알라딘: 딥 에콜로지 - 자연과의 화해를 위한 지혜의 생태학 Bill Devall

알라딘: 딥 에콜로지


딥 에콜로지 - 자연과의 화해를 위한 지혜의 생태학
빌 드발,조지 세션스 (지은이),김영준,민정희,함엄석,박미숙 (옮긴이)

원더박스2022-04-15

원제 : Deep Ecology





기본정보
456쪽
책소개

심층생태학에 대해 들어 보지 못한 사람이라도, 심층생태학의 내용과 실천은 낯설지가 않을 것이다. 심층생태학은 1970년대 아르네 네스가 처음 명명하고 정립한 이후 국내외 환경 생태 분야에 지대한 영향을 미쳐 왔기 때문이다. 우리나라의 대표적 생협인 한살림 운동, 한국 생태 운동의 한 획을 그은 『녹색평론』, 세계적 베스트셀러 『오래된 미래』, 천성산 도롱뇽 지키기와 ‘강은 흘러야 한다’는 4대강 되살리기의 메시지 등이 모두 심층생태학의 흐름 속에 있다. 자연을 인간이 이용할 도구로 보는 인간 중심적 관점이 환경 위기의 근본적인 원인이라 진단하고, 모든 생명을 존중하며 인간 사회와 온 지구 생명체와의 조화를 촉구하는 심층생태학의 메시지는 환경운동계에는 물론, 우리 사회 전반에 깊숙이 스며들어 있다.

심층생태학은 한편에서는 비현실적인 근본주의 사상이라며 폄하돼 오기도 했다. 하지만 기후위기와 코로나19 등 환경 재난이 갈수록 심각한 양상을 보이면서 심층생태학의 통찰에 점점 더 많은 이들이 귀를 기울이고 있다. 관습적이고 개량적인 대응으로는 우리가 마주한 환경문제들을 해결할 수 없다는 것이 분명해지고 있기 때문이다.

이 책은 심층생태학의 고전으로, 본격적인 심층생태학 서적으로는 국내에 처음 출간되는 책이다. 영미권 환경 사상 분야의 가장 중요한 저작 중 하나로도 꼽히는 이 책은 독자들에게 심층생태학을 소개하면서 깊은 생태적 성찰과 영감, 그리고 생태적 전환의 길을 제시해 준다.



목차


역자서문
서문

1장 아무것도 할 수 없지만, 무엇이든 가능하다
2장 비주류 전통과 직접 행동
3장 현대의 지배적인 세계관과 그 비판
4장 개량주의적 대응
5장 심층생태학의 원리
6장 심층생태학적 사고의 전거들
7장 왜 지금 야생인가?
8장 자연자원을 보전할 것인가, 아니면 자연의 온전함을 보호할 것인가
9장 에코토피아 비전의 규정
10장 인격과 문화
11장 생태적 저항

에필로그
미주
부록 A 에코소피 T / 아르네 네스
B 페미니즘과 생태학 / 캐롤린 머천트
C 간디, 도겐 그리고 심층생태학 / 로버트 아잇켄 노사
D 서구의 과정형이상학(헤라클레이토스, 화이트헤드, 스피노자)/ 조지 세션스
E 인간중심주의 / 존 시드
F 의례가 중요하다 / 돌로레스 라샤펠
G 불교와 지구적인 문화의 가능성 / 게리 스나이더
H 『1984』에 덧붙임 / 조지 세션스
참고문헌
색인
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책속에서


