Contemplative Silence - Know From The Rivers

Contemplative Silence

Containing some of the earliest material attributed to the historical Buddha, the Sutta Nipāta forms the basis for our next inquiry. Arranged in verses, this particular book of the Pāli Canon often waxes poetic, employing metaphor and imagery based on the natural setting from which its teachings take their inspiration. Comprising an early strata of pre-sectarian material, prior to the formalization of the Dhamma into organized dogma, its contents may help shed light on universally relevant aspects of the contemplative path.

In particular, we examine a passage from the Nālaka Sutta, featured in the third chapter of the Sutta Nipāta.

Honing in on contemplative silence, we find the Buddha in this case offering an ecological analogy for the use of speech. "Know from the rivers," begins the passage. Both literally via the metaphor that follows, we are asked to learn from the natural world.

Know from the Rivers

Contextually, the Nālaka Sutta takes its name after the character Nālaka, nephew and student of the sage Asita who is said to have predicted the infant Buddha's future course shortly after the prince's noble birth. Many years later, after hearing of the Buddha's "turning of the wheel," Nālaka is intent on leaving home to pursue the contemplative life.

A contemplative aspirant keen on spiritual progress, Nālaka asks the Buddha to explain to him the utmost state of sagacity. Heeding the seeker's request, the Buddha provides instruction on cultivating the virtue, concentration, and wisdom of the forest-dwelling renunciate. After covering these foundations, there occurs a section addressing contemplative silence via a particularly salient image of flowing water.

Know from the rivers
in clefts & in crevices:
those in small channels flow
noisily,
the great
flow silent.
Whatever's not full
makes noise.
Whatever is full
is quiet.

Employing nature-based imagery, the Buddha perhaps directs Nālaka's attention to a nearby creek or even simply the memory of flowing water, instructing him to "know from the rivers."

"Small channels" and "whatever's not full" refer to those with immature spiritual faculties, while "the great" and "whatever is full" allude to those who have matured on the contemplative path. It's suggested that those who are immature are reckless and unreflecting in speech ("flow noisily"), while those who are mature tend to be careful and reflecting, knowing when to refrain from speech ("flow silent"). One who is immature "makes noise" while one who is mature "is quiet."

A Full Lake

Immediately following these verses, the Buddha extends the analogy and makes explicit the subjects. Again, a body of water is invoked as a teaching device, whether physically present or via imaginative construction.

The fool is like a half-empty pot;
one who is wise, a full lake.

While the text makes no mention of whether a pot or lake were present to drive the point home, they are nonetheless conjured for comparative purposes. Such verses liken the fool to a half-empty pot and the wise one to a full lake. One is obviously lacking in some capacity while the other is perfectly sufficient as-is. Like a half-empty pot, the fool is lacking in understanding, while like a full lake, the wise one's understanding is complete. The fool speaks empty words, while the wise, despite speaking little, conveys a fullness of meaning, making every word count.

Silent Sagehood

It should be clarified that speech is by no means rejected outright. One who speaks is not necessarily a fool. Rather, the purpose of speech ought to be closely examined.

A contemplative who speaks a great deal
endowed with meaning:
knowing, he teaches the Dhamma,
knowing, he speaks a great deal.
But he who,
knowing, is restrained,
knowing, doesn't speak a great deal:
he is a sage
worthy of sagehood;
he is a sage,
his sagehood attained.

The Buddha acknowledges that there are indeed contemplatives who speak at length and with meaning, teaching what they know, sharing unconditionally for the sake of growth. Nonetheless, one who, despite also knowing, is restrained in speech, one who has nothing to prove, one who chooses one's words wisely can truly be called a sage. In such a case, still waters run deep.

...

Given even these few verses, one can perhaps begin to appreciate the early Buddhist version of contemplative silence, which finds parallels across contemplative traditions. Perhaps speech may be transcended by the quiet sage, but not to the point of aversion. Ultimately, speech must be employed skillfully, to the benefit of others, for the sake of progress on the path.

That which flows quietly knows its course, with no need to crash against the banks of the river. On the surface of the full lake are reflected all ripples, momentarily arising and subsiding across its face.

In the spirit of contemplative silence, we let these words go for the time being. Perhaps with the help of stillness, they may leave a lasting impression despite fading from the water's surface.

