On Living, Leading, (Re)designing, and Coaching

Relishing Greatness

Much of the time we live life from the assessment that something is wrong. We do all manner of things because something is wrong.

We change jobs because something is wrong. We get married because something is wrong. We break  up because something is wrong. We go to school because something is wrong. We start friendships because something is wrong. We end friendships for the same reason. We have kids because something is wrong. We move houses, neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries because something is wrong. We call meetings because something is wrong. We launch new projects because something is wrong. We build new products because something is wrong. We discover new medicines because something is wrong. And on and on ...

Everything we do seems to be for covering up the something-wrong-ness of existence. But alas, the something-wrong-ness of existence appears to be bottomless with no end in sight.

This bottomless-endlessness of the something-wrong-ness points, I think, not to something that is true of life but rather something which is true of us - those who hold that there is something wrong.

What it points to is that we are that something is wrong - as an identity. And everywhere we show up ... guess what? ... we find that something is wrong.  That's what we bring to every situation we encounter.

What if the things we did were for being satisfied and relishing the greatness of existence? 

Who would we need to be - as an identity - to have this existence?

What keeps us from living as that identity?

-Steve

On the Power of Letting Go and Taking Another Look

The process of dwelling-in-a-distinction consists of repeatedly "getting" and "loosing" the distinction.

I often remind students in the Integral Coaching courses I teach in that throughout the year they will "get" what coaching is and then "loose" what coaching is over and over again.   And I tell them not to worry.  That this is the necessary process of assimilating and dwelling in new ontological distinctions.

Of course, what they "get" each time is slightly different - slightly deeper in richness and subtle nuances.

Indeed this was and remains my own path as a coach - getting it, loosing it.

Best not to grasp and try to hold on ... that only makes the process more difficult, confusing, and anxiety-producing.  Instead, always be ready to let go and to yet take another look.  Letting go, then taking another look is a very powerful way of participating in our own unfoldment.

Take care,

-Steve

Stuff

Everyone on the planet should watch this ... http://www.storyofstuff.com/. Shifting to a sustainable way of living depends on everyone understanding what this video is pointing to.

Enjoy!

-Steve

A Couple of Rat Turds - more insights on The Witness and The Observer ...

This post is an addendum to The Witness and The Observer posted a few days ago. As with that post, those of you who don't have an interest in the boundaries between hermeneutic-phenomenology and spirituality might like to skip this.

Adding to what was already written ...

The Witness is the home of meaninglessness. The Observer is the home of meaningfulness.

The Observer exists in the domain of opposites, polarities, and paradoxes (e.g., good and bad, warm and cold, male and female, existing and not existing). The Witness never experiences opposites, polarities, and paradoxes.

The Witness has no structure or form and is outside of time in the eternal Now. The Observer has a narrative structure and is temporal, having a past, present, and future.

From the interpretation of The Observer we exist as an historical being - a self. From the experience of The Witness we are an ahistorical being - a Self.

As a self, we have concerns, emotional reactions, beliefs, intentions, goals and agendas, and conditioned tendencies (habits). As a Self, we have none of that. As a self we have choices. A quality of the Self is choicelessness.

The Self is the self's possibility for freedom and transformation.

It is within the dialectic between The Witness and The Observer that transformation of The Observer occurs.

This dialectic at once (partially) deconstructs The Observer through experiences of meaninglessness and  reconstructs The Observer as meaning is construed and constructed.

The Self is the "nothingness" out of which declarations are created. Declarations always refer to the world of The Observer.

Transformation of The Observer changes the form of our existence to ourselves in the present. The Witness is never transformed for that which is formless cannot be re-formed.

Transformation of The Observer allows us to take greater responsibility for the historical being we are. In taking greater responsibility for our historical being, we can live into new future possibilities through declaration of new self-narratives.

This distinction of The Witness and The Observer is dualistic. This brings to mind the notion from the Heart Sutra "Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form." Form characterizes The Observer whereas emptiness characterizes The Witness. But as Hakuin says in his commentary on the Heart Sutra, "A nice hot kettle of stew. He ruins it by dropping a couple of rat turds in."

A couple of rat turds - form and emptiness, The Observer and The Witness. Perhaps we shouldn't ruin the stew.

I recall an instance when I was volunteering in the kitchen at Green Gulch Zen Farm with a friend of mine who is also a student of spirituality and philosophy. We were "talking shop" as we cooked and in the middle of our conversation he asked "But what or who experiences non-duality?" And without a moment's hesitation to think I said, "Non-duality 'experiences' non-duality." And within the distinctions I'm exploring here that means no Witness and no Observer can experience non-duality.

Hope you enjoyed this ...

-Steve

The Buddha's Business Narrative

Lately, I've been working on building three different businesses. And at the center of all business-building is  articulation of the business narrative.

The dramatic structure of the narrative follows the "plot mountain" that we all (supposedly) learned in grade school - exposition of conflict, rising action, climax or turning point, falling action, and resolution or denouement. Is it coming back? Not too nightmarish I hope.

A business narrative frames the conflict that the business addresses, how the it addresses the conflict, and what you'll get from buying the resolution from the business.

For some reason I had the weird idea to look at the world's major religions through the lens of business narratives.

