Buddhas in Blue: Enlightened Ways to Make Policing Work For Everyone

Ryan JohansenAudio, Cognitive, Deep Transformation, Defenses, Ethical, Free, How should we relate to the social justice movement?, Leadership, Moral, Politics, World Affairs

“The only way to meet the community demands of modern day policing Is to deploy officers who are healthy, happy, and well adjusted human beings, with a deep commitment to a well articulated purpose.”

In this moving, illuminating, and impassioned discussion, retired Police Lt. Chris Orrey and San Bruno Police Chief Ryan Johansen open our eyes as to the realities of policing in today’s world and offer solutions as to how the entire institution of police work could be transformed to become more effective and sustainable, both for police officers and for the communities they serve. Ryan and Chris explain that applying an Integral approach to police work—which BTW encompasses a lot more than simply law enforcement, to include the roles of social worker, mental health counselor, EMT, and more, in crisis situations—is exactly what is needed to turn around an institution that is controversial and flailing at this point. They point out that it is essential to prioritize officer wellness—not just physical wellness but interior wellness as well—and give officers the coping mechanisms and support they need to integrate the inevitable trauma of the job and role model resilience for the victims and survivors they interact with. An Integral understanding also paves the way for police leadership to become servant-based; where leadership puts the welfare of the officers first and foremost, and in turn, officers are in peak condition, mentally, physically, emotionally, to serve and protect their communities with compassion and skill.

Nationwide, it is a time of catastrophic crisis in police recruitment and retention. Most departments are severely understaffed and morale is at a dangerous low. Chief Ryan’s San Bruno police department, however, is fully staffed and the officers have high morale. By applying the principles of the Integral Model and practicing a heartfelt, servant-based leadership style, Ryan has turned this national trend around. Whether policing impacts you directly or not, there is much to be gained by listening to this stirring conversation, which reveals so much about the realities of our society and the incredible courage, compassion, and outright nobility it takes to be a police officer—putting your life on the line to protect and serve others every single day.

Recorded July 6, 2023.

Topics & Times

  • Introducing San Bruno Police Chief Ryan Johansen and retired police Lt. Chris Orrey (01:00)
  • What does it mean to be integrally informed? (04:46)
  • Law enforcement is possibly the smallest component of what police do: the larger picture includes the roles of social worker, mental health counselor, big sister/big brother, emergency medical personnel, and more (05:49)
  • Good cops embrace the role of societal “backstop” and excel at working with other agencies who carry on after the initial emergency (09:59)
  • Is the training for cops enough? It’s gone from 3 months to 6 months (in CA), but it could really benefit from an Integral perspective (13:53)
  • Training is often used as a scapegoat: every time there is a problem in policing people say this is a training issue, but whose fault is it really? (17:20)
  • Integral leadership is essential in modern day policing (19:59)
  • The four quadrants explained and how they apply to police reform (22:32)
  • Healthy & toxic cultures in a police department are just like any other organization; they stem from how cops are taught to cope with the job and how they identify as a group (24:31)
  • The goal is resilience: cops need to embrace the trauma of the job and integrate it; trauma + integration = resilience (25:59)
  • A good integration requires a deep rooted peer support program, confidential counseling, a full paid hour of physically working out the stress of the job, wellness time, mindfulness training (27:53)
  • Reframing trauma as not just a horror to be repressed but as an inevitable part of the profession that needs to be honored (31:04)
  • Reframing trauma can also help cops better identify with victims and survivors and model that we can emerge stronger for going through the trauma (31:49)
  • The top sources of stress for a police officer are 1) watching what humans are capable of doing to others, especially children, and 2) their own police administration (34:30)
  • The double standard of expecting officers to practice procedural justice on the street when leadership is not practicing organizational justice to the cops (38:24)
  • The critical importance of servant-based leadership (39:15)

Topics & Timestamps: Part 2

  • The pendulum swing of society’s opinions about cops and the story of Isaac Woodard (01:26)
  • We can’t ignore what communities have suffered at the hands of police officers—historically and currently (04:58)
  • What would Ryan do to make things better for officers? Focus on legitimately taking better care of cops (06:24)
  • What the pendulum swing is doing today: the middle way is the right way (07:44)
  • The developmental levels aspect of the Integral model holds great promise for policing (09:22)
  • The expectation of officers to check their whole identity/personality at the door and California’s allowance of tattoos and other physical details (15:45)
  • How do we help a community see cops as people like them? Overcoming the us vs. them mentality (17:45)
  • How to develop officers as exceptional people who will show up? (19:42)
  • If cops internalize the idea that their paramount purpose is to defend and protect human life, it will help them make the right split-second decision (22:13)
  • We as individuals project everything from our personal traumas, relationship to authority figures, etc. onto police officers (26:52)
  • Conveying to cops that their fundamental role is to protect people at all developmental levels— that’s what makes being a cop so noble (29:23)
  • Bringing the Integral understanding to cops can make an enormous difference to both police officers and communities (31:13)
  • The current catastrophic recruitment & retention crisis is pushing cops we do have out and deterring new officers (33:37)
  • How do Chris and Ryan nurture themselves in this process? (36:24)
  • Setting the example and prioritizing wellness practices—they are part of cops’ service (38:40)
  • The importance and effectiveness of Integral Life Practice: practicing with iAwake Technologies’ brainwave entraining audio tracks, biofeedback & HRV regulation (41:04)

