C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

     When I started this blog several years ago, it was with the intention of making it an “integral” blog – hence the name “Integral Strength”.  At the time, I was quite enamored with Eastern philosophy – Buddhism in particular, having practiced strains of both Theravada and Zen for some time – and so I thought it would be a great way to combine my love of lifting weights and philosophy, not to mention martial arts – a passion of mine that has existed since childhood – into one website.  Add into the fact that I was also reading quite a bit from the “integral” philosopher Ken Wilber at the time – some of my earliest posts that you can still find on here attest to this – and you can see why I thought that Integral Strength would be such a cool, not to mention accurate, name.  (Let me say this right off the bat, however: I don’t care much for Wilber or his philosophy any more.  I think it is, on the whole, quite reductionist, and actually has many of the problems that plague fundament

     I have been a little late this week in getting any posts out.  This is because I have been at work on an article for a bodybuilding magazine, and because I have been at work on the following essay.  The following essay is dear and near to me.  I hope that you find solace and support in whatever ways it might offer. Integral Life Practice Simplified Part One: Cultivating Spirit      Ultimately, religion and spirituality should be about practice, not about belief.   One reason that many people in the West turned toward Eastern religions—and then toward Integral philosophy/spirituality—is because they were upset with the way Christianity was/is practiced in our country.   Christianity was/is too often practiced as a way of believing as opposed to a way of being .   (And, of course, it doesn’t have to be this way.   Contemplative Christianity is still one of the best ways in existence.)   However, it seems to me that too many Integral practitioners—because of their interest in

     Enlightenment is nothing more than lifting weights and drinking my protein shake.  Why?  Because life as it is  is utterly perfect.      You can approach life as a way of being , or you can approach life as a way of believing—and sometime your belief might be that "there are no beliefs."  Sorry, that's still a belief.      In an earlier post (see April's posts), I discussed the great Zen master Kosho Uchiyama, and what I called the 4th way.  (For more details, once again, read the post.)  Basically, Uchiyama said that there are three ways that most people live their lives: they search for some kind of philosophical "truth", they put their belief in a deity (what I refer to as "the mythic sky god") that they believe will take care of them like some kind of butler in the sky if they only do as He/She pleases, or they decide that life is meaningless, so why not go ahead and have all the fun you want (or why not go ahead and sleep with all the wom

     Okay, first things friggin' first: Depending on why you visit this blog will probably determine your reaction to the title of this post.  If you come here looking for training advice, and wonder why in the world I also ramble/talk/discuss/inform about spiritual matters—especially nondual, integral spirituality—then you probably just read the title of this post and said, "What the ----?!"      If this is your reaction, then go back and read my previous posts dealing with integral, spirituality, and (what I call) Awakened Training.  Also, go to Wikipedia—or some other such thing that is similar—and find out for yourself what in the name of Buddha a Bodhisattva is.  And... it wouldn't hurt to visit Integral Options (a blog that I recommend wholeheartedly because I read it daily)—you can find the link under my "links" section.  (Integral Options is good because it has a mixture of psychology, spirituality [mainly Buddhist], philosophy, and health/fitness.)

     For those of us who both meditate seriously and take physical training serious, the below article by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (a Theravadin monk from the Thai Forest Tradition) can be very helpful when trying to establish a disciplined meditation practice.      By the way, I would also recommend spending some time at the website "Access to Insight" (where you can read the complete article) and read some more of Thanissaro's pieces.  They are down to earth, and helpful (especially so?) for us Integral practitioners, reminding us that some of the basics—such as a following the precepts—are as important as ever. Strength Training for the Mind byThanissaro Bhikkhu© 2007–2009      Meditation is the most useful skill you can master. It can bring the mind to the end of suffering, something no other skill can do. But it's also the most subtle and demanding skill there is. It requires all the mental qualities ordinarily involved in mastering a physical skill — mindfulness and a

Just Bow Putting my right and left hands together as one, I just bow. Just bow to become one with Buddha and God. Just bow to become one with everything I encounter. Just bow to become one with all the myriad things. Just bow as life becomes life.      Kosho Uchiyama's final poem, completed on the day that he died.      Kosho Uchiyama has long been my favorite of the modern day Zen masters.  Trained in the Soto lineage of Zen (Soto is one of the two main branches of Zen in Japan; the other is the Rinzai tradition), he seemed to "get it" better than any of the other Zen masters of the late 20th century.  Often crude, earthy, and witty, his style was simply more down to earth than others I have read.      My favorite of his books is "Opening the Hand of Thought."  It contains in it one of the most profound explanations of what good religion should look like.  I call this way of approaching religion—and approaching life, for that matter—the 4th way.  By this, I mea