(upbeat music) This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for Your Life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you and happy listening. - One morning back in the late 1950s, a woman in Massachusetts looked out of her window into a garden and saw a dead bird. And after this dead bird, she saw another dead bird and then another dead bird and another dead bird. And she began to wonder whether this had anything to do with the fact that the day before, a state-hired aeroplane had been over the local woodland, spraying chemicals to control mosquitoes. And she was concerned about this and wrote to a friend of hers who was a biologist. And her name was Rachel Carson. And Rachel Carson, well, she spent a few years researching the link, the effects of DDT, the chemical concerned. And Rachel Carson was quite shocked at how extensive these effects were. And the outcome was the publication in 1962 of a book called "Silence Spring", which is commonly regarded as the kind of beginning of the modern ecological movement. So the modern ecological movement isn't all that old, it's 43, which I like to think is quite young. So what made that book so significant? Well, three things. Firstly, for the first time, here was a scientific perspective. Rachel Carson was a scientist. And it cut against the prevailing idea of science as kind of technologically engineered control of nature. Science in its most mechanical reductive materialistic form insensitive to the complexity of interconnections in the real world. So it was perhaps the beginning of the end of the road of positivist science for that kind of mechanical science. Actually, after Nyanna Vatcha's talk, perhaps the beginning of the end had been some years previously. But it was certainly a turning point in the end of that kind of science. Rachel Carson concluded, the last words of "Silence Spring" are, it is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons and that in turning them against insects, it has also turned them against the earth. And she was the first one to say something of that kind. So the second reason why the book was significant was that it was also, as well as the beginning of the end of one road, it was also the beginning of another road of what Rachel Carson actually called the other road. And this was ecology, the science, ecology as a transformative idea and movement, an outlook that would actually change the relationship between humans and their environment. So along this other road, science would not be a blunt and brutal tool, but something of an exploration, something that could invoke an element of humility, as one writer has put it, something that can move us to silent wonder and glad affirmation. And finally, the third reason why the book was significant, I think was just its prescience, because what was true of the technology of DDT has turned out to be true of the technology of other chemicals, of the internal combustion engine, of the jet engine, of aerosols, of nuclear technology, of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, industrialized fishing, urbanization, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Again and again, in the last 43 years, we've been bumping up against the limits to technological development and growth. So the result now almost 43 years on. If we ask ourselves, what is the prevailing image of our time? What is the prevailing idea, the big idea of our thinking? I would contend there could only be one answer, and that is ecology. The awakening to ecology is the overarching reality that we live in, of the time that we live in. If it's easy to miss that, it's only because it's so, so massive. So we have this image of ecology, this metaphor of ecology, of interconnectedness. And this truth, it's interesting to note, this truth hasn't dawned from the East. It hasn't come in the main through Buddhism, nor has it been the invention of philosophy. It's a lesson that's being taught to us loudly and clearly and urgently by nature herself, by reality itself. That grand old anarchist Cropotkin once remarked, nature is the first teacher of man. So what can it mean to practice Buddhism in times such as these? Are ecology in Buddhism the same thing? Has it got anything to teach us as Buddhists? And have we got anything as Buddhists to offer ecology, to offer the ecological movement? Well, to begin to answer these questions, I'll be looking at so-called deep ecology, which is kind of the perceptual and emotional exploration of ecology. However, before I do that, what I'd like to do is stay a while with kind of ordinary ecology, the science of ecology. Just in case there's something in ecology, the science that we might kind of overlook on our rush for the deep spiritual stuff. So first, I'll look at ecology, the science and what resonances we might find there. Second, I'd like to say something about my own experiences of deep ecology, why I've found them to be integral to, well, my own Buddhist practice. And finally, I'd like to draw out some of the implications for us as Buddhists, practicing in Western or Westernizing societies and in the Western Buddhist order in particular. So