An interview with Diane Musho Hamilton
by Troy Williams
“Troy…what are the three main things that you and Chris Buttars have in common?”
Buhwha?
That’s what I thought, live on air, when Diane Musho Hamilton from the Kanzeon Zen Center asked me point blank to name three ways the craggy old Senator and I are alike. Zen Masters are real tricky that way. I invited Diane on RadioActive to discuss Integral Theory – a new-edge philosophy that has the ambitious objective of synthesizing body/spirit, science/mysticism and east/west traditions. The objective? Jumping humanity to the next tier of evolutionary consciousness. Cool right? Hamilton is the dharma successor of Genpo Roshi. She is also the director of curriculum at Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute. In part one we lay the foundation of Integral Theory and apply it to me and Chris Buttars. In part two we’ll apply Integral to the development of queer identity.
TW: What is Integral Philosophy?
DMH: The impulse of Integral is to expand our mind and our perspective enough to hold multiple points of view. And to be very aware and conscious of when we are holding contradictions. For instance one of the simple contradictions that we work with is the contradiction between rationality and faith. Spirit can’t necessarily be proved through rational means. And somehow we are set up to negate either the scientific or spiritual perspective. Integral Theory would actually say that these are two different functions of mind. One is a rational and the other is a faith function. We somehow have to find the ability to hold both. Integral is that invitation.
TW: In our society it’s often an “either/or” scenario. What I’m hearing from you is that it’s a “both/and”.
DMH: Absolutely. Integral Theory takes into account the work of developmental psychologists like Jane Loveinger, Claire Graves and Abraham Maslow – who discovered that human beings actually unfold in a very particular pattern. The capacity to hold a “both/and” –is actually a developmental process. In earlier points of our lives, we actually have to occupy perspectives of “either/or”. It’s out of a certain level of growth that we can move into a position to hold both. It’s not a capacity we are born with. It’s a capacity we grow into and practice. We have to learn how to hold contradiction and how to experience paradox.
TW: Take us through this developmental evolution. We move from egocentric (me) to ethnocentric (my tribe) to worldcentric.
DMH: Let’s take for example our sense of Self. We unfold in a particular pattern. We are born without a sense of Self. We are merged with the mother and our family system. At about 2 years old, we develop this individualized sense of Self. We start to feel ourselves apart. This is called the egocentric level of development. When that is intact our awareness then starts to spread out to what is “me” and what is “mine”. The ethnocentric level becomes very much about what I identify with. My family, my friends, my sports team, my nation, etc. Then there comes another stage of development – worldcentric — where you actually start to see the commonalities between all of those groups and that which appears to be “other”. Your consciousness starts to expand to include what formerly were groups of people who are not “You”. Maybe even animal or plant life, or maybe now you actually start to see the planet as what “You” are. And beyond that, the kosmocentric level – where you start to see through space and time. You identify with the past and the future.
TW: Back to worldcentric consciousness – we become more pluralistic, we begin to evolve a sense of empathy for that which is different from me.
DMH: This is really a critical moment of development. You begin to develop a very profound and endurable empathy for groups. You can’t land in an “us/them”, “enemy/not enemy” mentality as easily. In terms of development this can be very threatening. For example, if I am fundamentally identified as being American and protecting American values and American resources and being involved in the American adventure – then all of that which is not American is potentially problematic. If I naturally move to being able to identify with people who are not American – that could be threatening to my own group.
TW: And that is really the identity crisis that we as a nation are experiencing. Not only do we have foreign enemies, the terrorists or the "Islamofacists", but we also have internal enemies – the gays, feminists and the illegal aliens crossing our borders. Most of talk radio is dominated by people who share this “us vs. them” consciousness.
DMH: Okay. So pick your worst enemy.
TW: Wha!? I don’t have enemies!
DMH: Drop down to that ethnocentric level – just as a perspective. Identify with that.
TW: Okay. I can do this. Let’s take Republican lawmakers who want to disenfranchise gays and lesbians.
DMH: Excellent. Just for fun — tell me in detail what you don’t like about these people.
TW: I’ll take Senator Chris Buttars. He spreads vitriol and disinformation up on the Hill and he writes legislation to limit the rights of my people – my tribe.
DMH: Good. So here’s what’s important. Troy is able to identify with his egocentric level – his Self – who he is as a person and an activist. He’s able to identify his ethnocentric awareness – the part of him which identifies with and stands up for his community. And he’s also able to identify with the worldcentric self that sees in fact, that he is not ultimately different. So the question I would ask you, just to practice, what are the three main things that you and Chris Buttars have in common?
TW: (laughs) What do I have in common with Chris Buttars? That is a great question!
DMH: Just three things that come to mind.
TW: Ok. Well, we’re both super passionate about what we believe in. We’re both activists. And we both get up and spew a lot of nonsense in public forums!
DMH: (laughs) So when you say, I’m passionate like him, I’m an activist like him and I also spew a lot of nonsense — in that moment you are doing two things. You are standing for your position but you are also seeing in fact that you have a lot in common. So you’re not going to be able to quite demean or treat him destructively when you see the ways in which you are the same. This is a developmental trick. The challenge is how do you hold both? It’s very difficult. But that’s what you gotta do!
To be continued…
Learn more about Diane Hamilton at www.Bigmind.org. Integral Theory at www.integralnaked.com.
Listen to the whole interview.
Related audio:
Listen to my interview with Salt Lake Mayor Ralph Becker regarding Chris Buttars.
Listen to my interview with Genpo Roshi, creator of Big Mind.
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