We recommend that you hold this presentation on ethics as an important cornerstone of your Integral Life Practice. In many ways, ethics represents both the first and final word in any authentically-lived life, where the fruits of our practice ripen, fall to the ground, and seed our future intentions, actions, and interactions.

Not only is your capacity to live a fully conscious and ethical life a reliable measure of your personal enlightenment, it is essential if you actually want any good to come from your realization. In fact, there is a good case to be made that if your enlightenment doesn't engage this world in some way, if it doesn't touch the people around you, if it doesn't actively gild and guide your response to suffering, complexity, and compromise, you can't really call it "full" enlightenment anyway.

What's interesting about Integral Ethics, however, is that it is not just a battery of "shoulds" and "have-tos"--we don't practice ethics because someone tells us we are supposed to, we practice ethics because it is a natural expression of the radical abundance of the Integral Vision itself…

We'd like to thank Roger Walsh for sharing this presentation with us, and urge you to check out his website at www.drrogerwalsh.com.

Part 1: What Is Ethics? (2:43)

Part 2: Why Bother to Be Good? (4:24)

Part 3: Beyond Blame and Guilt (2:18)

Part 4: Why Can't We Be Good? (3:21)

Part 5: What Does It Take To Live Without Regrets? (4:20)

Part 6: Releasing Guilt—A Painful, Destructive, and Largely Unhelpful Emotion (5:48)

Part 7: From Self-Condemnation to Acceptance: A Crucial Shift(:53)

Part 8: It's Surprisingly Good to Be Good! Body, Mind, and Brain All Benefit from Ethical Living (7:48)

Part 9: Ethical Mastery and Life Mastery (13:46)

Part 10: Exercises in Ethical Living (11:48)

Roger Walsh

Roger Walsh is professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology, as well as adjunct professor of religious studies at the University of California at Irvine. Roger's books include Staying Alive: The Psychology of Human Survival (one of New Option's "Outstanding Books of the Year."), Paths Beyond Ego (one of Common Boundary's "Most Influential Books"), Meditation: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives ("Outstanding Academic Book of the Year Award"), and Essential Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices with a foreword by The Dalai Lama. Be sure to check out Roger's website at www.drrogerwalsh.com.

Image credit: Chiron Ascending by Phillip Rubinov Jacobson