~posted by Clint

Written in parts over the last three days, this blog is comprised of in-the-moment reflections and explorations on a current issue arising in my life and practice. The act of engaging in what turned out to be a public exploration of a sensitive issue as it was arising proved to be exceedingly difficult yet ultimately rewarding. As such, consider this the first in an intended series of postings about explorations of similar issues.

I hate the Witness. You know, Turiya, the ever-present, pure observing awareness that witnesses the arising of all other states. I hate it. I wish I didn’t know what it was or how to access it. I hate it because it is probably going to prevent me from ever posting this blog. I hate it because I suspect it is behind my developing ability to see the components of the AQAL matrix arising in each moment. Why is this a problem, you ask? I’ll start by explaining how the issue developed.

I teach the Introduction to Integral Theory workshops that precede our five-day seminars. I begin each presentation with a discussion about the mind module and why it is included as a core module in ILP. I teach that learning Integral theory is a practice. And, that it’s not merely a practice that concerns getting really smart in theory but rather a multi-decade long practice of training your awareness to see the components of AQAL arising in every moment; a practice much like the ones you might undertake in the spiritual, body or shadow modules; a practice that helps you gain access to a more complete and accurate view of reality thereby affording you a more sophisticated understanding of yourself, others and the world.

As with almost all learning, you begin the practice of understanding AQAL with an initial reliance on 3rd person (3-p) apprehension. You read books or listen to lectures and audio programs until you developed an understanding of what the AQAL maps look like. You apprehend symbols, then concepts, and then rules which you operate on as you expand your knowledge of AQAL. 3-p apprehension is critical to learning and, as such, is a logical place to start.

Over the past year, I have noticed that something—possibly our sociocultural reliance on 3-p learning—has led to the tendency to reduce the learning of Integral theory to a practice that exclusively utilizes 3-p apprehension. It has become a practice aimed solely at learning the maps really well; a practice that leads us to a place where we can judge our progress as complete enough; a practice that may, at some point, end when we decide we know integral. Can we ever know integral? What about the other two perspectives? Learning as a byproduct of 2-p interactions—which occur in a number of arenas including seminars, salons, forums, etc.—not only helps us refine our 3-p understandings but can lead us to practices that train our 1-p awareness in the ability to discover that AQAL is the territory of each and every one of us. 2-p interactions can awaken the idea that learning AQAL is a process of discovering not just the maps but also the territory that they describe.

Currently, I teach the mind module as a practice of moving from a 3-p to 1-p understanding of AQAL. This doesn’t happen in an afternoon workshop. It takes decades, and my sense is that a place from which you can judge your learning as complete enough just doesn’t exist. It is like telling your Zen teacher that you are done meditating because you are enlightened enough.

Six years ago, I gave my first teaching on Integral Theory. I was a cocky student of integral for two years when I designed and taught a 15-week undergraduate course. It went beautifully despite the fact that I had no idea that I was peddling 3-p teaching mixed with some 2-p dialogue without the faintest understanding that we were exploring the territory of each and every one of us. I hadn’t the slightest understanding of how to contextualize learning AQAL as a path of practice. I didn’t even understand this last year—after 2.5 years of working for I-I—when I first taught theory at an I-I seminar. Fuck, that is scary to even admit but it’s 100% the truth.

I didn’t discover this path until six months ago when I stopped myself from taking a really stupid action in a moment of intense contraction, because I was able to witness my state, the quadratic causes of my intended action and the quadratic implications it may have had if I had chosen to act. In that moment, AQAL awareness stayed my hand, so to speak. Witness-like awareness helped me see AQAL arising in the moment, not in reflection or analysis after the fact, but in the moment. It flashed into awareness like a satori. Shortly thereafter, I realized that I was on the path of practice I described above and that is when my love/hate relationship with the Witness began. Yeah, realizing AQAL as the territory arising within me has helped my teaching. Yeah, being aware of the path has helped my ILP. Yeah, it is helping me to become a better person. But, I still fucking hate it. And herein lies the problem.

