In the last couple of days I have learned a couple of secrets about breathing and smiling.
I was listening to a recording of a teaching by Thich Nhat Hahn from the 1980s and he said this:
At the end of a retreat in California, a friend wrote this poem:
I have lost my smile,
but don?t worry,
The dandelion has it.
If you have lost your smile and yet are still capable of seeing that a dandelion is keeping it for you, the situation is not too bad. You still have enough mindfulness to see that the smile is there. You only need to breathe consciously one or two times and you will recover your smile. The dandelion is one member of your community of friends. It is there, quite faithful, keeping your smile for you. In fact, everything around you is keeping your smile for you. You don?t need to feel isolated. You only have to open yourself to the support that is all around you, and in you. Like the friend who saw that her smile was being kept by the dandelion, you can breathe in awareness, and your smile will return.
Thich Nhat Hahn also reminds us to smile when we breathe in meditation, to reclaim our smile from whatever is holding it when we aren’t.
The second secret – two secrets really – I learned from my friend, Myriam Laberge and they were about facilitation. First, understand that the operating system of groups is in fact breathing: take an in breath to collect the oxygen you need for living, breath out to disperse energies and toxins and breathe in again. Groups thrive when they breathe, and when the transition between in breath and outbreath is marked with a sense of accomplishment and agreement, a point where we look around the group and smile. Anything you can do to get a group through this process once, helps you to build momentum so that as you open up the group to bigger and bigger work, they already have that experience of converging and smiling. Even the most conflicted group can agree on something, even if it’s the quality of the weather at the moment. Going through the cycle of opening and converging brings life and fresh oxygen to group work.
And so, leading from this Myriam’s second secret is that any process will work with this operating system but only if the facilitator is aligned authentically with it. This is why as facilitators we get into the groove on certain processes. They more we use them and deepen our understanding of them, the more authentic they become and the better we are able to work with the operating system that invites breath and smile.
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Every year I look back on all the work I have been a part of, and I like to publically thanks everyone who has invited me to be a part of their lives this year. It has been a busy one, with trips to New Zealand, the United States, and every Canadian province from British Columbia to Quebec. So thanks are due to the following groups who invited me to come work with them:
- Office of the Dean of Medicine, University of British Columbia
- Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Familiy Services
- Office for Accesa and Diversity, University of British Columbia
- The Joint Working Group on Long Term Care for First Nations and Inuit communities
- Greater Vancouver Urban Aboriginal Strategy
- First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Pacific Region, Health Canada
- Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centres programs in Prince Albert and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
- Aboriginal Business Development Centre, Prince George
- New Economy Development Group and the Economic Development Directorate of Indian and Northern Affairs, BC Region.
- Karyo and the City of Kelowna Transportation Division
- Aboriginal Education Branch, BC Ministry of Advanced Education
- Ngati Koata, Ngati Tama, Wakatu Incorporated and the Community Employment Group of the New Zealand Department of Labour
- Assembly of First Nations Renewal Commission
- Building our Legacy Together Initiative, BC ASsembly of First Nations
- Native Economic Development Advisory Board, BC Minstry of Community, Aboriginal and Women’s Services
- Intergovernmental Affairs Directorate, Indian and Northn Affairs Canada, BC Region
- Vancouver Island Aboriginal Transition Team
- Sijitus project, Sliammon First Nations, Treaty Office
- Prince George Nechako Aboriginal Employment and Training Society and the Aboriginal Human Resource Development Agreement Holders in BC
- Aboriginal Education Program, Vancouver School Board
- Musqueam First Nation
- Provincial Aboriginal Social and Economic Strategy, Aboriginal Directorate, BC Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women’s Services
- MBA Core Team, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia
- experian, Learning and Organizational Effectiveness Team
- First Citizen’s Forum, Aboriginal Directorate, BC Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women’s Services
- Victoria Native Friendship Centre
- Coast Salish Employment and Training Society
- Aboriginal Financial Officers Association of BC
I would also like to thank my associates and partners who have worked with me over this past year, including Chris Robertson, Michael Herman, Crystal Sutherland, Cheryl Matthew, Sienna MacMillian, Brenna Latimer, David Stevenson, Stan Bear, April Bosshard, Brian Creswick, Kathryn Thompson, Mere Wetere and Michael Elkington.
And a happy new year to all the readers of Parking Lot. There is much going wrong in the world, from war to tsunamis to the smaller personal losses in all our lives, but your reading and contributions to this weblog are gifts that shimmer in the dross and keep me focused on what matters.
See you in 2005.
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From a conversation with Krishnamurti, on the art of listening:
Sir, what is seeing, and what is listening, and what is learning? I think the three are related to each other: learning, hearing and seeing. What is seeing, perceiving? Do we actually see, or do we see through a screen darkly? A screen of prejudice, a screen of our idiosyncracies, experiences, our wishes, pleasures, fears, and obviously our images about that which we see and about ourselves? So we have this screen after screen between us and the object of perception. So do we ever see the thing at all? Or is it the seeing is coloured by our knowledge, mechanical, experience, and so on and so on, or our images which we have about that thing, or the beliefs in which the mind is conditioned, and therefore prevents the seeing, or the memories which the mind has cultivated prevents the seeing? So seeing may not take place at all. And is it possible for the mind not to have these images, conclusions, beliefs, memories, prejudices, fears, and without having those screens just to look? I think this becomes very important because when there is a seeing of the thing which I am talking about, when there is a seeing you can’t help but acting.
David Bohm, after many conversations with Krishnamurti, developed the concept of Dialogue in which seeing and suspending were intimately related. Krishnamurti here points to suspending biases and conditioning that allow us to both see to the root of things and listen deeply to one another.
I’m curious about how people might do this is daily life. It’s one thing to enter a deeply relfective state in a retreat and practice seeing and listening, but in daily life, when these practices are critical, how do we quickly enter that state where real seeing is possible? What do you do to set aside your biases, prejudices, assumptions and conclusions? How do you suspend in the moment?
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Rob Paterson is leading a charge for a new movement, taking Martin Luther for his inspiration:
“The great wheel of time has come full circle. Once again a small group of people have given up their attempts of internal reform. Once again, they look to how business can serve mankind and not a few men. Once again they seek to replace the institution with direct relationships between men and women. Once again, they seek to replace dogma with the observed design and ways of nature.
Once again a new technology for communication has arrived to aid this group to spread the word. Once again, the voice of people is being heard around the world and those that control the media, like those that controlled the pulpits and the church lists of approved texts, tremble.”
Nailing the theses to the door, I’d say. Even though the 95 Theses meme was used by Cluetrain, you can’t have too much 21st century protestantism. Stay tuned…
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The fact that externalizing a thing makes it disappear is usually a bad thing. Describing rather than experiencing…
This reminds of me of how to make a headache disappear. I�m not making this up. You describe the headache�its shape, color, and location�then you estimate how much water it can hold. You answer each question in turn, looking carefully. Then you return to the first question.
What happens is, your answers change each time through. I think this is because your headache changes. Or maybe it�s the other way around: your headache changes because your answers change. In any case there comes a point at which there�s nothing left to change because at that point the headache is gone, you�ve described it out of existence.