123: Zen versus Daily Life part 7

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THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO

In one of the recent segments of this podcast, titled “What if This is Hell?” I indulged a “what if” conjecture, speculating that this earthly life may not be some kind of test, as many religions conceive of it — wherein those who pass the test go to their reward in heaven, while those who fail are condemned to an eternity in hell — but that this level of existence, if there are levels, may actually be Hell itself, with a capital “H”. I then explored the implications of that supposition. In the last segment, titled “Change the World,” I carried the thread a bit further, issuing a challenge to consider: What would you actually do, if you had the power to change the world? Where would you begin?

Unfortunately, these days, everything is subject to being politicized, and even classified as partisan, especially if we dare to be even mildly critical of the status quo. So I want you to indulge me in a huge caveat, here. Please set aside any knee-jerk reactions to read a partisan or political slant into my discussion of the world as I see it, and my fears of where it may be going in the near future. I don’t have all the facts at my disposal, needless to say, which places me in the same class as all other current commentators and writers. Nobody has their arms around “the full catastrophe” — thank you, Zorba the Greek. These issues are not merely a matter of political opinion. They may turn out to be not only legal in their impact, but lethal in their unintended consequences.

In an early piece, lost somewhere in my ever-expanding archive of prior writings, I made the somewhat specious point that it is not lost on me — that those who are (or have been) most resistant to recognizing the validity of concerns over global warming, or the less threatening label, “climate change”; and those who have been loudest in sounding the alarm about it — tend to be reflective of the two dominant political parties, as currently defined.

I am also keenly aware of another correlation, that the former tend to populate the so-called “flyover,” rural areas of the country — let’s call them the “Reds” — while the latter are more concentrated in coastal, urban locales — let’s call them the “Blues,” in keeping with the tropes of the times, as well as Orwell’s characterization of the permanent state of global warfare in 1984, if memory serves, reporting on the battles between “the reds” and “the blues,” with our side constantly winning, of course.

Thus, my hopefully ironic point was, if worse comes to worst, and the coastal areas are flooded by rising ocean waters owing to the worst scenarios predicted by the “woke” faction coming true, some may welcome the idea that we will have a truly “red” country from coast to coast, though on a significantly smaller continent, as all of the “blue” coastal cities are now under water. A crude but compelling rendering of one potential consequence of our actions, or inactions, following from our inattention to Mother Nature’s mandates.

But seriously, folks. Let us assume for the sake of argument that the doomsday predictions — of what are, after all, the majority of scientists around the globe — are for real. The oceans are irreversibly warming, and the ice caps at both poles are melting. The South Pole being the most threatening, apparently being defrosted from underneath by warming Antarctic waters. When those ice cubes fall into the drink, that glass of tea is going to overflow, and quickly. To the tune of a ten-foot rise in the world-around oceans, according to those who do the math. Goodbye New York, LA, San Francisco, San Diego, Jacksonville, Miami, Savannah, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, you say, we will just all move inland; head for the hills, the high ground.

The interior of the country is not exactly a paradisical refuge these days, what with natural-man-made disasters resulting in losses of crops, diminishing harvests, and resultant general mayhem disrupting country folks’ formerly pastoral lifestyle. Any refugees from the coasts will encounter forest fires, drought, flash floods, and geometrically expanding tornados and hurricanes, along with air pollution on steroids. What have historically been labeled as “once-in-a-lifetime,” “500-“ or “1000-year” events may now be annual, seasonal, or monthly, while increasing in magnitude each year

Further, in today’s divisive political climate, it is anyone’s guess whether the “blues” fleeing from the coastal deluge will find themselves welcomed, or confronted, by the “reds” — many of whom are armed to the teeth — as the scarcity of resources increases, and easy access to the necessities of life decreases.

Another major concern: major coastal flooding will not only take out major cities, or major parts of them, but will also disrupt the seaports through which much of the commerce of the world flows, including imports of fresh food increasingly shopped and shipped from other countries.

The most absurd example of this trend I have heard of had to do with a ship from China, a floating chicken factory, that regularly docks at a port in California to pick up a boatload of live chickens, then sails a wide circle in the ocean while “processing” them, only to return to the same dock and offload the meat. This is somehow more profitable than processing the chickens on the farm. And this is only one example of the international scale and scope of how the world “works” these days.

Throw in the possibility of yet another pandemic, with supply lines permanently — not temporarily — disrupted, and you begin to see the dystopian possibilities.

