Every Wednesday between 10am – 4pm
Starting April 8th, 2009
$12 ($10 members)

• Do you ever find the project manager or the web designer in you — or the creative writer, the lawyer, the graphic designer, the painter, the poet — wanting a place other than the usual coffee shop, where you can concentrate on your work in a conscious environment? Maybe a place where there is a meditation hall to sit or a stretching room for your breaks?
• Maybe do your taxes with a group of people? Yes, it is that time!
• Do you wish for a place where a group of you could work together on the same project or work on your own in a respectful and supportive container of community?
• No one is looking over your shoulder, but doesn’t working in your robe and PJ’s get a little too grubby and lonely after a while?
• Maybe you are a therapist, coach or spiritual director that need a private space to see your clients? (requires prior approval by Boulder Integral, and costs $25 as rental for a 1.5hr session)

Boulder Integral is opening its doors for Co-working! Come, all ye conscious people and let’s create a friendly, energetic atmosphere to help us all get our work done.

• We have free wi-fi and free tea/coffee
• Boulder Integral is not serving or selling food and drinks. You are welcome to bring your own food and drinks.
• If you feel so moved, please bring some tea, coffee or snacks as donations to the center and to share with others.
• No pets please. If you have to bring a pet, please ask beforehand.

If you have any questions, please send email to nomali@boulderintegral.org.
Hope you can join us and create a conscious workers!

What is Co-Working?

“Coworking is an emerging trend for a new pattern for working. Coworking is the social gathering of a group of people, who are still working independently, but who share values and who are interested in the synergy that can happen from working with talented people in the same space. READ MORE HERE.”

Benefits of co-working video

An evening with Robert Augustus Masters & Diane Bardwell-Masters

Wed. May 27, 2009
Doors open at 6:30pm for mixin ‘n’ minglin/Event from 7pm – 9pm
$15 ($10 for Boulder Integral Donor Members)  (please pay by check or cash only)

This evening will give you an opportunity to meet Robert and Diane, engage in deep dialogue about matters of the body, mind, heart and spirit, book-signing, and divine music from Diane.  The evening will be everything about what Robert has so wonderfully made available to us through the book.  Hope to see you soon!

NOW YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THIS BOOK FOR FREE! CLICK HERE AND START READING AND SHARING!

Check other events/workshops with Robert & Diane here.

Pain and suffering are not synonymous. Pain is inevitable, suffering optional.

Where pain is consciously felt hurt, suffering is the dramatization of that hurt, casting us the role of the hurt one, stranding us from the raw reality of our pain.

Turning toward and entering our pain — our contractedness, our fear, our distress, our numbness, our unhappiness — helps put us on the road to authentic happiness.

Turning toward our pain reduces our suffering. Entering our pain further reduces our suffering. Moving through our pain ends or at least radically reduces our suffering, even if our pain remains.

The more intimate we are with our pain, the less we suffer.

To emerge from our pain, we have to enter it.

“MEETING THE DRAGON is a courageous and poetic invitation to wholeness, brilliantly conveying the inextricable link between entering our pain and embodying our ultimate expansion. Robert guides us into the dragon’s lair, artfully showing us the way through murky caverns, bringing us face to face with our own dragons. Once there, we receive the most valuable teaching of all — that the dragon’s fire is ultimately indistinguishable from the treasure it protects, that the gatekeeper is actually the gateway. Right there in the heart of our pain are the very lessons that we most need to grow. What a beautiful thing to remember! I highly recommend this wondrous book.”
— Jeff Brown, author of SOULSHAPING

“The language is passionate, evocative, and richly poetic. The message is wise and profound: pain is an inevitable part of human life, but suffering is optional. By entering your pain, really experiencing it, getting to know it — ceasing to resist it, avoid it, or compensate for it, Masters suggests you can discover in it the seeds of a profound shift of consciousness.”
— Terry Patten, co-author of INTEGRAL LIFE PRACTICE
.

MEETING THE DRAGON: ENDING OUR SUFFERING BY ENTERING OUR PAIN, is now available in hardcover. You can obtain it now from the Store page at my website (www.robertmasters.com) or from Amazon and bookstores in 5 or 6 weeks.

