So, what is the deal with Ken Wilber? Is he a total scam artist? Is he legit? Is he of interest to the type of practitioner who frequents this site? I really have no idea what his "Intergral" model is. Anyone care to catch me up and/or give me their thoughts?

I do know that Ken Wilber has some kind of connection to Dennis Genpo Merzel's Big Mind Process, which I have 20% positive feelings about, and 80% negative feelings about.

Ken Wilber wrote an intro to the Big Mind book in which he states: "What Dennis Genpo Roshi has done is not only the most original discovery in Buddhism in the last two centuries, it is unbelievably simple, quick, and effective. In Zen, this realization of one’s True Nature, or Ultimate Reality, is called kensho or satori ('seeing into one’s True Nature,' or discovering Big Mind and Big Heart). It often takes five years or more of extremely difficult practice (I know, I’ve done it) in order for a profound satori to occur. With the Big Mind Process, a genuine kensho can occur in about an hour—seriously. Once you get it, you can do it virtually any time you wish, and almost instantaneously. It is nothing less than the discovery of your True and Unique Self, Ultimately Reality, the Ground of All Being—again, call it what you like, for 'they call it Many which is really One.'"

Sounds bullshitty doesn't it? Either Ken Wilber is stupid (and really thinks that Big Mind can give someone stream entry in under an hour), or he is opportunistic (more likely -- he plugs his own website in the intro as well...), or...I don't know what else. He is either stupid or opportunistic. He clearly knows about the Theravada maps -- as I've seen a few clips where he talks about them (of course, while subsuming them as just one element within his own system [the Theravada maps being the horizontal path, there being apparently a vertical path in Wilber's system as well]) -- so he can't be confused that a minor satori-like experience (possibly A+P) is equivalent to stream entry. Then again, Ken Wilber's book The Spectrum of Consiousness got a shout out by Dan Ingram in MCToB, so maybe Ken is an intelligent (thus throwing out the "he is stupid" hypothesis, slightly (or majorly) shady and/or opportunistic (or perhaps sloppy) person/thinker. Or maybe Big Mind IS the greatest contribution to Buddhism in twenty years" or whatever, but I seriously doubt it. Do you have any other explanations for his statements?


I bought the Big Mind book a few years back, and, of course, this is stupid because you can't do Big Mind to yourself, someone has to talk you through it (meaning, pay a facilitator). Reading the Big Mind book is like reading a D+D game module before playing the game (assuming you aren't the Dungeon Master). It's the same thing as with koans. If you want to really study koans and get something out of them, you need to meditate on them for a while and be surprised by them. If you read koans and then the answers immediately afterward, they will be diffused of any power they may potentially have had. The Big Mind books gives away the "secrets," which is that you will be asked to speak from a variety of subject positions, such as your greedy self, your suffering self, etc., and then also non-dual subject positions, such as Big Heart, Big Mind, etc.

There is a CD which comes with the book in which Dennis Genpo Merzel talks a woman (a reporter, I believe) through a series of questions (in which she is asked to respond from different subject positions) and within a few minutes she kind of starts crying and gets choked up. He claims she had "satori." I've thought about this and I've come to the conclusion that 1) maybe she simply got emotional and not much else happened, period end of story, or 2) perhaps she got booted to the A+P. I am willing to concede that it is possible that Big Mind can kick someone's ass real quick up to an A+P, but I am also pretty damn confident that Big Mind can't get you any farther than A+P.

I believe that the satori-like experience (possibly A+P, possibly just the result of getting emotional) which someone being taken through the process may experience is the result of being asked, by a facilitator, a series of "leading questions," which, framed in a very specific scripted kind of way (in this case, from a Zen Buddhist kind of framework), ultimately leads to certain inevitable answers. What happens is that the answerer, by being asked these certain questions within this particular and specific framework, ultimately end up answering in certain inevitable ways which ultimately leads to a satori-like experience because the answerer feels shocked that they, as Roshi posits in the book, always had the answers "within them" the whole time. However, the answers weren't really inside them the whole time, the answerer was just led in such a way to answer certain questions inevitably. It is really a matter of framing certain questions in certain ways so that certain answers are inevitable.

Are the answerers being led to ultimate truths? If you think so just ask yourself, "Do all roads lead to Big Mind?" What if I did the same process but, instead of positing that Big Mind and Big Heart as the two biggest and most important elements within the hierarchy of voices, I posited there was, instead, Big Chaos and Big Hate. By telling the answerer that Big Chaos and Big Hate were the two most important elements in the hierarchy, I could then, just through a series of leading question, get people to tell me why chaos and hate are central, vital, and ultimately determining. I could say, for instance, I want to talk to Big Hate and, having posited that it is the most important element of the psyche, have the answerer tell me that hatred of all mankind is the central core of our being. Then I'd say, "Look, it was inside you the whole time..."