Walden Pond - Retreat and Realignment in the Sphere of Intersecting Ecosystems

Walden Pond

Among the forerunners of Transcendentalism, a philosophical movement and way of life according to which the divine pervades all of humanity and nature alike, nineteenth century philosopher-poet and woodsman-ecologist Henry David Thoreau left behind a vital legacy of contemplative reflections.

With the help of his friend and fellow Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson who owned a section of the nearby woodland, Thoreau opted to retreat into a cabin he built in the forest surrounding Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts for a period of two years, two months, and two days - beginning shortly before his 28th birthday and concluding at age 30.

During this time, Thoreau amassed a voluminous collection of philosophical material in his journal reflections, composed around civilian themes and everyday observations, both those pertaining to society at large and in seclusion surrounded by nature.



Although a prolific author of several essays and other collections of writing, Thoreau's contributions to the Transcendentalist movement and contemplative ecology in particular are most saliently felt through his reflections in Walden, named after the pond-side locale of his extended retreat.

Despite his early death at age 44, Thoreau's work in the realm of Transcendentalism, including his Walden Pond reflections on the self-reliance, simplicity, and spiritual fulfillment to be found in nature, left its mark on authors, artists, activists and various others who drew inspiration from his legacy - casting ripples far into the future.

We therefore engage a central set of excerpts from Thoreau's collection of reflections in Walden with the intention to highlight several key features of his process.

Most Delicate Handling

One particularly telling section of Walden describes the seemingly lifeless ways of life - indentured lifestyles and serf-like livelihoods - that Thoreau observed around him in everyday society, perhaps prompting his retreat into the wilderness. Probing the foundations, he peels away the layers of absurdity that have accumulated around humanity's relationship to the earth. What emerges is a critique of mainstream values pertaining to objects abstracted from nature.

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? ... But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost.

While of utilitarian value for the work they enable, the various possessions we accumulate - the likes of which include farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools - can nonetheless become burdens, encumbering our freedom. When inherited through familial line, not chosen freely by one's own hand and heart, reflects Thoreau, they function to shackle us, tying the bearer down to a way of life not of their own making or design. In cases where one's plot of land has been pre-parceled out, with fixed yet arbitrary dimensions, then there seems no room for growth.



Under such conditions, creativity is stunted and stifled. A life that revolves entirely around unchosen work, rote tasks and assigned duties, rather than heartfelt engagement on one's own terms makes for an unfulfilling existence. One is then bound, not free.

By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before... The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. We are always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt; always promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor... you are a slave-driver to yourself.

Too often, we deplete ourselves through futile efforts to amass wealth and status, which come at the expense of the rest of the community and environment at large. Thoreau observes that all that we accumulate will eventually dissipate. Whether by its own decay (via moth and rust) or loss to others (thieves), we will lose everything.



By recognizing the artificiality of the conditions under which we are employed, dictated by greed beyond need and a baseless assumption of separateness in well-being, we may reroute our efforts toward harmony with the whole, the world around us, given our nature's inescapable entanglement with that of nature itself.

Indeed, Thoreau's lines, "The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly," point to the importance of care for the whole of which we are part.

Rather than expend one's inner resources in hopes of materializing rewards in the field of outer conditions, placing further strain on the social and ecological spheres, perhaps one may instead reclaim agency over one's contributions and, in so doing, reintegrate the parts that have become fragmented from the whole.

Selflessly Employed

Reclaiming agency entails unshackling oneself from otherwise unquestioned ways of being. For Thoreau, the major source of bondage seemed to stem from society's obsession with consumerism. When one returns to nature, one no longer works under or above others in order to acquire and exploit things, but with and for others, human and non-human, out of mutual reciprocity, never to the point of subjugation, never with expectation, but via a constant balancing act that aims for equalization of all members.

One who is "selflessly employed" in this sense is better equipped to preserve and secure vital energy. Otherwise, such energies go to waste, stolen by thieves who exploit one's labor for their own material gain at the expense of others. Unprotected, we as well as the earth itself are depleted.



In reclaiming such energy, however, one does not hoard it. One willingly pours one's vital energy into ecologies that in turn provide sustainable nourishment instead of merely superficial gains. Thus are all tended-to and accounted-for, none relegated to lower status or neglected out of hierarchical disadvantage, there being no hierarchy remaining.

