EP 103: Mindfulness and Martial Arts | Miles Kessler

Welcome to Radical Responsibility, the podcast dedicated to ridding the world of blame and shame, where we explore the issues you care about from a unique perspective. 100% ownership for each and every circumstance we face in life, day in and day out. Hi. Fleet Mahl here for the Radical Responsibility podcast, and I'm here today with Miles Kessler. How you doing, Miles?

Very good, Fleet. It's great to be with you again.

Great. Yeah. Again, great to be with you. I really enjoyed the recent summit that you put together. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But again, just for our audience, this is the Radical Responsibility podcast where we work to actualize abundance, love and success in our lives, to rid the world of shame and blame and work together for positive social change from a different perspective than the all too dominant shame and blame perspective. So I'm really excited.

Great.

So I'm here. I'm here with Miles Kessler today, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about Miles first. So Miles is an American teacher of Aikido 6 dan level. He's also a teacher of meditation and integral practice. We'll talk about that. He is a dual lineage holder in both the Iwama tradition of Aikido and the Burmese Mahasi tradition of meditation, mindfulness meditation. He lived in Japan for eight years where he studied Aikido full time at the famous Iwama Dojo under the guidance of the late Saito Sensei. After leaving Japan, Miles continued exploring the depths of consciousness, spending three years on an intensive Vipashtra meditation retreats in Burma and Nepal. He was mentored through the progressive insight under the guidance of the late Upandita in Burma and Sayada Vivekananda in Nepal. Miles has lived in Israel since 2006, where he founded the Integral Dojo in Tel Aviv and the Integral Dojo online. He is also the founder and director of the MPO Aikido Without Borders, which builds.

Bridges of mutual understanding by bringing Israelis and Palestinians through the martial arts of Aikido. Miles is an innovative teacher, having created and developed several online trainings such as Meditation for Akidoko. Am I saying that right?

Aikidoka, yeah, Aikidoko.

Akidoka, yeah. Evolution of Response and the Meditation Discovery Cycle. He has also produced and hosted two global telesummits, Aikido at the Leading Edge and Dharma and the Evolution of Conflict, which is, I believe, the one where we connected.

That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. Great. And you can find out more about Miles and his work through the Integral Dojo and his blog@www.theintegraldojo.com. all right, great. So, again, welcome, Miles. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.

Yeah, me too, Fleet.

So just maybe elaborate on your background a little bit. Just how did you end up going off to Japan for eight years to study aikido?

Well, that was probably, you know, in pursuit of a childhood fantasy or a dream that I had always had to, you know, to go to Asia. Like many, I guess, many young men, and I guess to a certain extent, women as well, boys and girls that had this kind of, you know, there was something mystical about the East. And for me, it had kind of tied into martial arts because that's where I was. That's where I was kind of connecting sports and martial arts, where I first started to connect into flow states. But the reason I was kind of pursuing that without. About understanding that I was pursuing that is because I had some type of, let's say, awakening experience as a young boy around three years old, where I was sitting on my front porch in Farmers Branch, Texas, you know, where I grew up, and I was playing with a little toy and. And then I just had some type of pure witnessing experience that lasted for several minutes. And of course, as a young boy, infant, in fact, our toddler, I had no reference point on what to, you know, on how to understand that experience. It came, it stayed for a while and it went. But it stayed with me somehow. It stayed in my consciousness as a reference point. And, you know, when I was just growing up and not necessarily feeling at one with everything, I. It's something that I always felt like I just knew inside of me, Fleet, that there. That there. There was a way, there was some type of inner state of impeccability, perfection that was attainable. And I kind of. And this is all me explaining it, of course, as a child, I didn't have. I couldn't even articulate what I was. What I was feeling.

You hadn't written essays on the subject?

No, not at all. But I did. But. But I did. But I loved. I was outside playing a lot, and I love sports. And I just found myself falling into these states of flow a lot when I was doing sports and in some type of physical play. So that became a major pursuit for me. And, you know, I went through school, you know, the school years in high school, and then. And then shortly, I guess around 22, I was able to find an. I found an aikido school because I'd done a bunch of martial arts when I was a kid. But then I found an aikido school. First time studied martial art, the martial art of Aikido at 22. And then at 25, I managed to save up money and go off to Japan. And you know, in a way, the rest is history. I, I, I went there for a year, but ended up staying for eight years. I was teaching English to, to, to support my lifestyle about 15 hours a week. And then I was just practicing aikido full time and you know, really pursuing at the time, I was, I was excelling in on the physical kind of gross body level. But I realized towards the end of that eight year that what I was seeking was a spiritual promise that was at aikido's core. And there was something about the loop that I was practicing in that I wasn't getting that. And that's why I decided to shift gears a little bit and go more for a spiritual practice.

Yeah, that's a great story. And seems I love hearing how people found their way into their particular spiritual paths and disciplines and so forth. That seems to be a common narrative, certainly one that I share, where some early childhood experiences seem to prime the pump, so to speak. And then it shows up later as a, as a calling and a longing that we just can't deny. Yeah.

It takes us forward.

Yeah. And I was well into my 30s before I even kind of understood that. I mean, I'd certainly kind of answered the call at a younger age, but I didn't realize that, I didn't realize what the call was until I was, you know, a little bit more ripe and mature, I suppose, to kind of see where that was going. And then, you know, I tried, by the way, I trained pretty hardcore in Japan, you know, martial arts and, and it's something that most people don't go through. But it wasn't until I went to Burma and started meditating that I realized, oh my God, what I was doing in Japan was nothing compared to the, the difficulty and the austerity of what I was facing in the just simple meditation process.

Well, before we, before we head off to Burma with you here, your time in Japan, eight years, that's a long time. What was living in Japan. I've been to Japan twice. It's pretty monolithic culture in some ways. Fascinating culture. And God, the arts and the aesthetic is just so incredible in all the disciplines. But being a foreigner in that culture for eight years, I would imagine there were some challenges.

Well, there were, but I loved it. You know, Japan was very good to me. I guess I could say it Was, in a way, being a young American who spoke English. And it allowed me to really find work quite easily. And the Japanese have this kind of, you know, everything's a hierarchy in Japan, including the way that they see foreigners. And Americans are pretty high on the hierarchy list. So that gave me a bit of an advantage. Not that that's necessarily right or wrong. In fact, in many cases it gave me.