P. 22전형적인 환경보호주의는 그 지지자들 사이에 기이하고 부정적인 정치적 불만감을 야기해 왔다. 거의 매일 벌어지는 새로운 참상에 촉각을 곤두세우면서, 그들은 생명을 위협하는 새로운 각각의 상황들에 대한 규모를 조사하고, 그에 저항하고자 뛰쳐나가고, 앞으로의 재발을 막으려고 기력이 소진될 때까지 캠페인을 벌인다. 물론 가치 있는 일이다. 하지만 응급실로만 이루어진 병원을 생각해 보라. 거기엔 임산부 진료도, 소아과 진료도, 앞날이 기대되는 치료법도 없다 그저 심하게 훼손된 외상 환자들뿐이다. 많은 경우 가망이 없거나 시간만 질질 끌어 지치게 만든다. 몇 사람을 구해 내더라도 항상 손 쓸 수 있는 것보다 더 많은 환자들이 문으로 밀려 들어온다. 환경을 구하는 일은 범접할 수 없는 살인무기를 상대로 전쟁을 치르면서 싸움에 졌다 싶을 때마다 다른 전장으로 근거지를 옮겨 다니는 야전 응급치료소를 운영하는 것이 돼 버렸다. 환경보호의 도덕적 기초를 의심하는 사람은 아무도 없으나, 기본적으로 끝없는 몸부림과도 같은 방어적인 태도는 살육을 완전히 끝내려는 노력에 방해가 된다. 환경운동가들은 상황이 얼마나 심각한지 알지만 자신들은 그저 타협 외에는 할 수 있는 게 없는 입장에 처해 있다고 생각한다. 접기
P. 41~42그러나 현대사회에서 생태 의식을 기르는 일은 양날의 검과 같다. 우리는 변화에 대한 우리의 열정에 오도되어 오직 협소한 자아에만 관심이 국한되어서는 안 된다. 단지 개인적 구원만을 구하고자 한다면 우리는 환경을 계속 오염시키는 ‘죄인들’로 분류된 군중들 사이에서 고독한 생태학적 성인聖人이 될 수도 있을 것이다. 개인의 변화는 문화의 변화를 필요로 하고, 그 역 또한 마찬가지다. 우리는 개인적 영역도 사회적 영역도 무시하고 지나칠 수 없다. 왜냐하면 우리의 프로젝트는 우리들 서로 사이에서, 그리고 지구라는 행성과 우리 자신들 사이에서 조화를 도모하고자 하는 것이기 때문이다. 접기
P. 118~119많은 사람이 개량주의적 환경보호주의의 가장 좋은 부분은 받아들이면서도, 뭔가 부족하다고 느꼈다. 그들은 더 깊은 질문을 하고 있다. 그들은 환경과 생태 운동에서 지배적인 세계관과는 다른 가정에 바탕을 둔, 분명한 철학적 접근이 필요하다고 생각한다.
그들은 개량주의적 대응의 가장 좋은 부분을 일관된 철학적 관점으로 해 나갈 필요성을, 즉 인간 중심이 아닌 생명 중심적 가정을 기반으로 하는 철학이 필요하다는 것을 깨닫고 있다. 이 철학은 생태학의 과학에 의지할 수 있어야 하지만, 그렇다고 과학주의에 얽매여서도 안 된다. 또 자연을 인간이 다루는 데이터 조각들의 집합이라고 정의하는 한계에 갇혀서도 안 된다. …… 1972년에 아르네 네스는 이러한 철학을 논의하기 시작했고, 이를 심층생태학이라고 명명했다. 접기
P. 126호주의 철학자 워릭 폭스는 심층생태학의 가장 중심이 되는 직관을 다음과 같이 간결하게 표현했다. “인간이 존재의 현장에 확실한 존재론적 분할을 할 수 없다는 생각이 바로 그것이다. 즉 현실에서 인간과 비인간의 영역을 나누는 경계란 것은 사실상 존재하지 않는다. …… 우리가 그 분계선을 인식하는 한, 우리는 깊은 생태 의식에 미치지 못한다.” 접기
P. 141~142“심층생태학에는 우리에겐 충분한 이유 없이 다른 생명체를 파괴할 권리가 없다는 기본적인 직관이 있습니다. 심층생태학의 또 다른 규범은, 인간은 성숙할수록 다른 생명체가 기쁨을 경험할 때 기쁨을, 다른 생명이 슬픔을 겪을 때 슬픔을 느끼게 될 것이란 점입니다. 우리는 형제와 개와 고양이가 슬픔을 느낄 때 같이 슬퍼할 뿐 아니라, 풍경을 포함한 모든 살아 있는 것들이 파괴되는 모습에도 역시 비통함을 느낄 것입니다. 우리 문명에는 우리가 마음대로 사용할 수 있는 어마어마한 파괴 수단이 있지만, 우리의 감정은 거의 성숙하지 못한 상태입니다. 지금까지 대부분의 인류는 다양한 감정 중 아주 몇 가지의 감정에만 관심을 가져왔습니다.” 접기
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추천글

