Conclusion (The Enneagram) - Richard Rohr

Okay, let's start integrating some of this now. If you're trying to figure out where you lie on this, uh, I'm just going to give you some ways to understand that. I'm sure some of you, uh, see well, in a little bit of this, a little bit of that. That's good to see that we all participate in all nine of these sins, these compulsions, these blindnesses.

But what you're going to start doing, if you're honest and have some self-knowledge, which you all do, recognize that there's probably a concentration of two numbers right next to one another. You say, "Oh, I see a lot of one of me, a lot of two in me," that kind of thing. You're honing in to the area. And what we've got to find is the midpoint and the two wings. You've heard us refer to that.

And I don't know why it's so clever. I don't know why this works. Don't ask me for the science of it or the logic of it. I just know it's true that for some reason, the numbers on each side, you participate in the center number is your primary compulsive blindness, your primary way you perceive and get your energy. Therefore, you think it's your only self. But, uh, if you remain trapped there, I can say without any doubt, you will move toward the compulsive end of the spectrum. To fly, and that's why the word wings are good. You need to develop, and in every case, they will balance you out. Take my word for it, they will balance you out.

You need to develop the numbers on each side. Normally, like I developed my two-wing as a young man, and it was really only in my mid-40s when I first went to the hermitage that I gave myself permission to be a nine, that I didn't have to keep saving the world. I could just be a person, be ordinary, and float through the day. Without the nine wing, the one is as a driven, uh, compulsive workaholic, a not-so-pleasant person, really.

So here you have this driven workaholic one. And wouldn't you know it, on his wing, part of me just won't say, "To hell with it all. I'm just going to enjoy the day." You know, "I don't need to save the world." For me, that's salvation, you see. But left to myself, I can get all into my principles and my righteousness. Thank God there's a wing that me that does like people and needs people to like me and wants to connect with people and wants to be nice to people. I have a strong two wing, a need to be needed. Probably standing here talking, so you'll all need me, you know. Uh, that's, I can't deny that's a part of me. But it's an essential part of me to soften that hard-edged one that of himself is too hard and too arrogant and too idealistic.

I'm going to go around very quickly. So listen, if you're a two, God bless you. You're a lover, you're a servant, you're a helper. But you're gonna get lost in codependency if you don't have some principles. So which is your one-wing? Some idealistic visionary stuff that I'm going to go ahead and do it whether anybody's with me or not. This is who I am. So, so think of two as people. Think of one as principles. All right? And they need one another to balance one another out. So the people, uh, people, the twos need some principles that that can satisfy them so they don't try to get all their energy from from people. It'll suffocate you, and you will suffocate other people. But some days, hey, I don't need anybody around me. I just need to know I'm carrying out my principles of recycling or whatever your thing is today. And my recycling makes me happy today. I don't care, care whether anybody is joining me at all or anybody's affirming me. That's good for you then. Look at what you got. This is why loving twos can be very effective people. They got their principles on one side, and they got their effectiveness. I just don't want to have everybody love me and create a little gossip circle. I want to make some difference in downtown Albuquerque. I want to really change some people's lives. And so some twos will work with programs and and policies and and groups and institutions that really are working on the practical level.

So let's call one principle. Let's call two people. Let's call three practical. And there's nothing wrong with being practical, is there? To allowing it to the the rubber to hit the road and and to really, uh, change and improve this world for somebody's life. Uh, without it, uh, the two gets lost in romance novels and and soap operas. Well, big deal. You know, the whole world of feelings and and and people's relationships with one another. I want to help people's relationships with one another, which is their three wing.

The three, left to himself or herself, is, you know, a dynamic, effective human being in the business world. But thank God, he or she needs people and likes people and wants to make a difference in people's lives and cares about people. That's his or her two wing. But what threes often put off till the second half of life, very common pattern, is the four wing because it looks like it's going to slow them down, and it does. You know, "Hey, I really always did want to paint. I always did want to do some photography or something creative or artistic." But very few threes will lend themselves to that subtlety and that calmness of of doing something that isn't going to be any big shakes in the world. But, you know what? It satisfies my soul just to carve this wood or whatever it might be. You've got to almost give the three permission to develop their four wing and not to feel guilty about it or not to have to make some big industry out of their carved wood. "I'm just carving these wood things to sit in my bedroom. No one has to see them. No one has to buy them. They're just beautiful for their own sake." That's when you really see a three balancing out, when he can do art and beauty and music and dance and creativity for its own sake.

