Edgar's "Mustardseed" sermon.

In recent years, I have been mulling over an idea for a novel, which, given my habitual inability to stay focused on a long-term project, may never come to pass. The idea features a protagonist by the name of Edgar Markham, who is my alter-ego, (named after the character Edgar in King Lear), a Buddhist practitioner who--as fossil fuels become exhausted and our industrial society collapses into chaos, fanaticism, predatory violence, and resource wars--creates a grassroots mass spiritual movement, known as Dharma Gaia, based on the propagation of his (and my own) Dharma Gaia mantra:

Breathe, Observe, Let Go

Be well, Do good work, Keep in touch

Learn, Teach, Heal, Create.

Soon enough, however, Edgar realizes that if he promotes himself as yet another Buddhist teacher, he will reach only Buddhists and others, such as yoga and tai chi practitioners, who are already well-educated "cultural creatives," sympathetic to Far Eastern wisdom traditions, and that these, at least in America, are a vast minority, while most ordinary people continue to be seduced, especially in times of growing stress, by huge megachurches promoting a toxic, hateful brand of narrow-minded, intolerant right-wing fundamentalist Christianity. Unless Edgar can break through to such people, his movement will remain a fringe phenomenon, invisible to the media and hence incapable of creating any kind of healing cultural shift toward Gaian consciousness--that is, awareness of ourselves as part of a planetary community of life, in which "whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

Edgar therefore undertakes a radical solution. Knowing that no fundamentalist Christians would ever pay any attention to a self-proclaimed Buddhist, and embracing the line from his namesake in King Lear, "Edgar I Nothing Am,"--a radical realization of emptiness--Edgar abandons his outward identity altogether, leaves his few remaining possessions behind, and becomes "Tom the Preacher," a Christian missionary wandering from one church to another, preaching the Gospel. At the megachurch of one Brother Randolph Masterson, Edgar (i.e. Tom) gains permission to address the congregation, giving them a sermon on the Parable of the Mustard Seed (Mark 4:30-32; Matt 13:31-32; Lk 18-19). Here is what he says:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Our text for today is from Mark, but it also has versions in Matthew and Luke. It is the Parable of the Mustard Seed, and it goes as follows:

Whereunto shall we liken the Kingdom of God?...It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth:

But when it is sown, it groweth up and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches, so that the fowls of the air may lodge under it.

Now then, most of you who are gardeners know quite well that mustard seeds do not grow into large plants or trees which shelter birds. Mustard is a weed, which grows quickly, goes to seed, and proliferates in bright sunlight, close to the ground. So why did Jesus choose this particular simile for the Kingdom of God? Nothing, after all, could be more humble and commonplace than mustard plants. Was Jesus ignorant of basic botany? Not likely, since He lived in an agricultural society, where most farmers were familiar with mustard plants, and most likely regarded them as weeds to be removed, rather than anything of value.

Some will say that mustard greens, when cooked, add a nice, tangy flavor to foods, and that mustard seeds, when ground or spread, add the same tangy flavor, in more concentrated form, to other dishes. So maybe Jesus is referring to the Kingdom of God as adding a certain zest to our food?

(Laughter)

In which case, what about the birds of the air? Where do they come in? Many theologians have come up with dramatically different interpretations of this parable, all struggling with the obvious contradiction between what Jesus says about mustard seeds, and what anyone who has a garden already knows. Others claim that Jesus was doing a parody of the conventional, lofty Cedar of Lebanon metaphor for the divinity, so show his readers that the Kingdom of God is ubiquitous, all around them, if they would open their eyes.

So here is one more attempt at interpreting this parable, from yet another gardener.

Mustard is a weed, which means that it quickly colonizes disturbed ground, and needs a lot of sunlight in order to grow. It is frequently used as a green manure, because it is a legume, meaning that it fixes nitrogen from the air, in symbiosis with rhizomes on the roots, and its roots also draw up valuable minerals, such a phosphorus, from beneath the topsoil. And of course, it can be eaten and provide good nutrition, as well as that tangy flavor. For all these reasons, mustard is a good example of the manifold blessings that God provides us, that we generally don't even notice or take for granted.

