Author: Bob

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Big Mind

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.

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Meditation

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.

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The Pickle

Friday afternoon and I’m spent from an extra-long jam session. Just me, sitting and strumming in this very chair in front of this very desk, but a jam session just the same. I’ll be making an unscheduled appearance at work this evening, taking over for Larry for a few hours while he watches his daughter perform in a dance recital. I couldn’t refuse such a request, although I did leave no stone unturned attempting to find some other sucker to do it. Whenever I have a thought like, “Shit I have to go back into work already” I get a sick feeling in my guts and I want to scream like all holy hell. The clock and the calendar are nothing but handcuffs and shackles to me. It’s a pickle I’ve never been able to wiggle out of. Reminds me of playing “run the bases” in the side lot as kid. I used to put myself in a “pickle” intentionally, just to make the game more interesting. I was usually the oldest one of the bunch and athletic to boot, and no matter how severely I handicapped myself I never could fully contain my drive to come out on top. I would always win at everything. Even in competition with others my own age, I was a natural winner. The fastest, the smartest, the best. The major exception being, of course, the one thing that mattered most to me–the realm of romance. I never held a hand, stole a kiss, much less got a handful until I was nineteen and in college. Even then I was an awkward, anxious sac of self-consciousness void of confidence. Only now, ten days shy of my thirty-fifth birthday, am I beginning to feel truly confident and comfortable with the opposite sex. Looking back at the course of my development, it strikes me as highly significant that I was continually frustrated in my efforts to attain that which I most yearned for. Moreover, I felt paralyzed really, to do anything about it. The more a prayed for the zits to go away, the more numerous and hideous they’d become. When my time finally came and Ann-Marie whispered in my ear “do you want to feel inside me?”–well, I was so overwhelmed with joy I’d do anything to stay inside. These days I’m discovering what seekers of all stripes stumble upon if they’re fortunate enough–that getting what you want does not extinguish the flames of discontent for long. I yearn as achingly as ever, only now I’m not sure exactly what for or how to go about getting it. Enlightenment? Peace of mind? I’m not even sure what these things mean.

[Addendum: I was involved in a car accident on my way to work on this night. Traffic stopped suddenly on Richmond Road. I was barely able to stop short of the car in front of me. I was slammed from the rear, which whip-lashed me pretty hard. Mary Alice’s car was totaled.]

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Catching Leaves

Yesterday I ran around the park trying to catch falling leaves, and people seemed to think I was out of my mind. I fucking laid out with a fully extended dive to catch my first leaf, and I instantly felt better than I have in weeks.

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Getting our bodies back

From Christine Caldwell’s “Getting our bodies back”:

“Feelings are intended to move us, and until they move us toward a higher level of organization, they will persist. So that which you keep feeling is that which you haven’t let yourself feel completely.” (p. 119)

“As long as someone else is responsible for our experience (either partly or wholly), then they have the power in the relationship. They have the power to make us feel good or bad. They own a piece of us. And we have to control them in order to get our needs met.” (p. 122)

“When we abandon active rest, when we focus narrowly on one activity for long periods of time, or when we feel consistently powerless in the face of repeated events, we compel ourselves to dissociate. We enter a state of need deprivation, at the same time creating a response that does nothing to fill our needs, but merely dampens our perception that we are in need.” (p. 26)

“Our bodies must tense, shut down, and provide distracting alternatives in order to accomplish control in our thoughts and behavior. Control is very costly; it takes a lot of energy to maintain. It uses many of our personal resources to monitor and select the experiences and feelings that are acceptable or unacceptable. The cost is our aliveness. Whenever we control our experience, we sacrifice a measure of vitality. Most of my clients come into therapy wanting to get rid of certain feelings and only experience certain other, better ones. While it makes sense to want to feel good, doing it through control ultimately fails. It takes a while for many clients to realize this: that the strain and fatigue of control is actually causing their suffering, not the feelings they were trying to select and discard.” (pp. 31-32)

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Integral Psychology

Just read “Integral Psychotherapy: An AQAL Approach to Transformation” by David Zeitler. I found it to be a helpful and well-written orientation to this stuff. There’s something nagging at me though, as I begin to wade into the Integral tide: Must we filter everything through the AQAL Matrix in order to be “Integral” and to participate in what’s going on at Integral Institute? Ken Wilber has mentioned several times that his version is but one take on “Integral,” and that one can honor the basic integral impulse–to synthesize partial truths–in variety of ways. I worry that this will become mere lip service under the shadowy weight of market pressures and personal ambitions, i.e. the push to market Integral Psychology as a particular commodity one can appropriate in order to get a piece of the pie, so to speak. I realize that these shadow elements are unavoidable when a person or group of people try to make a splash in the mainstream.

