“What is true anywhere is true everywhere.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

The fourth Landmark of Truth is reliability.

Reliability means “consistently good in quality and performance.” This implies that we can trust and depend on something or someone.

It also implies that this aspect of reliability is not time-based. It is perennial.

This is why so much of the principles and values that guide moral and ethical behavior are common across cultures. They have stood the test of time and maintain their relevance despite the time and place in which they appear and are applied.

These ethical, perennial truths are embedded in theology, philosophy, governance and law, and in codes of conduct and ethical behavior. They include sanctions against murder, theft, sexual abuse, human rights abuses, torture, exploitation of children, rape, etc.

Civil society depends upon the reliability of shared interests, purposes and values for sustainability. Without such standards, there is little hope for the establishment or survival of democracy, and no means by which to ensure basic rights and freedoms.

This is environment is vital to Visionmaking - that we are free to follow our personal and collective destiny within a rule-based system of rights and freedoms that are democratically established and governed. It provides Visionmaking with the perfect conditions for dreaming and pursuing what has heart and meaning.

The second aspect of reliability is behavioral. Visionmakers are trustworthy, ethical and principled in their conduct with others. This makes them reliable. When a Visionmaker makes a commitment, he or she delivers. It is a matter of personal honor.

Many of us equate making commitments with being imprisoned. It betrays a profound misunderstanding of the power of a commitment.

A commitment is the language of intent. Intent is the engagement of the heart, mind, and will to action. Intent generates the power and timing to mobilize a purposeful act and permanently alter the status quo. Recognizing that commitments carry generative power, a Visionmaker uses this sacred gift with integrity and personal responsibility.

A commitment is a pledge to do or refrain from doing something. It is a generative act that opens up a path of action through full engagement of all our resources.

To Visionmakers, a commitment is a pledge of reliability. It is a solemn vow that a Visionmaker makes to the integrity of his or her blood. As such, we can measure our performance against our words.

There is a resonant field that builds around one who consistently delivers on their commitments and promises. We see these people as “true blue.”

Visionmakers are reliable. They strive to be “consistently good in quality and performance.” In this way, they leave a trail of excellence as a beacon and a legacy for the generations to come.

© Patrick O’Neill 2009. All rights reserved.

Though the whole world grumble, I will speak my mind.” -Cicero

The third Landmark of Truth is honesty.

Honesty requires that we are fair, just and morally upright. This demands that Visionmakers act with personal integrity at all times to ensure that our very being is an expression of truth.

Three standards apply to the practice of honesty.  The first is that we do not lie, steal or act in a deceitful way. Second, we tell the truth, and respect what belongs to others or to the common trust. Third, we do not conceal or misrepresent the truth.

To act in accordance with these principles supports the development of self-respect and leads to honor. Honor is the respect that comes from other people in response to honesty and integrity. This is the Visionmaker’s way. 

Today, we are living through an economic crisis that has been brought on largely by a failure to act in accordance with honesty and integrity. Greed, self-interest and personal gain have led us to a dangerous instability in the world economy.

Why? 

We have placed a higher cultural value on wealth and power than we have on character. Vision has been co-opted by the pursuit of money, sex and power, the three measures of success in our current mythology.

We have entered an age where the addiction to wealth and power and the status that they convey has gained a currency and intensity not seen since the 1980’s.

Remember the character Gordon Gecko, played by Michael Douglas, in the film Wall Street?  He appears to be alive and well. 

Greed can never rest; it couples a ravenous appetite for more with the increasing inability to feel satisfaction. Hence the closed-loop that keeps the addiction going.

Truth and honesty require that we adhere to a higher value than personal gain. In our parents time, honesty and integrity in your personal and professional life were the badges of honor. You conducted yourself in accordance with timeless principles, values and ethics. These practices led to social currency, meaning your place in civil society was secured by the honesty of your character.

We have lost sight of this standard.

In the Four-Fold Way, Angeles Arrien provides simple and effective guidelines for honesty and integrity:

 

• saying what you mean

• doing what you say

• saying what’s so when it’s so

Many times I have been confronted by those that wish to argue that the only way to make one’s way in a corrupt world is to be corrupt. It is strategies and defenses such as these that have led us to the brink of financial collapse. 

Visionmakers see the development and maintenance of honesty and integrity as central to acquiring enough personal power to act with purpose.

Energy that goes into sorcery-deceit, greed, and manipulation of others and the circumstances–is a misuse of that power. 

Ultimately, it is an act of self-betrayal and self-sabotage. The path of Visionmaking leads us in the opposite direction towards self-trust and self-esteem.

