Welcome, Glomart Shoppers

The following is a two-part satiric fantasy I wrote back in the mid-Nineties, and recently updated. It provides two alternative looks at the future. The speaker in the first is the tour guide to the new planet-sized mall called "Glomart"  (This is where I originated the term, which I have used ever since).

Welcome, Glomart shoppers!

Glomart (short for Global Market) is our new planet-sized Mall, formerly known as “Earth,” where you can buy anything you want from anywhere you want, and (with some exceptions) go anywhere you want to go--on credit!

Whereas the old world was divided into thousands of different languages, making communication all but impossible, here in Glomart, everyone speaks English--everyone who is someone, that is.

Let me tell you a bit about the population of Glomart, currently about 8 billion and growing fast. We are divided into four categories: the Owners, the Consumers, the Help, and the others.

The Owners--about the top .1 percent--own everything. They live in well-fortified, domed, super-affluent neighborhoods, well out of sight of everyone, except when they occasionally appear on television. They are fabulously wealthy, and in constant competition with each other to get even wealthier. You know very little about them, and they will see to it that you know as little as possible, since they all sit on each other's Boards of Directors. They are our bosses, and we love them because they pay our salaries. We used to have governments that nobody liked, but the Owners now take care of all that.

The Consumers--that's me and you, folks--the next 30-40 percent of the population (estimates vary, depending on the country and region). We’re happy. We live in the Suburbs, work hard at the mall or the office, and all have computers, cars, and televisions. We are free go out after work and on weekends to the local branch of our Glomart Mall. For entertainment, we have TV, movies, cell phones, or video games. What we know, by and large, is what the Owners want us to know—we can have it all at our fingertips on the Web, on Fox News, CNN, and an endless proliferation of "local" newspapers and magazines (all of which, likewise, are owned by the Owners). For exercise, we go to the local Spa or the golf course (if we're rich enough for the latter, as we all hope to be some day). For those interested in Nature, we have parks with paved walking paths, and zoos where we can see actual wild animals up close. (No, Miss, there aren't any left outside the zoos; that would be a waste of real-estate).

Yes, sir. You want to know something about the Help? Why? They do what they’re told, stay out of sight, and most don’t even speak English. Yes, of course they get paid, as long as they do a good job and stay out of the way. Unions? No need. We take care of our Help. They have a Right to Work—unless they’re fired.

The others?--well, the less said about them the better. They live in the Inner Cities and the Third World; there are far too many of them, they are often homeless, they have too many babies, and they fill our prisons. Bleeding Heart Liberals tend to fuss whenever we propose simply to exterminate them, but sooner or later we will prevail. It's a matter of overcoming all these obsolete 18th Century ideas about "human rights" that keep getting in the way, but old ideas die hard.

Oh yes--then there are those pests called "environmentalists" who keep scaring everybody by talking about global warming, deforestation, desertification, topsoil loss, toxic pollutants in the land, air, and water, the fact that birds have disappeared outside of zoos, and that rats are the only wild animals left (but only in the Third World and Inner Cities).

Don't worry, folks; it's all tree-hugger nonsense. We have replaced the so-called "woodlands" that these folks used to pine for with fast-growing, genetically engineered tree farms, that are much more efficient for producing wood pulp. Global warming is irrelevant since we all have air-conditioning (except in the Third World and Inner Cities, and they are used to hot weather anyway). And all that useless ex-tundra in the north is being drained for new corporate farms. Those former neighborhoods along the coast that are now underwater are creating new opportunities for waterfront real estate.

Despite what these alarmists squeal about topsoil loss--(90% in the last 50 years), we have wonderful Hydroponic methods for growing genetically engineered fast-growing vegetables as well, and we're even learning how to synthesize the nutrients. So there'll be plenty of food from all over the world to fill the shelves at your local Walmart.

Tropical Rainforests? Well, to be sure, they're long gone, but who needed them anyway? Now that they're gone, the price of mahogany and other rare woods is skyrocketing. A good stock option.

What was that, Sir? Something the rising cancer rate, especially among children? Of course we are concerned, but everybody dies sooner or later. And with modern medicine, a cure is just around the corner--for those who can afford it.

You are quite right, however, ma’am.  Glomart is far from perfect. We need more police, more prisons, less welfare, fewer cumbersome regulations. We plan to relieve the endless traffic jams by building even more highways. And because the oil at the former Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge is running out, we are drilling new fields recently discovered in Siberia, the Arctic Ocean, Antarctica, and the ocean floor (since there are no longer any fish to worry about). And new deposits of natural gas, now opened up by Fracking, promise us abundant energy well into the future. Overall, leading economic indicators suggest that prospects are excellent for continued positive, dynamic, economic GROWTH.

Even the steady decline in fresh water and free oxygen is no big problem, folks. Bottled water is for sale everywhere, and soon you'll be able to buy your own portable liquid-oxygen tank, lifetime guaranteed--on credit. For those who can't afford water and oxygen...well, that's one reason we need more police. In a true Market economy, nothing is free.

