Eight elements for contemplative collaboration

Leading in today's world calls for more than traditional management skills. The complexity of our world—both outer events and our inner lives—invites us to develop a deeper understanding of nature, human capacities, and social dynamics. At Common Light, we recognize that genuine transformation comes from evolving our attention and our engagement together—knowing that how we attend shapes how we engage with the world.

The eight elements we've gathered form an evolving framework for contemplative collaboration—a living guide for individuals and teams seeking to create meaningful impact for themselves, others, and the natural world. Drawing inspiration from nature, wisdom traditions, the sciences, and established frameworks like Theory U (MIT), Adaptive Leadership (Harvard), and Ecosynomics (UT Austin), these aren't static concepts to memorize, but ways of seeing that, when contemplated, help us unfold more of our innate capacities for collaboration.

Here's an overview of each element:

• Observation of Nature: Through contemplative study of natural phenomena, we discover how our thinking works, strengthen our capacity for attention, and deepen our understanding and appreciation of the natural world. Nature becomes our triple teacher, instructing mind, body, and heart.
• Purpose: Purpose extends beyond organizational mission—it's the felt sense of being drawn toward something meaningful in every area of life. When we identify our purpose, we can invite the contributions and purpose others, seeing how our individual purpose serves the whole.
• Abundance: How we choose to see the world reflects the degree of possibilities we see in ourselves and others. Whether we perceive scarcity or abundance is largely a function of our underlying agreements, the implicit or explicit assumptions we hold about experience.
• Polarity of Individual and Community: Individuals and communities thrive when their interconnected nature is mutual recognized: the whole community considers the needs and potentials of each individual, and the individual considers the needs and potentials of each community.
  
• Three Dimensions of Being Human: Being human involves the dynamic interplay of thinking, feeling, and doing. As our thinking becomes more autonomously integrated within feeling and doing, the more harmoniously all three work together in service of your authentic purpose. 
• Four Realms of Social Experience: Organizational and social life unfolds through four interconnected realms: political, cultural, economic, and social. Understanding their distinct qualities helps helps us recognize how each realm can serve and strengthen the others—regardless of where we sit in society.
• Five Primary Relations: Our capacity for abundance reveals itself through five fundamental relationships: self, other, groups, nature, and spirit. As we deepen our connection in any one domain, we enhance our ability to cultivate abundance across all relationships.
• Six Contemplative Abilities: Regular contemplative practice reveals how six foundational capacities—thinking, feeling, doing, loving, opening, and thanking—can be endlessly developed. These abilities aren't separate from daily life; they're the very means through which we engage with and make sense of our experience.

What makes these elements unique is their interdependent and evolving nature. Working with observations in nature enhances our perception of our ecology of purpose; understanding the tension between individuals and communities deepens our grasp of social and political dynamics within organizations; practicing abundance reveals new dimensions of our contemplative practice.

As our world grows increasingly complex, it's easier to get caught in reactive patterns—anxiety, distrust, misalignment, and fear often blocking our view of what's possible. These eight elements offer a path to contemplative collaboration that honors our whole humanity—both what constrains and expands our attention—and evolves how we perceive and respond to the challenges before us.

While each person's path is unique, these eight evolving elements provide a shared language and reference point for collaboration. As we develop these capacities, we become better equipped to understand and serve the immense diversity of experience within the communities affected by our leadership.