Part Two: Heidegger’s Meditative Thinking

Readings:

“Memorial Address” by Martin Heidegger

“Insights from Heidegger’s Meditative Thinking that Deepens Conflict Facilitation Practice” by Robert Gould

Key Dilemma of Part Two:

Does Heidegger’s advice concerning “meditative thinking” depend on us giving up the notion that each individual is radically isolated from others?

Review of List of Navigation Strategies for Seemingly Intractable Conflicts, Differences, and Dilemmas:

Questions:

1. What are Heidegger’s four ways to be a meditative thinking?

Building on the central theme of this chapter, Heidegger starts by saying that we should strive to find “meaning through connection,” where Heidegger affirms that we find others, and our world, meaningful, when we can connect with it. Next, Heidegger suggests that we practice a “releasement from things,” where we get unstuck from how we think about others, and the various aspects of our world, so that we can see things afresh. After that, Heidegger suggests that we should have an “openness to the mystery” of others and our world, affirming that we cannot reduce others, our world, and even ourselves, to a simple description, formula, or truth. Having truths can so easily turn into dogmas. Heidegger’s view of knowledge is that it is on a continuum between solid and liquid, where our knowledge needs to be somewhat flexible, not stuck in a hard place, nor too fluid to stand its ground. Furthermore, we need to develop “comfort with paradox,” so that we resist the urge to solve the paradox.

2. How is meditative thinking useful for conflict workers?

Meditative thinking is particularly useful for conflict workers because it can be so easy to overgeneralize a solution to a problem, when it would be wiser to affirm that certain differences will remain, and must continue to inform a dynamic, fueled by an ongoing paradox, embedded in the differences between us. Finally, Heidegger suggests that we focus our attention to embedded paradoxes, the “things that don’t go together,” because we might find that they inform each other more than we see at first glance.

As an example, we might suppose that African American police officers would generally treat African American criminal suspects better than white police officers, however, the criminal stereotyping of police forces, which disproportionately target African Americans, can infect both black and white police officers. It was reported that a Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP spokesperson said that many black cops “become blue” to “survive in the police department.” This statement was then misreported to say that ‘black cops are blue, not black.’ In reality, black cops are both black and blue, having to navigate both black culture and blue culture. For those of us that want disproportionate police violence against African Americans to stop, we need to understand the difficulties that they have navigating black and white culture, as well as black and blue culture. In practicing this compassionate and paradoxical view, we will have a better understanding about the flawed ways that our white privileged society interacts with people of color.

Summary of Heidegger’s Meditative Thinking for Conflict Processes

The following are my recommendations for using engaged thinking in conflict processes, starting with Heidegger’s notion of meditative thinking. Heidegger’s first three steps are a good warm-up exercise for any conflict facilitator. A conflict facilitator will need to release preconceptions, be open to the mystery that will be presented in the conflict facilitation process, and engage the contradictions and paradoxes that emerge from the dispute’s two sides.

Meditate on the notion of “releasement from things.” A conflict facilitator needs to release preconceptions about the conflict to be addressed, as well as the conflict facilitator’s personal concerns of the day. The conflict facilitator brings all of one’s own baggage into any conflict facilitation process, so it is important to develop an attitude of releasement toward everything in the conflict facilitator’s life.

Maintain “openness to the mystery.” The conflict facilitator must always be curious about what will transpire in any conflict facilitation process. Without curiosity and open-mindedness, the process will seem canned and rigid. With curiosity and open-mindedness, the process will seem fresh and flexible.

Get comfortable with paradox, “what at first sight does not go together at all.” Conflicts generally present a difference that creates a contradiction. It is unusual that one side presents all of the truth and the other side presents only falsehood. When truths are emerging from both sides, a natural paradox emerges. It is the conflict facilitator’s responsibility to embrace this paradox and help the disputants come to the same realization. A successful facilitation depends on this transformational insight.

Embrace the wisdom of listening, not the genius of talk. Listening is wise because it leads to understanding. Talk can be clever and insightful, but only in the presence of listening.