The four, the four left to himself can get lost in his art and his specialness or her specialness. And so, as as Merton did here, he is living as a Trappist monk and a hermitage. But, you know, it wasn't accidental that all of his books started getting published in 1948. He had some effectiveness about him. He developed his three-wing and knew he had a gift and didn't apologize that this gift could help the world. On the five side, that was his hermitage itself. He did need a high degree of solitude and quiet and apartness, which was his five wing. And that probably grounded his his four into some kind of depth. You'll often see that with artists, that they'll need a studio, they'll need a space where they're not bothered, where they can be quiet, where they can think and study and pray and be alone. I, I don't think you can take that from a four or even from a four wing, that that part of the self of inner creativity, inner fantasy, inner writing and composing that needs to be honored, which is the five wing of the four, that need for solitude and study. If they don't have that, frankly, they become superficial artists. If they, if they don't develop the solitude where they can really process some of their suffering, some of their sadness, read some other authors or philosophers or spirituality teachers and and learn what to do with that thing that left to itself is narcissism, you see.

So can you see how both of their wings lead them out of their narcissism? The five wing leads them to depth, and the three wing leads them to do something with it for others and not just sit in my own private specialness. The five, left to himself or herself, is a curmudgeon, is just into his own world of ideas and theories and theologies or whatever. But the four gives him emotional subtlety, gives him right wing to balance out his left brain, left brain to balance out right brain, excuse me. And that's again, the tremendous integration that you have between the four and the five. You put together, basically, the two hemispheres of the brain. The five is the master at the light, the left brain. The four, the master at the right brain. And he needs it.

The five also has his six wing. Why does he need that? Because the five can get lost in theory. They can become airheads and move toward their seven, just with disconnected theory, disconnected theory. "You want to say to some five, 'So, what? You ever go to a metaphysical bookstore?' You know, and you just open book after book. 'Oh my God,' you know, 'does this person have any reality contact? Any connection with what's happening in politics or economics or the culture?' It's just these fabricated worldviews of people who've had no reality contact." Well, look at the six wing. These are people who are tied to orthodoxy, to tradition, to the past, to conservativism. Ground yourself in some good history, some good past, so you don't just fabricate theories that are disconnected to any philosophy, any theology, any psychology except your own. And the uncritical five will do just that, which is why they go toward the seven and become mutual airheads, reaffirming one another's theories. America is filled with this kind of thought today, people who've never disciplined themselves to get, let's say, a good liberal arts education and know that my thought is partially connected to somebody else who had a good brain, and it's not just my thought, but I'm tied into tradition in the good sense. That's the sixth. They make an art form of tradition, uh, the past, history, if you will. And there's nothing wrong with that. I, I would not have the self-assurance to talk the way I talk if I hadn't been trained in very traditional philosophy and theology. So I know I'm not outside the pale. I know I'm not just talking my own thing. If I couldn't have validated this in the scripture, in tradition, I wouldn't feel the freedom to talk about it. If I thought it was just Richard's thing, or Gerd Jeff's thing, or Narajo's thing, or these early teachers of the Enneagram.

The six, left to himself, is lost in his theories and his theologies. But, um, if he has to balance it with some good intellect of the five, that'll help him do. Read a few books beyond your own. And wouldn't you know it, the six, who's buried in cement by his loyalty to tradition in the past, he has a little happy butterfly, Peter Pan wing. You know, and God knows they need it. If you have any six friends, please encourage them to do some silly things, some fun things, some light things. Loosen up a little bit. This is what the conservatives in the Catholic Church just can't do. They can't laugh at anything. The seven makes an art form of laughing. And and so your conservatives who are usually trapped in the six space, they desperately need to have some fun and to lighten up and to laugh, which is the art form of the seven.

The seven, left to himself or herself, is nothing but fun, nothing but Peter Pan, flying off into new and happier places. So wouldn't you know it, and you'll find this invariably in sevens, they'll have, they don't talk about it much, they don't admit it too much, but they're actually very conservative and traditional, and they need it. It's, remember the picture of the Buddha? He's got one hand on the ground and one hand open to infinity. The seven is open to infinity and new fun ideas. But if he doesn't have, or she doesn't have, her hand on the ground somewhere, tied into tradition in the past, uh, you better be careful. They're going to take you into unsafe places that aren't grounded. So the the sixth wing is the, uh, the lightning rod connection for the seven.

Wouldn't you know it, Mr. Positive, Mr. Happy, has this eight wing, which wants to say, "You no worth!" [Laughter] He needs that. He's got to have that because he's too sweet. He's too positive. You stop taking seven serious after a while, you really do. Everything isn't beautiful. And when they can, once in a while, get damn mad and admit, "This needs clear-headed, uh, justice work," or whatever it might be, that's what you want to see in a healthy seven. So you have to flip from the positive to what appears to be the negative. And then the opposite flip with the eight. The eight seems to be so oppositional. But God bless her, she can go out and have a good party. She can go out and enjoy and stop trying to save the world and talk to children. Remember, sevens can always talk to children and have fun with children and relate to children. To stop being so serious, so heavy, all the time. Don't trust anybody who's heavy all the time. It's the one thing I don't like about myself. I'm so heavy all the time. And I joined the right order in that sense, in terms of joining the Franciscans, because we don't take ourselves too seriously inside the community. It's probably our problem, you know. Um, it seems like we're always finding a reason for a party or a drink. And we're glad to see that the the cookie jars are always Franciscans, you know, and and the drinking monk is always a Franciscan. Because in many ways, that is the Franciscan space, is the seventh space that once in a while flips into the eight.