이 책을 추천한 다른 분들 :
한겨레 신문
- 한겨레 신문 2022년 4월 22일 출판 새책



저자 및 역자소개
빌 드발 (Bill Devall) (지은이)
저자파일
신간알리미 신청

학계와 현장을 넘나들며 오래된 숲과 야생지 보호의 필요성을 역설한 학자이자 환경운동가이다. 앨버타 대학교와 훔볼트 대학교에서 사회학을 가르쳤으며, 당시 주류 사회학이 다루던 통상적인 주제들을 벗어나 삼림 관리, 방사성 폐기물, 야생지 문제 등을 강의 주제로 다루었다. 노르웨이의 철학자 아르네 네스의 초기 저작과 미국 시인 게리 스나이더의 작품에 영향을 받아 다수의 심층생태사상 관련 서적을 펴냈다. 주요 저작으로 『딥 에콜로지』, 『수단은 간단하게, 목적은 풍성하게Simple in Means, Rich in Ends』 등이 있다.


최근작 : <딥 에콜로지> … 총 7종 (모두보기)

조지 세션스 (George Sessions) (지은이)
저자파일
신간알리미 신청

아르네 네스와 더불어 서구 심층생태사상 운동의 주요 인물로 꼽힌다. 캘리포니아 록클린의 시에라 대학교에서 50년 가까이 재직하며 철학을 가르쳤다. 경제성장과 물질적 팽창에 기반한 서구 문명을 전면적으로 비판하고 생태주의적 관점에서 서구 문명의 철학적 기반을 재검토하고자 했다. 그의 환경철학은 주로 1960년대 미국의 ‘생태주의 혁명기’에 쏟아졌던 여러 문헌들에 뿌리를 두고 있으며, 해당 시기의 주요 작품들은 저자 자신이 편집·출간한 『21세기를 위한 심층생태사상Deep Ecology for the 21st Century』에 다수 수... 더보기

최근작 : <딥 에콜로지> … 총 6종 (모두보기)

김영준 (옮긴이)

법학, 생태학, 철학을 전공하고 이 세 가지를 엮는 일에 관심이 있다. 대학 강의, 공무원, 변호사 일을 하고 있으며, 지구법, 통합생태학, 평화학, 커먼즈학 등에 관심을 가지고 있다. 옮긴 책으로는 『최후의 전환』이 있다.



민정희 (옮긴이)
저자파일
신간알리미 신청

불교단체에서 국제연대 사업을 주로 맡아왔으며, 기후위기 비상행동 공동운영위원장으로 활동했다. 현재 세계자연보전연맹(IUCN) 환경·경제·사회정책위원회(CEESP) 위원으로 활동하고 있으며, 국제참여불교네트워크(INEB)의 이사, 국제기후종교시민(ICE) 네트워크의 사무총장을 맡고 있다. 옮긴 책으로는 『과학이 우리를 구원하지 못할 때 불교가 할 수 있는 것』, 『적을수록 풍요롭다』, 『단 하나뿐인 우리의 집』이 있다.

최근작 : <뉴래디컬리뷰 2021.겨울> … 총 5종 (모두보기)

함엄석 (옮긴이)

대학에서 영문학을 전공했고 현재 강원도 공무원으로 재직 중이다. 기후위기의 정책적 대응 모색과 공공조직의 탈관료화가 직업적 관심사이고, 공장식 축산을 둘러싼 문제의식과 담론에 윤리적 관심을 두고 있다. 아이의 미래를 건사하려면 내가 조금 더 불편해져야 한다고 믿으며, 실천의 방편으로 비건을 지향하고 새 옷을 사지 않는다.



박미숙 (옮긴이)

대학원에서 불문학을 전공했다. 은행에서 20년 일하다가 다르게 살기로 결심했다. 바다를 그리는 화가로 활동하고 있으며, 시민들에게 기후위기를 알리기 위해 기후변화 씨네톡의 상영 영화를 번역하는 작업을 4년째 맡아서 하고 있다.




출판사 제공 책소개

심층생태학이란 무엇인가?

심층생태학은 한마디로 설명하기 쉽지 않다. 그것은 하나의 학문 분야라기보다는 사상 체계 내지 철학 체계에 가깝다. 역자들은 “엄정하고 수미일관한 학문체계라기보다는 살이 돋고 피가 흐르는 ‘오래된 지혜’에 가까운 것”이라고 표현한다. 아르네 네스는 심층생태학의 본질에 대해 이렇게 설명한다.

심층생태학의 본질은 더 깊은 질문을 묻는 데 있습니다. …… 과학으로서의 생태학은 특정한 생태계를 유지하는 데 어떤 종류의 사회가 가장 좋은가를 묻지 않습니다. 그런 건 가치이론, 정치학, 윤리학을 위한 질문이라고 생각하죠. …… 심층생태학에서는 현재의 사회가 사랑, 안전, 그리고 자연에의 접근과 같은 인간의 기본적인 필요를 충족시켜 주고 있는지를 묻고, 그렇게 질문함으로써 우리 사회의 근본에 깔린 가정들에 이의를 제기합니다. 어떤 사회가, 어떤 교육이, 종교의 어떤 형태가 전체로서의 지구 위 모든 생명에게 이로운 것인지를 묻고, 더 나아가 그에 필요한 변화를 만들어 내기 위해서 우리가 무엇을 해야 하는지를 묻습니다. 우리는 과학적 접근법에만 국한되어 있지 않습니다. -138~139쪽

심층생태학은 과학기술에 기반한 산업 사회의 지배적인 세계관에 문제를 제기한다. 그것이 우리가 겪는 환경 위기의 원인이라고 보기 때문이다. 그리하여 불교, 도교, 북미 선주민 전통, 과학적 생태학, 자연주의 문학, 페미니즘, 하이데거, 간디의 비폭력주의 등 다양한 비주류 전통에서 통찰과 영감을 끌어와 대안적인 세계를 모색한다. 이 책은 심층생태학과 지배적 세계관의 차이를 다음과 같이 요약한다.

지배적인 세계관
심층생태학
자연에 대한 지배
자연과의 조화
인간을 위한 자원으로서의 자연환경
모든 자연은 내재적 가치/생물종의 동등성 지님
증가하는 인구를 위한 물질적/경제적 성장
고아하고 단순한 물질적 필요(자기완성이라는 보다 큰 목적에 부합하는 물질적 목표)
풍부한 자원 비축에 대한 믿음
지구의 ‘비축량’은 제한적
첨단기술의 진보와 그에 따른 해법
적정기술과 군림하지 않는 과학
소비주의
필요한 만큼만 쓰고 재활용하기
국가적/중앙집권화된 사회
비주류 전통/생태 지역으로 묶인 지역

심층생태학은 동서양의 오래된 비주류 전통의 종교와 철학을 이야기한다는 점에서 근본적/급진적(radical)이다. 그것은 우리 사회의 총체적인 각성과 전환을 주문한다.

개량주의적 환경보호냐 심층생태적 저항이냐

환경문제가 심각해지면서 오늘날 환경보호는 당연한 상식이 되었다. 환경운동단체들은 정부와 사회에 오염물질 배출을 규제하고, 생태계를 파괴할 수 있는 개발을 막고, 야생동식물을 보호할 것을 호소하며, 그 결과 관련 정책들이 자리를 잡았다.
심층생태학에서는 이런 대응들이 의미 있으며 소중하다는 것을 인정한다. 하지만 동시에 그것의 한계도 지적한다. 이 책의 표현에 따르면, 그런 식의 환경운동은 “범접할 수 없는 살인무기를 상대로 전쟁을 치르면서 싸움에 졌다 싶을 때마다 다른 전장으로 근거지를 옮겨 다니는 야전 응급치료소를 운영하는 것과 같다”는 것이다. 전쟁터에서 몇 사람을 구해 내더라도 계속해 환자가 밀려들듯, 환경문제도 끊임없이 발생하며 생태계는 계속 위기 상태에 있다는 것이다. 문제의 근본적 원인을 건드리지 않는다면, 그런 시도는 아무리 가치 있더라도 ‘개량적’일 수밖에 없다는 게 심층생태학의 진단이다.
심층생태학은 그 이상으로 나아갈 것을 주문한다. 환경문제에 대한 개별적 대응을 넘어 현대 사회의 지배적 세계관을 변화시킬 수 있어야 한다고 이야기한다. 성장과 발전을 최고의 가치로 삼고, 자연을 ‘잘 이용해야’ 할 대상으로 보는 태도를 바꿔야 생태계를 구해 낼 수 있다는 것이다. 여러 환경운동의 성과에도 불구하고 기후위기와 생태계 파괴가 갈수록 심해지고 있는 현재의 상황은 심층생태학의 이런 주장을 되새겨 보게 한다.

