Ideals in Motion

Speed Bumps in Life...

When I consider what's required of me in order to sustain an ideal life, a fulfilled life, it's crucial that I continuously find ways to increase my awareness of what I am bringing to that life. What I will come to notice are the raw materials with which I am continuously starting over!

The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
that we fail to notice
there is little we can do
to change.
Until we notice
how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds. 
                                   - R.D. Lang

A Place of Awakening...

When I think of ideals in motion I'm struck by how easy it is to lose momentum. Life happens, comfort develops, societal expectations take hold and I look up one day and find I'm living a life that I hadn't planned for. My dreams – my ideals – have gone into hibernation. The voice of reason has sung them to sleep.

Deep in the martial art traditions of Japan there is a concept called bodhimanda. It's from this concept that the idea of a dojo – a place of practice – was born. All martial artists practice in a dojo. It's a place to be a learner; it's a place to practice to mastery; it's a place that connects the "artist" to the ideal of the particular martial art being practiced. The concept of bodhimanda imbues the dojo with a meaning that makes it a special place in which to practice. Bodhimanda is a Sanskrit word that means, literally, a place where we come together to wake up.

Do I have a place in my life that challenges me to "wake up" my ideals? In our organizations do we have a place that keeps us awake and cognizant of the organization's ideals? What would be such a place? It's possible that mindful and intentional conversation could be the bodhimanda of the organization. Conversations that challenge us; that jolt us to awaken to the ideals we came together to realize.

Swaddling, freedom, and life...

I’m a new grandfather. In the past year our daughter and our son have each had their first children come into the world. For this, I will be eternally grateful. Being allowed to witness in these small children a view of humanity’s common experience with awakening, emerging, and letting go I am a student in awe.

I never understood swaddling – the binding up of a newborn to the point where they can’t move and are held firmly in check. Oh, I understood the clinical reasoning for swaddling an infant. But I never fully appreciated how comforting swaddling is to the newborn’s nervous system. And I definitely never appreciated how the need for it never truly leaves us as we move into the world. In an earlier posting I quoted the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard as having written that “anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” Watch a newborn’s anxiety increase as he or she dizzily waves their arms and kicks their legs unconstrained by the familiar confines of the womb and you’ll know exactly what this is about. Having a way to contain myself provides me a sense of comfort that comes with knowing my boundaries. We start small and, if we’re diligent, we learn to expand the boundaries that comfortably contain us – our swaddle – to take up more space, to have more impact, to be more. If we are unfamiliar with our boundaries, if we haven’t mindfully expanded them we are like that small infant only our dizzy thrashings cause us and those around us far more distress.

When we grow we test and expand and change our boundaries. This is a natural state that needs to be consciously attended to by adults. The world – our world – is a world of immense possibility. How much of the world does my “container” allow me to have access to? This is a great way to think about keeping my ideals in motion. It’s not that the world isn’t coming to my door. The world is at my door and what I need to do is build a boundary – what we call a containment field – that can include not exclude what I want to have and how I want to be. In a very real sense, what limits me isn’t who I think I am…it’s who I think I’m not. What limits me is the size of the containment field I’ve constructed to meet the world. My containment fields, my many and varied boundaries, are where I begin, not where I end. They are the doorway through which my ideals access the world.