Living in the Days of Dread

"...like a heat wave, burning in my heart/Can't keep from crying; it's tearing me apart"

--Martha Reeves and the Vandellas 

The headlines are inescapable for anyone paying attention: unprecedented, record-smashing heat waves, droughts, and wildfires throughout the North American west (as well as similar conflagrations in Siberia, Australia, the Amazon, Greece and Turkey, and elsewhere in recent years); catastrophic flash floods in Germany and China; collapsing ice sheets, receding glaciers, and melting permafrost throughout the Arctic and Antarctic alike, as well as on mountain peaks throughout the world; the relentless battering of catastrophic hurricanes in the Caribbean and typhoons in the South Pacific; vast swarms of desperate refugees from drought, heat, and political chaos throughout the global South, accelerating extinction rates of all other species, collapse of coral reefs and fisheries throughout the oceans of the world--need I go on?

The grim evidence is mounting steadily that it's too late; that we have already passed any number of tipping points, beyond which global atmospheric heating will go--or has already gone--into runaway, irreversible, self-accelerating feedback loops, collectively spelling doom for human civilization, and possibly for humanity itself and all of the other complex life forms upon which we depend. In which case, to quote an article by Dr. Jason Box, a climate scientist studying methane outgassing in the Arctic,  "We're fucked."

If this is the case--and all the evidence points in this gloomy direction these days--how do we cope?  And more importantly, what do we tell our children? 

When I find myself slipping into despair, dread, and hopelessness--which can only become a more common syndrome for all of us, as these climate catastrophes accelerate from year to year and from month to month--the easiest way out is denial. But denial--simply looking away and pretending that all is, or will be, well--is ultimately self-defeating, for it will only lead to crushing despair and panic when reality intervenes, whether in the form of a wildfire, a hurricane, food or water shortages, or simply a parched and withered garden. So our first task, as I see it, is to learn how to look unblinkingly into the vortex of No Future, and take it from there.

How?

Obviously, each of us is on our own in this regard. There are no easy answers.  So what I share from here is simply my own strategy for coping with this utterly demoralizing reality that is closing in all around us. Use it if it works for you; if not, improvise. It consists of two parts:

1. Axioms for Clearing the Mind:  Many years ago, when I was teaching college-level writing, I  became immersed in Buddhism, due to the luminous teachings of the Vietnamese sage, Thich Nhat Hanh. And since most of my students, dealing with the myriad emotional stresses of late adolescence, had difficulty concentrating on their studies, I decided to write my own digest of his teachings, carefully stripped of explicitly Buddhist terminology. This digest became a handout which I gave to them at the start of every semester, entitled "Axioms for Clearing the Mind."  It consisted of the following eight axioms, which I have since found to be equally effective for pulling myself out of the vortex of climate despair:

