boots Windows.

For myself, I work on all three systems - Apple, Windows, Linux.

For look and style though, I prefer the apple.  But there are definitely some programs on windows that I couldn't give up.  And some great server programs that, once you know how to load the LAMP solution, you want to keep Linux for this. 

I will most likely get, for the home, the most powerful MacMini, expecially when the interface with a TV card has been proven.

From Foreign Policy:

The director at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace had this to say:

Nothing is clear, yet. For months, I have told interviewers that no senior political or military official was seriously considering a military attack on Iran. In the last few weeks, I have changed my view. In part, this shift was triggered by colleagues with close ties to the Pentagon and the executive branch who have convinced me that some senior officials have already made up their minds: They want to hit Iran.


From Kevin Drum

I have finished reading Integral Spirituality, and it has generated a lot of thought, especially for what this blog is about.

Since this blog is titled Integral Practice, I'd like to comment on some of the challenges of Integral Practice - or practice in general - and then also contrast this to how it would relate to Integral Research.

Good Integral Practice is - to a degree - the output of good integral research.

If one's starts with the normal method of bringing a new practice into existence -

a.  There is an idea, sometimes free-floating, sometimes based on a need.  ("I'm missing the divine in my life.  What should I do?"  "Say, how does this spiritual practice that opens up the revelations of the Divine to me, relate to the world of science, that produces the electricity I use on a daily basis?  Well, I have this idea of the 4 quadrants - maybe that is relevant?")

THIS particular blog, is more concerned with Integral Practice as it relates to:

a.  Pointing to the best practices for challenges in a normal life.
b.  Pointing to resources that help fulfill these practices.
c.  When possible, pointing to other's  evaluations that will help readers decide on new practices.
d.  Pointing out resources that create communities of integral practice.
e.  Using this site to entertain integral ideas.
f.  Using this site otto track - well, anything I want, but new things in technology that also contribute to a better, or at least more interesting life.

But the thing is, good practice is resting on a base of:

a.  Good theory, backed up by
b. Good research, data, that backs up the theory. 

So it becomes necessary to delve into some of the theoretical underpinnings occasionally - although personally, I don't want to "live" there, as the maps are not the territory.  I want to explore the territory.

As I've mentioned here before, I think some of the Wisdom of the Crowds, Web 2.0, and peer-to-peer functionality, will eventually cause a revolution in the data gathering capacity of "good research, good data".  While this hasn't happened yet, when the tools are there for anonymous (yet accurate) self-reporting on various exercises, practices, etc, that then feed into various analytical engines -

this particular revolution will be wondrous.  The silos of the solo researcher, analyzing data in his university office, where only he has access to data, will be replaced by global google analytical tools fed data from a variety of sources.

Something I should have done awhile ago - I've added Integral Life Practice as a category - now I need to go in and add old posts to this category - and I have also linked to 90 Days of ILP - the blog by the mainly uninteresting and yawn-inspiring Paul Salamone.

NOTE:  on the "not interesting" - eh, not so much.  Just tweaking Paul there!

 He's actually a fun wise-ass wordsmith, who I ABSOLUTELY recommend reading both for the general entertainment value of witty words, as well as being esconced in the bowels of the Integral Institute.  (off-topic - I wonder how those bowels smell?)

Warning - you will much more likely find Paul with a drink in his hand, and an attitude that wildly fluctuates between full bore artistic passion about the THING-OF-THE-MOMENT, and an utter "wink-and-a-nod" insouciance, than sitting zazen.

But that's the charm!

It's interesting for me, to notice from my position as an e-learning consultant, to extricate the "learning and skill building" theory that is utilized in the ILP Kit.

The ILP Kit - and I suppose most of the self-help kits out there - start from a very valid position for adult learners.

1.  Adult learning needs to be task and pragmatically based.
2.  Adults "choose" what they wish to learn
3. Self-directed

What really grounds learning and skill building for adults is small group interaction, as well absolutely relevant feedback. 

In most self-help modalites, this feedback aspect is simply - missing.  There aren't any "sounding boards" to adequately measure whether your meditation is improving, whether the usage of the physical exercise is going the right way, etc. 

