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.