first then, the science of ecology. What is it? Well, the word ecology was actually coined back in the mid 19th century by a Darwinian, a German Darwinian scientist called Ernst Heikl. And he used it to refer to the study of organisms in their environment. Eco from the Greek means house, household, hence habitat. Later on, ecology is kind of evolved in meaning, not just to look at the interconnection between organisms and their environment, but also the interconnections between organisms. So it's the study of ecosystems. You could say ecology is the science of the interconnectedness of living things. So while biologists had been concerned with life as individual organisms are usually pickled, apologies to any biologists for that crude characterization, ecologists saw living things more in terms of their relatedness and generally felt much less inclined to pickle things. Pickle things don't really relate very well. So I think Buddhists are bound immediately to find a resonance here. An ecological perspective is seeing things in their relatedness. And I think that naturally implies a deeper understanding of conditioned co-production. Seeing things, seeing beings not as things, but as patterns of relatedness. And for Western thought generally, I think ecology marked one of the great steps forward from narrow, positivistic materialism. And ecology becomes even more interesting when we start to apply it to ourselves. It means learning to see ourselves as part of a set of relationships. There's an Australian ecologist called John Seed who puts it that we need to see ourselves not as isolated, skin encapsulated egos, but as part of the larger body of the earth. I'd also like to remind you of the quote from Albert Einstein, the Tignonavatcha, finished with, because I think that puts it very well as well. A human being is part of the whole called by us universe. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings are something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. So that was Albert Einstein decades ahead of his time. (Silence) This is an insight into connectedness, is an insight that nature is teaching us loud and clear as a society. Our choice is between trying to resist it and facing the consequences or embracing it. And while embracing truth is, of course, precisely the business of the Buddhist path. The Buddhist symbol that's very often invoked as a description of ecology is, of course, that of Indra's net. It's a symbol that combines pure relatedness with pure individuality. And I must say I've found Indra's net to be a very powerful tool. I think somehow just as an imaginative tool, it's helped me to sort of have a sense of feeling part of a greater web of life. Without plunging into the other extreme of nihilistic non-existence. So Indra's net is a very powerful image for ecology. This isn't to say that the natural world is Indra's net. I'll come back to this. But Indra's net does seem to represent a kind of deeper pattern which ecology mirrors. Or at the very least, it's a very effective, strong, imaginative device for the truth of ecology. So ecology does have this very immediate affinity with Buddhism. And the basis for that is the idea of interconnectedness. Symbolized by a network, symbolized by a web, the web of life. Quite often, this is where the kind of Buddhist exploration of ecology stops. I'd like to come back to interconnectedness later. However, I think there's more to it than just this. There's more, I think, we can draw on from ecology, the science, than just interconnectedness, just Indra's net. And two things that I think we can draw from it. One is kind of the actual empirical content of ecology. I'll explain that in a moment. And the second one is what kind of other truths, other general patterns that we can observe at work in ecology. So first, the actual empirical content of ecology. What do I mean by this? Well, I think there's a sort of danger, and one that we're far from immune to as Buddhists, in kind of appropriating the truth of interconnectedness, in quite a glib and abstracted way. Kind of, hey man, we're all interconnected. It can kind of sink quite easily into a sort of sentimental truism. If we actually go back to scientific ecology and look a bit closer, what we actually see is that ecology isn't quite Indra's net. It isn't a perfect reflection of Indra's net. It isn't pure mutual interconnectedness. The similarity with Indra's net is only partial. What we actually see, if we look at nature, is that beings are related to some beings more than they are to other beings. And they're related in very particular causal relationships, very particular ways. So I think there's much to learn from ecology about why it doesn't conform to Indra's net, as to why it does. Ecology really is about the particularities, as much as it is about the general kind of truth, the general sort of pattern of interconnectedness. Ecology as science is interested in the particular empirical realities of living systems, and that brings us into a deeper experience of actual living beings. I'd like to talk for a minute about elephants. It's always a pleasure. Elephants, as