Are Studies of Meditation Junk Science?

Wonkette blogged a recent New York Times story about the controversy surrounding plans for the Dalai Lama to speak at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience on the topic of generating compassion through meditation.

Apparently, 544 brain researchers have signed a petition urging the society to cancel the lecture, because, according to the petition, "it will highlight a subject with largely unsubstantiated claims and compromised scientific rigor and objectivity."

Later in the article: "As the public face of neuroscience, we have a responsibility to at least see that research is replicated before it is promoted and highlighted," said Dr. Nancy Hayes, a neurobiologist at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey who objects to the Dalai Lama's speaking. "If we don't do that, we may as well be the Flat Earth Society."

The article goes on to suggest that some recent studies support the topic on which the Dalai Lama plans to speak, while also noting that other scientists believe the research is flawed and should not be considered valid. I've read some of these studies, and while they do have flaws, they also present compelling evidence that research in this area should be encouraged rather than dismissed as "woo woo."

Wonkette, being a good liberal blog, sided with science on this issue. The entry's author, Michael Weiss, implicitly suggests that the studies in question are no more valid than "intelligent design" and should be accorded just as little respect. Kudos to the post, however, or I might have missed the Times story entirely.

The Real Issue

The truth of the situation, once all the trivialities are dropped is that science fears further encroachment into its domain by religion. With the intelligent design trial still underway in Pennsylvania, science feels assaulted by religion. Being scientists, and therefore unable to acknowledge anything other than physical reality, they have a turf to protect. In many cases, they are right to do so.

However, there is a difference here. ID, and its shadow, creationism, do not hold themselves up to scientific testing. They demand faith without evidence. There can be no "truth test" to disprove their beliefs.

Those who would promote Buddhist meditation are more than willing to conduct studies, test hypotheses, and then refine the studies to get more accurate results, good or bad. Whether or not meditation practice can increase compassion over time can be tested. Perhaps the tests that have been conducted so far were not solidly deigned, but that doesn't mean they cannot be refined.

Science must learn to use its own logic to form partnerships with those who would test the veracity of claims by spiritual practitioners. Otherwise it will be at war with all religions.

We are evolving as a species. With that evolution will come the reintegration of spirit and matter (the current separation is really only perceptual, not actual). Science can be on the leading of the research in this area, or it can put its head in the sand and refuse to move forward.

Which Version of Spiral Dynamics Is Correct?

If you've ever done any research into Spiral Dynamics on the web, you likely have noticed that the original authors of the book have competing websites and don't seem to like each other very much. Chris Cowan believes he has stayed true to Clare Graves's original work and therefore is the rightful heir to the Spiral Dynamics lineage. Don Beck has become more well known than Cowan, having joined forces with Ken Wilber and others to become one of the founding members of the Integral Institute. Beck has adopted Wilber's AQAL (all quadrants, all levels) integral model and has rechristened the original SD approach as SDi (Spiral Dynamics Integral). Beck also has aligned himself with Andrew Cohen, founder of What Is Enlightenment? magazine, which has greatly increased his exposure.

So which version is correct?

If you do much reading on Cowan's site, you'll find he is very contemptuous of Beck and Wilber. Cowan feels they have misrepresented the work and vulgarized it to fit into Wilber's integral framework. He believes that SD was already an integral approach and did not need to fit into anyone else's model.

Despite suggestions otherwise, nobody denies that Dr. Graves' emergent-cyclical biopsychosocial systems theory is integrative since that suggests inclusive and connective. However, the so-called integral wing of SD represents the fusion of Ken Wilber's four quadrant model - internal/external, individual/social - with the emergent levels of SD, plus a lot of big talk about geopolitics, as something quite new. We find little to support many of the grand claims. While the metamorphic Mr. Wilber periodically expands, elaborates, and rewrites his opinions, the quadrants seem to be a central tenet of his perspective. In our view, most of this is implicit in the 'emergent, cyclical, double-helix model of adult biopsychosocial systems development;' Wilber and his acolytes offer a simplification and compilation of some aspects and elaboration of others, but leave out some of the real meat of the Gravesian theory.

For his part, Beck tends to act as though Cowan does not exist. There is nothing on his site that explains the schism between Cowan and himself, nor is there any reference to Cowan's work being misguided or wrong. There used to be a link to Cowan's site, but I notice that it has been removed in the last year or so.

From my point of view, Cowan has a point. The original Gravesian work is more complex than what Wilber and Beck are generally presenting. My guess is that Beck reserves the more complex aspects of the work for the higher-order certifications. Wilber's use of SD and Graves in his books can only be thought of as a summary and not a detailed explanation of the model. While the SD original book is faithful to Graves's research, the writing isn't crisp and the message sometimes is lost within the textual manipulations.

