Daniel O'Connor | Integral Ventures, LLC
In the context of personal development, an Integral Practice may be defined as an integrated set of developmental practices designed to enhance one's experience of life and support one's contribution to the world. I first encountered the idea of an Integral Practice in 1993, in the final chapter of a veritable encyclopedia of human potential: The Future of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature by Michael Murphy. Based on a breathtaking variety of research accumulated over the years, Murphy outlined in considerable detail about a dozen different types of metanormal human capacities that appear to be latent in us all, awaiting development through various transformative practices. With these metanormal capacities in mind and evidently drawing inspiration from Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga, Murphy proposed a contemporary approach to personal development that would integrate physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual practices into what he called Integral Practices, flexibly self-designed to gradually awaken one's latent human potential.
This idea of Integral Practice and the research behind it was particularly appealing to me because, in 1993 at the age of 27, I had just completed an intensive wilderness sabbatical in which I engaged in my own self-designed Integral Practice of solo backpacking and mountaineering, journaling and reading in psychology and philosophy, and sitting and walking meditation. In fact, I could trace my experience with various approaches to Integral Practice all the way back to the age of 14, when I began training in Shaolin Kung Fu, one of the oldest forms of body-mind-spirit cultivation. Murphy's book gave me a language to describe what I had figured out for myself through a combination of intuition and experimentation. I have since then been engaged to varying degrees from one year to the next, during the many ups and downs of my life, in a slowly evolving Integral Practice that supports all my work in the world. For whatever it might be worth to those who read this article, I would like to share a general outline of the core components of my Integral Practice.
In one sense, my whole life is an Integral Practice, simply because there is no aspect of my life that I do not consider to be a field of practice or an opportunity for personal development. Nevertheless, what really matters in this context are those relatively few personal practices that are essential to my development as a whole person in every aspect of my life.
My Integral Practice is the result of many years of experiential learning about the essential practices that contribute the most to my development as a whole person. It includes body-oriented practices that enhance my strength, endurance, flexibility, and balance, while facilitating more conscious mind-body integration. It also includes mind-oriented practices that challenge me to see, think, feel, act, and learn with greater clarity and authenticity. Finally, it includes spirit-oriented practices that help me realize the peaceful awareness within which my entire life unfolds. While the details of my design have evolved over time, my experience with every one of these practices dates back to at least 1995:
Integral Praxis is an inquiry into the essential nature of conscious human action in all its forms and fields, encompassing both the theory of integral practice and the practice of integral theory. At least that's how I define it. It may seem redundant or perhaps just confusing that one of my primary Integral Practices is something that sounds like the same thing. Regardless, Integral Praxis has been my primary mental discipline since 1993-94, when I first experienced an irruption of integral aperspectival perception, cognition, emotion, and volition. The inquiry I began then continues to this day and to whatever extent I have generated preliminary answers worth sharing, they are being gradually disseminated, explicitly and implicitly, through the derivative practices of my writing & speaking and my consulting & coaching.
My particular version of Integral Praxis emphasizes the three-fold practice of transparency, choice, and accountability in all human action:
- Transparency generally means disclosing and acquiring all the relevant information within the relevant perspectives pertaining to a particular action, free of any deception or distortion that may undermine people’s choices. This entails seeking and speaking what is true, right, and sincere in every situation, consistent with the degree of commitment to development present in that situation.
- Choice generally means taking perspectives and making decisions in the context of one’s awareness, free of any coercion that may force one person or another to make choices against their will. This is about becoming more aware of actions as they manifest, discerning the degrees of proaction and reaction, volition and spontaneity, commitment and coercion.
- Accountability generally means assuming responsibility for one’s choices, following through on commitments made, sharing responsibility for the intended as well as unintended consequences, and learning from experience in all perspectives. This completes the cycle with seeking and speaking what is true, right, and sincere regarding past actions in order to promote mutual awareness, learning, and trust.
Transparency, Choice, and Accountability are injunctions to pay attention before, during, and after every action, partly because this is essential to all experiential learning and development and partly because the practice of awareness itself, paying attention to what is, whatever it may be, is deeply developmental. As this practice deepens it gradually shifts from a cycle of awareness focused on actions to a continuous awareness of the cycle of action as it unfolds. Transparency, Choice, and Accountability appear to be both descriptive of, and prescriptive for, the development of integral aperspectival consciousness itself.
As a developmental practice, I try to pursue relatively high degrees of Transparency, Choice, and Accountability with respect to the personal, interpersonal, and impersonal domains of my life and work. This practice helps me and those with whom I live and work to see, think, feel, act, and learn with greater authenticity and awareness. That said, it is the application of this Integral Praxis to my personal development that is of interest here and, it must be said, of the greatest significance, because without the particularly intense personal disciplines I've chosen to practice over the years, I would not have been able to sustain the other facets of my life and work.