Thoreau aptly notes that we neglect our own nature as well as all that surrounds us through self-enslavement, mindlessly pursuing perpetual worries of our own invention via the endless quest for material progress. Only by the most delicate handling can our full potential thrive. Let such potential remain free from corruption by reconnecting with our natural state, surrounded by nature, suggests Thoreau through his reflections.

Quiet Desperation

Filling in the social backdrop from which he derives his reflections, Thoreau provides further detail on the quality of life among those he observes in mainstream society. Filled with unmet desires as well as an abundance of fully met desires which nonetheless provide no lasting satisfaction, only the burden of ownership, a quiet desperation overtakes them.

The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation... A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

Despite all the luxuries and comforts we amass, our desires continue to rage to no end. There remains a psychologically unfulfilled void even when all desires are materially met. We may continue to live in inner despair even while basking in outer luxury and comfort because such luxurious, comfortable lifestyles hold only material worth, nothing spiritual, pulling the wool over our eyes, fooling us into complacency, and thereby obstructing our contemplative growth.

To Live Deep

In light of this critique of comfort and luxury as obstacles, Thoreau clarifies his reasons for living in seclusion among nature along the shores of Walden Pond.

My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent appeared not so sad as foolish.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to me mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it.

According to his own reasoning, Thoreau's retreat into nature was far from an escapist move to avoid responsibility. Instead, he sought seclusion for the purpose of reconnection, a return to the roots of life, the very soil in which they are inextricably embedded. Unencumbered by layers of abstraction and distraction, Thoreau intended to immerse himself fully in the present and to live truthfully, to live with purpose and meaning, to live deliberately, to living with rootedness. Only then could he say he truly lived.

Retreat and Realignment

What can we take away from Thoreau's reflections in Walden? Perhaps that we need not take away anything, but rather return to the infinite wellspring that lies right before us, accessible to all at all times, without exception. Inspired by Thoreau, we may ask ourselves why we live as we do. Do our values align with the mode of life we've undertaken? If not, we have a choice.

That choice may be to retreat, not out of fear or avoidance, but in order to re-align what has been thrown out of balance. Recognizing the misalignment, we may consciously re-orient our relationships to so-called "objects" - whether other beings, nature, or otherwise - understanding them not in terms of how we may use them, not how they are believed to serve (and are thereby subservient) to us, but by recognizing their incalculable worth and value outside the mode of objectification.

Such realignment may re-enliven us as much as it did Thoreau. Re-enlivened, we may then harness our vital energy in ways conducive to holistic well-being, not merely for ourselves, not merely for our immediate circles, but for the all-encompassing sphere of intersecting ecosystems without end. To be continued.

Ox Mountain - Fundamental Purity of Human Nature

Ox Mountain

Depicting yet another ecosystem out of balance, another environmental scene deteriorating before one's very eyes as a reflection of human nature's crumbling is the Confucian parable of Ox Mountain.

Written in the fourth century of the common era by Chinese philosopher-sage Mencius, second only to Confucius himself, Ox Mountain tells the all-too-familiar tale of ecological disequilibrium. A landscape once so pristine is suddenly depleted and turned into desolate wasteland. Human nature, Mencius writes, is subject to the same fiery assault.



Believing that human nature is fundamentally good, Mencius invokes the story of Ox Mountain in order to illustrate the potential to restore the natural state even after it has been stifled. Whether environmental or mental terrain, there remains hope for reforestation under the right conditions. Mencius reminds us that despite all outer appearances, regeneration of this original state is always possible.

Here we examine Ox Mountain in detail as both an ecological actuality and a metaphor for the human condition.

Human Nature

Among the primary virtues of Confucian philosophy are two qualities variously rendered 1) benevolence / altruism / kindness / compassion / humanity (仁) and 2) righteousness / justice / fairness (義). These two feature centrally in the story of Ox Mountain. In fact, they are likened to the abundant trees responsible for the mountain's lush appearance, its innate beauty.

Although perched high on the mountaintop, these trees (virtues) are unfortunately hewn away at the hands of humans. While they remain capable of regrowing, they are quickly depleted again and again through overgrazing, leaving the mountain bare once more. The system is repeatedly thrown into disarray.

We include Charles Muller's translation from the Chinese.