For those who want to learn more about SD in either of its forms, I would encourage an exploration of both versions (Beck's page is limited in its presentation, so I would recommend the What Is Enlightenment? site, which has a fairly in-depth presentation).

The most profound difference that I can see between the two versions is that Beck has dropped most references to the transitional states between the values systems, or memes. For each of the memes, there are two transitional states before the next meme is fully emergent. For example, one does not simply move from Blue to Orange (about the colors), but instead from BLUE to BLUE-orange, then to blue-ORANGE, and finally to ORANGE. So rather than a simple series of eight value memes, the Graves/Cowan version discusses 24 possible states, depending on the biopsychosocial status of the individual or culture in question.

This is where integral theory becomes a valuable addition to the mix. Wilber has identified around 24 different developmental lines, each of which may be represented by a different mix of value memes depending on its development. This is assumed by Graves/Cowan, but is not explicit and therefore can't be worked with in any direct way. Wilber also introduces a spiritual component to the SD model, which Cowan admits was not of much interest to Graves.

One mistake many of us make (which infuriates Cowan) is that we shorthand the colors as descriptors of individuals. This habit is largely confined to readers of Wilber's work, so Cowan justifiably blames Wilber for this misuse of SD. No individual can be classified as purely one color -- different developmental lines may represent an assortment of value memes and transitional states. At best, and Wilber does make this distinction, a person can be describes as having a "center of gravity" in one meme or another.

Returning to the idea of transitional states in SD, Cowan is critical of the integral model for not acknowledging these important elements of the SD model. However, Wilber's integral theory does acknowledge transitional states between developmental levels, so I think it is assumed (since value memes have some affinity with developmental levels, though they are not identical) that these transitional states exist between value memes as well. Wilber's model (which is based on the work of many other theorists) uses the terminology of moving from fusion (embeddedness in one level) to differentiation (disidentifying with the previous level) to integration (fusion into the next level, while still retaining the capabilities of the previous level -- "transcend and include"). These steps aren't as precise as Graves' intermediary stages, but they approach the idea in a useful way for the general public.

And that may be the final difference. Beck and Wilber are trying to reach a wider audience, one not likely to have the education and discernment to fully grasp the Gravesian model of SD. Cowan offers a more advanced and intricate version of SD than does Beck, one more suited to academics and intellectuals. Each has a niche to fill.

I have read that Beck and Wilber have both approached Cowan about partnerships, but that Cowan has refused. Too bad. Each version of the SD framework has its merits. There are many people, myself included, who would like to be educated in both versions without spending our life savings to attend expensive and competing trainings.

More on Integral Politics

After a bit of reading, I'm wondering if perhaps we need to redefine our politicians, and thereby revitalize our politics, rather than create a new political model.

Most of the integral politics articles promote ideas similar to Clinton and Blair's Third Way or Bush's Compassionate Conservatism (great marketing tool that was never intended to be implemented). These approaches attempt to find a middle ground between liberalism and conservatism, a position that incorporates the best of both sides.

Using Spiral Dynamics as the framework, these approaches attempt to bridge the gap between the Blue meme (Christian fundamentalism), the Orange meme (free-market capitalism), and the Green meme (postmodern liberalism). Of course, the reality is much more complex than these simple phrases, but it gives a hint of the complexity of the problem.

The existing approaches are an outside-in process, creating a model and asking politicians to adopt it. However, I think the real solution may be an inside-out process. My take is that we need to create politicians who are capable of disidentifying from their own particular value meme and who are capable of seeing through the lens of value memes other than their own. The prerequisite for this skill has generally been thought to be second-tier thinking (yellow meme or higher on the Spiral).

I suspect, though, that there are simple techniques that can dislodge people from their particular value meme even if they haven't reached second tier. Psychosynthesis offers tools to achieve this goal (disidentification exercises), and Genpo Roshi's Big Mind (subscription required) can help free individuals from their ego identification, which facilitates multiple-perspective capabilities.

Rather than building an integral politics, we may need to create integral politicians and let the politics grow out of their work. More to come on this topic.

ADDENDUM:
After further reflection, I think we need both an outside-in and an inside-out approach to this problem. The outside-in aspect should be a loose framework, though, and not a rigid "party platform" as we traditionally think of it.

A truly integral politician must be able to define a just government in terms of collective values (interior-collective), social structures (exterior-collective), individual needs (exterior-individual), and unique visions (interior-individual).

S/he must be able to speak authentically about this vision of a just government to all three of the major value memes in our nation (Blue, Orange, and Green) in such way that each feels heard and validated.

This is the prospect of a truly integral politics.

Politics and Non-Attachment, an Integral View

Buddhism advocates non-attachment as the path to liberation from the cycle of endless rebirths. Many of us work at this goal in our daily lives through mindfulness practice and other methods to reduce the clinging of the ego. When we work on personal issues, such as anger, resentment, greed, and so on, these practices are useful, and it's easy to see the advantage of giving up our attachments.

But what about politics? I maintain a political blog, Raven's View, through which I am very involved in specific political issues, such as removing Bush and his henchmen from office, and protecting our civil rights from the Bush administration's efforts to curtail them. I am also anti-war, in favor of equal rights for gays and lesbians, opposed to wingnut Christian efforts to impose their religion on the rest of us, and I have strong views on a variety of other subjects.

Do I have to give up my attachment to these issues to attain a greater degree of personal freedom? Will my political involvement limit my growth as a Buddhist?

Maybe. But I am willing to take that risk. As a follower of the Shambhala path, I have taken a bodhisattva vow to dedicate my life to the liberation of all sentient beings. To me, there is more to that vow than merely working on my own life to attain Buddha nature, no matter how much doing so might indirectly aid other beings. I firmly believe that part of that vow entails working to make the world a better place for all people, and that by doing so, it becomes easier and more likely that other people can attain liberation.

Oppressive governments, wars around the world, political greed, hatred among peoples of differing faiths -- all of these things limit the chances for anyone to become liberated. Fighting against these injustices is a way to create more positive karma in the world. It may slow my own progress toward liberation, but it seems that working toward becoming a bodhisattva should include the exterior world as well as the interior, the collective world as well as the individual, in a truly integral approach to Buddhism.

What we need is a fully integral Buddhist practice.

A Response to Sam Harris

Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, has posted an excerpt from An Atheist Manifesto (to be published at truthdig in December) on the Huffington Post.

I own Harris' book and agree with much he has to say about the downside of organized religion. However, atheism is a reductionistic worldview that denies the existence of Spirit.

From the article:
Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle. The obvious must be observed and re-observed and argued for. This is a thankless job. It carries with it an aura of petulance and insensitivity. It is, moreover, a job that the atheist does not want.

Please read the whole article, much of which seems to make sense from a flatland point-of-view. My response attempts to look through an integral lens at the bigger picture of Harris' argument.

Mr. Harris,

Your critique of traditional religion is necessary and accurate. However, your assertion of the moral superiority of atheism is reductionistic and misinformed.

Human beings (and their cultures) develop along a hierarchy, with each new level of development being more complex and more expansive than its predecessor. Consequently, religious expression also develops along a hierarchy. What you rail against is a 2000-year-old worldview that revolves around divine order and conformist rule. You approach that worldview from the next step up on the hierarchy, scientific rationalism -- and of course their view looks silly to you.

What you fail to understand is that all steps along the hierarchy of development are necessary. The monotheistic religions you despise are crucial to controlling the ego drive for power of the previous stage in human development. Remove the religion (from the inner city, for example) and the ego has no framework in which to become socialized (thus, gang culture). Human beings cannot skip a stage in their development, either as individuals or as cultures (witness the rise of Catholicism in Africa, which will eventually tame the tribal warfare ethic that now exists).

While your critique of the downside of religion is valid, your short-sightedness is dangerous. There may not be a God in your worldview, but the Kosmos (used in the Greek sense of the word) is not a random place without meaning.

New Agers Just Don't Get Physics No Matter How Hard They Try

I want to like Deepak Chopra, I really do. He tries hard, and his heart is in the right place. I had even hoped that his exposure to integral theory, through his association with the Integral Institute, would add depth to his work. Maybe it has, but his new book, The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, makes all the classic mistakes that New Age leaders have always made when trying to use physics to demonstrate spiritual principles.

From the book:

Because observation is the key to defining the wave-particle as a single entity, Niels Bohr and other physicists believed that consciousness alone was responsible for the collapse of the wave-particle. It might be said, then, that without consciousness, everything would exist only as undefined, potential packets of energy, or pure potential.

This is one of the key points of this book. Let me repeat it because it is so important: Without consciousness acting as an observer and interpreter, everything would exist only as pure potential. That pure potential is the virtual domain, the third level of existence. It is nonlocal and can't be depleted; it is unending all-encompassing. Tapping into that potential is what allows us to make miracles.

Chopra is relying on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the Schrodinger's Cat experiment to support his theory that reality is a construct of human consciousness. To be fair, Buddhists (of which I am one) hold this view as well, although they don't quite mean it in the same empirical way. While Buddhists contend that reality is illusion (the mind creates a false reality based on attachment and fear), Chopra contends that we can shape reality through the act bringing our consciousness to bear on it.

