16 Sulak Sivaraksa Spiritual Friendship in Buddhist Activism

16 Sulak Sivaraksa Spiritual Friendship in Buddhist Activism

ON THE COVER FLAP OF HIS BOOK GLOBAL HEALING: Essays on Structural Violence, Social Development and Spiritual Transformation, 

Sulak Sivaraksa is standing with a group of supporters, his arms outstretched, his face firm and concentrated. People are bowing to him and taking their turn tying white blessing strings on his wrists to show their respect. Sulak, who won the Right Livelihood Award in 1995, is known and honored across the globe for his bold critiques of con­sumerism and development! Among socially engaged Buddhists, he is a courageous voice, a critical thinker, and a dedicated advocate for peace and justice. I first met Sulak in 1990 when I traveled to Siam (Sulak's preferred name in historical recognition of his homeland) to represent the Buddhist Peace Fellowship at the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) conference. During our four-day preconference work­shop, he was a most cordial and personable host, looking after our needs and helping us feel comfortable in a new place.

At the opening ceremony for the conference, Sulak explained that the purpose of the conference was "to make spiritual friends." I had never heard such a goal mentioned at any other conference I'd attended. Con­sidering the large number of social, political, economic, and ecological problems facing the group, I wondered how friendship could possibly be up to the task. Sulak seemed to be saying that these precious moments together held great practice opportunities if we took seriously the idea of spiritual friendship. At the time, I was part of an unfolding conversation on engaged Buddhist practice, but I had little idea what spiritual friend­ship might mean. I barely grasped how important Sulak was to so many activists in Siam and how far his networks of spiritual friends extended. Across the years, as I have become part of a few of those networks, I have gained a glimpse of his vast social world and all he has supported.

Soon after the INEB conference, Sulak spoke at the University of Hawaii about spiritual friendship in the context of human rights work. "Human rights means not only rights for you or rights for me, but human rights for all."' He urged listeners to understand how we are inter­related, that "we need friends who will help us, because we alone cannot do it. The Buddha said that it is most important for each individual to have good supportive friends. The First World must work with the Third World; the Thai must work with the Burmese; and so on. . . . We all have our small part to play."' In a 1998 talk in New Delhi, he returned to this topic while addressing Buddhist perspectives on sustainable com­munity. "As 'interbeings' we need good friends—kalayanamittas—because we cannot exist alone. . . . From others one can learn to develop oneself and help society to be peaceful and just.⁹⁹⁴ He used the example of Sekhi-yadhama, the group of Thai activist monks who apply Buddhist teachings to modern challenges of forest clearing, chemical agriculture, and West­ernization.' Kalayanamitta, spiritual friendship, is very important to these monks as they confront criticism from the Thai government and Bud­dhist religious establishment. They build their friendships by drawing on each other's experience, insight, and activist strategies. Through INEB conferences and other networks, they gain support from other Buddhist friends around the world, following Sulak's teachings.

In 2003, one of Sulak's close spiritual friends, David Chappell, in­vited friends and colleagues to contribute to a collection of essays in honor of Sulak's seventieth birthday.⁶

The opening page quote from the Dhammapada seems to describe Sulak himself:

Regard him as one who points out treasure, The wise one who rebukes you.

Stay with this sort of sage.

For the one who stays with a sage of this sort,

Things get better, not worse.   (verse 76) 

I recognized many of the names in the volume—people from the INEB conference, people from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, peo­ple I'd met from Buddhist-Christian Dialogue circles. But there were more— so many names from around the world and so many realms of spiritual friendship. In one tribute, Sulak said to a colleague, "Friends, you see, are very important. In Buddhism the best thing for each of us is not fame, not money, but friends. And the Buddha said good friends are the best help for you to have externally. Internally it's criti­cal self-awareness. Externally it's good friends, kalyanamitta."⁷ Sulak re­ferred to the famous story where Ananda, one of the Buddha's students, remarked that it seemed to him that having good friends was half of the holy life. "Not so," the Buddha replied. "Having friends is the whole of spiritual life."

For Sulak, spiritual friendship is valuable in two fundamental ways. Spiritual friends are essential for their role as critics, the ones who will tell us where we fall short. At the same time, spiritual friends are im­portant sources of mutual inspiration. In Sulak's Buddhist worldview, "kalyanamittas, or virtuous companions, are crucial to spiritual growth. Friends are the only people who can give us the criticism and the sup­port that we need to transcend our own limitations and can comfort us if we fail. If we become so self-absorbed that we do not have kalyana-mittas in our lives, we stagnate in complacency and self-righteousness."' Sulak believes that only with the help of spiritual friends can we develop a peaceful society. He feels sure that addressing the challenges of social stability and global peace have much greater odds if we are supported by spiritual friends.

What do Buddhist texts say about spiritual friendship? 

The Flower Ornament Sutra explains the purpose for seeking spiritual friends. "It is from spiritual friends that bodhisattvas learn the practice of bodhi-sattvas; it is through spiritual friends that all bodhisattvas' virtues are perfected; spiritual friends are the source of the stream of all bodhi-sattva vows; the roots of goodness of all bodhisattvas are produced by spiritual friends;, the provisions for enlightenment are produced by spiritual friends."⁹ Here the Buddha is encouraging his followers to develop spiritual friendships as an aid to enlightenment and service to others. Further on in the sutra he speaks to the great powers of spiritual friends:

Think of yourself as sick, and think of spiritual friends as physicians; think of their instructions as medicines, and think of the practices as getting rid of disease. Think of yourself as a traveler, and think of spiritual friends as guides; think of their instructions as the road, and think of the practices as going to the land of your destination. Think of yourself as crossing to the other shore, and think of the spiritual friend as a boatman; think of the instruction as a ford, and think of the practices as a boat. Think of yourself as a farmeq and think of spiritual friends as water spirits; think of the instructions as rain, and think of the practices as the ripening of the crops. Think of yourself as a pauper, and think of spiritual friends as the givers of wealth; think of their instructions as wealth, and think of the practices as getting rid of poverty. Think of yourself as an apprentice, and think of spiritual friends as mentors; think of their instructions as arts, and think of the practices as accomplishments. Think of yourself as fearless, and think of spiritual friends as heroic warriors; think of their instructions as attack, and think of the practices as vanquishing enemies. ¹⁰

The twelfth-century Kagyu Tibetan Buddhist text by Gampopa, An Ornament of Precious Liberation, describes four types of spiritual friends. The type of spiritual friend one takes as a wisdom teacher depends on the student's level of development. For a bodhisattva in the most ad­vanced stages, the appropriate wisdom teacher is a sambhogakaya form of the Buddha. At the next lower stage, the appropriate spiritual friend is a nirmanakaya form of the Buddha. Most people fall into the "beginner" category, unable to recognize a highly awakened being. Thus, Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, a nineteenth-century Tibetan Buddhist master, suggests a beginner should take a wisdom teacher who has the form of an ordinary person.¹¹ In this commentary on Gampopa's text, "ordinary person" is understood to mean someone who knows something about Mahayana Buddhism and has taken the bodhisattva vow. "Ordinary per­son" implies someone who is on the path but trying to make an effort, just like everyone else. This certainly describes Sulak Sivaraksa as he has inspired me. Always he is asking, "How can we water seeds of peace in ourselves? How can we transform society?""

Buddhist writer Stephen Batchelor makes the case for spiritual friend­ship as a practice field for acting from true understanding of relationality.

Self-absorbed concern generating from the Three Poisons—greed, hate, and delusion—inevitably blocks authentic relations. We are distracted by projections and assumptions about others that mislead and confuse us. Batchelor suggests that a more meaningful pattern of relationship re­quires "sustained contemplation of the equality of self and other." 13 Med­itating on this point, we see we are completely entwined with others, that this defines who we actually are. Self-concern is a false distortion of reality to be actively taken apart and replaced with concern for others. Realizing that our existence is fundamentally "being-with-others," we transform this insight through compassion to "being-for-others." ¹⁴ Spiritual friends, then, act as wisdom teachers by practicing deeply "being-with-others," in whatever form that may take, including activist work.

In considering the importance of spiritual friendship for Sulak, it seems to me that this was a radical concept, a fresh idea in the Buddha's time and one that is still fresh now. Spiritual friendships strengthened the monastic community by reinforcing practice commitment across many relationships, not just between teacher and student. This mitigated the concentration of power in a priest/teacher class and, in contrast to the ascendant Brahmanism of the time, supported a radical equality among practitioners. By drawing on each other's experience, spiritual friends ex­amined the Buddha's suggestions in real-life settings, testing their merits for themselves. Spiritual friends could turn to each other, finding wisdom in "ordinary persons," free from competing for the teacher's attention.