Mencius said, “The greenery on [Ox] Mountain was once beautiful, but since it was near a large city, it was attacked by lumberjacks. How could it retain its beauty? Still, by the respite gotten day and night, being nourished by the rain and dew, there was no lack of the growth of new buds and sprouts. But then cattle and sheep came and fed themselves, and by the time they were done, it was completely barren.” If people saw this barrenness, they might have imagined that there had never been any greenery. How could this be the mountain's original nature?

In the case of people, how could they lack the mind of humaneness and fairness? But the daily damage done to the goodness of their mind is just like the lumberjacks did to the mountain. Being chopped down day after day, how can its beauty have a chance to emerge?

Day after day...

Now barren, devoid of trees, Ox Mountain has become a shell of its former self. Those who lay eyes upon it assume this lifeless state, completely desolate, must be its original nature.

In actuality, its desolate appearance is the result of a complex web of causes and conditions including situational negligence, carelessness, and ignorance - noxious qualities that eat away at an originally lush ecosystem. Just as the mountain's original nature was brimming with life, humanity's original nature is characterized by humaneness and fairness despite their present depletion.

Purity of Mind

Such virtuous qualities underpin the fundamental purity of mind that Mencius saw within all people. While they may be trampled underfoot during the upsurge in greed and ignorance, leading to environmental illness, their roots remain firmly planted. As long as the virtues retain their roots, the health of the ecosystem may regenerate.

Much like the fires and other catastrophic conditions that ravage the earth, the possibility for an end to the madness and restoration of what once was remains within reach so long as the foundations, the virtuous roots, are preserved.

For Mencius, the roots of these fundamental virtues extend deep. Unfortunately, they deteriorate with neglect. Although Mencius associates depravity with animals, a potentially problematic association that deserves scrutiny, his main focus is the role of the vital breath.

Having some time to rest day and night, and breathing in the morning air, your likes and dislikes may be somewhat similar to those of other people. But due to your daily activities you are suffocated. Being suffocated, you can't get enough fresh air. Fresh air being insufficient, your goodness of mind is not nourished, and there will be little difference between you and the animals. People see our animalistic nature and assume that we have never had great endowments. How could this be our real disposition?

Therefore, if it is properly nourished, there is nothing that will not grow. If it is not nourished, there is nothing that will not die. Confucius said: “Use it and you will keep it; ignore it and you will lose it. It comes and goes at any time, and no one knows where its original home is.” What else could he be talking about but the mind?

Another two key concepts surface in these passages, "air" (氣) and "mind" (心).

The first (氣) is not merely any air, but the vital breath that imbues all with life, termed qi, the primordial source and sustainer. By cultivating and nurturing this vital breath, allowing it to pervade one's being, the entire system is purified.

By extension, the detoxification process applies equally to the ecosystem, as this vital breath pervades all. At the most basic level, clean air is a fundamental condition for the health of breathing beings, whether flora or fauna. When the mind, whose form "心" is intended to resemble the heart, undergoes purified by this vital breath, then all is healed and clarified. Likewise, the heart of the ecosystem at large must be sustained in order to prevent total collapse.

Mental and Environmental

From the mental to the environmental, the fundamentally pure state is that to which we must return. For Mencius, this original state is like the densely covered mountaintop, flourishing with foliage, only hacked away and razed to the ground when the circumstances are unfavorable. For much of the present world, such unfavorable conditions include fire, pollution, flooding, and an entire slew of other challenges. Such environmental challenges, Mencius perhaps inadvertently suggests, might stem from a toxic disturbance of mental equilibrium, including the deforestation of virtuous qualities of mind.

At least in the opinion of Mencius, one may resurrect the fallen trees. Virtues hewn away by the ax can regenerate if nourished back to health. Such virtues characterize the original state of mind, just as an abundance of trees characterizes the original state of Ox Mountain. Given the innate goodness of the mind, such a fundamental state can be restored even after harm has come to it.

For more on these matters of mind and its ecology, particularly in relation to the greater ecosystem, stay tuned.

Silent Spring - A Grim Specter

A Grim Specter

"A grim specter has crept upon us almost unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know," warns Rachel Carson quite prophetically in her "fable for tomorrow" Silent Spring, a story penned in 1962 of a blatantly undeniable truth presently afflicting the globe.