This is an oft-cited interpretation of physics that the original physicists would likely have found quiet troubling. Let's make this more explicit. The wave-particle exists as both a wave and a particle until the moment it is measured (observed). Some people have assumed that only human consciousness is capable of the act of observing, which means that the material universe only ceases to be potential and becomes fact through the act of human beings making it so.

This brings up a very ridiculous problem: the universe existed for about 14.9 billion years (assuming it had a beginning point and isn't eternal, which isn't a given) before human beings were around to observe it. To quote Ken Wilber on this subject: "This view -- that mind generates matter by the effect of the 'participator-observer' -- is like saying the chicken (mind) sees the egg (matter) and thereby creates it" (Eye to Eye, 143). Yet everything we know about the history of consciousness says that it developed out of matter, which existed long before consciousness.

Many mystical traditions believe that matter is created out of mind (prana), "through an act of precipitation and crystallization, not perception and measurement" (Wilber, 144), which is quite different from saying that mind must observe matter to make it solid. What Wilber is talking about here is involution, the belief that higher-order consciousness filters down into lower levels (mind creates prana, or bioenergy, which then creates matter).

Evolution moves from matter to prana to mind to soul to spirit to nondual consciousness. Mystics from a variety of traditions posit involution, which moves in the opposite direction. The belief is that Spirit (nondual consciousness) becomes manifest through the process of involution, with each step toward matter creating an archetypal pattern that matter then can move through as it struggles to return to its source. Involution is a transrational intuiting of the nature of the universe; evolution is a rational understanding of the universe.

The mistake that Chopra and so many others make is trying to conflate transrational insight with rational understanding. It's a classic example of the pre/trans fallacy that so often permeates the New Age movement. Chopra has his heart in the right place, but he fails to fully comprehend the depth of the situation. Another way of looking at it is that he and the others have merged the upper right quadrant (exterior individual) of Wilber's integral map with the upper left quadrant (interior individual). This is what Wilber calls flatland -- reducing depth (vertical hierarchy) to span (horizontal expansion).

Until scientists and spiritual teachers quit making this mistake, we will be burdened with a world that denies Spirit or reduces it to something physical.

Integral Websites

Four websites to share with those of you interested in integral theory and practice.

1) Integral Review: A new online magazine (first issue can be downloaded as pdfs of each article). Most of the articles are fairly academic, though not impregnable. One of the best articles presents a new approach to personal emergence based on the concept of complexity intelligence (a fancy way of saying second-tier consciousness, for those of you familiar with Spiral Dynamics). The editors spell out their theoretical bias in the first full essay, as well as authoring most of the articles. They are looking for submissions for issue two, so if you have ideas you'd like to share, stop by their site and take a look at the submission guidelines.

2) Integral Politics: Nothing terribly new or innovative here, but it lays the foundation for an integral approach to politics. Most of the articles are by the usual suspects (Wilber, Beck, and Sara Ross of Integral Review). If you are interested in a new way to think about politics and a new model for who our politicians should be, take a look at the articles on this site.

3) Integral Transformative Practice: This site is based on Michael Murphy and George Leonard's book on ITP, The Life We Are Given. They are still in the process of building a fully functional site, but the framework is there, as well as a collection of books and media on ITP. Give it a look. ITP is likely the single best approach to personal emergence that has gone through extensive research. I might do a few things differently than they do, but their ITP program is sound.

4) Global Values Network: The GVN site isn't new, but it is still worth noting. They have an excellent review of the Katrina disaster from a Spiral Dynamics perspective. The site was co-founded by Don Beck, so SD is a big part of their project. Have a look around -- it's worth the time.

Support the Clinton Global Initiative

During his presidency, Bill Clinton read and recommended books on integral theory, including the work of Ken Wilber. He consulted with Don Beck's organization on implementing strategies based on Spiral Dynamics. It looks as though he has put into practice his interest in integral theory with the launching of the Clinton Global Initiative.

Here is the "mission statement" from their website.

The Clinton Global Initiative is a project of the William J. Clinton Foundation. The mission of the Foundation is to strengthen the capacity of people throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence. To advance this mission, the Foundation has developed programs and partnerships in the following areas:

Economic Empowerment
Health Security with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS
Racial, Ethnic and Religious Reconciliation
Education, Leadership Development and Citizen Service

The Foundation works principally through partnerships with like-minded individuals, organizations, corporations, and governments, often serving as an incubator for new policies and programs.