Given this understanding, it is no surprise that Sulak placed so much attention on cultivating friendships at the INEB gathering. He clearly sees spiritual friendship as key to spiritually based activism. Spiritual ac­tivist friends can lean on each other to share their learning and strengthen their knowledge base. Together, they can support a path of practice in the midst of activist work through ritual, meditation, and ethical reflection. Understanding themselves as "interbeings" in the great causal net, they can take up the work of promoting peace and nonharming. In a world where there are more problems than priests, cultivating spiritual friend­ships increases the activist presence where there is suffering.

Sulak himself has been a great model for spiritual friendship in activ­ist work with his support for religious engagement with non-Buddhist_. traditions. In his book Conflict, Culture, Change: Engaged Buddhism in a Globalizing World, he describes his close friendships with Quakers as a "constant source of inspiration and support in my life and my work as an engaged Buddhist. . . especially their honesty, simplicity; and commit­ment to nonviolence."" I saw firsthand in academic Buddhist-Christian theological encounters how moved he was by Christian participants whose religious faith was so intertwined with their commitment to social justice. Sulak was especially inspired by liberation theologians of South and Central America and their passionate commitment to the needs of the poor and oppressed.

Across his lifetime of activism, Sulak built friendships with Burmese refugees fleeing the border, with drug users, AIDS patients, advocates against sex trafficking, and forest monks protecting trees. During a critical period in Thai history, when Sulak challenged the government and was charged with lèse-majesté (insulting the king), he was forced into exile. In his book Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society (1992), he wrote, "In times of crisis like this, when I have to be away from home, I experience so much kindness and attention from everyone I come across. To all these friends who have been so kind to me and my family during my sojourn abroad, I wish to express sincere gratitude." ¹⁶

Nicholas Bennett, coeditor of another of Sulak's books, testified that Sulak "helped many young people take their first steps toward a spiritu­ally based social activism, and continues to provide them with moral sup­port as they branch off in their own directions. There is hardly a [Thai] non-governmental organization that does not have someone on its staff whom Sulak has helped."" This includes, among others, the Thai Inter-Religious Commission for Development, the Santi Pracha Dhamma Institute, the Asian Cultural Forum on Development, the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, the Spirit in Education Movement, and many other manifestations of spiritual friendship in action." Sulak takes very seriously the importance of paying public tribute to spiritual friends and mentors who have meant so much to him—Thich Nhat Hanh, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Bhikkhu Payutto, and Puey Ungphakorn, among others.'⁹

As I write this reflection, again and again I find myself bowing to Ajahn Sulak in gratitude for the gift of this teaching. The kind of bow I'm speak­ing of is not deferential or subservient, but rather, as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says, "a complementary exchange of energy" that confirms both people.²° A bow acknowledges worth of the other as well as the self. In the act of bowing you share some understanding that you are joined together in serving others. So I offer my grateful thanks for this particular spiritual friend, Sulak Sivaraksa, respected elder, colleague in green Buddhist dia­logue and action. May we continue to carry on this work together, side by side, though we are thousands of miles apart.

 

S Kaza, 15 Buddhist Contributions to Climate Response

 15 Buddhist Contributions to Climate Response

LIKE MANY PEOPLE EVERYWHERE, BUDDHISTS ARE ASKING disturbing questions about climate change: Why aren't people more concerned? 'Why is climate denial so widespread? Why don't people care about the future? Well-known figures in the West such as Al Gore and Bill McKibben insist that we (and particularly those in the developed world) have a moral responsibility to mitigate climate Suffer¬ing and work toward a sustainable future. What role can Buddhists play in this effort? What role should Buddhists play? 'While it seems unlikely that Buddhist leaders will take up a major scientific or policy role, I be¬lieve Buddhist ethics and practice offer a helpful resource in addressing climate denial. Through the clear lens of the Dharma eye, we may see that climate denial represents a convenient environmental privilege for those in the developed world.

The physical predictions for climate change are well described and ac¬cepted by climate scientists around the world.' We know that the warm¬ing atmosphere has already accelerated melt rates of ice shelves in the Arctic, Antarctica, and Greenland. Glaciers in almost all mountain ranges of the world are retreating rapidly, and thawing permafrost threatens to release unprecedented amounts of methane that would further accelerate climate change. Climate models indicate that feedback from interlocking global systems will generate unexpected impacts and irreversible changes. Extreme weather events and climate-related disasters will become more common and generate widespread human suffering. All predictions point to many more rough years as atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, meth¬ane, and nitrous oxide continue to rise. Very quickly we are speaking of not just, as we say in Buddhism, the suffering of 10,000 beings, but the suffering of ioo,000 tens of io,000 beings.

The science of climate change has clearly entered the domain of public discourse. Yet the scientific facts alone are not yet generating sufficient motivation for wide-scale global policy change. It has become increas¬ingly apparent that human behavior and attitudes, whether driven by greed, fear, or ignorance, are determining the direction of planetary cli¬mate. In June 2013 I attended one of a series of conferences held at Garrison Institute in New York entitled "Climate, Mind and Behavior." This institute has taken up the mission of developing climate conversations among social scientists, particularly psychologists and sociologists. Be¬cause of the institute's spiritual orientation, they were also interested in Buddhist perspectives. Panel sessions raised questions such as: How will people manage the suffering generated by climate change? How can pro¬fessionals in psychology and social science help cities, regions, and states find approaches that work? How do we understand "mitigation," "adap¬tation," and "resilience" as psychological and social concepts? Academic scholarship has increased rapidly in this area, with research centers, curricula, and social psychological studies now finding critical mass.' Many studies raise the question: Why are people not paying attention to climate change? Why are they not galvanized into action?

In order to consider Buddhist tools for working with climate denial, let me review three common psychological explanations summarized by sociologist Kari Marie Norgaard.3 

The first is known as the information deficit model. In this model the assumption is that people do not know enough to take action. If they knew more, they would respond with ap¬propriate steps to reduce impacts. We assume that by providing people with all the facts about climate change, they will then be motivated to take action. However, this proves not to be true. It turns out that knowl¬edge in and of itself is not nearly so motivating as emotional engagement. Studies show that even well-informed people may be paralyzed by too much knowledge or a sense that one's personal actions will not really make a difference.4

The second explanation draws on what psychologists call cognitive dis¬sonance, that people are able to hold two completely conflicting ways of viewing things in their minds without this affecting their daily lives. For example, people observe and respond to short-term weather patterns and adapt to the current state: if it is a little hotter than usual, they wear lighter clothing or turn up the air-conditioning. People make simple be¬havioral adjustments all the time to manage their comfort levels, usually understood as mechanisms for personal self-care. Climate concerns are held in another part of the brain, the place of cognitive learning in the cerebral cortex. According to this model, people can know about the im¬pacts of climate change but still act in everyday life as if their actions had no relationship to climate change.

The third explanation focuses on emotional blocks limiting response to climate change. There can be tremendous insecurity, fear, and anxiety tied up with climate change predictions. It is, by now, common to witness via the media, people under siege with the shock of massive flooding, or the despair from extreme drought. Such emotional states reverberate em¬pathically between viewers and those caught in the climate crosshairs. We sense, if even vaguely, that such a disaster could strike close to home and that we, too, might experience such difficult and unpleasant emotional states. Further, people in developed countries may feel a sense of help¬lessness and guilt about global inequalities, a fear of being seen as a bad and uncaring person. Such difficult emotions are not easy to manage; no one really likes to experience these feeling states, especially when they are associated with lack of personal control. For some, climate change may generate an even broader ontological insecurity, a sense of threat to the entire continuity of life, accompanied by a significant loss of meaning.'

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF DENIAL

To further understand the mechanisms that support denial, I turn to Norgaard's in-depth study of climate perspectives in Norway. Her find¬ings indicate that climate attitudes are not only personally held but are culturally constructed through social norms and patterns. The work challenges the psychological explanations discussed earlier, which place the locus of denial entirely within the individual. Because her case focus is a developed country, it suggests there may be parallel norms operat¬ing in other developed countries such as the United States, Japan, and Australia.