Validate and normalize the differences that are being presented by the conflict at hand. This is the key step in beginning to bring comfort to uncomfortable conflict. Conflict can make the disputants feel invalidated and abnormalized. Reversing this tendency, from the very beginning of a conflict facilitation process, is crucial to establishing a tangible sense of safety.

Help the disputants explore the layers of difference between them: beyond positions to interests, values, roles, and ongoing dramas. Conflicts generally start with two polarized positions. Deconstructing these positions usually leads to an array of differences that combine to trigger the intensity of conflict. Identifying and isolating these differences can lead to acceptance and accommodation.

Watch the drama that is unfolding. Help situate the immediate drama within larger familial, workplace, community, and cultural dramas. The dramatic tension between two disputants is usually not an isolated drama. We play roles that are defined in relationship to our families, or professions, our peers, our community and culture. These social roles impinge on our most personal conflicts.

Focus on the dynamics of this drama. Who is the stronger narrator? How can this create a power difference? How can the quieter party find a stronger voice? It would be quite rare that both parties to a conflict have equal power. Social roles create a diverse array of experiences of personal power. One person may feel powerful professionally and with one’s peers, and powerless within family and community dynamics.

Observe how the drama triggers an internal drama within the conflict facilitator. How is the conflict facilitator’s inner drama affecting the dynamics of the conflict at hand? The conflict facilitator’s neutrality or co-advocacy is always threatened by the internalization of the conflict at hand. The conflict facilitator must continue to struggle with internal triggers as the conflict facilitation process unfolds.

Resist the urge to understand this drama in terms of the dramas of other conflicts. See this conflict as unique to the parties and the particular circumstance that they are in. A conflict facilitator can learn from previous conflicts without imposing those insights rigidly onto the current conflict.

Assess what part of the drama can be processed today, and what part of the drama must necessarily take longer—sometimes, much longer. Conflicts that involve ongoing relationships are not band-aid situations. Underlying tensions emerge in conflict after conflict until those deeper differences are addressed. However, this process cannot be rushed. Disputants must wait until they are ready to dig deeper and face what may be disorienting differences and internal insights.

Reflect appropriate aspects of the conflict facilitator’s inner meditation to the disputing parties, so that their urge to calculate a resolution is balanced with the need to meditate on the conflict’s deeper significance. A meditative conflict facilitator models the engaged thinking process by folding one’s meditations into the discussion.

Give homework to the disputants for the next session, which includes both calculative (autonomous) and meditative (engaged) elements. Assign this work in terms that the disputants can easily process. It might be helpful to write it down (two copies!).

Acknowledge that the optimal conflict facilitation process includes more than mediation. Parties should be encouraged to seek or maintain personal therapy and meditation practices.

Key to the meditative/engaged thinking process is connection. Though we are capable of thinking autonomously, we are also capable of thinking together in a way that does not necessarily reduce to group-think. The key to avoiding group-think is the capacity to think autonomously. Likewise, the key to avoiding isolated thinking is the capacity of thinking together

Radical Acceptance and Heideggerian Rootedness

It might be helpful to give more detail to Heidegger’s notion of rootedness. He talked about rootedness in terms of geographical and cultural location—specifically his location in the German landscape and culture. Here, I suggest a more situational rootedness that might be particularly useful for conflict facilitators. I use the term, “radical acceptance,” because the term, “radical,” can mean a root or fundamental principle—and I believe that such acceptance can be a key principle for conflict facilitators. I’m also using the term, “radical,” to mean complete acceptance.

First, this notion of radical acceptance means that we own whatever circumstance we are in. It is, indeed, our circumstance, not one that we are merely passing through like a tourist. Second, we accept the perspectives, experience, personalities, and motivations of everyone else in this particular circumstance, including our own. We might use Heidegger’s notion of “mood” to capture the totality of any circumstance, transcending the dichotomy of self and other, to include a mixture of all participants in the circumstance.

If we find ourselves judging the circumstances that we find ourselves in, then we are preventing this radical acceptance from occurring. Judging is natural, but for conflict facilitators, it must not overtake the core of our work which is to create an atmosphere of safety through validation and love. Of course, if a circumstance is experienced as unsafe, one must take measures to either escape the circumstance or deescalate the potential violence. Importantly, such de-escalation, in my opinion, depends on radical acceptance.