you'll know, have been kind of wandering around on the outskirts of Buddhist history, right from the outset. And yet, our understanding of elephants has in a way really been quite limited. Compared with a modern ecological understanding of elephants, which in a way has gone where two and a half thousand years of Buddhist contact with elephants and Buddhist compassion hasn't. Let's have a look at the sort of history of elephants. First of all, in the Jataka tales. The Jataka tales tend to treat elephants as they do other animals, basically anthropomorphically. Basically, these are stories about people using animals as agents in the story. So the Jataka tale is very wonderful stories, but actually they don't really tell us a lot about how it is really for actual animals, elephants and others. If we look at the Pali Kamen, there's that very famous story about the Buddha and the bull elephant, where the Buddha, who is feeling oppressed by the kind of duties of leadership, feeling oppressed by all the different visitors and so on, goes off into the forest for a period of time and comes across a bull elephant. He was in the same predicament. He is oppressed by his herd, by the pressures of leading a herd. Actually, that wouldn't have been the case because we now know that elephant societies are very strongly matriarchal. So again, a good story, and it makes a point, but actually the understanding of elephants was quite limited. And since then we have, well, two and a half thousand years of Buddhist history, where elephants have been kept in captivity and used in human service by Buddhist societies. The understanding that we now have of elephants is that they are deeply social animals. That they actually have quite a complex network of social relationships. And also that that network of social relationships is really bound up very strongly with territory. It's almost like you could speak of an elephant culture, knowledge about connections and territory that is passed from one generation to another and can very easily be lost. So we now know that when elephants are held in captivity, in a way they suffer to a degree that perhaps other animals don't, because of this social and territorial richness that they have. So nowadays, the human understanding of elephants is now vastly more advanced than it ever has been, despite two and a half thousand years of Buddhist history. So the capacity for compassion towards elephants has correspondingly increased our ability to really empathize with elephants and understand what it might be like to be an elephant, so far from complete, but it has increased. This is a bit ironic at a time when through our actions as a society, a lot of the habitats of elephants are actually being destroyed. But at least through the science of ecology, there is a strand of thinking in our society that is more empathic. And what's true for elephants is true for much of the natural world, even the less appealing species, insects and slugs and so on. So in other words, there's a sort of ecological ethic as well as the science of ecology, which have to some extent gone together. And I think, well, for a Buddhist, this has to be significant. You know, the first precept is after all a sensitivity to life. And thanks to ecology as science, our capacity to be sensitive to life is greater than it ever has been. You could even kind of stretch the definition of ecology as sensitivity to living systems. And as such, well, ecology pretty well is the first precept. So that resonance between ecology and Buddhism isn't just to do with the kind of idea of interconnectedness. That you could say is the wisdom aspect of ecology. Modern ecology as science is perhaps even more significant to us than that, because it marks this new understanding of factual living beings in their uniqueness, in their particularity, the beings who we share a planet with. It's brought the possibility of a more effective, more down-to-earth compassion. And while there's a long way to go before our society runs according to this ecological ethic, at least we can be grateful that the ecological ethic is there to the extent that it is. So I'd just like to say, Saadu for scientific ecology, for introducing an ecological ethic. And also just for working to, well, you know, save at least some species. Ecology has actually had an effect on the world. It has actually diminished the sum total of suffering of some species. So that's one of the two other things that we can draw from ecology, the science, if you like an ecological ethic. The second thing I'd like to talk about is to look again at the range of ideas and patterns that we can see in nature, that ecology teaches us. Interconnectedness is one of these, but there are others. So I'm referring to a phenomena such as complexity and emergence, which I think are subtly and stealthily finding their way into thinking. Ecological terms in general, in fact, are kind of finding their way into our everyday language. You know, we talk about finding one's niche. We talk about kind of letting things happen organically. I think even the word community can have overtones that are drawn from ecology. So