When Kegan's Stages are understood as cumulative orders of complexity, it is clear that a higher stage can be weak at a lower stage, as a beautiful mansion may have a poor foundation.

The sufficiency is that the previous stage be good enough, not perfected.

Details follow: At Stage 5 (Self-Transforming):

The total amount of vitality available is limited by the fundamental strength of impulses of Stage 1 (Impulsive).

The total amount of potency available is limited by the fundamental strength of action of Stage 2 (Instrumental).

As Freud's influence spread, the word "ego" started appearing in spiritual discourse.

If "ego" has any meaning, it would refer to something like "the characteristic patterns of an individual in an attempt to stabilize patterns of selfing". "Ego" is used in three deplorable ways:

"The ego", as if patterns of stabilizing selfing are an entity, like a possessing demon.

"Ego", as if these patterns have well-defined shape and are similar across individuals

"Egoity", as if these patterns are a semi-intentional action

"I" is the body (the capability of interaction), culture (patterns of symbolic interaction), society (patterns of material interaction), and relations (patterns of interactions with other "I"s).

These patterns constantly mutate, but rarely as fast as circumstances can change. Rationality, systems and frameworks are the history of successful patterns of interactions for some purpose.

Creating successful patterns of interaction requires a tempo of development faster than circumstances change. This is not always possible.

Some quotes from David Germano's 1992 Thesis:

Poetic Thought, the Intelligent Universe, and the Mystery of Self: The Tantric Synthesis Of rdzogs Chen in Fourteenth Century Tibet
David Francis Germano

The University of Wisconsin - Madison (1992) Longchenpa even feels free to speak of a "great self-identity” (bDag Nyid Chen Po), a term referring to the
nucleus of indestructible luminosity as a type of "super" (Chen Po) identity that transcends the conventional opposition of "self" and "no-self".

Sense of reality arises when patterns of engagement function by their own lights.

There are many possible, many impossible, realities.

Our present reality is as real as it gets.

Reality appears differently, per pattern of engagement.

The non-duality of Reality and Appearance. We can dance between our actually-available potential patterns of engagement (life-worlds).

The potential life-worlds glitter like the play of sunlight on water.

It is a non-prescribed "move" to enter into one, or to release one and enter another, as seems most appropriate.

Playing with what it means to labeling a few Kegan stage as "meta-".

Stage 3: meta-personal: the felt-sense of other individuals as a valued part of one's own being. From "caring about others for the sake of oneself" to "caring about others according to their own lights." Stage 4: meta-social or meta-role: principles enable navigating conflict between one's role in different circles of care. From "caring about my circle" to "navigating multiple [unaligned] circles of care."

Searchless Ritual & Spontaneous Incident

This is my “planning” method.

The daily, weekly, monthly, annual ritual is an ever-evolving artistic design whose each passing momentary form could last for eternity: health, wealth, family, fun, community, art, contemplation. Projects arise and fall within this ritual form. This strips them of any sense of ultimacy.

Transformation happens, but not toward a final state or a better state. Each day its own artwork.

A framework I use in cultivating my ecology of movement practices:

Presence, Vision, Energy, Power, Flow Presence: Practices that enhance the mere experience of embodiment.

This ranges from meditation to relaxing at a natural hot spring with hot pools, cold plunges, saunas, basking in the sun, friends...

A list of community patterns that can transform into cultic patterns.

All of these are appropriate to some degree, so there is no clear line when things go off the rails.

Take-home point: one must apply continuous hygiene around cultic patterns. You don't merely "avoid cults". 1. Unquestioned obedience is on a spectrum with taking the advice "as-is" of a long-time member, as a completely new member of a community, because they are reasonably expected to have an expertise beyond yours.

My pillars of parenting:

1. It’s OK to want behavior from a child. But any feeling that they MUST behave someway is toxic, even not expressed, even in subtlest form. Address any such sense with meditation to thoroughly release.

Then can you can truly advise instead of command. 2, The essential nourishment is transmitted from subtle body to subtle body. Every hug is an opportunity to pour the energy of love into a child. Every word is an opportunity to first connect from the energy field of the heart to the child’s energy field.

Spiritual texts are a literary genre about transforming one's experience, using aesthetics with a lineage from a prior age. Science is a literary a genre about successful prediction of nature, and Fantasy a genre delivering excitement featuring elves and dragons and quests.

1/5 The best science predicts nature, the best Fantasy has excitement with elves, and the best spiritual texts transform your experience. As a literary genre, Spiritual texts have a few favorite plot-lines, or fantasies of Realization, and quite a number of incidental tropes.

2/5

We don't each create our own reality. And we don't live in a singular reality. Rather, we experience many realities, in a spectrum from completely personal, to shared with a few, to shared even with non-humans. A reality is an evolving understanding that is effective for our purposes.

If our collective purpose is "predicting nature" then we may expect a convergence of realities. We agree with dogs on the intuitive physics of water.

1/ Simple rules for playing life as an infinite game:

There are three realms: Material, Social, and Narrative (the sense of meaning).

When these are going well, enjoy.

Randomly, one or all of these will crash.

If so, rebuild momentum in that realm, and return to enjoying. 2/ The infinite game of "the play of creation, enjoyment, and re-creation" is different than the finite game, with ultimate goals, of "doing something with your life" (which can be played as a mini-game inside the former).

Of the three phases, only enjoyment is required.

1/ Negative Capability in an ecology of mimetic desire.

Definitions:

Mimetic desire is desire arising from imitation: wanting what someone else has, family ideas about right life, cultural ideas about beauty.

Negative Capability is the capability to not resolve conflicts. 2/ For most of human history, a person grew up in a particular family, in a particular location, embedded in a particular culture. This gave some coherence to desires. Conflicting desires were often low-dimensional: marry for family or love?

1/ Four hierarchical laws of social desire

First Law: In-group/Out-group

Defend my in-group, attack our out-group. 2/ Four hierarchical laws of social desire

Second Law: Move up in status (within my in-group)

Orient towards what maintains and increases status relative to peers. Be open to opportunities for sudden leaps in status, but focus the day-to-day on gradual increases.

1/ On vitality, loss, and restoration of three entangled realities.

This is my transformation of @vgr post on reality maintenance (ribbonfarm.com/2018/05/29/rea…) into pop psychology that is simple enough for me to engage with fully. 2/ Material reality, social reality, and self-narrative reality are three realities that are linked merely by virtue of arising in the same person.

1/ Life can viewed through a lens of Curation, Cultivation, and Allocation. 2/ Take as a premise that we have a finite amount of potential energy and potential attention.
At any given moment, more or less of this potential energy and potential attention is realized.