At the Public Resources page of the Center for Contemplative Dialogue you will find an interesting little publication called The Path of Contemplative Dialogue: Engaging the Collective Spirit (.pdf), by Stephen Wirth. In the book, contemplative dialogue is seen as radiating from some core principles: Trust in the basic unity of human people and all life. Nonviolence in spirit, word, and action. Commitment to seeking truth with compassion and humility. Commitment to speaking truth with compassion and humility. Willingness to risk suspending the rush to action. These principles are close to my core principles of facilitation but with some emphasis …
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I am thoroughly enjoying the podcasts of Alan Watts’ talks at the archive of alanwatts.com. Today, on the bus into Vancouver I listened to part four of “Seeing Through the Net” in which Watts talks about trust and control. The essence of his argument is this: in Judeo-Christian societies, humans are said to be born with sin, and are therefore inherently untrustworthy; to be precise, humans are unable to rely on their own judgements to make good decisions and decisions for the good. And so the way to deal with a population of largely untrustworthy neer-do-wells is to create an …
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It’s a Tsimshian expression that means “of one heart.” It was also the name of a very powerful appreciative summit I facilitated last year on youth suicide in northwestern British Columbia. Today Jane Morley, the Child and Youth Officer for British Columbia, and the convener of that gathering released her special report on the summit and its results. The report is available as a .pdf from her site. The gathering was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. On May 4th 2005 I saw nearly 200 Aboriginal youth step into a gathering rife with fear and trepidation and …
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Tunstall Bay, Bowen Island An old quote, freshly rediscovered: If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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Everyone wants action – that’s the current business buzzword. Dialogue and conversation seem fine “but they have to focus on action.” It’s almost growing tiresome to hear it. The problem with the mantra is that people rarely have any idea of what action really looks like. Very few people think through to the personal responsibility THEY might take in animating action. Even less see conversation and dialogue AS action. But today in my email box, comes confirmation that action is intimately connected to dialogue and when passion and reposnibility come together, real things happen. Back in the fall, my business …