| yeah, Wilber--i have mixed attitudes towards his work.
I was a little disappointed with his responses in the interview... it was very scholarly, but in a way that's difficult to access for those unfamiliar with the other terms--something I'd think that an ecumenist would try to avoid! Also, there was a hint--just a hint--of cult-leader style "Pacing and Leading" going on: technical - technical - over your head - technical - universal truth. Skilled rhetoric, maybe, but a little creepy.
Now, I think the big thing to note is that referring to the third vipassana jhana as "the Dark Night","Third Vipassana Jhana", "Da'ath" or "A Bad Mood" is already very technical and specific to a subset of practitioners, and going to lose a lot of people. But the answer he gave--that we have to give up the grosser states to get to more and more subtle states--is the classic analysis of "wisdom preceded by concentration." And while I tend to practice in that vein, there is a lot lost by not mentioning "dry" wisdom practice, i.e., "concentration preceded by wisdom." I would have liked him to touch on the actual process, the more "First Person" and "Third Person" in I.I.-speak, of it.
Taken as a whole, I think Wilber's older work, about "states vs. stages", about "Flatland" approaches being a serious problem, about the "pre/trans" fallacy is tremendously valuable. I'm not sure which work best codifies that, but i recommend it without reservation. Also add his blog post about being biologically dead a couple of times while maintaining awareness. But a lot of the developments of the well-intentioned Integral Institute stuff, like Wilber's intolerance for criticism and eagerness to take credit for things, bothers me, [tin foil hat] as does Changing Images 2000's fondness for him [/tin foil hat] |