Transformative Practices
An Esalen Invitational Conference
November 28 - December 2, 1999

Opening Remarks and Introduction

Michael Murphy began the conference with the overarching mission of Esalen's Center for Theory and Research, which is to create the outlines for a cohesive new theory of evolution, to expand our understanding of human nature, and to study practices that allow humans to evolve in the most integrated, multifaceted way. The great benefit of Esalen meetings, as opposed to more staid, presentation-focused scientific gatherings, is their informality and catalytic intent. We aim to create dialogue and fertile intellectual exchanges. Esalen has a knack for making the unthinkable thinkable and for creating bridges where before there has only been a chasm.

Transformative practices comprise a "fuzzy set," a group of things not normally lumped together. The focus of this conference will be to look at disciplines that lead to fundamental long term alterations of human nature, including contemplative, yogic, shamanic, somatic, religious, psychotherapeutic, athletic, and martial arts practices. The alterations must be more extensive and ambitious than just skill training. We want to talk about experiences that emerge from these practices, as well as the theories, research, and interpretations that encompass them. The primary goals of this first conference are to get acquainted, start a conversation, and build up a common language. Our future strategy will be to tackle a few major issues with each conference.

Michael commented on how we're now in an age of worldwide proliferation of transformative practices. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, for example, is available in corner bookstores. Gurdjieff groups, yoga, meditation: everywhere we look, we find that what was once esoteric is now commonly available. However, there has not been adequate comparison and study of what really works. Michael draws inspiration in this work from the two-hundred year effort many centuries ago to translate Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. Twenty-five thousand people -- the best minds of those generations -- would often be working at the same time. In doing this, they were transforming the Chinese conception of the world. We aim for something similar.

Michael has also been inspired by Don Hanlon Johnson's work, starting in 1987, with practitioners of various somatic disciplines. Don brought somatic pioneers into a more cohesive field and subjected their work to rigorous scientific inquiry. Don commented that it is often a feisty process to keep everyone in the room. Sometimes he has felt like quitting, but slowly they have gotten somewhere. Recently, they starting planning a conference with thirty people representing nine schools of bodywork. The price of admission to this semi-scientific gathering is a pre-judged research paper. This is a large advance from their humble beginnings. Don emphasized that when we think of science, we think of empirical science and forget qualitative human sciences such as the narrative method and phenomenology. This is a terrible mistake. In the larger research world, there is a very rich interaction between narrative research methods and empirical research methods.

Participants spoke about what drew them to the conference. Kaisa Puhakka's purpose in attending this conference is to look for clarity about what exactly we mean by transformative practices, which is a broad umbrella term. Many practices grouped therein might be quite different things. She is also hoping to clarify our presuppositions about what we are implicitly embracing. Richard Baker Roshi has been doing Zen practice and almost nothing else for 39 years. He only reads other things inasmuch as they impact his practice. He wants to get a wider sense of transformative practice in general, as well as to contribute to transforming our culture.

Jeffrey Kripal is interested in connecting with another culture; he's quite familiar with the academic world, but often out of touch with broader movements in the culture. In particular, he is interested in Asian practices that have been appropriated such as yoga or Zen. There is extensive debate in the academy these days on the question of insider vs. outsider. What becomes of the scholar who "goes native?" This issue is hot and has ethical implications. When we become insiders, what can't we say? When we are outsiders, what can we say, but what don't we know? The further in we go, the less we can say, the further out, the less we know. Gordon Wheeler sees the life of a psychotherapist as one at the edge of the insider/outsider cusp. How do we bring together a history of intentional practice with psychological knowledge and then apply that to a living relationship? Relationship is sometimes seen as a distraction by spiritual traditions, but he seesrelational practices as essential to the path.