Return to My Integral Practice
Yoga is a powerful method of physical-mental-spiritual development, with multiple paths and styles that have evolved over the course of several thousand years. The word Yoga comes from the Sanskrit yuj, meaning unite or integrate, and refers to the aim of all forms of Yoga, which is to facilitate the realization of the pre-existing union of personal and universal consciousness--in other words, self-realization, awakening, or enlightenment. In plain English, Yoga is a whole lot more than isometrics and stretching. It is a comprehensive practice of personal transformation and self-realization with enough diversity in specific techniques to suit the personal diversity of countless spiritual aspirants. In fact, it may just be the original Integral Practice, as my wife Karen so provocatively proposed in this wonderful introductory article.
While I have been inspired since 1994 by the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, the first teachings of which came to me through The Life Divine, I have found myself in need of far more body-mind Yoga discipline than Aurobindo might have required or desired. My first experience with the now-ubiquitous body-mind Yoga known as Hatha, was when Karen taught me some postures in 1995, when I was 29. I took to it rather easily and have practiced it regularly and intensively, meaning just about every day for nearly an hour, for roughly 7 of the past 14 years, and for about 15 minutes every day during all but a few of the remaining years. My experience with the more philosophical and spiritual dimensions of Yoga has been much the same, waxing and waning in multi-year periods, while always remaining in the background of my mind, as if it belongs there. Every time I return to intensive daily practice after some multi-year partial hiatus, I discover a new level of depth to this amazing discipline.
My particular approach to Yoga is a self-designed daily practice that includes four primary stages:
- Asana - Asanas are steady postures, often linked with flowing transitional movements, that stretch and strengthen the muscles, massage the internal organs, activate the energy along the spine, calm the nervous system, and focus one's attention on the presence of the body. The word asana ("AA-saa-naa") means sitting down, but there are in fact scores of different asanas that include sitting, supine, inverted, and standing varietes that stretch the spine in every direction, with literally hundreds of different variations that collectively work every muscle, tendon, ligament, and nerve in the human body. My approach to Yoga includes a customized sequence of 21 asanas that I practice in a slow, continuous flow, with a couple asanas serving as transitional postures several times throughout the sequence and one final seated asana for the practices that follow.
- Pranayama - Pranayama is a discipline for the control of breathing and the cultivation of energy, practiced during all asanas and more intensively in one of several seated asanas. The word pranayama ("prAA-naa-yAA-ma") is composed of prana, meaning life force, yama, meaning discipline, and its opposite, ayama, meaning unrestrained extension or expansion. My approach to Yoga includes the basic Ujjayi Pranayama, a slow, deep, audible breath coordinated with all the asanas in my sequence, followed by the advanced Nadi Shodhana Pranayama, an alternate nostril breathing technique with long pauses between inhale/exhale, together with the three primary energy-conserving Bhandas, while seated in Vajrasana. Outside of this extended sequence, I also practice pranayama periodically throughout the day and particularly when traveling and during breaks between meetings.
- Mantra - Mantras are meaningful syllables, words, or short phrases that are recited aloud or silently as a form of meditation that concentrates, calms, and clears the mind. The word mantra ("mAAn-tra") is composed of the verb man, which means to think, and the word tra, which means instrumentality and, via the related verb trai, to protect or free. Therefore, this practice may be understood as the instrumental repetition of a particular thought, the mantra, in order to free the mind of other thoughts and prepare it for deeper meditation. My approach incorporates a very full three-part breathing technique called Dirga Pranayama coupled with the meditative recitation of the sacred seed syllable AUM, which represents the three states of consciousness--gross (A), subtle(U), causal (M)--that unfold from the one witness or non-dual consciousness--turiya (silence/pause after M). As with other forms of pranayama, I often use this mantra practice periodically throughout the day and particularly when traveling and during breaks between meetings, when even a silent recitation can calm the mind.
