Earth Holders

By Curtis Ogden

Last week I came across this passage in Thich Nhat Hanh's The World We Have.

"The Lotus Sutra mentions the name of a special bodhisattva - Dharanimdhara, or Earth Holder - as someone who preserves and protects the Earth. Earth Holder is the energy that is holding us together as an organism. She is a kind of engineer or architect whose task is to create space for us to live in, to build bridges for us to cross from one side to the other, to construct roads so that we can go to the people we love. Her task is to further communication between human beings and the other species and to protect the environment. . . . Although Earth Holder Bodhisattva is mentioned in the Lotus Sutra, she doesn't have a chapter of her own. We should recognize this bodhisattva in order to collaborate with her. We should all help to create a new chapter for her . . . ."

I really like this image of Dharanimdhara as a guide and goal for leadership geared towards the sustainable future we are being called to bring to life. There are interesting connections here to both the leadership approach that IISC has embodied since its inception, as well as the consulting approach that we and kindred spirits promote. Often, in acting as collaborative consultants, we are asked to "hold the center," to provide a reassuring centripetal force to balance out centrifugal tendencies that can arise due to conflict, impatience, skepticism, fatigue, and other forces. We do this not simply through connective facilitation, but the careful design of spaces that encourage people to come together, stay together, create together. We are, in Peter Block's language, "social architects." Or in David Orr's lexicon, we are "designers for life." Our essential task is to construct gatherings that tap the generative, generous, and ingenious energies of those who are involved.

When we link this to the spirit of Dharanimdhara, there is a clear call for a more synergistic approach to leadership, for fitting the way we lead to larger contexts (both cultural and biological), with a mind not simply for being productive or efficient, but ultimately healthy. The root of the word health is "whole." How can we move forward in our daily actions in a spirit of wholeness, of holding the whole, so that we do not wreak irreparable havoc upon the planet and ourselves?

We are seeing the development and application of new tools that will certainly help us in gaining a deeper appreciation of and sensitivity to the big picture - network mapping, systems analysis, Web 2.0 gizmos. These are great intellectual aids. But are these enough to inspire action? Ultimately it seems that the trigger will come from something beyond the intellect - a more visceral, intuitive place. Wisdom. For that we require direct (not virtual) experience, time to listen, space to reconnect. Perhaps this is the hidden blessing of our economic slowdown. As we are given this chance to take a collective breath, how are we responding?