The past three months have been a wild ride. Personally, professionally, academically, it has all been in some degree of turmoil. I can’t really get into the details, so trust me when I say its been rough. I am sure that everyone reading has had similar experiences. So remember back to those times and ask yourself if you might have been served by seeing more and more of reality arising in every moment.

As I continue to walk this path with an awareness of the path, I am able to see more and more of reality arising in the moment, and it’s not really helping. In fact, it’s making things worse. Since first discovering that learning AQAL was a path, I envisioned that movement on this path would bring about clarity; that I would learn how to act with more perspectives in mind; that I would move more effortlessly through complex situations; that, in any given moment, I would be served by my awareness. I didn’t think I would come to hate it.

I failed to realize that the result of seeing so many dynamics arising within personal and professional situations would be an inability to act, an inability to make sense of things, an inability to integrate, and an inability to do virtually anything to bring about clarity. How about this for a bad metaphor: It’s like being in a hurricane that is decimating your house. You look out of the basement and the chaos and damage is obvious, real, and present. Then, as if that weren’t enough, you have this LCD screen permanently attached to your head and its constantly showing you satellite images of how devastated your entire neighborhood, entire town and entire region are. You can’t escape the global view, the higher perspective. Despite any of your actions, you are unable to deal only with the turmoil currently around you. You can’t escape the view of the AQAL matrix arising in your relationships, your company, your entire life.

Now, you are probably wondering why anyone would want to escape a higher view, a more encompassing perspective. Why would anyone want to trade what amounts to the possibility of a worldcentric perspective for an egocentric one? Good questions. I have asked them myself. And my answer has always been “I don’t.” I don’t want to trade my awareness for ignorance because I know it’s not bliss. But, I sure as hell would like to make sense of my life.

I have been sitting with this for the last 24 hours and this is the best I can come up with as to what it means, what to do, etc. If I were able to stably access the Witness, I would see my life as if it were a movie. I would see everything as objects arising in my awareness. What currently amounts to a frenzied parade of disjointed AQAL bits and pieces chaotically arising with no hope for integration would be nothing more than clouds gracefully drifting through the sky-like space of my primordial awareness. But, I can’t stably access the Witness, so the AQAL bits and pieces continue their tormenting parade through my unstable mind. Even knowing that one day I may be able to stabilize the Witness makes me hate this path. Why? Because that day is not today, I guess. Because fleeting moments of witness-like awareness leave me with one foot in a higher perspective capable of seeing AQAL arising and the other firmly rooted in my ego’s storm-battered house replete with its fear, contraction and anxiety. Why couldn’t it just be one or the other? If that is not the epitome of futile, ridiculous questions I don’t know what is.

After subjecting myself to further immersion in this dilemma, I have come to realize that I am attached to wholeness, attached to integration, if you will. Something about having a foot in both these realms doesn’t sit well with me. (As if I can just turn off the higher or lower perspectives.) Something about having only chaos when this path was supposed to bring clarity irks me a bit. (As if the path owes or promised me anything.) Something about blaming the path or hating the Witness feels like a good course of action. (I can’t be serious. As if becoming a victim will somehow make this better).

I have sat with this for another 24 hours…and it’s becoming increasingly clear. The hurricane is life, its samsara, and its never going to stop. I can’t control it or make it less intense. It doesn’t matter what degree of AQAL awareness I have, seeing more complexity doesn’t stop the storm. I realize that I have a dysfunctional relationship to the mind module and the practice of learning AQAL. I think it owes me something, or that I should have earned some peace and clarity for being a good student. This has got to be to most ridiculous thing I have ever admitted believing.

A one hundred year old oak does not bend in a storm as a result of understanding the complexities of the weather. It has big roots. What does Big Mind have to say about hurricanes? What does the Fully-Functioning, Integrated Human Being have to say about AQAL awareness ensuring a peaceful existence?

After three days of working with this, the answer is stunningly simple. I need to check back in with my Spirit Module practices. At the heart of the most seemingly impossible paradoxes can arise a profound simplicity if life is not left unexamined. Full engagement of the chaotic arisings of form can yield the gift of a simple equanimity when one relinquishes the unceasing desire of mind to make sense of the Unknowable. From only that place will life’s hurricanes cease to shake what is truly unshakeable.

To be continued….