How networks become conscious...

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/15/christof-koch-panpsychism-consciousness

What implications does this have for WE practice? Anyway it's an interesting article.

Boundaries Make Freedom Possible

Here's the link to the article I shared with Michael, and which we read and discussed together in our last meeting. http://robertmasters.com/writings/boundaries-make-freedom-possible/

More on Golden Eyes and Ears

Hi all

Due to our recent conversations around the Golden Eyes Practice, I wanted to share this information with you to help clarify where it comes from and how it has been understood in the WePractice community.

Keep in mind that our understanding and application of these practices is constantly evolving based on the insights that arise from our own experience and time together. I think over the last few weeks we have already identified some "updates" that can be made to the description I'm including here, so I'll keep everyone posted about that too.

I hope you will take a moment to post your responses to these descriptions of the Golden Eyes/Ears practice and their importance. It will be great to get a sense of the range of understanding and experience when it comes to these fundamental practices.

The following two sections are from the "WePractice Manual" which is currently being developed. The Manual will include the theory and practice of WePractice, as well as practical information for new cities on how to generate and facilitate a thriving WePractice community.

Golden Eyes

By consciously perceiving others as more awake (through State-stages) and developed (through Structure-stages) than yourself, the practice of Golden Eyes helps us to appreciate the twin goals of Waking Up and Growing Up. When we understand how our perspective enacts reality, and the effects it has on others, we are compelled to behave in a way that supports individual and collective growth and development. The practice of Golden Eyes supports the community’s Evolutionary Ecosystem through creating the circumstances for two possible outcomes, both of which are mutually beneficial:

• If it is true that the person you perceive as more awake and developed than you is in fact more awake and developed than you, it immediately arouses feelings of humility, respect, and appreciation. This opens the channels for the transmission of wisdom and love, and cultivates a relationship of

• If it is not true, than you are holding open the field of possibility and helping
to enact the future potential of others by invoking the Golden Shadow of their
highest Self.

We can also use the practice of Golden Eyes to look at ourselves and at the group. Turning our Golden Gaze inward can counter the tendency of being harshly judgmental and critical toward ourselves. By looking at the WePractice group in this way, especially during Weaving, we can begin to perceive what is possible for the group if we all begin to enact our highest potentials.

Generous Ears

The practice of Generous Ears is based on the premise that: (1) all perceptions are perspectives, (2) perception is an act of co-creation in that it enacts reality based on one’s perspective, and (3) all perspectives are true but partial. To practice Generous Ears is to commit to a curious, compassionate exploration of the possibility of Truth. Although it is called Generous Ears, the actual practice requires “whole body listening”. Attuning to the information available through somatic experience is crucial, as well as the three intuitive energy centers of the Crown (knowing), Third Eye (seeing), and Heart (feeling). This type of deep listening has two aspects with regard to any perspective: listening for what is True and listening for what is Partial.

Listening for the True is not only about receiving the truth of what someone is sharing, but also about building upon that element of truth when asking questions, giving feedback, or continuing the thread of discussion. This helps to draw out more of the truth, and find higher levels of truth that transcend and include more partial perspectives. Listening for and building upon each other’s truth is the foundation of a co-creative space.

Listening for the Partial uses the full spectrum of the mind-body’s capacity to receive information to pick up what’s not being said, either by the person who is speaking or in the group space. This is a very powerful practice for doing shadow work because we can help each other see our blind spots, and liberate the bound-up energy by bringing spacious feeling awareness to the stuck areas. When practicing this type of listening, asking “context questions” can help make implicit information explicit, reveal assumptions or limiting beliefs, or encourage the individual/group to take a larger perspective.

This next section is something that was written informally by Christina Vickory - one of the WePractice co-founders and original facilitators in San Francisco. (I have edited it slightly just for grammar and consistency.)