생태 위기의 시대를 헤쳐 갈 ‘오래된 지혜’를 찾아서

“싫든 좋든, 결국 우리 모두는 이 청록색의 작은 행성에 살아가는 ‘거주민’이다. …… 분명히 지금은 패권 논쟁은 한쪽에 밀쳐 두고, 끊임없이 인간과 자원을 착취하려는 경제학은 외면하고, 지구를 우선시할 때이다.”
지금의 상황을 이야기하는 듯 생생한 이 구절은 40년 전 생태 시인 게리 스나이더가 한 말이다. 그때도 지금도 패권 논쟁과 끊임없이 인간과 자원을 착취하려는 경제학은 계속되고 있다. 그때도 지금도 지구를 우선시하는 사회는 오지 않았다. 오히려 그때보다 지금 더, 인류는 위기에 처해 있다.
많은 사람들이 이미 이제까지와 같은 방식으론 이 위기를 해결할 수 없다는 생각을 하고 있다. 인간 중심적인 태도로는 인간 역시 구할 수 없다는 것도 명백해지면서, 근본적인 변화를 갈망하는 이들도 늘어나고 있다. 우리에겐 생명 중심적인 철학이, 자연과 인간의 연결성을 직관하는 지혜가 필요하다. 심층생태학의 오래된 지혜가 필요하다. 접기

Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered by Bill Devall | Goodreads

Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered by Bill Devall | Goodreads





Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered

byBill Devall,George Sessions
3.92 · Rating details · 205 ratings · 18 reviews
Practicing is simple. Nothing forced, nothing violent, just settling into our place. "Deep ecology," a term originated in 1972 by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, is emerging as a way to develop harmony between individuals, communities and nature. DEEP ECOLOGY--the term and the book--unfolds the path to living a simple, rich life and shows how to participate in major environmental issues in a positive and creative manner.
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roduct description

From the Inside Flap

Contents Preface Nothing Can Be Done, Everything is Possible Minority Tradition and Direct Action The Dominant, Modern Worldview and Its Critics The Reformist Response Deep Ecology Some Sources of the Deep Ecology Perspective Why Wilderness in the Nuclear Age? Nature Resource Conservation or Protection of the Integrity of Nature: Contrasting Views of Management Ecotopia: The Vision Defined

From the Back Cover

Deep Ecology explores the philosophical, psychological, and sociological roots of today's environmental movement, examines the human-centered assumptions behind most approaches to nature, explores the possibilities of an expanded human consciousness, and offers specific direct action suggestions for individuals to practice. Widely read in it first printing, Deep Ecology has established itself as one of the most significant books on environmental thought to appear in this decade.

"Deep Ecology is subversive, but it's the kind of subversion we can use." --San Francisco Chronicle

"This book is an attempt at codifying a scattered body of ecological insight into a philosophy that places human beings on an absolutely equal footing with all other creatures on the planet." --Stephanie Mills, Whole Earth Review

"Difficult and (to some) unfamiliar insights on nature and human beings presented with simplicity and clarity, Deep Ecology rattles a cage full of occidental presumptions and yet it all seems almost like common sense." --Gary Snyder

Bill Devall has studied the social organization, politics, psychology and philosophy of the environmental movement for fifteen years. He teaches at Humbolt State University in California and is active in many environmental groups including Earth First! and the Sierra Club.

George Sessions teaches philosophy at Sierra College California. He was appointed to the Mountaineering Committee of the the Sierra Club in 1962, has served as a philosophy consultant to the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is editor of the International Ecophilosophy Newsletter.

About the Author

Bill DeVall has been a guest lecturer and featured speaker at universities in the United States and Australia and at national and international environmental conferences.

No Information Available.

