Tag Archives: leadership

When the Shoe Fits

Posted on February 6, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

The Trappist Monk Thomas Merton is better known for his spiritual prose, but he was an artist and poet, as well. Eastern philosophies, including Buddhism and Taoism, inspired his writing, including his poetry, and his theology.

When we are at ease with our actions and speech, we work with remarkable dexterity. We understand technology as tools, however the etymology includes techne which is art and craft and logos has to do with speaking, discourse, and the rules that guide that speaking. Craftspeople and artists take time, gather their thoughts (become full of thought), and speak with and through their tools in creating artifacts which in turn call us to gather our thoughts in their use.

Merton’s poem speaks of the ease and knowing one’s craft so well that conversations with and through tools feel right as the craftsperson experiences tools and creating intimately. The human and their tools form a mindful and caring relationship. John Dewey proposed that mind was a verb. We mind, care for, appreciate, and attend to our tools and they respond to this mindfulness.

From the Chinese of Chuang Tzu

Ch’ui the draftsman
Could draw more perfect circles freehand
Than with a compass.

His fingers brought forth
Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind
Was meanwhile free and without concern
With what he was doing.

No application was needed
His mind was perfectly simple
And knew no obstacle.

So, when the shoe fits
The foot is forgotten,
When the belt fits
The belly is forgotten,
When the heart is right
“For” and “against” are forgotten.

No drives, no compulsions,
No needs, no attractions:
Then your affairs
Are under control.
You are a free man.

Easy is right. Begin right
And you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right. The right way to go easy
Is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy.

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Observing life differently….

Posted on February 4, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

In any given moment I have two options: to step forward into growth, or to step back into safety – Abraham Maslow

Source: Observing life differently….

Being mindful assumes an awareness that growth comes with potential risk. We live in a world that is often described in technical ways, and not as one filled with other humans, animals, plants, and objects that we have relationships with When we construct a technical world, we strip the world and us of potential relationships which allow us to grow. Part of mindfulness is to be aware playing it safe includes risk. What did I miss? Who did I miss? Even in playing it safe, there are no guarantees. There are inherent risks.

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Tea

Posted on February 3, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Amy Uyematsu wrote this poem for the Zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. In several books, he describes the peacefulness of drinking tea, washing dishes, and being a parent. The key to success, and it is hard to accomplish, is to be present and give one’s self over to the task, the person, and moment being shared.

Carl D’Agostino at I Know I Made You Smile reminded me today that the present is “very trying times for most of us.” It is. I find it easier to fictionalize the past and fantasize the future, but it is demanding to be present to the moment I share with someone else, a task, and/or an object.

The poem suggests this living in the present is not a task to be mastered, but something we engage with throughout our lives and it is hard work. Reading the poem gives me a sense of what a great role model Thich Nhat Hanh would be as he makes time for the present moment.

I read articles about mindfulness as a corporate strategy for leaders and followers alike. The authors often treat mindfulness as if it is something we can turn on and off at will, that there are 5 easy steps to follow. I know, from personal experience and missteps, that it is not that easy to live in the present moment each and every moment. The sunset I watch, the tea I drink, and the smiles I share with loved ones are not always easy to capture in the moment. It takes a life time of practice that is never complete.

How many years of suffering
revealed in hands like his
small and deliberate as a child’s

The way he raises them
from his lap, grasps the teacup
with sure, unhurried ease

Yet full of anticipation
for what he will taste in each sip
he drinks as if it’s his first time

Lifts the cup to his mouth,
a man who’s been practicing all his life,
each time tasting something new.

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Change

Posted on January 30, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. ― Rumi

Source: Change

I enjoy Rumi. He wrote poetry that yielded lasting messages.

We live in a world where people want to change the world, rather than themselves. However, the world changes when we change ourselves. I transform and move beyond who I was, even the second before. As I change, my view of the world shifts and the world appears new to me.

It reminds me of Marcel Proust‘s quote: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Leaders who believe they can change the world for others are mere managers. Leaders change the world for themselves and invite others to join them in sharing their view of the world. There are not two identical views.

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Looking for the Differences

Posted on January 30, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Tom Hennen wrote about the differences that can fill our senses each day. Sometimes, humans do not notice what is different as differences can hide in nooks and crannies of our daily lives. When we do sense the differences, they can excite our senses and call us to take care around them. In their daily existences, these things are “royalty in their own country.”

The words thing and objects used in the poem can be replaced by persons and subjects. How many people do we miss and avoid, because they look, speak, and act differently? There is a strangeness in the royalty of the other that calls upon us to question not them, but our self.