One of the very first teachings Buddha gave after becoming enlightened was on The Four Noble Truths.  They are:

1. Life is suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is possible.
4. The way leading to the cessation of suffering is The Noble Eightfold Path.

This is Buddha's business narrative.  The exposition of conflict is Noble Truth #1 - life is suffering.  The rising action is Noble Truth #2 - recognition of the origin of suffering. In a way the second truth doesn't really get us anywhere because we can understand where suffering comes from but still not be free from suffering. But the second truth does give the Buddha some credibility. Perhaps this is leading somewhere helpful we might be thinking.

The climax or turning point is the Buddha's declaration in the third Noble Truth that the cessation of suffering is possible. What a radical departure from how we experience life.  On the heals of the climax, he offers us the way - The Noble Eightfold Path. This is the falling action that leads to the implied denouement - no more suffering.

Wonder how much The Noble Eightfold Path costs? :-)

Unfortunately(?), it costs nothing less than giving up everything you take yourself to be, everything you take others to be, and everything you take the world to be. In spite of his crappy pricing strategy, he's doing pretty well with anywhere from 350 million to 1.7 billion customers worldwide, including me.

-Steve

 

The Witness and The Observer

If you aren't interested in the ontology of the observer you can skip this post. It is somewhat philosophical and will only be of interest to a few of you, I suspect.

Last week I was reflecting on the notion that you can only observe that which you have language for in light of experiences I frequently have that I don't have language for.

An insight ... there is a distinction between witnessing and observing even though we usually consider these as synonyms in our everyday usage of the words.

Indeed you can only observe what you have language (distinctions) for. As a result, observations can be shared with others. What you can observe determines what exists for you - not what is real - just what exists for you. What can be observed is determined by our structure of interpretation. The observer is an interpreter.

From observations we get narratives and, perhaps most importantly, self-narratives. That is our notion of ourselves - who we are to ourselves - comes from observations.

As an illustration of this refer to Helen Keller's account of learning her first word "water" and how that brought into existence for her the meaning of meaning, temporal narrative (past, present, and future) and her sense of being a self.  Yes, all of that requires the distinction of language itself.

The witness can experience experiences for which there is no language. That is, the witness can witness what can't be observed.

Of course, the obvious question is what is being witnessed? Is it reality? All I can say is that what is witnessed cannot be described by any distinction and, in particular, cannot be described as existing or not existing.

This calls to mind Lao Tzu's claim that "The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao." And just to cut off a road commonly taken he goes on to say you can't say the Tao is Nothingness or Beingness for those are distinctions too.

Of course, all I'm doing here is merely observing the witness. What of witnessing the witness?

This points to the answer to so many Zen koans ... "What is your original face?" for example ...

-Steve

Why we should teach philosophical inquiry to kids ...

There was an interesting post in TEDblog earlier this month called "Why we should teach philosophy to kids". The post reports on a study of 105 kids who were taught using the Socratic Method for 1 hour a week for 16 months. The study concluded that "compared with 72 control children, the philosophy children showed significant improvements on tests of their verbal, numerical and spatial abilities." Further, when the "philosophy children" were tested again much later, the differences between the "control children" remained or even grew.

This touches something that I've been thinking about a lot lately.  That our educational system often aims at closure rather than openness.  We don't want questions that open new spaces of exploration so much as we want answers that close down exploration. We want certainty and conclusiveness.

Think about it ... did you ever take a test in school that asked you to generate new questions? I hope that some of you will say yes and tell stories of the best teacher you ever had who taught you to think new thoughts instead of regurgitate old ones. Unfortunately, in my own education - K through college - as far as I can recall, they always asked me to answer questions. And this includes my experiences in the working world.

Is it any wonder that companies often get stuck when faced with the necessity to innovate?  Is it any wonder  that people often get stuck in bad habits?

My growing sense is that (philosophical) inquiry is essential to living the good life.

-Steve

What's the point?

Thought for the day ...

"Consider what we often want out of books. We want the episodes to be related to one another in some way, we want to see a plot develop, and in the end we want to be able to see the point of it all. Now, in books there usually is a point, and the author probably tried to put it there, which is why, if it's a good book, we read on. But is there really a comparable kind of point to be found when the text is us? Or do we create one, precisely so that we can live on?" - Mark Freeman, Rewriting the Self

Is there a plot to our lives and does it have a point?

Or do we create one as we look back over the trajectory we've traveled?

What do you think?

Lately, I've been exploring the notion of self-narratives - stories we have about who we are - and under what conditions our self-narratives change - instances when we realize we aren't the same person we were yesterday because we've learned something or developed in some way.  I highly recommend Freeman's book, however, I'll warm you that he is a philosopher and the book is about as far away from self-help as you can get and still be talking about this subject.

Take care,

-Steve

Given the choice ...

Today's inspiration ...

Given the choice between suffering and bliss we always choose bliss ... this is why we suffer.

Perhaps the "choice" is between choosing and not choosing.

What if not choosing is actually what leads to bliss?

-Steve

On Being Open

Insight of the day ... only openness can sense openness.

Meaning, only a person who is open can sense the openness of others.  If you are closed, everyone will feel closed to you.

Have a great day!

-Steve