| This Project Demonstrating Excellence (PDE) is a theoretical research project on the nature of the human group-field as a dynamic living system, which significantly impacts quality of life. The study is seeking to understand the roots of the human condition and how this condition manifests in the human group-field.;Grounded in decades of group-oriented human service work, and extensive fieldwork training in the practice of group change agency, the PDE examines the group-field in light of two principle disciplines: living systems theory and Buddhism. These are the two "voices" in the PDE dialogue---how life emerges, grows and evolves, and how life awakens to its true nature.;Based in the principles of general systems theory, the study focuses on Fritjof Capra's "unified theory of living systems" that seeks to answer the question, "what is life?" This includes the work of Ilya Prigogine, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, and Ken Wilber among others. From the orientation of Tibetan Buddhism, the PDE uses both a traditional and applied, or "socially engaged" Buddhist perspective to address the central Buddhist concern, "how do we liberate ourselves and others from suffering?";The common ground, between these two perspectives, is discussed as the phenomenon of karmic formation, or how external and internal phenomena arise. This traditional Buddhist understanding becomes, in the PDE, the framework for how the human group-field is examined. Central to all is the overarching theme of peacemaking, or helpful rather than harmful coexistence with the earth and its inhabitants.;By weaving together the two principle "voices," along with sociological, psychological, philosophical, anthropological, and geopolitical perspectives, this is a highly interdisciplinary study. It explores how humans make meaning about their world, hence how they act on that meaning and create helpful and harmful conditions. Results or findings of this study are understood as a deeper awareness of the human condition, and our collective ability to actually change that condition. |