Resources & References

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos
Image created via MidJourney

Presented by iAwake Technologies’ innovative, sound-tech infused Harmonic Resonance Meditation.

Harmonic Resonance Meditation is deep yet gentle, more “pull than push”. It includes a constant beautifully rich drone in the Major Fifth Interval and is designed to facilitate deep states of meditation and contemplation. This can be used as a primary meditation tool or as an alternate with the Profound Meditation Program.

Check out the free sample:

Click here to hear more!

About the Deep Transformation series

We are clearly in a new era, facing world-threatening challenges and graced with barely conceivable opportunities. In this mind-boggling new world, we all face two crucial questions:

  • First, the ever-present conundrum of how to best live fully, deeply, wisely, and well.
    Second, the new question unique to our times, how to best understand and heal our endangered world.
  • Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear responses to these questions from some of the great consciousness pioneers—the outstanding thinkers, sages, scientists, and activists—of our time? These are the people and conversations that Deep Transformation offers.

Deep Transformation: Self-Society-Spirit draws on diverse ideas from around the world. It goes beyond traditional positions and polarities—beyond left and right, material and spiritual—to seek syntheses of deep wisdom and practical know-how that integrate the best of all positions.

Click here to learn more about Deep Transformation!

Previous Episodes of Deep Transformation

Ken Wilber’s Map of Everything

Ken Wilber’s Map of Everything

Brad Reynolds
Brad Reynolds gives us a beautiful distillation of Ken Wilber’s work, starting from the beginning and spanning decades. Not only does Brad elegantly relate the major themes of Ken’s work, he also makes clear the value of Ken’s contributions—the way this knowledge can be understood and applied to literally expand our notion of reality and evolve our consciousness
The Psychology of Climate Change

The Psychology of Climate Change

Gail Hochachka
Climate change researcher, sustainable development expert, and activist Gail Hochachka works on the front lines of climate change research, asking—and answering—questions like: How does the way we make meaning, at all our different stages of development, relate to the ways we act on climate change? How can we foster more engagement with climate change? Is climate action scalable? And how are we going to show up for the people who are facing the greatest impacts?
Bringing Soul and Integrity to American Politics

Bringing Soul and Integrity to American Politics

Marianne Williamson
More than a political talk, Marianne reveals a psychological and spiritual portrait of the United States, referencing the brilliant vision of our founding fathers, Martin Luther King’s goal of Beloved Community, and telling a stirring story of the way Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration reflects the high morality of the populace at that time.
Deepening Our Explorations of Reality

Deepening Our Explorations of Reality

Bruce Alderman
Bruce Alderman, poet, mystic, and spiritual explorer, is also an integral scholar and pioneer of the emerging field of metatheory, looking at how to put our disparate fields of information—spiritual, psychological, philosophical, environmental, scientific—together and integrate them into a useful whole.
The Essence of Awakening: Who Are We Really?

The Essence of Awakening: Who Are We Really?

Lama Surya Das
Lama Surya Das, beloved meditation teacher, scholar, pioneer of bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West, and author of the bestseller Awakening the Buddha Within among many more, shares bright gems of wisdom from his extensive experience practicing Dzogchen, his long immersion in meditation retreats, and studying in person with the great spiritual teachers of Asia.
Building a Just World: How Our Laws Express Our Collective Values

Building a Just World: How Our Laws Express Our Collective Values

Mark Fischler
Constitutional law expert and criminal justice professor Mark Fischler has a thirst for justice and a gift for teaching. With cogency and passion, Mark explains that law is not the absolute that we perhaps thought, but an ever changing reflection of the values we hold as a society. Law is a developmental process, and will benefit from our own dedication to inner moral development.
The Enneagram as a Spiritual Tool

The Enneagram as a Spiritual Tool

Leslie Hershberger
Enneagram expert, teacher, master facilitator, and transformational coach Leslie Hershberger leads us into the world of the Enneagram, painting a broader, deeper picture of the Enneagram and its uses as a psycho-spiritual tool than is commonly understood.
From Race to Culture to Kosmos