Liberation theology comes much more out of the eight. And no surprise that it came out of the Spanish-Portuguese-speaking world, which that's its sin, but it's also its gift. This passion for the poor, for the little guy, for the guy who's oppressed, and and so forth. That that's eight at its best. And so the eight, who has taken on the whole world, look at it. He has this little lazy mañana nine wing, who after he's been saving all the world, can stop saving the world and can just smell the roses and enjoy the day and stop being so significant and so special. Now, I admit that was very quick, very oversimplified. But I hope it gives you all just a taste, at least, of what, oh, I forgot the nine. Exactly. What I say about the, they're forgettable. Maya maximal. The nine, Adam in the garden. Here we have the most laid-back, easy-going of all the nine types. But look at his or her two wings. They're intense swings, one and eight on each side of the nine. So, so if you get to know a nine, they invariably have some deep values. Deep, but they just don't talk about them like the rest of us do. They feel them inside. By all of these body attacks of life itself that they take into their whole body, they hold them in their body. And and so what you'll see invariably is the one wing and the eight wing showing itself now and then. Not every day. Not every day. And it doesn't need to show itself every day. But now and then, you'll see that, "My God, she's got some deep beliefs in this regard. She's got some deep values that she, she holds very deeply." She almost doesn't know how to bring him to focus herself, which is exactly why she normally needs to belong to a family or a group or an institution. Because she, he, the nine is humble enough to admit, "I can't do it by myself. I can't make a total difference in the world." It's the mystery of church why you belong to these faith-sharing groups that you're in right here. That's a kind of nine humility. "I can't do it myself, but I'm willing to do my little part." And do my little part with with with a vengeance, which is their eight wing. And to do their little part with a righteousness, which is their one wing. So, uh, laid-back nines can paradoxically be very effective people. You know why? Because they don't threaten you. Ones threaten you. Eights threaten you. Nines don't. They're just so nice. They're so sweet. And so, you know, uh, Archbishop Hunthausen, and he told me years ago in Seattle, is a nine. And the reason he was just beloved of the whole diocese of Seattle, and even was able to threaten the whole Roman system, he just said, "No, I can't pay taxes. I don't believe I'm going to support this government." And it was just that simple for him. He didn't need to make a big sermon out of it or anything. People ask him, "You don't pay taxes?" "No." [Laughter] So you see this intense value system in his white R, one wing, and his eight wing. But they do it very quietly, very, very quietly. And and in that sense, nines can be very effective change agents because they are not threatening the way the rest of us threaten. Sorry, nines, that I forgot you all right.

So I hope this is helping you discern. Try to spot two numbers right next to one another. And then you're gonna have to search, okay, which one is the midpoint, and which ones are the wings? Questions about anything now? It's all open. Yes, Judy. I should say, forgive me, Judy. No, Judy is a six. And we all know it, and we love her as a six. But sixes are called questioners. One way, forget me, but she's so humble, I know she won't mind. One way they deal with their anxiety is to clarify it by questions. You will get so tired of the questions. I'm not tired of your questions, Judy, but, but I just want to use this as an example. And and they can serve a great function in a group because they, in fact, just so you don't feel too bad, you're asking the questions. A lot of the rest of us are thinking. But because they've become anxiety in you, because you face your anxiety quicker than the rest of us do, you'll actually ask the questions that many of the rest of us are thinking. So do that right now. I'm sure I'm going to talk about direction of integration and discipline. All right. Since you asked, I guess I will. All right. Yes, she said, Judy said, "Am I going to talk about paths of integration and paths of disintegration?" Chuck was hoping I'd do this too. Now, this is called the arrow theory. I emphasize the wing theory most, but I do not deny the truth of the arrow theory, and some teachers base all of it on this. I, I could see why. Let me just put it up here simply. Starting again with the one. When we ones are doing well, I can see this in myself. We take on the energy of a healthy seven. Even though I'm very heavy, I can actually be happy and silly. When I'm, when I'm doing well, I'll let go of my heaviness and take on the healthy aspects of the seven. I mentioned to you earlier that one reason this position, you don't have to agree with this, but I'm convinced it's true, this is one of the latest discoveries about the energy. The reason the seven gives me such consolation is that's who I was as a little boy. Remember I said it quickly, that I was always squealing and excited and happy, and the world for me as a little boy was absolutely beautiful and wonderful. I was all happy all the time. At some point, and this would be called the original wound, my original blessing of being a happy self could not be sustained. And I can't, this is, you don't have to accept it, but it sure works for most people. I've seen it also make people cry when they recognize how true it is. Uh, I found a way to be a moralistic perfectionist to try to recreate my little happy world. It, it'll never work, but damn it, I keep doing it. That's my original sin. I talk about that in the beginning of the new book, the Christian perspective. It's called the Soul Child Theory of the Enneagram, that your soul child was what you originally rejected. But when you're doing real well, you go back to it for a moment, and you can enjoy it. Now, I want you to see that in each of these arrows, and some of you, it's going to deeply touch you because how true it is.

The two. When the twos are doing well, takes on the best aspects of a four. They they become creative. Instead of all their obsession with people liking me, they use some of that creative energy for things instead of people. And for them, that's a virtue. Follow me? You know, I remember when I went over to Tepoztlán once, and we had a former person who was in charge of our guest house, Tepoztlán. And she was creating this beautiful altar. She wasn't even a Catholic. And it was the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. And she said, "I said, 'Who are you making this for?'" "I just needed to make it a shrine." Covered the whole wall for Our Lady of Sorrows. It was a way of her processing, I think, some of the pain in her life. And I said, "We're going to have a Mass here tonight." "And now you've created the backdrop for this." And she just started crying. She was so happy. But she had taken this quiet day at our guest house to create a shrine. Do you understand? She, who was usually very much a two, preoccupied with people all the time, she moved her people energy to thing energy. And for the four, the two, that's good. It's healing. It's very healing. Now, for those who are twos, I won't have time to open it up, I'm afraid, for a conversation. But I want you to try to remember if there wasn't a part of you as a little boy or a little girl who loved to be creative, artistic, religious, mythological, symbolic. I don't know what form it took. But it's almost always there. And and and you couldn't maintain it. But you still go back to it for a little moment of joy and a little moment of consolation.

The three. When the three is doing good, believe it or not, they become like a very healthy six. That they take on some of that structure and groundedness. They stop trying to save the world. You know, they just go back to their Catholic Mass where they went as a little boy and refine myself there. For them, that's very healthy. If they don't get lost in all this, you know, making money or looking good. Just go back to where I began and do the rituals one more time, as it were. That's where tradition is very, very healthy. You think if a Donald Trump had something like that, he could perhaps find his soul? But you, and maybe he does, I don't mean to put him down. But he'd probably be the quintessential American three, just more millions of dollars, you know, and pretty soon he's flying off into the ozone with with money-making with no, what does this mean for history or tradition or my soul or the truth or the church? But you go back to threes, and invariably, I, I don't know Donald Trump's life story, but invariably they had a very structured, traditional, authoritarian family in the good sense. "We do these things this way in our family." Their way to maintain that perfect world. We're all trying to create a perfect world was to become famous, successful, money-making. "I can force it. I can make perfection to happen in this world." Of course, they can't.

The four. And I've experienced this personally. The four, when they're doing well, they take on the best aspects of us ones. Without any doubt. In my 34 years as a priest, I have had more fours come to me for guidance and spiritual direction than any other type. They always say, "Would you be my spiritual director?" You know, because they intuitively know that we have what they need. We do very focused, and they, they're all over the place, diffused with their emotions and their fantasies and their dreams. And they need the discipline and the focus of a one. But you go back to their youth. They alone can do it. And they'll invariably find some oneness that they were originally raised with and still gives them comfort, still gives them grounding and a sense of consolation. I'm sorry again, I don't have more time to develop that. But I'm going to leave it on you to discover how, let's say, you are a four, how your girlhood or your boyhood had some good one shape to it and some good one characteristics, maybe just some good idealism.

The five. When he or she is doing well, you know what they decide to do is they decide, "Okay, I got all my theories and all my theology. How can I bring it to liberation theology and make a difference in the world instead of just, you know, interior, uh, spiritualities?" So we saw that in a lot of the early liberation theologians, that they go toward praxis, action, helping the poor in concrete ways, instead of just spinning out theories all the time. I think we have a man on our staff who is exactly that. He knows how to do the homework, but he cares about the poor in the world because of that homework. It's led him to a good social analysis, if you will. But invariably, if the five goes back to his boyhood or girlhood, he'll find there was already some affirmation, some early eight energy. It's almost like he was a little eight, and then he couldn't do it. He wasn't allowed to do it, or she wasn't allowed to do it. And so he went, he theorized the whole thing, theologized the whole thing, intellectualized the whole thing, and in that, removed from immediate contact with reality. So when he can go back to concretely helping a poor family on the border in Juarez, he discovers his soul again for a minute. Yep, this is what it's all about.