So while mustard cannot, of itself, provide shelter for birds, it nevertheless creates the ecological linkages between air, topsoil, and mineral substrate, that heals and rebuilds damaged topsoil, and creates the preconditions for larger plants and trees to flourish in succession. So in his short parable, Jesus is giving us all a lesson in ecology: Mustard seeds, which we are likely to regard as weeds, have an integral role in God's Kingdom, which is right here around us on Earth, as well as in Heaven, for the action of the mustard plant quite literally unites Heaven (the air) with Earth (the topsoil and minerals). And these larger plants, in turn, provide shelter for birds, who in turn disperse their seeds. In the natural world, as in the Kingdom of God, everything works for the benefit of itself and for everything else as well--whether they know it or not.

For this reason, from a deep reading of the Parable of the Mustard Seed, we may deduce a principle, a precept, and a practice:

The Principle was well articulated by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a devout Baptist preacher, when he said, "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

--Just as the Mustard Seed creates the conditions, indirectly, for the shelter that the larger plants that grow in the topsoil it creates provide for the birds (who in turn disseminate their seeds).

And it also, of course, reinforces the Precept--the Great Commandment--which Jesus derived from this basic principle of interconnectedness: "Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and that which is like unto it: Love your neighbor as yourself."

So I am going to conclude today by sharing with you all a Practice, by which you, like a mustard seed, can help heal our land and bring to fruition the Kingdom of God, right here on Earth.

Please pay close attention.

1. BREATHE. As you draw breath and focus on it, reflect on the Holy Spirit that God breathed into Adam when He created him. Feel that same Holy Spirit within you, connecting you to all of God's creation.
2. OBSERVE. Open your eyes, and see, as Jesus taught us, that the Kingdom of God is everywhere around us, for those with eyes to see.
3. LET GO. Let go of your fears, your anxieties, and your hatreds--even of your own self-preoccupied thoughts, and rest within the Peace of God that passeth all understanding.
4. BE WELL. Take good care of your own body, for it is the Tabernacle of the Lord.
5. DO GOOD WORK. To get over any reluctance to do what you know you should do, simply say "Thy Will be Done." Then do your own part in realizing the Kingdom of God.
6. KEEP IN TOUCH. Just as the mustard seed grows into a plant that draws nutrients from both Earth and Heaven, and makes them available to other plants, be ready at all times to reach out to all others--to express your love of God in your love of your neighbor.
7. LEARN. Read the Scriptures prayerfully every day, and regard everyone you meet as a potential teacher, that you may "till" your own mistakes into the ground of your experience, as fertilizer for growing closer to God.
8. TEACH. Do not put your candle under a bushel. What you have learned, share with others, just as the Mustard Seed creates topsoil for the benefit of all other life.
9. HEAL. Our mission as Christians is to follow in the steps of Jesus of healing the sick, and healing as well the sickness of our society--just as the Mustard Seed restores damaged topsoil.
10. CREATE. Just as God created us all, let us use our own creative gifts, whatever they may be, to create the Kingdom of God, just as the mustard seed creates the conditions within large plants and trees can flourish, offering shelter to the birds.

May the Peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and mind through Jesus Christ Our Lord.

Amen.

--After delivering this sermon, Edgar plants Mustardseed Fellowships within each church he visits, to plant their own gardens, teach gardening skills to their faith community, reach out to the poor and needy, and practice (what they call) the Mustardseed Injunctions to stay on track.

Wouldn't it be nice??

A single blue robin's egg

Lately, my wife and I have been faced with a minor dilemma with our hanging Fuchsia plant on our open front porch. The dilemma is simply that a local robin has chosen this plant as an ideal site to build her nest, and all of our efforts to dissuade her from this agenda have been in vain--including removing the nest-in-progress altogether and dumping it on the ground, and flooding it with water when we watered it.

