Tackling Root Causes

All situations and events in the world, whether for good or for ill, arise from many interdependent causes. Among these causes are geography, natural resources, climate, financial resources, economic systems, availability of technologies, disease, natural disasters, historical events, etc.

These are critical, observable, forceful, external, physical factors that play a major causal role in human happiness and suffering – personal, societal and global. Sustainable solutions to societal and global problems must effectively take into account and address these key factors.

The basic premise of The I00 Hours is that there are also crucial, often overlooked, internal root causes of personal, organizational, societal and global success and failure; and that these crucial internal root causes lie in the hearts and minds of people and their leaders.

All of the good (medical advances, humanitarian work, responsible and wise governments, etc) and all of the destruction (WMDs, ethnic cleansings, self-serving and tyrannical governments, etc) that human beings have created for themselves or for others have been conceived within peoples’ hearts and minds.

Bodies do not take action without minds. It is within the heart and mind that beliefs and prejudices are held, that emotions are felt, that reactions to situations take place, that anger, hatred and resentment reside, that compassion comes forth, that plans for good or ill are conceived, and that decisions and choices are made.

People that live in, and experience the same conditions of luxury and freedom, or poverty and oppression, can (and do) respond to these conditions in profoundly different ways.

Within peoples’ hearts and minds lie the root causal forces of wisdom, compassion and generosity, or those of delusion, hatred and greed. It is the internal root causal forces in the heart and mind that ultimately make a great leader, a saint, a benefactor or a dictator, a tyrant, a murderer.

Unless these root causes of behavior in the hearts and minds of people (at both leadership and grassroots levels) are addressed and transformed, it is unlikely that any solution to societal or global problems will be either complete or sustainable.

Historically, societies have lacked adequate understanding of the heart and mind, and lacked powerful transformative technologies capable of addressing and transforming these internal problems at their root. This need no longer be the case.

Practical pathways, technologies, practices and structures to begin to address and transform these internal problems at the root cause do exist. The 100 Hours creates access to these, empowering participants to transform their lives, organizations and societies.

“Heart/mind is the forerunner of all things and is their chief.”

“I know of no other thing that can bring so much happiness as a well trained, well directed heart/mind. A well trained, well directed heart/mind can bring happiness, indeed.

I know of no other thing that can bring so much suffering as an ill trained, ill directed heart/mind. An ill trained, ill developed heart/mind can bring suffering, indeed. “

- Siddarth Gotama (The Buddha)