The Golden Context: On the Foundation of the Foundations of Spiritual Practice 

I feel strongly that the context of spiritual practice needs to be set clearly in our work. Spiritual practitioners are our target market and it is our most powerful place from which to create because thats who we are as leaders of WEpractice Community. The Golden Shadow projection... that we have been calling variously “Golden Eyes” “Deep Time Eyes”, “Generous Ears”... has been the foundation idea behind all of our practices, it has been the air we breathe. And that “air” needs to be made visible in order to fully reap the multi realm rewards of doing relational practice. It is our trans egoic, unity consciousness context that IS THE AGENT OF CHANGE in our work and empowers the deepest potential. This is the ‘fire’ under all our practice ‘smoke’ (for you Hueblies). I see the skill sets we develop in a Foundations of RSP class as the skills we need for deeper realization of this Golden Shadow, and the way we bring Realization off the mat and into relationship, and the world.

The background...
The shadow is the unconscious material in an individual that can be easily seen/read by the Other. The gift of psychological relational work is having community assistance in pointing out and individual’s blocks and potentials. This alone is good, and worthy of our efforts, but WEpractice is a stakeholder
in a trans egoic vision, and committed to developing the potential of spiritual principles in the greater culture. 

WE offer a vision that is deeper than the personal, but aware that the personal is the very bridge this vision needs to land in the community. Our work is geared towards self identified spiritual practitioners who by definition have some belief, intuition, satori, or fully stabilized awareness of the connectedness of All. Some will even have a tantric realization that the Divine is manifesting even in the most contracted ways in the self, even if we are not always aware of that process. Yet even still, most people have little practice moving from the interior contemplative realization of That, and into letting That
marinate in every action, every thought, every encounter. We, even as the most experienced practitioners, are not quick to recognize the full potential of the other in the transpersonal field, particularly when we are in conflict, in pain, or find ourselves triggered.

We are simultaneously challenging ourselves and others to open to that Divine Awareness even as we are holding immensely compassionate space and patience for the contracted parts of ourselves and others. This balance is tricky without the Golden Eyes teaching, and in our communities will always lean towards challenge rather than compassion and will limit the safety needed to create deep catalytic intimacy across developmental levels and typologies.

This has been a debate interiorly in our work for awhile. The work itself magnetizes a high level of spiritual commitment. But even still there will be WHAT FEELS LIKE vast differences in skill set, native talent, and background vocabulary. (I assure you, in working with the public, whatever we think the capacities of our lowest developed members are, they are wildly above the average) Anyway, this is parenthetical.... back to the point.

To instantly create the safety and holding that will allow deep work, and to instantly tie RSP to individual spiritual practice, and finally to ground/embody/inject into the world what ever degree of Unity consciousness a practitioner may have gained in their own practice, we need to train ourselves to see with golden eyes.

The Golden Eyes game is simple, can be endlessly modified, and also reduced to a simple gazing and guided awareness practice. There is one who is witnessed, and Others who Look.

The Others, through guidance, remember that:
-this body in front of them is a miracle beyond our most advanced understanding
-this body is literally made from stardust
-this body draws its physical lineage back to the Big Bang
-this person has been shaped by genetic, psychic, and spiritual heritages that are apparent simply by looking at their shape, their coloring, their presentation, their energy body
-this person may or may not be unconscious of their literal and spiritual connection to ALL That IS, but you, through this practice, are not.

So obviously the pointing out instructions could go on and on, using the language of the leaders training or feeling into the proclivity of the room.

But what this practice does is create an easy to traverse bridge between the cushion and relationship. At the same time, for the psychologically savvy but spiritually inexperienced, it creates a bridge from the personal to the Infinite that is easy to understand, and concrete.

So I believe this is the ultimate foundation training, and that in the process of practicing this, all that you have outlined here will arise. The upside to focusing on Golden Eyes first is that it will set a foundation of good will, trust and safety when you get to the more challenging stuff that you’ve outlined.

“Generous Ears” is the other foundational practice for transitioning from the slightly more abstract “Golden Eyes” to the real world of relating. It also is endlessly pliable for use in exercises/experiences, and is a particularly good foundation of whole group WE identification work. (The name should be credited to Terry Patten who coined it in conversation with Marc Gafni.)

