Zen and the Art of Organizational Maintenance Ronald E. Purser San Francisco State University
Zen and the Art of Organizational Maintenance
Ronald E. Purser San Francisco State University rpurser@sfsu.edu ABSTRACT This paper draws from the “Zen arts” as a means for reimagining management as a mindful practice known as “organizational maintenance.” Zen Buddhism has had a profound influence on Japanese arts— such as calligraphy, sumi-e drawing, the tea ceremony, landscape garden design, archery, and Haiku poetry. The Zen aesthetic, often referred to as wabi sabi, and its associated notions as being an “artless art” that values “controlled accidents” is explored for its import value as a form of aesthetic inquiry. I propose that organizational maintenance is a noninstrumental form of artistic experimentation, involving the creative resolution of dilemmas. In such a nondualistic perceptual framework, organizational maintenance is concerned with revealing an aesthetics of ineffability, a “quality without a name.” I suggest that by reframing creative dilemma resolution as a contemporary form of Zen koan practice, it becomes an analogous artifact that can stimulate a creative inquiry into the true nature of organizations. Keywords: Zen Buddhism, mindfulness, aesthetics, wabi sabi, dilemmas
Zen Buddhism and its influence on the arts has much to offer in theorizing the connections between art, design and organizations. Many contemporary Western artists, musicians, poets and architects have been inspired by Zen, such as John Cage, Herbie Hancock, Phillip Glass, Brian Eno, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Louis Kahn (Baas and Jacob 2004). What did they find? Lanier Graham (2010), curator of a recent exhibit on Zen and the Modern Arts notes: Buddhists understand we do not have to die to find lasting peace inside ourselves, that each of us can become a Buddha, that is to say, all of us can realize our Buddha-Nature, our Unconditioned Consciousness, here and now.
Ronald E. Purser San Francisco State University rpurser@sfsu.edu ABSTRACT This paper draws from the “Zen arts” as a means for reimagining management as a mindful practice known as “organizational maintenance.” Zen Buddhism has had a profound influence on Japanese arts— such as calligraphy, sumi-e drawing, the tea ceremony, landscape garden design, archery, and Haiku poetry. The Zen aesthetic, often referred to as wabi sabi, and its associated notions as being an “artless art” that values “controlled accidents” is explored for its import value as a form of aesthetic inquiry. I propose that organizational maintenance is a noninstrumental form of artistic experimentation, involving the creative resolution of dilemmas. In such a nondualistic perceptual framework, organizational maintenance is concerned with revealing an aesthetics of ineffability, a “quality without a name.” I suggest that by reframing creative dilemma resolution as a contemporary form of Zen koan practice, it becomes an analogous artifact that can stimulate a creative inquiry into the true nature of organizations. Keywords: Zen Buddhism, mindfulness, aesthetics, wabi sabi, dilemmas
Zen Buddhism and its influence on the arts has much to offer in theorizing the connections between art, design and organizations. Many contemporary Western artists, musicians, poets and architects have been inspired by Zen, such as John Cage, Herbie Hancock, Phillip Glass, Brian Eno, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Louis Kahn (Baas and Jacob 2004). What did they find? Lanier Graham (2010), curator of a recent exhibit on Zen and the Modern Arts notes: Buddhists understand we do not have to die to find lasting peace inside ourselves, that each of us can become a Buddha, that is to say, all of us can realize our Buddha-Nature, our Unconditioned Consciousness, here and now.