Fuchsias need lots of water--they are rainforest plants, which require the equivalent of monsoon rains in order to flourish. So we were concerned--and still are concerned--that the robin would abandon its nest, once it saw how frequently it was threatened with a flood of water and with humans passing by regularly. But our efforts at discouraging this particular robin couple were in vain--they patiently built a new nest anyway. We did, however, move the plant across the porch, farther from the front door, so it would be disturbed less frequently. We believed--again in vain--that if we moved it, the robin would be frustrated and think it disappeared, and would go find a new nest site.

Not so: this morning when I went out to check it, I peered into the hanging pot and saw a single blue robin's egg in the middle of the nest!

At that point, my growing frustration transformed into something a lot closer to what Pema Chodron terms "original bodhichitta"--that is our innate capacity for empathy, love, and awe. So I went out with my 3/4 gallon plastic milk jug and carefully watered the Fuchsia, this time being careful not to let the water level go above the nest. The robin had assisted in this effort, building the floor of the new nest just above the soil (supported by the chopsticks that Ann had stuck in the pot to discourage birds from building nests!)

A single blue robin's egg is a deeply moving sight: the miracle of life, like a dewdrop reflecting the clear blue sky. I still worry that the robin couple will abandon their nest because of its proximity to meddlesome humans with watering jugs, but we will do our best to do right by both the Fuchsia and the robins, so that they can stay and raise their baby. We have no choice.

May these robins, parents and baby, know happiness and the root of happiness, be free from suffering, know the transcendent joy of flight, and the equanimity of knowing they are safe from danger! "Everything that lives is holy." --William Blake.

Beyond Nationalism

"Al vero filosofo ogni terreno e patria" --Giordano Bruno.

("For the true philosopher, every land is his country.")

"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."

--Thomas Paine

"Everything that lives is holy." --William Blake.

Bruno, Paine, and Blake are all historical role models for me; all are what I like to call "proto-Gaians"--that is, people who, though they lived long before our present global crisis necessitated Gaian consciousness, were already there--aware of themselves as citizens of a planet, in which the Sacred is imminent in all life, human and otherwise, and aware, above all, that reason--clear and critical thinking--is the only known antidote to ignorance, superstition, and prejudice. As Blake also said, "Truth cannot be spoken so as to be understood, and not believed."

I mention this because, here in the USA, toxic nationalism, which most call "patriotism," is currently undergoing an upsurge, as Republicans position themselves as the true (white, Christian) "Americans" poised to "take back our country" from the "furriner" (i.e. negro) Obama, while Obama himself has recently stooped to toxic nationalism himself in exulting in the murder of Osama Bin Laden as "justice"--though extrajudicial murder for revenge has no rational relationship to justice whatsoever.

It is, perhaps, an interesting archetypal sign of the times that in the latest installments of the Superman comics, Superman, that Herculean icon of messianic Americanism ("Truth, Justice, and the American Way") has renounced his American citizenship in disgust (signifying, symbolically, that the American Way no longer has anything much to do with either truth or justice.) Another indication of the subconscious revolt of popular culture to this new, blatantly militaristic "Americanism" may be the enormous popularity of the recent blockbuster film "Avatar," a kind of Gaian fantasy romance, in which the US Marines--or a fictional facsimile thereof--become, not the good guys, but the bad guys, blowing up the very Tree of Life itself and wasting a whole planet and its peace-loving indigenous people in pursuit of a priceless mineral resource called, appropriately, "unobtainium."

But still, for now, the Corporate Party--that is, the Republicans--are firmly in control, and are using the full resources of the corporate media to brainwash the average American people into this new, militaristic, America-against-the-world toxic nationalism--so that several of my neighbors, including the two immediately adjacent to the north, now fly big American flags all the time. I am on good terms with these neighbors, who are ordinary, simple folk, getting through life, and addicted to television like most of the other ordinary, simple folk--but we maintain these neighborly relations in large part by never going anywhere near politics in our occasional chit-chat.

