Integral Life Practice

A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening

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$29.95 US
Shambhala | Integral Books
18 per carton
On sale Sep 09, 2008 | 9781590304679
Sales rights: World
How to put Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory—which synthesizes the teachings of the world’s great wisdom traditions—into practice in all aspects of everyday life, so you can reach your full human potential

“A masterpiece guide of grounded, intelligent, self-transforming wisdom integrating the insights of all the great traditions of truth.” —Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit

 
Over the last thirty-five years, Ken Wilber has developed an Integral “theory of everything” that makes sense of how all the world’s knowledge systems—East and West; ancient, modern, and postmodern—fit together and can elevate our awareness. Drawing on science, psychology, human development, spirituality, religion, and dozens of other fields, Integral Theory is a revolutionary framework for understanding ourselves and the world we live in.

Now there is a way to not just think Integrally, but to embody an Integral worldview in your everyday life.

Integral Life Practice is not just a new approach to self-development and higher awareness, but a way of making sense of—and making best use of—the existing treasure trove of insights, methods, and practices for cultivating a more enlightened life. It offers a uniquely adaptive approach to awakened living that’s suitable for everyone: people with busy careers and families, college students, retirees, even hardcore athletes and yogis. It’s geared for devout—and irreverent—people of any religion, or no religion!

This highly flexible system will help you develop your physical health, spiritual awareness, emotional balance, mental clarity, relational joy, and energy level, within a framework that integrates all aspects of your life. Combining original exercises, vivid examples, cutting-edge theory, and illustrative graphics, Integral Life Practice is the ultimate handbook for realizing freedom and fullness in the 21st century.
“At once challenging and uplifting, tender yet assertive, this provocative and accessible book is the source text for a new movement in post-metaphysics and life transformation. This book is the definitive roadmap for your journey to an awakened life.”
—Anthony Robbins, author of Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power
 
“From the moment I began an Integral Life Practice, it was as if my life was assigned a new trajectory and course setting from deep within the cockpit of my soul. ‘Glory upon Glory’ is the way my days are unfolding since I began to practice. An ILP is an incredible catalyst to growth in ways that I could never have imagined. See for yourself!”
—Eddie Kowalczyk, lead singer-songwriter of Live
 
Integral Life Practice is an extraordinary achievement. Comprehensive, detailed, and powerfully rational, it inspires any and all of us to consider more deeply how profound is our embrace of the life we are living. The searing clarity of the integral perspective leaps off every page of this manual for personal evolution, clearly illuminating what it means to be fully alive!”
—Andrew Cohen, spiritual teacher and founder of EnlightenNext
 
“Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory has created a road map. Now Terry Patten, Adam Leonard, and Marco Morelli have added a GPS (Global Practicing System) with Integral Life Practice. Travelers on the spiritual path will find this book indispensable.”
—Brother David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine monk, author of Listening Heart and The Heart of Prayer, and cofounder of Gratefulness.org
 
“Once again, Ken Wilber and his colleagues have taken a big subject, swallowed the whole thing and the kitchen sink too, and then spent years working to understand it, digest it, metabolize it, and then translate it into clear prose and helpful practices. And the outcome? This wonderfully helpful manual for living: Integral Life Practice. A fantastic resource for a more peaceful, meaningful, intelligent, and exuberant life.”
—Elizabeth Lesser, author of Broken Open and The Seeker’s Guide, and cofounder of Omega Institute

“Ken Wilber and the authors of this clearly written, sensible, well-informed book are fellow explorers with George Leonard and me in the development of integral transformative practices. Such practices grow out of a philosophic vision dawning across the world that joins our aspiration for personal and social transformation with both science and the contemplative traditions. This book will advance this developing worldview and the disciplines needed to actualize it.”
—Michael Murphy, author of The Future of the Body and The Life We Are Given, and cofounder of Esalen Institute

Integral Life Practice will help you build the healthy foundation from which you can wake up to your transcendent nature or Big Mind. Western aspirants have long needed a universal practice manual that wisely draws upon ancient traditions and modern science and psychology. Now we have it—an inspiring, straightforward guide for living a truly harmonious, awakened life.”
—Zen Master Dennis Genpo Merzel, author of Big Mind, Big Heart