Anyway, I'd also be interested to know what people think about Big Mind and/or Dennis Genpo Merzel (who, apparently, has been involved in some sexual scandals lately), whether positive or negative...

I have no opinion on Dennis Genpo Merzel whatsoever as I'm unfamiliar with any of his other work, although I have that audio clip you mention and it's really quite hilarious. It's pop-Zen, in my opinion. I agree about the leading questions and I also picked up on a lot of subtle non-verbal stuff being used, I've studied (and practiced) hypnosis and NLP in the past and used to design sales scripts so that sort of thing is something I know well enough to spot. From what little I know of the overall technique, it does seem to be designed quite specifically to lead someone to some realization or another but I can't see it feasibly leading someone to enlightenment proper i.e. Path. Then again, maybe it could but I've seen no evidence of it.

There are whole schools like this. Aimed at getting one big moment of stream entry as opposed to gradually (but automatically') wading to it like most Satiphattana practices. It is legit. One of the forums here is even designated for that ("non-dual immediate path" in the insight practices section).

That being said, I promise you the Satiphattana (Vipassana) methods are much quicker and stronger for the vast majority of people.

-d

I did try “Big Mind”, about 2-3 years ago. While listening to it I did have some noticeable feelings of peace, but nothing major. However, that night I went to a Kadampa Buddhism class and during the second 15 minute mediation I got totally locked into a meditation to a degree I had never been before and never have since. I was absolutely stuck in the head, listening, rock solid, peaceful, with no effort to stay put. It was so ridiculously easy that I eventually tried to “get out”, to distract myself, but it felt I could stay there as long as I wanted. When I willingly opened my eyes, as I had to discuss the nights topic with my neighbor I was unbelievably calm and had very little sense of self. Driving home I felt like I was high. Everything was awesome.

It took me awhile to connect that mediation experience with Big Mind. Because I have addiction issues I actually decided not to do Big Mind again because I would be that guy that might just bliss out all the time if he could figure out how to do it. But several months later I caved, and did it again, with almost identical results. It was just slightly less powerful. However I decided this was not something of long term value and I moved on. If I were pursuing "paths" I might still be interested in this, but currently I'm not.

I have no opinion on Ken Wilber or Genpo Mertzel or if Big Mind is good or bad, helpful or harmful. I just wanted to share something that did happen related to it.

Take care,
Ed

I echo the mostly negative assessment from what little I know as well.

Brad Warner at hardcore zen was big on trash talking genpo:
http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/12/whats-so-wrong-with-genpo-roshi.html

If you want to explore all this integral stuff from a more outsider & critical perspective see http://www.integralworld.net/

I have some friends who are working on some projects with Ken Wilber right now.

I'll give you my thoughts while trying to stick to what is practical and stay away from gossip...

I think Ken Wilber's books are brilliant. They are intellectual and philosophical masterpieces. If you haven't read at least A Brief History of Everything, I recommend it just to read about some of the philosophical underpinnings which are so fundamental to this new east-west paradigm that has been developing since the sixties.

It's also obvious that he has practical meditation skills, as he has spent a lot of time on the cushion.

What I recall him saying is that he basically wrote and wrote until he had pretty much put everything he had to say into the books (sorry I can't reference a direct quote). And, since then he has been focusing more on this Integral stuff and building that community (since he wasn't much of a community-type while he was writing.)

In the field of psychology, there is a lot of evidence that certain kinds of intelligence peak at certain ages, and I'd say that Ken Wilber peaked while he was young and writing a lot. A similar example might be Bob Dylan who has reported that it takes him much much longer to write a song these days as it did when he was young.

As for Integral, I spent a while checking it all out a couple years ago. I don't think it's any secret that Integral is heavily involved in the cross-marketing culture which is so popular these days in the self-improvement movement. In this cross-marketing culture, everyone is a "good friend" who just happens to have some thing which he/she is selling which just happens to have a bunch of that person's good friends on it also selling stuff with more people selling more stuff, ad infinitum. I can speak from very first hand experience as my friends are the founders of an organization which is involved in cross-marketing with Integral. Of course, they will all tell you that the marketing is just supposed to serve the purpose of spreading the message. And, they are big on spreading the message, perhaps because to some extent they genuinely believe that the message they are spreading will ease the suffering of others. So, it is probably some mix of opportunism and a desire to help others.

