Integral Life Updates

Laughing, Learning, and Loving: Behind the Scenes of The Daily Show

In today’s cultural climate, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to talk about complex things in the mainstream media without being reduced to a caricature or a talking point.  This is one of the things that makes The Daily Show so extraordinary—it walks the line between laughter and learning in a really fascinating way, often using irony, snark, and cynicism as a “trojan horse” for authenticity.

Warren Farrell was recently featured on a controversial segment of The Daily Show, in which he, the very notion of male inequality, and “men’s work” as a whole were hilariously lampooned by Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee (watch the full five-minute clip on the right).  This clip has caused a bit of a stir in many online communities, drawing fire from almost every conceivable angle, from “why does The Daily Show hate men?” all the way to “when will men just stop whining and learn how to man up?”

Warren was kind enough to share with us his own reaction to the sendup, the first public response he has offered since the clip aired nearly three weeks ago.

What follows is an intriguing and highly entertaining discussion about what it was like to be interviewed by The Daily Show, the many levels of humor at play in the clip, and a clarification of many of the points that ended up being turned into punchlines. Furthermore, Warren reminds us how important it is to live our lives adventurously and to be able to laugh at ourselves at all times—even when we see ourselves being skewered on national television.

At its best moments, The Daily Show fully lives up to, and even adds to, the rich legacy of satire that Jon Stewart’s desk rests upon.  We look to comedians to see what others might not see, to say what others cannot say, to hold a funhouse mirror up to reality—reflecting the truth by distorting the facts, releasing us from the absurdity of existence into the tonic bliss of laughter.  Which is really the only sane response to being human, isn’t it?

Considering the controversy and even outrage this clip provoked throughout many online “men’s group” communities, this might be the most important lesson of them all: hold everything lightly; especially the stuff you take most seriously.

So sit back, watch this clip, and just let yourself laugh for a few minutes. When you are finished, take a listen to Warren’s response below for a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes, behind the controversy, and beyond the laughter.

Click here to see the Daily Show clip.

Right Bucks

by Ken Wilber

The Dharma is free.  No one should charge money for teaching or transmitting Dharma.  Dharma that touches money is no dharma at all.  Selling the Dharma—there is a root of all evil.  The Dharma offered freely and without charge to all who seek it: there is purity, nobility, an honorable disposition.

And so goes the strange antagonism between Dharma and dollars.  In dealing with this issue of money and Dharma—or money and spirituality in general—there are at least two very different items that need to be teased apart and addressed separately.  The first is the appropriate monetary value of any relational exchange (from medical care to education to goods and services in general); and the second is, should monetary exchange ever be linked to Dharma teaching…?

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The State of the Integral Enterprise. Part 3: Key Ideas for a World at Risk

with Roger Walsh and Ken Wilber

We live in a time of unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Never before have we had the power to imperil our species and our planet. And never before have we had the power to heal our species, and to bring people to new levels of prosperity, well-being, health, and maturity. The choices our generation makes will determine whether we leave behind us an evolving civilization and a fertile earth, or a failed species and a plundered planet. We have the power to do both. Part of the power available to us is the integral vision. It is our remarkable privilege to be able to realize this vision ourselves, to embody and express it in our lives, to use it to better understand the world, and to let it use us as willing instruments to help heal our world. What greater privilege could there be than to use this profound vision to play our role to serve, help, heal, and awaken all beings?

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Creativity as Unique Self Expression

with Alex Grey, Marc Gafni, and Diane Musho Hamilton

How do our unique perspectives of the world color our relationship with beauty, creativity, and transcendence?

Alex Grey has become one of our most iconic and immediately-recognizable artists, and somewhat of a poster-boy for a genuinely integral approach to art, life, and spirituality.  Many of his prolific works have been featured and reproduced all over the world, ranging from magazine covers, party flyers, and blotter acid to high-profile album covers for Tool, David Byrne, the Beastie Boys, Nirvana, and Michael Hedge.

In this discussion, Alex shares his own personal path to Unique Self, describing how his creative process is directly informed by an intimate realization of radical and unqualifiable emptiness, combined with his unique and irreducible perspective of the world.  Alex talks about how his passion to create springs from an almost Bodhisattva-like yearning to serve, and how this devotion to service is one of the defining characteristics in the emergence of Unique Self.