It's worked in your favor.

Yeah, right, exactly. In ways that I didn't even deserve, I could say. But for that reason.

Living in the dojo, it was a very old school dojo, meaning traditional. Like there was no heating, no air conditioning, no air conditioning. So in the summer, it was incredibly hot. In the winter it was incredibly cold. In fact, at night, before we would go to bed, we would have to put water inside the refrigerator. So in the morning, because all the pipes would freeze overnight. So in the morning we would have water to drink, which basically meant that the warmest place inside the whole dojo was inside the refrigerator. And it was, you know, and then we'd get up at 5 in the morning and start cleaning and, you know, put on our gi. And then right away we do training in the morning. And the mornings were. The trainings were basically early mornings and at night. And then we had the day. During the day we would. The first year I lived in the dojo, and then I had a house outside the dojo for the next seven years. But while I was living in the dojo, we did a lot of, you know, it was pretty much half the day. You're. You're working. It's kind of a big compound, little kind of a farm. So we would work around the compound and do stuff and then usually have our afternoons off, which we would sleep or train.

And then train in the evening, have dinner, wake up and do it all again. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

And even though it doesn't sound like you were suffering, you loved it. But I would imagine that toughened you up a bit.

Well, it did. Now, there were hardships, but the hardships were really, you know, I was a young man, 25, and I kind of, you know, I grew up very postmodern house, so not so structured. Lots of freedoms, you know, lots of equality in ways that I look back now and I wish, you know, it would have been. It would have been nice to have a little bit more structure. But, you know, it wasn't what it was. It was. It was what it was. And it actually wasn't bad. It's not a Complaint. But I did realize that I was seeking some type of direction and, and I did need structure. You know, I can say that now. Back then I wouldn't have understood it, but I always excelled when I was in a dojo or when I was playing sports. And then in Japan, I just happened to, you know, I, like I said as a, since I was a child, I fantasized about the culture. So I just went, you know, I was like a fish in the water. I, you know, I studied Japanese pretty much full on and learned the culture, learned the language, learned the ways to be. And I put on. I rejected my, my American slash Texas culture, where I'm from Dallas, Texas, and I became Japanese. And you know, as they say in Japan, I was more Japanese than Japanese to the point of, you know, that I would annoy other, other foreigners when they would come because I would be acting Japanese. And I kind of put on that suit and, and, and it was, it was good. I needed to learn that, but it was not me. It wasn't authentic. So the first five years I was taking that on, and then the last three years that I was there, I was consciously trying to kind of find my center again as a, as an American, as a, as a man of the world, as, you know, and try to. And basically taking off the suit of Japanese but still being able to, to live in the culture, to be in the culture, but not of the culture, so to speak.

Yeah, really, that's fascinating. And it's a little aside here that seems to kind of point towards Jordan Peterson's appeal to some of the young people growing up in postmodern households today that are looking for a little more structure, a little more discipline and in some way to kind of something that grows us up a bit. So it seems like that, that served that purpose for you in a big way.

Yeah. And I guess if I give a little bit more, you know, my father and mother separated it when I was 2, and then when I was about 6, my father actually got. Got in trouble with the law with, for marijuana, you know, something, you know, I guess you can relate to that. It wasn't a major thing, but he, he basically got, you know, busted for a certain amount of pot and he had to make a choice. He got out on bail and he had to make a choice to. And that was back in Texas back in the 60s. So, you know, you, you do time or you, you go to Canada. He went to Canada. So I, that my father figure was actually gone for a couple years. I didn't see him at all. But then. But then I. Every summer from about 8 on, I would spend the summer vacations with him. But still, I was missing that, that figure in my life pretty much as I was growing up. And all of my teachers were these kind of strong, masculine father type figures, you know, in sports and martial arts.

So after Japan, did you go directly to.

Southeast Asia to begin studying with the Burmese? And what did you study strictly? Yeah, mostly Burmese teachers, right?

Yeah, pretty much. You know, I. It was interesting Fleet. I, I, I was. I was very inspired. I'd already started meditating in Japan, and I did a little bit of Zen, but it, you know, something about the, the Zen that just didn't draw me, although it's, it's everywhere in Japanese culture, and I deeply respect it. But it's just the practice itself didn't draw me as much as Vipassana. I was reading a lot of books, reading books by Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein, and I was very, very inspired by them and their stories of practicing in Southeast Asia. And so I basically went to look for their teacher. And on the way, I went to New Zealand to teach aikido for a couple of months. And I did stay in a monastery there for a while, but I had a very interesting experience with.

Was one of the Ajahn chahs, that Thai forest tradition. And it was, it was, it was completely inhabited by monks, but they were all Westerners and supported by Asians. So. And I just spent eight years in Asia, and I knew what it was to be a Westerner in Asia taking on the, taking on the Persona of Asia to become Asian, to, To kind of, to kind of assimilate that learning. And, And I noticed something really interesting in, in this monastery. It's great monastery. Beautiful monks. You. They're all beautiful. It was really beautiful practice.

But I noticed that all the monks were kind of doing in a Buddhist way what I did when I went to Japan, but in a Japanese Aikido way. In other words, they were taking on the cultural tradition. They were taking on the robes, of course, and the rules of the monastic rules, and not to judge them, because they were all really serious Buddhist practitioners. But there was a certain. There was something that wasn't authentic. And, and what I realized is, like, okay, I'm definitely interested in Buddhism, in the Buddhist path, but I'm not interested in becoming a Buddhist, so to speak, and taking on another Persona. So when I went, when I found my way to Burma, I went to Sairupandita in Yangon or Rangoon. Burma. And the first question I asked him is, what.

What does it mean to be a Buddhist? And I had no idea really who Upandita was at that time, but he was quite a formidable teacher and really brilliant teacher. And he actually satisfied me completely. He said that there's many people that are Buddhist in name only, so called nominal Buddhists. And he says, just look around Burma. There's people there coming to the monasteries and giving offerings and donations and saying the prayers and chanting, but they don't sit down and meditate. They're not doing the mindfulness practice, they're not doing satipatthana. And that, you know, the, at least from the Theravada tradition. It was the story of the Buddha after he awakened, when he was on his way to, to give the first teaching to set the wheel of the Dharma in motion, he met a man and he was already awakened. He was, he was the Buddha. And he met a man. And the man saw him. He said, oh my God, you know, you're, you're interesting. Who are you? And he said, I'm the Buddha. Buddha. And this man said, well, maybe you are, maybe you aren't. That's interesting. And he went along his way. So now this guy could have been the first person to receive the Dharma from the Buddha. But since he didn't hear the Dharma, he didn't see the Buddha. And because he didn't see the Buddha, poor guy, as the story goes, you know, he died. And it took like several more lifetimes before he had a chance to come into contact with the Dharma. Gyan practice and become enlightened. But be that as it may, that's how these stories go, as you know. But his whole point was, you know, you can be face to face with the Buddha, but if you don't see the Dharma, you're not Buddhist. It doesn't mean anything. You can put on the robes, you can put on, you can do the chants, you can do the offerings, you can, you can take on all the, all the trappings of Buddhism. But unless you see the Dharma, which means, you know, as you know, you sit down, practice whatever you know, not just sit down, but there's many ways to practice. So let's just say you sit down, your practice, mindfulness, watching the breath, watching what's arising, what's passing away. And through that process, over time, you will progress through the stages of insight and you'll gradually begin to see the Dharma directly in your own life. And then, and only then, when you fully see the Dharma, do you actually see The Buddha. And then according to Pandita, they said that's, that's, that's a true Buddhist, is that.

It's from the great. There's a, there's a saying in one of the Zen lineages, common Zen lineages, that dharmas rarely encountered and even more rarely perceived.

That's so amazing. Isn't it? True? It's amazing. And again, there's no judgment for anybody wherever that, you know, some people actually take on the robes and it's them, they were, it's like they were born to do that. Other people, it's like, you know, we're wearing somebody else's clothes.

Right.

And that's all fine because, you know, ultimately it has to be from the inside out.

And Upandita, just for our listeners, Upandita was one of the principal teachers of Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield. Is that correct?

Yeah. He was the successor of the late Mahasi Sayadal.

Exactly right.

And when they opened ims, when Jack and Joseph and Sharon Salzberg also, who. I don't know them personally, by the way, when they opened ims, as I understood, they brought Mahasi Sayada out, who was one of their teachers, directly or indirectly. And he was, I think he just went once. But then after that, because he was quite an old man, he started to send Upandita and something like 10 years in a row. Serupandita was teaching a three month retreat there every year. And so many of the Western, certainly mindfulness teachers had some, some contact with him and many of them loved him and many of them hated him because he was a, he was a, he was an old school, tough love, you know, teacher. He said he gives, he gives the bitter medicine. So.

Yeah, yeah. I think either Jack or Joseph or Sharon also studied with Achan Chah in Thailand a little bit. I think. That's right.

That's right.

That's interesting though, that you've studied with a number of these tough teachers, both in Aikido and then in the Southeast Asian Buddhist tradition and Pashna and you know, something I really value in my own life, my first principal teacher was Chogyam Chung Puram Che, who was an amazing Tibetan teacher and quite tough. And I got to experience some tough Zen teachers. And, you know, that's kind of my lineage background and it's, it's not very popular these days.

Well, I mean, I can look back when I was a kid, Fleet, and you know, talk about radical responsibility. I had lots of freedom at home and, you know, I was responsible for certain things. But nobody was really holding my feet to the fire. And as a child, I preferred that. Believe me, I was happy for that. But looking back, looking back, and maybe that was a good thing, you know, maybe in this kind of cultural change from the same 60s, the 70s, the 80s, maybe, certainly a certain amount of that was a good thing. But also something was missing, and that's something I was seeking and got elsewhere.

Yeah, well, it's hard to get it completely right, I'm sure, because I know that my father was really trying to present me with discipline, and I ran the other way as hard and fast as I could, which created quite a time of not the most productive times in my life. So I don't know if any parents can get it perfect, but we do seem to. There seems to be this need for some. Some freedom, so we can actually actualize ourselves and develop, but within some structure and some boundaries and something. Something to.

Someone to emulate in some way. Something to look to.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's a very mature perspective already, what you're saying. But then to have those. That type of role model before us in one way or the other, I guess is the key, you know, and then we just kind of get it through resonance rather than like they talk about in Vipassana, you know, before, like, you know, the sila, which I guess many of your listeners will know. But if not, it's the. It's the morality. In Buddhism, it's the first of the three trainings, the morality, the concentration, and the wisdom. And they say that at the beginning and for a long time, sila is held by moral force. And, you know, morality in the sense, if we kind of give this a bit of a progressive translation, it's really just not harming yourself or others through your words or through your actions.

And it's held by a moral force. But as your practice ripens, it becomes a natural expression of the perspective that you've attained in a way or that maturity of the practice. And at that point, you can in a way relax the moral for the forcing side of sila. And it just becomes a really natural expression. And I love it. It's not that our practice of ethics and sila and taking care of that we don't cause harm to self and others is ever over. It just becomes more and more refined, especially in, you know, in the complexity of the way we see the world today. But it is important to have that foundation, you know, one way or another.

Absolutely. And sometimes Silas translated as discipline as well. And that perspective, I think runs throughout Buddhism. It may be a little stronger in the Mahayana and Bhajana schools, but that all these structures are really meant to bring forward and actualize our innate qualities which are already there. And so we have these innate possibilities for morality and discipline and awakening within us already. But we do need something and some structures and discipline and models and some way to bring it forward and to actualize it and develop confidence in it ourselves. So it really becomes who we are and how we live our lives.

You know, there's these mental factors in the mindfulness training, the Vipassana meditation called the five controlling faculties. It's faith, energetic effort, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. And these are things, these are mental factors, mental states that begin to appear through the course of one's practice. And they become quite strong and quite balanced in the more advanced stages. But at the beginning, when they're not strong and they were not balanced, it's very difficult to make progress in the path. But, but when you have, like you said, the discipline to kind of work with that, they will quite naturally grow and develop until the point where, where the progress just happens. If they're ever shaky, these mental factors, we kind of, we're like a yo yo. We make progress and we slide back. We make progress and we slide back. And as in meditation, you know, so in life. And I really think that this, this, you know, Ken Wilber talks about in with vertical stages of development that, you know, we have our higher potential is there waiting for us and our lower. We have our angels and our demons. You know, our lower tendencies are there hardwired in us, ready to pull us back at any moment. And in a way, if we're not super cautious and super careful, super mindful, you could say discipline, but let's just say mindful. The lower tendencies are like magnets that pull, pull us back. And the higher tendencies are also magnets that are going to kind of pull us forward or pull us up, so to speak. And we need something, some type of regulatory factor, factor that's going to help us hold it together in those moments of truth to where we can actually evolve rather than regress. And, you know, absolutely, we all regress more or less, and that's just part of the process. But there's some, there's something about, you know, the inner meditation practice and also how we evolve, evolve into our potential as a human being that that's very, very much the same thing.