It is also important to remember that conflict processes depend on balancing power differences. However, the exact dynamics of power in any circumstances may be difficult to know, without fully understanding the experiences of all of those in the circumstance. It may be that those who are usually thought to be powerful do not experience having much power—and that those who are usually thought not to have power actually have more power than expected. Though conflict facilitators must be sensitive to issues of justice and empowerment, we must not be dogmatic about how justice and empowerment play out in any circumstance.

Radical acceptance helps us adapt to the unique circumstances that we find ourselves in. By freeing ourselves from preconceptions about ourselves and those around us, we open ourselves to knowing the realities that are converging in the moment of our arrival and participation. We welcome the circumstance and everyone in it—rather than dreading it or trying to dominate it.

Gould Essay:

Insights from Heidegger’s Meditative Thinking that Deepens Conflict Facilitation Practice

“Is man, then, a defenseless and perplexed victim at the mercy of the irresistible superior power of technology? He would be if man today abandons any intention to pit meditative thinking decisively against merely calculative thinking.”

Heidegger, Memorial Address (1955)

Abstract: Heidegger’s notion of meditative thinking appears to offer insights that can transform conflict facilitation practice by suggesting a deeper level of engagement. Heidegger’s contrasts calculative thinking and meditative thinking in his curiously prophetic 1955 “Memorial Address.” In this speech, he worries that the “rootlessness” of calculative thinking may be a bigger concern than global nuclear annihilation. As a remedy to the feared complete mechanization of thought, he does not recommend its rejection, but rather suggests that it be balanced with thinking that is engaged in irreducible context. For conflict resolvers, it seems particularly useful to express this contrast as autonomous (calculative) thinking and engaged (meditative) thinking. Heidegger’s suggests that four insights fill out his notion of meditative thinking:

Meaning Through Connection

Releasement from Things

“Openness to the Mystery”

Comfort with Paradox

Text: This article is written to appeal to conflict resolvers looking for different, and hopefully better, ways of approaching the conflict facilitation process. I suggest that new approaches can be generated by a different kind of thinking; Heidegger calls it meditative thinking. Current mainstream conflict facilitation processes tend to be influenced by what Heidegger describes as calculative thinking:

[Calculative thinking’s] peculiarity consists in the fact that whenever we plan, research, and organize, we always reckon with conditions that are given. We take them into account with the calculated intension of their serving specific purposes. Thus, we can count on definite results. This calculation is the mark of all thinking that plans and investigates. Such thinking remains calculation even if it neither works with numbers nor uses an adding machine or computer. Calculative thinking computes. (p. 46)

This description of calculative thinking appears to describe much of the way we think about the conflict facilitation process. We “reckon with the conditions that are given.” We take these conditions “into account with the calculated intention of their serving specific purposes,” in our case, the purposes of resolving conflict. In essence, we calculate our way through the conflict facilitation process, starting with the conditions given to us by the disputants, and going through an ‘organized plan’ that leads to a “definite result.”

In contrast to calculative thinking, Heidegger suggests meditative thinking as a way to “contemplate [ ] the meaning which [reins] in everything that is.” He defines meditative thinking as a four-way combination of connected meaning (above), “releasement from things,” “openness to the mystery,” and an engagement with paradox or contradiction—“what at first sight does not go together at all.” These qualities suggest insights from the traditions of Buddhism, narrative, and paradoxical insight. Conflict resolvers who already work within these traditions may have already incorporated some or all of these insights into their practice.

In this article, I show how a Heideggerian analysis of thinking may help transform conflict facilitation practice. Conflict resolvers may have an interest in this approach if they are already sympathetic towards Heideggerian discourse, frustrated with limitations of mechanical thinking, or willing to take a leap of faith into a view of the world as fundamentally connected (perhaps even run-through with being, consciousness, subjectivity, personality, and the sacred). In such a universe, the world is more than a mechanistic relationship of energy and matter [nature’s “gigantic gasoline station” (p. 50)] with epiphenomenal extensions—more than a world of empirical sensibility and collapsible/extinguishable chimera. Whether our world is one or the other cannot be proved with empirical data or logical argument because there are no secure premises for either side—nothing before this metaphysical choice. Both views are coherent, and importantly for Heidegger, each suggests a radically different kind of thinking.

