Ken Wilber - Love Until it Hurts

you were raising your hand get to

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straighten me out and I wanted I did you
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have some qualifications or questions I
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look I admit that everyone else's
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questions sound a great deal more
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intelligent than mine right um yeah we
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don't know that yet we haven't heard you
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okay um I'm just owning myself okay um
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you made a comment that said well most
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you know traditional meditation was
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designed by men staring at walls and I
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kind of related to that totally because
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I'm thinking okay I'm a woman I want to
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hold something I want touch something I
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don't want to stare at walls yeah and
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I'm wondering I'm just curious what you
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think would happen if women had designed
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this meditation and would it lead to the
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same kind of enlightenment yeah I I mean
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would it turn pagan instead of Buddhist
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yeah I I'm curious I I yeah yeah um well
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let's explore it a little bit see if it
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makes sense to you part and we were
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getting kind of a generic overview
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that's all so if you actually look at
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some of the female mystics particularly
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in the West the idea is that on on the
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side of the witness ultimately you want
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to get to equanimity in other words
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nothing moves you in other words and
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actually even even in common parlance
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the measure of a man again this could be
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overdone the measure of a man is his
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unflappability you know he's not
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supposed to just blow with the winner
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he's supposed to be a source of strength
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and presence and death and that's what
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women tend to count on from and they
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want men to hold a space in which they
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can shine or move or play or radiate or
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be hysterical I mean and and if the man
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can't handle that then the woman is
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deeply disappointed because you know
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he's going to react and you're going to
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get into this endless fight about you
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don't love me and I don't love you and
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all of that so ultimately why you want
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is a man who can hold this step in this
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space some sort of equanimity now it
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doesn't mean cut off from feelings or
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anything but it doesn't mean having that
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kind of
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unmovable awareness in which these
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things are arising in order for and
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that's part of getting very close to
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sort of this absolute one case where
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you're one with everything and so of
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course you accept everything exactly as
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its as tapping but there are a lot of
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steps getting up to that pure equanimity
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on the masculine side if you look at
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some of the women mystics who got
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outside of the male system and started
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doing their version of mysticism in the
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flesh and what they would do the
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exercises they would do in order to get
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to that same degree of I mean really
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intense capacity to case everything with
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one pace to see everything in the
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universe is something that can be
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touched equally and loved equally a
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mother Teresa was heard her statement
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was famous love until it hurts that's a
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classic female way to do it it's going
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to be pagan if you stop merely loving
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and if you stop you're loving at the
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merely gross throughout but if you
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carried into subtle and causal it's
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going to be just in my opinion just as
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advanced as a masculine carrying
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equanimity into it specific examples of
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this were nurses who were mystics in the
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Middle Ages and they would sounds gross
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but bear with me they would lick and
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suck the wounds of lepers it's that kind
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of love until it hurts showing a radical
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acceptance of everything that's arising
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moment to moment in a sense kissing the
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wounds in order to cleanse them this
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actual practice that was done that's the
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equivalent of a man sitting in a wall
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and not blinking for eight hours that's
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a it's an intense extreme way to get
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over your belief that some things are
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good and some things are bad in the
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phenomenal world you have to get to the
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point where they are all equally
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radiance of the divine and kissing a
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leper is a good test
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kissing some of my friends would be a
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good test too if you want to try that I
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can start you out with some day we have
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a starter kit of female mysticism if you
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want to it would do that and a lot of
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volunteers in the front row I wanted to
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tell you but that's we don't have at
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nearly as many examples of that that we
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can sort of try to make some conclusions
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from as we do your men staring at wolf
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but I think it makes a certain kind of
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sense in other words where men want to
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go through extremes of not moving you
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know extremes of being under being able
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to undergo sweat lodges and Thomas
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torturous meditation and not move
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because they're really trying to get a
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taste of the Sun move move or this
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witness that can actually stay awake
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through all three you know waking dream
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and deep sleep the female side tended to
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be the same kind of intense expressions
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but expressed through love and I think
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Mother Teresa again was really if you
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know if you saw some of stuff she was
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doing with students I mean with those
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sick people of Calcutta it really is a
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living embodiment of one taste of really
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being able to just relate to these
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people as a direct manifestation of the
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divine and that's that's sort of almost
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extreme is what I'm trying to say you
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know as the as the man not moving for
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eight hours does that make a little bit
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of sense yeah much more than that we
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don't know a lot about because we're
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just starting to study the side of it
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and I don't think that I think it's
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misleading to say patriarchy repressed
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these other things I just don't think it
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quite works like that it's just there
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wasn't enough women that due to social
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circumstances would pursue something
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like that so I think that's I think
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we're in a period of kind of rebalancing
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it and studying it but if I was if I was
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working on a masters or PhD or something
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like that I would that's one of the
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first things that I would examine and
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there are there a handful of books that
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actually go into that
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and I if you email me talk to my
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assistant call and email me I'll give
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you two or three of them one that one
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has to do also wholly anorexia which is
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really a similar kind of thing I think
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it's call holy feasts holy famine but it
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goes several of these books go into
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those very intense modes a female love
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love until it hurts help a little bit
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and that was one of the most intelligent
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questions so far thank you thank you