My favorite gatherings are all alike in a certain way: when they’re over, they’re over. Open space technology makes this an explicit part of the format, which I’ve experienced as permission to linger or leave early, to stick around or wander off, individually or in a group, as needed. Or to realize that even if an event has ended, it’s not over.

I was at a 4-day retreat last month with about 55 people, 10 of which I knew previously, and the rest I was meeting for the first time. On the last morning, I felt a familiar impulse: to rush around, collect contact information, get people signed in and signed up in various ways so that we could keep in touch. The twice-monthly beat of an e-mail newsletter. But for this particular gathering, of local and regional sanghas, that wasn’t the move. Instead, we were all part of a larger, looser network within which I might expect to encounter certain people again, down the road, for our next communication. Let the timing and context and contents be a surprise. Do you ever feel that? I certainly do with dharma friends. Something about sitting with people over any span of time makes for a durable connection, and I am always happy to re-encounter such people months or years down the road, in a different setting, perhaps at the farmers’ market or library, out and about, saying sometimes nothing more profound than ‘hello.’ And if our paths don’t cross, and that next conversation is not forthcoming, we are still contained within the same circle of having been there, being there, enacting the same projects and intentions. Some circles open at a certain time, and only close when we are done. Which is to say: when it’s over, it’s over.

This concludes the open space technology series, started in 2022: