Addendum to “Islands of Coherence in a Sea of Chaos”
“We are in the thick of a tipping point time and it is, in a word, messy.”
So begins an article I wrote this summer on How Leaders Can Seed Coherence in a Sea Of Chaos, originally appearing in Forbes.com. Coherence is an example of resonance (i.e., vibrating with) where waves synchronize and add up to something greater. If you’ve read the article, you know that it goes on to talk about the crucial role of leaders to be coherent and seed great islands of coherence that can evolve us to a higher level order. That evolutionary impulse is one of the forces pulling us through this time. The other force is that which pulls us down in consciousness, i.e., toward fear, greed, rage and the power dynamics of the old order.
The article offers three guidelines for leaders to support them in being and seeding coherence: find your practices, find your communities, and find your purposes. While this advice applies generally, I wanted to add a few words to you, our Chosei Zen community. For whether you realize it or not, coherence is a natural result of our practices, both within our individual body-mind systems, and collectively as a community. Moreover, we have purposeful work to do together. How might we experience this coherence, and toward what purpose might we direct it?
The very practice of Zazen, engaging deep, slow hara breathing, supports harmonization or coherence of three major sources of vibrations in our system: brainwaves, heart waves and breath waves. The first two have been well-studied by the HeartMath Institute. At a frequency of around .1 Hz (once every 10 seconds), head and heart come into coherence. From my conversations with HeartMath Head of Research, Rollin McCraty, when breath comes in at 2-3 times/per minute (once every 20 or 30 seconds), it hits a harmonic of that same frequency, bringing all 3 into coherence, while adding the deep, stabilizing base note of hara. Furthermore, as breath slows down, thoughts slow down, tension falls away and the gateway to samadhi opens. The samadhi experience of no-separation reveals a coherence between self and environment, which is why movement from samadhi is so graceful and actions from samadhi accord the Way.
A group of people who routinely engage in such practice together invariably become a community of coherence. We feel this in those strong sits when we’re breathing as one. We hear this in the walk of kinhin. We see this in the collective grace of 12 people removing their shoes to enter the dojo on day 4 of sesshin with no elbows hitting and nothing out of place.
Given the coherent gifts of our training, toward what purposes might we direct them? I invite you to feel into your most authentic expression of such a purpose, but I would bet it is in the direction of the evolutionary impulse. The way I experience it is to pass the gifts of this training to others who resonate with it and to future generations. IZL particularly calls me in this regard because we need more leaders seeding islands of coherence. A new dojo for the ages at Spring Green particularly calls me because it represents a “big hairy audacious island of coherence,” meaning we’ve had to evolve to something we’re not yet, and in the process, become of far greater value to the world. These purposes feel like the work of our generation.
What calls you? Whatever it is, if it is supported by the coherence of Zazen and by others in this community, and pulls something through you that is not yet, it will serve the evolutionary purpose of life.
