Got Mindfulness?

Bell Tower Of Mindfulness

As part of his enlightenment, the Buddha discovered the Eightfold Path which is right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. In reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Old Path White Clouds which is an elegant telling of the life of the Buddha, it is clear that the Buddha felt his Eightfold Path to be in perfect accord and harmony with the planet upon which he found himself in the fifth century BCE. And so “right action” was in accord with Nature as the historical Buddha experienced it at that time. As Gautama developed his system of Practice to be transmitted to others, the Precepts emerged and became institutionalized within a community of practitioners. One striking characteristic of the precepts is that they are a way for humans to live in harmony with nature. I phrase my observation this way, because I have seen no evidence so far that it was the Buddha’s intention to live in harmony with nature. Instead, if we study Gautama’s spiritual journey up to his Awakening, I think we can see that Nature was the crucible through which the Buddha emerged, awakened. It was the lens through which he experienced reality. At the time of Gautama’s Awakening the Earth was a planet that was in balance, sustaining a rich and diverse biosphere within which humanity could easily live in harmony. To me there seems to be“rightness” to the idea that the Buddha’s world-view could be anything but harmonious with Nature.

But the Planet Earth circa 400 BCE is not the Earth of today. Our biosphere is rapidly changing. Species are dying and humanity will soon be hard-pressed to live easily with the Nature of the future. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth website sums up the current global warming threat to our planet, which an overwhelming majority of scientists agree is man-made. We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are too-rapidly melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing. To quote from Al Gore’s website:

1) The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.

2) Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.

3) The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.

4) At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.

5) If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences. Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years — to 300,000 people a year.

6) Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.

7) Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense. Droughts and wildfires will occur more often. The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.

8 ) More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.

What is Right Action today in a natural world in peril by human actions? Is it the same Right Action as 2500 years ago, when our planet was in perfect balance? In a world in balance perhaps Right Action is to do nothing … at least, nothing to disturb that balance.

We no longer live in that world.

What do we do now? What is Right Effort, now? Right Thought?

On September 28th, 2008, I attended a dharma talk by Thich Nhat Hanh in Dehradun, in India, where he defined for us:

Right View: a view of inter-connectedness, interbeing.
Right Thinking: Ecumenism, compassion and peace.
Right Speech: Speech that is motivated and guided by compassion.
Right Action: Physical action that protects or saves.

I am very grateful for this teaching and I will let it guide me as I continue to ponder my questions.

The sacred moment vs. civilization

I have also been contemplating what I can sum up as the sacred moment vs. civilization.

How are they connected?

For the sake of discussion, let us define the “sacred moment” as that moment of key insight into the nature of reality that gives the individual a satori, or personal peace or salvation or happiness or bliss. Perhaps we found the sacred moment through Advaita or Mindfulness or a traditional means for spiritual practice such as prayer or religious ritual, or perhaps through theatre or dance.

Mindfulness is a wonderful key into the ultimate realization of nonduality and interbeing; but where are these realizations manifested on the world stage?

How do we bridge or link the personal to the global?

Over the years, I have pondered the problem of formulating a system of spirituality that isn’t blatantly designed to control the masses and amass power.

In the West, individuals who have found their spiritual traditions bankrupt of integrity and out of step with their 21st Century needs have begun to discover portals into a simpler and direct spirituality embedded in the core traditions of the East. From the ancient concept of Advaita a.k.a nonduality to the simple but powerful technique of mindfulness, Westerners have found a personal path to psychological clarity and soundness.

And yet the geographical regions from where these ideas originated and incubated for thousands of years remain under the cloud of poverty, political oppression (to varying degrees) and ecological degradation. This observation alone should suggest that there is no readily accessible ramp between personal enlightenment and social utopia.

Personal spiritual and psychological wellness is crucial and yet it doesn’t appear as if that, by itself, could perhaps trigger a transformation in our world leadership (as a collective) to realize that our behavior as a species on this planet has caused and is causing massive changes in our global climate that will in turn adversely affect the biosphere within which we must coexist with all other living beings. Other skillful means at the societal level must also be employed to bring about a paradigm shift in the way we live on this planet, I suggest. Al Gore’s skillful means of the use of multi-media come to mind.

I am a Westerner. It seems to me that “looking inward” to achieve a personal realization of True Emptiness, of interbeing is a new beginning for many of us in the West. Perhaps we in the West should look upon this spiritual discovery as a new Birth Day into an inter-connected universe where we do have the means to shrug off the dualistic “us versus them” mentality, to not just help ourselves but everyone else who suffers in the world. After all, if we have achieved the insight of nonduality, or True Emptiness, then Global issues matter, too, do they not? If “I am Thou” then “We are Global”, I think.

I think, with the newly acquired faculty that gives us Insight, we need to redirect its gaze outward into the world. Not merely as a means of observation but as a means of intentionality which can ultimately be recognized as UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.
What is it about being human and living in human society that prevents us from helping those who suffer and ultimately solve the problem of suffering at its root? Why have we not yet collectively mustered the resolve, the ingenuity and the basic wherewithal to make it happen?

Where do we start? What baby-steps can we take to begin to change our current social paradigm? What kind of new social organizations can we create to leverage that sense of the “sacred moment” to help us bring new tools to bear on the global problems that we all must solve, collectively? Where is the “on-ramp” between personal peace and global peace? I am ready to help figure out how to build one, if we, as a species, don’t know how to do it yet.