these phrases, in a way, imply a whole world view, which I think is worth exploring a bit more explicitly. And I'd like to consider, in particular, the idea, the pattern, the phenomenon, of emergence. Yeah, I'd like to talk about ants for a minute or two. When I was at Gui Loca five years ago, one of my favourite pastimes was putting little piles of stuff out for the ants. Now, when I was at Gui Loca, no doubt others have experienced this, but my feet got very sort of tough and dry. I had a lot of dead skin, and I used to cut it off with a Swiss army knife and make a little sort of pile. And also, you know, when I cut my nails, my toe nails and my fingernails. And what I used to do was sort of collect all this stuff, all the dead skin and bits of toe nails. And I'd put them in a little pile on a rock outside our hut. And then just watch to see what happened. I can recommend this as a pastime, it was very, very sort of absorbing and satisfying. Kind of seeing yourself recycled in this one. What would happen was that eventually an ant would happen upon this pile of detritus. And it would kind of look very pleased with itself, as far as you can tell. And would put a bit on its back and would wander off. Sometimes you have to wait quite a long time for the first ant to appear. But once the first ant had sort of come and taken a bit of skin away, then it wasn't very long before a load of other ants sort of descended on that rock from all different directions. And that's really quite mystifying, you know, in the absence of ant mobile phones. How did those other ants know, you know, and I was quite mystified by that at the time. I thought perhaps, you know, they went back and did a little dance or something, like bees do, but that's not actually the case. So the point about ants is that they're really quite stupid. Apparently it's steeper than us, evidently, as were repeatedly being told. An ant on its own, well, an ant basically only knows a few very simple behavioral rules. You know, if this is the case, do that. If that is the case, do this. It really boils down to a few very, very simple things. And on its own, on its own, an ant would find it very difficult to forage for food. It would be a kind of hit and miss affair. They'd just sort of wander around until they bumped into something. You know, the ant might starve if it was on its own. However, put that ant with other ants, and they have a whole sort of complex system, a very efficient system of foraging for food or toenails. Those simple rules, I don't quite understand them, but they've got something to do with the particular scent that another ant leaves, and the number of other ants that it sees around. And somehow it uses this information to know where food is. So if you get a few dozen ants, then they can begin to form a much bigger complex intelligent system, and they can forage for food. In fact, not only can they forage for food, but they can build quite complex ant colonies. Ant colonies, apparently, have quite carefully located elements. You'll find an ant cemetery in one corner, a sort of ant waste disposal site in another corner, kind of ant dormitory suburbs, ant motorways, ant supermarkets. And they're all appropriately located in relation to each other. Now, to a recovering town planner like me, that's quite a challenge because they do this without a planning department. There is no plant planning department. There's no kind of ant strategic local plan or whatever. There's no kind of ant mastermind sitting in the middle of it all, planning it all. Each ant remains really quite stupid. But ant colonies are these incredibly complex, efficient systems. And this is what emergence is, as far as I can understand it. It's complex, viable, effective systems that emerge from the interaction of lots of individual, very simple decisions. And you'll find this phenomenon of emergence. It's very common throughout the natural world. It's not only in the natural world. You can simulate it on computers. I believe, actually, the Sims, if you know, the Sims computer game is actually an example of emergent software, where they've used emergence. Don't ask me how, but they've used it to make a game. But in the natural world, emergence is very well developed. So rainforests, tropical rainforests, ecosystems, are the result of emergence. No one plans those. They have arisen as a result of a lot, a vast number of small interactions. Coral reefs, flocks of wild geese, are all emergent phenomena. Consciousness itself is the same as this. So I believe consciousness itself is a phenomenon of emergence. Don't ask me how, but I once read something explaining why that was. Well, emergence is just quite an astonishing phenomenon. For me, you know, the emergence of these complex, beautiful, kind of fractal forms that we have in nature is perhaps the thing, is certainly one of the things that fills me with, well, with silent wonder and glad affirmation at nature. I think nature is teaching us something about the depth and beauty of reality, of conditioned co-production, of ourselves. Our own emergence from the primordial simplicity of the universe, how something