Questions: Nomali@boulderintegral.org

Wed. April 22nd, 2009 Earth Day
Doors open 6:30pm.  Event from 7pm – 9pm
$15 (members $10)

This event is going to be an incredible opportunity to meet and learn from Michael E. Zimmerman, co-author of the recently published book on one of the planet’s most pressing and relevant topics, our ecology.  Boulder Integral is deeply privileged to have Prof. Zimmerman joining us on Earth Day.  Please come and learn from this master a rich wealth of valuable information and wisdom! Please forward this announcement to anyone you know who might care about this subject.  Hope to see you soon!

Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World
Sean Esbjorn-Hargens and Michael E. Zimmerman

Today there is a bewildering diversity of views on ecology and the environment.  With more than two hundred distinct and valuable perspectives on the natural world–and with scientists, economists, ethicists, activists, philosophers, and others often taking completely different stances on the issues–how can we come to agreement to solve our toughest environmental problems?

In response to this pressing need, Integral Ecology unites valuable insights from multiple perspectives into a comprehensive theoretical framework–one that can be put to use right now.  The framework is based on Ken Wilber’s AQAL model, and is the result of over a decade of research exploring the myriad contemporary ecological perspectives and their respective methodologies.

Dozens of real-life applications and examples of this framework currently in use are examined, including three in-depth case studies: work with marine fisheries in Hawai’i, strategies of eco-activists to protect Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, and a study of community development in El Salvador.  In addition, eighteen personal practices of transformation are provided for you to increase your own integral ecological awareness.  Integral Ecology provides the most sophisticated application and extension of Integral Theory currently available.  As such it serves as a template for any truly integral effort.

Michael E. Zimmerman is currently Director of the Center for Humanities and the Arts at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where is also a Professor of Philosophy, and a Professor in Environmental Studies. Before coming to Boulder, Zimmerman spent 31 years at Tulane University in New Orleans, where he was co-director of Environmental Studies for a decade. Author of about one hundred scholarly articles and book chapters, Zimmerman has also published a major anthology–Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology (4^th edition)–and four books: Eclipse of the Self; Heidegger’s Confrontation with Modernity; Contesting Earth’s Future; and most recently, Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World (co-authored with Sean Esbjorn-Hargens). In Integral Ecology, Esbjorn-Hargens and Zimmerman argue that to characterized adequately and to develop plausible solutions to environmental problems, many different points of view must be represented, including not only the natural and social sciences, but philosophy, religion, cultural norms and values, as well perspectives that belong to first-person experience, as in the case of people offering personal testimony about the consequences of environmental hazards.

Questions – nomali@boulderintegral.org or 303 541 1540

Saturday April 25th, 2009
9:30am – 5pm (please arrive at 9am to register + mingle with fellow participants)

Meals are on your own.  You may bring your own lunch or enjoy food from the restaurants just across the street from the center.

$55 (members of Boulder Integral $45) Registration at the door.  Payment by check or cash only please.

According to Ken Wilber, one of the most prominent teachers of the Integral way of learning, living and loving life, there are five fundamental areas of our being that are all equally important: Quadrants, Levels of Development, Lines of Development, States of Consciousness and Types of Personality/being.  This event is about Types of Personality, a very juicy and heart-opening way to learn about our own unique ways of being, and doing things (or not) in our lives with self and other.

While there are many teachings that explore personality types, this day-long workshop will be about getting to know more intimately your personality type through the Enneagram, a fantastic and modern synthesis of a number of ancient wisdom traditions.  See the origins of the Enneagram here.

We will have an opportunity to gain insight into the Enneagram of personality, the Enneagram of spirituality and how to work with each as an ongoing practice to experience reality and our own Beingness more fully and truly.  We will combine mindfulness and the Enneagram to identify our Type and see how it filters, expands, enlightens, and many times, limits and skews our ability to perceive and experience the most essencial core original nature of our reality and ego.

