An Ongoing Experiment

The Roots of Pacific Integral's Transformative Work

Early on at Pacific Integral, we had two influences that deeply shaped how our work unfolded over the years. The first was Ken Wilber’s integral view and the notion of integral practice, which was a way to engage in our own development from the perspective of the holistic view that Ken enacted through his integral model.

To engage with our unfolding wasn’t just a matter of developing as leaders or spiritually or psychologically; it was a more complete affair. This was expressed through Ken’s pithy wake up, grow up, clean up, and show up, and so on. While Integral Theory takes less prominence in our work now, it lives on in spirit as an inquiry into what it is to embrace as much of reality as possible as we engage in our own unfolding.

The second influence was an orientation to a kind of process of emergence, which sprang out of our exploration of Otto Scharmer’s Theory U. We came to refer to our work as an ongoing experiment, so we were always learning and questioning and evolving what we were doing, seeing it as an inquiry into what it is really for human beings to develop. This meant we couldn’t merely apply existing models or approaches. We had to discover what wanted to emerge the ongoing process of engagement with ourselves and our participants.

This has been a deep and intimate process as designers and facilitators. It’s been a collective process. We’ve been in a creative engagement with each other and with many amazing people over the years with our gifts and differences and deeply authentic engagement with these questions.

For over 20 years, we’ve worked intimately with small cohorts of practitioners over months at a time. We come together in person over that time in the equivalent of over two years in residential retreats. We’ve engaged in our own research, doing developmental assessments and tracking people’s growth in a variety of ways over time through the programs and afterward. We have practiced, theorized, written, and learned together.

Our own expression of this integral view of development, the Seven Facets of Awakened Wholeness captures what we have learned, to this point in this journey.

Being and Becoming

There is a polarity at the heart of our work, which you might call the “dance of being and becoming.” This is an ordinary part of human experience in which we find our motivations for both attainment and happiness. Both of these dimensions function quite differently.

As we engage in our own development, we can get drawn into the striving for accomplishment, the reaching for growth, for realization. This is one aspect of our existence as we are unfolding into greater wholeness.

But if we merely orient towards this aspect, it can alienate us from what’s here right now. At the same time, there is a truth that what we need is actually right here, right now. Deeper happiness is found through relationship in the present moment. The ultimate relationship is with our true nature.

We borrow the metaphor of ground, path, and fruition from Tibetan Buddhism, which points to the aspect that what we are seeking is actually right here, it’s just obscured. There is another way in which we are on a path towards something, and when we arrive at that something, we’ve found that we were there all along.

We hold our work in a ground which we refer to as Awakened Wholeness - the already present absolute perfection and completeness of who we are. When we engage to evolve or to grow, we start from this. So, in subtle and important ways, we’re not setting ourselves against ourselves towards a future that’s off at a distance.

This is a recognition of what is sometimes called absolute and relative reality. Absolute reality being arrived at by seeing through the illusion of separation to our deeper enlightened nature reveals the wholeness, the sacredness, the completeness, the freedom of what’s already here. Relative reality refers to the manifest reality of things as they are which are unfolding in space and time, as our own lives and relationships.

Deep Inclusivity

The integral vision is, in its essence, a move towards deep inclusivity, and this ethic has flourished in our own hearts over the years. This is a kind of complex inclusivity. It isn’t a flat land. It also includes discernment and natural hierarchy.

In our work, although we draw on specific lineages which have been profound teachers for us, we hold to the extent possible and embrace whoever and whatever is present. Our cohorts often include diversity of religion, of culture, and, yes, even political and philosophical diversity. Even more importantly we hold an embrace for whatever is arising in ourselves and each other to welcome it, be with it, let it unfold and be transformed or included.

In a time of deep polarization, this kind of integrative intention is profoundly important. We often imagine in some sense this is what needs to happen for our little planet to simply find a way to live together in relative wholeness. Our participants often share that what we are cultivating is the medicine that the world needs right now. This isn’t easy work but it’s profoundly important.

Relationship & Collective

What this engagement birthed was a deep understanding that relationship is at the heart of the work. You might see a progression here from engaging with our unfolding development, to realizing and acknowledging what we truly need is already present in this moment, to something deeper that arises in the relational space between us. As some have said, the next Buddha may be the Sangha. This may be an expression of our cultural moment. Or it may be in the edge of our developmental unfolding. But this has seemed deeply true to us.

One way this has shown up in our work is to grapple with the paradox at the heart of “I” and “we,” which is that our individual and collective unfolding are mutually dependent on each other. It’s us as individuals who create the culture through which us as collectives liberate ourselves. How do we mutually co-evolve and co-liberate ourselves individually and collectively? What kind of tribe can we have in which we are all individually recognized and free, yet collectively coherent and resonant with each other? How can we see the same world with our hearts even as we describe it with different languages? This is a profoundly important question and inquiry we’ve been engaging with.

Alchemical Journeys

The process of this unfolding is often not just a slow evolution into new capacities, but can be a transformative journey and an alchemical process. These kinds of journeys are described in many ways through different metaphors, like the Hero’s Journey, or the Seasons, or through Otto Scharmer’s theory of descending to deeper layers of awareness, until we let go into the Ground of Being and allow a new insight to arrive to transform us. Whether an awakening or a significant developmental shift, or a realization of one’s deep soul purpose, or profound external life changes that shape us, these transformative passages can take us into places of dissolution and reformation.

A relationship with these alchemical journeys has been at the heart of our work, as in our Generating Transformative Change program. We work with people in small groups and individuals over months at a time. Sometimes for years. This process can be deep and intensive. It is not without risk, but let’s be honest, this kind of alchemical process is what humanity seems to be going through now. Of course it is naturally reflected in our individual lives and communities. Learning to journey into and through the darkness together is what we need.

This is what we have been learning. It’s what deep communities of practice are for. It’s what we need committed relationship for. We are bound up in this together. We need to learn how to navigate this transformative time, this time between worlds, and it starts by navigating this together in our own lives.

Seven Facets of Awakened Wholeness

The Seven Facets of Awakened Wholeness describes seven important dimensions of our unfolding. This model emerged as part of our own ongoing alchemical journey, when two years ago we took time to reflect on the evolution of our work and what we have been learning.

This work is rooted in Ground of Awakened Wholeness - the recognition that there is nothing wrong; there is nothing missing. What is present now is free, awake, sacred, whole, in its absolute nature. As we Become, we ground in our innate Being.

This journey has been a conversation. As we listen to and deeply learn from each other, from the profound lineages we are connected with, ultimately from life itself. This has been a collective journey with so many important friends who have contributed to our learning, including many participants in our programs. As I often say, “We do this together.”