Well, we know today from modern neurobiology and brain science that, you know, we are set up neurobiologically to lead a fear and survival based life because you know, job one for any species is survival. But at the same time we're also hardwired for altruism and compassion and there's all kinds of neurological payoffs when we do get drawn to those, you know, more enlightened magnets, so to speak.

Would you say that we're hard.

It can always get trick?

Yeah. Would you say that we're hardwired for that or would that be more like a software that we have to give a lot of attention to so it becomes more of a trait?

Well, I would say it's there already. I mean we know that out of the box we get neurological rewards for acting in altruistic ways and even witnessing.

Others acting in altruistic way even as, even as children. I mean I see it with my kids, it's self as well.

Yeah, yeah. They've done studies with infants and they show them responding in those ways and getting the same neurobiological rewards and so forth. So, so at any rate there, but it, you know, again, I think what we're talking about it without some kind of structure and some kind of discipline and something to emulate and some models for our life, you know, it's going to be pretty tough to escape those lower magnets to drop into fear and survival based behaviors and coping mechanisms. And generally as human beings, when absent fear, we're pretty well behaved if you really look out at life and what the vast majority of people do. Every day we get up in the morning, we do our best to take care of ourselves, our children, our families. We queue up at the well or the market and we drive on the right side of the road. And as long as fear doesn't set in, we're pretty naturally collaborative and cooperative and partnering. But if fear sets in, then of course, you know, all kinds of things can happen. So it's that self regulating capacity to stay within our and broaden our window of tolerance where we're in that resilient zone so that we're not so prone to get trapped into those fear and survival based patterns. Right. And we can act from our best self and from that more resilient place.

Well, you know, I very much experienced that here in Israel because it's Israel proper, as opposed to the west bank is pretty stable these days and pretty secure, unfortunately for the Palestinians, because their, their plight is just getting worse because the security is getting stronger here and that means their situation is getting worse. That's a whole other topic. But whenever there's a, there is. The first several years I was here there was regular conflicts and you know, I would, there were few times over the years that, that sirens would go off here in Tel Aviv which basically meant that the missiles were coming. And you know, none of them, I never saw anything horrific. But, but still it doesn't take much to, to, you know, to get your, to get your survival instincts up and, and you know, unlike I guess certain Israelis and for sure Palestinians, I don't have any PTSD from, from the conflict per se because I was never really on the front line of anything horrific. But you know, the sirens going off is still something. And there was about a five year period where we didn't have any sirens at all. And, and then in fact, just before I started the last telesummit on Dharma and the evolution of conflict, there was a big something happened in Gaza. A few missiles were shot towards Tel Aviv. The sirens were on, off, you know, in about 9pm I was in bed with my 5 year old daughter recently reading her a story. Last time the sirens went off she was just a baby so she didn't remember them. And, and right away I'm like, you know, I guess I stiffen up a little bit and she says, daddy, what is that? And I said, well it's the sirens. She said, but what is it? I said, well it means the missiles are coming. And she says, and then, and then she says to me, she says daddy, what are missiles? And it was like, you know, it was like in that moment of the, kind of the loss of innocence, you know, nothing happened, nothing was here down in Gaza. You know, horrible stuff happened with the reprisals, but it sticks with you. And then just last few weeks ago I was teaching a seminar in Switzerland and I'm sitting in a Starbucks in front of the station in Vevey, Switzerland. Kind of the most idyllic setting you could imagine in a very affluent country. And a train, it was next to the train station and there was an old steam locomotive train went by and it blew its whistle and right away I feel myself stiffen up because it's. The whistle sounded like the sirens. I'm thinking, my first instinct is why is there sirens in Switzerland? And then I realized it was a, I realized it was a, you know, it was just a train, but it does, it does affect you, it does leave a mark on your, on your nervous system.

Well, let alone missiles and sirens, somebody looking cross eyed at us in a business meeting is enough to kick in our fear and survival based neurobiology so it's really just part of the human condition. And I think the kind of training that you've been doing that many of us do allows us to be in that more resilient place where we're less prone to having that part of our biology running the show all day long. And I like you mentioned Wilbur's depiction of vertical evolution, and I like his very simple depiction of.

Articulating as I think it's wake up, grow up, clean up and show up. And so it sounds like that's a pretty good description of your life. You had some very early awakenings, even in childhood, which then matured into kind of a longing. You went somewhere and did what you needed to do to grow up and clean up. And now you're back in the world, really showing up. Yeah. So.

Right.

So let's talk a little bit about your current work and what you're doing. Tell us a little bit about the integral dojo in Tel Aviv, both the physical one, and then let's talk about the online and what you're doing in the world with these summits and so forth.

Sure. Well, I've lived here in Israel for about 12 years now. And when I moved here, I didn't really move here. I kind of landed here. And I decided as crazy as this place is, at first I thought there's no way I could land live here. And then as I kept looking at it, I mean, I was spending time here. I had a girlfriend here at the time and I was spending a lot of time here. And the more I looked at it, it was time for me to stop traveling after six years of being outside of society. And I realized, you know, time for me to get back into society, take on students, take on responsibilities. And then at a certain point it's like, well, I can't not live here. This is really the perfect place to kind of plant my flag and start doing what I do. And in a pretty short time, I started an aikido group here and, and also meditation group and then eventually opened the Interworld dojo. It's about 10 years old now here in Tel Aviv. In the middle of that time, I was also leading or directing a project in the west bank, in the Palestinian west bank called Aikida Without Borders, where I was going over the west bank teaching aikida regularly to Palestinians. And then we were getting together with Israelis and doing cross cultural training. Very interesting problems. A project very difficult, very complicated, as you can imagine, or, you know, some just kind of tough things. Lots of really beautiful Things happen, no flourishing. Just because the problems here are so systemic that it, it's kind of the story with all kind of initiatives here. They really never flourished. But it, it was good practice and it was certainly good for me to understand, you know, what I was seeing in the world and how, you know, basically fleet. It's like I see that all our problems. There's many ways that we could.

