FINAL ISP Digital Course Guide 4-19-13-Hh

www.EvolvingWisdom.com www.IntegralSpiritualPractice.com

Course Guide

Quick-Start Instructions Session Overviews Practice & Reflection Questions List of Course Materials

Contents

Part 1 • Getting Started Welcome from Terry Patten Elements of the Course (Detailed Instructions) Principles of Integral Spiritual Practice A Simple Key to the Integral Spiritual Practice Materials

Part 2 • Course Sessions (Practice Assignments & Reflection Questions) Session 1 - Learning the Secrets of a Daily Practice That Sticks Session 2 - Building Your Unstoppable Momentum Session 3 - Tapping Into the Awesome Energy of Evolution Session 4 - Finding Absolute Freedom in Any Moment Session 5 - Achieving Dynamic Balance in a Crazy World Session 6 - Liberating Your Emotions / Aligning With Your Highest Purpose Session 7 - Resetting Your Happiness Set Point Session 8 - Discovering Your Hidden Sources of Intimacy & Support

Part 3 • Additional Materials

Spheres of ISP 3-D Workout Core Form Posture Chart 3-D Workout (Essential) Posture Charts 3-D Workout (Essential) Posture Charts Changing Your Diet About Terry Patten

Musical Credits for Integral Spiritual Practice

Welcome from Terry Patten

Welcome to Integral Spiritual Practice: The Eight-Session Course to Activate your Conscious Evolution and Awaken the Full Potential of Your Body, Mind and Spirit!

I’m delighted that you’ve made the decision to engage this journey into the next phase of your growth and development with me, and with the whole community of Integral practice that includes more and more people all over the world. Even if you never meet each other in the flesh, when you engage in practice, you are connected with all other practitioners, and especially with those in the virtual “we-space” that has been created by the hundreds of fellow practitioners who have engaged in Integral Spiritual Practice and who continue to practice this profound work.

I look forward to walking with you through the curriculum via the rich audio, video and print resources of this course. Additionally, you’re invited to dive into the Bonus Workshops I created with my brilliant, wonderful friends and teachers: Ken Wilber, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Andrew Cohen, Diane Musho Hamilton, and Saniel Bonder.

I’m sure you’re excited to get started, but I suggest that you first review the Principles of Integral Spiritual Practice. This will set a powerful context for the journey that you are about to embark upon and help you to connect with your core integrity and commitment to practice.

If you need technical assistance, you will also encounter the good people at Evolving Wisdom’s Customer Support Department. Just email them at [email protected].

And that’s just the visible dimension of a much larger spectrum of people who’ve come together to help develop this course. I’m grateful to all of them, and to you, for helping to co-create what’s about to unfold!

In practice and service, Terry

Quick Start Instructions

➡ The foundation of the Integral Spiritual Practice course is the 8 audio sessions with Terry Patten. Please download these from the Course Materials page on the website.

➡ You will be invited to begin a Daily Practice. In the audio sessions, and in the written materials found in this guide, you will find “Core” and “Optional” practices recommended by Terry. Please begin practicing as soon as you can!

➡ Please keep this Course Guide handy so that you can refer to it as we move through the course. We recommend keeping a copy on your computer desktop, or printing it out and putting it in a binder for easy reference.

Elements of the Course How the Course Works, and What You Need to Know (More Detailed Instructions)

To participate in the course, all you need to do is listen to the Course Sessions, and, above all, practice. But there are rich supplementary videos, audios and PDFs, and this Course Guide has been created and revised to help you make sense of everything.

We have found that what fosters the greatest transformation is engagement with the Course Sessions and the other elements of the course. Quick information on all aspects of the course is below, followed by more in-depth explanations and instructions that you can read as needed.

The Course Materials Page

You’ll see that after the Introductory and Bonus Materials Section, the Course Materials Page is organized with one section for each session.

In the Introductory Materials you’ll find this Course Guide and other materials that are general to the course.

When you click on any session you’ll find:

1. The Core Materials for that session. These consist of:

• The Session Audio—the recording of Terry teaching that session • The Transcript of that Session Audio • The Q&A Audio—an audio recording of Terry answering questions and coaching students. These sessions are highly recommended; students have reported that they powerfully enhance their understanding and practice. But note that they do not strictly follow the content of each session.

• The Practice Assignment and Reflection Questions for this session. They will focus your attention on both the recommended practice focus for the week or two, and iguides you through a journaling exercise that will deepen and enhance your personal engagement with the teachings of this session.

2. 3-D Workout videos and Posture Charts and Key Resources

• These videos and Posture Charts teach the 3-D Workout step-by-step, so they are organized session by session, helping you to easily notice what is relevant to you as you go through the course.

• In Session Four you’ll find additional printed handouts such as Making a Change to Your Diet, The Spheres of Integral Spiritual Practice: A Blueprint, and Principles of Integral Spiritual Practice

3. The Meditations and Other Materials for that session

A key dimension of the course are the audio meditation instructions and guided meditations Terry created for this course. They are also organized session by session, pointing to what is relevant to you during each session. To participate fully in the course, all you need to do is listen to the Course Sessions— and practice. However, we have found that engagement with the Course Sessions and at least one other element of the course fosters the greatest transformation. Quick information on all aspects of the course is below, followed by more in-depth explanations and instructions that you can read as needed.

Course Sessions

The core and most fundamental parts of the course are the 8 Course Sessions, where Terry will teach the course material. All of the Course Sessions are available on the Course Materials Page. You can head through the course at your own pace, though we find that between one and two weeks per session is an optimal range of time to work with and have a beginning integration of the material, while keeping your momentum going through the course. (Tip: creating a “playlist” in iTunes with all your audio and video downloads is a great way to keep the material organized!)

To Sum Up

➡ Integral Spiritual Practice’s material consists primarily of 8 course sessions.

➡ You can listen to the sessions at your own pace, but for the best integration and momentum with the course, we recommend a pace of one session every one to two weeks.

➡ Each audio is available on the Course Materials Page.

Question and Answer Sessions

You’ll find recordings of Coaching and Question and Answer (Q&A Sessions) sessions that Terry conducted when offering this course to a group of people live. These are highly recommended, because they convey the spirit of ISP, help bring forward the humanity of the whole community of practitioners, and they help clarify many very real questions about practice.

Practice Assignments and Reflection Questions

Practice Assignments and Reflection Questions accompany each session. The Practice Assignments and Reflection Questions are designed to help deepen your inquiry and engagement with practice. We find that engagement with the Practice Assignments and Reflection Questions greatly facilitates growth and transformation. The Practice Assignments and Reflection Questions are included in this Course Guide for you to engage with at any point after you listen to the corresponding Course Session.

To Sum Up

➡ Practice Assignments and Reflection Questions are inquiries and practices designed to help you deepen your engagement with the material.

➡ The Practice Assignments and Reflection Questions for each session are included in this course guide, and can also be found on the Course Materials Page posted as PDFs.

Principles of Integral Spiritual Practice Being and Becoming a Practitioner (A Living and Evolving Document)

Taking Full Responsibility I choose to presume:

★ That I, like almost everyone, tend to contract and identify with my separate sense of self, and that this chronic perspective, more fundamentally than anything else, is the root of my suffering.

★ That this occurs on an extremely subtle level, so it takes sustained practice to become sensitive to this habitual activity and allow it to relax.

★ That feeling like a victim is usually based on distorted perceptions and, in any case, presumes that I’m powerless.

★ That even though there are victims who deserve compassion, I almost always have better options than the attitude of victimhood.

★ That I renounce blame and victimhood, and take 100% responsibility for my experience.

Connection with Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Freedom & Love I will live based on the intuition:

★ That in the big picture, no matter how difficult my life might be, the universe is essentially and ultimately friendly, good, and beautiful, and that it is always appropriate to be in touch with that, and to deeply appreciate and enjoy it.

★ That I am connected to and nurtured by the mysterious nature and source of life and evolution, which is essentially loving and graceful.

★ That I can choose to serve this mysterious goodness, and that what I choose and how I act really do matter.

★ That although despair is understandable and deserves compassion, hope, or at least a positive orientation, is not only healthier and more realistic, it is, for me, a moral imperative.

Commitment to Transformation I will fully engage:

★ The school of life, as a lifelong learner, growing in awareness, in compassion, and in the ability to be fully present and alive.

★ My daily practice—my chosen “form” during this course.

★ A whole life of practice, with new opportunities every morning and every moment.

★ All my practice communities, knowing that what I receive will be strongly influenced by what I give

Intention to Live with Integrity I choose to:

★ Align my life with truth, goodness, and beauty.

★ Be truthful with myself and others as much as possible.

★ Face and observe the gaps where I don’t “walk my talk,” and work, with sincerity and a healthy dose of humor, to close those gaps.

★ Continually refine my ethical sensibilities, thus “raising the bar,” so that I’m always living in the gap, experiencing the creative tension of not-fully fulfilled aspirations.

★ Honor the ordeal of living in this gap as a transformative riddle, or koan, that will change me profoundly whenever and to whatever degree I take it seriously.

