Working Meditation

Observations on Human Connection & Contribution

Home » Collaboration » Page 4

#31: The sonar of diversity

A friend and I helped another postpartum friend with chores related to new motherhood. While cleaning the house, organizing the baby’s space and helping with the car seat, we quietly absorbed our friend’s new cadence and flows. We saw how laboriously she walked, climbed stairs and bent after a caesarean section. Nether of us have children and this was the closest postpartum view I ever had. We wrapped up as evening came and as we walked out to our cars, my co-helper friend commented on how the hastily-parked rental bike outside the building was blocking stroller and wheelchair access. How quickly she had created a bridge to what our friend would need from her environment as a new mother! It was the most organic and kind realization.

Diversity and inclusion conversations often come attached with strong emotions and fear; and they can be perceived as tools of righteous reckoning and moral anger. Could we instead think of diversity as life’s best sonar? No matter how well-meaning, empathetic or brilliant we may be, it’s simply impossible for any of us to have all potential life experiences. It’s these lived experiences that allow us to understand something from the deep crevices of its insides; they create a clarity of thought and language that helps translate ideas into meaningful actions. Without this hands-on knowledge we often grasp things superficially, lacking vital details around the aches, needs and dreams of those we seek to serve. Creating space for diverse experiences and voices helps us deep-dive into life.

In a complicated world, diversity is a formidable environmental scanner and compass. It’s a precursor to path-building.

A sustainable world: “I call the transformed world toward which we can move ‘sustainable,’ by which I mean a great deal more than a world that merely sustains itself unchanged. I mean a world that evolves, as life on earth has evolved for three billion years, toward ever greater diversity, elegance, beauty, self-awareness, interrelationship, and spiritual realization.” ― Donella Meadows

#24: Holding Lightly. Hint: It may not be forever.

(Our Sanghas, part 3)

I know a sweet little girl Adriana. Last time I saw her, she was blowing bubbles in the sun standing next to a flower bed brimming with Tulips. Most of the bubbles were medium-sized and not very long lasting. Then quite unexpectedly, she made a massive bubble that kept on growing and seemed to have staying power. The four adults watching got instantly excited about the big bubble. We wanted to see how far it would travel and just as we all boarded the dream-train, little Adri popped the bubble with an audible glee. “Speak of nonattachment!”, I mused.

Ofcourse―to create any real impact―work, practices, relationships and Sanghas need to have a longer-shelf life than bubbles but given enough time, every single thing changes. That’s the inherent nature of life and growth. It may be that our Sangha-partners become life-long practice partners and that’s quite wonderful. Alternatively, they may “graduate out” of the Sangha over time and evolve in ways that make the partnership less of a mutual fit. Their goals, approaches, and needs may shift or they may need to tend to other aspects of their selves, lives and work.

Even as I say this, it would hurt to see any of my budding Sanghas dissolve but mutual growth only occurs with natural alignment and when practice spaces can exist without excessive corralling. I take heart in knowing that even if my Sangha-partnerships morph or dissolve, our relationships won’t necessarily. They might feel like plants whose roots now need larger planters to thrive in. And with time, the roots of these relationships may have the capacity to carry more depth outside of that one practice.

“Once a sangha-partner ≠ always a sangha-partner. Once a sangha-partner = always a soul friend.” ― Li’l ol’ me

#23: Naming our Sangha-partners. Hint: It’s a subset.

(Our Sanghas, part 2)

I wrote about “tribes, cohorts and sanghas” in my last note. I’m digging further today to explore how I actually partner with specific practitioners within a larger aligned-community. I’ve started thinking of this sub-cohort as my Sangha-partners: people who are equally commited to their craft, at the same time, and show up repeatedly alongside to help feed the flames of effort within me so I stay the course despite turbulence. In return, I do the same for them. There is complete mutuality towards a specific goal. 

But our Sangha-partners have a way of getting lost in the crowd. We might default to thinking that someone studying the same ideas as us or operating in the same professional space might be our partner practitioners; or that physical overlap and the ability to meet face to face are prerequisites for a strong partnership.

Over the last several months, I have consciously cultivated three aspects of myself that are important for the type of purposeful work I intend to do: 1) Exploring ideas that use technology and business in the service of human connection; 2) Writing publicly to get comfortable with putting my ideas out in the world, and; 3) Cultivating innate strength through yoga so I can better navigate currents of professional change while tending to personal trauma and grief. While it’s still early days of transformation, I am certain that my progress would have been slower and rougher without the presence of specific co-practitioners. They appeared with a resolve to build their own new world alongside me; to not only speak but act. While many practitioners within our larger tribes were weaving similar tapestries, my partners were threading similar needles as me at the same point in time and this overlap created a rich intellectual and emotional shorthand of mutuality and commitment. If they had been at this specific place in their journey say two years before me, they likely would have been mentors and if two years after me, they would have been mentees; both are valuable relationships but different than having a lockstep partner.

