Big Mind/Big Heart

Genpo Merzel Roshi

Genpo Roshi is the creator of the Big Mind/Big Heart practice, as well as the Founder and Abbot of Kanzeon Zen Center and Kanzeon Sangha International. He used to be a champion athlete, and is a devoted husband and father, a successful businessperson, and the respected author of five books.

As Genpo says, "We shouldn't stand in the shadows of our ancestors, we should stand on their shoulders." However, this sentiment isn't shared by everyone within the Zen Buddhist tradition, some of whom view innovations such as the Big Mind Process as irrelevant at best and a kind of heresy at worst—the great ancient Patriarchs crafted this teaching exactly as they intended, so don't mess with it. But, as Ken's strong praise gives hint, there are many voices both in and outside of Zen who believe that Big Mind Process is a novel, effective, and altogether genuine step forward in how we share and perceive spiritual realities, in any tradition—Buddhist or otherwise—that chooses to engage this extraordinarily adaptable technology.

"If we're just making the assumption that 'my consciousness can never possibly inhabit the same space that some of our extraordinary ancestors did'—they would be very disappointed in us."

As with nearly all esoteric techniques developed by the world's great wisdom traditions, Big Mind Process helps one access ever-present states of enlightened awareness (in contrast to structures of consciousness. What makes Big Mind unique is the remarkable speed with which an individual can get in touch with their own deepest Self, often delivering an initial kensho or awakening in 50 minutes rather than 5 years—a not-uncommon length of time for many people engaged in a contemplative practice before they have such a realization. It's not that these five years are wasted in conventional forms of meditative training, but if it's possible—and indeed likely—that one can introduce a student to their own True Nature at the beginning of that process, wouldn't those five years be significantly, perhaps radically, more productive and less frustrating for both student and teacher?

The "I had to suffer for years so you will too" attitude just isn't an adequate response to the fact that a technique is now publicly available that almost 99% of participants report gave them an authentic taste of their own Big Mind—which they can then refine and integrate in the years to come under the expert guidance of a qualified teacher (Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Confucian, Taoist, you name it).

In this second chapter of their four-part dialogue, Genpo and Ken go on to cover a spectrum of topics relevant to all forms of spirituality in the modern and postmodern world, using the Big Mind Process as a prime exemplar. Topics include: the intersection of "lineage mind" and "evolutionary mind," the relation of states and stages, the separation of church and state, the pre/trans fallacy, and the 3-2-1 Process for shadow work.

Three of the most important elements for any contemporary spiritual path to address are states, stages, and shadow—and, unfortunately, most contemplative traditions only have a clear awareness of states, to the detriment of stages and shadow.

The "Wilber-Combs Lattice" demonstrates the interplay of structures of consciousness (vertical axis) with states of consciousness (horizontal axis), revealing an entire matrix of possible spiritual experience.

States: States of consciousness are marked by their transient nature: they come, stay a bit, and they go. The three primary states of consciousness available to all humans are waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and what the great contemplative traditions do is show how one can gain mastery in each of those states, and realize their ever-present Ground and nondual Suchness. Furthermore, states of consciousness can be trained in a certain order—often moving from gross, to subtle, to causal—and this is an occurrence of state-stages.

Stages: While states come and go, stages, levels, or waves of consciousness are permanent structures in consciousness, which unfold cross-culturally from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric to Kosmocentric—these are called structure-stages. Almost without exception, the meditative and esoteric traditions of the world have no knowledge of this aspect of human growth. Because these are the structures in consciousness that will interpret the significance of various states of mystical union, no tradition can afford to ignore stages of development.

Shadow: Another item not found in the traditions is an understanding of psychodynamic repression, whereby an individual literally splits off and dissociates some aspect of his or her I-ness, often then projecting it on someone else (I'm not angry, but my boss sure is). This aspect of self doesn't actually go away, it just shows up in various inauthentic or "shadow" manifestations (I'm not an angry person, but I am awful sad lately). Traditional meditation can teach you how to transmute or transcend this shadow element (I'm sad), but not access the original impulse (I'm mad), which can exacerbate the original fracture in the practitioner's psyche. In the hands of a facilitator familiar with the process of psychodynamic repression, Big Mind (and Voice Dialogue) can be used to access this original-impulse material, which is fantastic, particularly in conjunction with the 3-2-1 Process of Integral Life Practice.

The Big Mind Process is excellent for accessing states of consciousness and both healthy and unhealthy aspects of structures of consciousness already developed in an individual. Like all other known practices or techniques, it cannot "call forth" structures of consciousness "above the head" of a given individual—they quite literally aren't there, but they can be with further growth. Repeated access to various state experiences as provided, for example, by Big Mind help make the subject of one stage the object of the subject of the next, the fundamental pattern of consciousness development, which applies to both state-stages and structure-stages.

Are you ready to meet your own Big Mind/Big Heart, already present here and now, waiting for you to claim it?