Thanks Ken  for clearing out some space in  my house.

John Vajra

Rumi - Guest House

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

I was impressed by the amount of feedback that Ken solicited to a first draft before he posted the words that triggered all the attention on the Internet. He shared the post by email with about 200 people. That makes a difference for me because I have experienced the value of checking with people who know you and whom you trust to give reliable and honest feedback. It helps screen out the projections of one person's anger because most times the projection won't ring true a useful feedback with the other men.

I also have witnessed many times the dis- ease of the green stuck in friendly exclusively positive vibe in discussion groups and work teams.

 Telling the truth as Fred Kofman teachs is not so common in american culture or buiness

it is a dis service to be nice to someone when  the a more direct "wakeup you idiot you are ruining your life " would actually create a more powerful positive impact.

The reaction to the language also reminds me of times when I received a lesson as a delayed reaction after an initial reaction of outrage over something a spiritual teacher might say or do.

I remember thetime I felt a burst of anger from one of my teachers when during a workshop we punched a hole in the wall of a rented retreat space during a "war Burn "emotional release experience. " the irony of too vigorous and unrestrained emotional release. The first time I did a " war burn" thye had to tell me to stop throwing people around the room. another time I stripped to my shorts and fought like an  Elk defending his territory during a war burn The primal feeling of expressing raw animal energy liberated me in a subtle way from some self impsoed limititions

He was really pissed that we would have to fix the wall and deal with the hassle of getting it fixed at a remote island retreat site.

 I myself saw the limits of my ability to express the full range of emotions without unnecessary self censorship during the Inner Journey and Warrior Spirit workshops as both a   participant and as a facilitator. The audience attracted to spiritual and Integral circles is more likely to be " too nice' and inhibited in expressing anger and shocked by Ken's choice of words.

Hence the Zen use if the stick to wake me up with his use of words like "pissing and sucking"

After all; even Jesus turned over the money changers tables

 Here is some of feedback that rang true for me...

 Gene wrote :

The second  tier is all about creating a bigger picture for its own sake, it's
all about fitting as many perspectives as possible into your line of
sight. it is almost by definition a view that describes the world from a
50,000 foot level. what other single perspective can include as many
truths as possible?

let's say someone describes a view from an airplane from 50,000 feet:
"look how flat that part of the state is and over here the mountains
look rocky and pointy."

someone who lives in the mountains (read "embedded") might say "that is
so untrue! if you lived here you wouldn't say that. you are an
uninformed skimmer. you have a shallow understanding of mountains and
you describe it only in one sentence. i happen to live in the mountains
and i know a lot about mountains. There are beautiful evergreen trees,
there are babbling streams and cool breezes and the vistas are
breathtaking. it's a garden of eden and you know nothing about it. you
call that `integral'? you gotta be kidding me. it's more like
ignorant egotism if you ask me."

the point is: from a 50,000 foot level, the mountains, in fact, DO look
rocky and pointy. it IS accurate from that level. saying that they are
rocky and pointy DOES NOT say that they can't also be breathtaking to
someone living there.

the most important point is: the person embedded ONLY in the mountains
doesn't know what they look like from 50,000 feet. so, while they are
convinced they have the truth (after all they LIVE THERE and wilber has
only flown over it), they do not know that from 50,000 feet "rocky and
pointy" is very accurate.

My thoughts on Wilber's tongue lashing of his integral critics...

My perspective on Ken's writing is not to ask why he wrote with that tone of voice. My question is who is served by the communication .

 In our men's group we use a group feedback system so when one man gives feedback or criticism the other feel into the present moment and the men and say Ho.. if they agree with the feedback or are silent if it does not ring true... perhaps Ken is intentionally using the Zen teachers stick to poke the critics and help them awaken to perspectives beyond their own point of view. Perhaps he is projecting some shadow or expressing anger in a way that closes down the loop of communication rather than opening it up. He does mention that Visser came across as combative and unyielding by other folks when he visited an Integral gathering. I would tend to trust the  wisdom of several aware people before I accepted any one person's  point of view as the best description of reality.

I also feel that any attempt to ascertain the motivations of another is doomed to be at best partially true and most likely full of hallucinations about why someone is upset etc.. egos play on both sides and the truth can be obscured by all the smoke from the gunfight...

My evaluation comes down to how well I feel served by a  particular book or model of reality. I don't care if is written  by Frank or Ken or Gary or George 

 A handheld GPS serves me by giving me information I can use to navigate while I am flying while others may prefer a paper map that does not  need batteries or take much time to learn. One is not right and the other wrong ..

Some criticism serves me and some is just anger or shadow energy projected my way... One thing I have learned from the Gafni sex abuse case and many other examples of guru student boundary violations is that enlightenment or second tier consciousness does not remove all kinks or shadows in the guru, pandit , teacher etc. I expect every human to have some broken zones that may be in a blind spot that he or she can not see clearly...

For another perspective,  I will share a few experiences of receiving criticism that felt bad in the moment but ultimately served my growth and self awareness.

