I was really struck with Chris Weaver's piece about Indigenous Science - if only because (as my twisted mind saw it) it fit right in with a wonderful extended conversation I have been having with some Japanese colleagues. These are the self same people I wrote about some time ago who promised to introduce me to a Zen Master who never showed up - except that it turned out the Master was already present in the person of the company's President. We are going to talk a lot more next Fall, and in preparation for that conversation I sent them the following. The note is actually addressed to Yumiko, a daughter of the president who has been acting as the go-between, given my total lack of fluency in Japanese.
***************************** Three Days of Dialogue: When I met with your Father and your colleagues at your "other" office what intrigued me the most were the parallels and convergences between my observations of the evolution of human consciousness/Spirit and those of your Father. I could see (or perhaps better "feel") many possibilities coming out of this discussion in terms of a deeper understanding of the power of Open Space as a consciousness enhancing experience and also the role of the facilitator in Open Space. The time was too short, and we could not go deep enough, but it was definitely a start. Thinking back on that experience and looking forward to our time together, it occurred to me that while the conversation was definitely great, it perhaps started at the wrong point. Let me be specific. As you all know, I believe that one of the ways of understanding why and how Open Space works is to see it as an expression of self-organization. The real point is that there is no particular "magic" in the method (OS), it is just that I just happenstantially (my two martini story) found a way of enabling groups to quickly and easily self-organize around issues of concern. But self-organization has been around a lot longer than Open Space, and for sure I did not invent it! What this suggests is that the starting point of our conversation should not be Open Space, but rather that which is behind or beneath Open Space - self-organization. Or put in slightly different terms, Open Space becomes a very handy laboratory environment in which to observe and experiment with the force of self-organization. One of the things that we have noticed over the years with Open Space around the world is that no matter the culture of the participants, the actual behaviors are almost identical in all cases. Which might lead to the conclusion that all human beings respond to the power of self organization in an identical manner on the level of discrete behaviors. This would make sense if only because self-organization has been an operative force in the universe well before the arrival of human beings. In a word we all started from the same place. But what we have never really looked at (thought about, questioned) is what do different groups of people think about their experience, and how do they make sense out of it? This is getting a little complicated I am sure - but my thought is this. Just as all human beings have made certain accommodations to Gravity in terms of their behavior (nobody wants to jump off a cliff, for example) - how they think about Gravity, the story they tell about it, is probably quite different from group to group. In the case of self-organization, I suspect that something similar may have taken place. At a behavioral level we all respond to self-organization in the same way, a response which is largely automatic and unconscious. But different cultures/traditions will have interpreted our responses and the forces which instigated them in many ways. For example in the Chinese tradition it seems to me that one might understand the writings of Sun Tsu / "The Art of War" to be such an interpretation. I have no idea what the Zen interpretation might be, but maybe you do? In the Native American traditions, I do know that the people spend much time, thought and energy seeking alignment with the "flow of mother earth." There always seems to be a Spiritual dimension to all of this, or more exactly the distinction between the Spiritual and the material is blurred, eliminated, or simply reversed in terms of priority or "realness." (Hindu/Buddhist story is that consciousness is primary and matter only an "illusion.") All of these traditions are united by a common fact - they are old, very old. At least they are very ancient when compared with the "Modern, Western Scientific Tradition." Until very recently, Western Scientific Tradition had absolutely no story about Self-Organization. In fact it had never even noticed self-organization. It is only within the last 20-30 years that the awareness of self-organization has forced itself into the world of Western Science. Up to this point, this has been a very uncomfortable and even traumatic experience, and at some level, the emerging stories/theories have been dedicated to containing, or even invalidating the "reality of self-organization." A small, but interesting example of this is the general reaction to Open Space in the West. Even though it has been used thousands of time with similar results, OS is treated as an odd, surprising exception which really should not even happen. Contrast this reaction with the typical reaction I have encountered in Indigenous Societies in Africa and the United States where I have been privileged to "Open Space." There is no sense of surprise except the surprise that I as a westerner would "know" how to do such a thing! Well I have gone on, perhaps too much. But my thought for our conversation/dialogue might be this. That we start with the ball in your court and ask the question: How would you interpret Open Space (and therefore self-organization) in terms of the Zen tradition? How would you tell the story? What sense would you make out of the experience? What special things can we learn about Open Space and self-organization when viewed from Zen eyes? In preparation for all this, it would obviously be helpful if you all could have done some Open Spaces with yourselves and/or with some clients - so that the experience is your own. And I, of course, will be pleased to add whatever I can from my own experience. I have no idea where this would take us, but I am positive that the scenery on the journey will be most interesting. And who knows, if something really works, maybe someday we could expand the conversation to include others who will bring different traditions? Just some thoughts - and Yumiko if this doesn't work, there are all sorts of other thoughts. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20854 Phone 301-365-2093 Skype hhowen Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website www.ho-image.com OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html> * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
