Here in the west, focus refers to narrowing down to single dimensions; in the east, focus refers to expanding to include a universe of possibilities. Considering how we puctuate our lives with self-admonitions that we “need to focus”, it’s an interesting contrast to say the least. We torture ourselves with a constricting version of focus when we could just as easily liberate our vision.

Given that higher levels of consciousness are always more inclusive, we achieve optimum focus when we expand our consciousness to include the universe beyond any small scope of attention. Waking up is waking out.

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space. / Pema Chodron

I’ve just completed an executive coaching project with a physician who is a hospital department head. The senior manager who he reports to looks at me in a meeting with the executive team yesterday and says: You saved his life.

When I met him a few months ago, not only was this physician self-destructing his career, his health was on the brink of impending crisis.

His senior manager’s humbling and gratifying declaration immediately lead to my gratitude to my teachers and experiences that account for the power I experience today in this work. Reminding me of the Chinese saying: When you drink the water, remember the source.

I did an Open Space event tonight with 60 community people, generating over 70 ideas in a short timeframe. What did people like? They loved choosing their own agenda, choosing their own conversations, and yes there were ample butterflies and bumblebees following the law of two feet, including those with 4 feet (walkers).

The focus: How can we make this a more elder-friendly community?

What was the most interesting exchange of the night? This was a civic event, and at the end the senior government official pulled me aside and asked: How do you do it? What’s that, I asked. To which he painfully says, How do you keep from having your head blow up? He’s talking about the role of facilitator in open space.

As we talk, I understand that he has absolutely no patience for people’s stories. I empathize and segue to the point: The key is to listen and to keep reminding the community about the invitation to express their wants.

Opening space is always authentic engagement. It is, as I mentioned to this government official, nothing about being defensive or quick to take power away. It’s about opening space and being non-anxious about the questions that take who-knows-how-long to love into realization.

One of today’s headlines reports that oil profits soared as gas prices soared over the past few months. It reminded me of economist Milton Friedman’s position that he would take to court any corporation trying to practice social responsibility because that would be a direct conflict with the idea of the corporation’s purpose as serving profits to shareholders.

Is this a sustainable posture? How should powerful corporate boards and owners think about profit and the purpose of corporation now that many have exceeded the power and size of most nations?

About half of the US population are introverts. Is this a healthy percentage for any community, or does a healthy community have a higher percentage of extroverts? If a community wants to grow, does it need more extroverts?

When a community grows more robust networks, people become more connected. Do introverts by definition keeps networks more disconnected and fragmented because they don’t do their part to pass along information and connect people in other ways?

Just wondering, noticing lately how introverts and extroverts interact differently in communities. If we do make the case that extroverts are better for building healthy social networks - like in the blog community here - what’s the value and role of introverts?

I facilitated Open Space tonight with a room of library directors and trustees facing an uncertain future - in this case more together than apart. One participant in the closing circle remarked that the group was able to be quite productive around some very large elephants in the room because it has a history of trust transactions and collaborations.

It was also interesting seeing their ability to embrace their power within the small window of proactivity, without which the state with its history of wisdom-constraints, would take their collective fate away from them.

A great example of how a group’s capacity to open space is intrinsically linked to its history of doing so in so many small ways previously. It also helps that the convening heads of the group are clearly unwilling to take the group’s power away from them for themselves.

It’s the classic open space magic: crisis + self-empowerment + complexity + trust + open space = transformation.

My buddy G posted today a new Technorati feature that somehow calculates, scientifically I imagine, the worth of any given blog. Jack/Zen, according to the formula, right now is worth $37,824.18. Pony up and I may consider the best offer : )

Of course, I’m distracted by the $.18 part. Was that my last post, or the worth of the “thank you’s” in different languages, or Bagger Steve Bu-Ju Goldberg’s last astute comment, or …

Once again, measuring the worth of anything is such an interesting proposition.

According to today’s NY Times article, How Breweth Java With Jesus, $tarbucks is launching a new campaign to emblazon Christian sayings on the sides of their cups. It got me wondering if this means the end times for heathen but trendy teas like Zen.

The upcoming Dalai Lama talk at a major science conference has drawn strong opposition to recent research he’s contributed to on the relationship between meditation and human experience.

For most people who have a daily practice of any kind, whether it’s meditation, yoga, music, cooking, art, or whatever else, it’s a craft more than a science. We don’t seek proof outside our experience. Affirmation or deinial from an auditorium full of fiesty pointy-penciled scientists has little meaning for us.

We do it because of what it does to and for us. And as we say in any craft: If I miss a day, I notice; if I miss two days, you notice.