as complex as a human mind could emerge from simplicity. But here's a really interesting thing. With emergence, genuinely new things can arise in the universe. New things appear and ant colony is different from just the sum total of ants. So these new things emerge in phenomena. In a way, they are continuous with what's gone before. You know, the rules of causality haven't been broken. And yet, well, at least from our limited perspective, they are qualitatively different. Another example of this, perhaps drawn more from physics, is the quality of wetness. If you think about it, you know, in water, you have hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms. These are both gases. Put them together and you get water, you get this quality of wetness that just wasn't there before. So through emergence, through these kind of interactions, you get newness. The second thing about emergence is that those new things are quite unpredictable. You couldn't have predicted wetness from looking at hydrogen and oxygen. You can never know what's going to emerge until it's emerged. Trying to imagine if you're at the back at the beginning of the universe, if you can conceive of such a thing, back to that sort of primal simplicity. From that point of view, imagine a duck. Now, you know, ducks to us are fairly commonplace, the fairly ordinary. There's a lot of them wandering around here. But from the point of view of the beginning of the universe, from that utter sort of simplicity, to conceive of a duck would have been absolutely mind-blowing. It would have been quite impossible to even think of a duck. And if you were presented with the image of a duck, you'd probably be lost in awe and wonder at how such a thing could possibly come about. You wouldn't have been able to even imagine it. And in a way, well, the universe, you know, it's taken these few billion years to come up with this kind of complex system that we call a duck. And well, does that make, you know, the fact that we come from that period of time, does that make ducks any less kind of astonishing, you know? Try and look at the ducks from that point of view. Just think what has gone into the arising of ducks. And, you know, you can look at a duck and just think, wow, how incredible. It kind of brings you that kind of wow factor of looking at nature. So this ability of condition co-production to give rise to the unpredictable, for me, it resonates with the wisdom of shunyata, of openness, of emptiness. The world's nature isn't, after all, only about kind of developmental, predictable chains of causes and effects. It's also teaching us to expect the unexpected, to be prepared, to be awestruck. In a way, the universe, reality, is inherently creative. I think there's another lesson that we can draw from emergence, which is, well, if we're concerned to bring about change in some way, then it gives us an understanding of how change happens. So if we want to bring about change in ourselves, perhaps there's something we can learn from emergence, there is, I think, a more than eponymous connection between emergence, the ecological phenomenon, and emergence as modeled for spiritual development. But I'll let you unpack that on your own. And I think there's also implications of emergence for how we bring about change in the world. I'll come back to that later. So much then for ordinary ecology, ecology, the science, understanding the patterns of nature, the patterns of reality. And we haven't even got to deep ecology, but I'll do that now. So I see deep ecology simply as ecology taken to the level of contemplation rather than just knowledge. So in a way, I've kind of been straying into deep ecology already, I think. What's become known as deep ecology is a body of writings and reflections and poetry and exercises that are designed to help us experience interconnectedness at the heart level. I think deep ecology is kind of felt interconnectedness or heartfelt ecology. It was called deep ecology to distinguish it from, well, shallow ecology, by which was meant ecology that sort of put itself at the service of big business, perhaps ecology that wasn't sort of fully informed by an ecological ethic or by compassion. Just a health warning, if you Google deep ecology, you'll find quite a wide range of references, quite a wide range of writings. And some of them are quite obtuse. Others kind of come from quite a politically green fundamentalist background. And some of them can even be quite anti-human, regarding humans as a kind of virus on the face of the planet. I personally have no difficulty in kind of choosing what I find helpful from deep ecology. And I think most of it, the vast majority is is helpful. And as Kamala Sheila said, I think sometimes it is kind of characterised in the terms I've just described. It is worth just picking and choosing in a way what we draw from deep ecology. I'd like just to say it in a way a bit about my own experience of deep ecology. I think it was some time when I was in my teens that I first started to sort of think of myself as an environmentalist or something like it. And I was moved to do that by something very wise and profound