Oh--and those Gaian eco-terrorists who sneak messages to you, telling you to join their insidious "quiet revolution"--to renounce consumerism, stop watching television, cultivate mindfulness and solidarity with the poor, restore a sense of community, work with each other rather than for the Owners, plant your own organic gardens, stop using pesticides, preserve and restore forests and wetlands, and assume responsibility for the social and ecological consequences of every dollar you earn, spend, and invest--pay them no mind. Our Security Task Force is in the process of hunting them down.

Another Future

Historians trace the origin of the Gaia Movement, also known as the Quiet Revolution, to the tumultuous years at the end of the 20^th and beginning of the 21^st Centuries, but its roots go back further, to include Gandhi's Satyagraha Movement in India, early in the century, and Martin Luther King's Civil Rights Movement in the Sixties, along with the blossoming of the "Hippies," the "New Age," and the Environmental Movement in the Seventies.  The crucially important Gaia theory of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis-- scorned and largely ignored by Big Science and the corporate- controlled mass media at the time--provided a cultural catalyst for a gradual but irreversible epistemological shift from dualistic reductionism--the dominant ideology of industrialism and consumerism--toward the holistic or systemic Gaian paradigm that we now all take for granted. Many people are surprised to learn that as late as the early 2000s, the vast majority of people in the industrialized world still believed that "man" was separate from, and sovereign over, "nature"--despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The Quiet Revolution arose out of the largely suppressed despair and discontent among the middle classes, just at the time that the corporate "New World Order"--later known as Glomart (for Global Market)--consolidated its grasp on the world economy, through GATT, NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The billionaire-funded Tea Party movement, fueled ironically by popular discontent with big government, signaled the complete take-over of the United States Government by Glomart, and other governments soon fell in line, slashing social programs, eliminating environmental regulations, liberating "free-market" forces, and creating a socially segregated 4-tier society--the Owners (top 1%), the Consumers (30% and dwindling), the Working Poor (known as the “Help”) (30% and growing) and the Marginalized Others (39% and growing). But Glomart failed to realize that through creating the Internet and World Wide Web, connecting people all over the world, ostensibly to facilitate the marketing of consumer goods and entertainment services, they were also sowing the seeds of their own demise, by creating a conduit by which the ideas of the Quiet Revolution could quickly find a receptive audience among the middle classes (the Consumers) all over the world.

Despite the success of the Glomart-dominated mass media in marginalizing environmentalism by using demagogues of denial like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to turn public opinion against the public interest, the brute fact of rapid environmental degradation became harder and harder to hide, or to gloss over with marketing hype or Rush Limbaugh's sneering contempt. Denial, as a psychological strategy for dealing with growing anxiety, can never last. The anxiety about the future was still there, expressing itself in the rapidly expanding use of alcohol and drugs, the escalating crime rate, and the violent cynicism and nihilistic popular culture of youth. Something had to give, sooner or later.

Meanwhile, violence and chaos escalated rapidly throughout the world, as feedback loops arose between economic, social, and environmental collapse--as food prices rose due to topsoil degradation, as new and unpredictable epidemics swept through the population, as fresh water--no longer freely available--became more and more expensive, and as food shortages spread from the inner cities and third world into the supermarkets of the middle class. Soon, open class warfare arose, as affluent neighborhoods barricaded themselves and hired armed guards, while less affluent neighborhoods fell prey to the marauding of the desperate poor. In response, resurgent militia groups in rural areas took control of whole communities, rounding up and shooting anyone who opposed them, and the greatly weakened Federal Government was powerless to stop them. Only in the Malls were people safe (due to the heavy police guard placed around their periphery), but even here, acts of terrorism and sabotage became commonplace.

Amidst this maelstrom of social disintegration, just in time to avert a complete collapse of social order, the Gaia Movement arose, disseminated over the Internet, and deriving its strength from its luminous simplicity.

At its heart was the Gaia concept--the view of the living Earth as a single, self-organizing, and interdependent system embracing humanity and the rest of nature alike. It was symbolized by the famous NASA photo of the shimmering blue-and-white living Earth, which started to appear on flags, posters, and decals all over the world, as the movement grew. The Gaia concept was also embodied in the now-famous quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, which became the central slogan of the movement:

"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

The Gaia Movement differed from the earlier Environmental Movement in that its emphasis was not on protest or on calls for regulation per se, but rather, on social transformation from the ground up; not on prescriptions for policy, but on personal and community empowerment. It focused its efforts on the very life-blood of Glomart--the Money System--by encouraging its followers to assume responsibility for the social and ecological consequences of the money they earned, spent, and invested. This was accomplished through the "Quiet Revolution"--a nonviolent grassroots campaign based on three themes: Good Buy, Good Work, and Good Will.