The six. When the six is doing well, actually takes on some of the peacefulness of the nine. That's why they're both so humble, the six and the nine. They take on the best characteristic of the nine, not the bad. In each case, I'm saying only the good side of that person. And they almost look like a nine. A healthy six looks like a nine. Say that with each one of these. The the healthy one looks like a seven, which feels like exactly the opposite of what we really are.

The seven. When he or she is doing well, takes on, believe it or not, the healthy research and study of a five. That keeps them from being an airhead. That's exactly what they need. I have seven friends who say they haven't read a book in 20 years. Sevens hate to read books unless they have pictures on every page with bright colors. Sevens and threes both avoid reading books. You know, uh, but, but what here, when a seven is doing well, uh, they'll, they'll, you know, hunker down and say, "Hey, it's time I do a little research on this. Time I, you know, ground myself in some good intellectual work." Without it, they will be Peter Pan, just flying off into the universe. I've asked two of my seven friends, I said, "What were you like as a little boy?" And both of them said, "I was quiet and I wanted to be alone in my room." And they said, "You mean that's that's who I first was?" Yeah. And this airhead stuff is is a distortion. Even though you can't stop being it at this point, this is really helpful to me to help people realize that and why these points are such a consolation. I, I am so happy when I can, you know, be happy, because that's really my true self. My spiritual director told me years ago, "Richard, you need someone to get you down on the floor and tickle you once a day." I know now what he was trying to say, because I don't know how to enjoy being tickled. You know, uh, it's got to be a big, meaningful encounter somehow, you know, or I can't enjoy it. That's my, that's my wound. You follow me? It's like I don't know how to be my true self. But ever so often, it happens. And this is true of every one of you.

The eight. When the eight is doing well, Mother Teresa, they, dang it, they look exactly like twos. She's the quintessential example, you know. And I see you with children, you're just wonderful with them. Jim's an eight too. This is amazing. And healthy too. They're, they, they become very nurturing, very sweet, very caring. And they can especially do it with children because the children brings out the little boy and a man, brings out the little girl and a woman. We really do need, and you parents all know this, we really do need children in the in society for all of us to grow up. And that's probably why Jesus kept bringing the child as the audio-visual aid. They clarify for all of us. And if I had time, we could even go into that. They take away our game because our game doesn't work with kids. And you know what? My big teaching, you know, doesn't mean anything to Gracie. She's just looking at me. "Why is Richard always talking?" She must wonder. You know, that's the little baby. All of us have to let go of your compulsive game with a child. Probably the only one that's fat is the two. The two is fed because they need our help so much, which is why the two has to really watch it.

And finally, the nine. When the nine is doing well, and I've seen this in healthy nines, believe it or not, they take on the effectiveness of the three. Remember I said the gift of the three is decisive action? I've known threes that just by the end of the day, they've checked off the list of 15 things, and they do each one with simplicity and focus. They stay focused. Now, then they focus to this, and they focus to this. That very loss of focus, which is their general problem. When they can find a way to prioritize, and for this hour, I'm going to do this, they ironically end up more effective than some of the rest of us. Isn't that interesting? It's always a surprise to me. That's why, in the classic sense, you can't call nines lazy. In some sense, you can call nines lazy, but in the way we usually use the term, not. They actually are very effective. You just gotta help them focus.