Mary Ellen Klee attended in a dual capacity, representing the Esalen Board as well as being personally interested because of her involvement with the Arica program. She's also a practitioner of classical Chinese acupuncture. Michael Mahoney has studied human change processes for thirty years and been heavily involved in the cognitive revolution. He started with a reductionistic/ behavioristic approach and didn't discover feelings, spirit, or a body for some time. His own development has taken many directions, especially in the direction of embodiment. The underlying quest of transformative practices reveals deep insights into change as a process. Roger Walsh is looking for stimulation and inspiration. Most of his ideas result from personal experience and practice and he has tried a number of practices and read extensively. This meeting attracted him because it is hard to find a group of people who have twenty years of real practice as well as the conceptual interest in underpinning theories. Steve Dinan likes cross-training and the challenges posed by juxtaposing different methods. He has spent the last five or six years doing a variety of practices that often appear opposite to each other and has found each to be valuable.

George Leonard is a generalist in the field, but has also practiced aikido for thirty years. Aikido is considered the most difficult of the martial arts to learn because of its demands for grace, balance, and skill. It is physical, spiritual, and philosophical. George's current goal is to create a practice that can be a long-term householder's path with its own integrity. Integral Transformative Practice, which he created with Michael Murphy, represents one such balanced, integral householder path. He wants to do propaganda in the best sense of the world and thereby expand our vision of human nature. Fred Luskin's work focuses on forgiveness, alternative approaches to heart disease, and the study of transformative practices.

Kaisa spoke as the editor of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. She would like the journal to expand its scope so it is not rooted just in psychology, since that creates limitations. It could expand in a horizontal, interdisciplinary fashion, but she also envisions expanding it in the direction of more grand theorizing such as Ken Wilber has done. Wilber's basic construct is not limited to the psyche. She is thus considering changing the title of the journal. She is also interested in young people presenting their work; transpersonal psychology is in danger of being a one generation field. New blood must carry it forward. She offered the journal as a possible forum for work deriving from this conference.

The group next discussed Jeff's book Kali's Child, which concerns the body, ethics, and the linking of sexuality with religious experience. It argues that Ramakrishna was homosexually oriented and that we can't understand his profound visionary, ecstatic experiences without taking this homoeroticism into account. This is taboo in many Indian religious circles where the linking of sexuality and religious experience is often deeply threatening. The traditional stance is that realization means being sexless and therefore pure. Ramakrishna has been idealized as a pure, sexless soul, which encourages the general repression of sexuality in the culture. The irony is that when we actually look at the man's life, he was profoundly sexual, perhaps even super-sexual.

Don said that these sorts of issues are exactly why we must look at the story; if not, we end up with an abstracted practice that is not about what was really going on. The rich, textured story gives us a clue as to where to go with research. Michael Murphy was particularly interested to learn that The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, which Aldous Huxley called the "greatest hagiography of all time," had been bowdlerized. Jeff read the original texts, recaptured the earthy language, and brought forward the material that was excised. For Michael, this brings up the larger question of what is marginalized by any practice. In athletics, for example, mystical illuminations are often left out. Via his writings on mysticism and golf, Michael has become the world's leading authority on mystical and quasi-mystical experiences on the golf course. This led him to re-evaluate all the siddhis (metanormal abilities), especially where they have been marginalized. In marginalizing such experiences, we may be missing important clues about our evolutionary potential.

Jeff pointed out that mystical experiences are a central, driving forces in the lives of many founding figures in religion. A process kicks in after their deaths, though, in which the founders are eventually painted in monochrome. The practices ossify and finally lose touch with their essential roots. Richard countered that what's left out is sometimes important to leave out. A classic statement in Zen is that "I honor my teacher for what he refused to reveal to me." There are a number of reasons for this, some of which have to do with the practitioner's preparedness. One is that maps can lead to attachments or feelings of disappointment over not having certain experiences. Zen teachers only present things that students already intuit in some fashion. This leads the teacher to teach everyone in a group of people quite differently. However, this can have a detrimental effect because many teachers end up not understanding what is going on. So much has been left out that they end up teaching a reduced form of practice. For example, a common distinction in Zen is between mercy practices (things that most people can understand) and transmission practices. No one wants the mercy practices. Announcing that one is going to do mercy practices can lead to a revolution. Richard emphasized the importance of apprenticeship (menju), which is assumed in Zen. Zen assumes that if you can't do something face to face, it is not worth doing.

