[Ecodharma]: ACTIVE HOPE introduction (part one)

[Kokuu]

Hello Ecosattvas, and welcome to the start of our group read along of Joanna Macy’s book Active Hope.

This week we begin with the first part of the introduction (p1-5). There is a lot of material in the first twelve pages so I decided to split it over two weeks.

In this part of the book, Joanna talks about the increasing risk and prevalence of extreme weather events being the canary in the coal mine for global warming. She also talks about the rise in population size and global inequality even while $2tn a year is spent on warfare.
Joanna distinguishes between hope as an aspect of optimism, and hope as our vision of what we would like to see in the future, and firmly places active hope in the latter camp, seeing it as a practice to work towards our vision, however slowly.

She talks about our building our own capacity to generate our hope and vision, building a sense of purpose which can easily become lost when we are faced with such an overwhelming situation.

Questions

1. How do you think it is possible to ignore the canary in the coal mine warnings? What can we do about people who do ignore these?

2. Do you have an innate feeling that things should get better with time? Has your Buddhist practiced influenced this feeling?

3. How do you feel about facing the current realities facing both our planet and the humans and animals who inhabit it? Does your practice of sitting enable you to face things more than you might otherwise be able to?

4. How do you see Active Hope? Can you relate our positive or negative actions, however small, to karma? How do you work with feelings of hopelessness, if you get them, or encounter them in others?


Feel free also, to mention anything talked about that is not included in the questions. Even after just reading the first five pages, I am really excited for this book!

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Naiko]

Thank you for starting off for us, Kokuu. I think this is the perfect follow up to Loy’s book.

1. How do you think it is possible to ignore the canary in the coal mine warnings? What can we do about people who do ignore these?

I’d say it’s all too easy based upon my ability to ignore things in my life that provoke anxiety but aren’t immediately pressing. I think a great many don’t feel threatened yet or that these aren’t their problems to solve. They don’t see family and friends paying attention either. Others don’t have the luxury; they are just trying to survive. What do we do? We keep talking, we keep pushing for change, hopefully in ways that make it personal for them.

2. Do you have an innate feeling that things should get better with time? Has your Buddhist practiced influenced this feeling?

That’s a very human coping mechanism and I fall in and out of it. Practice does help loosen that grip on expectations. (Practicing with illness is pretty grounding too.)

3. How do you feel about facing the current realities facing both our planet and the humans and animals who inhabit it? Does your practice of sitting enable you to face things more than you might otherwise be able to?

Sad, tired, unequal to the task, not sure where to focus my efforts, but willing. Sitting is somehow both a safe container and wide open. It is practice facing things.

4. How do you see Active Hope? Can you relate our positive or negative actions, however small, to karma? How do you work with feelings of hopelessness, if you get them, or encounter them in others?

I really like the authors’ definition of Active Hope as a practice, as choice. I truthfully don’t think about karma too much except to think of it as a groove, habit, or wagon tracks. Positive actions make it more likely that I’ll follow that track and continue to act positively. When I feel hopeless and overwhelmed I remember that feelings are temporary. I also recall an article I read in Buddhist magazine advising to affirm the feelings as real, but ask if they’re true. And really, do I know? Do I know what’s going to happen? No. If hope is the desire for what we’d like to see happen, how can there ever be hopelessness?

Gassho,
Naiko
st

[Kokuu]

Sitting is somehow both a safe container and wide open

I love that! What a beautiful summation of sitting practice!

Thank you getting us going on the discussion, Naiko.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Tai Do]

Thank you, Kokuu, for starting the discussions!

1. How do you think it is possible to ignore the canary in the coal mine warnings? What can we do about people who do ignore these?

