108 Things We Can Do for the Earth/#2, Understand

Number two on His Holiness Karmapa’s list of 108 things we can do to help the environment is:

”Read, discuss, and develop an understanding of environmental issues and how they affect you and your community.”

Maybe it’s because I’ve always loved the area where I live now that I can’t imagine not being interested in the surrounding environment. Maybe if I lived in some place that I didn’t much like, though, I’d feel differently.

For right here and right now, however, I want to know as much as I can about our local birds, our local water cycle, our wild native creatures and plants, our stars, and how the continually changing cycles of the seasons manifest in North Central Florida.

I first tuned in to seasonal changes several years ago, when I was doing a lot of reading about the new paganism (I did comparative religions in college and am fascinated by that subject), and got acquainted via email with a remarkable writer named Waverly Fitzgerald. Waverly lives in Seattle and produces a web site called School of the Seasons, which I highly recommend. Reading her articles made me realize how out of touch with seasonal changes we can become, given our prevailing culture’s neverending focus on work, consumption, and entertainment.

Now, of course, the area where I live is embroiled in the water wars. So I think it’s more important than ever for us to educate ourselves about our natural resources, so we can stand up for them and protect them. The California Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder had an article in the November 2007 issue of Shambhala Sun called “Writers and the War Against Nature,” part of which is reprinted in the July 2009 (pp. 64-65) issue; in it, he says:

“How can artists and writers manage to join in the defense of the planet and wild nature? Writers and artists by their very work ‘bear witness.’ They don’t wield financial, governmental, or military power. However, at the outset they were given, as in fairy tales, two ‘magic gifts.’ One is ‘The Mirror of Truth.’ Whatever they hold this mirror up to is shown in its actual form, and the truth must come out. May we use that mirror well!

The second is a ‘Heart of Compassion,’ which is to say the ability to feel and know the pains and delights of other people, and to weave that feeling into their art. For some this compassion can extend to all creatures and to the world itself. In a way, nature even borrows the voices of some writers and artists. Anciently, this was a shamanistic role where the singer, dancer, or storyteller embodied a force, appearing as a bear dancer or crane dancer, and became one with a spirit or creature. Today, such a role is played by the writer who finds herself a spokesperson for non-human entities communicating to the human realm through dance or song. This could be called ‘speaking on behalf of nature’ in the old way.”

To really speak for Mother Nature or any of her creatures, it seems to me, you need to know what you are talking about. You need to “read, discuss, and develop an understanding of environmental issues and how they affect you and your community.”

I’ve pictured above some of the resources to which I turn when I have questions about our area and its flora and fauna. There are, undoubtedly, many such resources for every area of our country and, no doubt, the world. The Internet itself is one such resource. You can’t see it on the computer screen in the picture above, but I had surfed over to the Water page at Food and Water Watch.

Here in North Central Florida, I always encourage people to tune in to what the folks at Our Santa Fe River are doing. My friend Merrillee, who does an outstanding job of communicating river-related news, also has an e-mail list that provides a wealth of current information (pun intended!); you can get in touch with her through the Our Santa Fe River web site. Rachael Ryals, a journalist with the High Springs Herald, provides a great service not only by writing about environmental issues for that paper but also by administering the new North Florida Nature News web site.

What are you most curious about in your own local environment? What are some resources you can use to find out more? Do you know other people who are interested in some of the same things? How can you begin to speak for your neighbors who are voiceless—the plants, the animals, the outstanding natural features?

108 Things We Can Do for the Earth/#1, Pray

For Earth Day this year, His Holiness Orgyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, released a list titled "One Hundred Eight Things You Can Do to Help the Environment."

While the list was written primarily for the monks and nuns who live in Karma Kagyu monasteries throughout the world (and, especially, in Asia), it struck me as I read through the list that it contains many ideas that we could all implement, if we choose to do so.

So, on an irregular schedule—since that seems to be how I'm blogging now—I'm going to start posting the 108 ideas, one at a time, along with some of my own personal musings about them.

The number 108 has significance in Tibetan Buddhism—it's the number of beads on a mala that's used to count prayers and mantra recitations, for one. There's a very interesting discussion about the significance of this number—including its astrological significance—on Ken Holmes's web site, and my friend Khandro also includes mention of 108 on her mind-bogglingly comprehensive page about number symbolism.

So, what made Number One on Karmapa's list? Prayer. Here's what he says:

"Make aspiration prayers. We make aspiration prayers for all sentient beings. This should also include the Earth, which sustains us and gives us life. We can pray for a more harmonious world where humans recognize how their actions have harmed the Earth and change their behavior."

It's true that Buddhists make aspiration prayers for all sentient beings. The primary aspiration, of course, is that all sentient beings will ultimately become enlightened—in other words, that their positive qualities will manifest fully and that their negative qualities will be eradicated.

Praying for the Earth, which sustains us and gives us life, strikes me as a new slant to the traditional Buddhist aspiration prayers. I'd venture a guess that most of us don't usually consider the Earth a sentient being, so even if we are praying for the benefit of other beings, we're praying for beings who live on and of the Earth—not for the Earth itself. His Holiness Karmapa is saying that needs to change.

Prayer in its purest form—done from the wish to benefit all sentient beings—seems to me to be, at its heart, a recognition that all of us (including the Earth) are deeply connected; this idea dovetails in a lovely way with the Gaia Hypothesis.

I can envision a day when "civilization" might be defined as both a recognition and a full expression of the interdependence of all things—Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Spirit.

Stop for a moment and ponder: If you wrote your own prayer for the Earth, what would it be?