by Mark Coleman
Whether humans, political entities, and corporations can resolve such global issues depends on whether we can collectively create a vision that connects us, not just with the wider global community, but also to future generations. Taking into account such a broad scope of time is something humanity has yet to do successfully. Time will tell whether we can do so now.
Understanding the prison of our individualized consciousness and the limitations of our tribalistic perspective can nudge us toward a large vantage point. As an example of how awareness practice can help with this, I want to share a letter that Jared, a meditation student, sent to me. He wrote:
I was in the middle of a three-month meditation retreat at Tassajara, a Zen monastery in central California. As I was meditating for the sixth or seventh hour one day, a new, life-altering awareness arose in me. I realized that I was not who I had always thought I was. I was not the star of my own Shakespearean drama. I was actually everyone and everything in the whole universe. To try to be even more precise, I’ll share some wisdom from the founder of my school of Zen, Dogen Zenji. He said, “The truth is, you are not it. It is you.” In other words, what became clear wasn’t that I was the universe, but that the universe was me.
At that time, the US was bombing Iraq, deforestation was rampant, and estimates were that humans were sending about two hundred different species into extinction every day. I thought about all that and more, and I cried. I don’t have the words to express how sad it made me to see how much suffering is born from the delusion that we are disconnected from one another and the Earth.
When the meditation ended, I glanced around at the other practitioners. It was like I was the left hand and they were the right hand of the same body. And in the same way that the left hand tends to the right hand without hesitation if it needs help, when I felt their emotional pain and the pain from their aching bodies, love poured out of me. I would have done anything for them. And what dawned on me is possibly the most important lesson that we have to learn in today’s day and age: When we become aware of who we really are, our love gets unleashed.
At the end of the day, with our planet in ecological crisis, and people worldwide suffering from poverty, war, and inequality, the only solutions are communal. There can be no “out group” anymore because what affects one part of the planet affects all the others. Pollution is the obvious example, but immigration is another. If all places valued healthy environments and social justice, perhaps there would be no mass movements of people from one place to another. We only have one small planet, and everyone has to go somewhere. If we don’t realize how utterly interdependent we are on one another and this planet, we will literally drown under rising seas, which will breach whatever wall we erect to keep people out.
During a meeting with Joanna Macy, a scholar and elder in the environmental movement, about how we should respond to the pressing ecological crisis, she emphasized how essential it is for people to not act alone. She said it is vital to engage with others in a shared goal. She added that it matters more that people work together, engaging and supporting one another, than succeed in any particular project. Doing nothing leads to alienation, hopelessness, and numbness. Acting in collaboration means making positive impacts in the world and within ourselves, as we erode the corrosive sense of separation that is at the root of so many of our problems.
• PRACTICE •
Developing Interconnectedness
To sense interconnection requires a cognitive shift, as well as a movement, an opening or expansion of the heart. We tend to perceive things at face value, to see only what is immediately in front of us, and so we often miss the deeper weave of connection. This is particularly true when we consider the ecological impact of our actions and choices.
In this contemplation, consider simple everyday activities in your life: driving your car, taking baths, playing golf, flying for work, eating exotic food in restaurants, buying produce from other countries. Then reflect on all the causes and consequences of such simple actions. With each activity, think about all the impacts they have, including resources, other creatures, and the planet.
For example, if you enjoy taking long hot baths, reflect on where your water comes from, the energy to transport and heat the water, and the environmental impact of those things. Likewise, if you love eating strawberries year round, consider the distance these fruits must travel and the ecological impact of that. If you drive a car, consider the factories that make that car, the people working on the production line, the gas it uses, the pollution it causes, the activities it allows, the roads it requires, the consequences to human health, and so on. In the same way, reflect on the effect when you decide to have lentil soup for lunch rather than a burger. That simple choice, if followed by millions around the world every day, affects methane levels, deforestation, and precious lives. Everything is connected. Every action has a consequence. Everything we do affects others and the earth and its limited resources. Awareness of those connections helps us to not take them for granted.
This reflection is not meant to foster judgment or guilt. Not every connection or impact is negative. But each action we take is woven into an interconnected tapestry that literally includes every being on the earth. Environmentalists remind us that if everyone lived at the same standard of living as North Americans, we would need several planets to handle the demand for resources. In this contemplation, as you reflect on this, notice what arises in your heart and mind, and throughout your day, continue to consider how the ways you act and live affect the welfare of all life, including your own.
• • •
Chapter 33
Service in the World
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
— LEO BUSCAGLIA
All spiritual traditions encourage engaging in selfless service to help improve the lives of others. One inspiring example of this is Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne’s work in the Sarvodaya Shramadana movement in Sri Lanka. His work has brought to life the Sanskrit meaning of sarvodaya — “the welfare of all” — and redefined the term to reflect another ideal important in that country: “the awakening of all.”