Like Naiko said, many people don't feel pressure over the ecological problems of our time. In my experience it has to dowith a lot of factors, all of which can be related to the Buddhist three poisons of greed, anger and ignorance. Many people, when balancing their gains with everybody else's (including their future selves) loses, give preference to gain and satisfaction of unrestricted desires. This is especially true on some big business in developing countries (mine obviously included), where the legislation and politics are less rigorous with environmental degradation. The recent past made clear for me also how anger with political rivals play a not small role in making people ignore the problems Earth is facing because of humanity's modern way of life; as many conservative and far-right people cease to support sustainability because it is linked with left-winged political leanings. But the big issue is really ignorance. There are layers and layers of ignorance about environmental issues (many of which self-imposed ignorance). People of religious conservative backgrounds (at least many that I know) have difficulty seen our lives as part of the Big Flow of the Universe and insist to see their own lives and their own salvation (and of those close to them) as what matters. Other difficulty I see is the idea that we live in a kind of "End of Times" period, be it for religious or simply pessimistic views of our future, so that there is no point in trying to change the world. As the book puts it, hopelessness is perhaps the main issue here.

Again, I agree with Naiko:

We keep talking, we keep pushing for change, hopefully in ways that make it personal for them.

How to make it personal to them? It depends on the person and their background, I think.

2. Do you have an innate feeling that things should get better with time? Has your Buddhist practiced influenced this feeling?

3. How do you feel about facing the current realities facing both our planet and the humans and animals who inhabit it? Does your practice of sitting enable you to face things more than you might otherwise be able to?

I myself tend to be pessimistic about our future; and it is one of the main reasons I'm looking forward to discuss the book with you all. Sometimes I think things can get better, but I tend to view it more as a calm after a big and very long storm we will face as sentient beings sharing this world. Many times I feel guilty of not doing anything more than I do (people left everything behind and risk their lives to make the world better while I just live my life in the comfort of my job and house! - how can I not feel guilty?).

Practice has helped me a lot to act without expecting results (or at least big results). To sit with no goals in mind, nothing to attain, nothing to repress or regurgitate... the clear blue sky on top of the clouds.

4. How do you see Active Hope? Can you relate our positive or negative actions, however small, to karma? How do you work with feelings of hopelessness, if you get them, or encounter them in others?

I see active hope as a more healthy and balanced approach to the issue of hopelessness than I was using until now. I see karma as the effect of the actions we do (causes); so our current environmental issues are, in this perspective, our collective karma, so to speak. If individual unskilful and unthought actions brought us to this mess, Active Hope points out to collective skilful and weel-thought actions as the focus of our practice.

As Naiko said, what I can do about the feelings of hopelessness is to acknowledge that I have no divine prescience to know what the future will bring. Focusing on hope as a desire for a better world means that hopelessness can have no hold on us.


Gassho,
Mateus
satlah

[Tairin]

Thank you Kokuu and everyone.

1. How do you think it is possible to ignore the canary in the coal mine warnings? What can we do about people who do ignore these?

I can imagine all sorts of reasons from willfully choosing to ignore the warnings to being uninformed to being preoccupied with just basics (paying rent or for food). I think it is just going to take persistent effort via the news or other channels. Some people will never be reached at all.

2. Do you have an innate feeling that things should get better with time? Has your Buddhist practiced influenced this feeling?

It depends on what “better” means here. I have no doubt that the world will recover and life will go on. I am not so sure we’ll carry on with it though and if we do it will be in a significantly diminished capacity.

Although what I wrote doesn’t sound very positive it actually is. Though my practice I have learned to be better accepting of the impermanence of all things. Although it may sound negative to say that the world as we know it will be gone but we know from past events that it will be replaced with something else. We are just waves on the ocean…. Impermanent yet never apart.

3. How do you feel about facing the current realities facing both our planet and the humans and animals who inhabit it? Does your practice of sitting enable you to face things more than you might otherwise be able to?

Same answers as above.

4. How do you see Active Hope? Can you relate our positive or negative actions, however small, to karma? How do you work with feelings of hopelessness, if you get them, or encounter them in others

I am hoping to gain a more positive perspective from “Active Hope”. The news cycle focuses on the negative. I want to focus on providing positive energy. I don’t want to be all doom and gloom. For the sake of my son and all life I want to work towards a positive end or at least try.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Heiso]

1. How do you think it is possible to ignore the canary in the coal mine warnings? What can we do about people who do ignore these?