© Patrick O’Neill 2009. All rights reserved.

“Truth is what stands the test of experience.” -Albert Einstein

The second Landmark of Truth is factuality, which means “conforming to reality.” Factuality provides a balance point to the truth of the heart, or the inner reality, with the external state or conditions. A Visionmaker balances the heart’s truth and direct observation of the external reality to ensure they are in alignment. 

When the heart’s truth and objective observation line up, Visionmakers have access to seeing with depth and clarity. If they do not, we have an important clue that something is amiss and that there is a need for due diligence.

The external reality is the domain of objective observation. So much of vision is clouded by opinions, assumptions and assessments that it can be difficult to discern truth from falsehood. It is important to move past these perceptual barriers. Curiosity, objectivity and testing are three practices that help Visionmakers see truth.

Curiosity is “the strong desire to know or learn something.” It is the means by which we probe and explore the frontiers of knowledge. Curiosity is especially important in the discernment of truth because it allows us to penetrate what is veiled or superficial. Questions are the vehicle on which our curiosity travels; questions carry us deeper and deeper into the heart of what matters.

Objectivity is the freedom to look at the facts without being unduly influenced by our desires or opinions. This is the terrain of every good scientist and jurist. Visionmakers learn to engage this capacity by holding the creative tension between belief and disbelief long enough for the truth to emerge to visibility. This is an act of mastery-to suspend one’s automatic desire to believe or disbelieve. This capacity creates an aperture in which the truth can unfold.

Testing is a procedure taken to check the quality or reliability of a conclusion. To many times we accept something at face value without bringing our own critical faculties to bear on the matter. This is laziness and lacks intellectual curiosity on our part. Visionmakers do their homework. As the Buddha is reported to have said:

“Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.”

 

Factuality keeps vision grounded and realistic. We do not fall prey to what we want to see, believe we see, or are told to see. We use the gifts of curiosity, objectivity and testing to see what is so. In doing this Visionmakers catch a glimpse of the unseen. 

© Patrick O’Neill 2009. All rights reserved.

“What is true is invisible to the eye. It is only with the heart that one can see clearly.“

-  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The first Landmark of Truth is authenticity. Authenticity means real, genuine and truly from the heart. It is this last quality that catches a Visionmaker’s eye.

Authenticity is the capacity to speak and act from the heart. The heart’s truth, the internal reality, is a standard by which a Visionmaker conducts his or her affairs.

When our allegiance is to the Full, Open, Clear and Strong Heart, we come into alignment with the core of who we are. It also binds us together with every other person in a fabric of wholeness and community. 

Perennial values, principles and ethics are encoded in the human heart. It is also the home of Destiny’s plan for each person, a singular and authentic journey of meaning that each of us was born to make.

For this reason, the training in Visionmaking places a heavy emphasis on the work of the heart. Through this apprenticeship, we learn to be authentic. We also shed the “false-self system,” the affectations, character flaws and bad habits that interfere with our ability to see clearly and act impeccably.  

“Do not worry about what others are doing!” instructs Mahatma Gandhi. ” Each of us should turn the searchlight inward and purify his or her own heart as much as possible.”

Wise words and important work if we are to see what is in alignment with Truth and what remains false to fact. Truth is a beacon that shines on a road of meaning, leading us forward, each step in alignment with the heart. 

When the heart is involved in seeing, we gain an acuity of vision that penetrates the mysteries of living. We gain a rare clarity that reflects the fact that our own energy is no longer entangled in illusions about the self, other people, or the world around us.  

This is an act of wisdom that liberates a Visionmaker to pursue only that which is in accordance with his or her nature, and which furthers the path of the heart.

In my next post, I will cover the second Landmark of Truth-factuality.

© Patrick O’Neill 2009. All rights reserved.

“For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.” -Jesus of Nazareth

 

It is Good Friday and an excellent time to reflect on truth, the allegiance to authenticity, factuality, honesty and reliability. No matter what faith tradition we practice-or whether we are agnostic or atheist–truth is a central principle of civil society.

A Visionmaker strives to uphold truth telling in all his or her relations, but especially in facing personal truth. He or she chooses to see things as they are, not as one hopes them to be. By remaining loyal to truth, a Visionmaker ensures that vision is not sacrificed to self-deception.

Truth seems like a value in decline, associated with an earlier, simpler time when character was a matter of honor and what you said and did was a matter of self-respect.

Daniel Boorstin, the American professor and writer, warns us of the consequences of the decline of truth in modern society: “’Truth’ has been displaced by ‘believability’ as the test of the statements which dominate our lives.”

