"Solutioning"

 Recently at my work place, I learned the term "solutioning", and it's a very interesting term. In fact, it sounds as though it's a noun, "solution" which has now become a verb in popular parlance, perhaps inspired by the store called "Solutions". And the interesting thing is that it's had a bit of a negative connotation, at least judging by the way it's been used at work. For instance, we say that solutioning is a 'short cut' to a process that should be done slowly and in a quality way, and we often say that solutions can cut short a necessary dialogue that needs to take place for things to happen. Another implication of solutioning is that it often takes the form of a narrow line of thought: I try to reduce a problem to one particular outcome or line of action, rather than trying to look deeply at the complex nature of it. In a sense, solutioning tries to reduce a complex situation to an easy formula, rather than seeing the co-dependent arising of different factors.
    Now, what would Santideva have said about this notion of solutioning? He certainly doesn't write about this term, but he does have a lot to say about "attribution" errors: that is, attributing qualities to something which lacks these qualities. The biggest mistaken attributions, according to Santideva, are sentience and awareness. In other words, people are quick to think that there are things in the world which have awareness which actually don't. The example that Santideva uses is as follows:

29. If the permanent Self is not sentient, it is obviously inactive like space. Even in conjunction with conditions, what activity does the immutable have?

Here, Santideva seems to be saying: one cannot possibly imagine a 'permanent' being that has the qualities we associate with sentience. Why is that? Perhaps it's because the nature of sentience is such that there is this constant arising of new conditions and responding to them through ceaseless change. To say that there is something core or immutable about that self would be to deny the dynamic nature of existence. So, already, Santideva is suggesting that the world is much too dynamic and changing to allow for the idea of static and changeless things. Hence he also remarks on Line 30, "What is the use of action to the Self which at the time of action is the same as it was before? If the relationship is that it has action, then which of the two is the cause of the other?"  This statement suggests that there isn't a self that is "doing the acting" at all, since all the parts of a situation are influencing each other at the same time. It gets to the point where one cannot separate the causal agent from the effect.
    All of this is to suggest that the problem with solutioning is in how it overlooks the complex interconnections of things.
   
Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997.  .