Calculative thinking follows from a mechanistic worldview; meditative thinking follows from a worldview not limited to the material. Interestingly, on Heidegger’s view, both kinds of thinking have a role to play in our lives. It is like affirming that energy behaves as both particle and wave. In the following, I will not attempt to make an argument for the worldview presupposed by Heidegger, I will merely accept it as a logically possible description of our world—one that may be compelling to people with quite diverse metaphysical perspectives.

To begin our inquiry about how meditative thinking can help improve conflict facilitation practice, I suggest that we start by realizing how powerfully we are committed to calculative thinking within western culture. To illustrate this, we should consider our common notion of intelligence. We generally think one is smart who knows a lot of things, scores well on IQ tests, can communicate complex ideas and facts, can construct and test theories, is, perhaps, a member of Mensa, etc. We think this person is smart because they know a variety of complex things, and can do complicated things. On Heidegger’s account, a smart person is an expert in calculative thinking, certainly reflecting a kind of intelligence.

However, Heidegger warns us that calculative thinking can become dangerously ungrounded, insensitive to context, confounded by paradox, and incapable of thinking beyond the examination of things and the manipulation of concepts. To overcome those limitations, Heidegger suggests a form of wisdom that balances the benefits of calculative thinking with a kind of thinking that enables us to find deeper meanings and insights—beyond mere calculations.

On his account, calculative thinking is abstracted from context, is based on logically distinct universal categories, and assumes that the universe is constructed like a mechanism with parts and features that interact, while remaining separate. Heidegger believes that, to a certain degree, this is an accurate account; however, it is not a complete account. A complete account of the universe must include a notion of connection and context that is not reducible to its salient features—because the aggregate of salient features does not equal the whole, one’s being in context.

Heidegger uses the term, “rootedness,” to describe the intimate and complete connection that we have with our context. For Heidegger, a person is not a thing amongst other things; rather a person is a specific and personal being intimately connected to the specific ground or totality of Being, which is the person’s greater context in the world that is not merely our material reality alone. In other words, this greater Being runs throughout the world, whose center is a personal human being.

None of this talk about human beings and their irreducible contexts undermines the facts of mechanical nature; it merely seeks to enrich our understanding that our life in this universe is not reducible to the interactions of mechanical matter alone. Personal or subjective being and our greater context are irreducible dimensions of our connected universal existence. The paradox being embraced here is that the universe is both a collection of separate entities, while a unified connected whole, centered on each individual being—within the totality of a greater Being.

Heidegger’s insights about the nature of the universe play out in our thinking patterns. Calculative thinking assumes that knowledge can be constructed from logical relations between significant factors and features of our shared lives. Meditative thinking, while not denying the virtues of calculative thinking, digs deeper into the contradictions, paradoxes, dramatic tensions, and creative opportunities lying in the background of our ordinary calculations and our absorption in the technology that surrounds us.

Because conflict facilitation engages contradictions, paradoxes, dramatic tensions, and creative opportunities, meditative thinking is particularly useful for conflict facilitation because it is designed to embrace a universe understood where these qualities are not aberrations, but intrinsic features. To show the advantage of meditative thinking within conflict facilitation practice, let’s look at a typical case of divorce mediation.

Calculative Thinking and Meditative Thinking in Divorce Mediation

In divorce mediation, each party is urged to clarify the specific things that they need, so that they can live separate lives in a reasonably comfortable manner. Teasing out the key features of their new lives apart is a key to creating a way to divide up assets, responsibilities, and parenting roles. This process is appropriately addressed through calculative thinking. Each party calculates their resources, needs and responsibilities, while the mediator ensures that those needs and responsibilities are clearly articulated and fully understood by both parties. However, this calculation can go horribly wrong. It can go wrong because the parties might not be aware of the deeper meaning of their divorce, the paradoxes that it poses, and the dramas that are driving their radically transforming roles in the negotiations.

