The Buddha Didn’t Need no Stinkin’ Holosync®

I wanted to write a few words about the use of binaural brain entrainment technology (specifically Holosync® technology) for enhanced meditation, shadow work, and brain transformation. There seems to be some controversy, albeit small controversy, regarding its use. There’s the argument that goes something like this: Well, Buddha didn’t have Holosync®, which makes using Holosync® seem…

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The Addiction Worm

The Worm’s WakingThere is a worm addicted to eating grape leaves.Suddenly, he wakes up,call it Grace, whatever,something wakes him, and he is no longer a worm.He is the entire vineyard, and the orchard too,the fruit, the trunks,a growing wisdom and joythat does not need to devour. This poem by Rumi is so good that it…

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Sitting in the Fire

Here is a technique that I have been using for over three years in my personal work and also shared with clients and students and watched them use it with great success. I call it “Sitting in the Fire.” While I arrived at this technique semi-independently, I have found similar examples of this particular method…

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Deep Ethics and the Gettysburg Address

For some time now, I’ve been feeling that I should throw my hat in the ring on the subject of ethics. A lot of my ideas and intuitions crystallized around a talk I attended, given by Roger Walsh at the Conference for Integral Theory at JFK University. In my soon-to-be-published book (SUNY Press), I even…

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More Notes from the Inner Front

I looked for myself and found only God. I looked for God and found only myself. -One of my favorite Sufi sayings On January 1st, I did a special two-hour New Year’s meditation with my wife Pam and a friend. We wanted to center ourselves, acknowledge this new year and cycle of time and also,…

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Another One Bites the Dust

Dear Integral Friends and Family, I hesitated a few days before posting this. I felt that the tone was too preachy and righteous and didn’t take into account Genpo’s suffering and the responsibility of the other adults involved. And, when I chuck rocks, I am well aware of Jesus’ injunction, “He that is without sin…”…

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Deep Practice and Playing the Blues

About five months ago, I was at a friend’s house in Salt Lake City, who had started a business buying and selling vintage guitars. I started playing guitar when I was thirteen years old, so I have had a 40-year relationship with the instrument. Somewhere early on, for various reasons that I won’t get into,…

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Surfaces and Depths

One of the main insights of the great mystics, and one of the essential truths of Integral Recovery is that all suffering comes from identification with surfaces. This is not a dogma that one has to believe or buy, based on what I or anyone else is saying, this is an experiential given that one…

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Through the Dark Woods and Into the Light

I am working on the last few chunks of the book I am writing on Integral Recovery, and this weekend I wrote a brief bit called the “The Integral Recovery Relapse Prevention Kit.” In this piece, I wrote about the traditional AA wisdom of quickly removing yourself from the scene that is triggering the cravings,…

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