As described by Norgaard, Norwegians are highly engaged in their local communities, politically active in local governance, socially active with neighbors and peers, and physically active in the outdoors. They could hardly be called apathetic. Norgaard observed several key factors that actively contributed to the social construction of denial. First, she noticed there were no appropriate social spaces for discussing climate change.' Political meetings focused on local concerns and governance questions, such as budget or policy issues. Climate change impacts were simply too far away for local governance agendas. Recreational settings also did not offer a place to discuss difficult issues such as climate change. In these settings (the gym, the outdoors, the bar) people were supposed to recover from life's stresses and not talk about hard things. In educa¬tional settings, teachers expressed the need to stay optimistic for future generations, thus limiting discussion of climate impacts and uncertainty.

Norgaard also pointed to Norwegian emotional norms that tend to favor maintaining control, norms that are also prevalent in the United States. She found three typical emotional responses to climate change. First, it is common to take a "tough" attitude and not to show feelings of powerlessness and uncertainty. Second, it is important to "stay cool," to not be too serious about anything, but especially not something as mon¬umental as climate change. Third, it is important to "be smart." If you want to engage climate change, then you need to be informed and have good answers for the challenges that lie before us. All three conversa¬tional patterns favor maintaining a sense of personal control and avoiding a sense of loss of control from facing the realities of climate change. For mental health, it was important to focus only on what one person could do to be effective and keep a positive attitude toward life. Her conclusion was that denial is not an afterthought. It is a convenience, a construction, and perhaps even a privilege.'

The possibility that climate denial is a privilege raises moral and eth¬ical issues in the realm of environmental justice and equity. Human suf¬fering from climate change is far greater in the developing world than in the developed world. Shouldn't people with greater financial assets, education, and physical security be concerned for those who must face climate change with far fewer resources? Norgaard suggests that "people occupying privileged social positions encounter 'invisible paradoxes'—awkward, troubling moments they seek to avoid, pretend not to have experienced (often as a matter of social tact), and forget as quickly as possible once those moments have passed."' Such paradoxes are partic¬ularly acute in the arena of energy extraction and production. People in privileged socioeconomic classes have almost no contact with these oper¬ations and their destructive impacts on the environment. It is simpler to actively maintain a state of denial than to engage the moral complexities that arise in confronting climate change. This is both cognitive disso¬nance in action and socially constructed denial. We could call this an environmental privilege of the developed world.

BUDDHIST CONTRIBUTIONS TO CLIMATE DIALOGUE

I have been focusing on the role of denial in climate change because I believe this offers an avenue where religions can work with climate psy¬chology and social values. Before turning to Buddhism specifically, let me review five key capacities relevant to climate action and organized religion as identified by Gary Gardner.'

 First, religions can engage their members, and for some denominations, this is a very large number of people who may be influenced or educated by religious positions. 

Second, religions can draw on moral authority to address climate change. Such authority is held by religious leaders in all faiths, as well as by respected religious texts. 

Third, religions provide meaning by shaping worldviews. A religious message or set of values related to protecting the environment can provide a platform for discussing climate change. 

Fourth, religions can use their physical and financial resources strategically to encourage energy conservation, develop social resilience, and make morally respon¬sible investments. The cumulative effect of such choices can have a sig¬nificant impact, as evidenced by the contributions of Interfaith Power and Light and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility." Fifth, religious communities have tremendous potential for building social cap¬ital to respond to climate change.

Despite these advantageous capacities, religions may also present barriers to taking up the challenges of climate change. Religious leaders can be reluctant to discuss climate issues with their congregations, thus unintentionally colluding with a certain level of social denial acceptable to their congregations. Their religious message may require greater emphasis on personal salvation than on worldly goals. And in some cases, religious organizations can be aggressively obstructive in their actions to maintain climate denial. This is clear in the Six Americas study that iden¬tifies a link between evangelical beliefs and active dismissal of the realities of climate change.11

The 2013 issue of the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Cul¬ture provides an overview of some of the climate actions that have been taken by religious leaders and organizations. A number of denominations have issued climate position statements or developed initiatives such as the Green Sanctuary Program, adopted by many Protestant churches. 12 Many denominations include disaster-relief service as part of their social mission and are ready to contribute when climate crises hit. Religious coalitions such as the World Council of Churches, Alliance of Religions and Con¬servation, and Interfaith Power and Light advocate for climate awareness and action at the global level, leveraging their denominational resources to support such initiatives. When the US president withdrew the United States from the Paris climate treaty in 2017, the Parliament of the World's Religions responded with a strong statement of condemnation, declaring it a moral failure of responsibility."

How active have Buddhist groups been in the climate conversation? John Stanley, David Loy, and Gyurme Dorje, editors of A Buddhist Re¬sponse to the Climate Emergency, were highly motivated to engage Tibetan teachers and leaders because the Tibetan plateau north of the Himalaya Mountain range is the birthplace of so many critically important river sys¬tems of Asia—the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Saiween, Yangtze, Mekong, and Irawaddy.14 They created a Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change that has been signed by sixty-five Buddhist leaders in thirteen countries, in¬cluding Gyalwang Karmapa XVII, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, Joseph Goldstein, and Jan Chozen Bays.15 Buddhist temples have also initiated alternative energy projects in India, Japan, Canada, and Australia and participated in interfaith actions such as the Interreligious Dialogue on Climate Change, 2012.16 In 2015, activists with Buddhist Peace Fellowship marched in Rome as part of the One Earth, One Family interfaith demonstration for Pope Francis. Their banner read, "The whole Earth is my true body; I vow to work for climate justice."" Climate web resources for Buddhists have been developed at Ecobuddhism.org and OneEarthSangha.org as well as on Joanna Macy's website for the Work That Reconnects.

Certainly, many basic Buddhist teachings and practices could be en¬gaged in relationship to climate change. These would include the precepts or moral guidelines based on nonharming, as well as the central law of con¬ditioned interdependence and causation that reflects a systems or holistic, ecological woridview. Buddhist texts emphasize liberation from suffering through insight awareness based in meditation, and this practice could be applied to climate-related suffering. Perhaps most important may be the practices that strengthen intention and compassion on behalf of others. All of these are very rich offerings and can easily be applied to moral and eth¬ical dilemmas deriving from climate change impacts. Furthermore, they are accessible to non-Buddhists or those not affiliated with any religion as skillful means for addressing the consequences of climate change.

However, it should be acknowledged that Buddhist leaders and orga¬nizations have limited influence in the wider global context of climate change. Certainly they have limited influence on the biophysical world itself, where ice sheets are melting, storms are becoming more severe, and sea level is rising. Likewise, they have relatively limited influence on climate science or global policy regarding carbon emissions and the fossil fuel industry. For example, while individual Buddhists have partic¬ipated in actions protesting the Keystone XL and other pipelines, but few Buddhist environmental groups are addressing this issue as a top pri¬ority. Buddhists, in general, have fairly limited religious influence on the climate denial campaign or the industrial scope of big carbon polluters. Naming these limitations is important so as not to overstate the possibil¬ities at hand.

Having surveyed the territory, I find the greatest potential for a Bud¬dhist contribution to lie within the psychological, ethical, and social as¬pects of climate change. Through philosophical analysis and mindfulness practice, I believe the Buddhist teachings can make a significant offering that parallels Buddhist contributions to other environment and social jus¬tice issues.

I suggest three avenues for engaging Buddhist thinking in this challenging climate conversation: 

(i) exposing dualistic thinking, 

(2) de¬veloping a Buddhist climate ethic, and 

(3) building capacity for resilience.

Exposing Dualistic Thinking

Polarized views are one of the biggest impediments to progress with cli¬mate change. They generate tremendous suffering. Typically they are

expressed as humans versus nature, the economy versus the environment,-the developing world versus the developed world. Dualistic views tend to exaggerate differences rather than emphasizing commonalities. They reinforce oppositional positions, reducing creativity for shared solutions. From a Buddhist perspective, these positions would be seen as reflecting false views or false understanding of the self. It is the inflated idea of the self as one's central identity that blocks collaboration. Climate deniers and climate believers both form identity groups around their views, often defining themselves in opposition to the other. Yet seen from an interde¬pendent lens, all parties live on the same planet within a single intercon¬nected climate system.

Denial functions very effectively to reinforce egocentric views and personal defenses. It is not uncommon for some people to defend their environmentally privileged positions in public-policy stances while blam¬ing climate deniers. It is also not uncommon for some people to blame environmentalists while refuting the factual data and implications of cli¬mate reality. The North Carolina state legislature, for example, passed a bill limiting how high the sea can rise on their coastline." The phrase "climate change" was so politically charged that it did not appear any¬where in the legal policy. As a result of such limiting views in either di¬rection, the scale of human and ecological suffering is minimized or dismissed.