In terms of meditative thinking, the conflict facilitation process needs to seek these deeper meanings, paradoxes, and dramatic meta-narratives that are in the background of what the parties currently think are their needs and interests. How does the mediator transition between calculative and meditative thinking? I suggest that mediators ask divorcing couples to reflect on the deeper meaning of their divorce, the contradictions that they feel, and the greater drama of their lives that continues to inform the roles that they play. Bringing these background issues up may be difficult, especially if the mediation is conceived as short-term. However, there is good reason to suppose that divorce mediation is often too short-term.

In divorces, partners grapple with the loss of a project of creating a meaningful marriage and family that recreates, corrects, or rejects the meaning of their families of origin, their previous couplings, or their single lives. Abandoning a marriage means returning to the needs that were the impetus to marry in the first place. In other words, a divorce confronts the newly single parties with the renewed challenge to establish meaning within their lives on radically different terms than during the life of the marriage.

While married, partners tend to split responsibilities and roles where: one plays the role of chief breadwinner; one plays the role of chief parent; one plays the role of chief nurturer; one plays the role of chief entertainer; one plays the role of family connecter; one plays the role of skeptic; one plays the role of budget regulator; one plays the role of vacation planner, etc. Divorce involves a huge transition of roles from those within a couple to those of a single or differently-coupled person.

These dramatic shifts in context and meaning can be quite destabilizing. Within this radical transition, can the parties really be trusted to unreflectively know their deeper needs and role realignments? These are things to fit into our calculative thinking. However, things look quite different within different contexts and consequently different constructions of self. Would any of us trust ourselves to anticipate what we will be like—our sense of subjectivity—within a radically new context? If we can know this new self at all, it can only be known through a meditative thinking that focuses on the deepest sense of meaning and personal identity.

However, it is more likely that a divorcing couple will only know their needs and roles after they have been living separately for a significant period of time. This suggests that divorce mediation may be rather ineffectual with a couple that has just begun the separation process. If the mediator asks the disputants to reflect on what they deeply hold to be meaningful and on their deepest sense of self-identity, then such reflection must be done with the appropriate skills, over a protracted period of time, to fully engage meditative thinking. On this insight, at least in cases of just-separating people, divorce mediation should not be such a short process, but rather a longer-term decoupling counseling, as well as mediating, process.

The Tension between Engagement and Autonomy

Having given an example of meditative thinking within conflict facilitation practice, I now turn to a consideration of Heidegger’s project of meditative thinking by reframing it as a kind of oscillation between engagement (connection) and disengagement (autonomy). Within this duality, we can think together with others, with nature, and with the world (engagement); or we can think alone, in isolation, against other viewpoints (disengagement). In this way, Heidegger’s notion of meditative thinking is reframed as engaged thinking or thinking through connection, and his notion of calculative thinking is reframed as disengaged or autonomous thinking. This reframing process is meant to further help us in our conflict facilitation practice.

Disengaging ourselves from those around us allows us to create new viewpoints, critique the group’s received wisdom, as well as resist the pressures of group-think. Beyond these virtues, disengaged or autonomous thinking may give us a way of defending one’s unique viewpoint or abstracting truths that are inaccessible when we are immersed in our cultural biases. Critical or autonomous thinking, if not rationality itself, is often understood as based on our ability to disengage from culture, group, or other biasing influences.

However, disengaged thinking appears to have worrisome limitations: We are lured into believing that the best kind of thinking is an isolated, individual activity—we are urged to think alone, even when we are in dialogue with others. We are urged to distrust the influences of dialogue or thinking together. We find ourselves distrusting the effect of speaking to a particular audience for fear that our thinking will irrationally bend to the needs of that audience. We distrust our cultural context and our emotion. We tend to believe that thinking together veers toward group-think, rather than a productive collaboration.

In my reframing of Heidegger’s insights, I suggest a radical shift in the possibilities of thinking by creating a discipline of thinking together that does not fall victim of either the isolation of critical thinking, or the biases of group think. Key to the view that I am asserting is that the distinction between autonomous thinking-alone (thinking-against) and engaged thinking-together (thinking-with) is a real distinction, and not merely a distinction in appearance. I support this position, against challenges to my account, by looking carefully at what happens when we are optimally in dialogue, such as when we lose our ego in a productive mediation or brainstorming session, as opposed to when our autonomy prevents us from a fully engaged dialogue. I note that this sort of engaged, reflective method has roots, not only within a Heideggerian sensibility, but within Zen Buddhism and elements of Native American animist thought as well. If a compelling case can be made for the notion of thinking together—distinct from autonomous or disengaged thinking, while avoiding enmeshed thinking—then the engaged thinking process gains an important grounding.