GOOD BUY: The first theme, a deliberate pun, emphasized the fact that spending money is a political act--that every dollar people spend is a "vote" for the processes of manufacture and distribution by which the product came into the consumer's hands, and for the effects of that purchase on the community. Prior to this, most people believed (as Glomart-style economics insisted) that personal short- term self-interest was the only relevant criterion for spending money. But when people began to deliberately and mindfully cultivate an "ecological self" under the influence of Gaian theory, they became more willing to link their own self-interest with the larger interests of their community and the shimmering blue planet, whose iconography dominated the movement. And so, in increasing numbers, they said "Good Buy" to Glomart, choosing instead to spend their money on locally produced, ecologically responsible merchandise and services whenever possible. As a consequence, local cooperatives and local economic diversity flourished, while the megamalls and vast parking lots closed down, disintegrated, or were transformed into low-cost housing cooperatives and vegetable gardens for the poor.

GOOD WORK: This theme took longer to implement, but cut even deeper, by encouraging people to re-examine the concept of "work", upon which Glomart relied for its employees. Gaians drew a clear distinction between "Slavery"--working for others' vested interests, whether as a sales clerk or as a corporate attorney--and "Work" or working with people on tasks that serve the best interests of the community and the planet. In Gaian theory, Good Work consisted of learning, teaching, healing, and creating. At first, the doctrine of "Good Work" appealed only to those who were well-educated and affluent enough to make a go of self-employment, community- building, and cooperative enterprise. But then, as they created new opportunities for the "working poor" in these cooperatives, the working poor began--in droves--to abandon their dead-end jobs in the factories and malls, and join cooperatives instead, where they had more respect and greater outlets for their creativity. As more people began to consciously distinguish between "good work" and "slavery", Glomart found it harder and harder to attract even the most talented people, who chose instead to form cooperative enterprises, and to work--not just for a fat paycheck--but rather in service to their larger, expanded "self"--their community and the planet.

GOOD WILL--This theme formed the inner core of the Gaia Movement, based on the luminous examples of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Gaians drew no distinction between means and ends; therefore (among other reasons) they completely eschewed violence, and sought to teach by example. They posed no enemies, claiming instead that even the CEOs of Glomart and their Republican servants in Congress were Gaians as well--breathing the same air and dependent upon the same ecosystem--who needed only to wake up to their own higher self-interest in serving life, rather than the abstraction called "money."

Gaians cultivated good will by practicing mindfulness and compassion, following the teachings and example of great teachers like the Dalai Lama and the venerated Vietnamese buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh (whom many likewise regard as a founder of the Gaia Movement). They did not try to "convert" people; rather, they sought to serve them--to share their wealth and time, and to heal them emotionally by teaching them how to restore equanimity by following their breath, and then, for those who were receptive to it, to impart the Five Precepts which originated in Buddhism, but are the foundation of every other system of ethics as well: Reverence for All Life (Nonviolence); Generosity and Loving Kindness; Sexual Responsibility; Mindful Speaking; and Mindful Consumption.

As a consequence of the Gaians' quiet and unobtrusive dedication, the Gaia Movement spread far and wide--in neighborhoods, in schools and churches, and over the Internet--long before the Glomart-dominated mass media even took notice of it. By the time they caught on, it was too late to stop it, and--quick to jump on any bandwagon where money is to be made--they attempted to co-opt it by marketing Gaian Flags, Quiet Revolution Posters, and Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, and MLK posters. But the Gaians went their quiet and incorruptible way, buying only those flags and posters that were printed on low-impact unbleached cotton or recycled paper. The Gaia movement was here to stay.

And so today, while the healing of the planet has a long way to go, we are off to a good start. Gaianity--the identification of self with the sacred web of all life--was such an obvious psychological improvement over the grasping and alienated mentality of Glomart consumerism that the Glomart system had no choice but to adapt to it, in order to survive: to decentralize ownership, and to re-invest money into community development and ecological healing. As a consequence, people no longer even use the word "environment" since they no longer think of Gaia--of the natural world--as something outside of themselves. Instead, ecology and systemic thinking have become the core curriculum in every school and college in the world, poverty is decreasing, and we are well on the way to a diverse, healthy, and sustainable planet.

A Gaian Future--or No Future

I just finished reading the latest book by the venerable Harvard biologist, Edward O. Wilson, entitled (somewhat presumptuously) The Meaning of Human Existence.  Wilson, who does not shy away from controversy, is unapologetically biocentric in his outlook, insisting that both the potential and the constraints of human nature are accidental products of our biological heritage as a branch of large primates who stumbled onto language and symbolic thinking, which coevolved with a larger cranial capacity to allow such distinctively human traits as complex socialization and self-consciousness.