Taking a sociological view, we can see that climate change perspec¬tives often reflect differences in status, gender, race, governance struc¬tures, geography, culture. We can look at who is espousing which views in ways that provide political leverage and perpetuate oppositional thinking. Much has been written by people of the global South who are experienc¬ing climate change more dramatically than people in the more well-off North.19 Regions and nation states with high levels of energy production show particularly great extremes that divide people into climate-derived socioeconomic classes. Climate privilege generates groups of haves and have-nots in relation to wealth and poverty, health and sickness, nutrition and starvation, security and violence. Poor countries such as Bangladesh and Tuvalu, for example, find themselves at the helpless end of the cli¬mate mitigation spectrum. I suggest that such widely accepted dualistic thinking plays a key role in maintaining global power relations and cli¬mate silence.

Practice and philosophical analysis are two arenas where Buddhists could provide some leadership on the issue of dualistic thinking as an ob¬stacle to effective climate action. The practice field would be represented by religious leaders in Buddhist practice centers and organizations. Dis¬cussing dualistic thinking would be a natural extension of dharma topics already typical at Buddhist centers. These include such things as under¬standing interdependence of self and other, the influence and manifes¬tations of ego and power, the challenge of refraining from polarizing views, and the core practice of self-reflection as part of action. This sort of teaching is cultural work, aimed at shifting the operational field from conflict to collaboration, from discord to respect.

In terms of philosophical analysis, individual writers and thinkers may be able to use Buddhist principles to promote climate policies that min¬imize polarized views. This might be seen as "small b" Buddhist work, serving the wider community. Drawing on a Buddhist approach, these thought leaders could facilitate dialogue through hearing all sides for their particular truths, based on direct experience with climate impacts. Buddhists or those using Buddhist ideas and practices may be in a good position to help create the conversation spaces flagged by Norgaard that are currently unavailable in normal social discourse. Such spaces might make it possible to see how climate change affects all parties. The em¬phasis would be on shared outcomes, thus reducing actions driven by self-interest. This is a natural reflection of Buddhist principles and fits well with green Buddhist practice efforts."

Developing a Buddhist Climate Ethic

Ethics, including religious ethics, offer fundamental guidelines for min¬imizing suffering through practicing restraint. A climate ethic would frame such guidelines in the context of minimizing suffering or impact to the global climate through individual and social practices. Like other ethics, the aim is social stability, allowing human society to flourish with¬out being continually under threat of harm.

A Buddhist climate ethic would be based in Buddhist ethical princi¬ples and a Buddhist understanding of human psychology. Buddhist texts explain human behaviors in terms of desire: the grasping or craving after something and the development of ego-identification with the particular craving. Suffering is explained as the perpetual human tendency to be hooked by addictive needs and short-term gratification. The three most basic desires are: (i) greed, the desire for more of something, (2) aversion, the desire for less of something, and (3) delusion, the desire for illusory options or self-made fantasies. Ignorance of one's own desire patterns inevitably generates a state of suffering. Liberation from suffering comes from "seeing" the patterns with awareness insight.

With this basic Buddhist framework and some insight into the key role of denial, we can look at how the three aspects of desire might support climate change denial. Certainly greed for the never-ending mountain of consumer goods keeps people entertained and oblivious to climate change. The more energy, connectivity, and comfort people desire, the less likely they are to be interested in the sources upon which their life supports depend. Understanding desire and practicing restraint can help reduce climate impacts from overconsumption. Likewise, aversion to complex and socially challenging situations such as climate change can quickly shut down conversations. Aversion polarizes dialogue about en¬ergy and transportation choices while carbon levels continue to rise. Per¬haps delusion is the most prominent feature in climate denial; it is simply easier to pretend another better future will unfold, despite the observable facts, or to hope, on little evidence, that a technological fix will be found to save us from a climate-caused dystopia.

I propose that a Buddhist climate ethic support a broadly defined goal of well-being. Well-being is another phrase for contentment or satisfac¬tion, santutthi in Pali. In Buddhist teachings, contentment is explained as the absence of grasping, the absence of desire. The state of satisfaction is free of pulls toward or away from identity-enhancing objects or activ¬ities. Well-being can be defined at multiple levels in support of a climate ethic. At the individual level, this would mean good health, meaningful work, a sense of internal control in the face of climate change. At the social level, this would mean a safe and stable civil society; with appropri¬ate governance and market structures to support community well-being under climate change. At the global level, this would mean the capac¬ity to engage in collaborative support for planetary well-being. Spiritual well-being would reflect right relationship with self and community as well as right relationship with the natural world. It would be marked by ethical clarity and intention to refrain from harming, as well as respect for non-Buddhist ethical paths.

I further propose that nonharming and compassion be the founda¬tional concepts in a Buddhist climate ethic (as in all Buddhist ethics). Nonharming aligns well with the precautionary principle, an important policy principle that is well-established in Europe and inscribed in Euro¬pean Union law. This approach is supported by a deep and thoughtful philosophical and scientific literature." In brief, this principle advises re¬straint where the degree of harm is unknown. Many drivers of climate change such as extreme energy extraction, carbon dioxide pollution, and overconsumption would be moderated by application of the precaution¬ary principle. Efforts to mitigate climate change and develop adaptive measures would then be based on reducing harm wherever possible.

The practice of nonharming is guided by five primary Buddhist pre¬cepts for human action that help cultivate compassion, or caring for others' well-being as equal to and interdependent with one's own well¬being. These five are: (i) not harming life, (2) not taking what is not given, () not participating in abusive relations, (.) not speaking falsely, and () not using intoxicating substances or behaviors. Each of these could be developed in depth in relation to climate change. Practicing these precepts in the context of climate change would provide social support for choosing sustainable behaviors. The core questions become: What is our ethical obligation in the context of climate change? Knowing how dependent human society is on climate stability, what then must we do? Buddhist ethics view the individual as an active agent in a vast web of relationships where every action generates effects. Based on this worldview, I would argue that attaining ecological and economic sustainability under the challenges of rapid climate change requires ethical engagement. Individuals taking cli¬mate ethics seriously as an expression of nonharming and compassion could help lead actions toward ethically appropriate social, political, and economic policies. The practice of compassion also provides a platform for living with grief and other emotional states generated by what may be devastating and irretrievable losses.

Finally, I propose that a Buddhist climate ethic rest on the foundational law of karma, or cause and effect. To cultivate a long-term commitment to work ethically to mitigate climate impacts, this ethic could draw on the Buddhist sense of deep time. This is described in Buddhist texts in terms of multiple "kalpas," unfathomable stretches of time before (and after) humans on Earth. A karmic understanding of time derives naturally

from a Buddhist perspective. Most everyday activity tends to be viewed in the very short time frame of an individual human life, based on our general tendency toward self-referencing. A climate ethic could empha¬size the long eons of climate time, shifting perception to a more com¬plete or appropriate scale for human endeavor. This would help move the climate conversation away from denial and place it in more of an intergenerational, or even cosmic, perspective. Such a long view of time develops useful virtues for working with climate change, such as humil¬ity, patience, perspective, endurance, and equanimity. Each of these is described in Buddhist ethical teachings as mutually supportive in the development of an awakened person. Equanimity is one of the Four Immeasurables, a virtue boundless in its positive contribution to a stable society. Climate change impacts will not be eliminated overnight; it will take many people's efforts over many decades to accomplish planetary climate stability. A climate ethic based in the practices of nonharming, compassion, and a deep view of time is one that can serve for the long scope of this project.

Building Capacity for Resilience

A third arena for Buddhist action is building capacity for resilience. This very practical concept is part of current discussions related to climate impacts, following closely on two other dominant approaches. The first is mitigation, or efforts to dampen the inevitable impacts of sea level rise and storm flooding, often through mechanical means such as barriers, channels, dams. The second is adaptation to what has already changed, often in the form of preparedness actions. Building resilience is building the capacity to rebound psychologically, socially, economically, and polit¬ically from a climate impact. I believe Buddhist practice tools have a great deal to offer in this arena.

Mindfulness practice has become very popular in the West, with ac¬tive movements to bring mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and other secular mindfulness techniques to schools, hospices, prisons, and business places.22 Through deliberate attention to body, breath, and mind, the mindfulness practitioner becomes more fully engaged in the present moment. This sort of grounded presence is what you would want for emergency workers if they are dealing with a climate crisis in your town. I would not be surprised to see mindfulness training developed for climate disaster emergency-response teams. Such training would help reduce anxiety, speculation, and projection about what is happening in a climate-related event and assist people in figuring out what is needed to return to normal social functioning. This is a very practical application of Buddhist skillful means. As Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh often says, "The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.""

