Thank You for visiting ISC!

 

We would love to hear from you how you might think we could work together to make ISC a truly vibrant community of learners and teachers on and off line.  Do you have great ideas, suggestions, and/or complaints? You are welcome to even post your resume here. Maybe you start working with us!  Would you like to volunteer? How can we improve and innovate? How can we transcend, include and anticipate?

 

Lots of questions, right?  Dive right in and tell us about you and how YOU might join this vision. 

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Nomali


~Save the Earth- it's the only planet with Chocolate.

Let's get this show on the road! Samsara is burning and there is no time to waste!

My current interest is mapping my current Integral understanding to my Dharma practice - I've been learning both for many  years and they enrich each other, my dharma practice is helping me train vertically (states training) while my integral practice is helping me broaden it all out so the stages become more solid platforms for later emerging states and stages.

Big Mind seems to be the recomended practice for newcomers, and it does seem powerful, I got a "hit" from just listening to the clips on INaked and I'd love to meet Genpo when he next comes to the UK.

But seeing as I already have a practice and connection with a teacher I love and trust, I'm wondering how to best combine what I already have with what is going on at ISC.

* I'm a fully-qualified New Kadampa Tradition teacher if anyone needs one :)
* Are people interested in an essay on Tibetan Lamrim and Integral highlighting both in terms of each?
* Are there Tibetan lineage Buddhists here so we can start a thread or group?

What I'd like to see here is total love and respect for all persons and perspectives - we're all either on a path or looking for one so let us all create a space where we can give to those in need, share with our integral sangha our most inspiring insights, find a tradition that suits us, find a dharma we can grok, build bridges between all these different colours and combinations, soar in the big sky mind and plunge into the cooling waters of liberation. And let us dedicate this beautiful multiplex to the brilliant and beautiful unfolding of consciousness awareness, to the highest potential of all sentient beings (without exception).

\/
for Vajrayogini

(Integral Buddhist)

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"May the sufferings and negativites of living beings ripen upon me,
And may my happiness and virtue ripen upon them" - Nagarjuna

V,

I appreciate your inspiring words.  One of my current interests is related to yours: integrating my TSK (Time, Space, Knowledge) study and practice with Integral, on a number of levels (personally, in terms of practice, and pedagogically, in terms of developing new approaches to inquiry in education and counseling). 

I'm also very interested in interfaith dialogue and practice -- I've been studying it and engaged in it for a number of years now -- so I am hopeful that this ISC space will allow me to take that to new levels, or at least to different places than I've explored thus far.  I'd like to see ISC-inspired events organized on local levels, where members of different traditions are brought together for dialogue, practice, exploration, inquiry, and celebration.  But I also have an idea for this forum:

Have members introduce a meditation exercise that they have found to be especially helpful, and then invite communal practice and discussion of that exercise.  Different threads could be started for different practices, where we first introduce them and describe our experience(s) with them, and then perhaps agree to a time period during which anyone interested will take up the practice.  We could use the threads to discuss our insights, questions, and challenges as we explore them over a given period of time.  We could also post periodically on the threads if we resonate with a particular practice and decide to take it up beyond the agreed-upon introductory period, just to report on our experiences with it.

You asked if anyone here would be interested in an essay on Lamrim, or in starting a thread dedicated to Tibetan Buddhist practice.  My answer is yes, on both counts.  I follow a predominantly Buddhist path, though folded into that are some traditions that are only somewhat related to Buddhism, such as TSK, as well as Bonpo Dzogchen (Zhangzhung sNyan rGyud) and Mother Tantra (Ma rGyud).

A billion silver tigles, shining on an in each other: as lamps unto ourselves, may we light up one another, in the sky beyond perspectives, spontaneously perfected...

Best wishes,

Balder

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Hi Balder!

 

I vajrayana thread? Count me in!

And: I'm sorry for not following up the Integral Ngondro thread at IN. Family and work takes a lot of time, and I'm not that regulary visiting the Forums. However, I really want to continue that thread, and I think this would be a much better place than IN.

See you around.

 

Svein

Hi, Svein,

Great to see you here!  I'll be there, if someone decides to start a Vajrayana thread.  I'm not sure, yet, where one would be posted, or if others are similarly interested in starting tradition-specific threads.  It seems more sections may be needed at the ISC forum...

I was a little disappointed that the Integral Ngondro thread didn't really go very far on IN, but maybe there just aren't that many people who can relate to that way of approaching things.  It does seem there is some interest in this sort of thing from Wilber, at least, with the new "Integral Buddhist" book on Lamrim and Lojong that he is endorsing, and for which he has written a forward.  I'm anxious to check it out!

Best wishes,

Balder

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Count me in too... our traditions will differ, what is Ngondro?, but if it's Lamrim, Lojong, Mahamudra or Tanta/Vajrayana or Dzogchen I'm SO there.

Good to see that there might just be a place forming for specific and focused integral buddhist traditions.

Let's start creating those grooves....


I'm anxious to check out the book too... is there an ETA?

---

"May the sufferings and negativites of living beings ripen upon me,
And may my happiness and virtue ripen upon them" - Nagarjuna

Hi, V,

I'm not sure this is the best place to post this, but in response to your question about the meaning of Ngondro, here's a link to the thread I started on IN:

Integral Ngondro?