“We have to distinguish between a man as he is in essence, and as he is in ego or personality. In essence, every person is perfect, fearless, and in a loving unity with the entire cosmos; there is no conflict within the person between head, heart, and stomach or between the person and others. Then something happens: the ego begins to develop, karma accumulates, there is a transition from objectivity to subjectivity; man falls from essence into personality.” (Interviews with Ichazo, page 9)

The Enneagram of personality describes, with amazing accuracy and depth, nine fundamental egoic perspectives (Types) through which people interpret reality.   The Enneagram of spirituality describes nine truths about the universe, called Holy Ideas.  Each Enneagram Type experiences one of these universal truths as being absent from the world.  Our Enneagram Type defends against this perceived absence by creating an egoic structure that tries to be that missing aspect of the universe.  By learning more about our particular Holy Idea and our particular Type, this program will help us disidentify from or see with more Divine clarity our Enneagram Type so we can experience a more inclusive and integrated perspective.

The Enneagram is a profound teaching that will shine light on many parts of you.  And it is rare, indeed, to learn this teaching along with the age-old-but-never-goes-wrong practice of mindfulness.  Come and explore this amazing system and see how it can become invaluable to you.

About the Teacher

Tracy Allen has taught the Enneagram in California and Colorado and led groups that apply it as an ongoing practice since 2001.  She has trained in the psychological and spiritual aspects of the Enneagram with the Diamond Approach school led by her spiritual teacher, Hameed Ali, and has studied with both Don Riso and Russ Hudson, and Helen Palmer and David Daniels, the leaders of the two primary approaches to the Enneagram today.  She has an M.A. from Naropa University in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology and, in addition to her private therapy practice, is an energy lawyer as well.  Tracy is a passionate Enneagram teacher and practitioner.

Questions – nomali@boulderintegral.org

Boulder Integral regular and author Keith Martin-Smith recently sat down with our good friend Jun Po Denis Kelly for a talk about Mondo Zen, the influence of integral theory, and Jun Po’s vast experiences with state altering substances. You can also view the videos in HD here. Like these videos and want to see more? Support Boulder Integral by becoming a regular donating member or making a one-time donation!

With Christine Brautigam and Jeff Salzman

Thursday, April 2, 2009
Doors open at 6:00pm, Event from 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Free to Members

Thank you to all of you who attended the first salon. It was an enriching experience in both community and inquiry. Our exploration continues. The next one is about Integral Livelihood and what is the interplay between living an integral life and taking care of everyday business and long-range personal finances. The specific discussion topics will arise from the interests of those of you who attend and participate. You and your interests and insights are very much appreciated and welcome. Topics of this salon’s inquiry are to include:

• What is an “integral livelihood”?
• How does living authentically, consciously, ethically, and integrally get challenged during hard times, particularly when one is self-employed?
• How about when one is “employed” in a highly amber/orange field and subject to unethical stereotypical behaviors of bosses, peers, and the system itself?
• How does one honorably swim in the amber/orange/green waters without feeling lost?
• How is the economic crisis effecting people’s livelihood?
• How does the integral map help with pressures of being the sole breadwinner? How about pressures of living integrally in partnership with a breadwinner?
• What do the “locks and levies” look like from green to teal and how might that play out in the livelihood arena?

No RSVP necessary this time, we are going to let it flow. Due to our two hour window, we will break into smaller groups as is appropriate and utilize the Open Space Technology’s “Law of Two Feet”. Welcome and please note the date change.

Local friend and teacher Seth Braun recently performed a farewell concert at the Highlands City Club on his way to relocating outside of Boulder.  We look forward to seeing him back here in Boulder soon as he returns to work with his many clients!

Presentation on Benefits of Integral Coaching by Huy Lam & Nomali Perera

Sunday, 3/15, 10am – 12pm
$10 (Members Free)

With the economic upheaval, political regime change and potential environmental crisis, one thing is clear:  We are living in a time of great change and uncertainty.  This systemic change has many implications on our personal lives, and can bring up all types of emotions. Some days we may feel a sense of hope and optimism for what might be possible.  On other days, we may feel a sense of anxiety and stress from not knowing how to respond to these changes or how things beyond our control might affect us.