To build capacity for resilience, it is necessary to include—not sup¬press or resist—the troubling emotions associated with climate change. I am suggesting here that emotional self-knowledge builds capacity for helping others break through denial. Climate change social scientist Susanne Moser has been speaking to legislators and academics about using social-science communication skills as well as Buddhist practices as skillful means in climate work. In an article on leadership for climate change work, she writes about three key capacities.24 The first is being able to speak clearly and calmly about what is real. The second is being able to hold paradox—to feel what is in conflict and yet still be able to move forward. The third is being able to do grief work, accepting that climate change means people will be grieving the loss of the world as they know it. Good leaders need to be comfortable with their own grief work if they are to help others effectively.

Stability and calmness increase the capacity for building social resil¬ience in community. Buddhist virtue ethics clearly value equanimity and stability. The Dalai Lama models this beautifully through his steady pres¬ence in the midst of facing the devastating blows to his people and, society across the past fifty years. As he says, "Because we all share this planet Earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. This is not just a dream, but a necessity."" He models how to be with the suffering in the world and still take effective action. This will be critical as climate conditions deteriorate in the various ways that I have outlined—flooding, fires and heat, extreme weather conditions, loss of food crops. The Buddhist practice of equanimity means staying cen¬tered in the midst of changing climate conditions and being prepared for the impacts on social and economic support systems. Families, schools, and governance structures all will struggle to make ends meet and stay afloat during the unexpected and unimaginable.

The Buddhist concept of sangha may offer another model for build¬ing capacity for resilience. Along with Buddha and dharma, sangha is

said to be one of the three priceless treasures in Buddhism. Investing effort in building community strengthens the wider sangha of all beings. We might see it as an antidote to the social gaps identified by Norgaard that undermine climate response capacity. Sangha can be strengthened through supporting local ecological relationships, local governance struc¬tures, or neighborhood initiatives. It might mean coordinating disaster preparedness on a neighborhood block, taking steps to reduce consump¬tion, or cultivating friendships to build social resilience." Deepening awareness practice in a local experience of sangha can increase knowledge and attention to local seasons, weather, and a sense of living well in place. This is "small b" Buddhism in service to sustaining life, skillful means for climate change.

Thinking creatively to apply Buddhist teachings to climate change is a task of our times. Climate change cannot be ignored. It offers widespread opportunity to deepen personal practice and to apply powerful Buddhist teachings in a contemporary setting. In light of the stubborn persistence of climate change denial, I have suggested specific responses to climate change from a Buddhist religious, ethical, and spiritual perspective. These are not intended as finished prescriptions but as a starting point for what I hope will be much more dialogue and further engagement. I offer this as a call to others to join the conversation—with scientists, social scientists, environmentalists, people of faith, and especially with those who are suffering the devastating impacts of climate change. This is a sober charge that will require much imaginative thinking and strong spirit. Right here in the midst of this great challenge is the opportunity for great joy and intimacy in approaching this fragile but resilient life.

S Kaza, 13 Joanna Macy Fierce Heart-Mind Warrior

 13 Joanna Macy Fierce Heart-Mind Warrior

OF ALL THE MANY BUDDHIST MUDRAS OR TEACHING gestures, Joanna Macy cherishes two in particular as po¬tent forces for courage and resilience. In one, the right hand is raised at chest level, palm outward, while the left hand is down. This is the abhaya mudra, encouraging us to have no fear, to rest in the calm presence of the bodhisattva. The other is the bhumisparsha or "calling the Earth to witness" mudra. The Buddha used this powerful mudra, touching the Earth with his hand, when Mara challenged him on his last night under the tree of enlightenment. He would not be swept away by doubt; the Earth itself would support his enlightenment and teaching. For Macy, these two mudras lie at the heart of her life work facing the daunting challenges of our ailing planet.' Standing firm, having no fear, she in¬spires courage and spiritual strength. Sitting firm, touching the Earth, she radiates confidence and perseverance in this demanding work.

I first met Joanna Macy in my opening semester at Starr King School for the Ministry in 1988. Though I was a practicing Buddhist, the Uni¬tarian seminary, with its emphasis on social justice and engaged service, offered a welcoming home for faith-based activism. Macy was teaching a class entitled Systems Theory; I was intrigued. What did systems have to do with religion, or activism, for that matter? The course reader was a thick packet of scientific and philosophical papers, an intellectual chal¬lenge for all of us.' Each week we would discuss the key concepts for the first half of class and then, after the break, we would take up the most inventive and surprisingly relevant learning exercises. As a longtime environmental educator, I had a number of teaching tricks up my own sleeve. But Macy's offerings were captivating, different from anything I had experienced before as either teacher or student. They ranged from complex roleplays to guided meditations, from paired exchanges to art and theater. Some clearly drew on familiar Buddhist principles such as the Four Brahmaviharas or limitless mind states; others revealed systems-theory principles in playful demonstrations.' Week after week, we got to be part of this marvelously creative teaching. I quickly be¬came a fan!

To my delight, Macy invited our class to visit her spacious family home with its large living room for communal gatherings. I was some¬what awed by her large scholarly library; her backroom office was thick with bookshelves—she had her own stacks! Macy's antinuclear activism from the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island years was now focused on the impacts of stored radioactive waste. I had grown up in Portland, Oregon, not far from the Hanford nuclear power plant, so I felt a personal connec¬tion to this horrific unsolved problem.

Macy had convened a study group to consider the idea of "nuclear guardianship," a vision that came to her at Greenham Common peace camp in the UK. "In my mind's eye, I saw surveillance communities forming at today's nuclear facilities," she wrote. "These Guardian Sites would be centers of pilgrimage and reflection, where the cemented cores and waste containments would be reliably monitored and repaired. 114 She imagined volunteers trained to "remember" the story of the radioactive remains as they protected them from terrorism and negligence, draw¬ing on the strength of the world's wisdom traditions. The study group reviewed technical reports, spoke to engineers, visited nuclear sites, and put together a traveling slide show on the Nuclear Guardianship Proj¬ect. When Macy offered a weekend retreat focused on this guardianship concept, I jumped at the chance to do deeper work with her. Through fo¬cused meditation and concentrated role play, we took positions as guards and visitors to a nuclear site far in the future. Drawing on all we knew and all we could imagine, we conjured the massive nuclear facility, the elab-orate radiation precautions, the arduous pilgrimage trail. I was stunned by Macy's ability to communicate her vision and guide the group to pro¬found experiences and insights.

Around this same fertile time, Macy traveled to Australia and met rainforest activist John Seed; together they developed another transformative teaching model—the Council of All Beings.5 Macy's inspiration came from the stories of young King Arthur in The Once and Future King by T. H. White, a book she often read with her children. In the passage where Arthur becomes a wild goose, she described how she felt "the huge sky was calling me, and so were my brothers and sisters as they honked in excitement all around me. . . . I loved the stretch of my neck in the sharp air, the power in my shoulders as they found their rhythm, and the wild, free song we sang together."' In the Council of All Beings, everyone listens quietly to be called by a being and to speak for the being at the council. For years Macy spoke as Wild Goose, filling the room with her wild cries of freedom. One evening, she led our class in a Council of All Beings, and I became Night Mouse, alert for signs of danger and adept at finding my way in the dark. To this day I have a special feeling for the cleverness and surefootedness of field mice, silent in their vigilance.

BRIDGING WORLDS

As I grew to know more of Macy's work, she asked if I would like to read her doctoral dissertation on causality in systems theory and Buddhist phi¬losophy. She had completed her degree in 1978 from Syracuse University and was polishing it up for formal publication.' The root of the work stemmed from an experience she had while meditating at a nun's train¬ing center in Dalhousie, India. A vision came to her of an arching stone bridge and she thought, "if only I could be part of that bridge between the thought-worlds of East and West, connecting the insights of the Buddha Dharma with the modern Western mind."' Once back in the US she took graduate classes at George Washington University and did prelimi¬nary research at the Library of Congress, where she exulted in the public reading room, "a luminous sanctuary of the collective mind, timelessly harboring all its thoughts."9

Macy's time at Syracuse was marked by three powerful nonacademic events. Before she had even started classes, her husband Fran had a serious heart attack. She was distraught and felt she should postpone her studies to take care of him. But Fran insisted she go on, that she needed to do this work, it was time. She knew she had to follow her vision. Two years later,

the nun from Dalhousie came for a visit, and Macy took formal vows of refuge with her. This serious step caused some unexpected upheaval as she struggled to integrate the new Buddhist commitment with her Chris¬tian upbringing. Soon after; His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa came to America, and Macy; who had met him eight years earlier, was received in his private quarters. She asked for his blessing on her studies and, to her surprise, he grasped her head in both hands and chanted vigorously over her precious mind. "It was like having my head in an electric socket." 10 She could hardly sleep for the next three weeks, with "each night a tor¬rent of revelation." That is when her entire thesis took shape.