But I want no part of this nationalism, at all--so I continue to sport a license plate that says "GAIAN" along with bumper stickers to help other drivers interpret what to them is a strange, and possibly (perish the thought!) homosexual reference: "Celebrate Diversity;" "Loving Kindness is my Religion"--the Dalai Lama; "Buy Fresh, Buy Local;" "Earth;" and "Green is Good." That, and I wear an Earth lapel pin, as a subtly ironic commentary on the proliferation of flag lapel pins.

But do I dare get any more explicit than this about my upward shift of loyalty to the whole planet and all of life? I live, after all, in a military-dominated community where people strongly identify with "the Flag" and "Our Boys" who are "fighting for freedom" in the Middle East. And as my father, in his gently sardonic wisdom, used to say, "If you want to be a martyr, don't be surprised if you are a martyr."

It has to do with what Ken Wilber refers to as levels of awareness; there is no point in trying to get people at one level of awareness (i.e. identification with nation and religion) to see things from a higher level of awareness (i.e. identification with the planet, and with the Sacred as manifested in all religions and all life), unless they have reached a kind of crisis in their own inner development, where they are ready to do so. Otherwise, they will simply feel threatened, and see you as an enemy, whether of "America" or of "God." It is possible, indeed, that my two neighbors displayed their big flags precisely because they felt unconsciously threatened by my bright red car with its "anti-American" (i.e. Gaian) bumper-stickers.

So my best approach is to treat all such people with loving kindness, compassion, shared joy, and equanimity--just as I would have others treat me. For--levels of awareness notwithstanding--we are all, as Jack Kerouac said in his wonderful mantra, "Equally empty, equally to be loved, and equally a coming Buddha." If they ask about my license plate or bumper stickers, I will tell them, as patiently and compassionately as ever, what they mean. If not, I won't mention it.

Osama, Obama, and the Dalai Lama

Over the last few days, we have all witnessed a rather appalling spectacle of media-induced mass schadenfreude, as television-addled Americans cheered and gloated over the murder of the unarmed Osama Bin Laden by US special forces in Pakistan. But the worst insult of all came with the headline from the LA times: that the Dalai Lama had justified this murder. Well--not quite. What the Dalai Lama actually said was the following:


"Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures."

This is, at best, the DL's effort to remain diplomatically above the fray--not to justify a gangster-style hit job. There is a big "if'" here.

"But what about 9-11" people will say, if I object to this murder.

There are two answers to this.

First let us assume (though it has never been proven) that Osama Bin Laden was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. If so, and if he was unarmed, he could easily have been captured and brought to justice, like any other criminal--presented with evidence, and given the opportunity to defend himself. This would not have appeased the testosterone-crazed multitudes in our degraded country, but it would have preserved something far more valuable: the rule of law, and the principle of due process. Instead, Obama (and all those who are cheering for him) lowered himself to the same level as the terrorists, by opting for an extrajudicial murder--something every terrorist longs to do to his enemies, real or imagined.

The Dalai Lama's response--that sometimes countermeasures are necessary--is absolutely true, but only in those instances where violence is the last possible resort to prevent further violence against one's own--like defending one's wife and children against an armed and murderous marauder invading the house. But in this case, Osama was minding his own business, and we were the armed and murderous marauders--not he.

My second response is more to the point, however: What ABOUT 9/11? Much as our government and corporate media maintain a common front of silence and denial about it, there is no getting around the fact that the official story of 9/11--that the Twin Towers and Building 7 collapsed as a consequence of the impact and resulting fires from the jet crashes--simply does not hold any water, scientifically. It violates both laws of thermodynamics, egregiously.

For example, we are told (again and again) that the Twin Towers underwent a "pancake collapse" in which the weight and force of the collapsing upper stories created a chain reaction that brought down all the others at freefall rate (without encountering any resistance at all from the intact 60-80 floors beneath them, nor the 47 steel girders that were specifically designed to support the structure as a whole. ) If so, where ARE all these collapsing stories? Look at this photo:

What do you see here? I see no upper floors at all crushing those beneath them (which is not surprising, since those lower floors had always supported them before. What I do see is something a lot more like a Roman Candle--a sequence of powerful explosions, symmetrically pulverizing the building, floor by floor, and blowing the debris upward and outward as it falls. This is no gravitational collapse, but a controlled demolition.