A Willingness to Go Deep I will keep developing the ability to:

★ Practice and participate in this course sincerely, at the deepest level I can.

★ Listen intelligently and profoundly to myself, others, and life itself.

★ Attune to my highest intuitions, and bring those courageously into my communications and actions.

★ Face my feelings, including so called “negative” ones, with courage and wholehearted self-compassion.

★ Resonate with and respond to the depth expressed by others, thus amplifying and enriching our interpersonal space.

Stretching Beyond Perceived Limits I am willing to:

★ Presume that I have higher potentials I haven’t yet actualized.

★ Go beyond habitual patterns of avoidance and self-consolation that dull my aliveness.

★ Step out of my comfort zone and relate to my discomfort with both firm resolve and compassion.

★ Take intelligent risks and creatively experiment, using life’s feedback, to become a more creative, wise and vibrant practitioner.

Making Realistic Commitments I understand that:

★ A life of Integral Spiritual Practice is essentially happy and enjoyable, so I’ll tune into how my practice can ease and brighten my heart and my world.

★ Making ambitious, but ultimately unsustainable, commitments often invites an energetic “backlash,” exhausting me and reducing my energy for future and long-term practice.

★ The life of practice is a marathon, not a sprint, so I intend to pace myself for the long haul.

★ I can strive to make significant and courageous, but realistic and sustainable changes, stabilize them, and then go further.

★ An Integral Spiritual Practice is not fixed, but evolves, so I’m willing to continually adjust and refine my practice over time, as appropriate.

Gracefully Accepting and Working with Karma I appreciate that in each moment:

★ Comparing myself to others leads to unhealthy confusion, separation, envy, pride, or resentment.

★ To play my hand well, I must simply forgive and accept the cards I hold, instead of obsessing or fixating on the ones I simply don’t have or have let get away.

★ Sometimes the most beautiful and profound works of art, and the most celebrated accomplishments, are created with minimal resources and maximal restrictions—so I will use the limitations of my circumstances as an inspiration and creative opportunity.

★ I have control only over my choices and actions, so I will cherish my opportunities and strive to make good choices.

★ Life’s gifts and blessings might arrive in deep disguise, and can even remain hidden for a long time.

★ The “good cards in my hand” are a precious gift and opportunity, and my best expression of gratitude is to “use them well”—and generously.

Protecting and Honoring the “We-Space” I agree to:

★ Relate to my participation in our Course as opportunities for practice.

★ Do my best to uplift others, to affect them positively by being a source of sincerity, authenticity, compassion, intelligence, awareness, and joy.

★ Quickly resolve feelings of being hurt, offended, or misunderstood by “speaking my truth” sensitively, yet directly, while taking responsibility for my experience so that I am clearing the air instead of holding or enacting resentments.

★ Accept and use constructive feedback, striving to genuinely listen and take it to heart, and work to resolve any issues that arise relating to my speech or behavior.

★ Intend to live as a source of strength, clarity and love in the way I relate to others.

Embracing One’s Humanity and Divinity. I intend to compassionately accept and embrace:

★ My whole self and my whole experience, even and especially the imperfect parts I tend to dislike and reject.

★ My unwanted aspects (even while I continue to work to grow beyond those I can outgrow), knowing that self-division only binds my energy and that “what I resist persists.”

★ My own goodness, excellence, beauty, greatness, genius, and even heroism—appreciating that it is just as important to accept my highest potentials as my lower ones.

★ The wondrous, amazing spiritual nature of all existence, as it shows itself in everything, everyone, and in myself.

Enjoying Oneself—Profoundly I intend to open always and experience joy:

★ In my breath—in the opportunity to feel and enjoy every breath and every perception

★ In my body—in the full spectrum of my whole physical, subtle, and causal bodies.

★ In nature, in art, and in other human beings and life forms, all of which are beautiful gifts to be cherished.

★ In education, understanding and the whole multidimensional “life of the mind.”

★ In all my relations—to whoever is in front of me in the next moment, to the people and animals dearest to me, to those who inspire or delight or educate or amuse me.

★ In the Mystery of Existence, in ever-present Consciousness, and in the very Energy of Life itself.

★ In my capacity to love others, to be creative, and to serve other people and creatures, institutions, life, the world, and the evolution of consciousness and culture.

Quick Facts & Tips Movement Stillness Integral Spiritual Practice Primary Practice: The 3-D Workout Primary Practices: Integral Meditation, The 3 Faces of God recommends a daily Morning Practice starting with a Learning Learning period of movement (e.g., • Welcome to the 3-D Workout • Meditation: What and How 3-D Workout) followed by a • Learning the 3-D Workout • Prayer and Communion: Introduction period stillness (e.g., sitting • Last Words on the 3-D Workout • Introduction to the 3 Faces of God meditation). Practice • Considering the 3 Faces of God (on 2nd-Person) The “3-D” means full • 3-D Workout: Essential Version (for most mornings) Practice spectrum or whole-being, - 20-minute version • Integral Meditation including 3 essential trinities: - 10-minute version • Preparing for Meditation (guided process before a • Gross, Subtle & Causal • 3-D Workout: Core Form (for when you’re very period of deep sitting) Bodies pressed for time) • Meditating on the Mystery • Head, Heart & Hara (gut) - 2-Minute Workout + Dedication • Whole-Body Deep Relaxation Meditation • The 3 Faces of God (1st, - 2-Minute Workout alone • Savoring the Mystery 2nd & 3rd person) - Dedication alone • The Ground of Being (Guided Meditation) Once you’ve absorbed the • 3-D Workout: Extended Version (40 minutes) • Transrational Prayer (Guided Meditation) 3-D workout, feel free to • 3-D Workout Posture Chart(s): Essential, Core, and • The 3 Faces of God customize your routine for Extended (for quick reference anytime) • Entering into Experiencing the 3 Faces of God your body or incorporate Yoga, Qigong, Tai Chi, etc. • 3 Faces of God in 3rd Person • 3 Faces of God in 1st Person It’s a flexible art form, not a • 3 Faces of God in 2nd Person rigid discipline! Remember • Experiencing the 3 Faces of God: Conclusion to feel, breathe, reconnect and enjoy....

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 • Welcome to the • 3-D Workout: • Intro to the 3 • 3-D Workout: • Prayer and • 3 Faces of God: • Savoring the • Last Words on 3-D Workout Posture Chart Faces of God Extended Communion 2nd Person Mystery the 3-D Workout • Learning the 3-D & Additional • 3 Faces of God: • The Ground of • Deep Whole- • Trans-Rational • The Full Process Workout Resources 3rd Person Being Body Relaxation Prayer of Experiencing • 3-D Workout: • Preparing for • 3D Workout: • 3 Faces of God: Meditation the 3 Faces of Essential Meditation Extended 1st Person • Considering the God (all tracks • 3-D Workout: • Meditating on 3 Faces of God together, in Core Form the Mystery sequence) • Meditation: • The Spheres of What and How Your ISP

Session 1 Learning the Secrets of a Daily Practice That Sticks: The Foundations of Integral Spiritual Practice

Overview

This 8-session virtual course will take you through the process of establishing a rich, streamlined, daily Integral Spiritual Practice. In this session, we begin that process by making a choice to engage a regular daily practice—and then by crossing the threshold and beginning to actually do that morning practice.

Consider this: Practice is inherently paradoxical.

On one hand, life is a school that teaches us to grow constantly in countless ways, increasing our awareness, aliveness, compassion, responsibility, effectiveness, courage, clarity, wisdom, and more. Thus, it’s important to regard all of your life as practice.

At the same time, every path of growth requires interrupting our normal life habits by regularly doing specific intentional practices at specific times—such as the regular morning practice we’re all starting together in this course session.

This course is about becoming a real practitioner, or deepening your practice, in both senses. Although it is structured around teaching you a daily practice you can actually DO every day, it is about bringing the disposition of practice to all of life; it’s about the intention to be responsible, loving and free; to grow in awareness, care, and presence; and to be a source of strength, wisdom, compassion and help to others and the world.

It’s important to appreciate that the practices you are doing are the form of practice. The process in the moment—and the presence, awareness, and feeling you are able to bring to doing the form of your practice—are the art of practice.

There is no art without form. But without the art, the form would be empty. Thus, the quality of your practice is always a creative opportunity and challenge, and the result is up to you.

So—some of the key virtues called for in the art of doing your daily practice are:

➡ Sincerity, depth & authenticity

➡ Relaxed curious openness and aliveness

➡ Willingness to wake up from any habitual patterns of numbness, unconsciousness, or mediocrity (This could also be described as courage to transcend limitations, to accept no excuses for “phoning it in”), and...

➡ Patience to persist and sustain this intention for the duration (as an open- ended life choice).

Session 1 Course Materials 1 Session

Learning Practice

Welcome to The 3D Workout (Video, ~12 The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” minutes) Video

Learning the 3D Workout (Video, ~30 The 3D Workout: 20-Minute “Essential” minutes) Video

Meditation: What and How (Audio, ~24 minutes) * Note: Bold text signifies “core” materials, while normal text implies “optional” materials.