For me, reading Macy's carefully composed thesis was equally head-spinning. I saw how thoroughly she critiqued the shortcomings of West-ern hierarchical thinking. I saw how methodically she constructed the building blocks of knower and known, body and mind, doer and deed, self and society. I saw how, for her, all of this implied moral concern and political engagement, a logical conclusion from close reading of Buddhist and systems-theory texts. To me, her thesis was elegant, comprehensive, a brilliant and original piece of scholarly work. Here in this thesis lay the complete intellectual and spiritual foundations for her despair and empowerment work and for the deep ecology work to come. As I turned page after page, I glimpsed the depth of her mind and its visionary and analytical clarity. It was wondrous to behold.

DEEP ECOLOGY WORK

Timing is everything, and I had the good fortune to be near at hand when Macy made the link between her systems work and the emerg¬ing philosophy of deep ecology. Promulgated by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess and American sociologist Bill Devall, deep ecology offered a radical holistic approach to environmental ethics. Naess developed his ideas from profound experiences of self-realization based on a widening circle of identification with other beings. Macy could see that Naess's experience was parallel to the Buddhist spiritual shift from self-centered¬ness to relational interdependence. It was Macy who promoted the term "ecological self" and reinforced the call to action required by such broad identification. We began brainstorming together with Fran and a group of colleagues to envision a deep ecology training institute that could offer these principles to support activists in their work. Over the next two years, our "birthing committee" formed the Gateway Project, wrote grants, secured funding, hired staff, and developed faculty and curriculum for the first summer institute in 1993.

These were heady, creative times as we crafted this deep ecology ap¬proach to activist training. As far as we knew, no one else was doing any¬thing quite like this. In these early days, before the dominating presence of the internet and cell phones, people could still take two weeks to be together to network and learn. How radical! I was just beginning my academic teaching career in Vermont, but I lived for those summer re¬treats. Macy was experimenting with and upon us, trying out new forms, inventing new meditations, pushing us into challenging mental and emo¬tional spaces. We did walking meditation in the tall redwoods; we tested exercise prototypes on diversity awareness; we imagined journeying with our ancestors back in time. In one extended roleplay of a bioregional council meeting, I was charged with coaching the nonhuman represen¬tatives to the council—soil, water, air, fire. My "people" fully immersed themselves in their roles: water flowed freely in blue scarves, dirt held still and solid, fire leapt and sparked. Though they could not speak in words, they offered powerful responses to the humans' ideas, changing the discourse in the room. Later these enlivened beings found they were so moved by their experiences that it was hard to return to their limited human perspectives.

Every day Macy and her husband led us in the poignant elm dance, a Latvian song for the healing of the trees, offered with prayers for those who had suffered so much after Chernobyl. They shared the powerful story of traveling to Novozybkov, the town most drenched in radioactiv¬ity after the meltdown, where families were devastated by loss. After so many difficult words and feelings, the elm dance brought people together; strengthening their "cultural immune system." Macy promised them she would tell their story at the World Uranium Hearing and everywhere she led the dance, so they would not be alone in their suffering.11 In the second time through the dance, we call out the names of those in need of healing: treasured salmon, tall redwoods, eroded soil, flooded rivers. The dance "helps us remember why we're doing what we're doing," the Australian rainforest activists say.12 Body, mind, song, heart all expressing the interwoven world and our pain and love for it.

Out of this ferment of creativity at the deep ecology institutes came an expanded guidebook for facilitators, Coming Back to Life, coauthored by Molly Young Brown.13 In the foreword, Matthew Fox, author of Original Blessing, described Macy as a "midwife of grace. . . a rare voice in our time who is a prophet speaking out on behalf of those without a voice. . . . She passes on this prophetic voice to others, she draws it out, she coaxes us not to be afraid and not to be in denial." 14Author David Abram wrote in an endorsement for the book: "Joanna Macy is a woman of uncanny cour¬age and ferocious compassion—a bodhisattva ablaze! For twenty years she has been inviting individuals and groups to acknowledge and honor the shadowed darkness of this era, and to walk through the gates of grief into a new joy at their utter interdependence and solidarity with the rest of the earthly cosmos.""

This teacher's guide contains all the core principles of the work: the goals, the methods, the key concepts underlying the exercises—all that is necessary for effective facilitation of the work. Here were important sys¬tems phenomena such as feedback and positive disintegration—how old forms evolve to adapt, to changing conditions, important guidelines such as, "Do your own emotional work first," and important commitments to listen to the group, to respect the process. One could sense the cherished Buddhist mudras coming to life on the page: have no fear, let the Earth be your witness. All of this added up to a very different way of teaching  a practice based on learning as a group, building community,

and leading  trusting the expression of strong emotion, and believing in the power of guided reflections to bring forth penetrating insight.

FOUNDATIONS OF THE TEACHING

I am hardly alone in my respect for this powerful teaching. Macy has been a spiritual guide and activist mentor for hundreds, if not thousands, of dedicated practitioners around the world. Her content and style of teach¬ing have been replicated in classrooms, community centers, churches, and living rooms in an ever-expanding web of support. Leaders and facil¬itators have been trained personally by Macy in long retreats, and many trainers have gone on to share the principles and techniques with others in their local circles, faith communities, and activist groups. The guide¬books are clear: the work is to be given away; no one owns it. Macy has

consistently eschewed the role of head teacher or spiritual guru; she always felt the work was meant to travel and evolve. For me, this is one of her greatest teaching gifts—the willingness to offer up the work to so many others and to give them the confidence and skills to go forward in this mutually empowering way.

As a teacher myself, and one of those trained in this work, it has been my good fortune to observe and learn from such a gifted guide. I have spent my whole life contemplating and reflecting on what makes a good teacher. 1-have mentored undergraduates, graduate students, and junior faculty in the arts of teaching. I have taught in the field, in the classroom, and in rural retreat centers. I have taught large lecture classes and inti¬mate seminars and given countless guest lectures. I am keenly aware of the many factors that can make or break a good learning experience. To my mind, Macy's teaching is unparalleled in its creativity, commitment, and wide-reaching influence. What is it that makes her gifts as a teacher so effective?

In reviewing her memoir and other reflections, it is obvious that every¬thing begins with her deep concern for the health and stability of the planet. Her own personal depth of grief and need to care have ultimately led the way in her lifework. She has been willing to let her heart break open over and over again with the unmitigated suffering of the planet and its people and beings. This is strong motivation, but alone it would not be enough to sustain a sixty-year career of intensive teaching and travel. Somehow, in spite of overwhelming grief and despair, Macy con¬tinues to face right into the "poison fire" of nuclear waste, the challenge of climate change, the tragic loss of habitat and species, the unraveling of a safe world for beings of the future. What is it that sustains this pow¬erful teacher?

Behind this work I see three central foundations at the root of Macy's teaching. The first is her depth of intellectual understanding of systems theory and Buddhist philosophy, so fully developed in the academic thesis work. Her training in Eastern and Western philosophy and reli¬gious studies was rigorous and thorough, assuring her confidence that her study was well-founded and her insights defensible. Macy's particular postgraduate gift was to apply these systems principles and to see them at work in every possible circumstance. The analytical tools of systems thinking offer profound implications for environmental work, and now, forty years after her thesis, systems theory is widely used in virtually all global biogeophysical modeling research. Macy engages these principles in all of her teaching, well-grounded in her academic study of formative systems thinkers such as Gregory Bateson and Ludwig von Bertalanffy. Her love of systems theory reflects her love of mind and its great capaci¬ties, and this joy informs her teaching at the core.

At one time, Macy assumed she would take up the academic life as a professor, teaching and writing about world religions in a university setting. That would have been the natural trajectory after completion of a PhD degree. But her life as a student of the Buddha Dharma was also developing alongside her academic life. For her, the dharma of emp¬tiness and the teachings of Indra's net and Vipassana analytics were as compelling as systems theory. This is the second foundation at the root of her teaching. She studied original Pali and Mahayana texts for her thesis and drew on these in her own meditation practice. Though she was ordained in a Tibetan Buddhist lineage and trained in Vipassana medita¬tion practice, it was the Perfection of Wisdom text, the Prajna Paramita emphasized in Zen, that most aligned with her systems understanding. And it was the grand openness in this wisdom text that allowed her to include her own Christian upbringing, as well as her understanding of other great religious traditions, in her emerging work. This com¬bination of intellectual and practice understanding would define Macy as a scholar-practitioner, a practice-informed intellectual leader among modern Buddhist thinkers. "Not that it's been easy," she wrote. "It's not easy to walk a path that hasn't been cleared for you ahead of time.""