Integral Life Practice is a masterpiece guide of grounded, intelligent, self-transforming wisdom integrating the insights of all the great traditions of truth.”
—Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Entering the Castle
 
“This book makes Ken Wilber’s ideas come alive. It spells out how to apply Integral philosophy to everyday life by working with body, mind, spirit, and the deeper psychological aspects of ourselves. Integral Life Practice presents a useful map of one’s existential condition leading toward the attainment of the highest states of consciousness.”
—Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche
 
Integral Life Practice offers a finely honed distillation of some of the most effective and universal practices from the great wisdom traditions, at the same time presenting a context for practice that is both soaring and sensible. True to its title, it takes seriously the human need for fully balanced development, for depth as well as breadth, for psychological as well as spiritual development, for softness and toughness, for ethics and bold experimentation. Beautifully written, laid out in accessible modules, the book is truly an on-and-off-the-mat guide to 21st-century practice, arising from that place in us which stands in the best of tradition, yet rides the cutting edge.”
—Swami Sally Kempton, author of The Heart of Meditation
 
Integral Life Practice brings the integral system from the mind to doable action in life. Here is a treasure of integral Upaya.”
—Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, past holder of the World Wisdom Chair of Naropa University
 
Integral Life Practice represents a particular milestone. It gives a lucid and easy to understand summary of the Integral thought-system, without dumbing it down—no mean feat. What’s more, it describes in an engaging and practical way what to do in order to live from this elegant and inclusive worldview. If you want a clear and easy-to-follow map for waking up, read this book.”
—Bill Harris, Director, Centerpointe Research Institute and creator of Holosync Meditation Technology
 
“Here we learn, through integral wisdom and disciplines, how to be freer and more fully authentic by ironing out the peaks of higher consciousness development into every nook and cranny of daily life. This is the secret of the integral life: transcending while including, and being there while getting there every single step of the way. Get ready to train your mind, open your heart, and awaken to your true universal Self.”
—Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within, and founder of the Dzogchen Meditation Centers
 
“What if we could draw from the best of the world’s ancient contemplative traditions as well as contemporary psychological and somatic therapies, and weld them into a powerful program for transforming our lives?  Now we can, and Integral Life Practice is a happy result of this possibility.”
—Roger Walsh MD, PhD, University of California, author of Essential Spirituality

About

How to put Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory—which synthesizes the teachings of the world’s great wisdom traditions—into practice in all aspects of everyday life, so you can reach your full human potential

“A masterpiece guide of grounded, intelligent, self-transforming wisdom integrating the insights of all the great traditions of truth.” —Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit

 
Over the last thirty-five years, Ken Wilber has developed an Integral “theory of everything” that makes sense of how all the world’s knowledge systems—East and West; ancient, modern, and postmodern—fit together and can elevate our awareness. Drawing on science, psychology, human development, spirituality, religion, and dozens of other fields, Integral Theory is a revolutionary framework for understanding ourselves and the world we live in.

Now there is a way to not just think Integrally, but to embody an Integral worldview in your everyday life.

Integral Life Practice is not just a new approach to self-development and higher awareness, but a way of making sense of—and making best use of—the existing treasure trove of insights, methods, and practices for cultivating a more enlightened life. It offers a uniquely adaptive approach to awakened living that’s suitable for everyone: people with busy careers and families, college students, retirees, even hardcore athletes and yogis. It’s geared for devout—and irreverent—people of any religion, or no religion!

This highly flexible system will help you develop your physical health, spiritual awareness, emotional balance, mental clarity, relational joy, and energy level, within a framework that integrates all aspects of your life. Combining original exercises, vivid examples, cutting-edge theory, and illustrative graphics, Integral Life Practice is the ultimate handbook for realizing freedom and fullness in the 21st century.