Who is this grim specter? He goes by the names corporate greed, the Amazon fire, single-use plastics, the Siberian fires, record high temperatures, the Camp fire, toxic air quality, the Australian fires, deadly carbon emissions, the Indonesian fires and floods, corruption... This list goes on. This grim specter assumes the identity of environmental degradation, climate crisis, anthropogenic global warming. By chance, have you met him? Does any of that sound familiar?

While Carson's Silent Spring, written over half a century ago, centers mostly around the harmful effects of pesticides, her message spans much wider. Take a look around, not just in the immediate surroundings, but at the scope of the global community as a whole. The world around us is in the process of collapsing. Both society and nature are in shambles. The grim specter has made his descent. Who can ward off his advances and how?

Countless Birds, Clouds of Bloom

Lauded as an environmental science masterpiece, Silent Spring begins with an idyllic image of society and nature in harmony, depicting a verdant landscape of rolling meadows and abundant wildlife. How could anything disrupt such utopian beauty?

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings.

Along the roads, laurel, viburnum and alder, great ferns and wild flowers delighted the traveler’s eye through much of the year. Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people came from great distances to observe them. Other people came to fish streams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells, and built their barns.

As opening lines, this passage paints the peaceful picture of prosperity amidst the paths of pines and pristine places of our planet's past. We are provided vivid detail as to the interwoven textures of this landscape, unfolding in utter splendor and brimming with life. What could possibly disrupt such peace?

Strange Stillness, Impending Doom

Although painting a panorama of perfection, the story warps suddenly and unexpectedly.

Seemingly without warning, the beauty of nature vanishes before one's very eyes. All that remains is the barren and desolate. Anticipating the painful present, the portrait pivots into a precarious peril. Such panic-inducing impermanence is portrayed in the grim passage that follows.

Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but even among children, who would be stricken while at play and die within a few hours.

There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example — where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

This is not the sort of stillness anyone would actually wish to experience, not the peace and quiet of rest and relaxation. This silent spring is the eerie aftermath of deafening cries from those begging for their lives. Such cries, unheard, echo through the mountains, fading into oblivion, having been ignored, or worse, caused by those who take pleasure in them. Once cheerful birdsong, next mournful melodies, then the haunting vacuum of nothingness. Such silence strikes at the heart and severs it into pieces. Rather than a peaceful silence, we are left with the grim fruits of environmental violence.

These scars of silence, unanswered cries of suffering, are carved deep into the earth.

Deserted By All Living Things

All that remains in Carson's narrative is the skeleton of what once was and may never be again, a desert landscape left in the wake of an ecosystem previously bursting with life. Carson continues her narrative with further painstaking detail, describing the land as deserted by all living things, a reality that may befall us as well if we continue to ignore the warnings.

On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigs — the litters were small and the young survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit.

The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were now lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died.

In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and streams.

Such an apocalyptic scene, deserted by all living things, seems to reflect much of what has become reality today. With a world seemingly in utter shambles, we appear to have fulfilled the prophecy of Silent Spring, failing to heed its warning.

The People Had Done It Themselves

Most piercing of these lines are those that aptly conclude the chapter, which tell of the cause for such devastation. The people had done it themselves, writes Carson.

No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.

This town does not actually exist, but it might easily have a thousand counterparts in America or elsewhere in the world. I know of no community that has experienced all the misfortunes I describe. Yet every one of these disasters has actually happened somewhere, and many real communities have already suffered a substantial number of them. A grim specter has crept upon us almost unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know.

What has already silenced the voices of spring in countless towns in America? This book is an attempt to explain.

Anthropogenic climate change ⁠— pollution, toxic elevations in greenhouse gases, rising temperatures, mass deforestation, and extinction caused by human activity ⁠— is the culprit. Even in 1962, Rachel Carson saw this reality. How many in the present day still haven't?

Silent Spring

While this may sound dismal, not all hope is lost. Rather than point fingers of blame and shame, a healthy sense of responsibility is needed. There remains much that can be done or abstained from in order to shift the scales and restore symbiotic balance.

In order to clean up one's act, one must recognize the mess one has made for what it is. Rather than wallow in said mess, active efforts to transform it are in order. Even dung can be turned into compost. So, what do we do with the present conditions? What hasn't already been done? In heeding Carson's warning from Silent Spring, how does one overcome climate anxiety and work for climate justice?

