The life and times of Isaac Dust
Mary Alice and I just came up with our wedding vows:
I Bob take you Mary Alice to be my wife. And here before our family and friends I share my commitment to encourage and inspire you, to laugh with you, to comfort you in times of sorrow and struggle, to love and respect you, to trust and honor you through whatever life may bring us.
I offer you this ring as a symbol of my love and of the privilege of spending my life with you.
I’ve tried to keep an open mind about the Big Mind Process as I’ve explored it on Integral Naked over the past year or so, but I’m just not getting it. Not only does it leave me cold, but it also leaves me scratching my head. Ken Wilber and Stuart Davis talk about Big Mind like it’s to be the flagship spiritual practice of the emerging Integral Scene. Wilber said something like ninety-eight percent of people got a “big hit” from the BM process at a recent gathering. I’m just not buying it. When you get a bunch of people together and the vibe is right, I don’t think it matters much what you do. People will get a “big hit” from the love in the room, whether they’re doing Big Mind or the Hokey Pokey. Not that all activities or practices will inspire or amplify the love vibe to the same degree. I just think too much emphasis is given to technique sometimes, whether we’re talking schools of psychotherapy or spiritual practices. I wasn’t there (at the Integral Spiritual Center gathering), but I wonder if too much credit was given to the Big Mind process and not enough to the energy of expectation, anticipation, hope and love that the people there shared with each other.
Also, the BM process just doesn’t make sense to me. Simply saying, “Let me speak to Non-Grasping Mind” or “Big Heart” or whatever, and having me shift in my seat and act out my idea of what that means — doesn’t that just reinforce whatever concept I have of those terms? Wouldn’t everyone in the room have a completely different idea of what those terms mean? Shit, if I knew what the experience of “Big Mind” or “Big Heart” really felt like and I could tap into these places on command, then I would already be enlightened (and fully realize it). I don’t know, maybe it’s just “The Skeptic” talking.
I’ve struggled for years trying to maintain a consistent zazen practice, and I’m not sure whether my resistance to it is a matter of laziness and ego assertion or simply that I really don’t buy it on some level. I mean, on the one hand, they all say “If you meditate in order to achieve something, then you’re not really meditating.” But then again, in Wilber’s system, meditation is THE thing to do if you want to evolve, be enlightened, transcend death, and save the freaking world. How the hell can you Wilberites be meditating without any intention to “do” something or “get somewhere,” given that kind of build up? I don’t know, these are just things I struggle with sometimes. Also, what IS meditation, really? If one is “not really meditating” when one is out to better oneself, then that cuts out about ninety percent of my practice right there. And if the heart of the meditative process is simply being present, then there’s a million and one activities that can bring about that experience, and it is pure arrogance to assume that people posturing in any particular way are really “doing it,” while someone else who say, goes to the gym every day, is “just working out.” The proof is in the pudding I guess, and only you can know for sure whether you’re growing or dying.
There is a way to live that opens me up and a way that shuts me down. For me, the whole process comes down to this: When I’m open (whether through luck, effort or grace), and I have the guts and faith needed to allow whatever form of self-expression that arises to unfold, then I open up more and feel more alive and connected. When I choose, consciously or unconsciously, to inhibit this movement in favor of a habitual, conditioned response, I feel more and more cut off, and I contract again back into an unfulfilling daze. I think there’s a fundamental attitude that is a prerequisite for spiritual growth. It’s simply maddening to try to cultivate such an attitude, since the desire to do so presupposes a contrary attitude. Deep down I know I can assume the appropriate attitude any time I want to, it’s just that I don’t always want it, because living from such a place leads me beyond the status quo, and I just don’t want to deal with that sometimes.