This article is this week's New Beginning Blog, which Cheri is writing from the Monastery's new home in Sequim, WA.
Following the news about how we’re doing with caring for the environment can be a bit discouraging? Daunting? Off-putting? Lead to feelings of hopelessness? Absolutely, if we’re doing what we’re doing in order to achieve a certain outcome. However, as practitioners of awareness we have the marvelous opportunity to just roll everything in Life into, as the Buddha phrased it, “working out our own salvation diligently.”
We do what we do because that’s what we’re doing, that’s how we feel called to engage. We engage because engaging is how life happens. We participate because life is not a spectator sport. We take part in because we are a part of. And, of course, happily that very being (with) is what we know to be our best opportunity to see how suffering is caused—to see how we cause ourselves to suffer—to let that go and end suffering.
If our personal workshop includes seeing how our decisions and choices lead us toward or away from suffering, that’s a gift. Of course, the voices of egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate are not going to see our moment-to-moment experience as the marvelous gift it is. Ego, being “no” to Life’s “yes,” will always see through a lens of something wrong/not enough and report what it sees as loudly and consistently as possible.
So, when we encounter something such as this “Jump Campaign” reported in the Guardian, there can be a sinking “oh no” reaction. The Jump Campaign asks people to sign up to take the following six “shifts” for one, three, or six months:
1) Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste.
2) Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year.
3) Keep electrical products for at least seven years.
4) Take no more than one short-haul flight every three years and one long-haul flight every eight years.
5) Get rid of personal motor vehicles if you can, and if not keep your existing vehicle for longer.
6) Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home, or changing pension supplier.
Less than a week after the campaign was launched, it was reported that there was already a growing movement emerging in response to the evidence with Jump groups up and running around the country (England).
As we know from reading and listening to folks as the pandemic has been winding down, top on a huge number of bucket lists is the equivalent of “get on a plane and travel somewhere—anywhere.” All the things that couldn’t happen for two-plus years need to happen NOW.
What an awful position to be in. On the one hand we all know people are desperate. Stressed. Miserable. These are not bad, selfish people who don’t care about anything but themselves. It’s a really tough place to be—now and always! I know what to me is the “right” thing to do, but this is what I “want” to do.
To complicate matters further, not all the experts agree on what is the “right” thing and not all the information we’ve been given is accurate. For those interested in pursuing that little conundrum, you might enjoy taking a “mini-quiz” put together by Veronica Penney (August 2020.)
Then, when we’ve looked into the situation as much as we can for now, we can return to what is often seen as the highest “value” for awareness practitioners: lovingkindness and compassion. It’s not either/or. It’s not sacrificing a human being to one side or the other of ego’s dualistic torturing. This can take us right back to #6 on the Jump Campaign. What is one thing we can take on? Sure, I take reusable bags to the grocery store, but, as a meat eater, might I add not having meat at one, two, or even three meals a week? Can I use a clothes line or drying rack rather than automatically putting everything in the dryer? Can I bundle my errands and drive less? Can I unplug things in the house that draw energy unnecessarily?
No deprivation. Just a little something to feel good about.
As we read in Braiding Sweet Grass, we are in a symbiotic, reciprocal relationship with the Earth. Are we giving back the measure of what we take? It’s not about “making do” and feeling deprived but enjoying what we do have. This little bird who has lost a leg, can be our role model of accepting a circumstance and still having a good time and having a wonderful life.
In gasshō,
ch