Practice Assignments

Preparing for Practice

1. Watch the Welcome to The 3D Workout Video. This will orient you to the Integral workout that will be a core resource for the practice we’ll be doing together over the next 8 session. This video will also describe the various additional video, audio, and PDF materials that you’ll be getting over the coming weeks to support you in doing this Integral 3D Workout regularly.

2. Listen to the audio, Meditation: What and How. If you are new to meditation, this will provide you with a brief but valuable orientation to what meditation is, how to do it, and how to establish a regular sitting meditation practice. If you are already an experienced meditator, this will be a useful refresher; in fact, some experienced meditators have told me that these instructions have clarified their practice in a way that has catalyzed rapid progress into deeper meditation.

3. Understand that you’re invited to begin or refresh a daily “morning” practice consisting Session 1 Session mainly of (1) a period of movement (like the 3D workout) and (2) a period of stillness (like sitting meditation). In the next 8 sessions of this course, we’ll be working with specific integral practice forms of movement and stillness; you’re receiving rich video and audio resources to support these specific forms of practice. However, the nature of Integral Spiritual Practice is flexible, so our assignments sometimes offer you the choice to engage other practices of movement (such as yoga or qigong) or stillness if you prefer.

Personal Practice

Begin your morning practice. Most people prefer to practice in the morning before breakfast, but it’s fine to practice in the afternoon or evening if that’s truly what works best for you. Try to practice 5 times a week or more.

Your “morning” practice session should begin with 10 to 30 minutes of conscious exercise, such as the 3D Workout, followed by another 10 to 30 minutes of silent sitting mediation.

1. Practice along with the 30-minute Learning the 3D Workout video 3 or more times this week (and at minimum 2 times).

On any mornings when you don’t practice with that video, feel free to do your practice in any of the following three optional ways:

a. Once you’ve viewed the 30-minute Learning the 3D Workout video at least twice, feel free to save time by practicing with the 3D Workout: 20-Minute “Essential”

Video. 1 Session

b. Feel free to do another form of exercise you enjoy, such as yoga, qigong, stretching, calisthenics, and/or dance. Move for 10-30 minutes.

c. When there’s no time. You can usually still practice along with the 3D Workout 2-Minute “Core Form” Video. It enables you to enact the essence of the 3D Workout with a few deep, essential words and gestures. This is what concludes each of the longer 3D Workout videos.

2. Following your movement practice, sit in meditation, contemplation, or prayer. I suggest 20 minutes, but 5-10 minutes is fine. Even if you only have time to sit for 2 or 3 minutes, sit! Some sitting is infinitely more than none.

3. If you’re new to meditation, make sure to listen to Meditation: What and How to guide your first week of sitting practice. If you have already learned to meditate, please listen to the same audio and let it inform your practice, but feel free to sit this week in whatever way you already know and most enjoy.

Additional rich integral meditation guidance will be provided starting with the next session.

4. An Option for Super-Busy Days: If you have “one of those days” with extremely little time for practice, don’t let that be a problem. Feel free to simply practice with the 3D Workout 2-Minute “Core Form” Video as your whole morning practice. It touches in and enacts the essence of both movement and stillness. If there’s absolutely no time in the morning, or if you forget, you can do it later in the day.

Session 1 Session

Reflection Questions

Take 10 or more minutes to write an entry in your personal journal responding to the following reflection questions:

1. What is the clarity and commitment that emerged for you this session? Take this opportunity to state it positively and strongly, as an authentic affirmation of your choice to practice.

Example: “I am delighted to be able to say that ‘this is the time’ when I am making a real shift from which I won’t go back. In signing up for this course I chose to really do a daily practice, and I’m not only happy about my choice, I’m really committed to following through.”

2. Beginning any new practice “stirs the pot,” freeing energy and insight at times, and

bringing up resistance at others. What has your initial experience been like—both the “good” and the “bad”? What do you understand about that two-sided experience,

and how are you holding it? 1 Session

Example: “I intuit my life can shift into an entirely new level through regular practice. That inspires and excites me, but other parts of me are afraid—afraid that it will go dead and feel burdensome after awhile, afraid that it will stir up a lot of agitation and that I’ll act out and just won’t be able to sustain it, afraid that ‘nothing can really change for me.’”

Tip: Prepare the Path for Practice

Create the space for practice:

➡ Space for Movement: Prepare a supportive space where you can practice the 3D Workout while you watch the video guidance. You will need a space about the size of a yoga mat, ideally with something soft (a carpet or a yoga mat) underneath you.

➡ Space for Meditation: Prepare a clean and conscious space where, without interruption, you can enjoy a quiet sitting practice after doing the 3D Workout.

Create the time for practice:

➡ Talk with the people in your household and/or anyone else whose support

you’re going to need if you’re going to begin (or refresh or upgrade) a daily spiritual practice in your home. Session 1 Session ➡ Set your alarm if necessary, and plan ahead so you have time (the night before or later in the morning, etc.) for any necessary tasks (such as feeding pets or preparing lunch) and adjust your evening to get to bed earlier if necessary.

➡ Immediately before you practice, create boundaries in both time and space: Close doors to pets, turn off telephone ringers, insert earplugs, or whatever best supports your aspiration to practice.

Session 2 Building Your Unstoppable Momentum: The Practice of Living Beyond Limits

Overview

In this session, we continue building a regular daily practice. We’re continuing to deepen our daily “Mornings” practice, including the 3D Workout and Meditation. We’re also beginning to practice in random “Moments” throughout the day, as a second pillar of our daily practice. And in this session, we’re also introducing a third pillar of Integral Spiritual Practice—building our practice “Momentum.”

We’re also reconnecting with the two most profound traditional sources of inspiration for spiritual practice: “The Lesson of Life and Death” and “The Good News.” These primordial revelations of the Mystery of Existence can fortify our inner toughness and tenderness, and strengthen what powers our practice—our natural heartfelt, trusting Session 1 Session attraction to Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Freedom, and Love.

Session 2 Course Materials

Learning Practice

The 3D Workout: Posture Chart (PDF) The 3D Workout: 20-Minute “Essential” Video

A Simple Key to the 3D Workout Materials The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” (PDF) Video

The Spheres of Your Integral Spiritual The 3D Workout: 20-Minute “Essential” Practice: A Blueprint (PDF) Audio

Learning Practice

Preparing for Meditation (audio) The 3D Workout: 10-Minute “Essential” Audio

The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” Audio

The 3D Workout: Integral Dedication Video

The 3D Workout: Integral Dedication Audio

Meditating with the Mystery (audio)

* Note: Bold text signifies “core” materials, while normal text implies “optional” materials.

Practice Assignments 2 Session

Personal Practice

1. Continue your “Mornings” practice: Practice every day, at whatever time works for you. You’re doing fine if you practice at least 5 times a week.

a. During this session, do the Essential 3D Workout each morning, using:

i. The 3D Workout: 20-minute “Essential” Video

ii. The 3D Workout: 20-minute “Essential” Audio

iii. The 3D Workout: 10-Minute “Essential” Audio

-or-

iv. The 3D Workout: Posture Chart (PDF)

b. Following your movement practice, sit in meditation, contemplation, or prayer. I suggest 20 minutes, but 5-10 minutes is fine. Even if you only have time to sit for 2 or 3 minutes, sit! Some sitting is infinitely more than none.

i. Why you meditate. It’s valuable to strengthen your clarity of intention as to why you are meditating. At least twice while integrating this session, listen to the Preparing for Meditation audio, which supports that clarity, before your morning sitting practice. You can return to this audio and use it periodically throughout the course to strengthen your sense of purpose about your meditation.

ii. Meditating With the Mystery of Existence. The more deeply we can feel it, and open into it, the more that sense of profundity can pervade our whole practice and our lives. At least twice during your time with this session, use the audio guided meditation Meditating with the Mystery as a part of your morning sitting practice. Feel free to return to this audio and use it periodically Session 2 Session throughout the course to enrich your sense of connection to the Mystery of existence.

c. After your sitting practice, it can be rich to complete and consecrate your morning practice using The 3D Workout: Integral Dedication Video or Audio.

d. If you have no time: If you have “one of those days” with extremely little time for practice, don’t let that be a problem. Feel free to simply practice with The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” Video as your whole morning practice. It touches in and enacts the essence of both movement and stillness. If there’s absolutely no time in the morning, or if you forget, you can do it later in the day. You can use:

i. The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” Video

ii. The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” Video

iii. The 3D Workout: Posture Chart (PDF)

2. Begin your “Moments” practice:

a. At random moments throughout your day, bring your attention to your heart, and breathe to your heart and from your heart, and sincerely intend to re- experience a happy state of appreciation or care or joy or love. Simply re-orient yourself, from the heart, in a few moments, with perhaps 2 or 3 conscious feeling breaths.

b. Try to remember to do this 3 times a day for the next week. Just 3 times a

day seems easy, right? Well, it will be, for a day or two. But a week? Don’t worry if you forget for a day or two. Just resume without guilt or worry and do your best to remember to do it again, 3 times every day. Session 2 Session

3. Begin your “Momentum” practice:

a. You are already doing various practices. And although you probably think of some of them as practices, there are probably some that you don’t even tend to recognize.

