WILBER AND THE SHAMBHALA WARRIOR

A bit dated, but a personal account of my earliest formal foray into Shambhala Buddhism.

The Developmental Model of Ken Wilber and the Shambhala Path of the Warrior

Michael Mallett

Naropa University

Transpersonal Psychology II: Theorists and Applications

April 28, 2005

 

The Developmental Model of Ken Wilber and the Shambhala Path of the Warrior

In choosing the field assignment for this paper, I decided to delve more deeply into the Shambhala teachings that I have been engaged in through the Naropa required Meditation Practicum 1 and 2.  My determination was to more fully explore this spiritual practice through daily meditation, attending weekly group meditation with an established Shambhala Center and to conduct a personal meditation retreat over the course of this semester.  I chose Ken Wilber’s “transcend and include” model of development for my theoretical base of inquiry as it speaks to my own experience of spiritual practice and Self-unfolding. My study of both as well as engagement in personal practice has provided rich content for my contemplation. I have found the two to be complementary, one as a map of and the other as navigational instruction through the territory of Spiritual practice .

Wilber (2000a, p. 37) states “What each of us calls an “I” is both a constant function and a developmental stream.  That is, the self has several functional invariants that constitute its central activity-it is the locus of identity, will, metabolism, navigation, defenses, and integration, to name the more important.  And this self (with its functions) also undergoes its own development through the basic waves in the Great Nest.  Especially significant is the fact that, as the locus of integration, the self is responsible for balancing and integrating all of the levels, lines and states in the individual.”  This “self” as described by Wilber, also known as the “I” or executive function, develops along a path toward ever broadening wholeness, transcending and including the previous wave or level in the Great Nest from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit.  Simply, this can be characterized in the human life as beginning in the prepersonal at birth, developing onto the personal from childhood into adulthood and then to the transpersonal in potential, actualized through intentional practice. 

“These three large realms are also referred to, in very general terms, as the subconscious (pre-egoic), the self-conscious (egoic), and the superconscious (transegoic); or as the prepersonal, the personal, and the transpersonal; or as the prerational, the rational, and the transrational.  The point is that each of these stages is a lessening of egocentrism as one moves closer to the pure Self”(Wilber, 2000b, p. 238).  Along with this lessening of egocentrism through development of the Self structure and its cognitive functions there is potential for development along other lines as well. For the purpose of this discussion I will limit my focus to the moral sphere as an adjunct line of development.  Wilber (2000b, p. 689) indicates, “It has long been known for example, that cognitive development is necessary but not sufficient for moral development...someone at a postconventional moral response is always using formop in that response: conop and preop will not support postconventional responses.  Thus a highly developed moral response always has a highly developed cognitive structure, but not vice versa: highly developed cognitive structures do not in themselves ensure a moral response from that higher level (the reason, put simplistically, is that it is one thing to be able to merely think from a higher level, but quite another to actually inhabit that level with one’s whole being, and thus, respond morally from that higher level .” 

The decrease in egocentrism as presented by Wilber can be extended to a similar shift to be actualized within the moral arena or sense of “I” in relation to “Other”. Wilber (2000a, p. 208), demonstrates waves of development in the moral span beginning in the personal realm with “me” as my body self, on to “us” as our family or tribe, and finally to “all of us”, meaning all human beings.  Moving to the transpersonal there is a shift on to “all earthly beings” without exception, extending to “all sentient beings” in all realms without exception and ultimately as “all manifest and unmanifest reality”.  This moral caring continually grows larger in scope as the experienced Self expands further beyond the egocentric.  In Wilber’s model, as we move from the personal into the realm of the transpersonal, the sense of Self as well as the sense of Self in relation to Other moves from the Relative to the Universal. This ever-inclusive growth continues until fully realized in the non-dual as the distinction between the Self and Other dissolves into the Groundless.  Each wave of development transcends the previous wave and incorporates its contents into the context of that new wave.  What was subject becomes object of the next wave of development.  

“If dreams are the royal road to the unconscious, meditation is the royal road to the transpersonal” (Walsh & Vaughan, 1993, p. 52).  On this point, both Wilber and the Warrior path agree.  Wilber (2000b, p. 263) states, “Far from being some sort of narcissistic withdrawal or inward isolation, meditation (or transpersonal development in general) is a simple and natural continuation of the evolutionary process, where every going within is also a going beyond to a wider embrace.”  In the Shambhala teaching, meditation is where you start to move beyond ego.  Chogyam Trungpa (1996, p. 67) explains in answer to a student about whether one needs to be rid of ego before starting on the Warrior path, “This comes naturally, because you can’t start without ego.  And basically ego isn’t bad.  Good and bad doesn’t really exist anywhere, it is only a secondary thing.  Ego is, in a sense, a false thing, but it isn’t necessarily bad.  You have to start with ego, and use ego, and from there it gradually wears out, like a pair of shoes .” 

We start with our everyday mind, our self as we are as we begin our journey on the Warrior path.  We learn through the simple practice of Shamatha-vipashyana meditation to make friends with our mind, with our ego.  The practice consists of sitting, either in lotus posture or back straight in a chair, resting the hands on the thighs, eyes open with soft gaze.  Attention is placed on the outbreath; such that 25% of our attention is focused on the outbreath, the remainder of attention is there at rest.  As thoughts, feelings, perceptions, sensations take us away, we gently label them “thinking” and return to the outbreath.  There is no judgment, no criticism, no comparing just gently touch the thought in recognition and let it go.  Over time, we make friends with the mind and it calms down, becomes tamed.  As Pema Chodron (2001, p. 5) notes, “The technique of sitting meditation called shamatha-vipashyana (tranquillity-insight) is like a golden key that helps us to know ourselves.” 