To make my position clearer, it might be helpful to consider another example. You and I are engaged in a discussion on a given subject. We have different perspectives, but neither of us is dominating the other. There is a free flow of ideas, opinions, and viewpoints. Each of us listens intently to the other, taking each other’s perspective more and more into account. As we talk, there is the strong sense that we are thinking together—even across a difference. When we reflect back on what we have been doing, we might wonder, “Are we two minds trying to find a way to connect on this topic; or are we one mind, trying to overcome our internal differences?” A common response to this question within western culture is that two people are never less than two minds—two souls—two brains. However, strands of alternate philosophies suggest that ultimately, we are one mind—one soul—though we will always be two brains. Experientially, one overarching mind or soul must still overcome the impediments of bodily difference, so the difficulty in communication would still be felt on this alternative understanding. Ultimately, oneness does not deny difference, as the universe is both one and many. The debate is between the camp that views us as isolated and many, and the camp that views us as connected and many.

To summarize the tension between engagement and autonomy, it may be useful to embrace a three-part paradox in our experience of thinking. First, we can have the experience of thinking autonomously for ourselves. Second, we can feel like others are doing our thinking for us (group think). Third, we can experience a deep connection with the thinking of others, without losing our autonomy. (Interestingly, we might have difficulty thinking at all, without a rather profound understanding that there is thinking going on around us.) If we reject the third part of this paradox, we reject the possibility of thinking together on the grounds that such a connected experience is an illusion, as well as a logical contradiction. Alternatively, to embrace the third part of the paradox, we must suppose that we can think together, without sacrificing our ability to think autonomously.

Two Contrasting Descriptions of Thinking in Dialogue

To deepen this discussion of our thinking, I suggest that we look at two ways to describe how we think when we are in dialogue. The mainstream western view is that dialogue engages individual interpretive centers, thinking apart; the alternate view is that dialogue can connect multiple people into a unified effort at thinking together. An example of the latter was explored in detail by Edwin Hutchins’s (1995) analysis of international shipping navigation in Cognition in the Wild by illustrating at least on kind of thinking that is, arguably, out in the world, rather than isolated in brains.

The common western view is that all communication is a kind of interpretation of each word or gesture that is expressed by another. As this account goes, we have brains more powerful and sophisticated than current computer technology, so we can interpret and translate in virtually an instant. This instantaneousness allows us to experience smoothly flowing dialogue and a seamless stream of mutual understanding. However, on this view, there is only the illusion of connection—only an approximate understanding of the other’s expressions. Isolated brains can only roughly, and self-referentially, know the realities of other isolated brains. In contrast, a less fragmented and more holistic perspective presumes that even when our experiences are radically different, there is a connected reality that underlies these differences.

As the reader can clearly see, there is a serious disjunction between these two metaphysical views. The mind-as-brain view asserts the incomprehensibility of consciousness transcending the boundaries of the brain. On the other view, the mind or soul is not restricted to the physicality of the brain; minds and souls can connect through an overarching consciousness—a world run-through with consciousness. A mind or soul can be emergent in the world (mind as world), not merely the brain (mind as brain). Mind-as-world can have intelligence; mind-as-world can have memory, hold history, and gesture towards its and our future.

My purpose is to show that reconciling these two metaphysical views is seemingly impossible when articulated in either/or, polarized form. However, if we shift our focus from metaphysical presumptions to a description of thinking phenomena, we find that we experience both autonomy and connection. Using the wave/particle analogy, we can experience our thinking as either isolated particle or wave of dialogue. If we experience waves of dialogue flowing smoothly with mutual understanding, then we may be reasonably safe to presume that we are thinking with one mind. Only when misunderstandings, or other obstructions to clarity, occur, do we rebound to a sense of a more isolated mind. Even when a misunderstanding occurs, it is likely that both parties will experience a mutual disjunction—in this way, even somewhat isolated minds seem aware of their overarching unity (through an awareness of difference) within a given conversation.