• The Present is all there is. This is always a good starting point. It reminds us that "the future"--the source of all our hopes and fears alike--is just a mental formation. It has no real existence at all. When hope for the future is gone and fear is all that is left, as seems to be our current collective plight, it helps to remind ourselves that the future we fear is every bit as illusory--as much a product our our own fevered imaginations--as the future we (used to) hope for. Thich Nhat Hanh constantly insisted on this point--on the manifold benefits to our psychic health, our equanimity, of simply returning to, and embracing, the Present Moment.
• That that is is. This was actually a comic quote from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, parodying a pompous philosopher's weighty (but vacuous) pronouncements. But there is a useful truth in recalling this tautology. Hell resides in the Past Subjunctive, in the contrary-to-fact realm of "If only I had..." or--in the case of the climate crisis--if only they had... (i.e. the lying oil companies and the shameless, self-serving politicians they bought, who either denied and ridiculed the growing scientific evidence of climate disruption, or simply ignored it until it was too late.) They could have...and should have...but they did not, and now we all face the horrific consequences.  It's infuriating, but as old Walter Cronkite would say, "That's the way it is." Letting go of wishing things were other than they are, and embracing the reality of impermanence--for ourselves, our communities, our civilization, and our global life support system--can be a healing antidote to despair.
• Nothing you've done, suffered, or failed to do in the past has any necessary effect on what you choose to do in the present moment. I made up this axiom especially for my students, many of whom were emotionally crippled by debilitating self-concepts (e.g. "I've always been lazy" or "I had abusive parents" or  "I've never been any good at English...").  But it is true of us collectively as well.  The clear fact that our modern industrial civilization has failed miserably to act on reducing climate emissions in the past does not mean that we should abandon the effort in the present. If we assume that nothing can be done, nothing will be done. Conversely, if each of us undertakes to monitor and reduce our own carbon footprint and pollution wherever possible, and to keep pressure on our elected officials, on the merchants we patronize, and even on our bosses to enact policies that promote both mitigation of, and adaptation to, the climate crisis, our collective efforts may still make the difference between no future and a difficult, but possible future for our children and grandchildren.
• There are only two states of mind: mindful and distracted. This insight lies very much at the core of Thich Nhat Hanh's wisdom: that we all have the choice, in every moment, of being here now, or somewhere else, then. And the "somewhere else" could be either regret or resentment about the past, anxiety or dread about the future, self-pity, or simply idle fantasizing, watching television mindlessly,  or "doom scrolling" on the internet.
• Therefore, there are only two ways of doing anything: mindfully and distractedly. For any task we undertake, simple or complex, we can either (1) do it in order to do it well, here in the present moment, with full attention to every detail, or (2) do it haphazardly, carelessly, merely in order to get it done, so we can do something else. Life can be rich and rewarding if we choose to do things mindfully or boring and tedious if we choose the other option. As Martin Luther King once instructed his impoverished parishioners, "if your lot in life is to sweep streets, sweep the streets the way Beethoven composed symphonies..."  And this attitude, likewise, can make life worth living in every moment--whether or not we have a future.
• Everyone gets distracted, all the time. If you find yourself distracted--by anxieties, regrets, rage, depression, or simply idle ruminations, join the club! No one is immune from distractions; not even the most focused musician, athlete, scholar, or monk. So don't beat yourself up.
• Therefore, we all need one or more useful strategies for returning from being distracted to being mindful, to living fully in the present moment. There are a vast number of practices, from every spiritual tradition on the planet, for overcoming distractions and training your mind to focus on the here and now, in order to do what needs to be done. Choose what works for you, and cultivate it.

2. My Own Method: The Dharma Gaia Mantra.

Mantras are like training wheels for the mind. Their sole purpose is to keep our minds on an even keel, until such time as we no longer need these "training wheels." Mantras can be found in every religious culture on the planet, often tied in with one or another belief system. And there are secular mantras as well, devoid of any specific religious reference.  

If mantras are recited mindlessly, by rote, they are utterly useless. However, if we find a mantra that has a deep significance for us, it can be very useful as a tool for calming and focusing our minds. So here is a mantra I created, again for my students, but since then, it has become the centerpiece of my own daily practice. And it works like a charm--for me, at least--to "reel me in," as it were--to pull me up out of the vortex of distraction and despair, whether for the planet or for myself. So I invite you to try it sometime, and improvise, if necessary, to make it your own. It consists of ten verb phrases arranged into three sets, which I recite to myself on each of ten breaths, repeating as often as necessary. So here they are:

A. Reclaiming the Present Moment:

• Breathe
• Observe
• Let Go

The first three injunctions, based on the Buddha's Sutra on Breathing, comprise the essence of meditation practice: we breathe in order to observe, we observe in order to let go, and we let go in order to breathe. This is the royal path to mindfulness, to living fully in the present moment, so let's take a closer look.

Our breath is our home base. It is a safe "place" we can return to no matter what is happening around us, or inside our own heads. (It is no accident that the first thing a rescue worker tells a traumatized accident victim to do is to breathe.) The Buddha's first instruction was remarkably simple: "Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in; breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out." The minute we focus our full attention on our breath, we stop thinking, and our thoughts, no matter how tormenting, simply cease to exist--for the moment. 

At a deeper level, our breathing directly connects us to Gaia, to our living, breathing planet. For every molecule of free oxygen we inhale is a free gift from photosynthetic organisms--trees, plants, phytoplankton, etc.--and in return, each outbreath of carbon dioxide is a gift returned to them, since plants take in CO2 and separate the carbon from the oxygen in order to create the fuel cells--simple sugars--they need to power their own growth.