Solve the world's problems, whether they're intercultural or economic or climate or. We are certainly facing a lot of problems. But really evolving to the next perspective.

Is kind of the key because as we evolve through developmental levels, we gain more and more completely complexity in how we see, relate to and have care and concern for the world. And the problems that we're facing these days are like Einstein said, the level of complexity can't solve them. We have to find a new level to be able to solve these problems. And that was really my whole initiative with the Integral Dojo here in Tel Aviv. It was a bit naive, honestly. I realized that Israelis and Palestinians, they kind of want to be where they're at and the best you can do is know, hopefully help them grow a little bit in that stage. But I would say that the work that I'm doing here, I've got a really great solid community of aikido practitioners here in Tel Aviv. The west bank project has kind of.

It'S kind of completed a couple of years ago and so it's really, really good. But I would say that most of my lean leading edge work and what I consider kind of the, the cutting edge stuff that I'm doing is more online. And that's kind of, it's kind of in, in. In conjunction with the fact that the technology online these days is getting actually very good for gathering and sharing and communicating and teaching and, and you know, and doing this. So I have quite a, quite a good online community that we're meeting, know, weekly, regularly. Meditation groups, basically, sometimes aikido groups or developmental groups or conflict resolution groups. But I've been doing this for about four years now and you know, through the online courses that I'm teaching and through the, the telesummits, I'm finding that just beautiful ways to connect with people like yourself that I've heard about for many years but have never had the chance to, you know, and to, to meet or see in person. And I'm very pleased with the abilities that we have to do our work online these days.

Well, your most recent summit was really successful and I know you got tremendous positive Feedback from it and we certainly look forward to more. So you have such a fascinating path. Were you raised in a Jewish family?

My father was Jewish and then my mother converted when they got married and then like I said, when they were 2, when I was 2, they divorced and my mother didn't unconvert or anything like that. But it was really, you know, we didn't have any kind of Jewish culture in our home. I got a strong sense of, you know, Jewish heritage from my father, but not necessarily Jewish culture, certainly no religious culture.

What's so interesting, most people that move back, most Westerners and Americans that move to Israel move because of their involvement with Jewish culture and religion or many are attracted to Orthodox. I have friends whose young daughter is there now and, and she's really kind of awakened to, to a deep Jewish spirituality and that's why she wants to live there. So you're there as kind of a Buddhist, Aikido teacher, Western American. Living in Tel Aviv, you seem to enjoy being, you know, in this position there. You were in Japan, now you're in Tel Aviv.

Well, I mean, you know, Tel Aviv's into. Tel Aviv is a bubble, you know, it's not like the rest of it. Israel. And certainly most Americans that come to Israel are coming out of a sense of Judaism, certainly a sense of Zionism, which I, you know, I can appreciate. But I, My father had a strong sense of Zionism, but I don't personally have it. But Tel Aviv is an interesting place. It's kind of, it's kind of a mix between Europe and the States. So it's quite comfortable for me to be here. And it's a nice lifestyle, nice beach. I mean, the culture has its rough edges that I still, after 12 years and not so used to. But that's just a cultural thing. It's not like, you know, it's wrong or anything like that. But you know, it's also a very good place to raise kids. You know, despite the fact that with the occasional missile, which probably sounds insane to most people, it's an incredibly safe place. You know, it just, it's just, it's just there's very little crime here and there's very little danger out in the streets and stuff like that.

Yeah, I think you're right. Most people would regard that as a somewhat insane comment, but I, I do, I do get your point. And things are always relative. How many children do you have?

I have two kids. Yeah, I have a two year old and almost two years old and almost six years old.

Right. So you're very much in that formative parenting years where you're trying to figure out what influence you're having and is it going to go too far this way or too far that way.

And often it does, almost on a daily basis.

I suspect you've made some peace with the fact that you're never going to get it perfectly right.

Well, I have. And, you know, and this is where, you know, love is just the key. You know, you just, you just, you just make sure you give them love and proper holding and, you know, to the best of your ability and, you know, a lot of forgiveness to go around. But at the same time, you know, I'm, you know, it's easy for me to bring in more of a firm direction, whereas my wife is much more kind of, you know, in the moment processing with them. And it's a nice balance. You know, when we manage to find the balance, it actually works quite well. And we're. Well, we have two beautiful little girls.

Wonderful. So there you are in Tel Aviv and somehow now reaching out and impacting the world and in the West. I don't know how international your summit reached, but certainly a big audience here in the west. And so odd place to do that from. But that's one of the miracles of our interconnected world today. And of course, you have the roots here in America, so. And the connections. So let's talk about the more recent summit you did and this integral perspective on conflict and what you're really trying to bring forward with that.

Well.

Conflict is for the most part because of our biological conditioning, like you were mentioning before, we are hardwired to survive. That's our primal, basic hardwiring. And because of this.