And there is, besides, a peer-reviewed scientific study by Dr. Niels Harrit of the University of Copenhagen and eight equally qualified colleagues, all with Ph.D.s in chemical physics, that found direct evidence of iron microspheres and particles of unexploded nanothermite in the dust from the immediately surrounding area: all prima facie evidence of controlled demolition. For further evidence and information on the real story of 9/11, the best source I know of is that of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth

In short, you can now count me among the growing multitudes who simply no longer believe the official story--and therefore have no reason to believe that Osama Bin Laden had anything to do with the horrors of that day.

In which case, what Americans and all their media outlets are celebrating with such noxious fervor is simply a gangster-style murder of a man who, while far from innocent (since he apparently was the mastermind behind the attack on the USS Cole and the African embassy bombings), was nevertheless entitled to the same rights to due process, under a just legal order, as you or me or anyone else.

And this is why I no longer even like to call myself an American, but rather a Gaian--that is, a citizen of the world, like my role model Thomas Paine, who originally coined the concept of "The United States of America," but whose legacy of enlightened democracy and justice we have now abandoned, in favor of brute force and bread and circuses. As Paine himself once put it, "The world is my country; all mankind are my brethren; and to do good is my religion." The Dalai Lama himself could scarcely have said it better!

A Gaian Economy?

In a letter I just sent to the Daily Press on energy use, I concluded with the following passage:

Our explosive industrial growth was made possible by cheap fossil fuels, but we have reached their horizon of efficacy, beyond which their rising costs and toxic side-effects will overwhelm us. So if we are to have a future at all, it must be one based on energy efficiency, intelligent technology, and sharing--not on endless growth and greed.

Looking over this passage got me wondering: is a Gaian economy even possible? That is, can we ever hope to create or evolve an economy based, not on endless growth of production and consumption (and therefore, of pollution)--not on the "invisible hand" of competing self-interest--but on "energy efficiency, intelligent technology, and sharing"?

This is, of course, an old, old question--but the present, glaring contradiction between our Glomart economy (based on endless growth of production and consumption in pursuit of short-term self-interest) and our finite, Gaian world makes it once again an urgent question to consider.

Does our basic human nature--our innate urge, shared with all other species, to eat, survive, and reproduce--doom us inexorably to an Easter Island future, a hideous feeding frenzy where we compete bitterly and relentlessly with each other to commandeer and exhaust the existing nonrenewable resources, rather than using those resources to create a cooperative infrastructure for renewable energy? Or can we actually learn to plan more intelligently for a sustainable, post-fossil fuel, steady-state economy where, as Shakespeare put it, "distribution should undo excess, and each man have enough?" Is an economy based on sharing, on planetary stewardship, and on voluntary reduction of per capita energy use even possible?

The odds weigh heavily in favor of the former, I'm afraid--a hellish future of accelerating climatic turbulence and drought, collapsing ecosystems, endless resource wars, societal and cultural disintegration, corporate tyranny, and marauding, predatory gangs roaming the blasted landscape and killing everyone in their path, set against shrinking islands of fiercely defended wealth and privilege...not a future I would wish on anyone.

Nevertheless, let us assume--if only for the sake of argument--that an alternative is possible. Buddhist teachings remind us that the present is all there is--that the future--any future--is always just a mental formation, and that the causes and conditions of the future always depend on what each of us chooses to do in the present, just as our present conditions are the direct consequences of causes and conditions in the past--including all the choices made by all our ancestors. If, in fact, the seed of the future always lies in the choices that we make right now, what can we do, starting this moment--to plant the seed for a better future, regardless of what others do, and whatever else happens?

Imagine then--and here goes my sustaining fantasy, yet again--that a self-replicating Gaia movement were to take root, analogous to the rise, in the past, of Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity--all massively culturally transformative events that started with a single visionary.