Examples: Walking your dog, gardening, helping a neighbor, volunteering at a nonprofit, reading and studying, singing or practicing a musical instrument, writing poetry, babysitting for a friend or family member, going to church or to a support group, taking aerobics or Pilates classes, going to the gym, engaging in therapy, coaching or seminars.

i. Choose one practice that you’d like to renew and deepen, and bring a fuller spirit of intention and focus to it throughout this session.

ii. Make a list of all the practices you are already doing, grouping each into one of the “Spheres” (aka “Modules”) of Practice.

b. The essence of Momentum: Do one thing every day to build the momentum of your practice life. A secret to sustaining your practice momentum is not sweating it or wasting time if you lapse, but just bringing yourself back to the form of your practice quickly and happily, without delay.

Session 2 Session

Reflection Questions

Take 20 or more minutes to write in response to these deep considerations and reflection questions.

For Your Personal Journal

1. The Lesson of Life and Death

In this session we felt how our awareness of death can activate both our “Masculine Self-Compassion,” the inner muscles of commitment and toughness, and our “Feminine Self-Compassion,” the inner capacities for self-tenderness and self- acceptance.

We often tend to embrace each of these principles as if they were exclusive truths,

one at the expense of the other. This typically results in periods of intense practice that alternate with periods of letting go of discipline. So it is important to develop both of these capacities in a deeper and more integrated (and thus more sustainable) Session 2 Session expression.

Each time you confront mortality, it can clarify your vision and stiffen your spine, and it can also break your heart open with compassion and tenderness. Over time, if we keep learning the lesson, instead of learning just one of these capacities, we deepen in both simultaneously.

You have probably confronted “The Lesson of Life and Death” again and again in your life, learning its lessons in more and more profound ways as you have grown and deepened. In this current moment of your life, this course is asking you to again face “The Lesson of Life and Death” in a fresh new way.

What is the synchronicity of this timing for you? How can you become more profoundly “humorously serious” about this precious human life? How do you need to

exercise your resolve and inner toughness? How can you soften and open and embrace and befriend yourself more deeply as you do? How can you enact a new level of psychological and energetic integration?

2. The Good News

If you examine “The Principles of Integral Spiritual Practice” that guide this course, you’ll see some strong assertions, such as:

“...the universe is ... ultimately beautiful, friendly, and good...I am connected to and nurtured by the mysterious source of life and evolution, which is essentially loving and graceful...... I...embrace my own goodness, excellence and beauty.... [and] the wondrous, amazing spiritual nature of all existence...”

One of the most important motivations for spiritual life has traditionally been experiences of transformational high states of consciousness and transcendental love—and the lasting conviction that they are “more real and true” than the

conventional moods and mental states of common society. 2 Session

One thing has been proven: the “power of attraction” is dramatically more potent than the “power of aversion.” Spiritual practice moves quickly when it’s a response to an intimate, loving, affirmative relationship with Goodness, Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Love. It progresses exceedingly slowly when it’s a response to frustration with the limitations of our unhappy experience.

But we can always stand to strengthen our connection to “The Good News,” that living, breathing love-relationship with God or the Mystery of Existence or our own highest potential and true nature. Even if we have “awakened from the dream” or “fallen in love with God” or “have seen the transcendent spiritual nature of existence, beyond a shadow of a doubt,” we are still vulnerable. The difficulties and numbing force of daily life and the constant barrage of media input often tends to distract and hypnotize us so that we lose touch with That. And for some of us, the Radiant

Goodness of existence and of our own nature has never stood forth quite as clearly, vividly or obviously as we’d like.

So, whether your cup feels like it runneth over, like your glass is half-full, or like it’s just a little moist, take a moment to express the wetness. Feel into whatever positive connection you have to The Good News, and express it affirmatively.

Here are the rules of engagement: As you write, speak your truth with depth and authenticity. Write only what you really feel or know authentically. You don’t have to be able to live on the basis of it consistently. But drop deep and speak from a place of real existential resonance. And let this act of writing be powerful; let it catalyze you; let it be a shamanic or alchemical act.

So, please improvise, answering one of the following questions or something like them:

What are some of the ways that you feel and recognize the amazing Grace, Session 2 Session Radiance, Love, Freedom, Goodness, Beauty and Truth at the heart of existence? Can you describe just one way that your passionate attraction to God, or the Mystery, inspires and powers your life and spiritual practice?

Session 3 Tapping Into the Awesome Energy of Evolution: The Practice of Evolutionary Creativity & Emergence

Overview

In this session, we are connecting our practice with “The Big Picture” of Evolution and the unique nature of our times, seeing how we live in a unique “inflection point” in evolutionary history. We also connect with the higher involutionary potentials of our bodies and nervous systems. By integrating our biggest perspectives and higher capacities we activate another dimension of our latent potentials.

Simultaneously we continually ground these “big energies” in the ordinary activities of our daily life and practice, taking on the “koan” of how we can personally manifest our unique gifts in service of evolutionary emergence. In the process, we are taking a sustainable incremental step into a higher octave of aliveness. Session 2 Session

We continue to tangibly deepen and further empower our daily practice. We’re continuing to deepen our engagement with our daily “Mornings” practice, including the 3D Workout and Meditation, by upping the level of evolutionary inspiration we bring to them. We’re expanding on our practice in random “Moments” throughout the day, and continuing to do “one thing every day” to build our practice “Momentum.” We’re also introducing the next dimension of our practice, “Mission”, which is where we connect our personal practice to the larger evolutionary purposes of our life and world.

Session 3 Course Materials

Learning Practice

Introduction to the 3 Faces of God The 3D Workout: 40-Minute “Extended” (audio) Video

Principles of Integral Spiritual Practice The 3D Workout: 20-Minute “Essential” (PDF) Video

The 3D Workout: Posture Chart (PDF) The 3D Workout: 10-Minute “Essential” Audio

Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God:

God in the 3rd Person (audio) * Note: Bold text signifies “core” materials, while normal text implies “optional” materials.

Tip: We recommend listening to the Bonus Workshop “Awakening the Power of an Evolutionary Session 3 Session Spiritual Practice,” with Andrew Cohen and Barbara Marx Hubbard, during this session.

Practice Assignments

Personal Practice

1. Continue your “Mornings” practice: Practice every day, at whatever time works for you. You’re doing fine if you practice at least 5 times a week.

a. This session, you have access to the 3D Workout: 40-Minute “Extended” Video. This is a version of the 3D Workout that includes more vigorous exercises and a period of moving to music. Please use it to do this fuller version of the 3D Workout at least 2 times a week during this session. You only have the video version of the Extended version this session; next session, you’ll receive the audio and posture chart.

b. On the other mornings, complete your movement practice with the Essential 3D Workout, using:

i. The 3D Workout: 20-Minute “Essential” Video

ii. The 3D Workout: 20-Minute “Essential” Video

iii. The 3D Workout: 10-Minute “Essential” Audio

-or-

iv. The 3D Workout: Posture Chart (PDF)

c. Following your movement practice, sit in meditation, contemplation, or prayer. I suggest 20 minutes, but 5-10 minutes is fine. Even if you only have time to sit for 2 or 3 minutes, sit! Some sitting is infinitely more than none.

i. On at least one occasion during this session, perhaps as a part of your morning meditation, please listen to the two audios that are first being made Session 3 Session available to you with this session. (Note: These are two of a series of seven audio tracks that introduce and guide you in a full experience of the 3 Faces of God. The individual tracks are being made available gradually [not in order, but as they particularly pertain to each session]. Then, later in the course, you’ll receive them all together, in order, so you can listen to them again as an integrated experience of the 3 Faces of God):

1. Introduction to the 3 Faces of God (audio, ~10 minutes). This is instructional, and offers a general explanation and orientation to the full guided process of the 3-Faces of God.

2. Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God: God in 3rd Person (audio, ~7 minutes). This takes you into a guided experience of the “body of spirit” as a 3rd-Person contemplation.

d. After your sitting practice, complete and consecrate your morning practice with The Integral Dedication.

e. If you have no time: If you have “one of those days” with extremely little time for practice, don’t let that be a problem. Feel free to simply practice The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” as your whole morning practice. It touches in and enacts the essence of both movement and stillness. If there’s absolutely no time in the morning, or if you forget, you can do it later in the day. You can use:

i. The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” Video

ii. The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” Audio

iii. The 3D Workout: Posture Chart (PDF)

2. Continue your “Moments” practice:

a. At random moments throughout your day, bring your attention to your heart, ion 3

and breathe to your heart and from your heart, and attempt to re-experience a Sess happy state of appreciation or care or joy or love. Simply re-orient yourself, from the heart, in a few moments, with perhaps 2 or 3 conscious feeling breaths. Begin experimenting with applying this practice (the No Waiting ”Practice App”) when you find yourself waiting for your computer.

i. Optional Extra: Experiment with doing this same practice, also intending to connect, from the heart, with your larger Evolutionary and Involutionary inspiration and tapping into a greater energy, feeling your connection with a larger purpose and the gift you’re called to give.

b. Continue to do this 3 times a day. Now that the novelty of this practice is beginning to wear off, it may be both easier (you’re building a new habit) and sometimes even harder to remember. If you forget for a day or two, just resume

building this habit, without guilt or worry, and continue to do your best to remember to do it again, 3 times every day!