This grassroots movement has helped uplift tens of thousands of villages in rural Sri Lanka and improved the lives of over ten million people by providing comprehensive development and conflict resolution programs. This began simply by Dr. Ariyaratne helping an outcast village improve its own living standards.
Dr. Ariyaratne regards this selfless service to others as a way for people to turn their consciousness into a more awakened and compassionate state. He posits that selflessness is brought about through the service that is done through Sarvodaya Shramadana, which results in both personal and societal transformation. This is a beautiful example of how the shift from a self-centered focus to a selfless orientation benefits one and all.
Movements like this stand in stark contrast to the consumerism that drives much of modern society. For example, in the United States, the baby boomers were first dubbed the “me generation,” but a case could be made that in each decade since, people have only become more self-absorbed. Social media and materialist consumer culture seem to perpetuate this myopic self-centered focus. The underlying premise or expectation is that pleasure-seeking consumption will make us happier. But is this true? Depression, anxiety, and suicide rates are sadly skyrocketing among all age groups. A genuine contented life seems ever-elusive despite billions spent in the self-help, cosmetics, and consumer industries.
On the other hand, for millennia, spiritual traditions have taught that a life devoted to the welfare of others is the secret ingredient to genuine happiness. Putting other people’s well-being before our own brings a genuine satisfaction and lasting joy that a life of pleasure-seeking just cannot yield.
Martin Seligman, often referred to as the father of positive psychology, corroborates
these ancient perspectives. He researched what helps people create a meaningful life and discovered three basic avenues for happiness: pursuing a life of pleasure, of engagement, and of purpose. Seligman found that a life dedicated to pleasure fails to deliver on the promise of satisfaction for the simple reason that pleasure habituates. One bite of cake may be delicious, but the fifth or tenth bite fails to maintain the same punch.
The life of engagement refers to using our skills, talents, and strengths to learn, work, and overcome challenges. This does provide some satisfaction, but not to the same degree as a life of purpose, which means putting your strength and skills to work in service of something greater than yourself. The life of purpose turns out to be the most impactful as a support for well-being, since the shift from “me” to “we” provides the basis for a truly fulfilled and genuinely happier life.
Sadly, consumer culture encourages people to fixate on and maximize pleasure. America has come to epitomize this orientation, and yet it often has some of the highest rates of mental health disorders. Despite being the wealthiest country, it sadly ranks eighteenth on the UN World Happiness Report, an index initiated by the United Nations to measure real happiness of people across the world. Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland rank highest on all the main factors found to support genuine happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income, and good governance.
On a personal level, how does one shift from this self to other orientation? The simplest avenue is to find a way to serve, to prioritize the needs of others. This is not done out of self-negation; service benefits the giver and the receiver and is to flow naturally from the heart. Neem Karoli Baba, an esteemed Indian saint, told his devotees: “Love people and feed them.” That encouragement is found across religions, and feeding the hungry and needy is often the most obvious first step in service. Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco serves over sixty thousand meals a month to the homeless and hungry on the streets. The joy and delight that pervades those who show up to offer their time and energy to help prepare and cook all that food is a potent testament to the well-being that service brings.
But service goes beyond that. At a deeper level, it is about seeing through the illusion that we are separate. As soon as we orient to something larger than our small selves, we tap into a greater sense of purpose that brings its own well-being. Some of the great leaders we admire, both past and present, in public service, business, and government, exemplify this level of functioning.
When leaders let go of their own self-interest and genuinely act for the greater good of others, something transformative can happen both for the individual and for the organization or state. When we cease to act from a small separate self, when we get out of our own way, then energy, dynamism, and flow happen. Service becomes effortless effort. As the Tao Te Ching says: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. A good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, people will say, ‘We did this ourselves.’”
Nelson Mandela symbolized this kind of leadership and the power of a wise, generous heart. Despite imprisonment for twenty-seven years in cramped, confined conditions in Robben Island prison, Mandela emerged from the dismantling of the apartheid regime without bitterness, hatred, or desire for vengeance. Further, Mandela’s loving magnanimity and visionary guidance allowed the country not to be torn apart by violent retribution; instead, he helped usher a peaceful transition to a democracy none thought possible. His living example of being kind, caring, and generous, even with people, like his prison guards, who saw him as an enemy, transformed the hearts and minds of so many.
What helps with this transformation is being aware of when we get caught up in ourselves or lost in self-interest, which ultimately serves neither ourselves nor others. The paradox of mindfulness is that one initially turns attention inward to become more self-aware and self-conscious, but as Dogen, one of the most significant teachers in Zen and founder of the Soto Zen lineage, taught: “To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be awakened by all things.”
