Don't Make Any New Year Resolutions

As we approach the start of another year, I’d like to thank all our readers for their support over the past year. Without readers, there’s no publication. I’m particularly grateful to all those who took the trouble to write and give me feedback. Please continue, as it’s only through feedback that this e-zine can be improved to be more useful to you.

Over the last week or so I have been looking after my son’s cat while he enjoys a well-earned holiday. Animals, like children, often seem to thrive better in familiar environments and so I have been staying with Pooh, the cat, and enjoying a refreshing sense of spaciousness surrounded by a house and garden rather than my own quite adequate but rather smaller apartment.

The start of another year usually triggers some reflection – even if it’s only on the futility of New Year resolutions!

I read recently that the problem with New Year resolutions – and this goes for quite a lot of goal setting as well – is not in the resolutions themselves, nor in our own deficits of willpower in keeping them, but rather in the implicit assumption in the statement of a resolution that we are coming from an experience of lack. So long as we have a sense of separation from what we desire, we will be unable to experience that thing as part of our present reality. And even if we do achieve whatever it is we have set our heart on, the achievement gives us little satisfaction.

We might like to imagine that all the rich and famous lead happy lives but we know that is not the case. On the other hand, we also know that many people lead fulfilling lives with a minimum of worldly success. As the Buddha said, ‘With our thoughts we make the world’. So long as we focus our efforts on trying to remedy a perceived lack in ourselves, then that lack of whatever it is will continue to be part of our experience. It is like trying to clear the mind and not think of a pink elephant. The more you try to banish the thought, the more obsessive it becomes.

On the other hand, if we can place ourselves ‘at the still point of the turning world’ and be mindful of what is happening in our present reality, then we evoke a very different experience of ourselves. This is an experience of being rather than doing or having. It could be compared to experiencing oneself as the lighthouse rather than the ship at sea looking to the lighthouse for direction.

I remember attending a class on spirituality some years ago. Our teacher recalled an experience he had while traveling by bus in Nepal. The roads were rough and uncertain, the drops immense, and the bus seemed in indifferent condition. An oncoming lorry caused the driver to swerve, nearly sending bus and passengers over the edge of a precipice. Somebody yelled, ‘Look out!’ and time went into slow motion. Hearing these words, my colleague felt himself flooded with an unexpected sense of bliss as his attention focused outwards and he became fully present to his immediate experience.

When we start from an experience of being, of who and what we are, then ‘whatever happens is the only thing that could have’ and we can more easily ‘recognize perfection’ in our lives. As the saying goes, simple but not easy!

Recently one of the participants in the Open Space listserv drew a parallel between the practice of Zen and Open Space.

“In Zen practice, bliss is giving one’s experience an open space in which to be. Taking care of ourselves and others at the same time involves this simple practice of creating/allowing open space for experience to unfold in its innate wisdom.” Jack Ricchiuto OSList 20/12/03

Another friend of mine recently commented that this coming year, she did not intend to make any big plans to achieve this or accomplish that. Rather, she was going to allow each day to unfold and be open to its possibilities. To me, that is an example of “giving one’s experience an open space in which to be”.

In Open Space we talk about the practitioner ‘holding space’ for the group. His or her presence and intention enables the group to explore new ways of tackling issues that up till then may have appeared insoluble. From a disparate collection of divergent stories, the group is able to create some stories in common and move forward in collaborative action.

I wish all readers a year of peace, prosperity and open space as we take care of ourselves and others at the same time.

OPEN SPACE events coming in Melbourne

Friday 6 Feb Where To Next? Mature Age Unemployment – Issues and Opportunities

Tue evening-Thurs 25-27 May Open Space Training

19-21 October Open Space Training

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