Composing a Further Life

was focused on the one third who would come from the Middle East, although in the end the arrangements for the Israeli contingent fell through. I told Tolle that I would come and suggested that I would also enjoy speaking elsewhere in the region, which led to engagements on university and college campuses in Oman, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.
    In Oman I spoke at Sultan Qaboos University, in Saudi Arabia at Effat College for Women in Jeddah, and in Bahrain at the Royal University for Women. When speaking or traveling, I wore an abaya or loose tunics and head scarves as a gesture of respect. In each place I met with faculty and administration and sometimes with students in addition to the talks I gave. My main emphasis was on reciprocity in learning, where each side has something to teach and something to learn from the other.
    The Society for Organizational Learning is focused on the application of systems theory to business and governance, and one of its key concepts is looking at any relationship as moving in two directions. Thus, instead of looking at government as exerting top-down control, systems theory reminds the observer of the ways in which the ruler depends upon and is affected by the ruled, and the dangers of attempting to govern without listening. Too often we think of teachers or physicians as acting upon students or patients—acting beneficently, to be sure, but unchanged by them. Even parents sometimes believe themselves to be guiding and forming their children without letting themselves be reshaped in the process. But if there is to be dialogue between civilizations, the learning must go in both directions, and each must acknowledge the need to learn from the other. This means encouraging curiosity and respectful mutual knowledge without proselytizing. In the area of belief, this is best done by focusing on the experience of believers rather than on theology and clerical expertise—after all, the clergy tend to be defined as teachers rather than as learners, and they may even stop at that definition.
    The example I seized upon to open my talk was a set of ordinary greeting forms in Arabic. Often in English, when two people meet they greet each other symmetrically: “Good morning.” “Good morning.” In Arabic, it is customary to return a greeting with a further and different greeting, responding to one “hello” with “a hundred hellos,” to “a morning of goodness” with “a morning of light.” If someone offers me “peace” (or salvation), I may offer them “peace and the mercy of God and His blessing” in return. Thinking about these formal exchanges led me to wonder how often a professor or a priest or an industrial consultant approaches a student or parishioner or client with the assumption that he or she will be both teaching
and
learning something new.
    This is even true in highly technical areas. New science and technology open new horizons of possibility and effective compassion but demand fresh ethical discernment in relation to tradition, a process that is often more complex than simple acceptance of the recommendations of technical specialists and engineers. To avoid reflexive rejections of change, it is important to embed the process of evaluation in programs to transfer technology and to be willing to learn what the other cares about. Where the same values co-occur in two traditions, they often do not have equal priority, leading to very different behavioral outcomes and judgments. For some, honesty is more important than kindness, while for others kindness is more important. In considering unfamiliar behavior, it is useful to ask what positive value that behavior is felt to serve and what alternatives might serve the same value. This is why passing on knowledge often depends on openness to new knowledge. Just as communities can learn from each other, so must older and younger generations.
    In Oman I met a man who had represented his government in relief efforts in Southeast Asia after the tsunami of 2004. He was hospitable in the best Arab tradition, warm and welcoming to us as visitors to a culture he loved. But he was clearly aware of the suspicions Westerners have come to hold of Muslims since 9/11. Watching me carefully, he said, “I am a
jihadi,”
using the word usually translated as “holy warrior.” Fortunately, I remembered enough Arabic to know that
jihad
means not “holy war” but “effort” or “struggle,” and it dawned on me that for