These two foundations for Macy's approach as a teacher provide a level of depth and authority that most students never see. Complement¬ing these is a third foundation: a commitment to experiential knowing with a secure depth of trust in her own personal insights and revelations. Strong visions have guided her life toward graduate study, toward nuclear guardianship, toward deep ecology work. Her work has been shaped by a formidable sense of call and response, of listening to what is arising deep in the heart, with sharp clarity in the mind. For her, it is all one embodied experience of heart-mind-cosmos speaking. Macy has cultivated a life¬time of willingness to be open to what is calling to her, and she is able to invite others to trust such calls of the heart. These experiences reinforce a confidence in "emergence," a known property of systems indicating that more will emerge from what is at play, that paying attention to what is emerging is a way to be guided in doing this work. "So we wait; even in our work, we wait," she explains. "Only out of that open expec-tancy can images and visions arise that strike deep enough to summon faith in them."17

Drawing on these foundations—the systems work, the Buddha Dharma, and the power of experiential knowing—Macy and colleagues have fash¬ioned a significant suite of transformative learning exercises. Ritual, guided meditation, paired conversations, community consulting—the elements of this curriculum are packaged in skillful sequences designed to lead to breakthroughs. The guidebooks explain how to encourage max¬imum participation and engagement, how to be with difficult passages in group experience, how to signal process milestones, how to attend to what is arising in whatever unexpected form. As this work developed, Macy was haunted by the possibility that hope was irrelevant: "I had al¬ways assumed that a sanguine confidence in the future was as essential as oxygen. Without it, I had thought, one would collapse into apathy and nihilism."" Yet her own work in systems thinking and Buddhist practice gave her the unassailable answer: that possibilities are endless and con¬stantly emerging. There is no need to depend on hope; the whole uni¬verse is continually offering up new directions for the flow of life.

The culmination of these foundations in her teaching and the foun¬tain of collaborative creativity across Macy's lifetime has now taken the form of what she calls "the Work that Reconnects." She sees this as a regenerating spiral, "a source of strength and fresh insights. It reminds us that we are larger, stronger, deeper, and more creative than we have been brought up to believe." 19 The journey of empowerment travels through four movements: Coming from Gratitude, Honoring Our Pain for the World, Seeing with New Eyes, and Going Forth. Acknowledging grat¬itude grounds the work in appreciation for the wonder of being alive in the world, for loving what is important to us and feeling its true value. This naturally opens a floodgate of pain for the very fragility of all that we love. Through the skillful medicine of the work that reconnects, we perceive with new insight the wealth of resources available in the cosmic web of life, and this spurs us forward to be active agents in the web.

Much has been written about the despair and empowerment work, the deep ecology work, and the work that reconnects. Macy herself has left a treasure of commentary on her teaching methods and principles. In her own words: Even after all these years in doing the work, I am continually sur¬prised by the grandeur of the human heart. Ever again, walking into a room of people to share this work. . . I am awestruck to discover their caring for the world. . . . I am moved, ever again, by their read¬iness to face the bad news. . . . I am humbled by their grief and rage, and by the courage and creativity that is unleashed. The changes they go on to make in their lives, and the actions they go on to take in their communities, teach me. These changes are so real and bold, they challenge me to take seriously the very premises of the work itself.2°

It has been my great honor to know and work with Joanna Macy across the past thirty years and to be challenged to transmit this work to stu¬dents and colleagues. In my mind's eye, I see her in the open meadow at Shenoa Retreat Center, surrounded bytrees, a fierce bodhisattva warrior for the Earth. She stands firm, touching the Earth as witness, her open heart and shining mind fearless in this call to care for the Earth. For me and thousands of others, she is a beacon of courage and compassion in difficult times. Always I see her smiling face radiant with love

PART THREE Acting with Compassion

14 Forging the Spirit through Climate Change Practice

MASTER FA TSANG HAD BEEN SUMMONED BY THE -empress of China to explain the nature of reality. Though the empress had heard a number of lectures on Buddhist philosophy from the esteemed teacher, she had not yet reached true understanding. Sensing the need to point beyond the limiting nature of words, the master set up a display in one of the royal halls, placing mirrors on the ceiling, floor, and all four walls. In the center he arranged a small Buddha with a candle. When he brought the empress in to see the multiple reflected images, she attained instant enlightenment. Perceiving direct insight, she realized that the Buddha's energy/mind is infinite in its manifestations throughout space and time.

Indra's net, a similar teaching metaphor from the seventh century, also points to the multifaceted nature of the universe as core understanding. In the Hua Yen school of Chinese Buddhism, key texts emphasize that the mind of every being is identical with the mind of the Buddha, and that en-lightenment depends on this recognition. Spiritual practice is grounded in this insight as the source of all ethics and virtuous action. To picture the net, imagine an enormous web of linked lines stretching horizontally across the vast universe. Now add a second web of similar scope and shape stretching across space vertically. Holding this structure in your mind, add yet another web at each diagonal, observing the clarity and organiza¬tion of these multiple overlapping nodes. Indra's net consists of an infinite number of crisscrossing nets, with a jewel at every point of intersection.

'5'

Each jewel has an infinite number of facets that reflect every other jewel in the net. A truly wondrous conception!

In this metaphor, there is nothing outside the net and nothing that does not reverberate its presence throughout the net. The image com¬municates in a direct way the interdependent nature of reality, infinitely linked in relationship and infinitely co-creating every being. For modern environmentalists, this image fits well with an ecological woridview, con¬veying the scale of complexity we can barely perceive; The links can be seen as food webs, carbon pathways, parasitic cycles, soil building. The metaphor easily illustrates human impact: tarnish a jewel with soot or sludge and it shines much less brightly; break critical links through clear-cutting and ecological relations suffer. Likewise, we see that each of us is a jewel in the net capable of effective action.

Here I want to take a look at how to practice with this understanding in everyday life, how to see our actions as grounded in such a net of re¬lationship. But first, we need to see the shortcomings of the metaphor so we will not be limited in our true understanding. It does not, in fact, represent the constantly changing nature of reality; these crisscrossing lines and jewels are but a map or model of a single moment in time. To even get close to seeing what is going on, you would need to imagine all the webs in motion—shifting and blowing, jiggling and tearing, growing new threads and repairing broken links. The jewels, too, are changing constantly, expanding and shrinking, moving closer to and farther from other jewels, changing behavior by day and night. In other words, the whole universe is morphing, growing, moving, learning, adapting beyond any human comprehension. No single model can even come close to cap¬turing all that is happening.

Thus it would be impossible to offer a definitive approach to prac¬tice that would meet all circumstances. Instead let me explore two arenas as a sample introduction—the physical world of climate change and the emotions that arise in response—a rich practice field, indeed, and one in which we are inescapably involved and impacted, and most certainly way beyond our usual capacities.

Read almost any book on climate change and you are quickly im¬mersed in the dynamics of shifting temperatures, amplifying feedback loops, and potential tipping points. I found The Fate of Greenland by Philip Conkling et al. to be particularly informative, with Gary Comer's stunning aerial photos of ice phenomena and shifting shorelines. The Indra's net of climate change is composed of ice floes, jet streams, coal plants, traffic jams, and soil microbes. And of course, much much more. Climate scientists in many countries are working to put the puzzle pieces together that explain and predict the shifting nature of the global ocean/ atmosphere/soil system. Climate models take observed patterns and proj¬ect them into the future. But unexpected combinations of causes and con¬ditions keep adding complexity to the models and demanding a stance of humility.

What, then, does it mean to practice with Indra's net as we look at climate change? How can such practice help develop a perspective or approach that will develop our true understanding of the nature of the universe? Certainly climate change encompasses most of the major systems drivers that are shaping the physical world today as well as its future. Practicing with climate change requires us to have expanded spatial and also tempo¬ral understandings of the dynamic processes at play. We must learn not only about the range of sites and shifting patterns taking place today, but also about the historic precedents and how they set certain global trends in motion. This is more than what most of our minds can handle! Human neural patterns are formed primarily in relation to immediate stimuli and needs in the family, home, and community—a much smaller scale than the immense globe. Learning about climate change processes literally stretches the mind to grander scales than our normal conditioning. The practice part of this learning is to stay the course as our small-scale minds take in the vast complexities and endless flux of climate change.