In this case, what’s a Zen person to do? One suggestion would be to not sweat the small stuff. And its corollary: it’s all small stuff. At least, our usual, trivial preoccupations are.

Those of you who follow my podcast may recognize the following anecdote, from UnMind #111: “Analysis and Analogy.” Please forgive the redundancy — and the absurdity of quoting myself — but the story has relevancy to our current thread of Design Thinking and Zen, in the dystopian present. It bears repeating one more time.

We once had a young man visit the Zen center who had trained with Tony Packer, the heir apparent to Roshi Philip Kapleau, who had famously turned down an offer to take up his mantle, the robe of a transmitted Zen priest. She had published a book on her approach to practicing Zen without calling it Zen, titled “The Work of This Moment” if memory serves, which I asked to borrow from him. One of her main points in the text was to avoid falling into “comparative thinking,” which was exactly what this young man had done. From the first time he joined the meditation sessions, he continually questioned and criticized each and every detail of the protocols we followed at that time.

To address his concerns, I invited him to give a guest talk on his opinions, or hers, which was received with the sympathetic skepticism you would expect from a community of folks who had all had similar reservations, as to the protocols of a practice inherited from Japanese and Chinese traditions.

I also made up a parable, or analogy, for him to consider. To wit: A monk is travelling through a remote mountain pass late at night, needing to get to the other side of the range. A sudden storm blows up, forcing him to seek shelter. Fortunately, he finds a cave nearby, and settles down to wait out the weather. But as his eyes adjust to the dark of the cave, and his sense of smell adapts to the stale air, he begins to notice the remains of carcasses strewn about the floor. Just as he realizes that he is ensconced in the lair of some kind of beast, and is preparing to make his escape, a large, furry silhouette appears in the entrance, blocking him from leaving. Standing there, shaking in fear, he asks himself: Now, what is the best way to confront this situation: standing flat on my feet, or up on my toes?

In a situation like this, the details are clearly not all that relevant, and can even create a distraction from what is, starkly, relevant: the “clear and present danger.”

Similarly, in the situation we are now confronting globally, details fall into insignificance. We are left with the question posed by Master Dogen, in Fukanzazengi—Principles of Seated Meditation, when he asks:

Now that you know the most important thing in Buddhism, how can you be satisfied with the transient world? Our bodies are like dew on the grass and our lives like a flash of lightning — vanishing in a moment.

If you have listened to UnMind #53: “Principles of Zazen,” this will sound familiar and, again, somewhat redundant, but if anything bears repetition, it is Dogen’s teaching. What is “the most important thing” in all of Buddhism?; after he has rattled off several pages of things to consider. The same question gets to the point in our present dire straits: what is the most important thing to do about it? How to go about “actualizing the fundamental point,” another Dogenism from his classic Genjokoan. This is the koan of the present moment in history, which may mark the end of history as we know it.

The end did not come in 1989, when Francis Fukuyama controversially and prematurely predicted that liberal democracy had triumphed, and in his 1992 book, “The End of History and the Last Man,” fulfilling the earlier vision of Hegel (see link in the post):

Hegel had argued that history has a telos or goal – an end point – equivalent to the emergence of a perfectly rational and just state. That state would guarantee the liberty necessary for the full development of all human capacities. At the same time, it would exist in a state of perpetual peace with other – similarly configured – states.

Would that it had come to pass, but like all visions of the future — utopian or dystopian — certain determinative factors were left out of the calculation. Just as legal trumps political, no pun intended; natural trumps legal and political. Mother Nature will not be denied, no matter how “evolved” we consider the machinations of humankind to be.

We are all complicit, if not equally responsible, for the kettle of hot water in which we find ourselves. The problem of human survival on a global scale is too vast and variable to be amenable to discrete definition, so we are forced to resort to the old trope to “think globally but act locally.” In Buddha’s time it was no different, the “act locally” part, that is, but in terms of thinking globally, they did not have the overwhelming glut of information that we “enjoy” today. But Buddha’s prescription for addressing the problems of life and society still apply today. Take good care of yourself and those around you.

Whatever comes to pass, and however our lives come to their conclusion, there was never any other ending to the story. What matters is what we do about it now. As Matsuoka Roshi would often say, demonstrating the zazen posture, “This is the most you can do.” Zen is a way of action. If you get straight with yourself on the cushion — your life, your death — you will more likely know what to do, and when to do it, off the cushion. Don’t look to me, or anyone else, for specifics, but “Be a light unto yourself.” Spread the word.