Along with these programs and initiatives, the William J. Clinton Foundation designed and developed the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. Encompassing the vision of President Clinton, the Center is located within a 30 acre city park along the southern bank of the Arkansas River. In addition to the Little Rock offices of the William J. Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Presidential Center includes the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum and the Clinton School of Public Service.

To read more about the current work of the Foundation and the Clinton Presidential Center, please visit www.clintonfoundation.org.

If you look at the four items listed above where the Initiative is focusing its energies and resources, they comprise the four quadrants of Wilber's model. Economic empowerment is an exterior-collective concern; health security is an exterior-individual concern; racial, ethnic, and religious reconciliation are interior-collective concerns; education, leadership, and citizen development are interior-individual concerns.

This isn't the first attempt at an integral movement at the global level, but it is the first one led by someone as high-profile and charismatic as Bill Clinton. He alone may be able to pull off such an ambitious effort.

Investment partners in the inaugural event (September 15-17, 2005 in New York City) include Starbucks, Google, HP, Nokia, Yahoo, Microsoft, Citigroup, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Attendees at the weekend meeting include:
His Majesty King Abdullah II
Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah
President Leonel Fernandez Reyna
President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom
President Paul Kagame
President Thabo Mbeki
President Olusegun Obasanjo
President Viktor A. Yushchenko
Prime Minister Tony Blair
Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan
Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia
Secretary General Kofi Annan
Vice Premier Shimon Peres
The Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP
The Hon Hillary Rodham Clinton
His Excellency Amre Moussa
Dr. Condoleezza Rice
Dr. Madeleine K. Albright
His Excellency Jose Maria Figueres
Al Gore
Her Excellency Mary Robinson
The Hon Paul Wolfowitz

Quite a diverse assortment of individuals. Here is the press release detailing five commitments agreed to during the conference:

Clinton Global Initiative Announces Five Commitments at the Governance Plenary Session
Date: September 16, 2005

* City Year commits to opening a full-time national service program in Louisiana to engage a diverse corps of 50 young civic leaders in the relief, recovery and rebuilding efforts in the Gulf Coast. Their mission is to bring help, hope and healing to those whose lives have been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Working in partnership with the Louisiana Service Commission and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, City Year corps members will serve as the primary point of contact for the National Service Disaster Relief and Preparedness Team which will be designed to mobilize a wide range of national service resources and thousands of volunteers to meet the current needs and long-term rebuilding efforts of the Louisiana communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina. In addition, City Year Louisiana corps members will serve in shelters and resource centers as guides for those displaced; work in partnership with local relief agencies to collect donations and supplies for those affected; develop educational and recreational activities for children; and work with corporate partners to support rebuilding efforts.

* The BBC/BBC World Service Trust in partnership with DFID, Internews, Reuters Foundation, Article 19, Media Institute of Southern Africa, PANOS, West African Media Foundation and the Rhodes University School of Journalism has created the African Media Development Initiative. The Initiative will work to increase free and independent media in Africa over a five-year period. Based on an extensive needs assessment research project, activities will encourage the implementation of legal frameworks which support a pluralistic press environment; providing training to journalists with sustained post-training assistance; support to commercial management; and policy awareness among key stakeholders to ensure that a free independent media is placed on policy agendas.

* The Open Society Institute will create a Revenue Watch Program to improve democratic accountability in natural resource-rich countries by equipping citizens with the information, training, networks, and funding they need to become more effective monitors of government revenues and expenditures. The Program has three components: the Revenue Watch Institute, which will focus on promoting revenue and budget transparency and accountability in developing and transition countries; the Budget Transparency Program, which OSI will fund and will focus explicitly on budget transparency and fiscal accountability in non-resource rich developing and transition countries; and the Central European University Transparency Curriculum, for which OSI will work with the Central European University to create.

* Starbucks Coffee Company will partner with Conservation International and American Wildlife Foundation on Coffee and a Farmer Equity Practices program. Starbucks plans to dramatically increase C.A.F.E. Practices purchases to include a majority of all green coffee purchases annually. C.A.F.E. Practices will continue to use independent third party organizations to verify farmers' practices and utilize Scientific Certification Systems, a third-party evaluation and certification firm, to train and audit these verifiers. Starbucks will continue to analyze transparency information received from C.A.F.E. Practices participants so that consumers will be able to make purchasing decisions based on farmers receiving an equitable share of the price paid. Starbucks will continue to work with coffee farmers, NGOs, and other industry leaders to further refine and improve upon C.A.F.E. Practices to benefit farmers, their communities and the environment.