I’ll illustrate via specific examples from my life. My writing partner, Anna, lives in the Peruvian Amazon and writes her own version of Working Meditation. Our bi-weekly sessions help us exchange practical ideas and openhearted dreams while savoring the nuance and context in each other’s writing that others may miss. My meditation partner, Ava, practices her own flavor of Karma Yoga (a focus on selfless action) and her fire creates energy for a weekly meditation group that has become more cherished with every passing week. The momentum from our meditation sangha has shifted the timbre of my mornings even on days we don’t meet. My yoga-practice partner, Danielle, is a generous and joyful friend from business school who volunteered to be my test subject so I could learn how to teach yoga to others. She helped me create a practice space that beams with warmth, trust and happiness  so that every Sunday, I show up with the excitement of sharing vs. the nervousness of perfection. My “impact-through-work” partner, Sumit, is a dear old friend who is equally driven by the need to create positive change through technology and business. His willingness to engage with me in the muddy act of innovation is allowing us to blend the sparks of imagination with the realities of development, recharging both of us for our independent work.

I don’t overlap with my Sangha-partners for every aspect of my growth, and vice versa. We show up for a specific practice, bring in relevant parts of our lives, tend to each other and then refocus on our individual practices. We may think of fire as an analogy here—the outcome of any effort is the heat, the flames represent the effort itself and the Sangha-partners are those who offer logs at the right time to keep the fire burning bright.

“When you’re surrounded by respected peers, it’s more likely you’ll do the work you set out to do. And if you’re not, consider finding some.
Find this cohort with intent. Don’t wait for it to happen to you.” ― Seth Godin

#22: Community. Tribe. Cohort. Sangha.

(Our Sanghas, part 1)

The triad of teacher, teachings and community (or the three jewels of Buddhist philosophy―Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha) appear around us repeatedly. Look across faiths, team sports, businesses or even any serious hobbies. In any context that human beings are truly commited to growing or contributing, we’ll always find some sort of a teacher, a set of convictions and a community of practitioners.

Of course the teachers and teachings are invaluable but over time it’s the community that propels us forward. Our communities may go by different names but, when formed with intention, they serve the same fundamental purpose: to be a source of real and sustained strength and guidance as we navigate what we set out to do. Another case in point are Ivy League universities. Students pay a lot of money to go to say Harvard or Stanford and while the quality of professors and research truly makes a difference, the high-quality learning occurs because of interactions with an extremely-commited community. And it is this community that provides whatever type of eventual support or access our ongoing practice might need.

It’s the Sangha that helps us learn, grow, build and contribute. It’s in this Sangha that we lift each other up in times of hardship or doubt. If anything creates momentum in us, it’s the Sangha. It doesn’t have to be large but it has to be real, aligned and commited towards the same goals.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly―our tribes, cohorts and sanghas often influence and sometimes even determine our what and how in life; that is, what we seek and how we go about seeking it. With this outsized influence, doesn’t it make sense to be thoughtful in our “Sangha-selection process”?

“May you be brought into real passion, kindness,
And belonging.” ― John O’Donohue

#15: Taking up the right amount of space

“Take up more physical and acoustic space in meetings and interactions”: This piece of advice is sometimes offered to professional women and other historically marginalized people. The thinking is that we create self-designed psychological safety by allowing our bodies to take up more space―say by opening up the chest vs. hunching over, or by spreading out papers and laptops when needed vs. trying to maintain an overly tidy and restricted pile. Allowing our voices to resonate is also said to have similar psychological impact, as opposed to speaking fast and shutting up too soon.

When a person feels comfortable taking up space, you see them in their full technicolor. Psychological safety allows them to show up as their fuller selves; physically, verbally and emotionally. This in turn creates opportunities for connection, creativity and collaboration. A true win-win. When one feels uncomfortable taking up their appropriate amount of space, their collaborators (often unknowingly) lose that opportunity for engagement and partnership.

On the other extreme, there are times when we take up a lot of space. Sometimes even all the space without any regard for another. As if swallowing all the air, grabbing all available land, and laying claim to all resources while ignoring the needs of others; essentially snuffing them out in the process. These actions could be deliberate or ignorant but most paths leading to lack of care are infused with some sort of fear. Fear that we’ll get snuffed out later if we don’t take as much as we can now. When people and organizations behave this way, others obviously suffer. They feel treaded upon, lose engagement and motivation to truly connect, collaborate or problem solve.

These observations are from different angles but the final outcome seems to be the same: someone closes up.

We are always negotiating space with one another as lone humans and human collectives. If a fundamental desire of humanity is progress in its many forms, then taking up the right amount of space is a precursor to meaningful collaborations and for creating psychological safety in ourselves and others.

“Our angle of perception the only difference,
keeping them separate and dually named” ― Kurt Philip Behm