So that is the integration line. I know this is getting heavy. I don't know how much more energy you got. But if you reverse each of those lines, right, you will have the disintegration. Just reverse every arrow that I draw, drew up there. In other words, like, uh, when I'm not doing well, it's probably why I sometimes get very impatient with fours. I actually become like a maudlin, depressed, moody four. You see that's the reverse of the arrow that comes toward me, right? The four, you know, can you see the difficulty in this? Let's say a one and a four marry one another. In a certain sense, the one is very good for the four. But in a certain sense, the four is the worst possible thing for a one. I don't know how to resolve that. But just know that it doesn't mean that person as such. It means that energy. Follow me? I know one four marriages that are just doing beautifully because they're both perfectionists, just in different ways. So you can love anybody. Don't let any of this be deterministic about your marriage or your friendships or your relationships. It just points out the problems that you might be facing inside of that. So I gave you the integration. I'm going to let you fill in the disintegration, that when you're falling apart, when you're not doing well, you will take on the worst aspects of another number. And you can do it by reversing the arrow in that diagram. Yes. You're number nine. We didn't mention the child. Did I forget the nine? Yes. Again, what a childhood. You talked about the child like you were as a child. Yes. So let's see. They would be. Yes. Now, I guess I'd almost have to ask, is there any nine in the room who would want to expose themselves? Yes. How were you a three as a little girl? Is what I, I guess, in other words, did you like to run around the house and do all kinds of things? Uh-huh. Yeah. That would be what they'd say. That somehow you, you were, of all things, a doer of making things happen in your own little playgirl world, huh? Yeah. Things like that. See, that's perfect. And for some reason, that was not a workable project or a sustainable project. And you decide, "I'm going to take the easy road," which becomes your kindness, which is now your greatest gift and your worst fault. But on your better days, you will go back to your little girl and be a three again, which is the decisive action gift. It's very subtle. But I haven't asked a person yet who can't make this theory work in their own life. Can you? Thank you. Anybody else want to use themselves as an example? Yes, Kim. Question. You said when you're going towards your integration, the number you go towards, you're taking the best qualities of that number. Yes. And when you go in the other opposite direction to your disintegration, are you taking the disintegration? That's right. No, no. Thank you for forcing me to say that. Like the reason I would sometimes have a problem with the four is because I take on the worst qualities of the four when I'm not doing well. So I just, I don't want to get close to that. I just, when I see it in a four, this depressed, self-pitying, just, "Oh, I can't go near it." You know why? Because it'll catch me. Do you understand? We ones try so hard to be perfect, and then we can't do it. We fall into occasional depression, which is the four at their worst. So depressed people, we, we're not very good with. We keep our arms length because they have tremendous power to suck us into their vortex. And that's our worst self. We know it. If any of you want to force me to do that with another number, I'll try. Or if any of you want to use yourself as an example of of that pattern, please feel free. Stephen. The question about, you know, you say the energy of the United States comes from a three. Yeah. The integration for the three is the six. But that doesn't appear what's happening like in our culture. No. So how do you explain that? Okay. See, America suffers from having only 200 years of history. We really have no strong traditions of anything except saluting the flag. I don't know. There's hardly any other traditions. A birthday cake and the flag. And that's humiliating for us to admit that we're not a traditional culture. Uh, we were from the very beginning. There's many cultures which became our gift. We worked out these many cultures building together. So when we go back to tradition, what we tend to do is go back, and you see this from the very beginning, to what we now call fundamentalism, trumped-up traditions, manufactured certitudes, right? Superficial loyalties. This, you know, I don't go to heart of any country in the world, for example, where the flag is in the sanctuary. The only country that has the flag in the sanctuaries is the United States of America because that's all we have is this piece of cloth because we got nothing else. That that's actually political fundamentalism. Our country is almost tantamount to God for us that we put the flag in some old Catholic, I mean, it's right next to the tabernacle. Have you ever been to that? Pure unadulterated idolatry. All right. Would not be tolerated in most countries of the world. And I just had a priest friend write me this week in Long Island that his parishioners got upset with him because he said the flag had no place in the sanctuary. So that's we're searching to go back to tradition, sixness. But it's always this superficial, fundamentalist, idolatrous stuff. But it, it, the, it is the recognizing that we need it. I mean, it's like 50% of Americans now self-identify as born again. The word "born again" wasn't even used a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago, the word that was used was the beautiful, uh, Methodist word of John Wesley, "a heart strangely warmed." "My heart was strangely warm." Now, that spirituality, I can trust. Huh? Wow. But I am, as an ego possession, a born-again person. Oh, that's such superficial religion, it seems to me. You know, it's not talking about a relationship. It's talking about something I have become, right? And that's this three flying off in the ozone, searching for tradition. But America has no traditions. So we, we substitute superficial things for it. Yes. The Catholic Church as an institution. Can I give it a number? Six. Oh, yeah. The Sufis were very clear about that, that the Catholic Church, by and large, relies upon authority, structure, and certitude. That's all six stuff. Preaching to sevens, though. I mean, in other words, the Catholic Church doesn't want any discussion back from, yeah. I'm afraid you're right. You're Irish, are you? Yeah. You know, one thing I failed to mention in the seven is the Irish male is very much seven energy. Not the Irish woman. It's the only country I know where you can split the two genders. Actually has a great deal of suffering and depression in it. And Irish creativity, particularly in literature and music, comes out of suffering and depression. And it's very similar to Greece in some other country. But if you look at it, it's always finding a way to triumph over the suffering, right? I, I mean, you see it as recently as the Frank, what's his name, books? No, he's