Add waking up when you have only grown up

If you are mature and capable but have never trained attention on awareness itself, give the contemplative strand a small daily place.

Why it works

The independence claim cuts both ways. Wilber describes intelligent, successful, mature people who have never touched contemplative awakening, and argues that the states meditation trains are variations on waking, dreaming and deep sleep, which everyone already passes through each day. If so, waking up does not wait for a later stage of development; it can be practised from wherever you are, and maturity in other strands does not supply it.

How to do it

1. Set aside fifteen minutes a day for two weeks. Sit, and rest attention on what is aware of thoughts, sounds and sensations rather than on the thoughts themselves.
2. When you notice you are planning or evaluating, which you will, simply note it and return.
3. At the end of each session write one line about anything you noticed that was not a thought.
4. After two weeks, decide whether to lengthen the sessions, find a teacher, or try a different contemplative form.

Evidence

Foreword Reviews’ 2016 review of Integral Meditation summarizes Wilber’s argument that people are incomplete if they only wake up or only grow up, with examples of spiritual masters who have not grown up and of intelligent, successful people who are not awakened. The publisher describes the book’s practice as starting with fifteen to thirty minutes a day. In Integral Spirituality Wilber argues that meditative states can be present at virtually all stages because they are variations on waking, dreaming and formless sleep. The publisher’s description of Finding Radical Wholeness (2024) links waking up to a practice of the Witness, resting as the awareness that observes experience. (anecdotal)

Wilber’s map of states is a theoretical synthesis of contemplative traditions. The research on meditation’s benefits concerns specific programmes and outcomes, not progress through his states.

Sources

• Morris, K. (2016, Fall). Review of Integral Meditation: Mindfulness as a Way to Grow Up, Wake Up, and Show Up in Your Life, by Ken Wilber. Foreword Reviews.
• Wilber, K. (2016). Integral Meditation: Mindfulness as a Way to Grow Up, Wake Up, and Show Up in Your Life. Shambhala.
• Wilber, K. (2006). Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World. Integral Books.
• Wilber, K. (2024). Finding Radical Wholeness: The Integral Path to Unity, Growth, and Delight. Shambhala.

Common mistake

Treating contemplative practice as another performance goal and measuring it like work. The strand you are adding is the one that is not about achieving.

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