In my own sitting practice, this learning to know myself has manifest in many ways.  I am aware of my posture, where I am tight, where I am loose, sensing my body in parts and as a whole.  As each sensation speaks to me, I acknowledge, label it as thinking and let go, returning to my breath. Over time, my body becomes my friend in sitting, comfortably assumes the posture and relaxes, minimizing my energy drawn to its attention.  There is a basic awareness much like serving as a container for my consciousness to rest within.  My physical body and its sensations all rest within my awareness.  As such, objects within my awareness, they are not who “I am”.

My thoughts and feelings appear from nowhere within my mind: grumpy, happy, sad or lustful, thoughts replaying stories from last night or when I was 6 years old or in anticipation of tomorrow’s activities.  The  stories are happy stories or scary stories, some vivid as day, some ghostly like a faint memory.  As each thought tries to carry me away, I gently touch them in acknowledgment and let them go, labeling them as “thinking”.  Over time I see a pattern in the stories, there is a feeling they are obscuring beneath them, quiet, hidden.  As I let the story fade away, I sit with the feeling, embracing it, the somewhat sad sense of being as feeling.  I return to my breath.  Thoughts and feelings arise from nowhere within my mind and fade away into nothingness.  They rest within my awareness, again as objects I can contemplate, they are not who “I am”.

I can hear the little voice within that labels, and compares and reminds and measures time.  Who is the speaker and who is the one who hears the voice?  “I” rest there as the listener as my point of being: gentle, calm with nowhere to go, nowhere to be, simply “is”-ing.  There is a shift in my awareness, inside and outside appears the same to this point of being, what Wilber calls the Witness. There is a sense of transparency abiding as “I” look through the mindset Michael is wearing.  “I” feel the body containing this energy and arise together as the bird sings outside the window and my puppy Daphne comes to join my sit with her morning kisses, making my heart glad as the ticking of the clock marks time.  That which in total is usually identified as Michael as subject is the now the object of this meditating Witness.  So, the transcend and include progresses.  No upper limit .

The Shambhala teachings I have experienced focused first on the self, the Hinayana approach to liberation of the self through meditation and maitri (loving-kindness).  This is the preparation work to begin to tame the mind and start to experience loving kindness for ourselves, our own bodhichitta or awakened heart, our essence.  The teachings move into Mahayana practice with the introduction of tonglen (giving and receiving).  Here the practice extends outside our own liberation and the path of the Warrior, the Bodhisattva, opens, renouncing personal liberation for the sake of all other sentient beings.  Self begins to realize in relation to Other.  Pema Chodron (2001, p. 36) illustrates, “ I’ve noticed that people generally eat up the teachings, but when it comes to having to do tonglen, they say, "Oh, it sounded good, but I didn’t realize you actually meant it.”  In its essence, this practice of tonglen is, when anything is painful or undesirable, to breathe it in; then, send out to all what you value in love and openness.  This is just the opposite of normal egoic pushing away of all that is undesirable and holding on to all that is pleasurable.  She goes on to say (Chodron, 2001, p. 37), “If you can know it in yourself, you can know it in everyone...If you’re willing to drop the story line, you feel exactly what all other human beings feel.  It’s shared by all of us.  In this way if we do the practice personally and genuinely, it awakens our sense of kinship with all beings.”

This tonglen is intentional practice to move from the feelings of “me” identified at the personal ego; beyond those I am familiar with and see the very same feelings active in those around me.  This moves the experience beyond an intellectual understanding to a visceral experiencing of the joys and sufferings of all beings.  This practice follows the same waves as described in Wilber’s moral developmental scheme, ever inclusive of the Other until All Others is reached.  Taken together, Shamatha-vipashyana and tonglen practices combine to move the self beyond the personal ego in both being and action.  Certainly, the formal practice of both are the “skillful means” of the work, and at the same time, it’s what takes place “off the cushion”, in life, where these skillful means are put to use in mindfulness and compassion.  It is the integration of the practice into life that is, in my experience, most fruitful.  Dennis Genpo Merzel is a Zen Buddhist Roshi who’s own emphasis is on taking the teaching into life. Genpo Roshi writes, “When we first come to Zen, we tend to think there is our life on the one hand and practice on the other.  It may take some years before that separation dissolves completely.  In the meantime, be patient and keep sitting; the illusion of separation will dissolve by itself.  Go about your daily life and bring as much awareness as you can to whatever you are doing.  When you are exercising, focus on your workout.  When you are walking the dog, just walk the dog...When the separation disappears, we realize the truth: practice is always our life, and life is always our practice.  There never was a separation”(Merzel, 2003, p. 186).

I am grateful to Ken Wilber for his map-making and to the Shambhala teachings for equipping me with skillful means on the journey into Spirit.  As we’ve discussed in our class this semester, enlightenment is much over used and a confusing term.  I don’t seek enlightenment.  Whether it’s nirvana and samsara or emptiness and form as One, I do not know.  My sincere wish is to be a fully human, embodied being, to be used fruitfully by the Divine and participate in this moment by moment Creation however I may be most helpful.  To this end I am grateful for this precious life.  And no upper limit .            

            

References

Chodron, Pema (2001). Start where you are. Boston: Shambhala.

Merzel, Dennis  Genpo (2003). The path of the human being. Boston & London: Shambhala.

Trungpa, Chogyam (1996). Meditation in action. Boston & London: Shambhala.

Walsh, Roger, & Vaughan, Frances (1993). Meditation: royal road to the transpersonal. In  (Ed.), Paths beyond ego (p. 52). New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Wilber, Ken (2000a). Integral Psychology. Boston & London: Shambhala.

Wilber, Ken (2000b). Sex, ecology, spirituality (2nd ed.). Boston & London: Shambhala.