* Walter Shorenstein will work with The Conference Board, Harvard University CSR Initiative and the International Business Leaders Forum to create CEO Dialogues. The partner organizations will work together to collect practical examples and to host a series of senior executive dialogues. The CEO Dialogues will encourage initiatives by multinational companies to: 1) build local economic opportunity in the emerging economies in which they invest through job creation, supporting micro-enterprise and youth enterprise development, increasing access to credit, building infrastructure, transferring technology, and spreading skills; and 2) build local human capital through the development of talent and partnerships to improve local capacity in the delivery of health and education.

The media have barely recognized the event. NBC News talked with Clinton on Friday morning and only spent less than a minute on his Foundation's new Initiative. Go to the website and read about their agenda. These people actually have the resources to make a difference on this planet.

On "Healing"

From a recent NBC/WSJ poll:

One Katrina-related story that has grabbed headlines is that many of the Gulf Coast residents who couldn't escape the storm were poor and minorities. According to the NBC/Journal poll, only 37 percent agree with the statement that the Bush administration would have acted with greater urgency had the affected areas been mostly white suburban communities. But there is a huge discrepancy by race here: Seventy percent of African Americans agree with the statement, while 67 percent of whites disagree.

Since the Katrina disaster, there has been a lot of talk about race as an issue in the response, mostly among Black victims and advocates, as the poll numbers show. In response to what appears to have been a racially biased response by the federal government, many people (of all ethnic groups) have been talking about healing the racial divide in America (even though poverty is the true issue). Nice thought, but it neglects the fact that race relations in America have never been healthy in the first place.

To heal something implies that it was once healthy, and it just needs to be returned to its original healthy state. We have never had a healthy relationship between whites and other racial groups in America. Therefore, there is nothing to heal.

Healthy race relations would be a completely new emergent in this country. It is not something that we can "heal" into existence; it is something we must grow into for the first time. What Katrina has done, if anything good can come from such horror, is expose the truth of the situation. More than forty years after the major Civil Rights legislation, we are still a racially divided nation. We can not change that with laws.

We must grow beyond the predominately narrow ethnocentric moral stance that prevails in this country and adopt a more expansive, compassionate worldcentric stance -- one that is blind to skin color and that celebrates the beauty of our diversity. We must grow into this view in our hearts and minds -- it's a change that must be made from the inside out.

Integral Politics?

A lot of us are getting sick and tired of politics as usual. The liberals are narcissistic, blame all difficulties on outside causes, are afraid of hierarchies, and seem convinced that everything is relative. The conservatives are narrow-minded, blame all difficulties on personal weakness, are afraid of science, and seem convinced that only their worldview is true. These two positions are dedicated to nothing more than destroying each other.

What would an integral approach to politics look like? Some have suggested that Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were the first national-level politicians to attempt an integral approach to politics. I would partially agree, though I think both ultimately failed. Is it possible to take the best of conservative values and the best of liberal values to create a truly integral political vision? Is it necessary for one to have evolved to integral worldview, or is a worldcentric perspective sufficient for one to be such a leader?

Ken Wilber, Don Beck, and others have written on this topic, and I will be reading extensively over the coming weeks. In the meantime, I would love to read any thoughts readers may have on this topic. Just click on the "comments" icon below.

America's Tragedy

I've had a rough summer dealing with the deaths of my sister and mother. For a man who has only recently been working to understand his emotions, this has been a crash course in grief.

That said, my losses are nothing compared to the losses from Katrina and the shameful aftermath. There are no words muscled enough to carry the bone-cracking weight of this tragedy.

There may have been events where more people died, but there has never been an event in our history where so many people have suffered so much and have had to carry so much grief. The images of dead bodies bursting in the heat, children raped and killed by armed gang members in the Superdome, mothers who have no idea where their children are or if they are alive, children who are so overwhelmed that they cannot speak their own names to rescuers, thousands of people left for days without food, water, or hope at the convention center -- all these images are our American Tragedy.

They are also our shame.

Leaders, both local and federal, had four days' notice that this storm was coming. Much more could have been done. Bush and his administration stayed on vacation for the first three days of this horror. Parking lots full of school buses that could have been used to help the poor get out of the city were left to be flooded in parking lots. Military personnel who prepared for this tragedy were left unused. A military that can mount a major offensive in far-away lands within forty-eight hours could not get into New Orleans for five days. FIVE DAYS! Is this not America?

I am angry that so little was done and that it was done so slowly. I am angry that our leaders were so ill-prepared for an event many have been predicting for several years -- including former Vice President Al Gore in his book, Earth in the Balance.