that I heard Spike Milligan say. I can't remember what it was. [Laughter] But it was enough to sort of awake me to a concern for, I think, wildlife. Spike Milligan was an Irish comedian, but he was also a great sort of campaigner for wildlife and so on. And I think, well, after that, I kind of pursued this interest through study, through studying geography. In my work in local government became quite centred around environmental stuff. It also came into the kind of political involvement that I had. I used to go around Labour party branches in the northeast of England. Back in the 80s, trying to persuade them that global warming was something important. Most of them were X miners who still got free coal, so I was kind of onto a bit of a loser. So after I got involved in Buddhism, after I became a Buddhist, well, I came across deep ecology first through Saramati, through a retreat sometime in the late 1990s. I think there's at least two people here who were on that retreat. And then after that, I kind of explored it through a deep ecology group in Newcastle. Now, on the face of it, these deep ecology exercises don't look very Buddhist. Saramati, in fact, had us jumping around the shrine room at Dharnakosa, like monkeys at one stage. You know, they don't necessarily involve sitting in meditation posture. They often involve interaction with others, the kind of group exercises, and so on. But it has been my experience that they can lead to insights that are very Buddhist indeed, especially, I think, combined with ordinary sitting meditation. So the exercise that we're doing when we're jumping around like monkeys was called evolutionary remembering. And this was devised by John Seed, who I've already mentioned. Just to describe this exercise, with the help of a guided commentary, participants start by lying on the floor. And in time, we kind of recapitulate the whole story of evolution, right from those days when we were just floating around the oceans as single-celled organisms. God, it was great then, wasn't it? Right through to the modern day. And stage by stage, as it were limb by limb, we'd sort of, we'd act this out physically. So each limb, each hand, each foot, eyesight, opposable digits, warm blood, fur, being able to stand up, our size grown to our present size. In where you experience each of these things in its turn as it's unfolded in our evolutionary story. So you kind of, you feel in your body, the unfolding of a story. You feel, protitchots on that parter, in every cell of your body. You are a walking story. You realize that actually we contain the whole sort of memory of our history in our bodies, in our body memory. So deep ecology uses modern scientific knowledge to help us reflect about who we are and where we've come from. And I think this adds body awareness, a whole new dimension. Evolutionary remembering could be straight from the Anapanasati suta. I think it probably would have been if Darwin had been around at the time. And I found it to be quite a powerful practice. I think it does yield some insight into conditionality. And it helps to sort of dissolve that tendency to human chauvinism, to thinking that we're kind of higher and separate from nature. Another deep ecology exercise is called reclaiming the gifts of the ancestors. And I participated in this one earlier this year with the woman who devised it, the well-known, the great Buddhist and Deep Ecologist, Gianna Macie. And this exercise is rather similar, except in this case you're retracing just human history, right from the time that we emerged in the literal sense from the rainforest right through to the present day. And this one kind of puts you in touch with the mental and emotional qualities that we've developed as humans, how they've emerged through our sort of successive struggles to survive. For me, the result of that one was a very kind of clear sense of being part of the biggest story of the development of consciousness on the earth, the development of conscious life. And in that context, you know, my own sense of a little sort of spiritual life in here, kind of paled into insignificance, not in a nihilistic way, but in a way that left me feeling very much connected with humanity and with meaning and purpose. It mainly just left me with a profound sense of relief. Other deep ecology exercises open up our connectedness with future generations. These days with such kind of dismal forecasts are bounding. It's kind of difficult to look to the future, to look to the kind of longer term future with a sense of optimism or hope. And in a way, this isn't normal. You know, these are not normal times. We can forget this. We can sort of feel cut off from the future, from a healthy sense of the future. And I think in a way, it's simply a very kind of basic human need to feel good about what we pass on to future generations, but one that we can lack in the present climate. However, by imaginatively kind of playfully engaging with future generations, as if they were real human beings, we can begin to find ourselves, find within ourselves what might be a positive legacy. It can focus us on what there is within us, what actions