As for Big Mind, I looked into it a bit and found that it didn't interest me. Some people like it. The "Integral model" (being a later development of Wilber's) didn't appeal to me either.

So bottom line, I don't think Wilber is stupid. I think he may be opportunistic. But, mostly I think he is just in a different phase of his life where he is trying to create something different. And, not being free from the human condition, his work is bound to have the tinge of selfishness that humans so often exhibit.

"So, what is the deal with Ken Wilber? Is he a total scam artist? Is he legit? Is he of interest to the type of practitioner who frequents this site? I really have no idea what his "Intergral" model is. Anyone care to catch me up and/or give me their thoughts?"

I have studied the models of Wilber for some years now. I don't think he is a scam artist, I believe he speaks from personal experience combined with a large study of many traditions. Whether or not he is "legit" I guess that would depend on our concept of "legit". Is he of interest to the type of practitioner who frequents this site? That also depends, I like this site and he also interests me, but some one else who comes to this site could think otherwise. His model is an attempt to "integrate" most of the east - west, ancient - modern knowledge into a single map. Of course this is a huge and ambitious endeavor, but someone would eventually attempt to do it, right ?

I personally think Wilber is great but I don't idolize him.

I've also been a student of Genpo Roshi for some years now.

There's a lot of (understandable) controversy around Big Mind. There's an important thing that his detractors I think misunderstand. Big Mind is designed to help people have deep realizations, however Genpo always says that without practice (Zazen in this case since it's a Zen approach) those realizations would tend to vanish and become just memories, not permanent integrations in a person's being.

Big Mind is an attempt to make the Dharma available to as many people as possible, even to people who have never meditated or know anything about it - I see this tendency to try as much as possible to expand the reach of the Dharma appearing in a group of modern teachers - But the process is based on the Zen idea (or fact) that all beings have the potential to awaken to their Buddha nature. This is something that a lot of traditional practitioners don't like because it seems like a "light" version of the Dharma. We all know that the Dharma at first is very hard to comprehend (and ultimately impossible to grasp) so this is an Upaya that a modern zen master has designed to adapt it to the culture as best as it can, it is made for the ears of ordinary people, but it can also help the advanced seeker. This can make it feel (understandably) like a watered down version of the teachings. He also charges for it so this triggers a lot of shadows on the spiritual community, though I've requested to attend for free and was able to do so, so has many people.

Genpo doesn't promise stream entry or things like that but he says it's possible that it might happen to some, depending on where they are on the path. An in the worst case scenario its a way to help people attain more clarity about themselves and to live a more conscious life.

In my own case, Big Mind did accelerate my development and pushed me to stream entry, but I had been practicing close to 10 years already.

I know Genpo personally and are some what close to him. I think he is a genuine and highly skilled master, also with the credentials to show it - not that it necessarily means anything, but it does for some. I think he's an outstanding (but far far from perfect) human being and I have a deep gratitude and appreciation for what I've learned from him.

Having said that, if any of you feel like you have genuine motives to trash him - based on your own knowledge or experience - I'm cool with that !

I think that if one reads Ken Wilber's books with an open mind, it should be almost impossible to think that he is a scam artist. He should be of interest to anyone who frequents this site with the attitude of "waking up whatever it takes", or who believes that all the traditions are valid paths to awakening, but he probably won't be of interest to those who believe that a certain school of buddhism is the only valid path.

Since MCTB is written from the former point of view (and lists other traditions and maps repeatedly) and the DhO seems to be founded on this idea of using any and all techniques to get awakened (but with an emphasis on the buddhist maps), I think Ken Wilber is potentially suited to the kind of people who frequent this site, as he is also a practitioner whose whole philosophical system is based on the idea that all the wisdom traditions are valid paths to awakening, and whose own practice was also primarily focused on buddhist practices.






And as you said, Daniel Ingram even recommends Ken Wilber's first book, Spectrum of Consciousness, in one section of MTCB, on page 334.

I think his Integral Model is absolutely brilliant. In terms of Morality training, with the relative side of the street, I think the Integral Model is an extremely valuable tool for putting together all these different conceptual ideas of reality. It is basically a theory of everything which actually includes "everything" that you could think to include without reducing them all to one specific field (unlike many theories of everything which subtly reduce all other theories into one specific area of prime interest (such as matter, or idealism), or leave out explanations for art, or genocide, (or have dismissive non-explanation explanations) or reduce the value of certain things and deny their richness in order for them to fit cleanly into the model). And it does so in an extremely elegant way based on just a few principles. In my opinion it really does this, and I think that is why so many people end up idolising him, because of just how perfectly it does this and how liberating it can be intellectually (which means more liberating in terms of actual practical living).