The Gaia movement would be rooted in a practice, easily taught and easily replicated, that brought immediate relief from stress, but also laid the foundation for serious dharma practice, within the cultural frame of reference of each practitioner--not so much a "new religion" (which would be seen as a threat to existing religions) but rather as a practice that is compatible with all existing authentic religious traditions. (By "authentic" I mean compatible with the universal Dharma--the awareness of our "inescapable network of mutuality"--despite their own religious identity politics).

So this new Gaia movement would be based on the following Principle, Precept, and Practice:

1. PRINCIPLE: "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."--Martin Luther King, Jr.
2. PRECEPT: "Take care of everyone, and abandon no one. Take care of everything, and abandon nothing." --Lao Tzu.
3. PRACTICE: Breathe, Observe, Let Go; Be well, Do good work, Keep in Touch; Learn, Teach, Heal, and Create.

The Gaians--those first initiates in the Gaia Movement--would develop, within themselves, the skills necessary to promote this "seed" concept among adherents of many different religions. Each religion could give it their own name; for Buddhists, it is "Dharma Gaia;" for Christians, it could be called "the Mustardseed Project" after the Parable of the Mustard Seed. Jews could associate it with the Hebrew concept of Tikkun--healing the world. And Muslims could likewise integrate it with their own Qur'anic traditions.

As the movement grew--among Gaian Buddhists, Gaian Jews, Gaian Hindus, Gaian Christians, and Gaian Muslims--communities of practice might form that engaged in whatever forms of praxis were appropriate to local conditions: Satyagraha for those who face oppressive political conditions; labor organizing among those exploited by corporate tyranny; negotiation and peacemaking; political advocacy where possible; and above all, ongoing community-building, gardening, education, and ecological protection and restoration.

What form might the resulting Gaian culture take? It is hard to say, of course, but ideally it would be decentralized--a loose association of bioregional communities, each developing cultures, political systems, economies, and technologies appropriate to their own bioregion.

Is such a thing even possible? Once again, transformative cultural movements, starting from a small seed, have happened before throughout human history; there is no good reason why they can't happen yet again. The alternative, for me, is unthinkable--however likely. And that is enough to reinforce my determination to pursue this vision of a Gaian future for as long as I draw breath--for it starts, indeed, by drawing breath: breathing, observing, and letting go...even of my own mental formations about what a Gaian future should look like... The present, after all, is all there is.

Gaian Triads

Numbered lists, particularly in threes, fours, and fives, have long been used as mnemonic devices to help transmit spiritual teachings through the generations. There are obvious reasons for this; we learn best by organizing information into symmetrical patterns. And so we have, in Buddhism, many numeric schemes--the Four Noble Truths, the Five Precepts, the Six Paramitas, the Four Brahma-Viharas, the Three Dharma Seals, the Twelve Links of Codependent Origination, the Five Skandhas, and so forth. All these numeric schemes help practitioners to reinforce their understanding of, and grounding in, the Dharma.

In my own life, I seem to have been endowed with the mission to propagate Gaian Buddhism, the wonderful synthesis of Buddhist Practice and Gaianity, or global ecological awareness and commitment, that has been initiated by masters such as Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama, and propagated by an array of eminent Gaians, such as Joanna Macy, Elizabeth Roberts, Gary Snyder, and (closer to home) my own friends and role models, John Croft in Australia, Chris Maser in Oregon, Dick and Pat Richardson in Texas, Evan Eisenberg in New York, Ian Prattis in Canada, and Martin Ogle in Virginia.

And so my own Gaian thinking and teaching has come to be organized around similar numeric patterns, particularly triads and tetrads. So here is a partial list of the triads and tetrads that have become the "strange attractors" in my own thinking:

1. Eat, Survive, Reproduce.

This triad of verbs I originally took from a cartoon I saw (I forget where) that showed a series of creatures in an ascending evolutionary sequence--a paramecium, a fish, a salamander, a dinosaur, a mastodon, and an ape--all with thought-bubbles saying "Eat, Survive, Reproduce."

The last frame showed an early human, but he was looking perplexed, and his thought-bubble was "What am I supposed to do?"

