Leading a three-month retreat at his Dzogchen Osel Ling center in Texas, Surya takes a break to chat with Ken about his interest in more systematically documenting his practice and understanding of Tibetan Buddhism. Of course, for a boomer, institutionalizing anything is somewhat suspect, but as Surya comments, "A little structure is good, and the young people are dying for it."

For a teacher in any tradition, the question of "legacy" is a serious matter: What do I want to leave behind for future students on this path? What unique insights can I bring to the timeless truths of my tradition? As Ken suggests, the most leading-edge insights seem to bring a more comprehensive or integral approach to the spiritual endeavor, which resonates well with the ways that Surya is working to codify his experience of decades of practice.

Expanding on the thread of integral spirituality, Ken mentions the work taking place at Integral Spiritual Center. At ISC, we are truly honored to be joined by some of the finest teachers that the world's wisdom traditions have to offer: Father Thomas Keating (Contemplative Christianity), Rabbi Marc Gafni (Kabbalah), Sally Kempton (formerly Swami Durgananda—Siddha Yoga), and Genpo Roshi (Zen), to name a few, and we are thrilled to have Surya as part of this conversation.

The question is not how we can change any of these traditions, but how we can supplement them with truths discovered in other domains of inquiry. Buddhism will show you how to realize the Absolute, but in the relative world where you and I live, the Absolute won’t tell us why the environment is deteriorating, why religious fundamentalism is on the rise, or why we regress to the emotional maturity of a five year-old during holiday visits to the family. Integral doesn’t change the tools that Buddhism has refined for millennia; it suggests expanding your toolbox.

To illustrate how integral can serve the Buddha-Dharma, Surya and Ken discuss Surya’s forthcoming book on the Buddhist paramitas, tentatively titled The 10 Transformative Powers of Enlightenment. In Buddhist terms, a paramita is a human capacity stemming from the mind of enlightened awareness­­—such "capacities," Ken observes, are quite similar to the multiple intelligences described by integral theory.

Put simply, the Buddhist paramitas—as multiple intelligences—develop relatively independently, which means that some can be left behind. Consequently, Integral Buddhism helps temper our expectations of what meditation, exercising "spiritual intelligence," can and cannot do. For example, Surya mentions the naïve, ascending view of Enlightenment, the perspective that an enlightened individual must be a flawless specimen in all intelligences, a Renaissance Man of sorts. Not so, cites Ken, pointing to the lopsided psychological development in even the most spiritually awakened individuals, those remarkably strong in a few capacities, while lamentably developed in others.

We invite you to enjoy this informative, visionary portrait of Integral Buddhism offered by two intimate friends, both of whom share a desire to bring greater care, consciousness, and compassion to a world always in need of a little more....