What Daniel Johnson says about cross-marketing also seems to be true, and I think it's one of the reasons so many people get put off Integral. That and also their branding, imho. Anything involving spirituality and money becomes very suspicious to certain types of people very quickly (and with good reason, but I don't believe that money should entirely be kept away from spirituality, especially if you live in a society where you cannot meet your survival needs without money. People being able to support themselves full-time in the spiritual market place is a wonderful thing in my opinion if their work genuinely helps people).




Daniel Ingram writes, on page 334 of MCTB: "The third point about integration and living in the world that I have had to learn the hard way is a concept that I recently heard articulated very well by my friend Tom in the phrase, "Right plane, right time," which was his way of saying, "Use the correct conceptual and paradigmatic framework for the correct situation." Like the simple lists of Part I, this phrase could be the basis of an entire book (see the difficult but excellent "The Spectrum of Consciousness", by Ken Wilber, which spends a lot of time explaining how to keep our paradigms straight and not mix them up). [...] One should be conscious of the conceptual frameworks that one uses when approaching each aspect of one's life, as some conceptual frameworks or ways of being may not be helpful or appropriate for certain situations."

I think this is one of the main reasons Integral is so strong. And I think that for certain types of people nowadays, we often are biased to taking a certain perspective as "primary" to leading our lives (such as an environmental one, or a psychological one, or a buddhist one), and for people who feel that many of such perspectives could all equally be primary but don't know how to make them all equally primary at the same time, the Integral Model sort of connects them all and ends that conflict. It can be a powerful aid in reducing the suffering of not understanding the form side of the street.

His work also brings out a lot shadow in people, and it's very clearly shadow because the criticisms are almost always simply about:
- his tone
- his attitude
- an icky feeling
- calling him a narcissist because he jokes about himself and behaves like any ordinary human being

but its rare to see actual criticisms of what he is actually saying. I think it's unfortunate for someone who wants to become more aware and kind to suggest someone else a scam artist, bullshitty, stupid, opportunistic, without having read any of their books or even knowing anything about their work.







I haven't read the Big Mind book or done the process, but have heard some interviews about it and read about it, and from what I understand it is basically a type of Pointing-Out technique, but one that is supposedly very effective and can be done with large groups of people. It's meant to show you states (such as ever-present Buddha Nature), not to move you to another stage (such as a Path). I think that what Ken Wilber means when he says "Once you get it, you can do it virtually any time you wish, and almost instantaneously" is that once you get a good clean look at the obvious ever-present witness, even in a state experience, you should be able to recall that state whenever you need to (state, not stage). That's not too radical a claim in my opinion.

"Or maybe Big Mind IS the greatest contribution to Buddhism in twenty years" or whatever, but I seriously doubt it. Do you have any other explanations for his statements?"

I have no idea whether it is or not, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of buddhism evolving and new masters bringing new techniques to the table that can be more effective in certain areas than previous ones. That has always happened, all throughout the history of buddhism, every time it came to a new culture (as is happening now as it comes to the west). Hokai Sobol (who I believe was an early member here) has an excellent discussion about this on the Buddhist Geeks podcast ().






I agree that it's a bit lame if you can't do the actual Big Mind process yourself with the book or CD.

some babbling speculation of mine on your ideas about Big Hate and Big Chaos... I think that you're right, that if you did that you would indeed get some repeatable and concrete voices, and if you asked Big Hate to talk about mankind indeed it would say the dark things we've all heard many times before about mankind, and isn't that the whole point? It's like you've just stumbled on precisely why Big Mind CAN work! If anyone can tune into Big Chaos and describe this common voice we all have inside us and understand it and resonate with it, why not the same for any of the other voices? I think it's a similar principle to why so many characters share the same traits and voices in cinema and literature and comics, mythology, etc, or why exactly we can feel a resonance or empathy with many great songs or pieces of art, because the artist tuned into Big Whatever when writing that song, translated it into whatever technique and form they use, and if we like that type of form then we get a nice dose of Big Whatever...

Didn't Genpo Roshi charge people $50 000 to do a 10 day 'enlightenment course'...or something like that? I am too tired to do the proper research at the moment :-) but I remember stumbling across this about a year ago (might have been brad warner's blog)

This leads me to question the guy's morals and compassion for others. He needs to make a living, but come on, isn't that around the average american's yearly salary?