Most conflicts are zero sum rather than dialectical. It's win, lose, I'm right, you're wrong, and it's just a zero sum game. The best you can do from that perspective is agree to disagree, which in a way it's still zero sum fleet, because if you and I agree to disagree, you go over there with your opinion, I go over here with my opinion, and I'm 50% satisfied because I'm not arguing with you anymore. But I'm not completely satisfied because we didn't really join, we didn't bond together under whatever we believe. So agreeing to disagree is certainly better than zero. You know, one winning and one losing. But it's still in that, it's still in that kind of zero sum framework. So moving from this kind of zero sum, hardwired way of that we all, that we all have. When we're faced with conflict or we're faced with stress, or we're faced with some type of difficulty in relationship to others, or even, you know, the animal kingdom for that matter. There is, there is a way to evolve, and I use that word intentionally, to a. To a positive sum. And to be able to do that, we have to not only be able to kind of be really dropped into my own subjectivity and give space, you know, with mindfulness, give space to all of my survival instincts that come up in the midst of stress and conflict. You know, rather than acting or speaking from them, I give it a container of mindfulness. So they can come do their thing and then pass away, go back to where they came from. And then I have to, once I kind of have that ability, then I can actually start to, you know, when I'm. When I'm fine tuned to my own interior, then I kind of pick up this natural ability to be fine tuned to another person's own interior. So let's say if I'm traumatized or if I'm injured or if I'm wounded internally or even. Even, you know, physically, if I have a problem in my shoulder and it's been blocked there for, let's say, five years in the practice of aikido, for example, I can't be sensitive to the shoulder in another person because I can't be sensitive to the shoulder and myself. So it's the same thing with all of our emotional psychological wounds. If those are. Haven't been. If we haven't processed that stuff, we'll never be able to relate to it in another person. So once I've kind of done a certain amount of interior work on my own, then I can start to kind of sense it, become sensitive to the interiors of the other. And in a way, intuitive. I wouldn't say psychic, but I would just say intuitive to others. And that's actually when I begin to take on not just subjectivity, not just objectivity, but inter. Subjectivity. Now, when one intersubjective person, and that's something that's important to move into the positive sum. But when, but it takes two to tango. When one person has a certain amount of intersubjectivity who meets another person who also has a certain amount of intersubjectivity, and we come together and we have the capacity to shift into that intersubjectivity when conflict comes up. And remember, when conflict comes up, all the bells and whistles also get triggered right away. So when conflict comes up, you know, we have to have the capacity to, to in a way work with our own shit, you know, forgive the term and be aware that the other person is also working with theirs. And then when we connect in that way, then and only then can we actually begin to move into some type of solution that is positive sum. And that's in a way that's what this whole kind of conference was about. I believe it was. Hegel has his beautiful quotes that truth is merely the emerging dialectic. So for you and I to be in a dialectic, we have to have some type of intersubjectivity. And then any conflict that comes up is just. It self liberates, it resolves itself. Because the conflict always wants to move towards wholeness. That's kind of a phenomenological fact that conflict, when two boundaries rub up against each other, other, they want to naturally begin to organize towards wholeness. It's you and I.

And by wholeness you might mean integration.

Exactly. Yeah. Well, the system is reorganizing, you know, the, the, the, the, the environment or the system or the ecology or whatever is reorganizing into, into, into equilibrium and into balance. And for you and I to do that, the only thing that stops that from happening between you and I are know when we're in conflict is our survival instincts which are the opposite of that to protect and preserve. So of course we need to protect and preserve. You talk about this a lot also in your, in your radical responsibility. But at, you know, once we've kind of got that baseline of protecting and preserving, then we have to, we have to take responsibility for all of our stuff that comes up. And that's kind of really the whole, the whole point of the, of the telescope.

Well, this is really fascinating and let me put forward a couple of ideas and then get your response to that. So one, I think even in terms of radical responsibility and the difference between the shame and blame perspective that's so endemic in our culture and this perspective of ownership.

Most of us operate under the illusion that we're skin encapsulated beings, right. And that our whole being stops with our skin. Even though we intuitively know no different. We have experiences all the time. But the more we can acknowledge that even our sense of self, the self construct that we have, the psychological self construct is really exist in an inner subjective field. And one of the ways that that becomes really clear to us is anytime we experience a really significant loss. And I've had a number of them in my life and the whole process of grieving is Our self structure that exists not just inside our brain or inside our head, but exists in this inner subjective field needing to reorganize itself. When we've lost this one person that was really key part of our self structure is gone. In a loss and a death like that, or a loss of a relationship. And that whole process of grieving and the pain and the uncertainty and the confusion of it is that process of, of the reintegration, the reweaving of our self structure in the inner subjective field. So I think a lot of times, if we can really acknowledge that and begin to live in that larger, expanded inner subjective self as a place of orientation, that we're less prone to blame and shame, because we're not. So blame and shame is all about individualization. Again, it's fear, right? It's fear. And we all got inoculated when, when we're children. That kind of starts the whole normal human condition, neurotic development. Right. We get our inoculation of shame when we're little. It's unavoidable. But then whenever we get triggered in fear, it's like, oh my God, I'm this individual person who's going to be rejected or not be included. And we're in doing so, it's because we're not acknowledging that our whole sense of self is actually already a very dynamic and active part of various intersubjective fields in which we live and operate. Yeah.

And not only is it does fear drop away when we enter into that fear, that field, but the process which it takes for us to develop towards that is nothing. It takes nothing less than radical responsibility for that process. So in a way, the dropping away of fear and the taking on a radical responsibility are two sides of the same coin. You can't separate.

There's another thing I'd like to point to and get your thoughts on it from the perspective of aikido and mindfulness. I don't know if you're familiar with Dan Siegel and others work around this emerging field of interpersonal neurobiology. And drawing from some other areas of current neuroscience, we now understand that. And this is why in my teaching around mindfulness and other meditative disciplines, I really emphasize a deep sense of embodiment, really all the way down to the bones, and realizing interoceptive awareness that the body can sense itself inside out and is communicating. Really, our whole body is sensory all the way down to the bones. It's all sensory tissue. And so normally we only notice that when there's discomfort. It's how we know when we're hungry or thirsty or need to use the restroom or if we have a headache or muscle pain, something like that. But we can actually develop an abiding awareness of this inner field, a sensate field, which translates into aliveness and presence. And the more we actualize that, that abiding awareness, the neural pathways that are connected to that ongoing awareness of this abiding internal sensate aliveness, being, in other words, being deeply present, deeply embodied, those neural pathways are very connected with the same neural pathways that are involved in creating connection and intimacy with each other. So being more embodied within ourselves opens us up to the inner subjective field. And it's all very, very interconnected. And so that's why I'm emphasizing embodiment and really everything I teach these days. So I'm wondering about your experience because I would think a keto, unless somebody was just really practicing it in a kind of superficial sport way, but I would think aikido takes you into deep embodiment. And then when you combine that with your vipassana training in Burma, I would think that that's a big part of your experience.