More than angry, however, I am moved by the generosity and compassion so many of the survivors showed each other in circumstances none of us can truly imagine. They dealt with the horror of being trapped in the Superdome amid piles of garbage and human refuse, human bodies and human waste, death staining the air with a stench that would make you vomit. And yet these people, most of the ten thousand trapped there, showed each other the greatest compassion imaginable.

How unfortunate that it takes a tragedy of this magnitude to bring out the true nature of human beings. We are people of love, not hate and not violence. We are people who have soft, tender hearts.

My heart has been made more open, more tender, more human in witnessing the compassionate actions of the survivors of the greatest American tragedy we have ever known.

From Dust to Dust

Ruth Sophie Harryman, February 19, 1930 - August 24, 2005.

Losing two family members in a single summer is sobering. To be the last member of my family still living and only be 38 years old feels strange. There is no one left to share the memories of my early life. There is no one left who has known me my whole life.

I haven't been close to my family for years. I always felt like an alien among them, that maybe I had been switched at birth. I sometimes think that someplace there may be another 38 year old man who feels the same way and would have been right at home in my family. But we are born into our families for a reason, even if we seldom discover what that reason may have been.

I had nothing in common with anyone in my family. For that reason, I grew up independent, thinking for myself from a very early age. (As a twelve year old, I argued with my father about the impending 1980 election, favoring Carter while my father favored Reagan.) Because I was an outsider in my family, I have often felt like an outsider in my culture, especially while growing up in a redneck portion of southern Oregon.

But that experience has made who I am today. As rough as it was, I would not trade it for anything else. I like who I have become, as conceited as that may sound.

Though I seldom liked my family, I am grateful for their influence on my life -- both good and bad. With the recent passing of my mother, I am the last one standing. From ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . . .

May all of them enjoy their next incarnations and experience far less suffering than they knew in their last lifetimes.

Getting to Know Ruth

Three years ago, my mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer. The doctors thought it was terminal. Somehow, she recovered from the surgery, the chemo, and the radiation and lived for two years in remission. But uterine cancer nearly always returns, and so it has. My mother is in a morphine-induced coma to ease her pain. She will likely never awaken.

When she was first diagnosed, I wrote the following entry in my journal – a confession of sorts, as well as a tribute to the woman who raised me. She lasted three years longer than anyone thought possible, long enough to lose her daughter and to see her son find his life partner.

May her death be painless and her next incarnation be filled with happiness.


5.25.02

Getting to Know Ruth

For thirty-five years, my life until this very moment, my mother has been a non-person to me. Obviously, I knew she was human, had a history before my birth, and possessed her own hopes and fears. But I never really saw or experienced her as a real person, a complete human being. She was my mother, a collection of feelings and memories that I had accumulated over these thirty-five years.

A few nights ago, however, I found out she has cancer, very serious cancer. She has been sick for almost a month, but now it is official: uterine cancer, maybe more that will be discovered in surgery. But the surgery will have to wait until they can control some blood clotting that might kill her during a surgical procedure.

She told me she is tired, that after seventy-two years -- very difficult, challenging, painful years -- she is ready to die.

For the first time in my life, my experience of her shifted. It wasn’t the first time that I would be in a caretaking role with her, so the shift has to be something else. After a lot of tears, a few hours of writing in my journal, and listening to Lou Reed’s Magic and Loss, I began to clearly see my mother for the first time -- to see her life, her struggles, her loves, all from a place outside my own needs and fears.

My mother has become a person, a person whom I love very much, a person whom I hardly know, a person who is dying.

*****

My mother was born in February, 1930, along with a fraternal twin brother. When she was conceived, the world seemed to offer unlimited potential. There were jobs, and it was easy to support a family of five, even for the children of German immigrants at a time when Germans were not trusted.

Then the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. Big cities like Chicago – where my mother's family settled – were hit hard. Jobs of any kind became scarce. Suddenly it was next to impossible to support a family of five. My grandfather took any work he could get, but still, there was often only enough food for one meager meal each day. Sugar cubes were given to satisfy the hunger of crying children. The struggle to feed the family went on for several years. My mother and her brother developed rickets, a deficiency illness caused by a lack of calcium and vitamin D. My mother was severely malnourished at an age when proper nutrition determines normal physical and intellectual development.

As a result of this malnutrition, my mother, like her brother, did not experience normal intellectual growth. Her IQ scores would likely test in the range of 70 to 80. By most standards, she is developmentally disabled. She has had difficulty living independently during those years when she was not living with her mother or married.

*****

I was thirteen when my father died. By that time I had been identified as “talented and gifted” and placed in advanced classes in school. It was difficult for a strong-willed and precocious child to grow up with a challenged parent as primary caregiver.