From Race to Culture to Kosmos

Greg Thomas
Join cultural analyst and co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project, Greg Thomas, as he explores the transformative power of culture, using his knowledge of jazz and blues as a conduit to greater understanding and connection. Greg tackles layered issues of race through a systemic lens, suggesting a shift from racial to cultural worldview, offering an enlightening dialogue filled with anecdotes from music history and a rich exploration of how shared cultural experiences can dissolve boundaries and unite us all.
Grappling with the Metacrisis

Grappling with the Metacrisis

Sean Esbjörn-Hargens
In this dialogue, the world of metatheories comes alive with urgent, purposeful meaning, because as Sean and Nick point out, integrative metatheories like Ken Wilber’s integral theory and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism are the only tools that provide a useful framework for us to talk about and confront the vast web of interrelated and wicked problems we face on every level at this time.
Illuminating the Integral Vision: A Metatheory for Understanding Self, Life, and the World

Illuminating the Integral Vision: A Metatheory for Understanding Self, Life, and the World

Corey deVos
Corey gives a terrifically lucid explanation of what the term Integral encompasses: a stage of psychological development, a description of Ken Wilber’s life’s work, and a comprehensive map that comes alive for people, guiding their way and making sense out of enormously complex issues. Corey also describes Integral as a gateway between two massive phases in human history — the “adolescent” phase of collective development now starting to fall behind us, and an integrated phase quite possibly ahead.
The Edge of the Future: Education, Civilization, and the Metacrisis

The Edge of the Future: Education, Civilization, and the Metacrisis

Zach Stein
Educator, author, philosopher, and futurist Zachary Stein gives a startling account of the effects the digital age already has on education and where this is headed. Zak sees education in a deeply philosophical sense as fundamental to the sustainability of our civilization, with implications for each component of the metacrisis. Who will be driving the technology stack that actually leads to a viable civilization? Can we maintain our psychological sovereignty in a sea of digital propaganda and know the truth?
The Human Potential Movement: Then and Now

The Human Potential Movement: Then and Now

Mike Murphy
Michael Murphy, author, co-founder of the world-famous Esalen Institute, and pioneer of the Human Potential Movement starting in the 60s, relates a wealth of intimate experience, knowledge, and wisdom covering his decades of living at the leading edge of transformative practice and the realization of human potential.
Nature as Teacher: Finding Beauty, Wisdom, and Self in Everything

Nature as Teacher: Finding Beauty, Wisdom, and Self in Everything

Susanne Cook-Greuter
Adult psychology pioneer and ego development expert Susanne Cook-Greuter introduces us to her favorite wisdom teacher: Nature. Susanne explains how Integral Theory’s 3-2-1 Process can be practiced with elements in nature to gain greater insight into the teachings of nature—evolution, cycles of life and death, the transience of life, the beauty that is everywhere—and to experience oneness with all.
Awakening Joy: Life Skills for Living, Loving, and Serving Life to the Full

Awakening Joy: Life Skills for Living, Loving, and Serving Life to the Full

James Baraz
James’ teachings take us deeply into states like gratitude and compassionate presence, to where we can focus our attention on how it feels to feel good somatically, thereby creating new neural pathways that strengthen awareness and aliveness. James has witnessed a lot of people learn to love themselves and turn their lives around as a result of this teaching.
Nonduality (And Beyond)

Nonduality (And Beyond)

A. H. Almaas
A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), renowned author and co-creator of the Diamond Approach, describes his own process of inquiry and some of what he has come to discover in his lifelong pursuit to understand the nature of reality and know the truth.
The Source and Heart of Judaism and the Great Religions

The Source and Heart of Judaism and the Great Religions

Zvi Ish-Shalom
In this remarkable conversation, Zvi describes how he found ways to map and interpret his own profound mystical experiences, how the teachings arise from the ground of being, about how they might become accessible to us all, regardless of religion or spiritual tradition, and how they are especially relevant for young people today, seeking to find a structure for their spiritual journey.
Vertical Development’s Many Gifts

Vertical Development’s Many Gifts

Beena Sharma
Beena Sharma, president of the Vertical Development Academy (VeDA), gives a beautifully cogent explanation of the 8-stage, full spectrum model of adult psychological development, Vertical Development — illuminating us not only to the characteristics of each stage of development, but the implications and ramifications of each stage, the process of human development as a whole, and how this model can help us face our current metacrisis.
The Remarkable Practice of Dream Yoga

The Remarkable Practice of Dream Yoga

Andrew Holecek
Lucid dreaming expert, author, “curiouist,” and integralist Andrew Holecek explains how lucid dreaming opens the door to a greatly expanded understanding of our minds, our perception of reality, and human potential altogether.
How to Heal a Culture That Has Lost Its Soul