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Paperback, 267 pages
Published January 19th 2001 by Gibbs Smith (first published 1985)


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Jul 07, 2009Gayge rated it liked it
You know, I kind of feel bad giving a book on deep ecology only three stars, especially where deep ecology is really central to my politics. But, one, I think this book would have been much more meaningful to me years ago - the principles of deep ecology are second nature to me at this point. And two, there's a lot of racism in this book, mainly referring to indigenous peoples of the Americas as "primal peoples" and viewing them as all the same, and massive, massive creepy appropriation and romanticisation of several Asian cultures.

If you aren't already well-versed in deep ecology, and you're up enough on anti-racism to know that this book is really racist (and, yes, portraying POC as special magical harmonious with the rest of Nature people and not involving actual current POC voices is hella racist), this will give you a clear intro to deep ecology. But especially given the racism that is part of some sections of the radical environmental movement, I'm looking for a better introduction to direct people to. (less)
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Jan 04, 2020Atticus rated it really liked it
Shelves: ecology-and-primitivism
At its core, this book is quite simple; everything present within it is, more or less, an accompaniment to the principles of Deep Ecology that it outlines. I would consider this to be more of a handbook than an actual book, and really it resonates with me more as a piece of aphoristic literature than anything else. There are a plethora of good quotations and sources and interesting bits of related artistry (Snyder's Smokey the Bear Sutra stood out for me, quite a wonderful piece), but in terms of the actual message the book is better suited as an introductory work. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but don't expect a "deep" reading from it. Still, it is good to consult and look over every now and again, as it is a pretty good introduction and does encompass a lot of important talking points. (less)
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Sep 18, 2017Brett rated it liked it
Shelves: environment, philosophy
It takes this book 200 pages to say that people need to refocus their conception of the world away from being human-centered and toward a conception that places humans, other life, and even natural environments on the same level.

I consider myself to an environmental advocate, but I'm not really willing to go as far as Deep Ecology wants to me to go. It may be possible for humans to live deeply satisfying lives with much reduced technological convenience but I don't think the vast majority of humans are seriously interested in trying this out. There is just very little grappling with the details of what the philosophical changes the authors want us to embrace would mean in actual effect. Instead, there are lots of sweeping statements and generalizations. Some of it is compelling; some of it not.

The authors also intersperse lots of snippets of other books, essays, and poems throughout the text, aiming for a general introduction to other thinkers and writers on the topic. In some ways, this is useful for those of us who are new to the topic, but in other ways it seems to prevent the authors from fully fleshing out their own thoughts. They introduce a topic, and insert the appropriate quote from another writer, then leave the topic. For a book that seems to want to be a comprehensive treatment of Deep Ecology, there is surprisingly little meat on the bones.

Rather, there is a lot of spiritual flim flam about the importance of nature and how mountains or rivers are living things that deserve to be valued intrinsically, even at the expense of humans. Nature is of course extremely important and by preserving nature, we greatly increase the odds of preserving the human race as well, but the fact of the matter is that mountains and rivers themselves are not living, and that humans will need to make informed, thoughtful, far-reaching judgments about development. To say that development is unacceptable in the vast majority of circumstances doesn't seem like a tenable position in the debate to me.

One other detail that seems strange, but has to do with when Deep Ecology was published in 1985. There is no mention at all of climate change in the book. Climate change was not understood of course in 1985 the way it is now, but it feels odd to read a book on environmentalism that doesn't speak at all to what has become the pressing environmental issue of our time.

I've been pretty hard on this book in this review, but there were several parts I greatly enjoyed, and I'm not even closing myself off entirely from the position advocated by the authors. The fact is that we are coming to a point in human development where we have greatly jeopardized our position on the planet through mindlessly burning fossil fuels, even decades after it became incontrovertible that doing so was causing serious harm. In the discussion of what it is that we can do now to try to stave off disaster, there is a place for someone to make the Deep Ecology argument. But I hope they can do it more effectively than this book does. (less)
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Jul 08, 2009Joshua added it
Shelves: hippie, summer09
This is a good overview of the philosophical underpinnings of Deep Ecology. It does a better (more polished) sales job than Naess's books, says something deep (better than Berry's book), and at least attempts a synthesis (unlike Milbraith). I particularly enjoyed the discussion of different types of ecotopias that have been proposed/presented.

This would make a good starter book to get someone interested in DE. Once they are hooked, then point them to Devall's "Simple in Means, Rich in Ends" for some practical advice.