The constraints he mentioned are, above all, tribalism--the strong inclination to identify with a group, and to treat all outside the group as potentially hostile outsiders--as it combines with religion, by which he means, above all, religious fundamentalist ideologies that serve to rationalize a group's sense of superiority by viewing themselves as the Chosen People of God, and to suppress critical thinking that challenges their ideological orthodoxies.  Wilson has a thinly disguised contempt for all forms of tribalism, nationalism, and fundamentalism, but sadly sees them as "cultural parasites"--an endemic bad habit of human nature based on our socialization.  And I agree entirely with his judgment on this.

The potential, of course, is the capacity of humans, especially those who are scientifically literate, to transcend such tribal ideologies and (what Blake called) "mind-forged manacles" of religious or nationalistic orthodoxy, in order to recognize and celebrate both our common humanity and our total dependence on the health and resilience of the biosphere that sustains us at all. This potential, which blossomed during the Scientific Revolution and the European Enlightenment in the West, and in the rise of Buddhism in the Far East, is alone what makes a Gaian future possible. But only if we can find ways to propagate it so that it does not threaten people's cultural, religious, or nationalistic tribal loyalties, causing a murderous backlash of hateful fundamentalism.  Tall order!

So what, then, do we mean by a Gaian Future?  I'll begin with what it is not. It is NOT a world in which a single ideology triumphs, so that we all happily abandon all our prior identifications and call ourselves "Gaians" while singing "Kumbaya" around a solar-powered campfire. To be sure, I would not mind this a bit, just as a committed Muslim ideologue dreams of an entire planet subjugated to the Will of Allah, living under Sharia law, or a committed Christian Fundamentalist sees everyone on the planet kneeling down to Jesus and the Absolute Truth of the Bible.  But it ain't gonna happen for me, any more than for them. Tribalism, as Wilson observes, is too deeply rooted in human nature to allow for any such global utopian fantasy.

Rather, I see a Gaian future as one in which everyone is entitled to his or her own religious or political belief system and the communities that share it--but through systematic efforts at universal education in science and the humanities, everyone cultivates and shares a common understanding of what is real and what is not.

And what is real is, above all, the following understandings:

1. That we, as humans, are a part of, not apart from, the biological world (Gaia) that sustains us.
2. That all living organisms and communities, ourselves included, are driven by the urge to eat, survive, and reproduce.
3. That we all, therefore, depend for our survival on three basic, asymptotic values: health (internal homeostasis); competence (ability to compete, within and between communities); and resilience (ability to adapt to unpredictable changes in our shared environment, both biological and cultural).
4. That "we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality," in which "whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." (MLK) 
5. That we are therefore ethically obligated, by both scientific understanding and the shared wisdom traditions of all religions, to "take care of everyone, and abandon no one" and to "take care of everything, and abandon nothing."(Lao Tzu)  In other words, to constantly cultivate and practice tolerance, compassion, and understanding for others, including both other cultures and other beings, with whom we share this unique living planet. To work together, whenever possible, to take care of our common home--our land, air, water, and biota--and restore it to health and resilience, for the benefit of all future generations.

That's it.  In every other respect, the communities, cultures, and tribes of the planet are free to believe, to be and to do whatever they wish.  This is the Gaian Future, to which I pledge myself, right to my dying breath. 

Obama's Buddha

I just saw an interesting clip from the Lion's Roar, a Buddhist E-Zine, about Obama's Buddha, which I highly recommend. Apparently, President Obama has a variety of keepsakes--gifts from admirers--that he carries in his pockets as talismans, to remind him of his larger purpose of serving humanity. Among these are a rosary from Pope Francis and a tiny Buddha, a gift from a monk.

The interview gives us a refreshing insight into the essential decency and warmth of President Obama as a person, and I have no doubt that he is sincere in sharing this private side of himself with the young woman who is interviewing him.

Still, I have many good friends who are bitterly disappointed with, and even hostile to the President, for very good reasons, and in many instances I share their disappointment, though not their hostility. My friends complain, rightly, that Obama has continued, and even expanded, the horrific Bush-Cheney policies in the Middle East, especially the ghastly Drone program that is murdering countless innocent people throughout that desperate region in a vain and heartless effort to snuff out suspected "terrorists." And he is enthusiastically pushing the Trans Pacific Partnership, which is essentially selling out our democracy to Glomart, giving a global corporate tribunal veto power over any and all legislation or policies to protect the public interest in environmental protection and labor laws--that he is, in effect, nothing but a finger puppet on the claws of the Glomart Godzilla (as my acquaintance Aditi Gowry from the U. of Texas at Austin described the role of corporate executives during a conference I attended).

All this may be true, yet it is also true, as E.O. Wilson has noted, that good people do bad things, simply because of the inherent constraints of the position they are in and the culture whose interests they uphold. (His own example of this, from growing up in Alabama, were the decent, solid folk he knew who nevertheless were staunch upholders and defenders of the blatantly racist social order in which they all lived).