He seems to combine NLP, hypnosis, mindfulness and clinical therapy techniques to get 'you' out of the way, so the essence of 'you' can be present without the judgments, thought pattens etc... so I see how it might work for some.

If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck..well you get my point. Too good to be true IMHO

Richie

I don't know anything about the prices of types of retreats he has done, nor the different types of therapies he uses, or anything about him really.

But the topic of charging large sums of money for spiritual teachings/services is an interesting one. A conversation I had while in india changed my view on this (previously I would have immediately thought that anyone charging large sums of money for this type of thing is immediately a fraud or has very skewed motivations).

I was at a goenka-center in India and was talking to someone about the main center, Dhamma-Giri. They were telling me about how big it was and I was asking them for anecdotes about how it is run, etc. At one point they mentioned that they typically serve larger and more comfortable rooms for westerners, and even larger and more cosy rooms for the wealthy. At first I thought this was absurd (with all my equality type thinking and so on) but he explained that the reasoning was a compassionate one - people who have lived a lifetime of wealth and luxury or "certain standards" have an immensely hard time adjusting to living in extremely bare and simple accommodation - a 10-day silent retreat is hard enough as it is. He said that for the same reason, for some of the extremely poor indians who attended, they would offer them to stay in large dormitories, instead of the individual rooms or the room that just hold a handful of people, for the same reason - for westerners it would be less comfortable but for some types of people who have lived their entire lives living with their family in a single room, suddenly having to confront the difficulties of a 10-day retreat PLUS live in isolation would be too much to cope with.

And how this relates to the thing with charging 50,000$ for a retreat, well...

Everyone needs the dharma right? Everyone needs compassion and a way out of suffering. That is like the central point in all these traditions. No matter what, you're a being who is suffering and compassion is what you need, to understand reality and get with the dharma or the dao or whatever.

And given the extremely wide variety of people and lifestyles and cultures, there really can't be a "one size fits all". It's extraordinary that some of these teachings reach as far as they do.


Rich people need compassion, rich people suffer immensely also, in some ways very differently from others but in other ways just the same as others as course, from the same ignorances and hindrances and so on (and from not being ultimately- liberated!). Rich people need the dharma in whatever way they can get it. And its simply a fact of life that there are many people, the ultra rich perhaps, who would simply never ever ever ever consider taking a meditation retreat for free. Think about it. There are people in this world, who, the only only only way to get them into the dharma is for them to pay a large sum for it, if that is the only way that they will initially feel the value in it. It's stupid but its true. There NEED to be people offering these things for extremely high prices, providing they are actually competent at what they do. I don't know anything about genpo roshi, but because I can imagine a genuinely compassionate and sincere way of charging that much money for a retreat, I see no reason to instantly cry foul.

The opposite is also true, ironically. There are people who NEED things to be cheap or free in order to feel that it is a valuable thing, or a pure thing, or whatever. That if there is any more money than is strictly necessary, it has instantly become dirty or unpure and less valuable, etc...

The world is full of very wealthy people and if it takes expensive workshops and retreats and teachings to get them to be more liberated and happy and serve others, well, great! Better that than having them just spend all their cash on trivial luxuries right?

Andrew, you brought a lot of valid points.

This also made me remember of a zen story I read before here:


Althought it is very hard to know his true intentions, it is possible Genpo Roshi he isn't trying to scam people too.
I think your point of he maybe trying to attract rich people with a high fee is completely plausible in my opinion.
Who knows, right?

Good point. Some well off people do see more value in and more easily commit to things that are expensive. I know a few people who are like that with branded clothes, myself included. If I have to pay a little more for a trusted brand and I can afford it, I will.

A lot of westerners are looking for a quick fix...'what! I have to sit for decades?' and I believe Genpo Roshi appeals to them. I my experience and most people I have talked with, agree that in the meditation game there are no quick fixes. It takes months, years or decades to make the kind of progress that the Buddha goes on about Then again I could be completely wrong and the guy gets recognized as some sort of meditation genius in the future.

That being said, if anyone asks me about his stuff I'll advise against it and point them in the direction of shinzen young, kennth folk and daniel ingram...IMO those 3 pretty much cover all the stuff you need for free. The rest is up to you

Here's a beautiful article by Ken Wilber explaining the relationship between Dharma and money trough out the different stages of human consciousness, very recommended.

http://www.kenwilber.com/Writings/PDF/RightBucks_GENERAL_b42000.pdf

seconded. I remember reading that last year and it really opened my mind to other ways of looking at this topic