How to Heal a Culture That Has Lost Its Soul

Alexander Beiner
Rebel Wisdom co-founder Alexander Beiner has his finger on the cultural pulse of our times. Here he explores key challenges we face as a global community: sensemaking and truth finding in an culture that has lost its coherence as well as its sense of the divine, and what role psychedelics might play both therapeutically and spiritually in healing our culture. He discusses the need to go beyond the intellectual to find clarity and coherence, using embodied practices like meditation and inquiry, and explains how modalities such as these are an essential container for therapeutic psychedelic experiences.
From Bodhisattva to Ecosattva: Integrating Personal Practice and Global Activism

From Bodhisattva to Ecosattva: Integrating Personal Practice and Global Activism

David Loy
David Loy, Zen teacher, scholar, and prolific author, reveals his acute understanding of the crises we face today, the psychology at the root of the problems, and how we can make our way forward in this in-depth discussion. He has adopted the term ecodharma to focus attention on the challenge Buddhism faces now: integrating personal transformation with global activism and social transformation. As David points out, the focus needs to be on this world, with transcendence being a metaphorical understanding but not an excuse to abandon the problems we and our planet face today.
Healing Collective Trauma: We Are All Shareholders in a Traumatized World

Healing Collective Trauma: We Are All Shareholders in a Traumatized World

Thomas Hübl
Thomas Hübl, renowned spiritual teacher, author, expert on collective trauma, and creator and facilitator of The Collective Trauma Integration Process, shares fascinating, life changing information about the dynamics of collective trauma — how it is embodied and perpetuated in the language we use, and how we are bound together in a sort of “mutual collusion” that predisposes us to repeat our past, and to repeat over and over the things we would much rather leave behind.
Ryan Johansen

About Ryan Johansen

Ryan Johansen currently serves as the Chief of Police for the City of San Bruno, California, a diverse community of approximately 50,000 residents located amid the urban sprawl of the San Francisco Bay Area. Ryan has been a policing professional for approximately 20 years, beginning his career as a patrol officer with the Southeastern Division of the San Diego Police Department. Ryan transferred to the San Bruno Police Department in 2006, and in the years that followed, he has served in a variety of positions and assignments, including: Police Chief, Incident Commander, Tactical Commander, Field Services Division Lieutenant, Administrative Division Lieutenant, Watch Commander, Public Information Officer, Traffic Sergeant, Patrol Sergeant, Detective Corporal, Gang Unit Supervisor, Patrol Corporal, and Patrol Officer. Ryan served as the Investigations Commander for the San Bruno Gas Pipeline Explosion in 2008, the Incident Commander for the YouTube Active Shooter Incident in 2018, and the Tactical Commander for the Tanforan Mall Active Shooter Incident in 2019

Chris Orrey

About Chris Orrey

Chris Orrey is a retired police lieutenant with over 30 years of service with the Hayward, California Police Department. She is a graduate of California’s Command College, an 18-month program designed to prepare law enforcement leaders for the challenges of the future, and the LAPD Leadership Training Program, which is based on the West Point Leadership Program. In true Integral fashion, she will soon have a Master’s Degree in Comparative Religion and Philosophy and will be continuing her education at the California Institute for Human Science, pursuing a doctorate degree in Integral Noetic Sciences with an emphasis on Wisdom Design. Her in-progress Master’s thesis is on the application of Wilberian Integral Theory to U.S. policing: Integral Policing: Transforming U.S. Policing via the AQAL Map.

Roger Walsh

About Roger Walsh

Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., has spent nearly a quarter century researching and practicing in the world's great spiritual traditions. His critically acclaimed book, Essential Spirituality, is a summary of that wisdom, outlining the seven spiritual practices common to the world's major religions.

John Dupuy

About John Dupuy

John Dupuy is co-founder and CEO of iAwake Technologies, a company that creates cutting-edge, high-tech brainwave entrainment soundtracks that support the healing of emotional/shadow issues, deepen meditation, mental focus, creativity, and flow states, and enhance a daily integral transformative practice. John has been working personally and professionally with brainwave entrainment technology since 2004, and travels internationally to teach and inspire on the subjects of Integral Transformative Practice and Integral Recovery®. John is also the author of Integral Recovery: A Revolutionary Approach to the Treatment of Alcoholism and Addiction (SUNY Press, 2013), winner of the 2013 USA Best Book Award, and co-host of the popular Journey of Integral Recovery podcast. John also hosts the online series Spiritual Tech Talks 2.0, in which he converses with leaders, pioneers, and inventors on the current wave of emerging spiritual technologies.