we can take that enable us, as it were, to look future generations openly and joyfully in the eye. So those are just a handful of some deep ecology exercises. Generally, in her work, Joanna Macy, takes people through a fourfold sequence, sort of four experiential stages. The first stage is affirmation, getting in touch with a sort of simple, ordinary gratitude to be alive. Sometimes we speak of needing a sort of basis of meta of appreciative awareness, and I think this is basically the same, the same thing, a sense of gratitude and meta. The second stage is the stage of despair. And really, I think this is the nub of the work of deep ecology. In this stage, we sort of face our own feelings about the state of the world, not our own opinions, but our own feelings about the state of the world. We kind of experience those feelings. We honor those feelings. And in a way, well, you know, if the problem is the way forward, it's turning to face and experience of the problem. The third stage is seeing with new eyes, but is seeing a fresh, our connectedness with the past and with the future, and with a more than human world. Those exercises are described a little. And in a way, from those quarters, we can draw strength, or we can realize the strengths that we have within us. And the final stage is going forth. That is gathering the strength to move towards some kind of positive action in the world, expressing ourselves in terms of positive action. So this fourfold process is sort of the heart of deep ecology. Joana Macy draws quite a lot on her work on systems theory. At the workshop, I attended with her in April. She said something in this connection, which I found particularly helpful. She was sort of pointing out that, you know, it's very easy at a time such as this, when global problems sort of seem so enormous, so intractable, to sort of look at them and then look at yourself and think, well, I can't do anything. This is in a way the root of despair, of paralysis. You know, think what it's going to take to turn things around. I don't have the qualities to do that. I don't have the resources to affect change. Now, what I was expecting it to say in the next sentence was the good news is that with Buddhist practice, you can develop those qualities. I think that's what I would have said. But what she actually said kind of took me by surprise and filled me again with a sense of relief and liberation. What she said was, basically, don't worry, you don't have to. In a way, the very idea of me having to change the world is egoistic and I think it's the source of much trouble and pain. The truth is I don't exist in isolation. One of the things that Jana Macy does is to draw on her work in general systems theory, to point out that together with others, a sort of synergy happens. Together, we're greater than the sum of our parts. There's a sort of magic that happens. So it's no longer down to me, as I conceive myself, the pressure is off. I can't change the world. What I can do is kind of align with the forces of resolution. I can be part of an emergent process. I can't put the world right, but I can't help to create the conditions for resolution to emerge. Just to sum up what I think I've gained from my involvement with deep ecology, difficult in a way to separate that from Buddhist practice generally. First, well, I think it has helped to free me up at least a little from a sense of self-separate from nature. It's helped to free me up from a kind of paralyzing anxiety about the state of the world. I think it's released some energy just to act creatively. It's helped me perceive that task as part of a bigger whole rather than on my own, and that's much more fun. And I think from Jana Macy in particular through her sort of personal example, I think she uses a kind of very affirmative empowering language about this whole area. You know, very often you come to talk about ecology and you think you're going to be made to feel horrible about yourself. Jana Macy doesn't do that. She sort of found a language that really empowers. Fifthly, I think in a way for me it's helped bring the Bodhisattva ideal down to earth. In a way, all beings can be a very abstract turn. But to actually make an emotional connection with future beings, with beings elsewhere on the earth, really helps to bring that down to earth to make it real. So finally, I just want to set out one or two implications for Buddhism in the west and for the western Buddhist order. So we have going on in the west, albeit so painfully slowly, a kind of process of awakening and learning from the consequences of our own actions that's pointing us to deeper truths. This is largely coincided with the arrival of Buddhism in the west. But I think the question for Buddhism in the west, well, how do we respond as individuals? How do we respond collectively in our practice and communication of the Dharma? And the nub of the question I think in a way is, well, how can we help? How can we help this bigger process of learning, this awakening that's becoming crucial even to our survival? And I think immediately that suggests a different perspective, perhaps not the old