Discipline: Vigilance

RedShift DRIVE: Five Disciplines | Five Dimensions | Five Domains

The Power of Vigilance and Mindfulness

Mainstream advice is typically about taking action, either mental or physical, in order to change the external conditions of our personal or organizational lives. Yet, it increasingly becomes apparent, particularly in times of massive change shifts, that despite our knowledge, technology and force of will, the world is impervious to our efforts.
'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.' Woody Allen
So when we realize that transformational change is internal, we can be vigilant about what we feel, think and believe about the myriad day to day, practical but nonetheless important events and experiences. Vigilance isn’t difficult when there’s willingness to accept personal and cultural creative power and to have faith that what results is always right, even if its unexpected, not understood or maybe even unpleasant. You develop the vigilance habit through non-resistance to life experience, wanted and unwanted, moment to moment. The mindfulness dimension doesn't mean practicing doing nothing or having less. It means naturally influencing yours, and others' life experience by letting go of the need to control and refusing to identify with anything that contradicts your ideal state. [DDET Blog post: Vigilance – Its a Practice] You develop the vigilance habit through non-resistance to life (including work) experience, wanted and unwanted, moment to moment. When you’re open to it, you receive the incoming feedback you need about going the right way and avoiding dead ends. When you’re open to it your outgoing self-expression is naturally influential and non-toxic, even when it challenges the status quo. Full Post[/DDET]

What

The amazing woman in this short film says it better than I ever could: "Listen to you, not them".

'listen to you, not them' from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

Why

ox4Rev. Taigu from his series of talks on the Ten Oxherding Pictures (via Shambala Sun Sunspace) He writes:
Getting hold of the tail is the moment were we may think we have got it. The gesture is firm, the grasp strong and the will to tame the ox very much alive. If we stay there, we may think with pride that the journey is over and that our understanding is stronger than anybody else’s. A lot of arrogance coupled with struggle are yet noticeable, the attitude is stiff and the sitting rigid as well as the views, the many views we have about things and people. We are drunk with views and opinions, intoxicated with ideas and judgments. This kind of attitude and the state of body-mind characterized by this picture can be seen on various blogs and forums over the internet where people, hidden behind the anonymity and safe veil of their computer screens throw abusive language and display violence, lies, all sorts of judgments being made about people and situations they know nothing or very little about. Internet magnifies the imperfections and problems. You may have a look at how this teenage zen (teenage Zen, because self-infatuation and violence hiding a very poor self image is precisely one of the main problems of adolescence) creeps on line. It also curses our blood. We have to pay attention and come back to not knowing. It is so tempting to freeze every living experience into an asset, something to treasure, to own.
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How

We're conditioned to think of changing habits as hard. That's because we're striving to get something or be somewhere different in the future that what we have or where we are now. Just reading or thinking about that can seem difficult or even impossible. What if we intend that we already have it and are already there. All that's left to do is refuse the alternatives:
  • Settling for less
  • Resisting what happens
  • Ego and willfulness