My guess is that President Obama's power is largely illusory; he is constrained on all sides, but above all, I suspect he is terrified of the Imperial Secret Government--i.e. the Military Industrial Complex, the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, FBI, and corporate elite who actually run things behind the scene--who are heavily invested in the status quo of global domination, rampant consumerism, fossils fuels, the endless wars and expansion of military power and surveillance throughout the world--the same massive criminal syndicate that doubtless staged the 9/11 fraud and offed both John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. when they threatened their power.  President Obama knows well, I'm afraid, that if he tried to challenge or undercut this monster regime, they would not only kill him, but would destroy his family as well, and would wreak untold harm everywhere by backing the ascent to power of another poisonous monster like Cheney.  And so he has no choice, from his own perspective, but to enable them, while doing good within the severely limited domain of influence he actually has (e.g. the Affordable Care Act, which was the best that the combined Glomart powers of the Insurance Industry and Big Pharma would allow him).

But underneath it all, I am convinced that he is still a good, decent, gentle, and compassionate man. May that tiny Buddha in his pocket (and his friend--Pope Francis's Rosary) continue to whisper to him...

Imagine

A new year has begun, and as is often the case this chilly time of year, I am a bit despondent. Our future prospects on this planet give us little reason for hope--the steady, meteoric rise of a vulgar, shameless, self-obsessed lout like Donald Trump, who now seems on an unstoppable path to the Republican nomination for the presidency (not that any of his rivals, though marginally more civilized in their demeanor, are any better); accelerating climate disruptions, seemingly past the tipping point where they are irreversible; the worldwide proliferation of psychotic religious terrorist movements like ISIS on one hand, and lone psychopaths living out their sick fantasies by mass murder in public places on the other; the growing swarm of refugees worldwide from war-torn lands and other places rendered uninhabitable by droughts and floods, or by poverty and violent, genocidal tyranny--the list goes on. Our global commercial/industrial civilization (Glomart) is obviously drawing toward its inevitable demise--an incremental descent into chaos, violence, despair, starvation, and death that is simultaneously ecological, social, political, and economic. Not much to hope for.

Still, I dream. Of what? you ask. Let us (once again) imagine...

Imagine a seed group or Sangha--a Dharma Gaia Circle, that meets periodically--once a week, say--with the specific purpose of integrating vertical (body-mind-spirit) and horizontal (self-community-planet) healing, through the cultivation, in diverse forms, of three essential disciplines: Tonglen, Satyagraha, and Permaculture. The circle would be rooted in Buddhist practice, but open to anyone of any culture or faith tradition, and its meetings would follow this protocol:

1. Begin with "checking in"--self-introductions and/or brief updates on our lives and practice.
2. The Facilitator then asks a participant to offer an opening benediction in his/her own faith tradition--or to read a poem from Earth Prayers or a similar Gaian anthology.
3. This is followed by a period of formal meditation practice, beginning with a guided meditation using the 10 Breath Dharma Gaia sequence: Breathe, Observe Let Go; Be Well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch; Learn, Teach, Heal, Create. (This is the core practice that constitutes a Dharma Gaia Circle).
4. Following a period of silent meditation, the Facilitator passes around a Talking Stick, allowing each participant to share any insights that have arisen from his or her meditation session--or to simply pass the stick on. On the second go-around, participants could optionally respond, mindfully and skillfully, to anything that others may have shared about their practice.
5. Participants could then (either) watch a Dharma Talk, or discuss a portion of a book they have decided to read together, or both. 
6. Thereafter, participants could share healthy snacks and socialize.
7. In addition to the above meetings, participants would periodically meet for Gaia Walks, which are a hybrid of formal walking meditation and a casual hike, in some refreshing locale, whether urban or rural. The rules for a Gaia Walk are as follows: (1) Breathe mindfully while walking, coordinating breath with walk, but walking naturally, and deeply observing the life that is all around; (2) Keep conversation to an absolute minimum, only to draw others' attention to something worth seeing, right then and there (e.g. a blue heron). (3) Walk in a normal, casual manner, smiling and making eye contact with passersby, but minimizing interaction. The idea is that no one outside the group should be able to guess that you are doing walking meditation; if you should meet someone you know, who has something to talk about, feel free to withdraw and chat if necessary.  The goal of Gaia Walking is to practice integrating mindfulness with our day-to-day existence in the world. But it is also simply to enjoy the sacred beauty and diversity of a living planet.

Now imagine that Dharma Gaia Circles catch on, budding off, and proliferating, staying in touch via the Internet. Soon people everywhere are meditating, reading good Gaian books,  taking Gaia walks, and practicing Tonglen, Satyagraha, and Permaculture in Dharma Gaia Practice Centers that form the nucleus of urban ecovillages and permacultural communities, while providing growing ranks of peaceful activists, speaking truth to power, organizing nonviolent noncooperation with evil in all forms, and cultivating local self-reliance and withdrawal of their financial support for Glomart.

Imagine, that is, the Spontaneous Remission of the Cancer of the Earth, starting right here, right now!

May it only be so...