3. Continue your “Momentum” practice:

a. Do at least one more thing (more than just “Mornings” and “Moments”) every day to actively build the momentum of your practice life, engaging in “Integral Cross-Training,” bringing energy and intention to practices in different “Spheres” of your Integral Spiritual Practice.

b. Gently improve your diet—next session. Consider how you can make a little change in your eating choices that will be healthy and sustainable and that will free up your energy and attention, helping you press the “reset button” in terms of your relationship to food. Next session! Consider this practice for a week or two in advance. This can mean cutting out something unhealthy (which might mean drugs, alcohol, junk food, coffee, cigarettes, ice cream, potato chips, processed foods, “bad” fats, sugar, salt, meat, dairy, white flour, gluten, or cooked foods -- depending on what will work in your life and body) temporarily or permanently. Session 3 Session Or, it could even take the form of a few days of a purifying diet or juice fast. During this session, just consider what you’ll feel capable, congruent, wholesome and happy about doing.

4. Begin your “Mission” practice. Make sure to do the journaling in Question #2 below for at least 30-40 minutes.

Reflection Questions

1. Tapping into the energy of evolution and the synergy of your unfolding involutionary potentials.

Please journal more deeply, exploring your experience while participating in the guided processes during this session. Please consider these questions deeply and write in response to them. A short period of just 10 minutes of journaling might be sufficient. Feeling into these questions might help frame the “Mission Statement” you’ll be writing in response to question #2.

a. Feel how this larger evolutionary process is at a critical inflection point and how you took birth right at a time when what happens in your lifetime matters. Consider whether you feel a responsibility that comes from being among the

luckiest and most sincerely caring people alive in this critical time, especially one who is also aware of this larger and very meaningful context. Please relax and shake off any problematically “heavy” implications, or unhealthy “shoulds,” that

might tend to come along with this perception. 3 Session

In what ways do you intuit the “strange attractor” of a positive evolutionary future that wants to find its way into form? In what ways do you sense that you might be one of the human vehicles through which that future can manifest? Do you have any unique gifts to give in this regard?

Let this question activate what’s highest in you, intuitively and spiritually, and in terms of your courage, intelligence and character. But don’t let it become an occasion for inflation or grandiosity. Ground it also. Just find what’s authentic, real, and essential for you.

b. In what ways do you feel the very energy of your being, your “involutionary” potentials? What are the next steps of your process of awakening and aliveness and empowerment, of the “yoga” of the unfolding of your being?

What is the character of the “sap” that rises up through you, driving to actualize itself as a particular “tree,” the expression and fulfillment of your highest innate potentials?

c. How might the unfolding of your natural inner process flow into the service you might offer in response to call of evolution? How might your innate, unfolding involutionary potentials express themselves as your unique gift to this moment of the larger evolutionary process?

2. Articulating Your Personal Mission Statement.

Evolution calls to each of us personally, activating the inbuilt drive of evolution, which Plato and Ken Wilber refer to as “Eros,” which drives us to reach in the general direction of evolution like a plant growing toward the light.

What is your unique expression? How does your personal greatness express itself? Session 3 Session a. It might be very simple and humble; life is difficult, and for some of us particularly heavy. A life’s mission can be as basic as restoring a greater degree of basic functionality to a shattered and fragmented life, while managing a series of severe life challenges such that you don’t harm others or the world. That’s worth honoring!

b. Your mission might focus on how you serve your family or church community or some key friends.

c. It might have to do with expressing a creative impulse in a way that’s urgently alive in you.

d. And yet it almost always has something to do with offering a gift to others and the world in some fashion.

Please feel into the place where your talents and abilities might intersect with your care for others and your passion to help them.

The theologian Fredrick Buechner defined “vocation” very beautifully: “"The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work that you need most to do and that the world most needs to have done…The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet."

As you feel into these questions, consider how you can put this into words. Sometimes this kind of exercise can feel overwhelming or artificial. I have at times felt like I was speculating or pretending when I have done this kind of exercise in the past. I suggest you approach it lightly, with “humor and seriousness,” as an opportunity to do a useful practice.

Our mission reveals itself gradually over time, and it evolves throughout our journey through life. Any mission statement, therefore, is a provisional statement, subject to revision, even if it is very eloquent and resonant in the moment. Thus, “Mission” is something to which we will return again and again, many times in our lives. Session 3 Session

Whatever your age, you have an opportunity to clarify and align yourself and brighten more fully into whatever it is that you can give to life in the days or years or decades you have left.

Thus, you should feel free to engage this process now in an authentic way, without being burdened by the obligation to state it perfectly. Then it can be profoundly useful. Even if it is uncomfortable, it can catalyze more clarity that can empower your whole life and practice. Remember, you will only get out of this process what you bring to it. So please engage it wholeheartedly!

You can state this fairly broadly, indicating the general direction toward which you’re aspiring. In some sense, each of us is a plant growing toward the light, so your Mission Statement can simply articulate what the “Light” is towards which your service and gift are directed.

More clarity and specificity, though, will make your Mission Statement more powerful.

➡ You can state why it’s important that you exist.

➡ You can try to articulate the unique gift you bring to the world.

➡ And you can even attempt to put into words the unique way that you’ll give that gift.

➡ You can even perhaps identify the arenas in which you’ll operate.

➡ You can specify the people or categories of people who you’ll serve.

So relax, and enjoy this opportunity to articulate your unique mission.

It can be most useful to write freely for at least 30 minutes, perhaps writing at length.

Then, it can be powerful to find the essence of what you have said and to boil it down to

a simple sentence. 3 Session

Session 4 Finding Absolute Freedom in Any Moment: The Practice of Ever-Present Awareness

Overview

This session, we’re shifting emphasis from one essential aspect of Integral Spiritual Practice to another—knowing that they’re ultimately inseparable. We began by anchoring “The Gradual School” of practice, emphasizing all the principles that enable us to participate fully in the school of life and grow through regular daily practice. During this session, we have the liberating opportunity to focus on “The Sudden School.” This is all about awakening directly from identification with our busy minds—right now! It’s

Copyright Terry Patten/Evolving Wisdom 2011. All rights reserved. 40 www.EvolvingWisdom.com www.IntegralSpiritualPractice.com about recognizing all our experience and perceptions and thoughts and even our “self” to be manifestations of the all-pervading clarity of free awareness, expressions of “the Mystery” of existence.

We continue this session to deepen our engagement with our daily practices by using them as opportunities to reawaken and rest as free awareness, again and again, throughout the day. We are initiating the practice of recognizing the nature of our present experience for brief “Moments” many times. And we’re bringing this same liberating clarity to our “Mornings” practice, in our noticing of the Mystery during the 3D Workout and in our sitting meditation practice, with two new guided meditations that can open and deepen our practice further.

Session 4 Course Materials

Learning Practice Session 3 Session The Extended 3D Workout: Posture Chart Guided Meditation on the Ground of (PDF) Being (audio)

Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God: God in the 1st Person (audio)

Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God: God in the 3rd Person (audio)

Making a Change to Your Diet (PDF) * Note: Bold text signifies “core” materials, while normal text implies “optional” materials.

Tip: We recommend listening to the Bonus Workshop “The Farther Reaches of Human Potential: How to Activate Your Super-Normal Abilities,” with Ken Wilber, during this session.

This session, please continue to make use of any and all of your other 3D Workout materials and any Mediation Audios you choose.

Practice Assignments

Personal Practice

1. A short summary of the essence of how to do the practice:

a. The practice is simply to recognize all perceptions, sensations, thoughts, emotions and experiences for what they are: the clarity of awareness.

b. You don’t have to change them. Just notice, what happens when you stop thinking for a moment?

1. What remains?

2. A sense of alertness and clarity.

3. This is the clarity of awareness. Session 4 Session

c. All your thoughts, emotions, sensations and other experiences appear within the clarity and alertness of awareness. You don’t have to achieve or attain or find it; it is always already present.

d. When the next thought comes, it is only able to appear because there is awareness. Allow awareness to expand to notice the clarity and alertness that is the real nature of all your experience, even the most contracted painful feelings and thoughts.

e. Trust the process of recognition, even if it lasts for only a brief moment. There’s no point in trying to prolong any moment of clarity and recognition; instead, just recognize whatever is arising and rest in the clarity of the present moment. You can do this many, many times, and it is always fresh.