 More recently, the American comedian, Stephen Colbert coined the satirical term “truthiness”– the conscious avoidance of facts, logic, evidence and rational analysis – to describe the same condition.

 “What is truth,” asked Pontius Pilate at the trial of Jesus? It is easy to imagine a combination of skepticism, mockery, resignation, and weariness in Pilate’s tone as he asks one of the most famous questions in history. Washing his hands of the pursuit of truth and his responsibility to uphold it, Pilate becomes the archetype of the weak, closed and doubting-hearted politician. His profession has yet to recover. 

Jean-Paul Sartre sees a distinction that every Visionmaker would do well to remember in wisdom work: “Like all dreamers, I confused disenchantment with truth.”

Like Pilate, many of us struggle to recognize and acknowledge the truth even when it stares us in the face. Seeing what is true can be disheartening. Sometimes it may seem easier not to see at all. But to avoid looking at what is true is cowardice and comes back to wreak havoc.

Those who prefer fantasy or the posture of an ostrich, head firmly planted in the sand, rather than looking at people and circumstances for what they are, participate in their own betrayal. One has no one to blame but oneself.

There can be no wisdom without truth – and any betrayal of truth is a betrayal of the heart. But how does a Visionmaker recognize truth?

There are four qualities, known as the Landmarks of Truth, which assist the Visionmaker with seeing what is in alignment with the heart, and discerning truth from falsehood. The Landmarks of Truth include authenticity, factuality, honesty and reliability. 

In upcoming posts, I will address each distinction.

Happy Easter and Passover.  Thank you for visiting Visions. 

© Patrick O’Neill 2009. All rights reserved.

“The true seeing is within.”-George Eliot

The Visionmaker’s way is to pursue what is most meaningful in our aspirations, vocation, relationships and involvement in the communities in which we participate.

These are all matters of the heart. It is the heart that directs every Visionmaker towards meaning.

As you will recall from previous posts, Visionmaking is the discipline of following meaning through a journey of purposeful acts. Purposeful acts are the output of heart, intellect and will working together to exert change.

This requires clear focus and all of our energy, so it is important that we reflect regularly on what is most meaningful.

The most significant barrier to this practice is the status quo. The status quo seeks to arrest transformation and positive change. It is the state of mind that every Visionmaker opposes.

In Visionmaking, the status quo is defined as a state of stasis where there is neither motion or development and where there is little hope of change. It’s like psychic cement.

The status quo can be overturned by reflection, commitment and action. Without reflection, however, clarity, commitment and action are hard to marshal.

Reflective practice is the Visionmaker’s way of taking stock of what has heart and meaning and overcoming the status quo.  It demands discipline and practice. Morning and evening are the traditional times to look to the heart for guidance.

This can be accomplished almost anywhere that there is silence and no distraction.  Reflection can be done seated, standing, lying, even walking.  The more you practice, the better you get.

I hope the following reflective questions support you in seeing what is in your heart:

• What is currently most meaningful to you in your relationships, work, well-being, personal development, spirituality, and community service?

 

• What are you yearning for in your life that you have not yet experienced?

 

• In what areas do you feel trapped by the status quo?

 

• What do you need to start/stop/continue to do to break free of this illusion of being trapped?

 

• Where are you currently deeply engaged in your life? Where do you feel half-hearted? What do you need to do to restore full engagement?

 

I welcome you insights, questions and comments. Thank you for visiting Visions.

© Patrick O’Neill 2009. All rights reserved.

My two old friends, John and Dan, were over for the weekend. When we were still just crazy kids, we road the rails into the north, to Lynn Lake, Manitoba.

There we worked underground in the mines and had many adventures. In their honor, I share this story.  It always makes them laugh like hell.

I worked with a giant named Bill in the mines.

Bill was a Saskatchewan farm boy who left the family farm to go north to the mine because the work underground, he explained, was far easier than farming. 

He seemed close to seven feet tall and as wide as a redwood. He wore his hair long to his shoulders and his reddish beard to his chest. A hooked nose and twinkly blue eyes poked out of the dense forest of hair.

For his great size and formidable strength, I have never met a gentler or happier man. He was probably in his mid-thirties at the time but he seemed ancient to me.

On his yellow coveralls and helmet Bill had spray-painted the emblem of the Montreal Canadians, the hockey team he worshiped. We got along famously when he learned I lived in Montreal, a city he dreamed about but had never visited. He declared his intention to move there so that he could get season tickets to the home games of his beloved Habs. To support himself, he said, he would become a mail carrier so that he could be outside all day instead of “down in the hole.”

