Before people commit to the very difficult work of surfacing mental models,
it always helps to first make people aware of how deeply ingrained their
taken-for-granteds really are, how they keep us locked up in our thinking;
how they keep us from seeing what's right in front of us. Some of my
favorite examples come from my study of zen koans. On one of my first
sittings at the Providence Zen Center, during the koan interview, my
teacher took off his watch and placed it on the floor in from of me. He
asked the simple question, "What is it?"
Now, neophyte that i was, i knew enough to know that the purpose of this
interview was to help me step outside of thinking as a route to
enlightenment. But i was stunned as i sat there trying to figure out a very
creative (totally missing the point) answer as to what this simple, everyday
object was in front of me. My mind was racing (which should have been a BIG
red flag right there) and i was visibly squirming. And he had the nerve to
just sit there patiently with a smile on his face! After i blurted out
something totally incomprehensible, he calmly picked up the watch, looked at
its face, and said, "It's 8:45."
His point, of course, was to illuminate the folly of what i was
doing--thinking harder--in order to perceive what was right there in front
of me. Within the context of metal models, this always works to demonstrate
the prison-like aspects of our assumptions and patterns of thinking.
Additionally, i think this example does a beautiful job of illustrating
shift of mind and leverage.
tom king
trking@providence.edu