“Then Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests … and they took counsel, and bought with them the potters field to bury strangers in.” – Gospel of St. Matthew (27:3-8)   When a spirit, a mindstream, a bundle of karmic tendencies slips from the body like a tight shoe, or–for the materialists–when the life force of an organism is stamped out by the natural laws of death, its once-animated form is left behind. What will come of this form?  From the beginning, homosapiens have devised an abundance of ways to deal with our dead. We bury them (in the ground, at sea, in caverns), burn them, entomb them (the Great Pyramid!), compost them (green burials), and ceremonially dismember them on high mountain plateaus where carrion eaters have received human corpse offerings for generations (look up Tibetan sky burial for more on that one).  But what of the dead who, in the cold atomization of modernity, die alone, unclaimed, …

written by Peter Doran A Terminal Paradox At the ‘end of the world’ as constructed in the image of the West we’ll discover a terminal paradox: the prospect of a new ethics of flourishing—both human and ecological—as we discover new forms of liberation in an encounter with limits. There is no transformation or transition available in mere sacrifice or limitations that do not also imply an overturning of the container [‘the box’] that sustains the language and concepts of colonial modernity. The transformation or transition must entail an individual and collective preparedness to drop investments in the prevailing language games and the violent structures that sustain the unsustainable. In Zen, the encounter with limits and forms is a mark of liberation: at the heart of practice is a discipline that also entails a radical break with our deep investments and identifications with concepts and language games; not with a view to abandoning the world but with a view to falling into an unbridled love and compassion for all with whom we participate in our timeless …

Sit and Do Nothing for the Planet In today’s highly polarized world, it is likely no secret that conversations about the environment have become political flashpoints—an urgent priority for some, aggressively resisted by others. This divide stifles meaningful dialogue and action, often trapping us in demoralizing cycles of manufactured conflict while the planet, and all life on it, continue to suffer.  More and more people are asking, “what can I actually do about climate change?” Others find themselves worrying that “it never feels like I’m doing enough to make a difference.” We, too, as environmental educators and researchers, can relate and empathize with this. We have spent years observing and reflecting, and then asking:  How do we teach and learn in an unraveling world? How do we live in these interconnected systems? How can we adapt, not just to climate change, but to epistemic changes, embracing multiple ways of knowing and learning?  After all, learning is much more than just accumulating facts or information. What we (the authors) have unlearned, with the need to reconsider …

At a recent gathering, a person voiced this question: “How do I grow courage? It seems like we’re gonna need to grow courage right now.” To which I replied: “Well, it won’t happen by thought or belief. Embodiment counts. And embodiment requires physical practice.” At that point, I was stuck. Here we were in a hotel ballroom. Answer given; answer useless. Without the accompanying physical experience, there would be no possibility of understanding what embodiment means, let alone its pathway to growing courage. A speaker has latitude, and I used it. Inviting folx for a sample of a practice, warning that shouting would be required. It is a sign of the times that most folx in the room accepted the invitation to stand and shout, in a very specific way. Feet hip width apart, with more weight on the balls of the feet. Standing tall, with dignity, eyes on the horizon. Relaxing shoulders, releasing all unnecessary tension. Arms to the side and bringing the breath low and slow. Low in the body, slow in breath, …

How we lose our democracy one arrest at a time I live in New York City, where the streets have become laboratories for state violence. Here in October, on Canal Street in Chinatown, masked federal agents descended in military-style trucks to arrest street vendors selling knockoff handbags. Four U.S. citizens were arrested and held for nearly 24 hours without charges, their families filing missing persons reports before they were released. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons announced that New York City would see “an increase in ICE arrests,” promising operations that were “intelligence driven” and “not random,” even as bystanders watched agents use batons and pepper spray on vendors and protesters alike. The Canal Street raid was not an aberration. In early June, ICE’s New York office arrested more than 110 people on each of two consecutive days—the highest single-day totals in nearly two years. Agents have been staking out immigration courthouses, arresting people attending regular hearings in hallways, lobbies, and even bathrooms. The scenes are surreal: federal agents in tactical gear blocking streets, protesters tackled …

As the old proverb goes, “It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest.” From a god’s eye view, we’re pretty sick birds, spewing massive amounts of carbon into our atmosphere and dumping an endless stream of plastics into our oceans. Why is that? On first glance, the answer is obvious. We have an economic system organized around the endless pursuit of more, excess known technically as the profit motive. Always seeking more on a finite planet was never going to end well.  Given the profit motive’s centrality to global capitalism, it’s curious how rarely we discuss the motivations behind it. Interestingly, Karl Marx—the great critic of capitalism—didn’t have much to say about greed. For Marx, greed was an ugly human impulse that predated capitalism. The system, however, incentivized the impulse, throwing it out of proportion with our other drives. Change the system, and the problem falls away. This might be true, but the greed and corruption that helped sink many socialist regimes are cause for pause. Understanding the deeper motives behind the “more” motive …

In my decades working on environmental problems and social change, I was motivated by the hope that humanity would change everything in time to slow climate change and transition to a sustainable way of life. I even talked of it that way, without looking more closely at that idea of “hope.” What did I mean by that? Could I be motivated without such a hope? In my rush to achieve an impact in the world, I did not take the time to explore our shared cultural story about hope, despite being a part-time academic, where deeper inquiry is often expected. Eventually, evidence from the real world forced me to think again about hope and to ultimately free myself to live creatively in the face of societal disruption and collapse.1 I discovered there is a love beyond hope, a love which can guide active engagement in society without attachment to outcomes. Through that engagement, I met many people attempting to reduce harm and contribute to possibilities within our environmental predicament without ‘fairytales’ of success required to …

“I want to be one of the nicest human beings that this earth has seen,” Sri Lankan Buddhist philanthropist Kushil Gunasekera told me in an interview early in 2020. I’ve known Kushil for years, so I’m no longer surprised when he makes such bold pronouncements about his life goals. From the naming of his humanitarian organization as the Foundation of Goodness, to its organizational mission of promoting “unconditional compassion,” bold claims of moral excellence are fundamental to Kushil’s understanding of himself as a Buddhist humanitarian. At first glance, Kushil’s ambition to be one of the nicest human beings may seem overzealous or even audacious. Yet, such a gloss would overlook Kushil’s passionate and earnest desire to cultivate and perfect his spiritual vocation of generosity. Take for instance the time when, facing severe personal financial duress, Kushil used the last remaining credit on his credit card to pay the college fees for three children of a woman he hardly knew. Facing financial bankruptcy, he had mortgaged his home for a personal loan. He was not deriving …

In November, more than a thousand scholars, practitioners, and activists met in San Diego to discuss the future of their work at the 2016 International Symposium for Contemplative Studies (ISCS). In the opening address, the new president of Mind and Life, Susan Bauer-Wu, outlined her vision for the community, explaining that her goal is to build bridges and break down silos—disciplinary, methodological, institutional, and geographic. Compared to prior meetings, ISCS 2016 was indeed more diverse, gathering members of the community from 33 different fields, a fourth of whom came from outside the U.S. and a half of whom were newcomers. This diversity was bolstered by the fact that Mind and Life had recently created an advisory committee and taken concrete steps to support diversity through newly created research grants and funding opportunities. Over the last few years, I have been a critic of mainstream mindfulness, so I was grateful to witness a conscious shift at ISCS 2016 toward situating mindfulness in social, political, and ethical contexts. The symposium was unusually self-reflexive and self-critical, exhorting its …