I think it's pretty easy for lots of us to ignore the warnings, as other have already said. So much of the media and its backers have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo (and profit margins) that is easy for us to fall for the messages they put out about there being nothing to worry about or nothing we can do. It's also much easier to ignore if you're not being directly impacted in a catastrophic way but then we've seen how in the pandemic with people dying all around us, people were still able to convince themselves there was nothing to worry about. We have an amazing capacity for self deception.

2. Do you have an innate feeling that things should get better with time? Has your Buddhist practiced influenced this feeling?

I think deep down I still have a feeling things will improve, part of this is possibly down to the younger generation seemingly much more engaged but the I suppose will it be too late? I take Tairin's point about the future and it could mean that 'better' means without us and in that sense maybe my Buddhist practice has influenced me.


3. How do you feel about facing the current realities facing both our planet and the humans and animals who inhabit it? Does your practice of sitting enable you to face things more than you might otherwise be able to?

I think my practice helps in not attaching and dwelling on the negative thoughts, and my vows help remind me to be a part in trying to make things better.

4. How do you see Active Hope? Can you relate our positive or negative actions, however small, to karma? How do you work with feelings of hopelessness, if you get them, or encounter them in others.

Like Naiko, I don't really think of karma that much on a daily basis but there sometimes seems something a bit Sisyphean in this sort of work in the no matter what you do, there's always another climate change denier or environmental disaster to remind you of the work that needs to be done. There's something of the Bodhisattva in this (which might be covered in the book) in that we need to keep going despite the limitless beings that need saving, and as Camus said '...The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.'.

Gassho,

Heiso

StLah

[Kokuu]

as Camus said '...The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.'.

I think that Pema Chodron once wrote about sisyphus too and pointed out that his suffering comes from thinking about the past and future rather than concentrating on the present moment - the feel of his hands against the rock, the steadiness of the earth, the wind on his face etc. Is this any different to being a cleaner in which you clean the floors and then the next day they are dirty again?

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Jundo]

I thought that you would find this graph eye opening ...



Climate Change: NASA Reveals How Earth’s Global Temperatures Stacked Up in 2022

https://scitechdaily.com/climate-change-nasa-reveals-how-earths-global-temperatures-stacked-up-in-2022/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Doshin]

I thought that you would find this graph eye opening ...



Climate Change: NASA Reveals How Earth’s Global Temperatures Stacked Up in 2022

https://scitechdaily.com/climate-change-nasa-reveals-how-earths-global-temperatures-stacked-up-in-2022/

Gassho, J

stlah

Things are changing. Some out there respond to facts like these with some form of the climate always changes. I have had a few say that to me. My response is yes but there were not 8 billion people on the planet. Where I live indigenous people were adversely affected by climate change around 800 years ago. That is what is thought to cause them to pick up and move, not easy today. It is said that a lot of the people trying to cross the border near me are also climate refugees. Those who dismiss climate change with “it happened before” I guess are implying we can keep burning fossil fuels because it doesn’t matter so we can just “party on.”

Doshin
St

[Doshin]

While composing my above comment I thought I might give an insight to my thinking before I give my responses to the readings we are under taking. The consequences of climate change are severe and worthy of every thought we share here. If some of my perspectives seem off centered from climate change I offer that the 6th extinction we are in dominates my thoughts often. Is it linked to climate change? Yes, but many other things have been driving it the last century such as human population growth, loss of habitat (a result of human population growth), environmental toxins, over harvesting of some species, medicine myths etc..

As some of you know my career and volunteer work the past half century has been focused on issues of biodiversity losses from many causes so my mind goes right there. When I give my response as we move forward I will try to distinguish between these crisis.

Maybe I am being over careful by sharing this but it is early and the coffee is doing it’s thing.

