Integral Buddhism: And the Future of Spirituality

by Ken Wilber

An edifying view of Buddhism from one of today's leading philosophers: a look at its history and foundational teachings, how it fits into modern society, and how it (and other world religions) will evolve.

What might religion look like in the future? Our era of evolution in social consciousness and revolution in science, technology, and neuroscience has created difficulties for some practitioners of the world’s great spiritual traditions. How can one remain true to their central teachings while also integrating those teachings into a new framework that is inclusive of ongoing discoveries?

Taking the example of Buddhism to explore this key question, Ken Wilber offers insights that are relevant to all of the great traditions. He shows that traditional Buddhist teachings themselves suggest an ongoing evolution leading toward a more unified, holistic, and interconnected spirituality. Touching on all of the key turning points in the history of Buddhism, Wilber describes the ways in which the tradition has been open to the continuing unfolding and expansion of its own teachings, and he suggests possible paths toward an ever more Integral approach. This work is a precursor to and condensed version of Wilber’s The Religion of Tomorrow.

Genres: Philosophy, Buddhism, Spirituality, Religion

175 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Kenneth Earl Wilber II is an American philosopher and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory, a systematic philosophy which suggests the synthesis of all human knowledge and experience.

Reviews

[Nomi Naeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wilber 4.0

An excellent summary of Wilber’s most current thoughts. Integral Theory is more revolutionary than one can even imagine. Nomi, New York

[RK Byers · Rating 3 out of 5]

every few pages or so, this book had a really keen insight. every few pages or so...

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess if you love Wilbur....or even like him. I keep trying, but I really don't.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

“That idea is, basically, that now is absolutely the time that the world’s core religions should get serious about updating their fundamental dogmas and dharmas and gospels—that it has been over a thousand years, at least, since virtually all of them added significant ideas and practices to their main teachings—teachings that themselves, virtually without exception, were originally created when men and women literally believed that the earth was flat; that slavery was considered the normal state of nature; that women and other minorities were considered second-class citizens, if citizens at all; that evolution had not yet been discovered, nor most of the modern sciences (and thus the principle source of serious knowledge was considered to be mythic revelation, not scientific experiment); and that the multicultural nature of so much knowledge was completely unheard of. My thesis is that the core ideas of the Great Traditions can literally and seriously be retained, but re-interpreted and included in a much more Inclusive Framework (often called an “Integral Framework”) that adds to those core doctrines the many new discoveries about spiritual experience, spiritual intelligence, and spiritual development that have been discovered during those thousand years. The result is a spiritual framework that “transcends and includes” the central teachings of the Traditions, including the old but also adding a significant amount of new material that is fully compatible with the old, but that, in essence, brings it up to date in the modern and postmodern world.”

[Jim Thompson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hate to say it, but this is just garbage.

I bought the book really hoping this would be an interesting, thoughtful read.

It wasn't.

The writing is awful. Every page is a slog through overused parentheses, brackets, and hyphens. Incredibly distracting. And it's terribly redundant. Only about 150 pages, but really if you cut out the repetition you'd have half that.

The style is awful, but it's at least better than the substance.

This isn't Buddhism. It isn't philosophy. It's cultish nonsensical jargon. There are a few bits and pieces here and there that aren't awful. There's just enough that sounds thoughtful and interesting to pull a reader in, but the bulk of this is weird, New Age, culty garbage. The author pulls numbers out of the air and pretends they are real statistics, talks about magenta states and teal states and green states and pretends his jargon is meaningful, dismisses anyone who doesn't ascribe to his "philosophy" as a lower tier thinker, misrepresents better traditions, and instead of making any "arguments" simply states his position over and over as if he's making a point.

Awful.

To be clear, there is no "Buddhism" in this book. How he landed on the title "Integral Buddhism" I'm not sure.

I forced myself to get through it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

[José Miguel]

There is something I don´t understand. In the preface it says, that the book is a shorter version of a previously published book, "the religion of tomorow". The preface is dated on Fall 2013. But "The religion of tomorow" was first published in 2017... or was there a previous release of "the religion of tomorow"?