Interview with Ed Earl - Mindfulness and Sustainable Design
Ed Earl  is the principal of Priority 1 Projects, a construction project management firm.  Ed has 25 years of construction experience and an MBA from Stanford university.  He is pioneering a new approach to construction project management he terms “collaborative construction” which is based on open communication, trust and shared objectives – aspects that are often absent in the construction industry.  Ed has been a regular meditator for over 20 years and has been attending meditation retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh since 1997.  Ed is currently the project manager for the construction of a new nunnery complex at Deer Park Monastery in San Diego which incorporates sustainable design and green building techniques including straw bale construction.  
What brought you to a meditation practice?
About 20 years ago in his 30's Ed went through a period of exploration. He was raised as a catholic. Ed was looking for meaning, and exploring spiritual traditions, in particular Eastern religions. His wife and him spend time in Nepal taking meditation and Yoga classes.

He found a book by Thich Nhat Hanh on walking meditation before his trip to Nepal. Thich Nhat Hanh was having a retreat in Santa Barbara in 1997. That was his first retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, and Ed has since gone on a lot of retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh or in the Plum Village tradition. So most of Ed's practice is in this tradition/lineage.

Was there anything in this new spiritual practice that you didn't get from your wisdom tradition that you were brought up in?

He read a book by Thich Nhat Hanh , Living Buddha, Living Christ, which gave him a much deeper understanding of Christianity and Catholicism, that he didn't get from 12 years of education. Thich Nhat Hanh does a great job of explaining Christ consciousness, putting Christianity and Catholicism in a context that was much more meaningful to Ed.

It's more about becoming more deeply grounded and connected and strengthened to your root religion or faith.

So at some point in your practice you wanted to apply these mindfulness trainings into your daily life, your career, and this "right livelihood" was a bit of a struggle to integrate right?

Ed took the 5 mindfulness trainings in 1999, they're guidelines, not commandments that you try to live by. No one can commit to them 100%.

Right livelihood was always a struggle for Ed. He was in construction for 20 years. He was not necessarily in a career that was harmful, or completely out of alignment. Just not necessarily incorporating his mindfulness practices in his profession.

So let that dissonance sit there, and not resolve it as much. It wasn't until about 2014, where he was asked to help and get involved in a construction project at Deer park monastery in Escondido, a monastery that was created and directed by Thich Nhat Hanh. That was able to show him a way to bring and incorporate right livelihood into his daily life, and his professional career.

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Maybe you can explain this a bit more, how you bring mindfulness into your construction job?

One of the mindfulness training is about mindful communications. It's about deep listening, and loving speech, or mindful communication. And much of construction is not necessarily about deep speech and listening (laughs).

With this project, Ed felt he had the freedom to practice these concepts, since the clients are the monastics who follow the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, so this was a good opportunity for me to practice deep  communications.

Normally, when you have a bid meeting, you meet with each of the candidates privately, and then have them prepare a proposal.

This time they wanted a more collaborative and cooperative meeting, so they invited all the contractors together, not privately or competitively.