Everyone Is Right

In this provocative and exhilarating dialogue, Jun Po Roshi and Ken Wilber take an in-depth look at Keith Martin-Smith’s new book: A Heart Blown Open: The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi. For most of us, we would need to reincarnate at least 50 times in order to attain such an incredible volume of experience. But for whatever reason, it seems that Jun Po went a slightly different route, and chose to live all 50 of those lives at once. Here is his remarkable story—a riveting tale of enlightenment, debauchery, and infinite jest. One of my favorite encounters with Jun Po Roshi was a night I spent driving him from the San Jose airport to Pacific Grove, during our last Integral Spiritual Experience event. A few minutes into our three-hour drive, I asked him what his favorite Beatles album was. “Sgt. Peppers,” he replied, so I played the album on my iPhone. I explained to him that I was raised on a steady diet of this music, and had always felt a slight envy that his generation got to experience the explosion of rock and roll culture firsthand. “This music—it makes me feel nostalgic for a time before I was born,” I told him. “Well get ready,” he shot back, “because that time is coming sooner than you think.” At that moment it struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard. A perfect Zen joke. A surge of laughter bubbled up from my belly, and as it erupted out of my face, something *popped* inside my consciousness. For just a second, reality flipped itself inside-out, and all that remained were the trembling aftershocks of laughter and a big, beautiful Buddha smile radiating from the back seat of the van, as we continued down the black highway that stretched before us. This perfectly-timed sense of humor, of course, is one of Jun Po’s finest and most endearing qualities. There’s no denying it: the man’s got jokes. But these are not just your standard gags and quips—there is transmission in Jun Po’s humor. In fact, his wit is almost as important to his teaching as his wisdom, and he uses it to set the ego at ease while preparing it for it’s own oblivion, leading us to the infinite absurdity at the very core of our existence. Samsara is a joke, and this very moment is the punchline. Another remarkable quality of Jun Po Roshi that really comes through in this dialogue: he is not the type of guy to sweep his shadows beneath the rug of enlightenment. Rather, he chooses to meet them head-on, using the curative, self-liberating quality of consciousness to extract transcendent light from some of the deepest, darkest parts of his psyche. These might very well be the most admirable aspects of Jun Po’s character: his unabashed and unflinching honesty, his willingness to confess and take full responsibility for his own flaws and mistakes, his unshakable presence and courage as he embraces the pain and stands in the purifying flames of redemption. Jun Po Roshi accepts light and shadow alike as intrinsic elements of his spirituality, exemplifying the Tantric ideal of “bringing everything to the path” by neither avoiding nor excluding the more onerous and destructive facets of our lives. Instead, he urges us to face them directly, to work with them intimately, and to ultimately transmute them into wisdom, virtue, and compassion. Jun Po Kelly Roshi’s story is truly remarkable, and when coupled with his radiant personality and wily sense of humor, would no doubt make for a wildly entertaining and enriching Hollywood blockbuster. Even more intriguing, his story echoes a narrative even greater than his own (as all truly great stories do)—it is hard to think of anyone who better personifies the remarkable progression of American spirituality from the 1960’s until today, standing as he does with one foot firmly planted in the sixties counterculture, and the other in today’s Integral renaissance. Written by Corey deVos

Free video version here: https://integrallife.com/from-languishing-to-flourishing/ We were amazed at the serendipity when we opened the New York Times this morning and read Adam Grant’s article “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing.” In it, he describes the feeling of languishing, something between not-quite hopeless depression, but far-from-thriving flourishing that he and millions of others have felt the past year during the pandemic. The reader comments to the article lit up with agreement and relief that readers weren’t alone in feeling joyless, listless, and aimless this past year. In a word, millions of us are languishing. The timing couldn’t have been better. Watch as Robb Smith talks with Lee Mason about what an integral approach to flourishing looks like, and what we know about the science of getting out of languishing. Learn more about The Essence of Integral Flourishing: https://integrallife.com/the-essence-of-integral-flourishing/

Nomali Perera has been a dear friend to the Integral project for nearly 20 years now, and we are delighted to have her as one of our most prolific Practice Leaders on our new Integral Life Practice platform. Having been part of the integral movement for so long, Nomali has special insight into the underlying needs and challenges faced by the community, and hosts a full suite of practices that help us meet those needs and challenges and take the integral vision more fully into our hearts. In this episode of The Art of Practice, Nomali talks to Lisa and Corey about the many opportunities and obstacles we face in our practice, and how to deepen our commitment to our own process of waking up, growing up, cleaning up, and showing up. We follow the subtle threads of love, death, and vitality that weave through each of our practices and connect us together as a community, while reminding each other that we can only truly be ourselves if we are willing to actually get over ourselves. And this is one of the central polarities we face in our ILP — we want to be more of ourselves and less of ourselves at the same time. We want to more fully embody and inhabit our own unique kosmic address so that we may bring our gifts to the world, while also getting ourselves out of our own way and following a path of self-transcendence and selfless service. We want to make our egos bigger and brighter and more capable than ever, before but also more transparent to the inner light that is trying to shine through these illusions of separation. This is the riddle at the heart of our practice — and it’s one that ILP is uniquely qualified to answer. Watch as Nomali, Lisa, and Corey explore these questions — and why it’s always important to wear your clown nose while practicing.

Are you concerned about things like social justice, wealth inequality, and the continuing cultural inertias of racism and bigotry? Have you ever wanted to, say, reform a police department or two? Are you interested in protecting voting rights for particular groups of people? Are you naturally inclined to want to relieve suffering for people by “bringing the most depth to the most span”, as we say here in Integral Land? Congratulations, you might be woke! Are you equally concerned about the sorts of extremism that we are seeing on the Left — performative virtue signaling, growing intolerance for conflictiing perspectives and free speech, a backslide away from healthy green pluralism and toward totalizing amber narratives? Well, maybe you’e not so woke after all. Maybe you are actually “post-woke”, and have been waiting for discussions like this one to come down the line. Which is why Ryan and I wanted to help clear this space and invite all of us to inhabit our own most embodied leadership within an authentically “post-woke” space that allows us to recognize and rescue the most important babies of “social justice” from the bathwater of political extremism. How do we do so? By getting “wokeness” (and the green altitude as a whole) out of our shadows, while bringing more caution and discernment to the inherent shadows of the woke movement itself. And one of the best ways we can get the Green altitude out of our shadows is to simply shift our frame just little bit: Rather than thinking off the green altitude as "post-modern", let’s simultaneously think of it as being “pre-integral". There is something about that reframe that reminds us of our obligation to properly transclude the green altitude in our integral embrace and get it out of our own shadow. Because at the integral altitude, all of these previous stages become part of our own interior anatomy — which means that if we are engaged in unconscious warfare against the Green altitude, we are denying one of the highest stages of our own being. It’s like walking around with your head cut off. The Green altitude, after all, is also associated with “early vision-logic”, which is why a great number of important green terms, concepts, and deep structures are maintained and updated at the integral altitude — concepts like "pluralism" (which, for example, then ripens as "integral methodological pluralism"), as well as "constructivism" and "perspectivism". Even the woke emphasis on "identity" is taken up again at the integral stage, which simply offers a broader spectrum of identity to draw upon beyond our typological intersectionality — a spectrum that takes us all the way to the Supreme Identity itself. This reframe may also help better facilitate "post-woke" discussions, while helping us to better regulate the green altitude by reminding it of who and what it is actually supposed to be (pluralistic, empathetic, and tolerant).

Inhabit: Your Practice by Integral Life

“There are a lot more sightings than have been made public,” says former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. In the midst of America’s total epistemic collapse into the pits of disinformation, propaganda, and conspiracy theory, somehow belief in UFOs and alien contact continues to find more and more legitimacy. Some say we are even ramping up to a “soft disclosure” as the U.S. military prepares to release a full report of their own observations and interactions with anomalous craft. "Some of those have been declassified,” Ratcliffe continues. “And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain. Movements that are hard to replicate that we don't have the technology for. Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.” Stuart Davis has been tracking these phenomena for a very long time, and in fact has launched an entire podcast, Aliens and Artists (it’s the #5 podcast in Vietnam!) in order to chronicle, explore, and make sense of his own experiences, and to interview various subject matter experts on similarly strange encounters. He has also recently kickstarted an entire online community for people who have had any number of anomalous experiences, which he calls The Experiencer Group. In this fun and fascinating discussion, Stu and I take a deep dive into these cosmic mysteries, exploring the many ways the Integral framework helps us illuminate and interpret the full enchilada of human (and non-human) experience, from the ordinary to the extraordinary to the extra-extraordinary. If you are already a believer in these kinds of phenomena, you will find this discussion to be a fascinating exploration of the contours and consequences of these experiences. How can we make better sense of these encounters, and what are the possible implications for the rest of society — and to civilization as a whole? And if your personality type is more Scully than Mulder and have a hard time entertaining extraordinary claims without equally extraordinary evidence, then we invite you to hold this entire discussion as a thought experiment. How can the integral model expand our imagination? What kind of predictive power might Integral possess when it comes to things like alien evolution or inter-species communication? How integral can “integral” be, if it cannot be applied to an intergalactic context? Our universe is very big and very dark. It contains multitudes. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your Integral philosophy. So let’s see just how far into the mystery Integral can take us. Regardless of where you may land on the issue, we hope you enjoy the adventure. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