The implicit answer, of course, was the same as the above:--"Eat, Survive, Reproduce." So this first, foundational triad reminds us, from the start, of our kinship with all the rest of life--that our basic agenda, however clever and complex we have become, is the same as that of every other living being. From this common agenda we share with all life, we may logically derive all the others.

2. Health, Competence, and Adaptive Flexibility. This triad describes the basic survival values of all living beings, and can be logically derived from the above three injunctions.

• Health is internal homeostasis, maintained by the influx of matter/energy from Gaia through food, water, and breath, the elimination of waste, and the autoregulation of these processes. It is, of course, the prerequisite of the others.
• Competence is, quite literally, the ability to compete--that is, the ability to function effectively within a given, generally predictable niche, whether ecological or sociocultural. For a rabbit, competence consists of alertness to potential predators and the ability to find a safe hiding place for her babies; for a feline, competence is the ability to stalk prey effectively and all this entails. And of course for any human job or profession, competence is the ability to deliver the goods for which you are being paid, as well as or better than your competitors do. Competence, then, depends on specialized skills adapted to a given, relatively stable environment.
• Adaptive Flexibility refers, conversely, to the generalized ability to adapt to unpredictable changes in one's environment. In the natural world, as in the social world, there tends to be a trade-off between competence and adaptive flexibility: the more highly specialized we become, the less able we are to adapt when the conditions we mastered through specialization change too quickly or dramatically. Evolutionary history is littered with extinct organisms who were admirably specialized for one environmental niche, once that niche changed. Those organisms that have survived the longest, conversely, tend to be those that are highly adaptive and flexible. This is why, for example, coyotes far outnumber wolves, in the dramatically changed environment induced by human civilization. Wolves were highly competent within their native niche, as running social predators in wide-open northern woodlands and prairies. But coyotes--solitary, devious, and diversified in diet--have been able to thrive much more effectively on the fringes of the civilized world, despite the relentless efforts by farmers and ranchers to exterminate them.
• Self, Community, Planet. With this triad, we move into the exclusively human realm, in the present generation, as members of a species which, through language and culture, has come to dominate the entire planet, and whose numbers and resource consumption now directly threaten the survival of that planet as a habitat for life, human or otherwise. This triad specifies our shared obligation in this altered world we have inherited, creating what I like to call a new, Gaian Categorical Imperative: To assume responsibility, in every decision we make, for the health, competence and adaptive flexibility of ourselves, our community, and our planet simultaneously.
• Be Well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch. This wonderful triad, which I have borrowed from Garrison Keillor, specifies the means to the end implied by the above Gaian Categorical Imperative. It is a good, generic daily agenda, and as such forms the centerpiece of my Dharma Gaia Mantra: Breathe, Observe, Let Go; Be Well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch; Learn, Teach, Heal, and Create. Note also the correspondence in these triads:

1. Eat - Health - Self - Be Well
2. Survive - Competence - Community - Do Good Work
3. Reproduce - Adaptive Flexibility - Planet - Keep in Touch.

• Good Buy, Good Work, Good Will. This triad translates Garrison Keillor's generic daily agenda into the language of Gaian social engagement. It can be unpacked as follows:

1. Good Buy means to assume responsibility for the social and ecological consequences of the money we spend--to think of each dollar we spend as a "vote" for all of the processes that went into the product we have bought. Some general guidelines for "Good Buy" therefore include, whenever possible, buying locally produced food and other items, buying organically grown food, investing in renewable energy such as solar and wind, and deliberately boycotting corporations whose profits derive from damaging Gaia or exploiting workers. In general, the food that is best for our bodies--local, organic, nutrient-rich--is also best for our communities (in that it creates local employment and promotes local agriculture) and is therefore best for Gaia as well (in that it involves redirecting our money away from Glomart and all the agribusiness firms like Monsanto that profit from destroying our topsoil and genetic diversity.)
2. Good Work means to assume responsibility for the social and ecological consequences of our livelihood. In general terms, this means avoiding livelihoods that increase the net level of suffering for Gaia and her creatures, and embracing livelihoods that promote the health, competence, and adaptive flexibility of ourselves, our communities, and Gaia. In general, such work involves learning Gaia, teaching Gaia, healing Gaia, and creating Gaia.
3. Good Will means to "keep in touch"--to assume responsibility for the social and ecological consequences of our own mental attitudes, our behavior toward others, and every other choice we make.

