A Post from the Santa Monica Integral Matrix meetup group
Posted on Jan 11th, 2008
by 
dugaum
dugaum
Source http://kenwilber.meetup.com/59/
First off, Cheers to Eliot & Jana for really doing their homework on the environmental issue. If any issue deserves a comprehensive & inclusive (integral) approach, it is environmental concerns.
I thought I would make a little attempt to clarify the meaning Zone 1 and Zone 2 as used by Ken Wilber. I felt in myself (and perhaps in others) a little uncertainty about these points in our discussion at the meetup and also in Eliot's latest post on "A Zone 2 Perspective on Environmentalism".
Eliot said in his post, "Ken Wilber reminds us, for example, that Zone One discloses the beauty of meditation, and Zone Two discloses the meaning of Spiral Dynamics, AND that these two types of development are largely discrete, cognitively ("NO amount of meditation will EVER disclose ANYTHING like SD", KW [my emphasis, for clarity]). "
Here is Wilber in Integral Spirituality. (Note: I added the brackets in quotes below)
(IS, pg. 38)
"Here's the point: you can sit on your meditation mat for decades, and you will NEVER see anything resembling the stages of Spiral Dynamics. And you can study Spiral Dynamics till the cows come home, and you will NEVER have a satori. And the integral point is, if you don't include both, you will likely never understand human beings or their relation to Reality, divine or otherwise.
Meditative understanding involves preeminently a methodology of looking at the 'I' from the inside (using phenomenology)[zone 1]; Spiral Dynamics involves studying it from the outside (using structuralism)[zone 2]. Both of them are studying a person's consciousness, but they see very different things because they are inhabiting a different stance or perspective, using different methodologies. Further, a person could be quite advanced in one, and not in the other, or vice versa, and there is no way to tell using either of their yardsticks; they can't even see each other!"
(IS, pg. 196)
"There is another reason that religions, in order to act as the great conveyor belt of humanity, should incorporate meditative, contemplative, and nonordinary states (gross, subtle, causal, nondual) into their curricula, and that is not just to stop forcing kids into raves and grown adults into tent revivals, but for the profoundly beneficial effect that states have on stages. As we saw: the more you experience various states, the more quickly you develop through the stages.
Under no circumstances that we are aware of can you skip stages in any line--stages cannot be skipped--but considerable research has demonstrated that the more you experience meditative or contemplative states of consciousness, the faster you develop through the stages of consciousness. No other single practice or technique--not therapy, not breath-work, not transformative workshops, not role-taking, not hatha yoga--has been empirically demonstrated to do this. Meditation alone has done so. For example, whereas around 2% of the adult population is at second tier, after 4 years of meditation, that 2% goes to 38% in the meditation group. This is truly staggering research.
As we saw, the reason meditation does so is simple enough. When you meditate, you are in effect witnessing the mind, thus turning subject into object--which is exactly the core mechanism of development ('the subject of one stage becomes the object of the subject of the next').*
So no matter what general stage you are at when you begin (red, amber, orange, green,
etc.), you can directly experience meditative or contemplative or ecstatic or nonordinary states
(gross, subtle, causal, nondual), and not only do those states carry profound experiences
themselves, they will accelerate your growth and development through the stages."
One point I wanted to make in this discussion is that meditation will not 'disclose' stages as Eliot has pointed out, but meditation will accelerate growth through the stages. And, I would add that actually developing through stages will assist one in being able to see the stages more clearly using the zone 2 methodologies. The second point of this post is that learning about the 'Stages of Development' using a Zone 2 methodology may perhaps increase cognitive understanding, but meditation may actually increase compassion, thus allowing one to relate to & assist others at varying stages of growth with more skillful means.
In conclusion, I would say 'both/and' to Zone 1/Zone 2 (and of course the other 6 Zones as well).
In an Integral Approach, Big Mind and Big Heart are 'Not Two'.
Blessings,
Doug (dugaum)
First off, Cheers to Eliot & Jana for really doing their homework on the environmental issue. If any issue deserves a comprehensive & inclusive (integral) approach, it is environmental concerns.
I thought I would make a little attempt to clarify the meaning Zone 1 and Zone 2 as used by Ken Wilber. I felt in myself (and perhaps in others) a little uncertainty about these points in our discussion at the meetup and also in Eliot's latest post on "A Zone 2 Perspective on Environmentalism".