A healthy sense of urgency helps. Not panic, but urgency. What can be done in this moment to make even the slightest bit of improvement? There's no waiting for tomorrow, if we take Carson's message seriously. The simplest first step in response to such urgency is to spread the word. Not panic, but words that speak to values such as justice. To spread panic only piles further challenges upon us. While Carson's warning and our observations of the world around us may induce panic, such panic has to be transformed into urgency in order to have any meaningful impact. Panic paralyzes us. Urgency propels us forward.

In light of the constantly shifting terrain, stay informed and stay in touch. Stay in touch with the latest conversations on climate. Stay in touch with your communities. Stay in touch with the natural world so as not to become desensitized to its suffering. Stay in touch, in embodied relation to all there is.

To be continued...

Dissolving the Source of Stagnation - Loosening the Ground of Sedimented Mindsets through Equalizing Self and Other

Dissolving the Source of Stagnation

If the seeds of compassion are already latent in the mind, what can be done to facilitate their germination, particularly when the possibility for growth seems to have stagnated? With escalating tensions across the globe, the need for a scalable, sustainable means of dissolving the source of stagnation and loosening the ground of sedimented mindsets is more urgent now than ever before.

What approaches to political and environmental crisis deserve further probing? A rather simple but by no means easy practice is that of exchanging oneself with others, a form of compassion meditation that dissolves the supposed boundaries between beings. It is exactly this dissolving of the source of stagnation, melting away the assumption of hierarchical separation, that contemplative practices grounded in compassion evoke, upsetting the status quo of indifference.

In the very same section on the perfection of meditation (dhyāna-pāramitā) from the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra by Śāntideva that we recently addressed, we find a directly implementable approach to the process of dissolving the source of stagnation, erasing the supposed boundary between self and others.

Equalizing Self and Other

A simple maxim which seems to not have clicked for far too many throughout history is "treat others as you wish to be treated" and related variations on the same theme. The Golden Rule springs to mind. Based on what has become of the world, it would seem that most people wish to be treated rather poorly given how they appear to have treated others, but this can't be the case upon deeper probing.

The issues we face as a global community stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between self and other, founded on a fundamental misunderstanding of the very meanings of self and other. These constructs aren't nearly as solid as they've been constructed to seem. Their supposed differentiation dissolves under the searing lens of scrutiny.

Selfish activity flares uncontrolled when one's own desires, many of which even hamper one's own wellness, are placed above the wellness of others. Extinguishing the fire of selfish activity requires conscious, ongoing efforts to cease fueling the process of hierarchical individuation at the expense of the collective. Śāntideva directly expounds a contemplative practice for dissolving this egocentricity through actively cultivating an awareness of the equality of oneself and others, complemented by the practice of equalizing self and other.

One should first earnestly meditate on the equality of oneself and others in this way: "All equally experience suffering and happiness, and I must protect them as I do myself."

Just as the body, which has many parts owing to its division into arms and so forth, should be protected as a whole, so should this entire world, which is differentiated and yet has the nature of the same suffering and happiness.

Although my suffering does not cause pain in other bodies, nevertheless that suffering is mine and is difficult to bear because of my attachment to myself.

Likewise, although I myself do not feel the suffering of another person, that suffering belongs to that person and is difficult to bear because of his attachment to himself.

I should eliminate the suffering of others because it is suffering, just like my own suffering. I should take care of others because they are sentient beings, just as I am a sentient being.

When happiness is equally dear to others and myself, then what is so special about me that I strive after happiness for myself alone?

When fear and suffering are equally abhorrent to others and myself, then what is so special about me that I protect myself but not others?

If I do not protect them because I am not afflicted by their suffering, why do I protect my body from the suffering of a future body, which is not my pain?

— Śāntideva, Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
("The Perfection of Meditation," verses 90-97, trans. Wallace & Wallace)

Seeing others as oneself, how could we wish harm upon anyone? How could we fight? Their suffering is our own. Our happiness cannot come at their expense, as it seemingly does for the blissfully ignorant who live in a virtual reality filled with artificial pleasures, a simulated sense of "everything is fine" that never amounts to anything even remotely satisfactory in actuality, given that this feigned way of being necessitates severing the bond between beings to promote oneself and demote others. Snap out of it. All wish to be happy and avoid suffering. Why should we treat them any differently than we would treat the innocent, infant version of ourselves?