- Jnana - Jnana is our intuitive knowledge of who we really are, behind the stream of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions with which we habitually identify. My approach to Jnana ("ng-AA-naa") includes two primary practices. The first is Advaita Vedanta Vichara, by which I mean the contemplation, Vichara ("vee-chAAr"), of both traditional and contemporary teachings in Yoga philosophy and the related non-dual philosophy known as Advaita Vedanta ("uhd-vIE-tuh vay-dAAn-taa"), from the Bhagavad Gita to Aurobindo to Ramana Maharshi to Ramesh Balsekar. The second practice is Atma Vichara ("AAt-ma vee-chAAr"), which is a meditative inquiry into who I am at the root of all perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions, the practice of which stops the mental flow and reveals the peaceful awareness that I am, Atma or the Self, within which all perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions arise. I practice Self-Inquiry following mantra meditation and while transitioning to sleep, but more frequently throughout the day, whenever it occurs to me to trace my experiences back to their source or when I simply notice that the Self-Inquiry is already happening in the background of my mind.
The table below outlines in some detail the full Yoga practice of Asanas, Pranayama, Mantra, and Jnana, which I practice in sequence as often as each day and as separate modules when time is limited or when specific techniques are preferred in particular situations.
|
Steady Posture |
min |
|||
|
|
Surya Namaskar |
Sun Salutation |
3 |
|
|
1 |
Tadasana |
Mountain |
1 |
|
|
2 |
Vrkshasana |
Tree |
2 |
|
|
3 |
Trikonasana |
Triangle |
2 |
|
|
4 |
Virabhadrasana 2 |
Warrior 2 |
1 |
|
|
5 |
Virabhadrasana 1 |
Warrior 1 |
2 | |
6 |
Adho Mukha
Svanasana |
Downward Dog |
1 |
|
|
7 |
Shirshasana |
Headstand |
2 |
|
|
8 |
Vrichikasana |
Scorpion |
2 |
|
|
9 |
Sarvangasana |
Shoulderstand |
2 |
|
|
10 |
Halasana |
Plow |
1 |
|
|
11 |
Setu Bandha
Sarvangasana |
Bridge |
1 |
|
|
12 |
Matsyasana |
Fish |
1 |
|
|
13 |
Ardha / Paripurna
Navasana |
Boat - Half / Full |
1 |
|
|
14 |
Shalabhasana |
Locust |
1 |
|
|
15 |
Rajakapotasana |
Pigeon |
3 |
|
|
16 |
Janu Shirshasana |
Head-to-Knee |
2 |
|
|
17 |
Hanumanasana |
Monkey |
2 |
|
|
18 |
Ardha Matsyendrasana |
Half Lord of the Fishes |
4 |
|
|
19 |
Virabhadrasana 3 |
Warrior 3 |
2 |
|
|
20 |
Natarajasana |
Lord of the Dance |
2 |
|
|
21 |
Dandayamana Dhanurasana |
Standing Bow |
2 |
|
|
22 |
Vajrasana |
Thunderbolt |
incl |
|
|
|
Time |
|
|
40 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Breath Control |
min |
|||
|
|
Ujjayi Pranayama |
Conqueror Breathing |
incl |
|
|
|
Nadi Shodhana
Pranayama |
Channel Cleaning |
10+ |
|
|
|
Jalandhara Bandha |
Net-Bearer Bond I(relax)-P(hold)-E(hold)-P(release) |
incl |
|
|
|
Uddiyana Bandha |
Abdominal Bond I(release)-P(relax)-E(contract)-P(hold) |
incl |
|
|
|
Mula Bandha |
Root Bond |
incl |
|
|
|
Time |
|
|
10+ |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mind Clearing |
min |
|||
|
|
Toning |
“ah-ii-ee-oo-oh-uh-mm” |
|
2 |
|
|
AUM |
Seed Syllable of 3 States (gross-subtle-causal) in 1 (turiya) |
8+ |
|
|
|
Time |
|
|
10+ |
|
Self-Knowledge |
min |
|||
|
|
Advaita Vedanta Vichara |
Contemplation
of |
~ |
|
|
|
Atma Vichara |
Meditative Self-Inquiry |
~ |
|
|
|
Time |
|
|
~ |
Return to My Integral Practice
Strength Training is an essential practice for building the dense bones, strong muscles, and lean physique required for a long and healthy life. I've been Strength Training for all but a few of the past 21 years and have come to regard it as an essential component of my Integral Practice. Just to be clear, the Strength Training I have in mind is not the same as the body building where they develop physiques like superheroes. It's also not the weightlifting we see in the Olympics, where they clean 'n jerk a barbell so heavy it literally bends the bar. And it's not strongman training either, where those huge guys pull a small truck up a hill. As amazing as all three of those sports are, they are rather extreme versions of the much more modest approach to Strength Training that most of us mere mortals practice, which involves relatively balanced attempts to build functional strength to support a specific sport as well as overall health and fitness.