Praise

“At once challenging and uplifting, tender yet assertive, this provocative and accessible book is the source text for a new movement in post-metaphysics and life transformation. This book is the definitive roadmap for your journey to an awakened life.”
—Anthony Robbins, author of Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power
 
“From the moment I began an Integral Life Practice, it was as if my life was assigned a new trajectory and course setting from deep within the cockpit of my soul. ‘Glory upon Glory’ is the way my days are unfolding since I began to practice. An ILP is an incredible catalyst to growth in ways that I could never have imagined. See for yourself!”
—Eddie Kowalczyk, lead singer-songwriter of Live
 
Integral Life Practice is an extraordinary achievement. Comprehensive, detailed, and powerfully rational, it inspires any and all of us to consider more deeply how profound is our embrace of the life we are living. The searing clarity of the integral perspective leaps off every page of this manual for personal evolution, clearly illuminating what it means to be fully alive!”
—Andrew Cohen, spiritual teacher and founder of EnlightenNext
 
“Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory has created a road map. Now Terry Patten, Adam Leonard, and Marco Morelli have added a GPS (Global Practicing System) with Integral Life Practice. Travelers on the spiritual path will find this book indispensable.”
—Brother David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine monk, author of Listening Heart and The Heart of Prayer, and cofounder of Gratefulness.org
 
“Once again, Ken Wilber and his colleagues have taken a big subject, swallowed the whole thing and the kitchen sink too, and then spent years working to understand it, digest it, metabolize it, and then translate it into clear prose and helpful practices. And the outcome? This wonderfully helpful manual for living: Integral Life Practice. A fantastic resource for a more peaceful, meaningful, intelligent, and exuberant life.”
—Elizabeth Lesser, author of Broken Open and The Seeker’s Guide, and cofounder of Omega Institute

“Ken Wilber and the authors of this clearly written, sensible, well-informed book are fellow explorers with George Leonard and me in the development of integral transformative practices. Such practices grow out of a philosophic vision dawning across the world that joins our aspiration for personal and social transformation with both science and the contemplative traditions. This book will advance this developing worldview and the disciplines needed to actualize it.”
—Michael Murphy, author of The Future of the Body and The Life We Are Given, and cofounder of Esalen Institute

Integral Life Practice will help you build the healthy foundation from which you can wake up to your transcendent nature or Big Mind. Western aspirants have long needed a universal practice manual that wisely draws upon ancient traditions and modern science and psychology. Now we have it—an inspiring, straightforward guide for living a truly harmonious, awakened life.”
—Zen Master Dennis Genpo Merzel, author of Big Mind, Big Heart

Integral Life Practice is a masterpiece guide of grounded, intelligent, self-transforming wisdom integrating the insights of all the great traditions of truth.”
—Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Entering the Castle
 
“This book makes Ken Wilber’s ideas come alive. It spells out how to apply Integral philosophy to everyday life by working with body, mind, spirit, and the deeper psychological aspects of ourselves. Integral Life Practice presents a useful map of one’s existential condition leading toward the attainment of the highest states of consciousness.”
—Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche
 
Integral Life Practice offers a finely honed distillation of some of the most effective and universal practices from the great wisdom traditions, at the same time presenting a context for practice that is both soaring and sensible. True to its title, it takes seriously the human need for fully balanced development, for depth as well as breadth, for psychological as well as spiritual development, for softness and toughness, for ethics and bold experimentation. Beautifully written, laid out in accessible modules, the book is truly an on-and-off-the-mat guide to 21st-century practice, arising from that place in us which stands in the best of tradition, yet rides the cutting edge.”
—Swami Sally Kempton, author of The Heart of Meditation
 
Integral Life Practice brings the integral system from the mind to doable action in life. Here is a treasure of integral Upaya.”
—Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, past holder of the World Wisdom Chair of Naropa University
 
Integral Life Practice represents a particular milestone. It gives a lucid and easy to understand summary of the Integral thought-system, without dumbing it down—no mean feat. What’s more, it describes in an engaging and practical way what to do in order to live from this elegant and inclusive worldview. If you want a clear and easy-to-follow map for waking up, read this book.”
—Bill Harris, Director, Centerpointe Research Institute and creator of Holosync Meditation Technology
 
“Here we learn, through integral wisdom and disciplines, how to be freer and more fully authentic by ironing out the peaks of higher consciousness development into every nook and cranny of daily life. This is the secret of the integral life: transcending while including, and being there while getting there every single step of the way. Get ready to train your mind, open your heart, and awaken to your true universal Self.”
—Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within, and founder of the Dzogchen Meditation Centers
 
“What if we could draw from the best of the world’s ancient contemplative traditions as well as contemporary psychological and somatic therapies, and weld them into a powerful program for transforming our lives?  Now we can, and Integral Life Practice is a happy result of this possibility.”
—Roger Walsh MD, PhD, University of California, author of Essential Spirituality