Best wishes,

Balder

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Hello all,

Wow! It's so great to see some fellow Buddhists interested in the same kind of questions about how our lineages might look in an Integral context. I'm a Shambhala practitioner, myself, but with a deep appreciation for Christian mysticism and the dialogue that's currently taking place in that arena.

I have a few major challenges and questions that hopefully resonate with you all and would probably make sense in a Vajrayana thread, so let's get that started!

As for ideas for ISC itself, I think it might be interesting if the prominent founding teachers had specific discussion areas. For example, I would love to talk with more people working with Father Keating or David Deida or Patrick Sweeney and talk about their contributions to an Integral Spirituality.

In any case, I'm so glad to this finally taking off!

Cheers,

Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your idea about teachers having their own discussion areas on ISC. Actually, that is one of our main to-do's on our list for Forum Ideas and we will be starting soon with any and all teachers who would be willing.  So, please check back. Thanks!

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Nomali


~Save the Earth- it's the only planet with Chocolate.

Hi to all of you who are considering a Vajrayana thread. I have started one here.  Please jump right in! Thanks and we hope it blossoms beautifully.

 

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Nomali


~Save the Earth- it's the only planet with Chocolate.

...

Thank you Pale Blue Iris for your great introduction.  Your endnote gave me the courage to jump in too.  It is so strange how extraverted I am at a party, but when it comes to these venues, I still feel like a wallflower.

I am very excited about the site, these forums and the whole I-I thang.  I am new to the integral world.  I guess I stumbled into it all about two years ago.  I have always been an integral at heart - always trying to figure out how the micro and macro all fit in together.  I literally get some kind of weird thrill from it all.  Maybe it is just my own search for God in it all.  It's like, if this all fits, then there is a God after all. 

A little about myself.
 - grew up in Los Angeles with both parents in the "industry"
 - began my spiritual path with lots of 80s new age stuff, then began studying Vipassana in 97 after my mother's death
-left "the industry" because of the serious lack of soul in it all and began writing and performing autobiographical essays about my strange life journey
-went to grad school at Pacifica to feed my love of myth, depths and the human journey, and thought I'd be a therapist, but six months ago dropped that idea.  I'm now a life coach hoping to support others who are looking to step out of pure orange and into a more "healthy" green meme and even into yellow!
-my vision for my work now is some sort of integration of performance/group experiences/social activism all from an integral pov - intro the ideas while entertaining the masses sort of thing; and I'm writing a book about changing the American Dream into one that is integral and sustainable.

Although I am a bit of an intellectual junky with all the reading I do, I feel a bit overwhelmed with the level of discourse in these forums.  I feel I am just getting the basics of it all down, and want to jump into the fray - I guess I'll just have to put my approval seeking ego aside a bit and try and connect.

I have a deep hunger to deepen my own spiritual journey, but an even deeper hunger to share all that I learn with the world.

Best to all,
Kelly

I am inspired by all of your minds and hearts, and hope to deepen this connection

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It's ALL soul. Junior Wells

Hi Kelly,

"I guess I'll just have to put my approval seeking ego aside a bit and try and connect."

And you just did precisely that....

Relax.... Take your shoes off.... Sit a spell.... Yawl come back now ya here.... I'm sure you will find everyone here quite willing to help in any way they can and hopefully in the process make you feel right "at home"....

Best Regards,

Justin

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"Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink".

SHUNRYU SUZUKI

I echo a lot of what Kelly says also. I have about 3 pr 4 years experience with increasing interest and study of Integral ideas. Just came back from last weekends I-WET in Westminster and that lit me up. A really great weekend, great class, great instructors, really great content, and a really great opportunity to get out of Ohio for a weekend.

I live in Ohio, and have for about 21 years now, but still call Washington State home. I’ll call a lot of places home if they just have less humidity than Ohio! Have a variety of growth experiences in the last 14 years, too many to list but a big one is working with a coach that pointed me towards Ken’s work. Like Kelly, I am looking at how it all fits together and excited about what opportunities are going to be growing out of ISC for all of us. At the I-WET I got a much bigger feeling for community than I have ever had before, and feel that here to.

Happy to be here, now!

Michael

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Michael Figg
Columbus, Ohio

Hi,

I'm an old Integral Naked member and just joined Integral Spirituality.  I have been a fan of Ken for several years and have read almost everything.   I have read the paper he gave at the Jund 2005 conference, "Integral Spirituality", many times.  I also have bee practicing Centering Prayer for about 5 years and in 2005 did an ITP workshop in Denver and a 10-day intensive centering prayer retreat at Snowmass, CO.   Just a little background to let you know where I have been. 

I am a Catholic priest, retired now and living in a parish with a good friend, who also is Ken Wilber literate and does centering prayer.  He has tried, on the parish level, to introduce all kinds of spirituality opportunities for parishioners; Cournerstone retreats, Ignatian retreats, the Ineagram to help people appreciate their egoic-selfs, and for a year now meditation practices.  Right now, he is begining "Big Mind" with a group.  

I have a centering prayer group I meet with weekly and we are both hoping that one of the areas you will keep in mind as you develop Integral Spirituality is how e begin to attract and develope people in a church or parish setting.  How can we develop workshops to gradually transform people from mythic literal and egoic rational conciousness to second tier consciousness.  We would be glad to pilot such workshops in a Christian setting.

Thank you for all your hard work in bringing this good news to so many people. 

Matthias T. Conva,

Paramus, NJ