Glad to have an opportunity to share and learn from our group. It may not be large but as I said last time others read what we post so don’t be discouraged by limited active participation.

Doshin
St

[Doshin]

1. Why people ignore the Canary singing: Ignorance is bliss. Scientists have been wrong (used by many, often during the pandemic) so why should we believe them. That has been expressed here in the forum in years past. All those impacts are tomorrow, and I will be gone by then. Some just don’t understand what they are hearing, the consequences do not flow as easy to them as others. So, what can we do? I don’t know. Perseverance in educating. I don’t say this with any statistics to back me up but it seems young people are hearing and understanding it more than their parents. Maybe because they know they will deal with the effects and greater hardship. Early in the last century the American Wildlife Conservationist Aldo Leopold said “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” What that has always meant to me is that those who were educated (school and otherwise) about environmental problems see them where others don’t. So that gives me hope that more education will help. I do believe more needs to be said by the media. Interestingly you hear it often on the news now stating that climate change is responsible for the fires and floods that now seem to be norm. However, where is the explanation of the science behind that statement? Where is the explanation of where we are headed and why? Yes, it can be found on Nature Channels or PBS (Public Broadcasting System) but that is not where the majority hang out.

2. Will things get better with time? Maybe if we can accomplish what the first question has us explore. In some things I think it is already too late…the ship has left the harbor and the further out to sea it gets the harder to turn it around. The 1960s were a time of much reflection and attempting change. In my Country (USA) the Civil Rights movement was making progress even amongst great hate and push back. Yesterday we celebrated a National Holiday for Martin Luther King who was a significant reason for the progress we made. Some of the public was also frightened by rivers catching fire, smog so thick visibility was greatly hindered not to forget health (I used to go to southern California in the 1950s and 60s and experienced the smog. I still remember returning there a decade or so ago and realized there were now mountains visible that once were obscured by the smog), species were declining by pesticide use (Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring ) and much more was evident. It seemed a lot of the environmental issues came to a head with the first Earth Day in 1970. I was in college at the time working on an ecological education and began to understand Leopold’s quote above. I was optimistic that my generation would change the world and by this time today we would be looking behind us at a catastrophe averted. My education made me uncomfortably aware (but hopeful) that when my European ancestors arrived in North America in the 1600s the land was flush with great herds of bison and flocks of passenger pigeons that darkened the skies. The same was said of elk, deer, antelope, bears, wolves, Carolina Parakeets and other species. But the engines of greed changed that. Not for food, but pelts, hides, and feathers for commercial use. We brought livestock with us therefore had no tolerance for wolves, lions, jaguars and others that preyed upon them, so their elimination was “necessary.” But modern wildlife management and public outcry changed that. Bison numbers are much greater (nowhere near what they were two hundred years ago), deer are now abundant, at least in the eastern US, wolves are returning but still many resists, but it was too late for the Passenger Pigeon, Ivory-billed woodpecker, Carolina Parakeet and other species. All that to say I was optimistic. But not so much now. Decades of trying to get things to change have hardened me. But I have not lost hope. Sitting may help deal with the stress of it all, I don’t know.

3. As mentioned above I don’t know if my practice helps or not. I don’t know the me without the practice of the past decades. Maybe it has helped relieved some of the pain of all.

4. I don’t think much about Karma and its place in my life. I just try to do the right thing and hope it benefits all. I do not feel hopeless, but I am not as hopeful as I was on that first Earth Day almost 53 years ago. I do not know many that feel hopeless. I know some that say it's too late, so I am just going to live my life and not have kids (and they didn’t). Most of my close friends work/live within the conservation movement and spend each day working for change. You have to hope to do that especially when the wisdom of our interdependent connection with the Earth by many in Congress (in my country) is not evident.

Sorry for so many words but I could have kept going on because so much rattles around inside my head about these issues.

Doshin
st

[Naiko]

Doshin, I greatly appreciate your thoughts on this. Thank you.