F.W.B.O. perspective of us being a sort of small band of people who are trying to import a tradition into the west. But in a way, part of a much bigger process that's taking place, a process that we can help, that we can strengthen and inspire by being part of it. This wider process is what Jana Macias come to refer to as the Great Turning. And she thinks this has already taken place, in fact, it's gathering momentum. And it consists of all those people individually or in groups who are engaged in a shift from an industrial growth society based on positivistic materialistic science to an ecologically sustainable society based on a vision of interconnectedness. It consists of people preventing further ecological damage of those involved in building alternative structures and those involved in bringing about a more fundamental shift in world view and values. So this shift is happening and you can see it in all sorts of ways. And well, perhaps it should be seen on a par with other great shifts, such as the agricultural revolution or the industrial revolution, perhaps greater. And the communication of the Dharma has a natural place right at the heart of that great turning out of compassion because that's where we can effectively, very effectively alleviate suffering. Also, because I think, well, that's where the transformative cutting edge of our society is, that's where the energy is. If you want to know where the opportunity for transformation lies in a society, look at its deepest fears. And I think when we ask what is the question to which western Buddhism is the answer, surely we can't ignore that overarching crisis. What is it to live a truly happy and meaningful life at a time such as this? I think the order and the F.W.B.O. already are at the heart of the great turning. We are already a massive force for good in the world. Looking at it by ecological criteria, we exemplify the ideal of community very strongly. In a way, we are an international peace movement. We promote spiritual practices that tend people towards awareness and matter and material simplicity. We communicate ethical values, whose very basis is respect for life, and we communicate the Dharma, because the facts are beyond calculation. So we've got a massive amount to offer this great turning, and I think we are offering it. Perhaps though that could be even greater if we did one thing, and that is just make a more conscious connection, a more explicit connection between our practice and the state of the world. The flavor of the Dharma as practiced in the F.W.B.O. remains very much influenced by Bante's lectures given in the late 1960s, and he suffused those with the great ideas of western thought of the individual of evolution, and these remain as pertinent as ever. At that time ecology, well it was a child of the 60s. It was still an infant, and I think it's fair to say that while there are some references in Bante's writings to ecology, by and large ecology kind of missed the F.W.B.O. bus. So I think there's scope for ecology to succeed its older cousins, the individual and evolution, into the mainstream, into what we teach at centers, into Mitra study, ordination preparation, into our ritual life. Drums are not compulsory. Ecology is the great gateway for the Dharma in the west, and it would be tragic I think to ignore it. What I'd really like to emphasize though in conclusion is that we make that connection at an individual level, a conscious explicit connection between our practice and what nature is teaching us, what nature is teaching us through direct personal contact as Kamala Shila was describing in his talk, but also what nature is teaching us globally, you know the hard lesson of the ecological crisis. And I think we can do this well in a way by asking ourselves how do I feel about the state of the planet, about the state of the world, allowing ourselves to explore that giving ourselves really the space to explore that, but also asking what gives me hope. So those two questions, how do I feel about the state of the natural world and what gives me hope? I think other change will flow from that. In a way we can also offer that opportunity to go through that process to other people and see that as core business for the FWABO, not just a fringe activity. Letting in the lessons of nature in this way I think brings us healing. In a way I think we have reserves of anxiety, guilt and alienation, perhaps that we don't even notice because we tend to take them for granted, but I think this process begins to heal those reserves, both as individuals, as a spiritual community and as a society. To end with I'd like to leave you with an image, I think that's the thing to do, and it's supplied by Bante from "Aveil of Stars". Be like wax beneath the signet of green jade that nature wears upon her hand, and she will stamp deep upon your heart the secret emblem of her ineffable peace. Be like wax beneath the signet of green jade that nature wears upon her hand, and she will stamp deep upon your heart the secret emblem of her ineffable peace. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate and thank you. [ sub by sk cn2 ] [ Silence ]
