Shambhala: You have a new book coming out.

Ken Wilber: Yes, it seems so.

Shambhala: Your journals. Are they real journals? Like a diary?

Ken Wilber: Well, yes, real journals I guess.

Shambhala: Personal journals? Disgusting, private, sordid stuff?

Ken Wilber: Definitely.

Shambhala: Really?

Ken Wilber: Well.... I started keeping these journals as a type of experiment. They are definitely personal journals, like a diary--they contain personal incidences, meditation experiences, accounts of events in my daily life, and so on. But they also contain entries that are short essays--anywhere from one to ten pages--on topics that are of concern to me and my writing, and I hope are of concern to others.

Shambhala: Okay, we're not letting you off the hook about the disgusting personal stuff. But for now, topics such as?

Ken Wilber: Transpersonal and spiritual philosophy; integral transformative practice; the culture wars, feminism, ecology, politics, the meaning of postmodernism; holistic medicine, art, music, integral culture, and so on. Often a day's entry is simply a short essay dealing with one of those topics--perhaps how to interpret art, or ways to integrate liberal and conservative politics, or why integral feminism is an exciting new development, or the importance and limitations of ecopsychology, or the new and powerful types of spiritual transformation known as integral practice.

Shambhala: Anything new in these entries, or are they summaries of positions you have stated elsewhere?

Ken Wilber: Both. That is, I often needed to briefly summarize some of my already published work, so I did. In fact, I think One Taste is probably the best short introduction to my work now available.

Shambhala: A few examples?

Ken Wilber: What is the actual nature of the "integral culture" that is said to be emerging in America at this time? I discuss the idea that integral culture is simply a new form of civil religion, which I call Person-Centered Civil Religion, a type of spirituality that focuses on autonomous individuals as they consciously choose communities of other autonomous individuals. I do not believe it is quite as transformative as some of its advocates maintain, but it is definitely a new form of legitimate or translative spirituality, and it is having a profound impact on almost every aspect of American life.

Shambhala: In One Taste you actually document the publishing and marketing of The Marriage of Sense and Soul. You wrote that book for a mainstream publisher [KW: Yes], and the first three months of your journals have all the entries about your trip to Manhattan. It's pretty hilarious.

Ken Wilber: Yes, well, it was a trip. The book got put up for auction and I needed to be in New York, so off I went. But no matter how silly or even horrifying events were, I soon developed a great equanimity about it all, because I would immediately think, "Great journal entry!" I could fall, break my leg in five places, be bleeding to death in the middle of nowhere, and I would probably think, "Great journal entry!" So in addition to meditative equanimity, there was a kind of "noble journal equanimity." I'm sure that's a major reason many people keep journals or diaries--it's a miniature meditation.

Shambhala: Speaking of The Marriage of Sense and Soul, what do you make of the fact that President Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore have both read the book and publicly called attention to it? In the New Yorker magazine, Gore called it "one of my favorite new books." At the same time, Jeb Bush's people are using Brief History. Why all this recent political interest in your work?

Ken Wilber: Well, of course the hope is that the political process is beginning to take a more integral view of the world, and that both liberals and conservatives would therefore find a common interest in this work.

Shambhala: Do you see anything coming of this?

Ken Wilber: To be honest, I just don't know. We'll have to wait and see how it unfolds. But it is very promising, at the least. A decade ago, you could barely get people interested in integral studies, and now there certainly seems to have been some sort of major shift. Perhaps a critical mass of interest has been reached. And by "integral studies," I don't just mean my work, but the work of hundreds, indeed thousands, of theorists and researchers around the world, in the areas of holistic thinking, interdisciplinary work, crosscultural investigations, transpersonal and spiritual studies, and integrative endeavors. It's a very exciting time.

Shambhala: Much of which you recorded in One Taste. Do you still keep a journal?

Ken Wilber: No, it was fun while it lasted, but it was an experiment, and by the end of that year, I was so sick of me I just couldn't stand it. I was glad to have done it, and equally glad to be done with it. Perhaps again in five or ten years. But I think it's a good record of many of these issues.

Shambhala: Okay, now the sordid details. I hear there's nipple piercing.

Ken Wilber: Oh that's disgusting.

Shambhala: Do you deny it?

Ken Wilber: I need a Clinton definition of nipple piercing.

Shambhala: Well, in general, what do you think the response will be to your including various personal details in this book? In a sense it's odd, because many people think of you as intensely private, even hermit-like, and yet One Taste is quite open about much of your personal life.

Ken Wilber: I'm not a private person in the sense of secretive, it's just that I have never really sought the lime light. But I don't mind talking about my personal life if that's what's called for. And in this case, personal journals call for some of that. In particular, since I have written extensively about interior life, meditation, and spiritual practice, it seemed entirely appropriate for me to be extremely explicit about my own interior life, and so I was.

Shambhala: How do you think people will react?

Ken Wilber: Well, both ways. Some will appreciate it, some will resent it, I suppose. You know, oftentimes the more you know about somebody, the more reasons you can find to be annoyed by them. Remember that funny scene in A Thousand Clowns? The very nice woman social worker says, of one of her clients, only ten years old: "When I first met Norman Leadbetter, I didn't like him. But that was only because I didn't understand him. Now that I understand him, I hate him."

Shambhala: Used to be that some people disliked you for mere rumors that were often untrue, but with this book...

Ken Wilber: Yes, now that they really understand me, they'll hate me.

Shambhala: What were you thinking as you wrote these entries? Why even think about doing this? We're biased, but we found them very funny, entertaining, sometimes brilliant. What was your motivation?

Ken Wilber: Two things, I suppose. One, I really did feel it was appropriate for me to share my own interior life. I often write academic or scholarly works, and you are simply not supposed to include anything "subjective" or "personal," because that is being "nonobjective." A diary, on the other hand, is exactly where you would put these things, so it seemed a logical choice. And two, I wanted to try to find a way to convey the essence of the world's great wisdom traditions and spiritual practices, but to do so in an easy, fresh, accessible way.

Shambhala:One Taste is an excellent summary of the world's wisdom traditions.

Ken Wilber: Thank you. A journal is a good way to do that, because you can alternate entries--on the great traditions, on my own work, and so on--with entries that are light and hopefully amusing.

Shambhala: Like going to the dentist, where you write: "Dental appointment today. All of the dentists in Boulder are 'holistic.' They can't fill a cavity but they're good for your soul. Your teeth rot, but apparently your spirit prospers."

Ken Wilber: Well....

Shambhala: Okay, we'll stop here. One Taste, it seems, is at least three things: an introduction to the world's great wisdom traditions, a summary of your own work, and a diary of a year in the life...

Ken Wilber: Yes, I think that sums it up.

Shambhala: Thank you.

Shambhala: Good luck with One Taste!

Ken Wilber: Thank you.