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............................ . 307 FINAL PAPER, FALL 2008

A. On a separate page at the beginning of your paper, include a handwritten paragraph (or even a haiku) that you could not have written had you not been to Sonoma Mountain Zen Center. (These will not be graded. I will simply check them off as done or not done.)

B. Please answer ONE of the following questions.
1. Given your present self and life circumstances, imagine that you have suddenly received a message that it is your dharma to become a yogi, and you have no choice but to carry out this instruction (or at least to provide a detailed description of how you might carry out the instruction, for purposes of this paper.) Furthermore, you are specifically instructed to follow some form of integral yoga that embodies various yogic elements of your own choosing ("integral" here does not refer specifically to Aurobindo’s Purna yoga). The term "yogic" is used broadly here in reference to any kind(s) of transformational practices and perspectives that we have studied in this unit of the course. Feel free to draw on any ideas, practices, or other elements from this unit of this course, including class, the reader and the website.) What kind of psychological effects you imagine that the practice will have?

2. Apply what you have learned in the transpersonal section of this course to the phenomenon of interpersonal or intergroup opposition and antagonism. What do the ideas you have studied contribute to your understanding of the roots of such conflict? What manifestations of this do you see in the world at large, at any level from a two-person dyad to oppositions between groups holding different political views, or even religions or nation-states? Finally, what ideas and practices do you find in any of the transpersonal perspectives we have studied that could conceivably contribute to healing and transforming such opposition into something else? Ground your conceptual comments in a concrete example.

3.. Briefly summarize the basic elements of three of the following transpersonal/spiritual teachings. as you know them now. What strong points and potential pitfalls do you find in each of the approaches? Include a description of a concrete situation as an example that you illuminate with each of these perspectives--do not answer only at an abstract level. Your example may be at any level from the personal to the international.

• Jesus (excluding all elements added to Christianity by others)
• Native American
• Yogic-Hindu (including Gandhi)
• Buddhist and/or Zen Buddhist
• Taoist & Confucian (These are rather different. If you choose this option, refer to both of them.
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To be eligible for a 'B:' Explicit references to the reading; to be eligible for an A: explicit references to online material other than my own lecture notes and summaries. Please think through your answer to the question; do not just string together a list of concepts. Include a reference list at the end.

Whichever question you choose, include concrete details in your answer. Do not answer just at an abstract level. Use quotations only where you cannot say something better yourself, quoting briefly rather than at great length. Be as thoughtful as you can and as creative as you wish.

DUE ON THE LAST REGULAR DAY OF CLASS, DEC. 10. The last day a "late" paper can be turned in is the final examination date, Dec. 15. If you know you cannot get the paper done by then, please turn in a filled out "request for incomplete" to me in order to avoide receiving an "F" on the paper that will be averaged into the grade.