Eliot said in his post, "Ken Wilber reminds us, for example, that Zone One discloses the beauty of meditation, and Zone Two discloses the meaning of Spiral Dynamics, AND that these two types of development are largely discrete, cognitively ("NO amount of meditation will EVER disclose ANYTHING like SD", KW [my emphasis, for clarity]). "
Here is Wilber in Integral Spirituality. (Note: I added the brackets in quotes below)
(IS, pg. 38)
"Here's the point: you can sit on your meditation mat for decades, and you will NEVER see anything resembling the stages of Spiral Dynamics. And you can study Spiral Dynamics till the cows come home, and you will NEVER have a satori. And the integral point is, if you don't include both, you will likely never understand human beings or their relation to Reality, divine or otherwise.
Meditative understanding involves preeminently a methodology of looking at the 'I' from the inside (using phenomenology)[zone 1]; Spiral Dynamics involves studying it from the outside (using structuralism)[zone 2]. Both of them are studying a person's consciousness, but they see very different things because they are inhabiting a different stance or perspective, using different methodologies. Further, a person could be quite advanced in one, and not in the other, or vice versa, and there is no way to tell using either of their yardsticks; they can't even see each other!"
(IS, pg. 196)
"There is another reason that religions, in order to act as the great conveyor belt of humanity, should incorporate meditative, contemplative, and nonordinary states (gross, subtle, causal, nondual) into their curricula, and that is not just to stop forcing kids into raves and grown adults into tent revivals, but for the profoundly beneficial effect that states have on stages. As we saw: the more you experience various states, the more quickly you develop through the stages.
Under no circumstances that we are aware of can you skip stages in any line--stages cannot be skipped--but considerable research has demonstrated that the more you experience meditative or contemplative states of consciousness, the faster you develop through the stages of consciousness. No other single practice or technique--not therapy, not breath-work, not transformative workshops, not role-taking, not hatha yoga--has been empirically demonstrated to do this. Meditation alone has done so. For example, whereas around 2% of the adult population is at second tier, after 4 years of meditation, that 2% goes to 38% in the meditation group. This is truly staggering research.
As we saw, the reason meditation does so is simple enough. When you meditate, you are in effect witnessing the mind, thus turning subject into object--which is exactly the core mechanism of development ('the subject of one stage becomes the object of the subject of the next').*
So no matter what general stage you are at when you begin (red, amber, orange, green,
etc.), you can directly experience meditative or contemplative or ecstatic or nonordinary states
(gross, subtle, causal, nondual), and not only do those states carry profound experiences
themselves, they will accelerate your growth and development through the stages."
One point I wanted to make in this discussion is that meditation will not 'disclose' stages as Eliot has pointed out, but meditation will accelerate growth through the stages. And, I would add that actually developing through stages will assist one in being able to see the stages more clearly using the zone 2 methodologies. The second point of this post is that learning about the 'Stages of Development' using a Zone 2 methodology may perhaps increase cognitive understanding, but meditation may actually increase compassion, thus allowing one to relate to & assist others at varying stages of growth with more skillful means.
In conclusion, I would say 'both/and' to Zone 1/Zone 2 (and of course the other 6 Zones as well).
In an Integral Approach, Big Mind and Big Heart are 'Not Two'.
Blessings,
Doug (dugaum)
Edited by Doug Wallack on Dec 10, 2007 at 12:09 PM
Access: Public
April 2008 
Hi, Dugaum,
This is an issue I've been thinking about. I have been questioning whether these zones are really so hermetically sealed. Let me outline briefly what I'm thinking, and I'd be interested in your feedback.
When you sit and do a typical Zone 1 meditation like Vipassana, you are paying attention to immediate phenomenal experience and so will not notice, in the moment, the type of structures which Zone 2 disciplines investigate. However, it seems to me that if you bring in the factor of time, where you may observe your own thoughts over a particular period, you may certainly have insights into certain patterns that mark out (for instance) the contours of particular value structures, or even shifs in value structures. It seems possible, at least in theory, that these factors may be observable in communities dedicated to UL inquiry, particularly if they are aware that these sorts of structures actually exist. Traditional UL communities have noticed stages of growth or development in other areas (say, Nyingma's 9 levels), based in part on observation of phenomenal experience and in part on the sophistication of the formulation of practitioners' insights, so doesn't it seem possible – at least in theory – that, if one attends to these patterns as part of your meditation and reflection practice (taking a long overview as well as a short phenomenal view), that Zone 2 phenomena can be observed or discovered in mediation? Not all forms of meditation or inquiry, after all, restict themselves to simple attention to the immediacy of experience…
Best wishes,
Balder
Hi, Dugaum,
Reading over what I just wrote (in between phone calls at work!), I decided I needed to come back and clarify a few things. First, I didn't think you were actually suggesting in your blog that these two zones should be treated in a rigidly exclusive way. You clearly recognize their complementary relationship. I was just putting some of my half-formed thoughts out there, prompted mostly by Wilber's assertion that meditation (a Zone 1 activity) will never disclose Zone 2 structures or stages. I agree with you that these Zones are actually complementary, and what I wanted to suggest is that meditation, while typically classified as a Zone 1 activity, can actually “overlap” to a degree with (and even incorporate) Zone 2 methods of inquiry in a complementary fashion.
