Earth Day 2022
Among the causes of difficult emotions (such as sadness, fear, despair) many of us are experiencing in this first half of 2022, one in particular moves me to share an inspirational reading to which I returned in the days surrounding Earth Day 2022.
As we witness the experience of so many who are directly impacted by erratic weather patterns and overall planetary degradation, I am reminded of a short piece by Willa Blythe Baker published in 2020, entitled “5 Buddhist Practices to Help Tackle Climate Change.”
In revisiting these words, I’m struck by their relevance in all areas of life where there is pain and suffering. My wish in sharing excerpts from this piece is that it may offer pathways to calm our hearts, guide our responses, and inspire our skillful actions.
1. Find a grounding in ethics
“Our beliefs about justice — the values that we hold most dear — form the bedrock of our actions. These values are largely learned and assimilated from our culture. Each of us — as individuals and communities — can influence the values upheld by our culture.” In this way, notes Willa Blythe Baker, any form of activism can become about what we are “working for,” rather than what we are “working against.”
2. Get comfortable with uncertainty
When we “embrace the truth of uncertainty, we can develop the courage to stay open and engage with the world. If we can accept the fragility of life on earth, we can invest ourselves in the possibility of collective action.”
3. Work with emotions
Difficult emotions, such as fear, anger, despair, have served a function in keeping us alive. “They are good short-term motivators when we are in immediate danger.” As long term motivators, however, they lead to stress and burnout. “In contemplative practice, anger can become an inspiration for empathy. We discover that uncomfortable states, while they belong to us, are not to our’s alone. Many others also feel anger, including the people we have othered. When we recognize that this is how so many others feel, we can commune with the suffering of others.”
4. Access new wisdom
Complementing conceptual, intellectual knowledge are two other ways of knowing that contemplative practices and meditation teach us: bodily wisdom and non-conceptual wisdom. We are embodied beings, as is all that lives on the planet. In this way, we are interconnected and the illusion of separateness is, well, an illusion. “The body reminds us that we are here, now, and our presence is our most powerful resource. [. . .] As we begin to identify with non-conceptual space, we access a non-dual mode of perception. In the non-dual mode of perception, the illusion of separateness is perforated. This illusion of separateness may be one of the root causes of the crisis we are in.”
5. Find community
“A small, committed group of people can change the world, as Margaret Mead said.” Finding a community “can be as simple as finding a few like-minded people and starting a conversation.”