I met Bill that first day in the mine. It was surreal down there and the shift boss Dave made sure it was a first day I would never forget. Dave was my guide as we toured the mine via the ladder system that runs between levels. 

I climbed more ladders, and awkwardly, violently bumped my helmet more times than I can remember during my mine initiation day. Don’t look down, he warned. Of course I did producing instant vertigo. 

By mid-shift, I was a nervous wreck and exhausted. I had climbed several miles already that day in heavy boots, long johns, coveralls and a thick plaid work shirt. I was drenched in sweat and shaking like a leaf from exertion. 

Dave, the boss, decided I had done so well that he was going to “double shift” me. I was assigned to “muck-out” an ore spill with two silent Inuit companions for my second eight hours.

By this time I was bagged and my attempts to shovel the wet mud and gravel that had spilled over the sides of a machine ominously called “the crusher” covering the crusher-room floor, were feeble in even the most generous assessment.

My silent Inuit coworkers looked at me struggling, then looked at each other with an enigmatic smile, then continued to demolish their portion of the work. They finished their part and left me alone with my impenetrable pile of quick drying cement, a vision of Hell that I was sure even Milton had never imagined. 

I did my best, finished what I could, and began the long walk back to the surface. The mine, it seemed was deserted as I tried to make my way up the labyrinth tunnel system and back to the real world. I could barely walk. I was dizzy, nauseated and disoriented. In retrospect, I was probably dehydrated from sixteen hours of hard labor. 

At one point I had to sit down before I fell down. That’s when it happened. My vision started to implode until I was able to see only a small, circular field right in front of me. Mysteriously, I had no peripheral vision at all. How strange was that? Tunnel vision in a tunnel!

Ever the optimist, I concluded that I was dying. What a strange place for the end to come, interred here on my first shift in the underworld. I wondered if I was about to join a procession of ghosts wandering the mine for eternity, searching for a portal back to life. That would suck!

That’s when I saw Bill the Giant. He found me sitting in a crumpled ball by the side of the “decline,” the main roadway out of the underground tunnel. Decline, I thought, was an appropriate name given the circumstances.

Bill wondered aloud if I expected the Montreal Metro to stop here? I was too exhausted to stand up but grateful to be found, even in this embarrassing state. Bill scooped me up and escorted back to the surface. 

I can’t describe the rush of relief that I felt as I emerged from the mine’s head-frame back into daylight. Exhilarated by my release, it seemed to me that the world looked different: clearer, more fragrant, even luminous.

Even the mud underfoot left by the late retreat of snow and ice had a sweet pungency that I would never have noticed before. I headed back to my room in the bunkhouse to recover my strength and my nerve for tomorrow’s descent.

© Patrick O’Neill 2009. All rights reserved.

“What I have learned bears no other fruit than to make me realize how much I still have to learn.” –Montaigne

The seventh obstruction of foresight is self-importance. 

A Visionmaker checks the ego at the door when he or she goes out to meet the unknown. Self-absorption and narcissism are useless in the inevitable encounter with the primordial forces of Death and Destiny. 

Not only are they useless, they are dangerous. When we are so wrapped up in looking good and being admired, we are preoccupied and fail to notice what is emerging around us. Pride goeth before a fall, goes the old proverb.

Besides, what else can you see when you are so busy looking at yourself?

When the will is engaged in pride and inflation, it draws to us only those possibilities that can be used to feed the pattern.  Everything else remains hidden or ignored. Self-importance traps us in a narcissistic hall of mirrors where every choice feeds the illusion, and every choice results in greater disorientation.

Fattened on a steady diet of delusion of our own grandeur, we become weak, susceptible and addicted to feeding the voracious appetite of the ego. This severs any connection to the Four-Chambered Heart, which is every Visionmaker’s compass in pursuing Destiny.

Visionmakers prefer to remain humble.  They recognize that even the most successful person is insignificant in the relation to the mysterious and uncontrollable forces of Death and Destiny.

Visionmakers are also acutely aware that there is always more to see and learn.  They recognize that transformation is only possible when one adopts this attitude.  Pride closes the mind and heart to growth and change. It is a dangerous affectation.

Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, directs our vision to more fruitful territory:

Don’t trace out your profile–

forget your side view-

all that is outer stuff.

 

Look for your other half

who walks always next to you

and tends to be who you aren’t.

 

Narcissism

is an ugly fault,

and now it’s a boring fault too.

 

But look in your mirror for the other one,

the other one who walks by your side.

 

© Patrick O’Neill 2009. All rights reserved.