My current practice is centered on the TRX Suspension Trainer, which allows for a variety of dynamic bodyweight exercises that condition muscles for both compound movement and isometric stabilization in a way that traditional weight training cannot accomplish. As the table below reveals, every other day, I perform a whole-body workout with five core exercises, about five sets each, for a total of 60 minutes with the goal of maximizing the total repetitions for each exercise. The presses and rows concentrate on the push-pull dynamic of the upper body, while the bridges and lunges concentrate on the push-pull dynamic of the lower body. The pikes concentrate on the abdominal core, while all the others work the core to some degree as well due to the fact that either hands or feet are always suspended in the straps and holding the body at some angle to the floor. From one training session to the next, the goal is to increase by at least one repetition each and every exercise performed, thereby ensuring that the total volume of every exercise continues to increase over time. Every few weeks, I swap in alternative versions of the five core exercises just to shock the muscles out of their comfort zone and overcome any plateaus in total volume. For additional strength conditioning, I enjoy rope climbing, swinging a sledge hammer, and moving all sorts of heavy stuff around my yard while landscaping.
But there is more to this practice than going through the mindless motions of muscle building. Much like Yoga Asanas, the specific form and flow of these Strength Training movements are very important for balanced muscular development without injury. There is also a type of breath control that must be integrated with the form and flow, which for me is similar to the Kapalabhati Pranayama, a rapid, forced, diaphragmatic breathing coordinated with each repetition, breathing in during eccentric contraction and out during concentric contraction. There is even a cycle of mental focus similar to what I use in Yoga Asanas, with about 30 seconds of focused force during each set and about 30 seconds of focused relaxation and Ujjayi Pranayama to quickly rejuvenate between sets. While Endurance Training is a wonderful way to practice a diffuse mindfulness akin to moving meditation, I find Strength Training to be an equally effective practice of focused concentration that can train the mind for deeper meditation techniques. While I do not use Strength Training as a direct preparation for subsequent meditation practice, I do find that it leaves me far more grounded and calm, physically and emotionally, late in the evening and the following morning, which is supportive of the full spectrum of Yoga practice, from Asanas to Atma Vichara.
Every 2 Days | Time | 60 | ||
| Press | 5 Sets / Max Reps | ||
Row | 5 Sets / Max Reps | |||
Pike | 5 Sets / Max Reps | |||
Bridge | 5 Sets / Max Reps | |||
Lunge | 5 Sets / Max Reps | |||
Supplemental Exercises | Every Week | |||
Rope Climbing | 5 Sets / Max Reps | |||
Sledge Hammer | 300 Reps | |||
Landscaping | Max Reps |
|||
Return to My Integral Practice
Endurance Training serves as a necessary complement to Strength Training by engaging the whole body in exercises characterized by lower resistance, continuous movement, and longer duration. In its most basic form, that of walking quietly outdoors, mindfully aware of my body and its surroundings, soaking in the sights, sounds, and smells of forests, mountains, beaches, and deserts, it constitutes one of the most natural practices I can imagine. I've been some sort of walker, hiker, jogger, biker, backpacker, mountain climber, and, more recently, sea kayaker for 30 years. Regardless of the apparent diversity of outdoor endurance activities I've enjoyed over the years, to me they are all of a kind. At various points in my life, one or another of these endurance activities has emerged as a favorite and become a consistent focus, though never so exclusive as to eclipse complementary activities like Strength Training for more than a year. And during those rare intervals when I wasn't doing some sort of activity like this for as much as a couple years, my health definitely deteriorated. That's why it's essential for me.
My current practice is centered on what I call heavy walking, which involves a brisk walk up, down, and around our little corner of the island while wearing a 40lb X-Vest to increase the intensity. I usually do about two hours of this every other day in alternation with my standard Strength Training. Every few weeks, I manage to squeeze in some longer hiking in a local forest, either alone or with Karen and our dog, but always with that wonderful X-Vest. Sea kayaking is an alternative that I have taken up since moving to an island in the Puget Sound, though in this case I leave the X-Vest at home and don a life vest. Having recently built a house, which was an extraordinary endurance activity of its own, I find myself with no shortage of landscaping work to complete. Hence, I have adopted landscaping as yet another version of this practice, which for me involves crafting an attractive human and non-human habitat out of a dense, overgrown forest on our little patch of Earth. It also involves lifting and moving a lot of really heavy rocks, soil, brush, and the occasional tree. Finally, having once lived very comfortably alone in the wilderness for over six months, emerging every couple of weeks to replenish my supplies of food and books, I look forward to the time when I've satisfied my current commitments to building a house and building a business enough to allow for some extensive backpacking in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.