Considered thus, these triads link up very nicely, forming an arc of associations between the basic survival needs of every organism (Eat, Survive, Reproduce) right through the engaged Dharma practice of individual humans to promote our health, competence, and adaptive flexibility (Breathe, Observe, Let Go, Be Well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch) to the ongoing Gaian praxis of planetary healing: Good Buy, Good Work, Good Will.

Step by step

"Passo dopo passo." So reads today's entry (March 27, 2011) in my calendar of everyday Italian phrases. It translates "step by step"--or to put it in the inimitable words of my stepson Eric, "One fucking thing at a time."

And it is a good Dharma lesson always--to stay in the present moment, and do what needs to be done--one step at a time--regardless of how many obligations are closing in on us at any time. This also means, for me, subduing the various Maras that afflict me on weekends: internet addiction, dissipation, torpor, and avoidance or procrastination.

A few days ago, I was invited to give a talk on Buddhism to a group of high school kids over in Chesapeake, who were taking an Advanced Placement class in world religions. Most of my talk was "Buddhism 101"--going through the basic teachings with them--the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Three Jewels, the Five Precepts, the Four Brahma-Viharas, and of course the essential discipline--Breathe, Observe, and Let Go. But in the course of my talk, while describing the Second Dharma Seal--interbeing or nonself--I stumbled on a potentially useful metaphor for this difficult-to-grasp concept.

When discussing the essential unreality of the separate self (Anatman) I compared it to a rainbow: something you see clearly, as if it were real, but if you move toward it, it recedes--and if the sun disappears behind a cloud, it vanishes altogether. It is, in effect, a perceptual artifact--something whose "existence" depends on a particular conjunction of causes and conditions that includes angle of sunlight from one direction, rain in the opposite direction, and of course the location of the perceiver. As Thay would say, "When conditions are sufficient, we see a rainbow; when conditions are no longer sufficient, the rainbow disappears"--even though the latent preconditions are still there: sunlight, clouds, rain, and perceiver.

The point is, our notion of "self" is more like a rainbow--a perceptual artifact--than it is like, say, a rock or even an animal. If we look deeper, of course, people, animals, and ultimately rocks are perceptual artifacts as well--all depend on the conjunction of certain causes and conditions, including the eye of the beholder.

But there is a danger--an ethical danger--in going too far in this direction, for if we persuade ourselves that everyone and everything is illusory--that is just an artifact of our own perception--then why should we care whether or not they suffer? This is the danger, as I see it, in certain "mind-only" schools of Buddhist thought--they are an invitation to complacency and smug indifference to others--and "by their fruits shall ye know them."

So how do we avoid this trap, once we grasp the notion of the separate self as a perceptual artifact, of simply concluding that everyone and everything else is as well, and that we can do as we please?

The Dalai Lama points one way, in this regard, in enjoining us to recognize what we have in common with everyone else we see out there: we all want happiness, and none of us wants to suffer. And this is the key: the ultimately illusory nature of the separate self simply indicates that everyone else is, deep down, the same as we are, and as we do for ourselves, so we do for them as well. This is also the inner logic behind the law of Karma as well--whatever we do to and for others, we also do to and for ourselves, for ultimately there is no difference at all between us and them--even if we fear and despise them. Hence our only recourse, as Lao Tzu says, is to "take care of everyone and abandon no one; take care of everything, and abandon nothing."

But back to my calendar lesson for the day: How do we go about dealing with all the things we've failed to do thus far--all the people and things we have not yet taken care of--due to the various Maras of dissipation, internet addiction, torpor, and procrastination--like grading my weekly papers--in order to resume taking care of everyone and abandoning no one? Passo dopo passo.