Buddha and Clare Graves' levels of existential development

Some of us in the sangha have been interested in Spiral Dynamics, based on the research of Clare Graves. I became curious about how the Spiral Dynamics model of human development—a model that applies to individuals as well as groups and whole societies—connected with the teachings of the Buddha. Graves developed his model based on over 30 years of research into the "psychologically mature human being,” and it has been enormously influential in many different fields: education, public policy, organizational development, business management, philosophy, and political science, for example. He discovered patterns of individual development and social evolution in phases or levels that were later assigned colors to make them easier to remember. You can get an introduction to Graves’ model here: http://www.spiraldynamics.org/learning/Intro_to_SD.pdf.

The Buddha lived and taught in a culture that was in transition from red to blue, in terms of Graves' model of existential development. The emerging caste system, the Hindu cosmology (itself moving from purple through red—the kama sutra is a great example—to blue), the rise of cities and merchant classes, all are symptomatic of that cultural shift. Hinduism and the Vedic culture carried a strong blue message in its hierarchy of existential levels, with people gradually, lifetime after lifetime through their efforts and merits, reincarnating into better stations of life until—finally—attaining liberation through union with Brahman, the ultimate “god.” Those who accrued bad karma, or failed to earn merit, were punished by reincarnation in lower or more painful forms of existence—in hell realms, or as animals.

The Buddha participated in this transitional work from red to blue in a number of ways, through his advice to kings and husbands and wives, through the establishment of the vinaya,,(the regulations for monks), through the classifications and distinctions of the seven factors of enlightenment, the twelve-fold chain of dependent arising, the precepts (which provided a scaffolding for a just, ethical, and moral life for individuals as well as societies), the teachings about the jhanas, or meditative states, a concept already established in the culture through the vedic contemplative tradition. The idea of rising through states or levels of consciousness is itself a blue level conception. So is the concept of karma as intention and virtue. To these followers he spoke of faith and devotion, ethical conduct and self-sacrifice as a spiritual path, and he instructed them on moral behavior and practice.

So the Buddha spoke directly to the hearts and minds of the people he encountered every day, people struggling to make sense of their own changing world. However, he was not merely a gifted rhetorician and teacher for the people of his day. He transcended his contemporary life circumstances to speak to the hearts and minds of people at each of the levels that continued to emerge.

To those who functioned at orange level, he taught that his followers should not believe according to the words of elders, or tradition, or the scriptures, or experts, or even the Buddha himself, but that they should trust their own experience in testing what was wholesome, good, and true. He taught them that it was not necessary to progress through lifetime after lifetime acquiring merit, but that complete liberation is immediately available. He taught them to pursue it with their own single-minded effort, rather than devotion to a guru or worship of a deity. He offered an innovative and creative spiritual path, a path of discovery and profound inquiry. Put no head above your own, he taught.

And he saw beyond the orange level coping system, the seeds of which were already planted in his culture. He spoke also to the green level culture, not through words, but through his actions, ordaining women, for example, and including people of all castes among his disciples. It is difficult for us to understand how radical this was in a culture in which the Brahmins held all the cards, and the social structure of the culture was rigidly determined. He taught his followers to care for each other and support each other’s spiritual growth and development, as community, as sangha. He refused no one—even the fierce murderer Angulimala, who wore a necklace of finger bones from his victims—the sanctuary of the the Buddha, the dharma, the sangha. His teaching of appamada, of mindful care, belongs to and speaks to this green level.

But even beyond green level teachings, his very way of life embodied the yellow level system’s “flex and flow“. He had no fixed home and no job, and moved around constantly with his followers, teaching everywhere he went. Sometimes he was entertained royally by kings and nobles, sometimes he slept on the ground; it was of no consequence to him. Money did not concern him: he begged for his food like any humble monk. He cared nothing for status, wealth, or prestige, even though he was revered and honored with gifts and special treatment. He offered his teachings freely to anyone who sat before him. His term for ”human being“ or ”person“ was ”stream.“ His teachings on impermanence and emptiness and not-self belong to the yellow level system.

But that was not yet the ultimate level of his teachings. Much of what we find incomprehensible, almost hallucinatory in the sutras really belongs to the turquoise level, a level of profound connection with the whole cosmos. This level operates in deep intuition, free of the superstitions, obsessions, fears, and delusions of earlier levels. There is an absolute clarity to what is seen and known, but it has not really been accessible to people of earlier times, people immersed in earlier levels of existential development. It is utterly ineffable. If it touches anything, it touches the purple level sense of the mystical spirit-permeated world, and so it is often the most uneducated or naive followers who are awed by the astonishing visions in these teachings, those still closest to purple level energies. The vast array of beings—human and heavenly—attending the Buddha’s discourses, the incomprehensibly vast reaches of cosmological time and space in which they are situated, the ”mystical powers“ that came so naturally to the Buddha, the folding of time so that the Buddha becomes a teacher for buddhas and bodhisattvas who lived before him, are not flights of fancy embroidered by devout worshippers. They are as factual as scientific accounts of a nuclear reaction, or the behavior of a photon. Yet they literally blow our practical, orange and green and yellow level modern minds. "Intimacy with all things," the definition of enlightenment by one Zen teacher, reaches far, far beyond the "things" with which we are familiar, the things we imagine, the things we recognize, the things we love and fear, and far beyond even our concept of ”intimacy.“ Its implications are explosive for our ordinary understanding and our customary world view.

One example of the Buddha's turquoise level teaching that is a bit more accessible to us is beautifully described by Norman Fischer, discussing a particular passage in the Lotus Sutra:

It comes at a crucial moment in the narrative, as the Buddha is revealing the esoteric meaning of his teachings to a vast assembly of astonished practitioners. "In the past," the Buddha tells them, "I taught in a linear and straightforward manner about what's wholesome and what's not, about suffering and the end of suffering, about samsara and nirvana. I taught ethical conduct, meditation, and insight, setting forth a path of practice that was clear and manageable.

But all of this," Buddha confesses, "was merely skillful means I had to use, knowing that it was as much as you were capable of understanding at that time. Now I am revealing a deeper truth—that the path, the teachings, the practice, is much larger than I indicated before—in fact it is infinite in scope, limitless, because beings are infinite and limitless. Although I defined it before, in truth the path cannot be defined. No ordinary person could possibly know it, for it is beyond all knowing."

Now comes my line, writes Fischer: "Only a Buddha and a Buddha," he says, "can understand it." Even a Buddha by himself can't understand it. Only a Buddha and a Buddha can. Only through profound relationship, deep encounter, ineffable meeting, can we ever hope to appreciate the immense dimensions of our human life. (Taking Our Places, 186)

We do not know anything about any of the existential levels beyond turquoise in the Graves model. But I strongly suspect that if and when we ”get there“ we will discover that the Buddha was already speaking directly to us, teaching us what we need to learn and understand in that moment.

What do you think?