Hans-Georg Gadamer suggested that when some one or something different shows itself humans pull up short. Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas wrote that when the stranger appears at the door the host is faced with a paradox of unconditional responsiblity and risk. When we greet the stranger and what is different, we do so with uncertainty. The words host, hospitality, and hostile share etymological roots. We cannot know in advance who and what strangers represent when we greet them, but in Abrahamic tradition (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the host is responsible for the care and well-being of that stranger.

Perhaps in being attentive and mindful to the world we exist in, we can better serve the stranger and what is strange when they appear.

I am struck by the otherness of things rather than their sameness.

The way a tiny pile of snow perches in the crook of a branch in the

tall pine, away by itself, high enough not to be noticed by people,

out of reach of stray dogs. It leans against the scaly pine bark, busy

at some existence that does not need me.

It is the differences of objects that I love, that lift me toward the rest

of the universe, that amaze me. That each thing on earth has its own

soul, its own life, that each tree, each clod is filled with the mud of

its own star. I watch where I step and see that the fallen leaf, old

broken grass, an icy stone are placed in exactly the right spot on the

earth, carefully, royalty in their own country.

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Sonnet XIV from The Sonnets To Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke

Posted on January 28, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Reblogged on WordPress.com

Source: Sonnet XIV from The Sonnets To Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke

The last two stanzas challenge us to think about whether our roles are submissive and passive affairs or ones where we have some mastery and active choice. My mother used to tell us that we had free choice and had to accept responsibility for the consequences of those choices. She told us we are not empty vessels created by God, whatever that belief is, but responsible people with free choice.

The liberty of others and their choices constrains our personal liberty. Without differences, life would be a boring space without room for creativity and growth, a moving to the surface that is fraught with potential challenges.

Similar to the plants in Rilke‘s poem, we face obstacles and constraints. We exist and flourish within those constraints when we find the proper paths to live lives fully. It is no easy task, but one that can bring great fulfillment. When care for and tend to those paths, our lives become filled with vigour, often flourishing because of the lessons learned from finding those paths.

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The Frog

Posted on January 28, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives. source: Teton Sioux Proverb image: Eddie Two Hawks, Image Collection, The Frog

The local is important in how we live life and experience our environments. Sometimes, we look at the world and it seems larger than the world we experience, as it most immediately. We can never fully know the world, but we can know most the world we live in most immediately. It is imperative to not spoil that world. When each community fulfills its ethical and practical role, this overlaps others’ roles, feeding the whole.

Source: The Frog

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School Prayer

Posted on January 23, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

The second stanza of this poem is a great message for the world today. When we hate, we take something out of the world. The world is a place in need of love, humility. wonder, and peace.

Diane Ackerman writes a wonderful poem that offers insight into the world and with. John Dewey suggested the world is not separated into objective or subjective worlds, but is a continuous forming and conversing between the two we each engage in moment-to-moment.

What would happen if this prayer and poem began each day for us and our children?

In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
and my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,

and in the mansions of the stars.

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Shedding our Skin

Posted on January 21, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again – Jack Kornfield

Source: Shedding our Skin

We live with traditions, personal and societal, that often confound us and act as screens over our eyes. Finding ways to reveal our prejudices and knowing they exist, is a hard job. It is not essential to give them up. Gadamer argued that our prejudices allow us to navigate the world we live in from moment-to-moment; however, when they obstruct us and keep us from ethical behaviour, it becomes important to shed them.

When we acknowledge our prejudices and ourselves as historical beings, this takes the form of a question that can guide mindful and aesthetic reflections.

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Adios

Posted on January 20, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

When we say good-bye to something or someone, the word means more than we say. We hold thoughts and images of what and who we leave behind. Our work, when we say Adios, is incomplete. We recall the memories of things and people we left behind, as we said and waved good-bye. The memories bring smiles, tears, shrugs, and frowns, among other features, to our face and body.

When we say good-bye, there is always something and someone calling us back, perhaps only in our mind as we reach out. The space fills with questions about what we left and a sense of wondering about what is happening with that thing or that person.

Naomi Shihab Nye captured the essence of good-bye as it rolls off our tongues and as we tap our fingers marroed to it. Thoughts and images fill our minds as we reflect on what that word, regardless of language, might mean.

It is a good word, rolling off the tongue;

no matter what language you were born with

use it. Learn where it begins,

the small alphabet of departure,

how long it takes to think of it,

then say it, then be heard.

Marry it. More than any golden ring,

it shines, it shines.

Wear it on every finger

till your hands dance,

touching everything easily,

letting everything, easily, go.