Naiko
st

[Tai Do]

Thank you, Doshin,
Your professional experience can really add a lot to our discussion here.
Gassho,
Mateus
Satlah

[Daitetsu]

Thank you for this group read!
I have just finished the Introduction.
About the questions:

1. How do you think it is possible to ignore the canary in the coal mine warnings? What can we do about people who do ignore these?
Acknowledging the facts means acknowledging having contributed to the current situation. Nobody likes to feel guilty.
If the person is open to arguments, we can provide them with more facts. About those people unwilling to listen, nothing can be done IMHO.


2. Do you have an innate feeling that things should get better with time? Has your Buddhist practiced influenced this feeling?
Considering what I read in social media and on the internet, I don't have the impression that things are getting better. While there are some areas where we can see improvements, other crises like wars have a negative contribution.
While I think that technically we can still make it, I fear that things might fail on the political level.


3. How do you feel about facing the current realities facing both our planet and the humans and animals who inhabit it? Does your practice of sitting enable you to face things more than you might otherwise be able to?
Yes, the practice of sitting helps me to approach these subjects.


4. How do you see Active Hope? Can you relate our positive or negative actions, however small, to karma? How do you work with feelings of hopelessness, if you get them, or encounter them in others?
I don't know if karma plays a role here. Sitting helps me countering feelings of hopelessness. Talking with likeminded people helps, too.

Gassho,

Daitetsu


#sat2day

[Meian]

Questions

1. How do you think it is possible to ignore the canary in the coal mine warnings? What can we do about people who do ignore these?

I think it is easy for many people to ignore the canary -- depending on our background, life experiences, whether we ever experienced significant or deep personal loss from the effects of our way of life, industry, the human tendency towards instant gratification, and/or if we don't experience a significant connection to wildlife, animals, plant life, etc. Some people awaken (or start to) after experiencing the power of the decline themselves. I think many of us are shielded by a different mindset -- if it doesn't affect us, it doesn't exist, and the proliferation of false information/propaganda that ignores everything that evidence-based research has tried to warn us about.

However, another issue is that technologies that might offer some slowdown in the progression are not affordable for most people, and for some the "green technologies" are not accessible or feasible. I also live in the USA, and it seems to me that either we don't make any moves at all, or the government lurches forward to update standards or change systems, without adjusting for all populations and those who need more assistance with obtaining the technology, or converting tech to a sustainable form. Insisting that we stop fracking, mining, deforestation, industrial farming, worker exploitation, waste disposal (and waste-water treatment) -- it is all easy to talk about it, but without viable, feasible, and affordable alternatives (affordable for low-income and restricted budgets also), changing our way of life can be out of reach for many in the US.

Some people's minds are set, in that if it wasn't a problem in their generation, then it doesn't exist for the younger generations either (the recent saying, just because you don't see it or agree with it, doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist, applies here). I think it may be beyond simply ignoring science and facts, to a possible willful blindness, which to shatter those walls can put some in a deep psychological crisis that not all things can be neatly swept away just because we don't like the picture being painted. I think many of us experience this to some degree. And, some have a strong trust in governments to 'do the right thing' (such as not polluting Native territories with nuclear and mining waste), and others have little trust at all for similar reasons.

Modern paradigms of patriotism in the US tend to conflict with seeing reality as it is, seeing our role in it, versus how far-reaching even the smallest change can have on our planet. Often it seems that people do not change their ways or have their mind opened, until/unless something affects them, or they learn that a highly toxic chemcial is in their food, or some element they were taught was safe, probably caused their cancer (or a loved one's illness). Until it hits between the eyes, many do not listen.


2. Do you have an innate feeling that things should get better with time? Has your Buddhist practiced influenced this feeling?

Will things get better? The pandemic actually gave me some hope. Once human activity was mostly removed from the picture, wildlife and ecosystems started to come back. It didn't stop slaughterhouses or industrial farming, and instead we had more medical waste to contend with, however. Plastic bags were banned in many places, but that has not solved the serious problems of plastic waste and nano-plastics.