Looking into the Vortex

Dahr Jamail, a freelance investigative journalist with Truthout, is extraordinary in his ability to look unblinkingly into the vortex, reporting back with relentless vividness and moral clarity on global realities that are so horrifying that they would send most of us into a catatonic fit of grief and despair, burying our heads in our pillows.

First he did us the inestimable service of reporting on the ground in Iraq during the Bush/Cheney invasion and occupation, as an "unembedded journalist" who, fluent in Arabic, was able to interview ordinary Iraqis and counter the pernicious lies and hype of the corporate media with soul-scorching accounts of the ghastly suffering endured by the citizens of that doomed and desperate land, racked with invasion, saturation bombing, collapse of infrastructure, insurgency, civil war, chronic mass murder/suicides, and destitution.

Since then he has turned his attention to periodic reports on the rapidly deteriorating state of the planet as a whole, due to what he properly terms "ACD" or Anthropogenic Climate Disruption--a more accurate name to replace the Bush regime's deceptive, self-serving, and dismissive coinage "Climate Change."  Each report makes the previous report look tame by comparison, and gives us a thorough, well-documented, and depressing image of a planet in freefall ecological collapse. His latest article in Truthout is not for the fainthearted--it could ruin your day, for it paints a global picture of ecological collapse so bleak and hopeless that it tempts us to throw up our hands and prepare for the worst

All of which poses a rather sobering question: When there is no hope, and the natural world--Gaia, as we have always known it--is going extinct , due to the greed, ignorance, and denial of humanity (and of large corporations in particular), what's left?

The theistic response is prayer for salvation, but that does not really work for me. The Gesthemane prayer was, perhaps, more apt: "Lord, please take this cup from me--not as I will, but as Thou wilt..."
But even that begs the question posed by Job: What kind of God would be so cruel as to create human self-awareness, only to have it behold its own inexorable self-destruction due to greed and short-sightedness?

I prefer not to speculate about such things. The Buddha, when asked whether there was a God, or what the origins and destiny of humanity were, remained silent.  We don't know and can't know such things, so what is the point in talking about it?

It is better, he said, to focus on the essential problem we all face, which is suffering--that is, wishing things were other than they are. We are of the nature to get sick, grow old, and die. So are our civilizations (for ours here in the good old USA is very sick indeed). And so is Gaia--particularly, that temporary interglacial phase of Gaia that has made possible the evolution of humans and civilization. Impermanence, as the Buddha taught, is absolute and universal.  Gaia may well survive us, albeit at a higher set point with a wholly different suite of flora and fauna, perhaps only microbial as it was prior to the Cambrian period.  Or our carbon and methane spike at this juncture could trigger a runaway feedback loop that will fry Gaia herself, transforming our planet into a lifeless, scalding wasteland like Venus. Perhaps the fragile and beautiful miracle of life itself is just a passing phase of planetary evolution.

In which case--let us breathe, observe, and let go--grounding ourselves once again in the present moment, cultivating compassion with Tonglen practice--and then get to work again, learning, teaching, healing, and creating, for as long as the Earth shall live...

Three Essential Disciplines

Let us begin with the Gaian Categorical Imperative:

In everything we do, let us strive

To promote the Health, Competence, and Resilience

Of Ourselves, our Communities, and our Planet

Simultaneously.

If our collective goal as conscious Gaians--spontaneous remission of the Cancer of the Earth from the ground up--is to be realized, we must master and disseminate three essential disciplines that pertain respectively, to promoting the health, competence, and resilience of ourselves, our communities, and our planet. These three disciplines are Tonglen, Satyagraha, and Permaculture. These concepts come, respectively, from Tibetan, Hindu, and Euro-Australian roots. Let us consider each in turn.

Tonglen is an advanced and potent Tibetan meditation practice that can nevertheless be practiced by anyone who ventures to undertake it seriously and wholeheartedly. It can therefore be taught, and adapted, to anyone, from any religious or spiritual background. It begins, of course, with the basics of meditation practice: breathing, observing, and letting go, in order to establish mindfulness, equanimity, and an open, compassionate heart.  These basic disciplines are a prerequisite for Tonglen practice.

The practice itself can be explained quite simply. After first reaching meditative stability (through breathing, observing, and letting go), you "flash Bodhichitta" as Pema Chodron puts it--that is, you propagate a momentary but authentic inner wave of total compassion for all living beings (including yourself). The Dalai Lama recently shared a wonderful mantra for flashing Bodhichitta:

"As you breathe in, cherish yourself.

As you breathe out, cherish all beings."

With practice, this can happen quite naturally, without being forced. When it happens, you find yourself smiling gently like a Buddha--without trying.  Then you settle in to the actual practice:

Breathing in, you visualize and draw upon yourself pain and suffering--first your own, then that of others.

Breathing out, you connect with the Sacred in your heart (however you may formulate or imagine it) and breathe out authentic, selfless love and healing--again, first to yourself and then to others.