Michael Murphy felt it can be threatening to talk about the intimate parts of our experience. At Stanford, while he was in graduate school, one professor knew he was meditating all the time. While lecturing on St. Augustine, the professor looked right at him and stated that "today, Augustine would be regarded as a schizophrenic." Michael had an anxiety attack, left the hall, and began to run for half an hour. An analyst then told him his experiences sounded beautiful but countered that, "Isn't this just a way to say you feel good?" This was devastating, so he learned to be quiet. Even at Esalen in the sixties there was a struggle to define what could be deemed real. Richard added that when he first started meditation, someone from the San Francisco Jung Society warned him that it is dangerous to start such practices before the age of 35.

Gordon commented that this brings up how tricky it is to have an accurate perception of what is excluded now. What are we not recognizing today? Kaisa noted that our blind spots probably have more to do with the presuppositions that we share. She felt that the range of accepted experiences has widened considerably in the last decades so that we probably aren't leaving out more wild phenomena. Her hunch is that what is left out is of a different category.

Jeff said that the real challenge we face is wholeness. How can we be religious in such a way that we don't have to alienate the mind, the body, sexuality, or the scapegoat of the day? But paradox emerges when we recognize that in order to be a world-class golfer or a saint or a first-rate intellectual, we must overdevelop that one skill. Saints are often disasters in every sense except for religious, visionary experience. Does wholeness invite mediocrity?

Kaisa echoed this point. We hardly ever see someone who has developed all aspects of themselves. She wondered whether the emphasis on wholeness is a product of American culture and its impulse to "have it all." There can be a tyranny of wholeness. She once taught a course on Christian mysticism, which made her recognize again how many saints put their bodies through hell. It is hard to get students to read this material without freaking out nowadays. The body has become sacrosanct. Her students were convinced that the mystics were mentally ill. Michael commented that a shadow side to "integral" is having to be perfect in all ways. George Leonard added that when they have an ITP center, they will provide a platform for the extremists who want to be astronauts of transformation but that the core practice will provide a balanced base camp. They will attempt to serve both needs.

Richard noted that what led him to Zen was the integrity and wholeness of the monk's lives, which stood in stark contrast to the imbalances he saw in the lives of the professors at Harvard. Suzuki Roshi was exactly what he was teaching, which had a huge impact on him. In Zen, the development of the personality is the latter part of practice. It is assumed that this development comes when the personality is rooted in the immediate field of the present and not just in one's personal history.

Gordon discussed his discomfort with a dominant myth in our culture that claims that genius must be accompanied by being excessive, obnoxious, or otherwise unpalatable. Transformative practices must deal with some forms of excess but perhaps we shouldn't assume it is necessary. Jeff felt that the human organism has a natural stabilizing mode and that many transformative practices (such as drugs, sleep deprivation, or sitting in a Zen hall for eight days in a row) aim to de-stabilize the mind and body's normal functioning. We must first break down the psyche in order to get somewhere else. Michael commented that a lot of athletic practice involves negotiating with the limits: breaking down and building up. George wrote in Mastery about "the edge" as a key to mastery. Our self-surpassing tendency is intrinsic. However, he is also interested in developing householder paths that don't go to such extremes.

Ken Robbins felt that relationship is the most comprehensive spiritual practice. Can we become enlightened in just one aspect of being? Relationship means there is no control and it can, when approached consciously, lead us to be excellent human beings. A partner calls us to the most vulnerable and least evolved part of us. Deep relationship involves a willingness to be in constant practice.