My practice helps, in some ways. "Just sitting" tends to get a lot of ideas flowing (despite my best efforts!), and sometimes ideas will come on small changes I can make (or suggest to my family) that doesn't solve the problem, but hopefully doesn't worsen the problem. And, I figure if I am calmer and in a better frame of mind, I am less likely to indulge in behaviors that make things worse.

3. How do you feel about facing the current realities facing both our planet and the humans and animals who inhabit it? Does your practice of sitting enable you to face things more than you might otherwise be able to?

I am experiencing this in my own family, and it seems to have generational differences also. My children avoid news media as much as possible, but they also have nightmares and anxiety about the realities of our planet's future (given the track we're on), and also adults' ability to "mess things up" in favor of our own self=interests. My kids aren't wrong! And I think that each succeeding generation experiences this to some extent -- our children are also the canaries in the coal mine, and while many of us use and believe in conventional medicine, it may also have helped to blind us to the realities our children are facing and will face. As much as activists like Greta Thunberg are vilified, her generation is the one that is inheriting this mess, and we wonder why they do not want to have children, or help to grow the human race -- who can blame them, really? Our wildlife, marine life, ecosystems, climate, everything is impacted. Even if we could grow enough food to feed everyone -- inhabitable land is in short supply, affordable housing is out of reach for many, clean drinking water does not exist for many, and where there is land for growing, drought, famine, pesitlence, war, poverty, displacement, etc., makes it nearly impossible for most life to survive there.

Neither of my children (one's a bit young!) want to have children of their own -- primarily due to the global crisis. This upset me at first, but I respect where they're coming from, and I sometimes wonder if my becoming a mother was due to my own desire for children -- or the result of social conditioning. I have decided that it would be better for me to foster "unwanted" animals and invest in some kinds of gardening, than to be upset about possibly not becoming a grandmother some day. There is no shortage of unwanted and discarded animals, and this planet always needs more plants!

Again, my practice .... I have various tools for this. Our planetary crises sometimes send me into a panic. Speaking for myself only, I have noticed that as the planet goes, as climate change and global warming progress, so does my health. This is probably selfish, but my illnesses are also linked to the destruction and progression of the Earth and all of its sentient beings. As it worsens, I do also. Not that others don't experience this, but I can only speak for myself. I do breathing exercises. Despite my noisy urban environment, I try to listen for birds, gaze at the trees, observe plant life, and watch the sky (clouds, etc.). Our weather and climate has definitely changed here. However, I also have some in my family that still believe that the government is always right, and what worked for our ancestors should be maintained today because "this is how it always was."

4. How do you see Active Hope? Can you relate our positive or negative actions, however small, to karma? How do you work with feelings of hopelessness, if you get them, or encounter them in others?

I see karma as cause and effect - not justice or retribution. So in that sense, yes, I can -- what we put out there (positive or negative) sets off a chain reaction that has far-reaching effects. This is true for anything, not just climate. So I take this view in every day household tasks, the food I eat, shopping, and trying not to add to the destruction. Cleaners are something I use a lot, as is detergents. Some things I can't help, other tasks I find better, or more cost-effective and less toxic means to do the same task. (Something as simple as making a solution to tackle mold and mildew without toxic chemicals.)

When I experience hopelessness, I try to find silver-linings or small steps I can take to do something positive. Sometimes the step is so tiny, it seems irrelevant. But for me, taking any positive action at all (no matter how tiny) is better than inertia. As much difficulty as I have with the concept of tonglen, perhaps I take a "Tonglen" approach in taking action, or choosing my response to others. When others express hopelessness (such as my children!), I try to take the same approach. I hold space for them to express their feelings, fears, and any "I wish that..." that comes up. And, depending on what their fears involve or their concerns, I try to give examples of any changes that I've made that may be helpful for them, or asking what they might change if they were able to. To me, Active Hope means making little changes, in the view that *any* positive action does some good, while inertia and apathy have hastened the destruction.

gassho, stlh