When my father died, I was the one who took care of the funeral arrangements, the insurance, the pension my mother would receive, and all the other financial decisions. I continued to perform most of the money-related tasks for two or three years. However, within six months of my father’s death, I was smoking pot regularly, drinking whenever possible, and beginning to show a lot of unconscious anger. Emotionally, I was completely shut down, using chemicals to stay numb. My straight A grades began to decline. I was in pain and needed a strong mother to comfort me, but she was in too much pain of her own, too lost to be able to help my sister or me.

Over the next several years, I became a daily drug user and was arrested for alcohol possession, vandalism, and growing my own marijuana. Grace alone kept me out of jail or the morgue for the better part of my teen years. The times I was locked up only made me angrier and more determined to feel nothing.

During those years, my relationship with my mother was terrible. I was incapable of seeing how much pain she was in, how lost she felt, how much she needed my love and support. However, as I became increasingly lost in a haze of smoke, drink, and pills, she learned to pay the bills on her own, got a driver’s license for the first time in her life, and found the strength to call the police when she found my little pot-growing operation. I was sixteen and completely out of control.

Although I knew my mother was different from other mothers, even when I was young, it wasn’t until I was a teenager that I truly became aware of the reality. I wasn’t understanding or compassionate. I was angry. I made fun of her in front of my friends. I told her she was stupid. I hurt her in more ways than I can count. And she just kept on loving me and doing her best to keep me alive and healthy.

As I write this, I still feel so much shame for those actions and words. I’ve spent the last 15 years trying to make up for the pain I caused her during those five years when I was acting out every shadow element in my psyche. If I had 100 more years to make amends, it would not be enough.

When I was 19, after hitting my personal bottom, I cleaned up my life and went to college. I studied psychology, literature, and religions. I began to learn a little about why I was so unconscious and confused during my teen years, and pieces of why my mother has had to struggle in her life. Most importantly, I began to learn about powers greater than me in this amazing Universe.

*****

My mother is not like other mothers. She was never able to help me with my homework. She seldom read to me. She was incapable of advising me on whom to go to parties with when I was in middle school and dating was new and awkward. When I began to publish poems after high school, she never asked to read them or showed any interest in my writing. When I was in college, she didn’t ask about my studies, had no awareness of national or international events, and only wanted to know if I was employed.

She isn’t like other mothers. I saw the mothers of my friends turn their backs and walk away from troubled sons and daughters, unable to face their failures as a parent and their children's pain. But my mother never stopped loving me, supporting me, or trying to help me, no matter how awful I became, and I became very awful. Where other mothers might or did give up, she loved me even more.

After 35 years, I am finally able to see that she was gifted in ways few people are. She has an amazing heart, a capacity to love that my mind can barely grasp. I didn’t have the mother I wanted, but I had the mother I needed. To get to where I am now in my life, I had to go through the pain and confusion of my youth, and I didn’t need someone to guide me through it, I just needed someone to love me no matter how lost I found myself. If I had been guided through those difficult experiences, without the pain, there would have been no learning, no understanding, and no wisdom gained from the experience of finding my own way through the dark places within me.

I would not wish my teen years on anyone, but those experiences are what allow me to sit here now and write these words. If I hadn't been so out of control, my mother may have never found the strength to take control of her own life and learn to be as independent as she became. Again, we get what we need, not what we want.

So, now she is dying. This comes at a time when my life is in a liminal space between who I was and who I will become, a self-chosen disruption of the course my life was following. In the middle of all this, my mother is diagnosed with cancer.

Odd as it may sound, the timing for this to happen in my life could not be better. I am in a unique position in my life to change the way I see the world, to change the meta-narrative of my life, to re-open my heart in ways I have been too frightened to do in the past. For the first time in my life I have a loving, supportive partner who is committed to walking hand in hand with me on the path of self-discovery and healing. It makes all the difference.

From this place in my life, I have learned to step back from myself, to see through the eyes of my observer self, or Witness. Through those eyes I see my mother as a person. I can see her struggles, her fears, her joys, her successes. I see her weaknesses and her strengths. I see her not as my mother, but as wonderful human being who has survived 72 painful, challenging years while holding onto the love in her heart. I see a woman who is not capable of knowing how extraordinary she is. I see a woman who inspires me to open my heart and learn to love in the same selfless way she has loved others for her entire life.

I am blessed to come to see my mother as the human being she is, not just as my mother. I have been given a chance to know her in ways I could never imagine before. I want to learn how she was able to love others so easily, despite being told she was not like everyone else and being treated as deficient.

My mother is not like other mothers. For however much time she has left, I want to learn about her fears, her joys, her life. I want to know the person who is named Ruth.