Beyond that, at least at this point in my understanding, I find that the business of levels and lines and states and types, while interesting and helpful in some ways, filters out too much, puts too many labels on things that may be better processed intuitively first. It’s like this: If I want to know how to hike my way to a secret swimming hole, there’s a point where a map can become too instructive. I’d like to know how to get there and back, and maybe what to expect in terms of dangers in the environment (poison ivy, bears, etc.). But if you tried to construct some computer generated, virtual tour through the woods and gave me detailed instructions on what to look at and how to swim and on and on, then that would take away from my experience, the value of which may be in the open-minded and open hearted journey of discovery I would undertake. Too many details on a map makes it cumbersome and takes the fun out of the journey. And it biases a person to attend to this and to ignore that, causing us to repeat the same errors as the map-maker, to miss out on the same things. Okay, I’m losing the thread now.

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What is art?

What is Art, eh? Hmm, let’s see here. Okay, so I don’t know what it is. It’s one of those words that resists definition, like spirit or love. And it’s one of those words that you can preface with “Everything is…” and have it make sense on one level and be total bullshit on another level. To me, art is anything that springs from a person’s participation in a creative process. It’s the fruits of creativity. Of course, this begs the question “What is creativity?” and on down the line we go. Anything that has the power to stir us and awaken us can be thought of as art. In fact, it seems that art can only be understood in relational terms. Anything can be sensed as a work of art or a product of some creative process. There’s just a lot of mystery to it. A sixth century Chinese man would probably not consider a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo to be a work of art. It has a lot to do with the conscious or unconscious intentions of the creator. But it just can’t be simply defined. “Spontaneous self-expression of an intention into form?” “The manipulation of forms into containers which can communicate a sense of wonder, depth, and mystery?”

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Beyond Psychology

From Reich’s “Beyond Psychology”:

“And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn’t the courage to express.” p. 70

“It is obvious that humans are the only living creatures who deny the natural law of pleasure. Therefore war must exist. Frenzied electrical machines attacking one another — the senselessness of life is only made possible through the denial of the biology of life. Sexuality equals life. But all this philosophy is worthless trash. We must rescue life!” p.71

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The Dismantling of Brian Hall

Thank you Brian for sharing the gift of your music, this wonderful window into the creative process as it flows through you, raw and sacred, shared straight from the source without affectation or contrivance. I am full of gratitude and inspiration. Some special moments:

My eyes lit up like fireflies when you arrived; there was something sad but soothing about driving all alone; taking her time on a cigarette, riding into the perfect sunset; my heart it sings its sad lament in the middle of the day; hey you with the open heart I know you’re trying to teach me; I tried every way that I knew but I never could get in there; it’s nice to be a raindrop, the thirsty earth is waiting for you; desire wants to hang on to the time and wants to find a love but love is hard to find and time is not enough for us sometimes; as I was leaving I looked back; I’m still looking back; something seems to be calling her name and if she answers Caroline will never be the same; on the fourth of July with the sun in your room, you’ll lie there and smile and forget about June; I picked you up and brushed you off, but you preferred the ground; we talked about forever but forgot about tomorrow; I climbed in the car like the sucker I was, with one more chance not to act like an adult; you pulled out your camera, you snapped a shot, and I hope that it turned out and I hope that I’m not smiling too big or looking too sad or closing my eyes or the lighting was bad; her beauty is so glorious she cannot help it nor suppress it, she glows; even her shadow was kinda turning back to me, with a wink, as if to say “I get to go with her”; don’t the cameras make it seem like somebody in the room is guilty, and you just hope that it isn’t you; so many words the idiot could say, if the idiot had eyes he’d fall in love today; so many things the idiot could see, if the idiot could talk he’d fall upon he knees just to say the words floating through his mind; and I watched it all from somewhere in the middle; her eyes were like the night sky that had slowly lost its moon; I hear Maria got married and became a teacher then, the kids think she’s just some man’s good looking old lady but tonight she’s seventeen again, on the sidelines in a short skirt and a cold front moving in; you are the only home I seek; when it came time for him to leave his shell, he retracted like the subject of an experiment gone mad; and if there is a point to any and all of this, some people come already loaded; saved and sanctified, train-tracks damsel tied, who can save us now?

[The night is young but we are not
so sit beside me and give me every story you got
then I’ll give you mine and in case one of us dies
we’ll still be alive
we’ll still be alive]

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Miller on “points of view”

“What I object to is becoming enslaved to any one point of view. Of course there are affinities, analogies, correspondences, a heavenly rhythm and an earthly rhythm… as above so below. It would all be crazy if it weren’t so. But knowing it, accepting it, why not forget it? I mean, make it a living part of one’s life, something absorbed, assimilated and distributed through every pore of one’s being, and thus forgotten, altered, utilized in the spirit and the service of life. I abhor people who have to filter everything through the one language they know, whether it be astrology, religion, yoga, politics, economics or what. The one thing about this universe of ours which intrigues me, which makes me realize that it is divine and beyond all knowing, is that it lends itself so easily to any and all interpretations. Everything we formulate about it is correct and incorrect at the same time. It includes our truths and our errors.” –Henry Miller