What exactly is the Enneagram, and what makes it such a helpful tool when it comes to our ongoing growth and awakening? Watch as Lisa and Corey offer a broad introduction to the Integral Enneagram, as well as to the many Enneagram offerings we currently have available on Integral Life, including: - A self-assessment test that allows you to better discern your own Enneagram type, - A monthly “Harnessing the Power of Your Enneatype” practice session, available to all supporting members of Integral Life, - A series of monthly Enneagram sessions that focus on each of the nine types — a monthly session for Type 1, another monthly session for Type 2, another for Type 3, etc. Click here to learn more: https://integrallife.com/your-enneagram-type-an-introduction/

*We highly recommend that you watch the video version! You can find it here: https://integrallife.com/inhabit-your-game/ In this continuation of our "integral media" series, Ryan and Corey take another look at the major stages of human development, this time using a series of 33 video games in order to illustrate the qualities and characteristics of each stage. All of this allows you to not only observe these stages within you, but to actively inhabit, engage, and play with them as well.

Join Lisa Frost and me in a new monthly series that will explore how to bring more depth and artistry to our Integral Life Practice — the very best and most effective practices to help you Wake Up, Grow Up, Clean Up, and Show Up in your life, your relationships, and your work in the world. Integral is itself a practice-based theory. “Integral Methodological Pluralism” is just a fancy way of saying, “here are all of the available practices that are available to us — practices that reveal everything we know about life, the universe, and everything. And here’s how to put all of those practices together, so we can better understand our reality, lead better/more fulfilling lives, and leave the universe and everything in better shape than we found it.“ In other words, practice is at the very core of integral. How do we grow up? We practice. How do we wake up? We practice. How do we clean up? That’s right, practice baby! How do we show up? Practice, practice practice, practice — and allowing the fruits of our practice to spill over into all four quadrants. These aren’t just conversations about the integral map — they are about living in the integral territory. Watch as Lisa and I take an in-depth look at our new Integral Life Practice platform, which offers a vast collection of self-guided practices as well as calendar of live daily practice sessionss led by skilled practice leaders from around the world, attended every day by a powerful community of like-hearted people who are profoundly committed to their own growth, awakening, and impact. Visit https://integrallife.com/calendar for the full Integral Life Practice session schedule.

We highly recommend you watch this instead of listening! You can find the full video here: https://integrallife.com/inhabit-your-inner-theatre/ Corey and Ryan take you on a cinematic journey through the stages of human development, using a series of 21 carefully-curated film clips to illustrate some of the most important qualities of each stage. Why film clips? Simple — it’s fun! Plus, these clips are from some of the most popular films from the last 80 years, commonly-shared reference points that most of us are already familiar with. This gives us the opportunity to put together one of the most accessible, friendly, and entertaining ways to introduce these important ideas to newcomers. And for those who are already familiar with integral thought and practice, this discussion will still be fascinating, fun, and occasionally moving, while also helping you more deeply contemplate the important difference between enjoying integral artenjoying art integrally. And as you watch, try to remember: all of this is actually happening inside of you. You may be viewing these film clips on a screen in front of you, but the stages we explore here are all alive within you right now, either as capacities you’ve already developed or as potentials that are waiting to be unleashed. 

The Witness itself is the ultimate movie screen — the effortless, simple feeling of being behind all of our perceptions. All of this is just a fleeting dance of light, sound, and shadow projected within your consciousness against that empty, all-pervasive awareness. So grab some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy this very special tour of your own inner theatre.