Inevitably, however, distracting thoughts will worm their way back into our consciousness. When this happens, the next injunction, "Observe" becomes operative. There are three things we can do with any distracting thought, feeling, or impulse: we can either indulge it or suppress it. These are the two choices most of us make, but both can be dysfunctional. But the third, often overlooked, option is simply to observe it. To take a step back, as it were, and just look at, acknowledge, and critically examine that distracting thought or feeling, as if we were watching a movie. This takes practice, but it is a very useful habit to develop. For it detaches us from our own mindstream, and allows us, whenever we are ready, to simply "let go" of that thought or feeling, so that we can return to our breath.

Repeat as often as necessary.

B: Reclaiming our Daily Agenda:

• Be Well
• Do Good Work
• Keep in Touch

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Garrison Keillor, who coined this mantra as the sign-off for his morning radio program, "Writer's Almanac." Think of it as a generic daily agenda: three injunctions around which to plan every day. 

The first, "Be Well" is obvious: our bodies are all we have, so we need to take good care of them for as long as we have them, by eating healthy food, getting exercise, and avoiding toxins when possible. But "wellness" also extends to our minds and spirits. In general, mental wellness is the antithesis of self-absorption; it involves cultivating curiosity, showing compassion, and maintaining a healthy sense of humor, among other traits. Spiritual wellness refers to the attitudes borne of inner equanimity; from a religious perspective, it is the ability to say "Thy will be done" and mean it. And all three kinds of wellness are the fruits of regular practice--of breathing, observing, and letting go.

"Do Good Work" is not simply the old guilt-inducing Puritan injunction to "work hard" no matter what. Rather, it involves two attributes, which the Greeks labeled arete and agape.  Arete refers to attentiveness--doing the best we can, with full attention, in any present moment. As Thich Nhat Hanh put it, it is "doing it in order to do it, rather than doing it in order to get it done."  And this attitude of full attentiveness can be applied to anything we do, simple or complex, trivial or significant.  

If arete pertains to how we work, agape, meaning "selfless love," pertains to why: work is only "good" if it promotes the health, competence, and resilience of ourselves, our communities, and our planet simultaneously. There is nothing "good" about designing or building weapons of mass destruction, nor about helping a corporation subvert environmental regulations!

Finally, "keeping in touch" refers to our attitude toward others--all others, including all other life forms. It is, as Lao Tzu put it, "taking care of everyone and everything, and abandoning no one and nothing." So each day, we might ask ourselves, as we plan our agenda,  questions such as the following:

(1) How am I going to "be well" today? (2) What "good work" am I going to do today? (3) With whom should I "keep in touch" today?

C: Reclaiming our Life Agenda:

• Learn Gaia
• Teach Gaia
• Heal Gaia
• Create Gaia

In its original formulation, these injunctions were simply to "learn, teach, heal, and create," which--as I told my students--are the only things worth doing with their lives, no matter what they chose as a career. And this is still good advice for young people.  But with the urgency of the (possibly terminal) global climate crisis bearing down on us, I have added "Gaia"--the living Earth--as the predicate to each of these injunctions.

"Learning and Teaching Gaia" means adopting the core principles of Permaculture--Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share--as our foundation, and making a lifelong commitment to learn as much as we can about our own bioregion, even as it changes, so we can adapt intelligently in ways that simultaneously mitigate the damage we have already done, and to teach what we have learned to others, whether by precept or example.  And "Healing and Creating Gaia" means applying what we have learned and taught others, so that we can collaborate on regenerating our culture from the ground up in a manner that is symbiotic with, rather than parasitic upon our living planet.

None of this, of course, may matter in a dying, overheated world.  But these injunctions point us toward a useful "middle way" between the extremes of abject despair or vain denial. And they inscribe likewise a middle way between the deluded belief that personal lifestyle changes--driving electric cars or recycling bottles--can save us, and the equally deluded belief that sufficient collective pressure on politicians and corporations will force them to reverse course and abandon their addiction to short-term profits in favor of global responsibility. Both these--personal responsibility and political advocacy--are absolutely necessary, but neither is sufficient to the larger task. 

It may be far too late, of course, for any "larger task" to save us collectively from the horrific fate in store for us, as a result of our civilization's greed and denial. But even in the midst of an incremental collapse of our global civilization, with all its attendant horrors, we still have the option of mindful action in the present moment:  growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness. And through such efforts, we can still create small, local Gaian communities--pockets of decency, awareness, collaboration, compassion, and responsibility--to set a good example in a desperate world. 

May it be so.