With so many unknown variables in our lives, we may be thinking and feeling:

• I need to adjust my plans due to the unexpected financial pressure, but I am not sure how to respond in a way that feels both authentic and responsible
• I can’t really commit to something new right now, so I’ll just wait and see what happens
• I feel a sense of opportunity amidst the challenges, but I’m not sure how to step into it

And even when we do act, we may wonder if it’s enough or it it’s taking us in the direction we need to be heading…

With so much going on around (and within) us, there can be a tendency for feeling stuck or second-guessing ourselves.  The reality, however, is that we still need to live our lives and make choices every day.  This means that our decisions need to be aligned with what we really want, and we need to be even more effective at acting on them.  Ironically, it is during these times, when we need it the most, that we can often lose the motivation to do the things we know are good for us.

So, what is the best investment during times of uncertainty?

Yes! It is an investment in yourself! Maybe it’s time to explore how to gift yourself with the guidance and support you need to navigate these uncertain times.  After all, times of great challenge are also times of great opportunity.  This presentation is about  how Integral Coaching can bring clarity to whatever challenge you are facing, and show you the opportunity that is available to you right now. The opportunity to bring forth even more of who you really are and to create the life you want.

Of course, this invitation is not only for those who are affected by the current economic crisis.  You could be someone who is experiencing other difficulties in your life.  You are welcome too!  No matter what your particular topic of interest is, an Integral Coach can help you to turn your inspiration into actual transformation.

This presentation, by Huy Lam and Nomali Perera, recent graduates of Integral Coaching Canada™, is an invitation to come learn more about how this powerful change methodology can serve you at this moment in your life.  So friends, if you’re feeling that pull to step into what’s next for you or could use a little inspiration, please come join us.  Let’s get a little bit personal, touch even just a little bit of our edge, to ponder a little deeper about fearlessly engaging these times of uncertainty and have some fun together.  Let’s see if there is a way to give the gift of growth to ourselves.

About Huy Lam
Huy is passionate about supporting the emerging Integral movement and working to bring these new insights to help empower people to create the lives that they want.  He served as CFO of the Integral Institute and was a part of the core team that developed the Integral Life Practice program. He is a long time practitioner of the martial and yogic arts, and specializes in the physical and energetic components of ILP.  Prior to working with I-I, he held financial and project management roles in several high technology companies in Silicon Valley.

Huy is married, loves to play with his two children, and also enjoys to dance, play volleyball, racquetball, go to the gym, snowboard, practice Qi Gong, rock climb, & occasionally to stop and do nothing at all.

About Nomali Perera
A native of Sri Lanka, Nomali moved to Boulder, Colorado, USA in 2002 to further her education. She has a BA in Contemplative Psychology & Religious Studies, MA in Nonprofit Management and Integral Coaching Canada Certification. Nomali is a founding member and manager at Boulder Integral, a nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating a thriving community informed by integral values.

A lover of many spiritual traditions, Nomali delights in art, music, humor, dance, the company of good friends, her Jack Russell, Decker, and quiet moments of solitude witnessing Nothing.

This Saturday, 3/7 from 7:30pm – 9pm
OPEN TO ALL!
$15 ($10 for members)

You are all welcome to this part of the weekend, even if you are not registered for the full weekend workshop.  If you have any questions, please shoot an email to Nomali@BoulderIntegral.org.

As some of you already know, this weekend, Boulder Integral is hosting Spiral Dynamics in Action, 2009, with Dr. Don Beck and other special guests, who will share their stories of how they have and continue to apply Spiral Dynamics in several global areas of conflict.  One of these guests is Colonel Fred T. Krawchuk, who was active in the Southeastern Asia trouble spots (Philippines, Indonesia), with great knowledge of the lay of these lands.  He also played a role in “the surge” in Iraq to integrate the various elements, using insight from Spiral Dynamics.

This is the only time that we are opening this event to those who are not registered for the full weekend.  It will be a valuable learning experience for those who are truly concerned about our world and examining the many ways we can help it heal.