So, I think I would have made my point more clearly if I had put it this way: certain practices such as meditation should not be considered to be exclusive to one zone or another. It is possible that, within an overall meditation practice, you can engage in perspectival shifts which disclose patterns over time that would not be available if you kept your perspective “fixed” in one direction.
To be transparent, one reason I'm interested in this is because my own practice tradition, TSK, involves some “meditations” which are actually more like individual Zone 2 inquiries – asking practitioners to study and reflect on patterns of knowledge in history, or patterns of “narratives” in our own mind streams, etc, which helps us notice how knowledge and perspectives develop in time, while also helping to loosen identification with current focal settings as “given” or “what is.”
What do you think? Does this make sense to you?
Best wishes,
Balder
Hi Balder,
These are great questions. Glad you asked…now I get to grow more…LOL.
Depends on what one means by 'Meditation' and/or examining thoughts. It is almost impossible without a dialog to know what people mean by these words.
1st, I guess a little clarification on what I mean by meditation vs: contemplation vs: mental inquiry by whatever name. I have been doing Transcendental Meditation for 40 years this February. In this practice the 'goal' so to speak is to transcend thought to arrive at the 'source' of thought (consiousness without an object). Naturally thoughts come & go, but the content is relatively unimportant. But basically I mean by meditation, an interior examination of my own interior and what is arising within that interior space.
Zone 2 is more about examining the personal interior from the outside within the AQAL evolutionary space. This involves either self or other looking at how my interior looks in terms of 'history'…my own & the culture I'm embedded in.
From what you have said & my brief exposure to TSK, I would agree with you that it may be more of a Zone 2 inquiry. But, again I agree that there is somewhat of a 'fuzzy' boundary between these because we tetra-arise…I think it is just very difficult to see it all simultaneously.
But, back again to what I mean by meditation…going beyond thought…there is a clear distinction between that 'emptiness' & our 'form' in the world. I believe this is what Ken is refering to in the IS quote above…with the caveat that 'meditation', 'emptiness', etc. are very difficult to nail down in language.
Plenty of room for more discussion of these issues (relative & absolute).
Thanks for the interest. Hope this helps a bit.
Cheers,
Doug
Bruce,
Another little note. Jana, our meetup organiser has suggested we video our meetings to see folks expressions, body language, etc. in order to gather some of that Zone 2 data.
You might want to read her blog about going to Denver & being video'd for a prize she won. She was very 'vulnerable' in describing her experience. Here's a link http://kenwilber.meetup.com/59/messages/boards/view/viewthread?thread=3970430
You might also see from the previous post by Eliot why I posted my clarification.
These are challenging issues.
Cheers,
Doug
Hi, Doug,
Thank you. Yes, what you say makes sense to me. It really depends on what we mean by meditation, doesn't it? Transcendental Meditation, or Shamatha or Vipassana, etc, are limited enough in “focus” that they simply will not disclose Zone 2 phenomena directly – I agree with this. But some traditions use meditation in a more flexible way, encompassing with the term more than these concentration or awareness-centered, formless meditation techniques. Beyond this, because self-and-world tetra-arise, the boundary between Zones is a bit fuzzy, as you say, and it does seem likely that insights attained via a particular practice may feed into or inform understanding in more than one Zone. So, while a Zone 1 practice may never lead to Zone 2 insight directly, once we are aware of these different phenomena, it does seem to me that a certain complementary relationship may manifest, even within the context of a single practice.
About TSK, many of its meditations are actually Zone 1 practices, but some are not – some ask practitioners to engage in reflective inquiries which do appear to take more of a Zone 2 (or 3 or 4) perspective. One reason why I'm interested in this question is because Wilber calls for postmodern spiritual traditions to cultivate more of an awareness of Zone 2 insights and practices, and it seems TSK is an example that at least appears to be opening doors in this direction (in the context of a largely contemplative practice).
Best wishes,
Balder