2. Deepen your “Mornings” practice: Practice every day, at whatever time works for you. (For further details, please refer to the Practice Assignments and Reflection Questions for Session Three, where this is spelled out fully.)

a. Let your meditation this session deepen into a place of utter rest, in which the clarity of this moment, the Mystery of Existence, the depth of your very Self, of “IAMness” itself, is utterly deep and sufficient, in which nothing is missing and nothing needs to be done. Use the two audios that are first being made available to you this session:

i. Guided Experience of the 3 Faces: God in 1st Person (audio, ~13 minutes). Use this at least once.

ii. Guided Meditation on the Ground of Being (audio, ~27 minutes). Use this at least twice a week.

3. Refresh your “Moments” practice: 4 Session

a. At random moments throughout your day, reawaken! Simply remember to recognize the nature of your present experience as the clarity of free awareness. That recognition will quite likely last for only a brief moment, and this is perfectly okay. Just do it again, as frequently as you remember, letting it open you into fuller contact with the moment and the Mystery. Feel free to begin by bringing your attention to your heart, and breathing to and from your heart. And then relax into recognition of the clarity of awareness.

b. Do this as often as possible, at least 3 times a day. Allow yourself to awaken from whatever identification with your experiential points of view may pertain in the moment and recognize their nature and rest as the clarity of awareness. The “No Waiting” practice can serve as a reminder. If you wish, it’s fine to sometimes

do the “heart breathing” practice, but please sincerely engage the practice of “clarity” this session.

4. Continue your “Momentum” practice:

a. Continue doing at least one more thing (more than just “Mornings” and “Moments”) every day to actively build the momentum of your practice life, engaging in “Integral Cross-Training,” bringing energy and intention to practices in different “Spheres” of your Integral Spiritual Practice.

b. KEY: Actually make the move to improve your diet! Last session you considered it; actually start doing it! If you would like some specific suggestions, please make use of this document: Making a Change to Your Diet (PDF).

Reflection Questions

1. Reflecting on the experience of awareness practice.

What has it been like for you to engage this practice? (in random “Moments” throughout the day—and in your daily “Morning” practice of sitting in meditation?)

a. What new insights do you have about your relationship to moment-to- moment experience?

b. What new clarity is arising about the value of meditation?

c. What do you notice changing about your relationship to your other motivations for practice (such as “The Lesson of Life and Death,” “The Good News” and “The Big Picture” of our unique evolutionary moment)?

2. Noticing the effects of awareness practice. In what ways does this practice create space for you to show up in life in a freer, more awake and enlightened Session 4 Session fashion?

a. In what ways do you observe a loosening of the power of the self- contraction?

b. In what ways has your worldview been changing as you engage these practices?

c. How has the quality of your experience throughout the day changed since you started engaging awareness practices?

d. How have you observed this practice creating space for more enlightened behavior to arise?

Session 5 Achieving Dynamic Balance in a Crazy World: The Practice of Navigating the Whitewater of 21st-Century Life

Overview

Congratulations—as you begin this session, you’re at the halfway point in our journey through these eight sessions!

We begin this session by deeply opening to and including all our seemingly contradictory parts. Then we consider “the terrible truth” of our time: How we live in an environment that has mutated over the last century, so that instead of living in the environment our nervous systems evolved to deal with, we live among “supernormal” stimuli, exaggerated imitations of what we’re hard-wired to crave—and how we live immersed in a virtual reality that is bombarding us with overdoses of high-test threat, romance, sex, and power signals—and an actual overabundance of consumption Session 4 Session opportunities—especially of the richest, most delicious (but not always healthy) foods.

All of that is exercising outsized effects upon us right at a time when it is critical that we neither numb ourselves in denial nor fall into despair. So we will explore how we can be empowered rather than drained by our care. And in doing that, we discover “the wonderful secret” that we are not victims at all. We look directly at how we can take 100% responsibility. We practice by grounding ourselves in our bodies, through the whole sphere of many very specific body practices. We conclude this session by considering an important way we can practice to counter our brain’s inbuilt “negativity bias.”

This session we surf the whitewater of 21st-century life with additional tools, including 3 new “Moments” practices. We continue our “Momentum” practice, emphasizing grounding ourselves with practices from the Body Sphere. And we open up the possibility of devotional spirituality by adding a new dimension to our “Mornings”

Copyright Terry Patten/Evolving Wisdom 2011. All rights reserved. 46 www.EvolvingWisdom.com www.IntegralSpiritualPractice.com practice, with 1-3 minutes of feeling into communion with the Mystery before we sit in silence.

Session 5 Course Materials

Learning Practice

Considering the 3 Faces of God (audio) Prayer and Communion (audio)

Guided Meditation: Deep Whole Body Relaxation (audio) * Note: Bold text signifies “core” materials, while normal text implies “optional” materials.

This session, begin to make conscious choices to shape the form of your practice, and make use of any and all of your other 3D Workout materials, including any useful PDFs, Guided Mediations, and other Audio. Session 5 Session Practice Assignments

Personal Practice

1. Continue your “Moments” practice, including “Heart Breathing” (sometimes inspired by The Big Picture) and “Resting as Awareness,” and expand it by adding (when appropriate) any and all of three new Moments practices:

a. Releasing “Overcare” and replacing it with “Balanced Care”

b. Taking In the Good

c. A Moment Before Sleep

Try to relate to these additional Moments practices as happy opportunities rather than as burdensome obligations. If you notice yourself anxious over something,

particularly something in the news, take a moment to release overcare and replace it with balanced care. If you notice something good happening, breathe and soak it in fully, and when you go to sleep, take a moment, when you remember, to rest as awareness, or to do heart breathing. Or not. These add to the colors in your palette with which to surf the frothy edges of 21st-century living.

2. Consider your “Momentum” practices in the Body Sphere:

a. In Session Five, there’s an overview of many body practices, including a wide range of exercise practices, ordinary day-to-day practices like breathing, posture, hot-and-cold-showers, and putting your bare feet on the earth, as well as many tips on diet.

b. Consider your body practices. Is there anything you’d like to change or add or do differently? Ask yourself if it’s really realistic and sustainable, and adjust your commitment if necessary. (Try not to overcommit!)

c. Consider your experience last session with changing your diet. Are there any dietary improvements you can sustainably and happily maintain? (Again, try 5 Session not to overcommit. And remember to refer to our Changing Your Diet PDF when appropriate.)

d. Make any appropriate new choices regarding your body practices—and start doing them!

3. Deepen your “Mornings” practice.

a. Continue to practice every day, at whatever time works for you. (For more details, please refer to the Practice Assignments and Reflection Questions for Session 3, where it is fully spelled out.)

b. Begin your sitting practice with a short period of communion. Experiment with beginning your sitting practice with 1-3 minutes in which you open your

feeling being into communion with the Mystery using the approaches outlined in the Prayer and Communion audio. Before you begin this process, it’s recommended to listen to the explanatory audio Considering the 3 Faces of God.

c. Try Whole Body Relaxation. At least once, experiment with deep meditation using total whole-body relaxation while meditating lying down, using the guided audio that is first being made available to you this session: Guided Meditation: Whole Body Relaxation (~27 minutes)

4. Reflect on your “Mission” practice. How did the discussion about “The Terrible Truth” and “Releasing Overcare” affect your way of understanding or relating to your Mission? Take a few minutes to contemplate this and consciously, intentionally feel into how it changes things for you to adapt to this positive way of relating to the larger world-in-crisis. If it is useful, repeat this process several (try 3) times.

Session 5 Session

1. Please write in response to this series of questions:

a. What are some of the ways you are most challenged by the “whitewater rafting of 21st-Century life”?

b. What are some of the practices that have been most helpful to you?

c. Which new practices from this course seem most promising in helping you sustain and restore a pattern of sanity in the midst of the chaos?

d. What healthy new choices and/or commitments do you feel moved to make?

2. Reflect on this deep paradox:

During Session 3, we considered that the deep hard-to-answer questions arising out

of the crisis of our time need better answers than we have right now. We looked at them as a profound “koan” (an apparently unsolvable riddle) that is now given to us by life itself. We considered that taking them very seriously, and insisting on finding better answers, and living in the tension of these urgent difficult questions may be 5 Session something that stretches and changes us, analogous to the way a koan stretches and changes the consciousness of the Zen monk who applies himself to them wholeheartedly.

During Session 4, we considered the practice of recognizing the true nature of all arising experiences as awareness itself, and being released from identification with all points of view.

In Session 5, we are considering the value of relaxing and releasing the anxious “overcare” that tends to drain us, and in its place, emphasizing healthy, non-anxious, balanced care for the whole. We also considered that healthy care for others needs a foundation of healthy care for ourselves.

Copyright Terry Patten/Evolving Wisdom 2011. All rights reserved. 50 www.EvolvingWisdom.com www.IntegralSpiritualPractice.com a. Can you wholeheartedly embrace, and take on each one of these 3 practices?

i. If not, what holds you back?

ii. If you can, what is it like? b. How can you engage all three of these practices at the same time?

i. How does that challenge you to deepen or grow?

ii. What do you imagine the benefits might be if you sincerely do your best to engage them all, presuming that all three of these practice intentions can naturally flow together in an integrated way?