Absolutely. And the thing is aikido, it's an embodiment practice, you know, from beginning to end. We don't, I mean there's a certain amount of teaching and talking, but it's really about practicing. And you know, it is. Aikido, by the way, is the only 100% life affirming martial art. That means that the design and the philosophy and the, the intention, the path we walk is not to damage another person, harm another person. Where other martial arts is, they certainly can rise to the level of ability, beautiful art, but they're still breaking a bone here or cracking a nose there, or you know, beating the other person. There are individuals in every martial art that transcended that whole paradigm that are, that are kind of free and they're, they're, they're, they're just life giving in their, in their, in their being. But this is the first art that was the first and kind of the only art that that's, that's organized around that principle.

And the founder of aikido, his name.

Was Morihe Ueshiba is he's affectionately known as O Sensei mean great teacher.

Yeah. And he had kind of, he had kind of mastered many of the existing martial arts from which he integrated this discipline. Right.

He was kind of already the one of the two or three most formidable martial artists in Japan at that time, pre war. And then he had an awakening experience in the midst of his training. And from that perspective, he realized that he had. He just kind of had a non dual awakening. And he realized that, you know, that you and I are one, and any harm that's done to the other is the harm that's done to the self. And he was able to manifest that in his art through the training into the point where the moment that somebody would go to attack him, they would. And it's not just in his. His interior, his mind or his heart, but he could actually embody this, that they. That they're. That they would defeat themselves from their own energetic aggression.

Just a little aside here I had an opportunity. This was back in the early 80s that I believe it was The Japanese teacher who was the main disciple of the founder of aikido, came to the west and he did a demonstration with a bunch of his students at Karmazong in Boulder, Colorado, which was then the main center of the Vajratu Shambhala world. And. And so they had big mats set out, you know, in the meditation hall. And he had a bunch of his students. And his students would come racing across the mat, leap up in the air at him, and he would just put a hand out, not touch them. And they would. It was unbelievable to see us. They would go flipping back through the air. You know, the guy's. His manifestation of key energy.

It was hard to believe what I was seeing.

Well, that's the thing. I mean, look from the outside, sometimes it looks like, you know, it's miraculous, but it's really when you're able to. And it takes time. It takes time to develop this capacity. But when you're able to kind of internalize the art to the point where the principles become an expression of who you are and aligned with a perspective of emptiness, I would say, you know, of non self, then things just every. Everything changes. But in order to do that, we have to be able to work with our hardwired conditioning of fight, flight, freeze. Because we're working with a simulated conflict. And, you know, there's a practice I developed in Aikido specifically for that. It's called the aikido koan. The practice of the aikido koan is, you know, in the midst of conflict, you know, it could be any type of interpersonal conflict, you know, and certainly when the conditions are right to practice, you just. You just kind of recite a mantra. I'm not passive. I'm not aggressive, and I'm not passive aggressive. Who am I? You know, because the passive the aggression, the passivity and aggression, and the passive aggression are kind of the three ways that we go into personally when we're in conflict with somebody. And by asking those questions or just by, by repeating that I'm not passive, I'm not aggressive, I'm not passive aggressive, then inquiring who am I? That negates the self. And then you have the ability to see where does the energy of the conflict want to go? And if we, if we can align with the energy of the conflict itself, it will go in a direction that you and I, that is satisfying for both you and I if we're able to get up our, get out of our, our personal identities. So the aikido koan is a very power, it's a very powerful practice to try, and I invite your listeners to try it whenever you have a chance to practice it. It's a good one.

That's absolutely wonderful. And we'll probably include that as a reference when we publish the podcast. I think that's actually wonderful because just doing that mantra or doing that reflective exercise, certainly neurobiologically it takes us out of that part of our brain where we're gripped in fear and because that part of our brain can't do that reflection and then also the, the kind of letting go of the self, and it's really an entryway back into that inner subjective field. And I think what you're pointing to is that conflict is very healthy. And you know, without conflict there would be no change, no evolution, no nothing. Conflict's a very natural force. And when we don't get locked into fear or into zero sum thinking around it, it actually always moves to a higher level of integration and new equilibriums at a more evolved state of some kind or.

Yeah, totally. If we can learn not to get locked in. And that's really the key because at that point it becomes dialectical and truth is merely the emerging dialectic, as Hegel said. And it's true.

It'S a miracle the way things just like. Well, yeah, that's exactly what had to happen.

Well, let me ask you one more question about this and then maybe we can kind of wrap this up, you know, from the integral perspective.

You know. So you're talking about being able to consciously shift out of that zero sum thinking and the zero sum approach to conflict moving into this on a good day.

On a good day, yeah.

Well, you're talking about theoretically for all of us.

And, and, and we do so by moving into that inner subjective space, right?

Yes.

And, and to do that there's always a. There's already a bit of a letting go of the limited self, the limited skin encapsulated just the individual self. So there's an expansion there. And so looking at that from the developmental perspective in integral theory and spiral dynamics theory, currently here in the US we have this. We're locked into this crazy socio political dynamic of the cultural wars and a dysfunctional political system where we have the battle between what are considered traditional values, postmodern values, battling out across the landscape of modernity, and nobody wants to give an inch. And those are the three main kind of mimetic values from spiral dynamics that are operational. And I would imagine where you are in Israel, it's even a bit broader than that. Right, because there's no, it's more narrow actually. Huh?

It's more narrow, actually.

Well, I just meant that I'm not trying to be pejorative here, but I would imagine. Not tribal in any pejorative sense, but that is one of the Mehmeic values. So you have a range from tribal into modernity and maybe postmodernity there as well, I would think.

Well, that's the thing.

Post modernity is kind of leading edge here and it's not so firmly established. In some ways it is, but in other ways, like even in academia, it's still very modernist structural academia with some, you know, maybe in the humanities and maybe in religious studies, you'll find some post modernity perspectives, but it's still mostly modern and it's very tribal, know. And the Palestinian situation tends to be, you know, tribal to traditional and the Israeli perspective is more traditional to modern with a little bit of postmodern. So in that sense it's more narrow. In the States, it's traditional, modern and postmodern. That seems to be the three, the three perspectives of the culture here. Like me too, Me too. Doesn't happen here.

Do you have any fellow integral thinkers there over there? Is that, Is there an emergence of an integral.

Yeah, there's a handful of. Yeah, sure there is, there is, but it's nothing that's really, that's really going to land. And there's no, there's no, there's no need. I mean, there's a need for it, but there's no need for it really. There's no, nobody, nobody asking clamoring for it.

But it is. There's certainly a lot of good integral thinkers here, a lot of friends and a lot of people that I know, but it's, it's just a bit premature. Here.

