November 26th, 2008, 10:18 am
When we are mindful, we can change the way we experience other individuals in the business environment and function in organic and natural processes that bring creativity and heart into form, while preserving the essential features of business practices.
8 Operational Tools
1. Consciously work to preserve relationships, reframe interpersonal challenges and develop a utility to achieve outcome.
Read the rest of this page »
Posted in Dr. Dukes' Musings | No Comments »
November 25th, 2008, 6:56 am
While sitting with a friend yesterday, I was reminded of how important it is to honor the threshold - the thing that symbolizes that which we are leaving and the beginning of where we are going.
Stop, next time you walk through the front door of you apartment, condo, home or office – just short of the threshold. Stop and gain a sense of the reality of what is happening in this moment of your life. There is no guarantee that from where you are leaving you will ever return. So pause a moment, turn around and “claim” the life you have lived in this context, the people who are saying “good-bye.” Just a moment – to recognize your life as it unfolds.
A threshold is a gift and an opportunity to awaken the mind.
Now imagine that our internal states are just as noticeable. You awaken in the morning, perhaps with the dream - a moment, a feeling, or an image – a moment away from this day that you are slowing becoming conscious of. Can you pause to mark the transition? Can you recognize that you are betwixt-and-between? What was – is ending. What will be – is emerging! Simply pause and claim these unfolding moments.
Image: Tdukes,Hawaii, 2008
Posted in Dr. Dukes' Musings | No Comments »
November 24th, 2008, 7:18 am
There is some value to our innocence - it keeps us connected and empathically attuned to the people in our lives. As we navigate these difficult economic times, remember these people.
“Over the years, a practical and materialistic society can usurp the original mystery of childhood. We are sent to school early to “grow up,” to “be serious,” and if we don’t let go of our childhood innocence, all too often the world tries to knock it out of us. A hundred years ago the American painter James McNeill Whistler encountered this attitude in his engineering class at West Point Military Academy. The students were instructed to draw a careful study of a bridge, and Whistler submitted a beautifully detailed picturesque stone arch with children fishing from its top. The lieutenant in charge ordered, “This is a military exercise. Get those children off the bridge.” Whistler resubmitted the drawing with the two children now fishing from the side of the river. “I said get those children completely out of the picture,” said the angry lieutenant. So Whistler’s last version had the river, the bridge, and two small tombstones along its bank.”
(Kornfield, J. (2000). After the ecstasy, the laundry: How the heart grows wise on the spiritual path. New York: Bantam, p. 9. 10)
Posted in Insights for Organizations | No Comments »
November 19th, 2008, 6:34 am
“There’s and old story about a farmer who went to the Buddha seeking help for his problems. Either droughts or monsoons make his work difficult, he complained. What’s more, he grumbled, even though he loved his wife, there were certain things about her he wanted to change. Likewise his children – yes, he loved them, but they weren’t turning out quite the way he wanted.
Read the rest of this page »
Posted in Dr. Dukes' Musings | No Comments »
November 18th, 2008, 6:37 am
“Mindfulness allows for a discrimination in psyche which is free of judgment . . . and which still allows for the influence of the unconscious to be entertained in consciousness. Mindfulness is not looking for a way “beyond,” rather it is a posture which seeks insight within and which allows an openness and availability to unexpected and uninvited unconscious content.
Read the rest of this page »
Posted in Dr. Dukes' Musings | No Comments »
“What we have no words for, we cannot understand; it does not fit into our view of what is real. And if we stumble upon it, as the study shows, we may be taken by surprise, and frightened. On the unknown places on their maps, the ancient cartographers wrote, ‘Here thee be dragons.” (Kornfield, 2000, p. 62)