I  know from my own life awakening that I  include the energies of Hitler as well as Ghandi . How skillfully I  use these energies to serve others is not always clear. When I more fully accepted my own dark energies I was able to serve other as a mock rapist/attacker in the WarriorSpirit Leap of Faith workshop. I would from a place of connection to Big Mind Big Heart  scare the crap out of people as I channeled the energy of rapists and murderers. I helped created openings and served the other in front of me to retake their own  power  to take action in the face of fear and experience breakthrus.. and also let them physically go off in a life or death self defense explosion of energy  and trusted the thick padding would protect my body..

Once  I stood up in a workshop with Satyen Raja ( a David Deida protege) in front of over 100 people and told him I felt like cutting his head off with a sword . He had given me the workshop name " "the Gay John Wayne ". I was not happy with that. Later after I cooled off I  got the lessons of the power of expressing my anger , not being afraid of what anyone thought and owning my own dark energy. Reminds me of pictures of Kali dancing with a head that drips blood in her hand..

Blunt criticism  can be used constructively as well as destructively.

I have also worked with  David Deida who seemed like a Samurai warrior in an instant as he cutting thru to the heart of the matter with direct confronting and seeming harsh feedback. 

A woman asked for a workshop name and David said that  he did not give workshop names to large weekend workshops groups but only in weeklong intensives with smaller groups.

She persisted and David asked her if the man sitting next  to her was her significant other. She said yes and he gave her the name " Foolish ".  

You could  feel the wave of surprise in the audience as the comment zinged out to startle the woman. And it also was a real life learning experience for me.

 I feel that if you don't upset at least a few people you are not pushing at the edge and taking chances to serve the greater good by pissing off a few people. Ken's tone felt a bit self defensive and frustrated and I was niot clear who and how it served. I did not feel opened to any particularly useful awareness or truth but I was entertained by Ken's blog post.              

My photographic  interpretation of Ken's blog post can be viewed as photo illustrating this post

you can guess which one represents Ken   :.)

I was touched by the online video of Sarah McLachlan at  http://worldonfire.ca/ as I have witnessed first hand the poverty in Africa. My heart aches for the children who die only because of where they are born.

I was inspired to make a contribution at one.org as a small recognition of doing something about the problem.

I an inspired to go to Ghana where I spent time before and do some face to face service with children like the ones in this video. Since my awakenings in the past few years I seem to feel more deeply the pain of others and how in being all connected on the level of Spirit my daily actions do have consequences for others seen and unseen.

Perhaps that is why I was triggered by the Gafni conversation and felt deep compassion for the women abused by a spiritual teacher who violated their deep trust. I was never a victim of sex abuse but my wife and many other women and men I know have been.

The deepest pain I have felt in the last few years was the body sense of being betrayed by a spiritual teacher that I had felt as a mother/father figure of unconditional love. We all have shadow areas and blindspots and it still hurts to experience the pain.
 
I try to be conscious of balancing my open heart with my intuition  which detects grasping dark energy and choose to stay away from people who center of gravity feels off or energy sucking to me.
 
I feel some remorse because I read about Gafni's New York sex abuse complaints and did not raise any concern in the Integral community about my intuitive misgivings at having a teacher accused of sex abuse among those gathered under the umbrella of Integral Spirituality.

We have evolved beyond sex as a tool for species and tribe procreation( made sense in earlier centuries of early Bhuddist teachers ) to the potential of  sex to help  increase awareness and deeper communion.

David Deida spoke at a recent Integral gathering with Ken Wilber and discussed the artistry of sex beyond the limited " normal " constrained behaviors of coupling (sex beyond   using body friction to get each other off) .

 I recommend his DVD Function Flow and Glow  The Art of Sexual Yoga  available at http://www.deida.info/  as a modern integral perspective on sex.

It describes sex as an expression of deep consciousness, love , and a way to  weave an artistic tapestry of  a deep union of surrender and ravishment in the moment. From Deida's perspective  telling modern couples to refrain from oral or anal sex would be like telling Picasso or Chagall they could only paint in black and white.

How can we use sex in our daily lives  as a practice that cultivates the  awareness of being penetrated by a union with God Spirit. How can we use sex to share joy and gratitude and energy and support many other dimensions of our lives in this world.

How do we use conscious sexual behavior to evolve beyond 1^st tier separate selves in our daily lives into a second tier sexual awareness

In he comments youa re invitred to share  any teachers or resources or practices that you find useful in practicing within the sexual line of development.

 Adi Da and Rajneesh OSHO were spiritual  teachers who experimented with sex as a way to transcend boundaries with mixed results...

Perhaps we could look at our own belief structures and awareness around sexuality to go beyond our  consideration of  the Dalai Lama's  position on homosexuality.

How does my view on sexuality impact my participation in the evolving conversation ?

 For me it took having close friendships with  gay men and women in college to help me transcend the anti gay programming of my cultural upbringing. Later I took a part time job as a bouncer in a gay bar with another friend at Yale. It pushed other buttons for me to become comfortable around men kissing each other. I clearly communicated that I was straight and no one hassled me as a straight  man playing doorman bouncer within the micro culture of a gay bar. I also felt how oppressed the gay culture was in mainstream America. Later I lived with gay men and women in shared households and enjoyed the experience of transcending and including some of my inherited perspectives on sex.