Yeah, yeah. Well, these cultural forces are, they're very powerful and they, they play out over their time. They have their cycle, their, you know, they have their birth, their evolution and their death and, and you know, so as much as we might have insights into how we think things could be much more enlightened, we have, we just have to participate in this flow and, and trust that it is going to evolve.

Yeah. And you know, also Fleet, there's just from a psychological perspective, you know, that the trauma is being recapitulated here. You know, if you think of the Jews, what they went through in the Holocaust, you know, that whole horrific thing, and then now with the Palestinians, you know, they went from the victims to the, to the, maybe it's a bit too much to say the victimizer, but in some ways, you know, Israel definitely is, you know, victimizing the Palestinian situation. Not to let the Palestinians off the hook because, you know, there's some cultural problems there as well. But it's, there's a, there's a really kind of spiraling cycle here that just repeats. History is repeating itself again and again.

Well, when I teach the drama triangle, which has a carbon's drama triangle, which plays a major role in my radical responsibility model, I'm often using the Middle East. I should apologize for doing that, but I'm often using it. It's not hard to make the connections between.

That long standing conflict, the Israel, Palestine contact and then you know, 911 and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and now Syria and it's just this never ending triangulation. And you know, we, you know, anytime we see people moving into any kind of persecuting.

Abusive behavior, you can guarantee that came out of some experience of victimization.

Absolutely.

You know, and, and, and you know, and then, you know, once you have, the thing is, when you have people locked into that polarity, they usually bring in a third force. And then you have the TR triangle. Right. So the US's involvement in the Israel, Palestine conflict or other nation states that involve different ways.

It just creates this never ending triangulation. And once it starts spinning, it's just a toxic black hole that draws people and energy and destruction into it and then spins off other drama triangles. And the way out, really, I think number one for me is the more we can train individuals to embrace some kind of real ownership for their own experience, their own body, their own state of mind, their own capacity to self regulate themselves into the resilient zone, the more human beings who have that ability I think is huge. And then to get this Larger developmental perspective into our thinking and into our politics where people can see beyond this kind of zero sum thinking where neither side wants to give an inch. Right. So the more we can, you know, evolve this integral perspective. But I think it also comes down to individuals who have the capacity to self regulate because we could be, you know, what are some of the. They keep changing the colors in spiral dynamics. At least the integral folks do. And so I don't know what teal or what they consider one of the higher secondary perspectives that. But you, you know, you might be up there, you know, on your best days, but you know, fear grips you and you're back down in red meme or purple meat, you know, I mean, you can go right down. So to me a real key is our capacity to self regulate. And of course that's a big part of your work through a keto and mindfulness and my work as well. So maybe that's a good place to end. And just reminding people, I love that kind of self reflective mantra exercise. Would you just repeat that one more time?

The Aikido koan.

I think it's a great self regulation tool. Yes, the Aikido koan.

Right. So basically, you know, whenever you're triggered or whenever you're in the midst of a conflict, you know, by the way, when you're triggered, being triggered is a good thing. You know, the whole idea with trigger warnings, maybe we're getting off track here, but it kind of goes counter to cognitive behavioral therapy where you know, if you have a past trauma, you, you incrementally like small doses of that helped you get closer to the original trauma to heal it. So the whole idea of trigger warming trigger warnings is a little bit antithetical to this. You know, we don't want. And it's also not being radically responsible as far as I'm concerned.

But I, I completely agree with you and I love. There's a movement called anti fragility training now which is actually trying to help people become more resilient instead of becoming more fragile.

Yeah, beautiful. And not to say that we shouldn't take care of the wounded parts of the self. And I know you do a lot of that.

Yeah, absolutely. I wish we could train people that we all want to aspire to be more, more sensitive, to be kinder, to be more skillful in the relational sphere. But when you talk about trigger warnings, microaggressions, that's like turning it into an indictment, like oh, you did something wrong, you did this bad thing. Right.

You know. Exactly.

So it's just a different perspective.

We're back in that. And we're back in that cycle again. So to help us get out of the cycle, help us to get out of that closed loop. The aikido koan is just one practice, you know, many amazing practices. And whenever you find yourself, you know, for your listeners, whenever you may find yourself in the midst of a conflict or being triggered or something's coming up, a difficult situation, a challenge, center yourself, stop, turn in, and just kind of repeat to yourself, I'm not passive. Of course we can be very passive. But you say, I'm not passive, I'm not aggressive, even though we can be aggressive, often are. I'm not aggressive, and I'm not passive aggressive. So there's the three words, and then there's the. Then there's the inquiry. I'm not passive. I'm not aggressive. I'm not passive aggressive. Who am I? And then stay open to the energy that's meeting in the midst of the conflict and see where it wants to go.

That's wonderful. Well, who am I? Traditionally, across many cultures and many traditions is probably the principal and deepest spiritual question. You know, who am I? What are we doing here?

Yeah, but that's just taking that deeper and deeper, and the deeper it goes, the more it expands at the same time into that intersubjective field. So this has been great, Miles. I really appreciate your work and look forward to your next summit. Do you have another summit planned?

I do, but I need to recover first. My wife won't let me do one too soon. She said I got to take a little bit more time before I do the next one. Okay, great. So I do have a lot of online training that I'm doing, and, you know, people can find out about that. The integral dojo.com I even have a special chart I would like to offer to your listeners called the Evolution of Response. It talks about these vertical, you know, how conflict, what conflict looks like from different developmental altitudes. And that's you. Can I put the link? I think I sent you the link.

Yeah, we're going to post that with the podcast. And so that'll be your gift to all of our listeners. Thank you so much.

Free download. And also congratulations on your book.

Radical Responsibility, and especially your new podcast. It's awesome. It's a beautiful medium for you, so I'm really happy to be part of it and I'm going to be looking forward to being one of your followers in the future.

Well, and we hope to have you back on to talk about some of your work as you continue to evolve. It so, so great to be with you and have a great day there. And it's probably almost evening in Tel Aviv, I guess, right?

Time to go home and be with my girls.

Okay. All right. Take care, Miles.

All right, thanks. Take care.

Okay, thank you all very much. That was Miles Kessler and the Integral Dojo. This is Fleet Mall for the radical Responsibility podcast.

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