When bodhicitta takes root, one comprehends that one's own suffering and the suffering of others are equally suffering. When one wises up to the reality that the burning of various parts of the whole we call the ecosystem, both near and far, are equally damaging to the whole, then one no longer differentiates the parts in a hierarchical system of preference.

In the process of such cultivation of the equality of oneself and others, the notions of "self" and "other" no longer hold any substance. They're convenient terms and useful concepts, but only up to a point. When they are pitted against each other, as if my happiness had to come at the expense of yours so that you have to suffer, or that your happiness had to come at the expense of mine so that I have to suffer, then we have failed to understand things as they truly are.

Global Sustainability

We cannot solve the problems that plague us from within the same consciousness that created them. Such consciousness must be radically transformed, lest there be irrevocable disintegration into entropy. Equalizing self and other both through contemplative practice, regardless of religious tradition or lack thereof, and in everyday activities is one means of dissolving the hierarchy of separation.

Our quality of consciousness is intertwined with our actions in the world. Once priority is expanded from individual to the indivisible, from personal to transpersonal, from subjective to intersubjective, then we begin to see the reality of the suffering that equally threatens all. The next step is mass-scale ecosystem restoration, similar to how undertaking a medicinal regimen naturally follows upon realizing oneself to be profoundly sick.

Once the flames are doused and intention is re-oriented away from self-centered, egocentric activity and toward global sustainability, the restoration of an ecocentric system wherein all is equally "center" will be possible. Only then can scalable, sustainable solutions take effect.



To be continued...

Cultivating Compassion - Roots Which Intertwine Through Blossoming of the Mind

Cultivating Compassion

The process of honing a mental quality, often via contemplative practice, is conveyed through the term "cultivation," which stems from the Sanskrit and Pāli bhāvanā, "bringing into being."

Such "bring into being" is similar to the birthing process or germination, but occurs in association with the mind. Citta-bhāvanā, literally "cultivating the mind," is the bringing-into-being of previously unarisen, perhaps latent qualities such as compassion. In the process of cultivation, such qualities, whether compassion or otherwise, are brought forth and made sustainable.

In a similar vein, bodhi (बोधि), which stands for awakening, is sometimes likened to a seed.

The mind of awakening, bodhicitta, is carefully and intentionally cultivated as one would cultivate a garden. Building upon our discussion of extinguishing the fires of selfish intention, we here till the soil of the mind in preparation for cultivating the seed of bodhi.

As an outgrowth of our recent discussion of the bodhisattva's path of practice through cultivation of bodhicitta, the mind of awakening, we delve into some of the nuances of such cultivation, with an emphasis on planting the roots of compassion, thereby treading lightly on earth with intention and care.

Blossoming of the Mind

While its Latin roots convey the meaning "to suffer together," compassion does no further damage, only healing damage already done. Rather than subject oneself to suffering for the sake of suffering or sacrificing one's well-being, a bodhicitta-informed compassion facilitates the recognition that the suffering of one is the suffering of all.

Such compassion is by no means an indulgence in additional suffering, subjecting oneself to another's suffering or taking a burden upon oneself that wasn't already there, but an admission of the inter-relationality already underlying all phenomena. Fires raging in the seeming distance, violence in far-off lands, are all much closer to home than we often wish to acknowledge. The reverberations resound in all directions, and although they may be felt at different times and in different degrees, they ultimately spare no one.



Tracing the roots of compassion to its seedling, we find a realistic and accessible path of practice unfold. In cultivating compassion, one brings the mind into full bloom — out of the closed-off, dark, cobweb-covered corner of its otherwise narrow frame of reference and into the open, into the light, into an expansive mode of relationality. Consider the following clarification for the meaning of bodhicitta in Tibetan.

The word for bodhicitta in Tibetan is sem kye. This literally means “the opening or blossoming of the mind.” It is the opposite of small mind, of self-preoccupation, self-contraction, and narrowness.