Experiencing other cultures like Africa where straight men danced with each and held hands also influenced my personal filters and residual homophobia.  At a deeper level I feel my sexual preferences are woven into what feels good to my body mind emotional configuration. I know that in my body that a woman feels delicious to me in a way that a man does not. For others it surely is different .  Many tastes for different tastebuds.

In others I can accept a diversity of ways to give and receive, to surrender and ravish. My primarily masculine point of view gets glimpses of experiencing the world as a feminine receptive being.

Now I feel the yin and yang of hetereo and homo sexing to be more alike than different. I feel feminine or masculine energy as more informative and useful as a guide to my being with others as opposed to categories of hetero or homo.  There are leads and follows masculine and feminine Shiva and Shakti in all areas of my life and my responsibility to my Self , my wife  and my planet is expressing my love sex energy in way that opens a deeper  relaxing into authentic self expression and trust way beyond any concern for using my thinking to make moral judgements about anothers elses sexual preferences. My mind is plenty busy manufacturing other opinions about Bush and my neighbor and my wife ( to my amusement  and distraction).

And I appreciate the balance and different flavors of masculine and feminine energy contributed by the various people on the Seattle Integral list. I definitely feel a tilt towards masculine expression in ILP and many aspects of our Integral community.

I prefer the conversation that include our personal experiences  as learning opportunities. For me that value of Integral is how I learn, experiment, play , dance, fly and practice Integral consciousness in my day to day life.

Consider how the Dalai Lama might greet in the moment a homosexual or bi sexual person without any direct knowledge his or her past behavior or sexual preferences  in an everyday meeting of a stranger ?  I can imagine the Dali Lama blessing and sharing compassion for  with a homosexual being in ways similar to what we have heard about Mother Theresa and her caring the sick outcasts in the street.  

I am reminded of  the experience of  being deeply  touched by several segments in a recent PBS Frontline program called" The Age Of Aids" .

Info is here:   http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/

It showed a Bhuddist monk in Thailand caring for sick aids patients seemingly caring not about sexual preferences of those he cared for. It described that it has taken years for attitudes about Aids to shift in Bhuddist Thailand.  He forged ahead with his global care behavior in advance of the cultural attitudes about the problem of Aids and sex workers and beliefs about sexually transmitted disease. He is an example of courage that I Intend to bring to my work in the world.

Another segment showed the shocking  result of a clash of values and personalities in 1990 at one of the most prominent global organization working on AIDS at the time .

 Under stress personal concern overrode global care .

here is a snippet from the PBS.org  website:

"Dr. Jonathan Mann resigns as head of WHO's Global Program on AIDS after clashing with new WHO Director-General Hiroshi Nakajima, who reportedly resents Mann's high profile and limits his budget and travel. In the years after Mann's resignation, the GPA's staff drops to four people from a high of more than 250, essentially leaving a vacuum on the international stage until UNAIDS (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) is formed in 1996."

The program also  described how the speechwriters for Ronald Regan struggle d in 1987 to bring disparate points of view into a congruent message for the public:

Here is another snippet:

In April, the president gives his first major speech on AIDS at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. He defends his administration's spending and endorses educating students. "Let's be honest with ourselves: AIDS information cannot be what some call 'value-neutral.' After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons?"

At the request of actress and American Foundation for AIDS Research National Chairman Elizabeth Taylor, Reagan agrees to speak again at an amfAR fundraiser at the end of May. Reagan aide Landon Parvin writes the speech, and amfAR Director Merv Silverman advises. Parvin tells FRONTLINE that the speech was subject to an intense back-and-forth political debate within the White House. "It really didn't make much sense to have White House staff second-guessing a medical doctor, but that happened," he says.

How does this compare to Karl Rove's juggling of personal, political and global interests ?

To me it points to our need to find ways to communicate across value boundaries and islands of "being Right and the Only Solution" fighting the alternative to creating space for new spaces and forms of dialogue created beyond established points of view.

How can I set my point of view aside to meditate on possible solutions to situations in my life and our shared planet that are not sourced from projecting my point of view/solution as A Priori Superior to all other possible options.

I think we see the results of American Hubris with our " Superior point of View of Democracy over dictatorship " reflected in the messy complex tragedy unfolding in Iraq.

Consider how our global consciousness evolves as we recognize AIDS is not just a problem for homosexuals but as family issues for millions of orphans and mothers and fathers in Africa and beyond..

 I pray for a Global Care virus value meme that can infect and affect millions of people with  compassion for all beings that also includes  the amazing adaptive abilities of the AIDS virus.

 What is the equivalent of the immune system that limits the spread of second tier consciousness in the world ?

It seems we could use a lot more vertical and horizontal evolution  to solve the pressing issues of war, aids, and global warming.

And yet Bush want to focus time and energy on passing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage ?

Why are some  neo conservatives and others in politics so concerned  about Gay marriage in a time of so many other pressing issues ?

Sowing a love virus into a field of divisive thinking...