laughing at it from a court. He's laughing at it from the first chapter, which is brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm still saying it's a seven energy. And anybody who visits Ireland, you're overwhelmed by the seven energy, the music, the dancing, the singing, the ability to keep smiling in the middle of so much sadness. Now, the only way I could be dissuaded of that is some say that it's four energy. And it sounds like that's the tech you're going down. Yeah. This love of the pain. But, but the way they turn it into joy is not typical of the four. That would be my only hesitation with calling Ireland, for a country, I would think, uh, they've split into the two wings. They're either six or eight to sustain these wild men. They become either super conservative, loyal, going to church every morning, and loving the Pope. And you understand, it's just Catholic, Catholic, Catholic. Although that's all dying. Or this flipping over into these strong Irish women who just, you know, tell it like it is and tell their husbands like it is and everybody else too. That's just my analysis, not that it even needs an analysis. The Irish wake would be perfect seven stuff. That's right. Dancing on the grave and dancing at the wake itself. Doug, can we be influenced by other people? Yes. Yes. Thank you. I told Doug to make sure he asked me that at the break, and I said, "Bring it up." This is important for your discernment of where you might be. Sometimes people are absolutely convinced they're a certain number. And invariably, in working with them, I found out what I, what I would say, they were subsumed inside of what their mother wanted them to be, or their father wanted them to be, or their childhood wanted to be. And if they haven't made that break yet, they're still desperately trying to please Mom or get Dad's love. They think they're a seven or a six or a five or a three or a two because that's what Mom told them they should be. "That's what everybody in our family is. We're all twos." You know, "And if you're not a two, you're not in our family." Well, those people really think they're twos. And you want to talk about conflicted, they tend to be very conflicted people because they're forced to keep living up to a self-image that they are not. And until they can find their own authentic emotional life and perceptual life, they tend to be very neurotic and unhappy people. So that's important that we put that out now because that could really send some of you down a wrong course thinking you're a number because it's what it was your family script to be that number, or it was your family script to take on that particular energy. Try to compartmentalize that in so far as you can to find your your authentic self. And I've seen it also, Doug, I've seen it in marriages too, where if one marriage partner dominates the energy of the household and proclaims, "We will live this way," sometimes especially a subservient type or a humble type will actually think they are their husband's energy or think they are their wife's energy because she has proclaimed what the proper energy is in the household. Uh, though that's when therapy can be very helpful when you can really break that and say, "Who am I apart from my husband? Who am I apart from my mother?" And that doesn't mean rebelliousness. It just means truthfulness. Okay. Yes. Bob. Biology or, um, acculturation? Lots of women kind of move through. I was wondering if you think that for lots of men, they get enculturated to be threes because they're sold certainly, you're right. In the United States of America, I think every boy thinks he should be a three in some way. Which, which, you know, how many boys that defeats in every high school? "I'm not a three. I'm never going to be able to run circles around everybody else like the threes do." I think that's correct. Yes. I'm not. And I don't need to be. And we could take this to every other country too. What its compulsive seeing is, is every Swiss boy told, in fact, he should be a moralistic little soldier. He probably is, until very recently. Until very recently. Yes. Dick. If you are taught to be this three as you age and your environment changes, do you, can you be something else? I think so. In other words, the assumption is, "I'm the wrong number. I'm, yeah, if I'm thinking I'm something that I'm really not, then of course you can change." I'm going to be traditional and fatalistic on I'm going to say your real number. However, you cannot change. You can only redeem it, liberate it, and use it for good. You tame your demons and turn them into angels. I started with that, and it's important that I move toward the end with that too. You are, I don't know why. I think it's the shape of original sin. You are one basic number forever. Some of you are going to try to avoid that and you're going to go out here saying, "Oh, I'm a little bit of three and a little bit of four, a little bit of seven." No, you aren't. Please trust me on this. It will profit you nothing. It will be no more than a parlor game. It will not convert you or change your life until you have the humility to accept you are one big blindness, and that one is the one that that has to be faced. And you'll avoid that facing by saying, "I'm a perfect ten," and someone always says, or that I'm a little bit of a whole bunch of them. You are one of them. But I'm finally going to entrust you to come to that insight. If we had three days, five days, we could probably do panels, and you'd sit in different groups, and I'd say, "If you think you're one, go to this table." And you sit around those ones and you say, "Oh God, these aren't my kind of people. I'm leaving. I'm leaving this table." But we don't have time for that. So the discernment is going to be back on you. Most of you are going to know within the next 24 hours, except the sixes and the nines. The nines will not be able to find their focus, and the sixes will want an authority to reassure them. But if you, if you sixes can do without the authority reassurance, and nines can find your focus, you'll all know very soon. Yes. You're talking about going from the negative to the redemptive. Yes. Uh-huh. So other than just reading and listening, yeah, how can one get to use the anything? Okay. All right. And let's say you have a spiritual director that doesn't understand Enneagram, doesn't use it. So how do you get there? All right. It's, it's going to sound simplistic, and like I'm even avoiding the question, but I don't think I am. The genius of the Enneagram is that it isn't based on any technique or formula. There, there isn't almost anything here to fight, except you put it out, and the insight itself is is the clap of the master's hand. And when you get the insight, the scaffolding falls or begins to fall. It's all based on insight. It's epiphany education. All right. You know, and, and, um, now you're saying, "Okay, once I get the original epiphany, how can I continue to grow with it?" Well, I suppose that would be, you know, why we put some of these books over here. Suzanne Zerker, a Benedictine nun out of Chicago. I think her book on, uh.