As with Strength Training, there is more to Endurance Training in all its variations than simply going through the mindless motions of moving from here to there in a hurry. Much like Yoga Asanas, the specific form and flow of Endurance Training is rather important for injury-free conditioning, and all the more so when it involves carrying additional weight over difficult and remote terrain in which injury leads to unusual hardship. I integrate breath control similar to Ujjayi Pranayama and pay attention at least periodically to the ratio of breaths-to-steps, attempting to get as many steps as possible out of a single deep breath even as increasingly difficult terrain will eventually require multiple breaths for each step, as when carrying a lot of weight or scaling the side of a mountain. My mental focus tends to alternate seamlessly between the immediate breath-body-ground-under-me and the entire natural panorama around me. Occasionally, this mindfulness takes the form of a walking meditation in which my sense of being a separate self in the context of nature is relaxed. It has been a long time since I practiced backpacking and mountaineering with a significant meditative component, but I recall a very natural synergy between the two practices that is accentuated with each additional day in the backcountry, particularly when traveling solo and therefore in silence.
Return to My Integral Practice
Conclusion
As the above outline suggests, my Integral Practice of body-mind-spirit development appears to be weighted toward the body end of the spectrum. This is in large part because the complements to my personal work, being my interpersonal and impersonal work in the world, the work I do every day to make a difference while making a living, requires of me a rather heavy emphasis on mental practices of reading, writing, dialogue, and the like, which are of course expressions of my particular approach to Integral Praxis. Hence what appears to be an emphasis on body more so than mind in my personal development. Though if you read carefully, you will have noticed that I bring a great deal of mindfulness to all these body-oriented practices.
As for the body-spirit balance, a couple of reflections come to mind. While there is much that I have read and learned about spiritual practice, I do not have much that I wish to write about my own spiritual practice that could not be better understood by readers if they would simply take up the suggested practices themselves. They are as profound as they are simple. That said, there is another aspect to the body-spirit balance that I have discovered over many years of practice. The human body lives in the present, not in the past nor in the future, but only in the present. Past and future are fabrications of the mind and only the mind. The intensive practice of body-oriented disciplines that require for their successful performance a sustained attention to the body-in-action, right here, right now, can create a mind-body presence that is in itself developmental. This is part of the wisdom in Yoga and Kung Fu, but just as present, if not necessarily much discussed, in everything from Weight Training to Rock Climbing. Consistent practice over the years trains the mind to appreciate and more easily rest in such presence, thereby establishing conditions more conducive to deeper awareness practices to witness the mind-body as action within stillness, form within emptiness.
Given this overview of my primary practices, several clarifications are in order:
- First, I'm not claiming to be an expert in these disciplines, but rather a dedicated practitioner who has learned enough to practice independently while still seeking guidance from teachers and knowledgeable peers along the way.
- Second, I have plenty of experience not practicing these disciplines over the years, which is a way of acknowledging that there is a difference between intention and action and, nevertheless, there is as much to learn from their misalignment as from their alignment.
- Third, I try to focus on being present in the practices more so than striving for some overall developmental outcome, partly because such ambitions are ultimately self-contradictory and partly because experience tells me that real being and becoming are full of novelty that cannot be foreseen and in some instances would not be desired.
- Fourth, while being present with the practices, I still find it helpful to aim for continuous improvement and track my performance in the various practices, keeping a record of the objective and, to a lesser extent, the subjective experiences of doing this work. Among other things, my performance record over the years has demonstrated to me the virtues of consistent body-mind-spirit cross-training.
- Fifth, I have always kept my experience of Integral Practice private, having taken to heart as a teenager the Taoist maxim "Those who know, do not talk; Those who talk, do not know." I don't talk when engaged in these practices and I've never talked very much about these practices. Nevertheless, I suspect there is a middle path that might permit some constructive contribution to the larger discourse about Integral Practice.
Hence, the publication of this article, the intent of which is to contribute to a more open discourse about Integral Practice--mine and yours.
Post-Script: Further Reading on Integral Practice
Those of you who would like to explore the idea of Integral Practice might consult Murphy's The Future of the Body, particularly if you have some skepticism about the very prospect of metanormal human potential. Those looking for more practical guidance on the design of their own Integral Practices might appreciate the follow-up book Murphy co-authored with George Leonard, The Life We are Given: A Long-Term Program for Realizing the Potential of Body, Mind, Heart, and Soul, in which they present a trademarked approach called Integral Transformative PracticeTM. More recently, Ken Wilber and his colleagues at Integral Institute designed their own trademarked approach called Integral Life PracticeTM, which can be explored through the book Integral Life Practice: A 21st Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening, co-authored by Ken Wilber, Terry Patten, Adam Leonard, and Marco Morelli.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