That's it in a nutshell. And you can do this anywhere, for anyone, at any time--not just on the meditation cushion. A simple metaphor for this practice might be a spark plug: as you breathe in oxygen, you "compress" your own and others suffering into a flammable mixture--then with a divine spark, it explodes--and is transformed-- not only into CO2, but also into the pure, radiant energy of compassion.

As Pema further explains, as you practice, you make an effort to steadily widening your circle of compassion, as if it were a spiral. That is, you begin by taking in your own personal suffering, and send out healing energy to yourself. Then you expand this process to those closest to you--your spouse, your children, your closest relatives and friends. Then, you go even further, visualizing and imaginatively embracing and healing everyone you know, then everyone on the planet, and finally, all living beings, here and throughout the universe--you discover that your capacity for total love and healing is infinite.

Then comes the difficult part. You then focus on those you don't like--whether an irritating coworker or neighbor or just a rude driver who cut in front of you. And on the in-breath, you visualize, and use your imagination to empathize with, the inner suffering of that person that causes him or her to be such a pain in the neck. You take that all in, and breathe out sincere healing energy to that person, with the ardent wish or prayer that this person be healed of the inner pain that causes him or her to bring pain or annoyance to others.  You continue to widen the circle of healing until you can even do this sincerely for the most evil, hateful people you can imagine--for me, that would even include the likes of Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh; for others, it might be a thug or bully who has victimized them, or a terrorist--or whoever.  As I said, this is not easy to do sincerely; it takes inner work to acknowledge and overcome our deeply ingrained resentments and hatreds, in order to genuinely love our enemies and bless them who curse and despise us. But it can be done. (Tibetan monks, while visiting Hampton every year, even instruct us to practice Tonglen for the Chinese invaders who occupied and destroyed their nation and culture and who continue to murder and oppress their citizens!)

At this point, many people ask a perfectly sound, skeptical question: Will this breathing in of others pain and breathing out of sincere love and healing to them actually make any difference to them? Will they feel it telepathically, somehow, and experience relief from their suffering, or is this idle magical thinking? To be honest, I have no idea if it has any effect at all on others. Tibetans have many stories claiming that it does, but stories are…well, stories. 

But more fundamentally, it does not matter. The important effect of Tonglen is not on others who are the beneficiaries (real or imagined) of your outflow of love and healing energy--it is on you. I have found through my experience that after a sincere Tonglen practice, I feel more open, more patient, and more compassionate toward everyone I meet. And whether they feel anything at all, this has the effect of making me a more benign presence in the world, which then has a subtle ripple effect on everyone else, in keeping with Dr. King's Dharmic insight that "whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

So it does not matter if Tonglen "works" to alleviate other suffering or not. If it works for you, it works for everyone else indirectly. And the beauty of this practice is that it simply involves using your own inevitable breath as a vehicle to train your imagination, and hence your disposition, to see beyond yourself, to empathize with others, and thus, as George Harrison once sang, "the time will come when you see we're all One and life flows on within you and without you."

So while Tonglen practice strengthens the inner health, competence, and resilience of ourselves by opening our hearts to others and to all of life, how does it link up to the other two essential disciplines, Satyagraha and Permaculture?

Satyagraha is Mahatma Gandhi's luminous doctrine of mindfulness and compassion as an instrument of political liberation and regeneration, as adopted and adapted by later Gaian Bodhisattvas, such as King, Mandela, Wangari Maathai, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, Vandana Shiva, and Aung San Soo Kyi. It consists fundamentally of three basic values, as Gandhi articulated: Ahimsa or resolutely nonviolent noncooperation with evil; Satya, or the willingness to speak truth to power, without malice and without fear; and Swaraj, or self-rule, a broad concept which embraces both personal self-discipline and self-reliance, not only of ourselves, but also of our communities, as symbolized by Gandhi's spinning wheel, which was both a symbol of local economic empowerment and self-sufficiency and of the Wheel of Dharma.

In his Letter from Birmingham Jail,  Dr. King breaks down a Satyagraha campaign into four distinct steps: Investigation to ascertain if an injustice exists; Negotiation with those responsible to remediate the injustice; Self-Purification as preparation, if negotiation fails; and finally, Direct Action. The Third step--self-purification--is essential, for without it, any nonviolent direct action campaign will quickly degenerate into violence and repression. Dr. King relied on the network of black churches throughout the South to train those who were undertaking direct action in self-purification within their own religious tradition, through role-playing, prayer, and other practices--and the results were spectacular, as Civil Rights demonstrators discovered, through these practices, the inner strength and resilience to maintain their dignity in the face of vicious and hateful provocation.

I would suggest, therefore, that Tonglen practice could be a marvelous fast-track training process for anyone involved in a nonviolent campaign to stop logging, strip-mining, or any other assaults upon Gaia. It can even be adapted, quite easily, to Christians--All they need to do is, on the In-breath, envision Jesus on the Cross, taking on himself the sins of the world, and on the Out-breath, envision the resurrected Jesus, sending out healing and redemption to the whole world.  I am quite confident that Tonglen can be adapted to other religious traditions as well, with similar exercises of visualization pertaining to the sacred avatars or scriptural teachings of their tradition.