Enneagram spirituality is brilliant, I think. The new uh Rizzo and Hudson book, The Wisdom of the Enneagram, really leads you to the next stages. I'm really just giving you the foundations here, and I think you know that. But I hope I'm giving you open-ended avenues that you can move beyond.

But the insight will keep deepening. Like, I learned this in the early 70s, and I am still in 2004 discovering ways that I'm a one. Isn't that amazing? And the humiliation will still confront me. I'll go back to my house and say, "You did it again, Dick, Ducky," because my parents called me that. "Um, you did it again." And you'd think I'm supposed to be a teacher of it. I'm supposed to know this. I'm supposed to be good at it. That's how deep the compulsion is. And that becomes finally your humility, that you know, I'll never totally be without it. I'll carry my sin to the grave, as it were. That, that is hard for the ego to bear, that I cannot conquer over this entirely. All you can do is enough so that you don't keep destroying yourself or hurting other people too much. And when you hurt other people, you start being able to see it. You understand. So that gives you room for apology and asking for forgiveness. "I did it again." That, I think, that's the thorn in the flesh that that Paul talks about, to keep us from getting too proud, that we keep seeing, I by any technique or formula cannot make myself perfect. Oh, that's humiliating. You can't. You can.

And that same compassion which you have toward yourself, I hope you will after this be able to extend to other people. You could say, "This is a school of compassion," because, you know, just as you're trapped, as I am in my damn oneness, right? You're trapped in your own little ways too. So if you got to put up with me, I guess I can put up with you. I mean, it's, it's almost that simple. And you stop taking everything personally. You know, "She's just doing that." "I know, she's just doing that to get me." No, she's just a two, and that's the way twos are. You know, she isn't just doing that to get you. That's your egocentricity that, that is interpreting it that way. And, and the more I have to be patient with my one, the more I learn to be patient with, with your three and six and four. Five minutes. We've got time for one more. Yes. Are there any prayer types that are better? Yeah, for certain types? Yeah. Yep. Well, that's a whole retreat. That's all right. I, in in light of that, it probably is best to point you to some of the books on prayer and the Enneagram. But very quickly, I can say that contemplation, even though these people are the best at it in a certain sense because they like to be alone, um, and they like to withdraw, maybe I should put it that way, they're actually, uh, terrible at it because they like to think. And so contemplation teaches you how to stop the thinking function, you see.

Now, uh, of course, I'm of the opinion the contemplative prayer is where everybody is led finally. For the two, three, and four, the reason contemplative prayer is good is you have to stop associating and identifying with your feelings. Just as the, the head people have to stop identifying with their thoughts. We got people, uh, sure, contemplative prayer is good for us, but we tend to have so much body energy. And my spiritual director helped me see that walking meditation for me is often more fruitful than sitting meditation. At our July conference here at the Hyatt, we're going to be teaching Thomas Keating and I, uh, talk walking meditation too. That if you have a high metabolism, as a lot of people do, and all of us when you're young, and all gut people, you have energy that needs to be expelled. And, and so very often, if that's true of you, to find some way to be expelling the energy, I can often be more centered and more in union, conscious union, when I'm walking than when I'm in the lotus position. So I want to give all of you that freedom. I think that's why we had things in the Catholic tradition like pilgrimage and the Way of the Cross and the movement united with prayer. So I'd be very non-Buddhist in that regard. This idealizing of sitting the body perfectly still is going to lead you to enlightenment. I don't think that's always true at all. I think stilling the mind, yes, but you've got to find a way to expel this body energy that all of us are holding in various ways. And for me, to take a quiet, goalless walk and to consciously put one foot in front of the other with love and freedom, I mean, after a while, I just want to float. It becomes so sweet and so wonderful. But I think that's true of us body people, and in various ways, it might be true of a lot of the rest of you to trust various forms of movement. The fours can find it in dancing sometimes. Maybe a lot of you can find that your dancing can be an act of conscious communion with God. That's wonderful. It shouldn't have to just be sitting still. Okay. I think we got a break. Uh, now what's, is there any plan from here or is this it? Yeah, this is, this is enough. All right. Well, I, I know I'm, I'm, I'm losing my voice, so I'm glad it's enough. And, uh, I hand you over to the Lord. And let's end it then with a prayer.

Loving God, all of this is so that we can be with you, which is to be with ourselves, which is all we have. We thank you for this day and the humility of these sisters and brothers who've listened to me so long. You be their teacher from here. You be their guide. You tell them what to remember and what to forget. You let them know. You give them that epiphany that they need to break through and to break beyond. We put our lives in your hands. We thank you for this gift of the face of God, the nine faces of God, and we thank you that one of them is our face, and we pray that we can trust that face. We'll also see you and love you, and see not just with our eyes, but with your eyes too. We trust that this is happening already, and we offer our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. It's good. [Music]