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View Full Version : hey any of you dudes know any thing about, ken wilber?



ChrisHein
12th January 2003, 01:45
hey, i am interested in finding real spiritual/phycological work to compliment my martial arts training, i have come acrost ken wilber, and he seems interesting, any one else know anything about him. also i am interested in the masters/houston mind games work, and the bardou trainging center in san francisco, oh yea and the carlos castanata work being done in LA, any how thanx for any advice you may give!

shinjin
13th January 2003, 20:03
Ken Wilber's stuff was OK. At least what I read. I never got too deeply into his stuff. I prefered Glenn Morris stuff. Fairly simple, down to basics once you get past the glow in the dark stuff. Glenn doesn't give away too many secrets in his 3 books but attend a seminar and you'll realize how simple things really are to do. Check out his chatlist and you'll be deludged with meditative info. Some of it is petty far out there because he has a lot of New Agers but hang in there and sometimes the Martial Arts guys will speak up and you'll get something really down to earth and more useful.

Also check out Mantak Chia and the Tai Chi folks. Their stuff is pretty useful.

ChrisHein
13th January 2003, 21:25
yea i read path notes, and shadow stradigys, they were a fun read, but seemed way out in left feild, maybe if i met glen and he was the super bad ass he says he is i would be impressed. however till then i remain a firm sceptic. thanx for the info, it's really hard to find "good" stuff on the phycological/spiritual stuff.

thanx

Elijah
14th January 2003, 16:51
Depending on the direction you want to take it, alot of the stuff out there you can apply to your martial arts training. Glens books are cool, Ive also enjoyed the works of Peter Ralston, Deepak Chopra, and Dan Millman. If you haven't read anything by these authors I highly recommend you check them out!

Elijah McCaughen

ChrisHein
14th January 2003, 20:18
i saw chopra, do a phoney demonstration of moving a metal right with your mind on oprah once, i've been turned off to him ever since! i've read alot of ralston, principles was my main texed for awhile, however i have heard from alot of his students and they all say he's an ass hole, so i figuer even if the guy knows a bunch, he's got some stuff to work on! i havent read any millman, i'll give em' a look see. you know i really find that most people in this feild are phoneys, and it sucks because i think theres alot to be done in this feild. my current teacher said he went to china in search of internal martial arts you can fight with, and he said it was hard but he found some awesome teachers, and then he got in the ring and used it, and is teaching people how to fight with it here now in the us, so i figuer likely it's the same with this stuff, even though they are few and far between, there have got to be some good guys out there.
thanx

kokumo
14th January 2003, 22:04
Chris:

Well......though he writes well and enthusiastically and a lot of people think Mr. Wilber is the bees knees, he made a very dicey call in the case of Da Free John. Given my view of that call as a colossal misjudgement, I'm not buying any real estate on his say-so anytime soon.

Most genuine Buddhist meditation instructors tend to take a dim view of the use of meditation for the purpose of developing fighting skill. But..... last Sunday's NY Times had an interesting piece titled "Meditating on War and Guilt, Zen Says It's Sorry." For the most part, the piece reviews the response of various groups within the Zen communities to Brian Victoria's 1997 book "Zen at War."

There are those who prefer the Shambhala Training program for a less sectarian approach to basic meditation practice that accepts the premise of warriorship as a positive one.

My recommendation would be to find a meditation teacher you trust. Check out the teacher's students. Check out the teacher's lineage. Ask yourself: "Is this someone I want to learn from?"

If they're advertising, what is that about, anyway? Trungpa's "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" will give you a long list of such questions to pose.

Other than that....get some basic Soto Zen or Vipassana instruction on meditation technique and just do it. You can't go far wrong that way.

Best,

Fred Little

ChrisHein
15th January 2003, 06:58
thanx mr. fred little, you got a good name sir!

yea, i've done ton's of meditation, i've seen a fair amount of teachers, now i'm kinda working it, you know feeling out the world seeing what i might reel in, same way i look for martial arts teacher, so yea i'm just asking what people know about, what they've done, and how it worked for them. any names or web pages would be appriciated.

oh yea i do know the millman, he's the trampoline dude, with the socraic master jumping up on top of roofs, nah not for me.

thanx again

shinjin
15th January 2003, 15:18
The meditation guys look at things a lot differently than the fighters when it comes to building internal energy application. It would be nice (terribly boring but nice) if we lived in the World the meditators for happiness and bliss visualize but since we share a world with jerks, a-holes and savages I'll keep mediating for BOTH peace and power. Living by that old adage If you would have peace, prepare for war.
robin martin