It is simply this... Integral Theory teaches us that all knowledge has some seeds of Truth, no matter how partial that truth may be. (Ken says “no one is smart enough to be 100% wrong)

The practice is to train your ears to listen deeply, in a way that separates the TRUE wheat from the PARTIAL chaff. (Unless, I suppose, you are gluten intolerant.) To do that, you need to practice listening. So groups need the safety to let some wild ideas fly so that the Truth Threshing Skill can get a workout. Of course there are lots of real world opportunities to practice this too.

One way to do Generous Ears practice is in a group conversation about sensing the field (or about anything, really). For folks to really inject their intuitions with abandon, they need the safety of these pointing out instructions. (modified from the EnlightenNext crew, and with deep gratitude to them)

- draw yourself INSIDE the circle of the conversation. Agree to yourself to let any of your tendency to hold an outsider status take a break for the duration of the exercise. The image is that you are all inside one big brain, and everyone who speaks is one of the many voices that arise in contemplation. Not judgement on anything, even the most inarticulate. All voices belong.
- turn on golden eyes
- search with your whole self, for the deepest thread of Truth in whatever someone has just shared.
- relax when you share, making no overwrought effort to make sense, trust the rest of the “brain” to listen generously for the deepest truth you are expressing, and build on it. You get to relax and just “be yourself”.
- relentlessly follow that thread of Truth, even if it leaves you behind


And as a final addition, I recently came across this quote from Lama Surya Das:

"When we learn to see thru others' eyes and that they want and need more or less same as we do, things start to look different and we can live and embody the Diamond Rule of perceiving the light in everyone and everything, every moment. This is not a belief but a training and a cultivation, a way of life."

May our Eyes and Ears perceive the Light that is Each and All

Schedule for Remaining Committed Group Sessions

The remaining dates for the Fall 2013 Committed Group are:

Tuesday November 12

Monday November 25

Monday December 2

The remaining Open Sessions are:

Monday November 4

Tuesday December 10

All sessions run from 7:00-9:30pm

Thanks.

Welcome to the official WePracticeNYC blog!

Greetings!

On behalf of the WePracticeNYC Leadership Team, I want to welcome you to the official WePracticeNYC blog, a virtual forum for the WePracticeNYC community to discuss all things related to WePractice! Some examples of what we will be discussing here are:

• the theory, practices, and applications of WePractice
• our experiences during the WePractice group sessions
• reflections on what we've learned through our practice groups, and how it has affected our lives outside the group
• any questions, comments, or suggestions that we have about what WePractice is and how to make it better
• any materials we come across that we think would be helpful or interesting to share with our community
• and more!

The idea for the blog arose from a few things that we observed in the group energy:

• a feeling that the structure of six two-and-a-half-hour sessions was simply not enough time to go through everything that was coming up in our field
• a desire to keep the thread of practice alive in between the group sessions
• a need for a place to share and record our reflections and feedback about what happens in the groups, so we can continue to co-evolve the structure of the practice
• the possibility of including community members in the field even when they are unable to join the committed group.

Therefore, we have decided that this blog will be "semi-private", which means that the blog will be open to anyone who is a member of the current Committed Group or has been in a previous Committed Group. We realize that this poses some potential issues around confidentiality and may limit what people are willing to share in this forum, but we feel that this is the right balance of inclusivity and privacy. We sincerely hope that people will treat this virtual forum with the same respect that we would bring to our practice groups, and hold any vulnerable information with great care.

And of course, we encourage people to be as open and forthcoming about their experience and perspective as they feel comfortable doing. We understand that expressing oneself authentically is frequently a risky endeavor, and sometimes it doesn't work out the way we would hope for. But we also know that it is precisely the taking of those risks that is being asked of us, and that is what nourishes our WE-space.

So off we go together, on another adventure, continuing the experiment of exploring the awakened intersubjective field...may whatever virtue that arises from our activities serve to benefit all beings!

With Love and Gratitude,
Michael Stern