It is, as you may have already tasted yourself, both enlightening and sobering all at once. Climate studies reveal patterns, such as the oceanic conveyor belts, that cannot be seen by any one individual but are the sum of many data sets. Practicing with Indra's net requires an active imagi¬nation to grasp the full impact of such enormous currents of water on not only global weather but the distribution of marine species. For the climate novice, the patterns can be overwhelming in their implications and complexity. To stay with the practice, then, one focuses on the nature of the dynamics—how they are shaped by amplifying or dampening feed¬back, how patterns reach tipping points, how cycles interact over long and short periods of time. You become large and nothing all at once. In climate terms, a single human life is relatively insignificant, but this does, not mean you subtract yourself from the net. Instead you taste the vastness of mind, one might say, that stretches in all directions and across all eons of time. This standpoint provides quite a contrast to the usual short-term thinking that characterizes most of our politics, economics, and human relations.

Perhaps already you are feeling some of the emotions that swirl around climate change—fear, discouragement, helplessness, despair, frustration These are all part of the web, too, and therefore part of the practice field. The practice mind aims first to observe and be aware of what is happening, to stay alert in the present moment and engage what is at hand. To practice with the web of emotions is to observe dynamics, nuance, fiavor, the shape of what arises and what passes away. This may be one's own internal and personal response to climate change or social patterns of emotional response. Often these are influenced by personal and shared history, beliefs and values, and long-standing emotional habits. To see clearly can be very challenging.

From quite an unexpected source, I came upon a set of Japanese terms related to emotional states, but described in terms of their contribution to art practice.' Emotional sensitivity is highly valued in Japanese arts for expressing the ineffable while also acknowledging the fragility of human experience. Feeling tone is seen as a reflection of the dynamic universe, the ever-changing Indra's net. Mono no aware points to the sense of poignancy from the fleeting and impermanent nature of the world and the tinge of sadness that comes with this recognition. Being with this feel¬ing stimulates an appreciation for things as they are right now, even as we know they will pass away. The acceleration of climate change can evoke this feeling on an almost daily basis as shorelines erode and sea levels rise. Taking this up as a practice opportunity, you engage the nature of imper¬manence, including your own fleeting existence.

Climate change raises issues of attachment: we yearn to decelerate the rates of change, to protect the vanishing species, to stop the escalating damage. The quality of fitryu, or "flowing wind," is a sense of energy moving through life that touches everything fully while clinging to noth¬ing. This supports appreciation for all we are part of, but also detachment. This is not about giving up to emotional defeat, but rather realizing that we too are transient. Embracing this means wasting less energy in re¬sistance and accepting how deeply aligned we are with the patterns of nature. We may even be able to attain a state of mui, deep calmness in harmony with nature, that allows us to "do nothing" until the time is right, a very Taoist approach to conserving personal energy.

Responses to climate change can tend to overemphasize the dark and sometimes destructive emotions of depression, anger, and grief. In Japanese arts practice such as the Way of Tea or flower arranging, the emotional tone leans more toward myo, the mysterious. By practicing alertness to the pace, the timing, the frame of mind for a given activity, the practitioner expresses the unique aspects of a single moment. Some of this is revealed in the actions of the practice, but much points to yugen, the cloudy and unfathomable state beyond words and intellectual activity. This quality may not seem at all related to climate change, but it can pro¬vide a deeper emotional perspective as an alternative to the passing states of anxiety and anger.

Working with Indra's net is a practice that develops character and builds capacity and resilience. Japanese teachers speak of seishin tanren, or "spirit forging." Practicing tea ceremony and practicing with climate change both purify and strengthen the spirit, through facing repeated challenges and committing to the discipline that is required. Just as forg¬ing a fine sword develops its strength and stability, so, too, does Indra's net practice build spiritual capacity to meet the challenges of climate change yet to come. Rather than resisting the frustrations and setbacks of cli¬mate policy, one simply keeps going, leaning into the commitment of the practice. With this orientation, all elements of climate change are part of the practice field—damaging hurricanes, political trade-offs, denial cam¬paigns, climate refugees. You keep working with what is arising, both physically and emotionally.

The Japanese arts thus offer some helpful supports for practicing in the various Dos or Ways of art practice. It seems to me that they can be applied to a broader practice approach with Indra's net and are certainly worth exploring. Shoshin, or beginner's mind, is the ability to bring a fresh perspective to any situation, free of the clutter of opinions or history. You approach the situation at hand as if you are seeing it for the first time. To such a mind, in even the most entrenched circumstances, there are always untapped possibilities. Beginner's mind is sometimes called "don't-know mind." This helps us remember that we actually can't know all the factors at play and that the situation may shift in a way not yet apparent to us.

To sense even these small beginnings, we might develop kan, or intuitive perception, through strengthening our capacities for observation and our trust in direct experience.

The Japanese arts are passed down from one person to another across generations, depending very much on those who have mastered the dis-ciplines and techniques. In every tradition, the kobai (those of less expe-rience) are expected to learn from sempai (those of greater experience). You know where you stand on the scale of experience and there is always someone with more wisdom and skill to turn to for support. While cli¬mate change practice may not be organized that clearly, it can help to situate yourself in relation to others who have more skill in this practice terrain. We can ask those with more experience to be mentors for those of us with less. And no matter how little we think we know or have mas¬tered in this territory, we can always provide support to others with still less confidence.

In the contentious context of today's climate debates, it can be very helpful to take up the practice of reigi, or respect for self and other, espe¬cially in group settings. Sometimes this is narrowly interpreted to mean "bowing," but the more important focus is on one's attitude. Respecting one's self means not dividing the mind and body, thoughts and actions. If you are able to act with integrity from a place of alignment, it will reflect your own self-knowledge and discipline in the practice. Remembering that others, too, are jewels in Indra's net can help mitigate against disre¬spectful judgments and acting out.

None of this is easy. Practicing with Indra's net offers many opportun¬ities to develop mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual discipline. Tak¬ing up climate change work or any other difficult environmental or social justice work as a life project requires resilience and stability that can carry you through the failures and setbacks. Seeing the work as a practice can shift the frame to a longer view and provide guiding principles that deepen your capacities. The good news is that many people are very interested in this approach, and there are sempai out there leading the way. We have just this life, this moment to take up the practice. Ichi-go, Ichi-e--"one en¬counter, one meeting"—every moment offers a unique chance to be fully present. When we are aligned completely with that moment and all that is arising in Indra's net, our practice can be very effective indeed.

About — 炳翰

About — 炳翰

炳翰

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20대는 사회과학도였다. 

서방을 선망했고, 새로운 이론의 습득에 골몰했다.

30대는 역사학자였다. 

동방을 천착하고, 오랜 문명의 유산을 되새겼다.

자연스레 동/서의 회통과 고/금의 융합을 골똘히 고민했다. 

그 소산으로 1000일 <유라시아 견문>을 마무리 짓고 40대를 맞이했다. 

 

개벽학자이자 지구학자이며 미래학자를 지향한다. 

개벽학은 동학 창도 이래, 이 땅의 자각적 사상을 현대적으로 계승하겠다는 뜻이다.

동녘의 오래된 유학과 서편의 새로운 서학이 합류한 문명의 융합을 거대한 뿌리로 삼는다.

그러함에도 한국학, 한 나라에 한정되지 않는다.

북구부터 남미까지, 인도양부터 시베리아까지,

지구적 규모로 정보를 수집하고,

지구적 단위로 미래를 사유하는 것이 습관이 되었다.

특히 인간이 창조한 인공의 세계,

인공지구와 인공생명과 인공지능의 도래를 주시한다. 

인간 이전의 자연적 진화는 물론이요,

인간 이후의 자율적 진화에,

인간만의 자각적 진화를 두루 아울러야,

지구의 진화에 일조할 수 있는 미래학자의 자격이 갖추어진다고 생각한다.

 

과거와 현재와 미래의 공진화,

하늘과 땅과 사람의 공진화, 

생물과 활물과 인간의 공진화,

생명과 기술과 의식의 공진화, 

만인과 만물과 만사의 공진화, 

개벽학과 지구학과 미래학의 공진화,  

 

이 모든 것을 아울러 깊은 미래(DEEP FUTURE)를 탐구하는 깊은 사람(Deep Self),

무궁아(無窮我)이고 싶다.

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Lee Byeonghan