A Practice That's Integral To *Your* Life

I completely agree (except maybe for the part about hopping from lilly pad to lilliy pad – that sounds like fun!). If your practice become an end in itself, that’s no good either. A practice should be here to support and develop consciousness, not to tie it down and claim it.

On the other hand, there are some practices that do take years to develop, and if you leave it, whatever it is, too early, you may never really “get” the value. Practice makes perfect?

The intellectual line. That's a good point. It has an intellectual aspect to it, including whatever skill I have developed or can develop in this realm, but it wouldn't necessarily work for anyone else like that. I'll have to think about that. Thanks for the input. And thanks S.I.A. as well for being so eloquent about your experiences.

Well, Bill, as I said I would, I've been thinking about your comment (both because you have valuable things to say generally, and because you have made an interesting point).

And now that I've thought about it, what I would say is that your response comes directly *from* the integral paradigm as most precisely defined by Wilber, but as also adopted by his friends and colleagues Leonard, Murphy, and Walsh. That is, if one takes “integral” to mean something ln the order of “comprehensively synergistic,” then, of course rebounding is not that, as it does, obviously, not automatically lead one into a communal practice, as you point out. (I'm not so sure about the intellectual line, though.)

However, if you take “integral” to mean something more like Dictionary.com's “essential or necessary for completeness , then I think that, in the long run, rebounding could easily prove more “integral” to the many who ignore or are terribly ignorant with respect to having a physical practice that sustains, heals, and vivifies the body. In other words, the whole point of my essay was that the word “integral” can be taken in more than one way, and that the way Wilber, Walsh, Murphy, and Leonard have described an “integral practice” may not work for a whole lot of people.

To bring it back a level, there is more than one Platonic dialogue where Socrates is conversing with folks and trying to get them to understand that you have only defined something when you have defined what is unmistakeably core and unique about whatever it is. (This usually took place with respect to terms like “virtue” and “goodness.”) Now, the term integral, when used in the Wilber et al. sense as “comprehensively synergistic,” seems to me to have the inherent fault of relying on adding several things together, thereby taking away the possibility of having a single, unique, identifying characteristic. But more roughly, if an “integral practice” is one that combines a lot of different things from different areas of ones life, well, that's all well and good, but it can easily be confusing, overwhelming, and impossible to continue with.

Instead, if one finds a practice that is integral in the sense I'm using – necessary for completeness or wholeness – then that becomes the core practice, the kernel around which, other comprehensively synergistic components can be added to. So, for example, the peson who finds and loves aikido, and develops it as a lifelong practice, can then add or subtract other practices as their developmental needs call for. But underneath whatever they add on top of their aikido, they have their core, their integral, practice. With that practice, they are complete; without it, they are essentially incomplete.

 
I just don't think that a Wilber et al. defined integral practice is necessarily necessary for anyone's completeness. It might be fun. It might be useful. And it might develop someone in a line they might otherwise be missing … but there will always be more development, always be more fun and useful additional “side” practices that one can add in. But I'm just not convinced that being “integral” (comprehensively synergistic) for the sake of being “integra” (comprehensively synergistic) is going to work outside of the charisma circle cast by Wilber, his Institute, and the groups that Murphy and Leonard have founded. We'll just have to see. 

Bill,

Let me thank you for the directness and clarity of your remarks. I find them both stimulating and challenging (including the challenge for me to not react egoically – which I’m probably doing anyway, but at least I’m somewhat aware of that). So, if the best we can do is to agree to disagree, then that's what we'll do, but I think there actually may be more room here for agreement than might appear at first glance.

Specifically, I think we can “unpack” what's being discussed here, and that there are three different main subjects:

* the value of a multi-component, comprehensively synergistic, practice
* how one achieves such a practice
* the use of the term “integral” with respect to all of this

First, a multi-component, comprehensively synergistic practice can obviously have a lot of value for someone. Just looking at the physical realm, I know that I am much better off personally for having added in Pilates to my mix, and when I manage to ride my bike daily, I'm even better off. Similarly, if we take the world as roughly being divided into the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual, someone who is able to effectively add in components from all of these realms will undoubtedly – by definition even – be more well-rounded, more whole, and better able to take care of themselves and others.

Second, however, I am less clear about how one achieves such a practice. Particularly, I'm not sure that undertaking a canned set of practices – pick one from line A, one from line B, one from line C, and one from line D – is going to work for most people, and I think that this is pretty much what is being offered to people under the rubrik of “integral life practice.” 

You yourself, Bill, indicated that you organically evolved your own practice over time, and that's the way that I think this will probably work best for most people. When someone is ready, they will add in the heart-felt social component. When someone is ready, they will actually sit down and meditate daily. When someone is ready, they will realize that this is the only body they get, and that if they don’t regularly use it, they will lose it or a good deal of its functioning. I may be wrong about this, and it may be that ILP as it is being promoted will somehow “enlighten” or trigger off deep growth in tens of thousands or more people, but I think the jury is still way out on this.

Third, there is that term, “integral.” It makes me more than a bit nervous to allow anyone to take sovereign control over the use of such an important term, especially given some of the controversy that is just now beginning to swirl around the main proponent of this term and his ability and willingness to accept real criticism of his ideas without slipping into a derisive tone.

Moreover, as I have attempted (probably inadequately) to show above, I have real questions about the “redefinition” of the term integral from meaning “essential” to meaning “synergistically comprehensive.” I know this is where we most clearly are not in agreement, but I keep feeling that by defining “integral” as “synergistically comprehensive,” something essential is being left out, both figuratively and literally. Despite my own tendencies in this direction (give me a chance and I’ll write you an encyclopedia about whatever you like), I think we need to take seriously Nietzsche’s warning about being very suspicious of the “will to system.” Adding more and more to a system doesn’t necessary give one a “theory of everything,” but might instead just give one … everything, stated theoretically.

Instead – and I believe you share this with me, Bill – I’m interested in actual practices that people can do that will work for them. For someone to essentially transform themselves, they need an essentially transformative practice. It may be that the multi-component, comprehensively synergistic, type of practice that is being bundled and promoted to people is the most effective way of achieving that, but it may also turn out that such “integral” practices, as they really prove out in people’s lives, especially when they are away from the charisma field and the “group effect” of the seminar room, will ultimately amount to a confusing hodgepodge.

In sum, a multi-component, synergistic, practice is one that I myself have been working with for years, and as I get older (and hopefully more mature!), I am able to hold to, and work with, in a natural and organic way, more and more components. But this is something that I have come to over time, not something (I don't think) that I would have been able to just read a book and embark on all at once. If it is the ideal practice for the modern man or woman, it is one, it seems to me, that we have to grow into, over time, as we are ready for it. Whether or not such a practice can be bundled and sold, and work well for people, remains to be seen. And whether or not the word “integral” has been forever redefined to mean just what Ken says it means, well, it's probably not ultimately that important of an issue.

In faith,

Jordan