Dao and Three Games of Personal Mastery by Gemma Jiang, PhD.

What are the modern applications of ancient Dao wisdom in personal mastery? Is it possible for the ancient wisdom to offer remedies to diseases plaguing society today? What might modern life look like following Dao philosophy?

As Thoreau said so eloquently in Walden “To be a philosopher is not nearly to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust. IT is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically….”.

In this week's DD session, we will explore three games of personal mastery from Daoist philosophy and experience their power in solving practical problems:

• The first game offers an antidote to utilitarianism: Philosophy bakes no bread, but is bread the only important thing in life? As Socrates said: Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live. What is beyond utilitarianism?
• The second game offers an antidote to fragmentation: The fragmented mentality of "us vs them" runs rampant. How might the Yin/Yang dynamic help bring unity and realize the potential of "either or" and "both and"?
• The third game offers an antidote to smallness: None of us fully live up to our highest potential. How might we always keep the striving spirit alive? How might we cultivate a posture of humility and break away from our ego attachments to opinions, beliefs, accomplishments and setbacks?

 
Gemma Jiang (PhD) specializes in providing comprehensive leadership support for large complex science teams funded by the National Science Foundation in the United States. Her primary roles with these teams include: 1) Identifying and amplifying assets within the team; 2) serving as buffer and connective tissue for disparate parts of the team; 3) leading cultural change towards collaboration and co-creation; 4) holding shared vision for scientific research that includes societal impact; 5) generating new knowledge by integrating theory with practice.

Through her position as the senior team scientist with Colorado State University, she serves as the chief team scientist of two National Science Foundation funded, multi-year, multi-institute, $15M budgeted projects. She also nurtures a thriving private consulting practice to help smaller science teams with their team leadership needs.

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