\u201cThere is a collective dissatisfaction with the way things run\u2026. Even as we do our own work, all too often, we find ourselves having to choose between doing what we think is the right thing and doing the expected thing, or the required thing or the profitable thing\u2026. We worry that the people we depend on don\u2019t really have our interests at heart or if they do, they don\u2019t know us well enough to figure out to allow us to secure those interests\u2026. There are two kinds of responses to this general dissatisfaction.\u00a0 The first response is let\u2019s make more rules\u2026. And [the second is,] let\u2019s come up with particularly clever incentives\u2026.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Neither carrots nor sticks, however, work all that well. There\u2019s always a seam in the rule and incentives often reward the surface behavior but not the deeper purpose.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Schwartz is into Aristotle and talks about how Aristotle was into watching craftsman do their work. When stone masons needed to measure round columns but had only wooden rulers, they came up with the measuring tape \u2013 and bent the rule.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Although the expression now has the nuance of being self-serving \u2013 bending the rule to suit one\u2019s selfish interests \u2013 originally it expressed flexibility and practicality in serving our purpose for others.\u00a0 Aristotle and Schwartz call this \u201cpractical wisdom.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n In Buddhism, this is \u201cdharma\u201d in the sense of how to do things \u2013 like the dharma of eating breakfast \u2013 seamlessly with the other meanings of dharma (truth, teaching, and phenomena).\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Practical wisdom as a practice<\/i> is \u201cclear comprehension\u201d (or s<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>ampaja\u00f1\u00f1a<\/a>)<\/i><\/span> <\/span>which the Buddha almost always pairs with mindfulness. There are four aspects to the clear comprehension reflection: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0In Zen communities, it seems to me, we have a great possibility of not only having ethical guidelines (click here<\/a> for the Boundless Way draft that are well done, imv) but also creating a culture together where ethical reflection is the warp and woof of community life.\u00a0<\/span><\/span> http:\/\/video.ted.com\/assets\/player\/swf\/EmbedPlayer.swf The above presentation by Barry Schwartz is a complementary reflection regarding the Eido Shimano situation, dharma, and ethical guidelines.\u00a0 Schwartz suggests that neither rules nor incentives move us to what we really want \u2013 for ourselves and others to serve the greater good. They\u2019re necessary but the exercise of \u201cpractical wisdom,\u201d he says, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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Real ethical reflection and living a creative life cannot occur when traditional power is predominant (the tyranny of the autocrat). Nor can it occur when group think is pervasive. This is \u201cmodern power\u201d where the group acts as the authority, prescribing and enforcing norms (which can become the tyranny of the collective). I\u2019m concerned the Zen Studies Society and Eido Shimano incident will push American Zen even further into this mode of relationship. It\u2019s an improvement, of course, to traditional power and the attendant abuses (see the comments to the last post), however, it isn\u2019t the ideal.<\/span><\/span>
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The ideal, imv, would be to come together as responsible beings, tolerant of others\u2019 narratives, and reflect open-heartedly about how to apply practical wisdom in whatever situation we are presented with. This is what I regard as post-modern power<\/a> and is an on-going way of being, not a call for more committees or discussion groups. <\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/4330911338438640912-2222769181444129061?l=wildfoxzen.blogspot.com\")