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Feb 05, 2008Jessenoah rated it really liked it
Recommends it for: budding biophiliacs
lots of good quotes and standpoints regarding environmental philosophy. examining the myriad ways of looking at current issues, through the lenseseseses of poets and scientists alike.
check it out on the toilet.
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Aug 02, 2020Brandon rated it did not like it
I don't know who this was written for, but it wasn't for me. I got 2/3rds of the way through before throwing in the towel. I wanted to learn what deep ecology meant/stood for, but I walked away having learned little to nothing.

The organization and structure is terrible. The book is a hodgepodge of jumbled together thoughts with little rational order or flow, frequently interspersed with bulleted asides or excerpts that detract from any sort of cohesive argumentation.

The ideas presented are so vague and immaterial that they don't offer any real insight into what deep ecology means. Perhaps in the last 3rd of the book they actually lay out and develop this idea. The first 2/3rds of the book consisted of supremely self-sanctimonious finger wagging at every other section of society except the authors and indigenous peoples. And indigenous peoples are treated as a monolithic mystical nature cult who all live in complete harmony with the natural world and had solutions to all of life's problems - i.e. the authors are spouting the same racist 'noble savage' bullshit that Rousseau was spewing 200 years ago, only dressed up in new wave garb.

Relatedly, the authors never develop an argument that convinces the reader of the soundness of their position or the demerits of the so called 'professional ecologists', whom they depict as a bunch of number crunching nerds who don't understand the soul of nature. They frequently state that they are in the right and that corporations and foresters are in the wrong, but they never actually do the work of developing an argument and supporting it with evidence. This is lazy, self-righteous environmentalism at its worst and does nothing to actually promote conservation. The authors clearly weren't trying to convince anyone, so I suppose this book was intended to be a primer for people who already believed that a mystical ecology was the proper direction. Even in that though, it fails (b/c of the aforementioned vagueness).

I'm still interested in the concept of deep ecology, but won't be circling back to it for a while thanks to this drek. (less)
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May 17, 2021Mauro rated it really liked it
Deep Ecology is still our only, albeit tenuous, hope to survive the Anthropocene.
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May 09, 2018Emma rated it really liked it
Indeed the book's terminology is dated, as is the formulation of some ideas, however it's of its time. I don't think that this should detract too much from the neat and accessible means of introduction Sessions provides into deep ecology thinking. It is fairly comprehensive, drawing together key contributors of the time, and providing impetus for further thought... It is interesting to consider the sense of urgency three decades prior, the predictions/fears for the future, and how, unfortunately, so little has changed by way of dominant ideology that parts could almost have been written today. (less)
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Sep 19, 2008Jake rated it really liked it
Great stuff. This book is a natural extension of the mass self-loathing we all deserve as destroyers of the otherwise perfect Earth. Well, it wasn't really that sort of book, but it does discuss the emotional implications of a nature-centered life. I think we could all benefit from a more thoroughly realized sense of community. Technology is a good thing, but what's the hurry? A more deliberate path would allow us to maintain the wisdoms of the past while integrating those of the future. Utopian? Of course, but why the hell not? (less)
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Dec 20, 2007Kelly rated it really liked it
This is a great book. I originally read it to use in an environmental justice paper, and found that it provides a good basis for the environmental movement in general. Parts of it tend toward a self-righteous tree hugger mentality, but I liked it. It's inspiring. It's one of those books that I bought for school but have actually picked up since. (less)
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Jan 27, 2010Kate rated it liked it
Shelves: environmental
Parts of this book I really love—some keen insights on how we relate to our world, and to the non-humans (creatures, landscapes) that share it with us. But then other parts are intensely policy heavy and don't add much to the discussion, and then some parts a lil too new agey. So certain parts definitely 5 stars, and worth the read. But I have to give it a 3 stars overall. (less)
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Nov 30, 2014Ruth rated it it was ok
I'm not sure why I picked this book up again after reading it sometime in the 90's. It's very cut-and-pasty and weirdly written with all these quotes and bullets. I think I liked the appendices the best, because they were actual reprints of articles and a little easier to read. (less)
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Nov 08, 2010Lorelei Yang rated it really liked it
Shelves: philosophy-polisci
As a philosophy, deep ecology is both compelling and perplexing: hence the necessity of reading this volume.
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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

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.