Fleet Maull - 14 May

I dedicate this book to my beloved parents, Lou and Pat Maull, inveterate readers who I wish were alive to read this work, and to my son, Robert, who has continually inspired my efforts to make a positive contribution to this world of ours. I also dedicate this book to my late partner, Denise Thornton, who died entirely too young from cancer in 2008 and who continually encouraged me to write the book! Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to my teacher Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his vision for creating an enlightened society.

CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES

FOREWORD

W e are at a time in human development that invites us to consider becoming leaders in bringing more well-being not only to our inner, personal lives but also to the larger world in which we live. We all breathe the same air, share the same sources of water and food, and even have a common evolutionary history as part of an extended human family. This book offers powerful insights into the practical steps you can take to strengthen your mind in science-backed ways that can help you participate in the pervasive leadership needed to take responsibility for your inner and collective well-being in this shared journey of life.

Fleet Maulls personal journey of incarceration and reflection serves as the experiential bedrock for deep learning that has inspired his working life to focus on the well-being of others and their liberation from that all-too-common automatic-pilot way of living that imprisons so many of us in a mental cage of our own creation. Born from this background, Radical Responsibility is a brilliant travel guide that invites you to take in the hard-earned lessons from a teacher who serves as a companion along the important journey of waking up your mind to a vital way of living in our world.

We have a choice. The mind can function on autopilot, carrying out information processes without much awareness, reflexively reacting to what life dishes out, and behaving in ways more informed by what weve learned in our personal lives or inherited from a long evolution of threat and survival strategies. Or we can learn the steps necessary to wake up our awareness to become radically responsible for our inner lives and our interactive actions. Waking up in this way is itself a radical act of realizing that we can each be responsible for the growth of our mind and the interactions we have with others in the world. When we take on that leadership role, the world can be changed one person, one relationship, one interaction at a time.

To achieve such a radical change in our collective lives, our guide has skillfully provided a compelling balance of conceptual ideas, illuminating stories, and practical exercises to cultivate a more open awareness that is the gateway to living life wide awake and learning to behave in ways that promote well-being in our inner and relational worlds. You may already be familiar with some of these steps, or they may be quite new to your way of thinking. Whether you are experienced or a novice in training your mind, this book invites you on a growth-promoting journey that will enhance your understanding and your way of being in the world.

How can developing the mind change our lives? Our mind is both an internal process and an inter process one that is within our body and between the body and the world around us. Energy and information flow happen in this within-and-between location of who we are. When that flow is integrated when it is differentiated and linked it optimizes how it functions. This self-organizing aspect of the mind means that if you can learn to liberate the minds natural push toward integration from its all-too-common slumber, then your life, within and between, can become more flexible, adaptive, coherent (resilient over time), energized, and stable. When this happens inside of us, we can experience a sense of freedom and clarity in our awareness. When this happens between our inner self and the world around us, including our interpersonal relationships, we bring more empathy, compassion, and kindness into the world.

When created in a repeated way, these integrated states in the moment can become traits of integration in the long run. This movement from states to traits happens because of the simple axiom Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows. An awakening mind is an integrating mind that changes the structure of the brain itself in integrative ways. The science behind this is fascinating, and the steps supporting such growth of optimal regulation of attention, emotion, thought, behavior, memory, and ethical responsibility each emerge from a more integrated functional and structural set of changes in the brain itself. Yes, this is a radical idea: your mind can change the structure of your brain. When those changes are linking different parts to one another, when they are integrating, optimal living emerges.

Research is quite clear: training the mind to focus attention, open awareness, and cultivate kind intention and compassion creates a more integrated brain and gives rise to an awakened mind as we foster well-being in our lives. The radical act of reading this book to generate this kind of responsible way of living is a step toward being a leader in your own life and bringing more connection, respect, and well-being into the world. Are you ready to dive in? Join Fleet on a journey into becoming a leader in our world that starts from the inside out. Enjoy!

Daniel J. Siegel, MD

Mindsight Institute Author, Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Danielle Wolffe for providing invaluable assistance in the early stages of transcribing my seminars and developing a structure for this book. I especially want to thank my sweetheart and partner, Sophie Leger. Without her loving support and expert editing, I could not possibly have completed this book. I want to offer special thanks to my agent, David Nelson, at Waterside Productions, who has believed in this work from the outset. I also wish to thank the team at Sounds True especially Tami Simon, Jennifer Brown, and my editor, Robert Lee for their skillful guidance and unflagging encouragement.

I would like to offer special acknowledgment and profound gratitude to my dearest friend and spiritual brother, Purna Steinitz, who first introduced me to the core context underlying this work through The Event, a transformational training I had the privilege of co-leading with Purna for more than fifteen years. I would also like to express deep gratitude to a fellow ex-prisoner, Ken Windes, who cofounded The Game (precursor to The Event), and to his mentors Dr. Martin Groder and Marshall Thurber.

Finally, I want to express my profound gratitude to the various spiritual teachers, mentors, and friends who have guided and inspired my journey these many years, including Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Roshi Bernie Glassman, Roshi Sandra Jishu Holmes, Pema Chdrn, Roshi Joan Halifax, and Lee Lozowick. I especially want to thank my longtime colleagues and co-conspirators Kate Crisp and Roshi Grover Genro Guantt, for their support, friendship, and contributions to my journey and this work. Throughout the fifteen-year journey of bringing this book to completion, Trungpa Rinpoches echoing encouragement (You can do it!) kept me from throwing in the towel in even the most despairing moments.