Ego or eco?
There’s a hair’s-breadth difference in our hearts between seeing the world as a resource to be plundered or as our universal mother, to be loved. Finding that switch, and learning how to operate it especially in times of stress, will mean the difference between the survival or the extinction of countless species.
Some people see the environment as a business opportunity. We see oil companies spending some tiny fraction of their budget on solar panels and announcing to the world that they are now leading the revolution in renewable energy. Other people may think, what is it I’m most concerned about? Nature and wildlife. Well, I’ll see if I can make a living out of doing something to help what I love.
There’s a diagram that shows silhouettes of lots of animals, and a man. In one case the man is either at the top of a pyramid, or in the centre of a circle, made up of all the other animals. In the other case, he’s mixed in amongst them. At one time there was a drive on Wikipedia to find all instances of the phrase ‘humans and animals’ and replace it with ‘humans and other animals.’ Many of us were brought up to think of nature as ‘out there,’ and our neat lives as having nothing to do with it.
There’s a trendy phrase about being ‘woke.’ Some people are more woke than others, in that they see the problems of the world for what they are, and are moved by grief and compassion to do something about it. The idea probably has a root in the Buddhist concept of enlightenment.
How do we ensure that those who want our money, or our time, for eco-this and carbon-that, are not just cashing in on a marketing trend? It’s not easy. I have spent a great deal of time trying to imagine a truly fair and low-impact, sustainable way to live. I have read about other people’s lifestyle experiments, and about the lives and beliefs of those whose tribal ways never departed far from ancient nature-based purity. I have studied, built and used modern technologies that use very little energy or generate more than they use.
My meditation teacher used to say, ‘It doesn’t matter where we’re going, what matters is where we’re coming from.’ An old Jerseyman once told me that of course I could speak French. All I had to do was think right back, way back to when I was a tiny child. It didn’t help, as no one spoke French around me then either.
There’s a Zen koan, ‘Show me the face you had before you were born.’ A later variant asks the student to ‘Show me the face you had before your mother and father were born.’
Finding what’s real and true about nature and our own nature is ‘an unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you,’ according to Emily McDowell.
A shortened version of this article appeared in the Jersey Evening Post on 11 April 2019