— Nyoshül Khenpo Rinpoche

This mind is the very ground one cultivates into an abundant garden, bursting into bloom as bodhicitta (बोधिचित्त), sem kye (སེམས་བསྐྱེད). The process of cultivating compassion unfolds in blossoming splendor, even among previously wilted flowers, lands and oceans marked with scars, communities torn asunder by conflict, so long as the seed of bodhicitta, the mind of awakening, is sustained.



Cultivating such bodhicitta is a radical undertaking, as the course of events has consistently pushed against it. In this sense, cultivating bodhicitta requires swimming against the current.

In order to change the course of collapse, whether in the climate, economy, or political structures that are in the process of collapsing, we need to change the course of our psychology and interrelational ecology, both the mindscape and the systems in which it is embedded, receiving and leaving imprints in cyclic fashion.

Roots Which Intertwine

For a future to be possible, there must be a mass reorientation from the unconscious mode of separation to conscious unification.

The mindset that perceives an individuated existence separate and cut off from its roots, this mindset that has uprooted its source of strength and thus dug itself into a barren ditch, cannot be the mindset that reverses the process.

Such a mindset itself must be reversed through bodhicitta, so that the hole that was dug is re-filled with soil and roots of compassion are regenerated. Such roots, which intertwine rhizomatically across all supposed boundaries, extend deep.



How, exactly, is bodhicitta cultivated? How is compassion to be sustained?

Extinguishing Fire - A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life

A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life

As one of the most consulted sources for the cultivation of compassion in Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra by Indian scholar-sage Śāntideva charts the path of practice undertaken by the bodhisattva — any being who is committed to awakening not for their own sake, but in service of all beings. In light of recent events both near and far, all of which play into the burning web of suffering in which all beings are embedded, such a path of practice is particularly relevant to dousing the flames.

The bodhisattva's path of practice is a way of life intentionally cultivated and embodied, not merely one of well-wishing from afar. In undertaking such training in compassion, one is moved to action, drawing near to the flames in order to extinguish them for good.

In undertaking such a path of practice, the bodhisattva, a being in the process of awakening, thus cultivates bodhicitta, the mind of awakening imbued with compassionate intention. Śāntideva's contemplative verses, as recorded in the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra (i.e., A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life), develops this path of practice in stages, largely on the basis of extinguishing the fuel for the fire, the sense of a separate self. We offer here the beginnings of a series on cultivating compassion and extinguishing the flames.

Not Having Extinguished Self

Perhaps best known among Śāntideva's verses is a passage that reads, "The source of all misery in the world lies in thinking of oneself; The source of all happiness lies in thinking of others," a popular translation of verse 129 from the section on dhyāna-pāramitā ("the perfection of meditation") that circulates widely.

This segment traces itself to a triad of related verses that invoke fire imagery to convey the imminent dangers of self-centered modes and patterns.

Whatever calamities there are, and whatever sorrows and fears come to the world, they are all the result of attachment to “self.” Why is that attachment mine?

Not having extinguished “self,” one is not able to extinguish sorrow; just as one who has not extinguished a fire is not able to extinguish the burning.

It follows that for the sake of tranquilizing my own sorrow, and for the tranquilizing of the other’s sorrow, I give myself to others and I accept others like myself.

Such a sentiment of selflessness is echoed throughout much of the Buddhist canon, regardless of tradition, as well as various other spiritual and secular circles. Its underlying message is that selfish tendencies lead to suffering, while the inverse, particularly in the form of altruism, stands to promote flourishing in society.

Grounded in this understanding, the entire bodhisattva path is centered around such a philosophy of selfless service and the practice of extinguishing selfish habits. Not having extinguished "self," suffering arises. Nothing having extinguished "self," the world erupts into flames.

Fires Continue to Rage

With piercing language, invoking fire through simile, Śāntideva seers us with the burning reality that plagues much of the world, both literally and figuratively. While physical fire spreads across the planet, decimating all in its wake, the heat of violence and conflict seethes and ferments in its midst. These are by no means eruptions from out of the blue. The red has long been building.

The root of suffering is selfishness informed by ignorance and craving, which can be likened to a flame that takes only its own existence as essential, consuming all else in service of itself alone. Whether self-obsession or self-absorption, this fire feeds on the embers of greed, hatred, and delusion.

As fires continue to rage without pause, what can be done (or not done to cease adding fuel to the fire and fanning the flames) in order to counter their ferocity? Have all the options been exhausted, or...

To be continued.