I've thought that I would be able to make quite a decent living, developing the "after the training" parts of a self-help training curriculum. 

And this is definitely true in the case of ILP Kit DVD as well. 

Examples -

For the physical exercise training - there are task-based activities, but not percentage based assessment tracking.  Including this would be pretty simple - some type of broad measuring stick response, that would also go along with 2nd order assessment theories.

For the one minute modules especially - which are already on shaky ground from what is known about skill building on a physiological and the attention level - these type of included feedback forms would be a great help.

I've posted a article to Generation Sit - why is there suffering in the world? 

Go take a look, read the Wired article, and let me know your thoughts.

I have come to really love Google Reader, as a way to get my news, tag various posts, and act in some ways as an information manager. 

However, it is clear that there is simply too much to read - like music, too much out there, so I only read 'the biggies', and the people I know.

How a single SCOOP site handles posters, is that the people themselves in a scoop site, can RECOMMEND a post - thus Daily Kos recommended dairies.  So you are using the "Wisdom of Crowds" to find good posts by people you do not know.

I think you can do something similar with blog searcher engines, and blog readers.

I have some suggestions for rss readers in general, and specifically for the google setup. 

I am thinking that posts could get "rated", and I'm thinking in a 4 x 4 framework:

Style                               1   2   3   4
Importance Relevance     1   2   3   4
Informed/Accuracy         1   2   3   4
Recommend?                  1   2   3   4

This would work very well on Google Reader -

Down opposite the labels, have a "Rate It?" button, that opens up a small little grid of radio buttons for the 1-4, and each of the above qualities of rating.

Google then keeps this information in their database - across all people using Google Reader.

Then, there should be a link (or embedded) the Google Blog Search functionality, that on the Advanced Search, would incorporate these ratings (or perhaps a by? with the 4 categories).

That way, I could search blogs by utilizing not only the relevance engine already built-into google (links, popularity) but I could search by "Integral Practice", and "Recommended", and get the most recommended column ABOUT the search I am doing.

I don't know whether this is possible - but for example, technorati has begun to use authority as a way to build in relevance.  But incorporate ratings would make this even better.

Any thoughts on this?  Let me know if you think this exists somewhere.

Here is the integral bloggers wiki list.

Here is the link for the feed.

If you consider yourself an "integral" blogger, make sure to add yourself to the wiki blogger list. 

I'm also going to start using Integral Wiki to detail out a lot more about the ILP Kit - until I get some sort of cease and desist - although I doubt I will, because information "about" ILP Kit, acts more as advertisement than anything else...

Does normal life exercise the emotional body? And if not, what types of "practice" are useful?


It seems to me that this is an open question, as to "practicing emotion", being a healthy thing.  Here are the pluses and minuses -

Pluses -

When we are first born, as babies, we are ALL emotion.  Crying, screaming, laughing, beaming delightedly.  The over-abundance of emotion, is what terrorizes parents!

Of course, as we grow up, we learn - as we must - to "tone it down", "get control", etc.

And as we get older, we value calm, harmony, etc, and we don't value emotion as much.

At the same time, there is what I think is a truth - "use it or lose it".

To keep your physical body fit, you must exercise.

To keep your mind fit, you must exercise this as well - in either games, study, and other intellectual pursuits.

I think the same thing applies to interpersonal, and it definitely applies to any musical instrument.

So what happens to the emotions, if you don't "practice" the full range?  Do they also become "out of shape", "unfit"?

It's a strange thing.  I'm sure there IS a higher wisdom, in societies de-emphasis of emotion, especially as it related to lack of control.

But - if you don't use it, you lose it.

So the two truths above are both true, yet mutually contradictory.

Maybe the key is to exercise your emotions, the same way a vocalist would exercise their vocal chords?

Going up and down the "scales", every once in awhile, you would practice happiness, laughter, grief, rage, etc...

I think actors/actresses do this - keep the emotions "fresh", by practicing different emotional states.

Anyone have any thoughts on the right way to have access to full and flexible emotional states, while not getting involved in some "shout shout let it all out", wildness?

Thanks!