Beautiful quote: „Wisdom is a way of knowing that goes beyond one’s mind, one’s rational understanding, and embraces the whole of a person: mind, heart, and body. These three centers must all be working, and working in harmony, as the first prerequisite to the Wisdom way of knowing.“ Cynthia Bourgeault
Compassionate Listening – inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh
„You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty his heart. Even if he says things that are full of wrong perceptions, full of bitterness, you are still capable of continuing to listen with compassion. Because you know that listening like that, you give that person a chance to suffer less. If you want to help him to correct his perception, you wait for another time. For now, you don’t interrupt. You don’t argue. If you do, he loses his chance. You just listen with compassion and help him to suffer less. One hour like that can bring transformation and healing.“
See: http://www.compassionatelistening.org/about
Based on this approach there is „An Exploratory Sourcebook About Conflict Transformation“ available on the internet: http://www.newconversations.net/pdf/compassionate_listening.pdf
Center for Practical Wisdom
„Wisdom was once regarded as a subject worthy of rigorous scholarly inquiry in order to understand its nature and benefits. It is difficult to imagine a subject more central to the highest aspirations of being human. The study of wisdom holds great promise for shedding light on and opening up new insights for human flourishing.
As part of the Center for Practical Wisdom, the website features the latest news and publications on wisdom science, and encourages interdisciplinary discussions about how wisdom can play a role in the professions and in public life.“
http://wisdomcenter.uchicago.edu/
Collective Wisdom vs. Collective Intelligence
Tom Atlee in an article that was written a while ago: „I am coming to suspect that it is the fringes that make the difference between collective intelligence and collective wisdom.
Collective intelligence solves problems or resolves conflicts of, by and for a group, an organization, a community or a whole society. It solves those problems and conflicts for the here and now, for people who are interested, aware, and involved.
Collective wisdom, on the other hand, has a bigger challenge. It needs to expand out from the particular problem or conflict, from the here and now, from those interested, aware and involved. It needs to embrace larger contexts, interests, drivers and possibilities. It has to consider the deep needs of people long gone and yet unborn, and to delve into deeper levels of understanding and caring. It ventures into unseen dimensions of life – into background trends, hidden corruptions and connections, psychospiritual influences, scientific microcosms and macrocosms – to realize unexpected consequences, novel resources, and extraordinarily potent answers. Being the Big Picture form of intelligence, wisdom is born out of our capacity to stretch creatively into the unknown and the unacknowledged, into the new angle, the deeper parts of ourselves, the fringe insights and possibilities.“