## Resilient Koan 21 - Purpose and Service ### _Koan_: How do we be true to our Purpose, while also offering ourselves in Service? ### _Discussion_: What is the relationship between purpose and service? Can they be separate and what if they are contextless? We might find service in the open question of public service. We might find it in the very specific meeting of needs of professional practice. We might also find it by an alignment with Spirit in service of all sentient beings. What we do find is purpose and service are never far from each other. The skill is in the discernment of the context in which those two concepts are being applied. How often then do we not even make the time to inquire into what purpose and service mean, in our context? ### _Inquiry_: [Vickers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Geoffrey_Vickers) writes about how human systems are not purposeful. Human systems can appear purposeful just as ants colony may appear e.g. singularly focused on running a particular 'program' to achieve an outcome. The concept of a purposeful system is 'linear' and doesn't reflect the deeper complexity of systems that are 'appreciative'. Appreciative systems, such as individual consciousness or a human community 'notice particular aspects of a situation, to discriminate them in particular ways and to measure them against particular standards of comparison..'. The appreciated aspects condition any new experience, but are also modified by new experience. If one had a linearly-framed purpose, one could presumably do something in a way that produces and outcome in a time without undesired results, and it would be intensely satisfying. But the reality of the human experience and human communities is that all of the purpose, the system within which that purpose is achieved, and the perception of different aspects of that system are all evolving. ### _Insight:_ Purpose is coupled with Service and each is always in a (evolving) context. When we see someone offering something aligned with their sense of purpose (e.g. a service, or a workshop), but it is not meeting any need of the context (e.g. a need of the organisation or community) then the offering is purposeless. But that person (or us!) may only be appreciating aspects of the context (e.g. perceiving certain needs) that are aligned with their own purpose and their own context-independent definition of Service, and so be unable to see that their offering is actually purposeless in this particular context. If there is a tension or disconnect between Purpose and Service then that may result from misinterpretation of the context and imposition of service to only serve one's own purposes: if YOUR purpose is of no service in the context (as defined by others e.g. those who you are claiming to serve), then what is the purpose of you doing it? ### _Resolution_: Purpose and Service are context dependent. They can be defined and achieved, but only within context. People, projects or organisations would have multiple purposes and multiple services, but these purposes and services only make sense in a certain context. These can be placed within a heirarchy that makes sense e.g. [8 levels of naming what you do](http://www.emrgnc.com/origin.htm) ### _Practice_: Inquire into context first. Do not come into the party blindfolded into a room of unsuspecting guests offering sweets of delight that suit your tastes. Come first and wait to be invited to inquire, see what the need is, and then find if your purpose can fulfil any part of that in Service. This requires a letting go of the idea that your Purpose can be achieved, or even that you can be fulfilled in achieving that Purpose, free of the context. Instead, understand that real purpose, service and bliss co-arise: "Happiness is where your heart's deepest desire and the world's greatest need meet". --- This is one in a series of 25 'Resilient Koans' documenting "an apithologue into the koans of practice discovered while creating resilient sustainable communities", in 2010.