Autonomous and Engaged Thinking in Forgiveness Processes

Returning to the application of these insights to the practice of conflict facilitation, we can ask, as we did earlier, how this duality deepens our practice. A mediator can alternately frame the conflict facilitation process as the sharing of individual thoughts or thinking together—autonomous thinking as well as engaged thinking. How does this contrast play out? The following description of the forgiveness process can help illustrate the complementary roles of these two kinds of thinking. In the process of forgiveness, both parties—perpetrator and victim—undergo an identity transformation. The perpetrator can begin to have an identity that is not dominated by “perpetrator;” and the victim can begin to have an identity that is not dominated by “victim.” Their new identities are not merely a return to an old identity, but an achievement of a safe and authentic identity that—for both parties—is neither dominated by “perpetrator” or “victim,” perhaps for the first time in either of their lives.

Given the identity transformation that is at the heart of the forgiveness process, there certainly is a role for a level of engagement that follows from Heidegger’s principles of meditative thinking. First, there must be the achievement of “meaning through connection,” where victim and perpetrator both find a deeper level of identity through the connection made in the forgiveness process. Second, there must be a “releasement from things” in order to let go of past dysfunctional identities. Third, there must be “openness to the mystery” because no one knows, in advance, the shape of one’s world after an identity transformation. Fourth, one must engage “what at first sight does not go together at all” so that one can begin to imagine having an earlier part of one’s life defined by “victim” or “perpetrator,” and a later part of the same life transformed into a safe, authentic, and more complete identity. All of this work is done through an engagement with others, through dialogue and connection with the world of possibility.

The work of this kind of engaged thinking must also be complemented by calculative (autonomous or critical) thinking that works through an analysis from an individual perspective, disconnected from others and the world. Each party to a forgiveness process must think through such a transformation in a way that makes sense, given each person’s individual context and cultural background. There must be a step-by-step process that each individual can imagine, to map out realistic and attainable goals. Calculative or autonomous thinking is designed to serve each individual’s reasoning, against the reasoning of anyone else. In short, forgiveness must make sense as both a collective process, as well as an individual process. Therefore, different kinds of thinking are appropriate to each process—the connected world of engagement—and the disconnected world of individual autonomy.

Conclusion: Steps toward a Transformed Conflict Facilitation Practice

In the following, I summarize how Heidegger’s four insights within meditative thinking can transform conflict facilitation practice. Before a mediation session, I recommend that conflict resolvers use these insights as a warm-up exercise. A mediator should tune her thinking toward finding deeper meanings through a full engagement with the contexts of disputants and mediator alike. She will also need to, as much as possible, release herself from any preconceptions of both the disputants and the conflict(s) at hand. She must become “open to the mystery,” so that the uncertainties of a conflict facilitation process do not generate mediator anxiety, or a need to impose order on chaos prematurely. She should also creatively engage the contradictions and paradoxes that emerge from the dispute’s two (or more) sides.

Meaning through Connection

Heidegger urges us to engage our full context in all of its infinite meaning. “[C]ontemplate the meaning which reigns (sic) in everything that is.” To facilitate this connection, the mediator must seek transparency between disputants and between the mediator and the disputants. Therefore, the mediator should reflect appropriate aspects of her inner meditation on the conflict to the disputing parties in such a way that the disputants’ urge to calculate a resolution is balanced with the need to meditate on the conflict’s deeper significance. In this way, a meditative mediator models the engaged or meditative thinking process by gently folding her meditations into the discussion.

To encourage disputants to seek deeper meanings, it may be useful for the mediator to give homework to the disputants for the next session. This homework should include both calculative (autonomous) and meditative (engaged) elements. Assign this work in terms that the disputants can easily process. It might be helpful to write it down (two copies!).

It also seems useful to acknowledge that the optimal conflict facilitation process includes more than mediation. Parties should be encouraged to seek or maintain personal therapy and meditation practices to help them find deeper meanings and connections.