Session 5 Session

Session 6 Liberating Your Emotions and Aligning With Your Highest Purpose: The Practice of Integral Shadow and Soul-Work

Overview

In this session, we turn to the practice of the “psychosphere”—the domain of emotions, feelings, and the deep psyche—the domain in which we work with what is repressed into the shadow worlds of our unconscious. This includes all that is so shamefully negative we can’t bear to feel it, and it also includes that which is so powerfully positive, we can’t yet dare to allow it. This is a vast sphere of practice, which includes the valid practices of every school of psychotherapy, whether they’re directed to producing insight, corrective emotional experiences, or shifts in our primitive patterns of nervous system activation. Session 5 Session All of this is directed at the submerged dimensions of the “iceberg” of the unconscious— awake to the poignant fact that human beings are afraid of what they feel. On an extremely subtle level, we are too threatened to allow ourselves to feel certain parts of what we’re actually feeling.

In this session, we learn a practice of slowing WAY down and feel what we otherwise don’t notice, via bodily sensations. And we tune into ourselves in a way that allows ourselves to begin to penetrate the deep shame, the conviction that parts of ourselves are defective and unacceptable, which usually functions as the “repression barrier,” keeping what we reject out, and rendering parts of ourselves “not me.” And we drop into the profound work of self-compassion and courage that allows us to become a much better friend to ourselves, especially to the buried parts of ourselves, and to become more whole by allowing ourselves to feel what we have previously excluded.

From there, we go on to consider the parts of our future selves that have not yet come on line, and how life sends us signs in dreams and resonant life experiences, synchronicities that enable aspects of our future selves to bubble up through our deep psyche into consciousness. And we invoke the practice of being still and listening to the small soulful voice of the person we’re still in the process of more fully becoming.

And then we consider the positive, ecstatic practices of the psychosphere—of what it is to open our feeling capacities more and more fully into the full spectrum of aliveness that is the hidden involutionary potential of our human bodymind. We explore opening the heart in love and communion with God in 2nd Person, and the opening of our higher faculties of ecstatic enjoyment of existence. And we also appreciate that the fulfillment of this sphere is about removing obstructions not only to positive feelings—but also to all feelings—including deep unarmored empathy with the heartbreaking pathos of life and of the human condition—something that is not incompatible with happiness and bliss,

but indeed, is most authentically experienced simultaneously—in the “excruciating bliss” of a fully awakened experience of life.

This session we learn one new “Moments” practice, “Slowing WAY Down and Getting 6 Session Microscopic.” We continue our “Momentum” practices. But the primary practice for this session is to more deeply explore 2nd-person devotional spirituality. We do this via the Guided Meditation on experiencing God in 2nd Person, and by experimenting with deepening our practice of Prayer and Communion before we sit silently during our “Mornings” practice, particularly via a guided process of Trans-Rational Prayer.

Session 6 Course Materials

Learning Practice

Trans-Rational Prayer (audio)

Learning Practice

Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God: God in the 2nd Person (audio)

Guided Meditation on the Ground of Being (audio, without intro) * Note: Bold text signifies “core” materials, while normal text implies “optional” materials.

Tip: We recommend listening to the Bonus Workshop “Unleashing the Energy Held Captive by Shadow,” with Diane Musho Hamilton and Saniel Bonder, during this session.

The practice for this session is to continue to deepen into what we opened up during our last session. So it may be useful to listen again to Considering the 3 Faces of God and Prayer and Communion, which sets the stage for the deeper exploration of devotion and trans-rational prayer for this session.

An extra asset is also available this session: Guided Meditation on the Ground of 6 Session Being (without intro). This was made available with an explanatory introduction during Session 4; this version can also be used to flow directly into deep radical meditative consciousness, although it is not assigned for this session.

Continue to make conscious choices to shape the form of your practice, and make use of any and all of your other 3D Workout materials, including any useful PDFs, Guided Mediations, and other Audios.

Practice Assignments

Personal Practice

1. Continue your “Moments” practice (framing it as an always-available happy opportunity rather than as a burdensome obligation) including Heart Breathing”

(sometimes inspired by The Big Picture) and “Resting as Awareness,” supplementing them with Releasing Overcare, Taking In the Good, and A Moment Before Sleep. Notice any psycho-emotional “charges” or “twinges” that arise during this session. Also begin to experiment with the new moments practice from the session audio: Slowing WAY Down & Getting Microscopic.

2. Continue your “Momentum” practices. Appreciate and respect that it is necessary to continually renewing and re-create your commitment to healthy body practices, including exercises, diet, sleep, breathing and posture. Sustain your healthy choices, crafting them as necessary (with both masculine and feminine self- compassion) so that you will be able to sustain them (which means regularly returning to them) for the rest of your life.

3. Continue to deepen your “Mornings” practice.

a. Continue to practice every day, at whatever time works for you. (For more details, please refer to the Practice Assignments and Reflection Questions for Session Three, where it is spelled out fully.) Session 6 Session

b. Begin your sitting practice with a short period of communion. Experiment with beginning your sitting practice with 1-3 minutes in which you open your feeling being into communion with the Mystery using the approaches outlined in the Prayer and Communion audio. Before you begin this process, it’s recommended to listen to the explanatory audio Considering the 3 Faces of God.

Something new: If you sense that it is authentic for you, experiment with engaging your Momentum, Moments and Mornings practices as an expression of your love relationship with the mystery, as acts of loving devotion.

Reflection Questions

1. Please journal privately in response to these two questions:

a. What are some of the ways you are working with your “dark” shadow (psychotherapy, dream work, workshops, introspection, journaling, etc.)? What is coming into view?

b. What are some of the ways you are working with your “golden” shadow, the soulful emergence of your higher potentials? What is coming into view?

2. Please journal in response to these deep reflection questions:

a. A good deal of this session is devoted to self-compassionately exploring the

universal hidden human experience of shame. What about this is most resonant 6 Session and meaningful and useful to you?

b. How can you make healthy use of this exploration of shame now and in the future?

Session 7 Resetting Your Happiness Set Point: The Practice of Finding Your Radical “YES” to Life

Overview

In this session, we begin by looking back at everything that has taken place across all the previous six sessions of this course, and the regular daily practice that you have

Copyright Terry Patten/Evolving Wisdom 2011. All rights reserved. 56 www.EvolvingWisdom.com www.IntegralSpiritualPractice.com been doing, in Mornings, Moments, Momentum, and Mission—with expressions in Body, Mind, Spirit, and Psyche.

Then we turn to the fact that whether or not we actually do our practice in any given moment often rests on what is happening at a very deep level of our being. Practice expresses a profound existential choice, a belief in a positive possibility. And the only way it’s possible to make this choice is to touch base with the deepest levels of our being—including those on which our feelings are complex and divided.

So we drop in and make contact with our existential ambivalence. We consider the ways in which we feel weary and sick and ambivalent about being here in this body and in this life. And we feel into how our growth in sensitivity tends to add to the complexity of our awareness and attitudes. And we feel into how this tends to condition our ability to show up 100% alive and present here and now—fully committed to our choices and intentions.

We consider one of the most profound insights of existentialism—the recognition that we are always at choice. Even under the most extreme conditions, we have the choice ssion 6 Se as to whether or not to hate or to forgive, and whether or not to focus on what we value, appreciate and care for.

We consider the deep parallels between various levels of positive choice—our ability to authentically commit ourselves to our own well-being and happiness, to choose to practice, to choose to change our happiness setpoint, to embody our own greatness, and to serve something greater than ourselves.

And we look at the “forks in the road,” the moments just before making a poor choice, and tune in deeply to the (possibly unnoticed) opportunity to make a healthy choice instead.

On that basis, we consider the larger interlocking evolutionary crises of our times, and how at this crucial “fork in the road” the fate of our whole evolutionary enterprise depends upon all of us finding our “Yes” to life and practice and happiness and

contribution. And embodying it in practical ways, and how “finding our ‘Yes’” can make THE difference—not just in our lives, but for our species, our planet, and for evolution itself.

And we conclude by introducing the last element of Integral Spiritual Practice: Milestones. Milestones are significant projects or other undertakings with a 3-month to 3-year timeframe that become practices when we open ourselves up to grace, and let a higher power co-create our opus, doing it as service, dedicating it to something greater than ourselves. A Milestone can be anything—creating a garden, writing a screenplay, meeting an athletic or weight loss goal, caretaking someone through an illness or injury, or mastering a new level of meditative concentration.

Session 7 Session

Session 7 Course Materials

Learning Practice

Savoring the Mystery (audio)

Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God: An Integrated Experience (audio) * Note: Bold text signifies “core” materials, while normal text implies “optional” materials.

Please listen to each of the guided meditations at least once a week. Savoring the Mystery is a rich, ecstatic practice of whole-body communion; it’s a free rendering by me of the words of my teacher Adi Da Samraj, beautifully illuminated by Ray Lynch’s musical composition titled “Evenings, Yes.”

The Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God: An Integrated Experience audio provides an integrated experience that brings you all the individual meditations on Spirit Session 7 Session in 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-Person in a way that is much more than the sum of the parts. Please take it in, and let it deepen and open you! If you have not already listened to Introducing the 3 Faces of God and Considering the 3 Faces of God, or if you are a little vague about what they contained, it may be useful to listen to them again to clarify the principles, context, philosophical basis, and some of the implications of this guided experience. Also, you may wish to revisit Prayer and Communion if a radical relationship to devotional practice is something you’re investigating or exploring right now.

Continue to make conscious choices to shape the form of your practice, and make use of any and all of your other 3D Workout materials, including any useful PDFs, Guided Mediations and other Audios, especially the Principles of Integral Spiritual Practice (PDF).

Practice Assignments

Personal Practice

1. Frequently, throughout the session, notice your subtle ambivalence and your opportunities to “say ‘yes’ to life” and practice.

a. Explore the many opportunities you have to make healthy choices—choices of attitude, choices to practice, choices of behavior.

b. Let this whole session be a meditation—all about noticing what you do have the power to choose.

c. Keep exercising healthy and happy choices as much as possible, again and again and again, and notice what arises when you try to sustain good choices.

2. Continue your full Integral Spiritual Practice, including:

a. Your “Mornings” practice Session 7 Session b. Your “Moments” practice

c. Your “Momentum” practices

3. Deepen your exploration of “devotion.”

a. Continue to begin your sitting practice with a short period of communion.

b. Use the two guided meditations this session to deepen and authenticate your experience of devotional communion.

c. Experiment with approaching all of life, particularly through your moments practices (such as heart breathing) as if you are in love with the Mystery and Life and you’re enacting that love relationship, quietly, faithfully, sneaking it in any chance you get.

4. Consider your “Milestones Practice” deeply using this session’s reflection questions, below.

5. If you are moved, consider sharing with a supportive person from one of your communities, practice or otherwise, about your “Moments” practice or some of the “Milestones” in your life.

Reflection Questions

1. Please journal about this session’s practice:

a. What do you notice as you contemplate choice and the “forks in the road” in which you have the opportunity to exercise good rather than bad choices? What arises as you attempt to sustain this over time?

b. What is your experience of experimenting with a “devotional” orientation to your whole Integral Spiritual Practice?

2. Please journal in response to these questions about your practice of 7 Session “Milestones”:

a. Describe a recent project or “opus” or Milestone through which you experienced transformation. How did it change you? What did you learn about how you would like to engage future Milestones?

b. If you are in the process of considering or actualizing a particular project or piece of work, or Milestone, consider the 3 attitudes of Milestones practice:

i. Regarding it as something you’re co-creating in partnership with a higher power

ii. Relating to it as a service, as a gift you are giving to others, to Life, and to evolution

iii. Relating to it as a transformative process, through which you are being transformed

In what ways do any of these 3 principles usefully illuminate your current way of relating to your Milestone?

Session 7 Session

Session 8 Discovering Your Hidden Sources of Intimacy & Support The Practice of Integral Spiritual Community

Overview

Our final session begins by summarizing what this course in Integral Spiritual Practice has really contained. Terry acknowledges his teachers and mentors and sources, and explains his mode of teaching (not from “on high” but by describing the lived experience of what it is like to combine oneself with the path). We appreciate that since Integral Spiritual Practice is profound, paradoxical, and dynamic, growth on this path never comes to an end, so we’re considering a lifetime engagement. What is its nature?

We go on to unpack and explore the implications of the three words that name this path: “integral,” “spiritual,” and “practice.” There are many apparently contradictory paired principles that are integrated in this approach. Our spirituality is evolutionary, Session 7 Session panentheist, engaging the 3 Faces of God, and involves growth into both higher “states” of consciousness and higher “stages” of consciousness. And by practice, we become people who have made a commitment to making healthy intelligent choices every day, via our practices of Mornings, Moments, Momentum, Mission, and Milestones.

Then we revisit and re-experience our Mornings practice, with particular attention to the Core Form of the 3D Workout. We review our various Moments practices, and learn two new ones: “Bodily Service” and “First Thing.” And we put our Momentum, Mission, and Milestones practices in context. They are the “monkey bars” on which we enact the “art” of practice, by “starting again” every morning, and in every moment.

We consider how this changes us, and how, through regular Integral Spiritual Practice, we become trustable and capable of intimacy in new ways, and therefore capable of spiritual community. And we face the fact that none of us yet live in such communities, so we tend to feel isolated and under stress. And we look at the practical things we can

do to get support in our life and practice and also to help bring that community into being.

And we conclude, where we began, by considering and affirming our personal commitment, whatever it is—and finding a way to act upon it.

Session 8 Course Materials

Learning Practice

The 3D Workout: Final Words (video) The Spheres of Your Integral Spiritual Practice: A Blueprint (PDF) * Note: Bold text signifies “core” materials, while normal text implies “optional” materials.

Continue to make use of any and all of the other course materials as you see fit. And take time this session to re-read the “Principles of Integral Spiritual

Practice” (PDF). 8 Session

Practice Assignments

Personal Practice

1. Consider adding two new “Moments” practice to your life:

a. First Thing: A moment after you wake up in the morning, take a moment to set the tone for your whole day, using attention, breath, and feeling.

b. Bodily Service: Move your body by doing practical service to others and your environment, and reorient your energy and attention by focusing not on your interior state but by moving your exterior physical body.

2. Final Words. Please view Terry’s final 3D Workout video with his last words about how to relate to this practice over the weeks and months and years to come.

3. Speak Your Commitment: This session ended with an exercise in which Terry invited you to say “Yes” to your life of practice. It can be powerful to put this into words—in your journal, or by speaking it aloud to someone else. What have you chosen? What does it mean to you?

1. Write down the form of your Integral Spiritual Practice. Use the “Spheres of Integral Spiritual Practice Blueprint” form. What is the form of your practice going forward? Please write down your essential commitments, identifying clearly to yourself what is realistic, balanced and sustainable for you. This is a valuable tool to prevent you from rationalizing an “invisible slide” away from the forms of your practice. Quantify things (numbers of minutes or laps or miles, and numbers of times per week or month) as much as possible. Consider using the ISP Blueprint PDF to

help organize this process.

2. Speak your truth. What has this course in Integral Spiritual Practice meant to Session 8 Session you? You are invited to make a statement to yourself, and also to share it with your fellow Integral Spiritual Practitioners. What have you experienced and understood, and how has your life changed? Own your transformation by giving it voice!

Course Materials

Learning Practice

Welcome to The 3D Workout (Video, ~12 The 3D Workout: 20-Minute “Essential” minutes) Video

Learning the 3D Workout (Video, ~30 The 3D Workout: 20-Minute “Essential” minutes) Audio

The 3D Workout: Posture Chart (PDF) The 3D Workout: 10-Minute “Essential” Audio

The Extended 3D Workout: Posture Chart The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” (PDF) Video Session 8 Session A Simple Key to the 3D Workout Materials The 3D Workout: 2-Minute “Core Form” (PDF) Audio

The 3D Workout: Final Words (video) The 3D Workout: Integral Dedication Video

Meditation: What and How (Audio, ~24 The 3D Workout: Integral Dedication Audio minutes)

Preparing for Meditation (audio) The 3D Workout: 40-Minute “Extended” Video

Introduction to the 3 Faces of God (audio) Meditating with the Mystery (audio)

Considering the 3 Faces of God (audio) Prayer and Communion (audio)

Learning Practice

The Spheres of Your Integral Spiritual Trans-Rational Prayer (audio) Practice: A Blueprint (PDF)

Principles of Integral Spiritual Practice (PDF) Savoring the Mystery (audio)

Guided Meditation on the Ground of Being (audio, with and without intro)

Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God: God in the 3rd Person (audio)

Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God: God in the 2nd Person (audio)

Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God: God in the 1st Person (audio)

Guided Experience of the 3 Faces of God: An Integrated Experience (audio)

Guided Meditation: Deep Whole Body Relaxation (audio)

Making a Change to Your Diet (PDF)

Bonus Workshops

Ken Wilber and Terry Patten The Farther Reaches of Human Potential: How to Activate Your Super-Normal Abilities

Diane Hamilton and Saniel Bonder Unleashing the Energy Held Captive by Shadow

Barbara Marx Hubbard and Andrew Cohen Awakening the Power of an Evolutionary Spiritual Practice

Copyright Terry Patten/Evolving Wisdom 2011. All rights reserved. 68 The Body Sphere including subtle energy practices, physical recreation and exercise practices, diet and nutritional practices, sleep, time in nature, etc.

Practices Description Frequency Yoga 90-Minute Integral Yoga Class at Samadhi Yoga 2x/wk

The Mind Sphere including practices to expand or free up perspective-taking, including reading, writing, discussion, and study of print or audio and/or visual media, etc.