Through mindfulness practice, we cultivate an intimate awareness of inner experience. Yet as Dogen suggests, that introspection allows us to understand and untangle ourselves from our mental processes, which keep us bound in self-referential loops. It helps us find freedom from the reactive patterns of our thoughts and feelings. As that occurs, we become less wrapped up in our inner processes. Our heart and mind become quieter, more at ease, and so require less attention and management. This frees up attention and energy to be more aware of life around us and liberates energy to help others.
Another way to shift self-centeredness is to cultivate generosity. Being generous shifts us from thoughts about ourselves to how we can serve and help. I remember well when I first encountered the teaching of generosity as a support for awakening. What struck me was the understanding that to give, by necessity, entails we let go and release attachment to things like money, possessions, and one’s time and energy. We relax the tendency to grasp and hold on, which is one of the causes of painful constriction in the first place. Being generous is like exhaling; it is both a release and a letting go.
Research shows that when we are generous, the areas in the brain associated with happiness light up; dopamine fires in our brain’s reward center. We naturally feel good when we give, when we share and care for others. Perhaps it is because we are both physically vulnerable and social creatures, and mutual generosity was originally necessary for our survival. Whatever the cause, the fact that being generous brings about well-being both for ourselves and others is good enough reason to practice it. This shift from self-centered preoccupation to being generous and caring for others is one of the hallmarks of the freedom that comes with practice.
One of the first techniques I undertook with generosity was to follow through on the first impulse to give. The feeling of generosity can arise in many moments, such as when we hear of a natural disaster like a tsunami affecting thousands, when a friend talks to us about the hard times they are in, or when we see a cold, hungry homeless person in the street. Our hearts often respond immediately with natural generosity or a desire to help even in small ways, such as giving money, food, or at least the warm comfort of our attention. I have learned it is helpful to trust that first impulse.
All too often, however, that altruistic impulse is quickly followed by the scarcity mind, which offers all sorts of reasons and rationales for not acting on that generosity. I might worry that I’m too busy to call my friend who is having a hard time. I may believe the fear thought that I don’t have enough money to give to a disaster relief effort, that I shouldn’t donate my old winter jacket since I might need it again, or more cynically, that the homeless person will use my money to buy drugs and not food or shelter.
Whether or not there is any truth to these fears, they are expressions of the small self, which is conditioned to conserve and preserve its own narrow interests. Thus, if we act on our first generous impulse, we can avoid and overcome the fearful thoughts that undermine our expressions of caring. This is a great practice if you wish to stretch beyond just giving only to those closest to you. It is a way of expanding our ambit of concern to include a wider swathe of life. Putting others first, we soften the painful hold of self-centeredness.
There are innumerable ways to serve. One obvious path is parenting. This is perhaps the most universal way that humans stretch beyond themselves to serve another. This beautiful, challenging practice requires us to constantly attend to and prioritize our children’s needs often ahead of our own. Sometimes this is experienced as a burden, but when approached wholeheartedly, it illuminates the profound effect generosity has on our heart and well-being. Of course, this is easier to feel when we are not suffering from days of sleepless nights when our children are infants! However, even people without children can experience this when their parents age or become sick. Then the situation reverses, and children may be asked to provi
de a similar form of selfless service.
Joining a service organization is another way to practice generosity. In Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken and his team chronicle a global movement oriented to serving others; he found that more than 1.7 million organizations worldwide — including nonprofits, for-profits, and NGOs — are dedicated to improving the lives of others and benefiting communities, creatures, and the environment. Uncounted millions of people are helping perhaps billions of people, not to mention other species and the planet. Service within and as part of a community offers benefits that go beyond the actions we take.
A sign of a mature mindfulness practitioner is taking one’s practice from the safe confines of the meditation cushion out into the world and putting into practice the integration of love and awareness. Now more than ever, this is essential for the welfare of ourselves, for underserved and vulnerable communities, and for the planet itself. The way to start, and the place to look, is within your own life, with whatever is in front of you.
The close relationship between spiritual practice and service is beautifully illustrated in a story about Hafiz, a wise Sufi master. A spiritual seeker experienced visions of God, and he sought confirmation of his mystical awakening with Hafiz, his teacher. Hafiz listened to the student’s excited report and then asked him a range of questions: “Do you take care of your parents? How do you look after your servants? Do you tend with care to your animals? Do you feed the birds in winter?” The spiritual seeker was incredulous. He wanted to discuss his mystical revelation, but all Hafiz cared about was how he was conducting himself with others in his life. Hafiz responded: “You ask me if your visions of God are true. I say they are if they make you more kind and more caring to every person and creature that you meet.”