Only by cultivating a path for ourselves that honors the paradoxical simultaneity of emptiness and perspective can we discover the real potential of our artistic gifts.  In Alex’s case, this path has allowed him to fully and fluently express a deeply personal vision of the universal—illuminating a spiritual anatomy that is common to all of us, but uniquely recognized and rendered through Alex’s distinct perspective.

Whether you are an artist trying to carve out your own creative path, or just a casual admirer of beauty in its many effulgent forms, you will not want to miss this intimate and insightful discussion!

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Religulous: The Baby and the Bathwater

Is Bill Maher too smart for God?  Or not smart enough?  Listen and find out!

Duration: 1 hr 17 min

Bill Maher, host of the HBO talk show Real Time With Bill Maher, often asks his guests: “How can someone as smart as yourself actually believe in this religious stuff?”  It’s fair question, one that a great many people ask themselves every day, and forms the premise of Maher’s recent comedy/documentary Religulous.

To many, religion seems quaint, anachronistic, even childish in today’s modern and post-modern world.  To others, it is downright dangerous—particularly when religious fundamentalism begins to infect our modern-day political, academic, and scientific systems.  Or worse, when it gains access to advanced technologies and devastating weaponry.

But there is something crucial missing from Bill Maher’s criticism of religion, which would prompt us to ask him, “How can someone as smart as yourself not realize that there is so much more to religion than just fairy tales?  If we take a truly intelligent look at religion, wouldn’t we find something we can salvage from these great and enduring traditions?”

Here’s the irony: by virtue of their critiques against religious fundamentalism, Maher and other rational atheists are demonstrating capacities that can actually be more spiritual than the people and beliefs they are criticizing, in the sense that their rational world-views are more developed than the mythic world-views held by the fundamentalists.  And it is true that we need to keep a cautious eye on these mythic, absolutistic, “us vs. them” expressions of religion, which have indeed been (and continue to be) some of the greatest sources of pain and suffering in history—and to this end, Religulous and other contemporary atheists are playing an important role in the overall cultural conversation.

But when we face religious fundamentalism with scientific fundamentalism and dismiss religion altogether, we are also dismissing history’s greatest source of liberation, compassion, and transcendence—the powerfully transformative practices and interpretations of spiritual reality that form the esoteric core of all the world’s religious traditions, east and west.

Listen as Ken and David discuss what Bill Maher (and the rest of the “New Atheist” crowd) are missing in this otherwise provocative and entertaining film.

Listen now.

The State of the Integral Enterprise. Part 2: Potential Traps

Written by Corey W. deVos

At the 2009 Integral Theory conference, Roger Walsh led a presentation titled The State of the Integral Enterprise, offering a critical appraisal of the “Integral movement:” where it is, where it’s going, and what kinds of obstacles stand in the way.  For those who have been following the emergence of Integral perspectives and worldviews for any time at all, Roger’s presentation served as an important reminder that we need to live every day of our lives with the fullest authenticity, passion, and purpose.

In the first installation of Roger and Ken’s discussion, Current Status, Roger gave a realistic summary of the condition of the Integral movement today.  In short, his observation is this: it is still coalescing, still trying to find enough traction to grow from a “cognitive minority” to a viable force in the academic and cultural mainstream.  Though we can already see signs of this occurring around us, it is a slow and organic process and cannot be hurried by any artificial means.

That said, there are certainly things you can do to help: learn the integral tools – like Integral Life Practice – that can help you live an extraordinary and whole life and that will help you take broader and more encompassing perspectives in every domain you touch.  Obviously this can be a sometimes painful path beset with its own breed of lions and tigers and bears (oh my!).  In this installation, titled Potential Traps, Roger outlines some of the afflictions common to Integral living—including complacency and stagnation in our growth, shadow games and ego posturing, developmental allergies and aversions, and the dangers of when our knowledge and conceptual understanding begins to outpace our wisdom, experience, and insight.