                

While organized and disciplined Satyagraha is an essential practice for effectively resisting the Glomart juggernaut that is devouring our planet, we also need to be engaged in building a Gaian future, a post-carbon, post-Glomart future from the ground up--restoring the health, competence, and resilience of our communities, our ecosystems, and our biosphere. And for this, the essential discipline is Permaculture, the ecological design system and principles first devised by Australian visionary Bill Mollison and his protegee, David Holmgren, which has since gained adherents and practitioners around the world.  Permaculture is built around three core ethical principles--planet care, people care, and fair share--which are then elaborated into twelve design principles, as elaborated by Holmgren in his superb book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability:

1.       Observe and Interact

2.       Catch and Store Energy

3.       Obtain a Yield

4.       Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback

5.       Use and Value Renewable Resources

6.       Produce No Waste

7.       Design from Patterns to Details

8.       Integrate Rather than Segregate

9.       Use Small and Slow Solutions

10.   Use and Value Diversity

11.   Use Edges and Value the Marginal

12.   Creatively Use and Respond to Change.

These Permaculture design principles, then, may be seen as an elaboration of the third principle of Satyagraha that Gandhi set forth--Swaraj or self-reliance.  Similarly, the practice of meditation and Tonglen in particular may be seen as a way of cultivating the first Satyagraha principle: Ahimsa--total nonviolence, rooted in authentic compassion, even for our enemies. Both disciplines--Tonglen as an "inner" discipline and Permaculture as an "outer" discipline--likewise nourish (and are nourished by) Satya, or seeing, speaking, and practicing Truth. As such, all three essential disciplines--Tonglen, Satyagraha, and Permaculture--are deeply interwoven.  If they are sincerely practiced and skillfully disseminated, they can be a powerful tool for spontaneous remission--for restoring the health, competence, and resilience of ourselves, our communities, and our planet.

"And no religion too..."

The most controversial line by far in John Lennon's world-famous anthem "Imagine"  is his line "and no religion too"--due to the widely perceived implication that in the ideal world he is asking us to share in imagining with him, religion would have no place at all. Needless to say, most devout Christians, Jews, and Muslims--and even many Hindus and Buddhists--take umbrage at this notion--and if Lennon actually meant that people would be banned from practicing their religion or assembling to worship with their fellow believers, as in some repressive dystopia like North Korea--I would take umbrage as well. But I don't think this is what he meant.

If we look at the line in its broader context, it forms the second half of a line, and its referent is thus, arguably, ruled by the syntactical constraints of the first half:

"Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion [to kill or die for] too."

This makes sense in the even larger syntactical context, where the word "nothing" refers to the idea of "countries" in his opening couplet: "Imagine there's no countries." And just as, in actuality, there are both countries and religions in the world, the predicate infinitive "to kill or die for" becomes the essence of Lennon's message here--that neither nationalities nor religions should be anything for us "to kill or die for."

And this view finds confirmation, remarkably, in the latest work of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a book provocatively entitled Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World.  Here he argues that no single religion or wisdom tradition all by itself can any longer provide the ethical and spiritual guidance we need to become truly adaptive global citizens in a deeply interconnected world; we must all therefore rise above any form of parochialism and embrace religious and cultural pluralism if we are to survive. And this entails embracing and promulgating an ethical code based on universal compassion for all life--a code that, in effect, does away entirely with any notion that "believers" or "patriots" have the obligation "to kill or die for" their own national or religious identity.

The book itself delves into both the implications of this trans-religious perspective and the "key inner values" that arise from it--values like patience, contentment, self-discipline, charitable giving and philanthropy, and joy in giving. In articulating these values, he draws quite naturally on the wisdom teachings of diverse religious traditions throughout the world, to illustrate the underlying common themes of these faith traditions. So this religion-transcending ethical perspective is in fact compatible with all authentic faith traditions--it is, in fact, the litmus test of their authenticity. This would exclude all forms of toxic "my way or no way" fundamentalism and zealotry, whether Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or any other cult--including "secular" cults like extreme nationalism--all those that call upon their believers to kill or die.

I am delighted that the Dalai Lama, late in life, has risen to this new and noble plateau of global spiritual leadership, where he is no longer just the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, but a spiritual leader for all of us Gaians, whether we belong to a religion or not--an exalted role shared only by the likes of Pope Francis or Archbishop Desmond Tutu. And for all the depth and resonance of his ideas, they all boil down to an astoundingly simple mantra he recently shared:

This simple practice can be taught to anyone, anywhere, of any faith, without offense. Yet it is all-inclusive--it is all we really need: the perfect synthesis of Vertical and Horizontal Healing.

Imagine!