Colonel Fred T. Krawchuk is a U.S. Army Special Forces officer with twenty one years of service currently assigned to General Petraeus’s staff as a member of the Multinational Force – Iraq.  He has led soldiers in a variety of assignments in the United States, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Latin America.  Colonel Krawchuk served as an Olmsted Scholar in Spain and as an Army Senior Fellow with the U.S. Department of State.  Fred is a General MacArthur Leadership Award Winner and graduate of the United States Military Academy, University of Navarra-IESE, and Harvard University.  He has also attended courses at Strozzi Institute, Integral Institute, Spirit Rock Mediation Center, and Esalen Institute.  Fred has served as a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations, the French American Foundation’s Young Leaders Program, and the Council for Emerging National Security Affairs.  Fred has published articles on the topics of terrorism, leadership, and strategic communication.   One of Fred’s passions is bringing together diverse voices in order to find common ground and align collective action to holistically address complex international relations issues with wisdom and compassion.

To read about Dr. Don Beck, please click here.

Sensei doshin mj nelson & Nomali Perera
POSTPONED! March 28th, 2009
Saturday, April 18th, 2009

9am – 5:30pm
$55 ($45 for members)
Please pay by check or cash only at the door

• What is the opposite of death?  Is it life, birth, rebirth, or …?
• Why is it that everyone knows they are going to die, and no one believes it?
• How many times must we die before we surrender our suffering, and choose to be fully alive?

A brush with death and dying unexpectedly creates a sudden opening where the possibility of deep spiritual transformation can occur.  The routine and rhythm is broken in the comfortable, mundane fabric of life.  We are thrust directly into the face of the unknown.  All that we have learned and think we know is of little use in the face of vast unknowable mystery.  We find ourselves standing, stark naked and alone in absolute poverty.

In this modern and post-modern culture, we are sheltered and insulated from experiences of death and dying.  This separation of dying from living creates an artificial diversion in the normal flow of life itself.  Birth, sickness and death are hidden away where they won’t disturb us, where they won’t lead us into the darkness beyond the comfort of all that we have been taught to believe.  We have been robbed of the very things which enable us to experience and appreciate our aliveness.

However, the truth is also that we have already died many deaths.  So, how about we explore the many deaths and the fresh re-births we have already experienced in this life time as we evolve from one stage of development to the next – transcending and including – dying to everything we know, then the “not knowing”, and then we are reborn into the next stage of our life?  And, through this exploration, let us deepen our understanding and embracing of the deep truth of who we are so that when death finally comes, we are ready.

If you dare to venture into this wilderness, you might find yourself questioning the very ground on which you have chosen to stand.  You might stumble into the empty darkness and find an opening of unspeakable Light, awe and mystery.  You might awaken something deep within you, that longs for timeless joy and grace.  You might leave with a new Integral Perspective of Death and Rebirth as you evolve from one level to the next in this life you are living.

You will be asked to:

• Leave your beliefs in a basket at the door and open your heart
• Share your heartfelt experiences of death and dying
• Look and identify what it is that you value most
• Find and then face your deepest fears
• Die before you die and open your life in awe to deep mystery and grace

You will leave with:

• A deeper appreciation for who you are – Pure Awareness – through State experiences
• A new understanding of the  attachments that cause your suffering
• An integral perspective of the deathlike transformations between Stages/Levels
• An integral understanding of the Rebirth of Spirit at each Stage of life

Please bring your own organic lunch (having lunch together will be a part of the day’s retreat)

Rev. doshin mj nelson is a poet, writer, speaker, workshop facilitator, Zen teacher and priest of no rank.  He is the founder of Integral Zen, Inc. a Colorado branch of the Hollow Bones Zen Order and co-founder of the Poetry of Dying Project, an organization that provides support for those who have been deeply affected by a brush with dying, as well as those who choose to look into the mirror of death and then re-examine the quality and direction of their own lives.  To reach him: doshin@integralzen.org.

Nomali Perera is a founding member of Boulder Integral.  A native of Sri Lanka, she has a BA in Contemplative Psychology & Religious Studies from Naropa University, an MA in Nonprofit Management from Regis University, Denver, and is a certified Integral Coach from Integral Coaching Canada.  Nomali has also worked at Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute.  She can be reached at nomali@boulderintegral.org.

“Experiences of death and dying provide priceless opportunities – gateless gates – that open the heart to profound silence and grace”.  – Sensei doshin nelson