(On a personal note, I have been working with Ken Wilber, Integral Institute, and Integral Life for over six years, and have been a vigorous student of Integral theory and practice for more than twice as long.  As I was editing this dialogue and listening to Roger’s laundry list of possible pathologies, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I had fallen into almost every single trap at one point or another—many of which I continue to fall into today.  As such, Roger’s presentation offered a much-needed shot across the bow for my own growth, practice, and personal embodiment of the Integral vision—awakening me to many of my own missteps and misgivings, while provoking me to deepen my own practice and recommit myself to my work, my relationships, and my art.)

One of the extraordinary qualities of integral consciousness is the ability to simultaneously challenge yourself to be something greater than who you are, while loving yourself exactly as you are.  If we can muster the strength and compassion to be both completely honest with ourselves and kind to ourselves, not only can each of these traps eventually be overcome but they can be seen for what they actually are: stepping stones that can take us from our potential to our purpose, from our brokenness to our wholeness, from our fragile humanity to our unbreakable divinity.

The second part of his article, Key Ideas for a World at Risk, will be available next month.  Here Roger shifts his attention from helping us look at ourselves as a community to helping us engage with the world as people leading integral lives. He offers an interesting set of ideas (e.g., perspectival range) and practices (e.g., transforming motivation) to support each of us in responding to global crises. Stay tuned!

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Practice for Two Realities

Here Ken discusses two very different approaches to spiritual practice, both of which need to be recognized and honored in order to bring ourselves into the fullest possible relationship with ourselves, each other, and the world around us.

In the majority of the world’s mystical literature dealing with concepts of the divine, we almost always find two descriptions of God—or rather, one description and one non-description; or one set of qualities and one set of non-qualities. Buddhists describe the “Two Truths Doctrine,” differentiating between relative and ultimate truths—what many identify as the distinction between form and emptiness. Hinduism, meanwhile, labels these two approaches as Saguna Brahman (“The Absolute with qualities”) and Nirguna Brahman (“the Absolute without qualities”). In Judaic and Christian traditions this can be seen in distinctions between God and Godhead—the former referring to the living God we can see, feel, and characterize, and the latter referring to the ineffable, unknowable aspect of God that exists beyond all possible thoughts and concepts. Finally, the well-known Taoist verse probably offers the simplest way of approaching these two different realities, from the very first words in the Tao te Ching: “The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.”

As we continue to deepen our spiritual practices, we are able to notice both the Absolute perfection at the center of this and every moment, as well as the twisted, flawed, deeply imperfect manifestation of the entire relative world. Only by practicing “on both sides of the street” can we fully understand the difference between the relative and the Absolute, slowly dislodging us from our attachments to this or that in the manifest world. After all, sometimes Absolute perfection can only be seen through a dirty bathroom mirror, through the grease and grime of human perception and ambition.

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Health and Healing. Part 2: The Nightingale Initiative for Global Health

“It’s a very exciting time in nursing,” says Barbara Dossey at the beginning of Part 1 of this dialogue. She’s right, of course—many people are unaware of the internal pressures that have been building within the healthcare system for years, often originating from a wide network of nurses who are passionately devoted to dramatically raising our standards of care. It is an often-cited (and often-overlooked) fact that nurses are responsible for nearly 80% of the healing in the healthcare system, and that some of our most radical developments in treatment have been pioneered by the full-hearted efforts of nurses and healers around the world….

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Esoteric Christianity. Part 1: Two Kinds of Religion

It has often been said that there is a central paradox in the role of religion throughout history: on the one hand, religion has been the single greatest cause of war and suffering. On the other, religion has been the single greatest source of redemption, salvation, and liberation for humanity. How can we possibly make sense of this double-edged dagger? How can we reconcile the very best qualities of religion with the very worst?

Father Thomas Keating, Rollie Stanich, and Ken Wilber offer their own insight as they discuss the “inside” and the “outside” of the Christian tradition, exploring the rich contemplative legacy that exists at the core of the world’s largest religion….

Film Review: For the Bible Tells Me So

A provocative documentary, For the Bible Tells Me So attempts to reconcile homosexuality and biblical scripture while exploring whether Church-sanctioned anti-gay bias might be based entirely upon a misinterpretation of the Bible’s original text. Dan’s stated intention with this film is to offer healing, clarity and understanding to anyone caught in the cross-hairs of Christian scripture and their sexual identity. Join us as we explore this film’s perspective on gay rights, same sex relationships and the role of the Christian church in today’s world….

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