Releasement from Things

A mediator should continuously meditate on the notion of “releasement from things.” In addition, she needs to be mindful of how the disputants’ personal and cultural baggage will frequently play a strong role in any conflict facilitation process. A mediator needs to help disputants release preconceptions about each other and the conflict to be addressed. The mediator needs to model this releasement, as well as the difficulties entailed in accomplishing this goal. Ultimate releasement may be impossible for anyone but a saint; however, movement toward releasement, though slow, may be a catalyst toward resolution.

“Openness to the Mystery”

The mediator must always be curious about what will transpire in any conflict facilitation process. Without curiosity and open-mindedness, the process may become canned and rigid. With curiosity and open-mindedness, the process will seem fresh and flexible. Key to this openness is the mediator’s embrace of the wisdom of listening, not the genius of talk. Listening is wise because it leads to understanding. Talk can be clever and insightful, but only in the presence of listening.

Turning to a visual metaphor, the mediator must watch the drama that is unfolding. She should help situate the immediate drama within larger familial, workplace, community, and cultural dramas. The dramatic tension between two disputants is usually not an isolated drama. We play roles that are defined in relationship to our families, or professions, our peers, our community and culture. These social roles impinge on our most personal conflicts. When we focus on the dynamics of this drama, we wonder about issues such as: Who is the stronger narrator? How can this create a power difference? How can the quieter party find a stronger voice? It would be quite rare that both parties to a conflict have equal power. To complicate the issue further, social roles create a diverse array of experiences of personal power. One person may feel powerful professionally and with one’s peers, and powerless within the family and community.

A meditative mediator should observe how the drama triggers an internal drama within the mediator herself. How is the mediator’s inner drama affecting the dynamics of the conflict at hand? The mediator’s neutrality or co-advocacy is always threatened by the internalization of the dispute. The mediator must continue to struggle with internal triggers as the conflict facilitation process unfolds. Additionally, the mediator needs to resist the urge to understand this drama in terms of the dramas of their other life conflicts. She needs to see this conflict as unique to the parties and the particular circumstance that they are in, as well as a part of a larger pattern. A mediator can learn from previous conflicts without imposing those insights rigidly onto the current conflict.

Furthermore, a meditative mediator needs to assess what part of the drama can be processed today, and what part of the drama must necessarily take longer—sometimes, much longer. Conflicts that involve ongoing relationships are not band-aid situations. Underlying tensions emerge in conflict after conflict until those deeper differences are addressed. However, this process cannot be rushed. The mediator must be patient with the disputants until they are ready to dig deeper and face what may be disorienting differences and internal insights.

Comfort with Paradox

Heidegger’s meditative thinking involves an embrace of “what at first sight does not go together at all.” Conflicts generally present a difference that creates a contradiction. It is unusual that one side presents all of the truth and the other side presents only falsehood. When truths emerge from different contexts, a natural paradox emerges. It is the mediator’s responsibility to engage this paradox and help the disputants engage it on their own terms. A successful facilitation depends on this transformational insight.

Disputant differences drive paradoxes that may be difficult to unsnarl. The mediator’s first step is to validate and normalize the differences that are being presented by the conflict at hand. This is the key step in beginning to bring comfort to uncomfortable difference. Conflict can make the disputants feel invalidated and abnormalized. Reversing this tendency, from the very beginning of a conflict facilitation process, is crucial to establishing a tangible sense of safety.

Furthermore, the meditative mediator needs to help the disputants explore the layers of difference between them: beyond positions to interests, values, roles, and ongoing dramas. Conflicts generally start with two polarized, oppositional positions that trigger the intensity of the conflict. Deconstructing these positions usually leads to an array of differences that, when identified and isolated, can lead to some common ground, acceptance and accommodation. Always start with perceptions, and then validate the insights and truths within those perceptions.

In summation, the key to the meditative/engaged thinking process is connection. Though we are capable of thinking autonomously, we are also capable of thinking together in a way that does not necessarily reduce to group-think. The key to avoiding group-think is the capacity to think autonomously. Likewise, the key to avoiding isolated thinking is the capacity of thinking together.

References

Heidegger, M. (1966). Discourse on thinking. New York: Harper and Row

Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge: The MIT Press