History and Dharma (7)

What's the relationship between structures and states? Clearly, something is going on. It's not that we have invented structure-stages, but it's impossible to find a specific description of them in wisdom traditions. However, intuitive understanding of structures is present in the best stage conceptions we may find in later Buddhist teachings (e.g. Nyingma, Sakya, Huayen, Tendai, Shingon). Also, the three turnings of the wheel in the Buddhist tradition are not only an advancement and refinement in states, but also in structures (at the esoteric level, that is).

How does consciousness, being a nondual union of absolute and relative at once, not twice, appear as structure and state simultaneously? This dual nature is somewhat reminiscent of quanta having both wave and particle properties.

Basic binary combinations may also be applied to state-stages and structure-stages to figure out what will not work. It will not work, because "structures" and "states" are neither identical, nor separate, that is, they are two different perspectives on the process of development.

(1) States are the only reality, structures an illusion, everything can be explained and all purposes achieved by relying on states. This is zone#1 absolutism, wherein structure-stages are either not discerned, or not admited. In some cases, this approach turns into a state absolutism, where only one state is recognized as really real.

(2) Structures are the only reality, states do not have meaning, all development takes place in structures, as structures, through structures. This is zone#2 absolutism, wherein state-stages are seen as non-existent, or unproven/fancy, or downright pathological.

(3) Structures and states are not related, though both are relatively real. This is an impossible situation, since it is quite clear that prolonged disturbance in states will cause a regression in structures. Therefore, it is clearly the case that structure growth and stability depends on some sort of state-cohesion.

(4) Structures and states are situated in the same continuum, wherein state-stages actually refer to the highest structure-stages. This was the model embraced also by KW at least until TOE (2000), though he was quite clear on "levels and lines", as well as "states and stages". This conception also doesn't work.

None of these seem to offer an appreciation of WCL. When interpreting the WCL, Wilber is not explaining how the two sets of stages are related, he is instead pointing out why we need both of these sets to better understand the nature of the process of transformation which obviously can accomodate both structure and states, and may consist of both types of stages. A lattice is, of course, a very simple illustration of a category-distinction. In practice, this relationship will exhibit complex fractals because of which it is easy to fuse and/or confuse the two categories.

On that note, there's another chart used to supplement the traditional view, that KW used in "One Taste" (2000). Here's the full quote preceeding the illustration:

"... the traditional Great Chain tends to confuse the levels of Being and the types of self-sense associated with each level. For example, mind is a level of the Great Chain, but the ego is the self generated when consciousness identifies with that level (i.e., identifies with mind). The subtle is a level of the Great Chain, the soul is the self generated when consciousness identifies with the subtle. The causal/spirit is a level in the Great Chain, the True Self is the "self" associated with that level, and so on. So the sequence of levels in the Great Chain should be body, mind, subtle, and causal/spirit, with the correlative self stages of bodyego, ego, soul, and Self--to use the very simplified version. Although I often use the traditional terminology (body, mind, soul, spirit), I always have in mind the difference between the actual levels (body, mind, subtle, causal) and the self at those levels (bodyego, ego, soul, Self).

Here is where some of these distinctions start to pay off (and the usefulness of the move from wilber-2 to wilber-3 becomes more obvious). The traditions generally maintain that men and women have two major personality systems, as it were: the frontal and the deeper psychic. The traditional Great Chain theorists (and wilber-2) would simply say that the frontal is the self associated with the body and mind, and the deeper psychic is associated with the soul, which would indeed be a type of ladder arrangement. But the frontal and the deeper psychic seem much more flexible than that; they seem to be, not different levels, but separate lines, of development, so that their development occurs alongside of, not on top of, each other. We can graph this as shown in figure 7 (for which I have reverted to a more accurate 6 levels)." (KW)

This is an example of "levels & lines" distinction, only applied not to preconventional, conventional and postconventional development of, say, cognition and morals, but instead on the traditional Great Spectrum development of three self-senses. If you're interested in the entire entry from One Taste, see here. But essentially, what is offered is levels of Being on the left/vertical scale and through these levels/stages we find developing three types of self-sense, i.e. frontal personality, deeper psychic and witness, phasing in and out at appropriate state-stages. Therefore, quote

"As the ego orients consciousness to the gross, and the soul orients consciousness to the subtle, the Self orients consciousness to the causal." (KW)

And then, to continue,

"While all of them have their root dispositions in specific realms or waves of the Great Nest, they also have their own lines or streams of development, so they often overlap each other, as indicated in the figure. And this is what I think so many meditation teachers and transpersonal therapists see in themselves and their clients, namely, that ego and soul and Spirit can in many ways coexist and develop together, because they are relatively separate streams flowing through the waves in the Great Nest of Being. And there can be, on occasion, rather uneven development in between these streams." (KW)

Well, the Great Nest is here to stay as Involution, and soon enough we will visualize 3D integral mandala, a synthesis of several necessary distinctions made so far to conceptualize the complexity of the ULQ: involution plus levels-and-lines plus structures-and-states as two crucial sets of stages. Plus, of course, the Shadow, and voila: prospect of upper-left quadrant, zone#1/zone#2 combined.


Indeed, from Integral Spirituality (KW, 2006) page 87, before introducing the Wilber-Combs lattice: "As for transformation itself: how and why individuals grow, develop, and transform is one of the great mysteries of human psychology. The truth is, nobody knows. There are lots of theories, lots of educated guesses, but few real explanations. Needless to say, this is an extraordinary complex subject."

It's my contention that Buddhadharma is, at it's esoteric core, perfectly capable of updating to include and express these propositions. That is, inasmuch as we're interested in an authentic 21st century continuation (lit. tantra) of the Gautama Buddha's proclamation of timeless Freedom, in fullest terms available in our time.

(to be continued, of course)