Monthly Reflection

Happy New Year!

Begin Anew: Personally, Relationally, and Collectively

A reachable vision for us all within this decade

Kazuo Inamori, a Japanese businessman who has established the Kyoto Prize, and founded two successful companies as well as a charitable foundation, shares his visionary perspective on what is possible during this time:

“[We] can shift from growth to maturity, from competition to co-existence, and walk the path of harmony. As we traverse this path, we will witness the birth of a new civilization that is motivated by the virtue of selfless service to others. The driving force behind our current civilization is the desire for more: more leisure, more food, more money. In contrast, the new civilization will be based on love and consideration for others, the desire to help others grow and to make them happy.

 …I don’t know exactly what form this civilization will take or what its content will be. Perhaps it’s just a pipe dream. But I am convinced that it is not the creation of this new civilization that is important, but rather the daily effort we make to build it. It is the process of getting there, not being there, that refines our souls. If we elevate our minds by striving to create a new, more loving civilization, I believe that the path to a service-oriented society will be far shorter than we ever imagined.”

--By Kazuo Inamori, in his book, A Compass to Fulfillment: Passion and Spirituality in Life and Business. McGraw Hill, 2010. Pg 98-99

Practices:

1. Take an action each day in January that is based on a motivation of love and consideration for others, or an action each day to help others grow and make them happy. These daily efforts will help manifest the creation of a new civilization as well as increase the path to a service-oriented society.

Make sure that the actions are balanced towards yourself (personal work), towards others (relational work), and towards organizations and communities in which you are participating (collective work).

2. One of the best sets of practices for becoming a better person through cultivating compassionate service comes from Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush in their book, Compassion in Action: Setting out on a Path of Service. In their book, they suggest the following: Be brave; start small; use what you’ve got; do something you enjoy; don’t over-commit. The use of these five practices apply to all aspects of the human experience.

3. Two recently published books that support Inamori’s vision are:

• Steven Pinker’s recently released book, Towards Our Better Nature. This book helps us to remember our better nature personally, relationally and collectively. What changes will you make to reinforce your better nature within yourself and in service of others this month?

• John Renesch’s book, The Great Growing Up: Being Responsible for Humanity’s Future, is a brilliant synthesis of the confluence of movements and issues, and possibilities of how people are stronger together than they are separately. He says, “Human evolution has taken us from an era from when we lived as predators toward a more collaborative way of live. As we solve certain survival issues, we have begun to learn that positive evolution comes with collaboration, so that our first instinct is not to slay someone, but instead to engage with them.” During January, be mindful in all the ways that you generate collaboration. It serves human evolution.