Crazy wisdom always tries to tell the truth, so I’ll begin by saying that I don’t know what is going on here, in this life and in this world. I don’t know any more than anyone else about why we humans are here, or what we are supposed to be doing while we’re here, and I have no clue as to why we seem to be screwing things up so badly on our planet.
My intuition is that we are being tested by the universe, (some god or goddess, Mother Nature, the great scientist in the sky, whoever or whatever) to see if we have the ability to override our instinctual programming and survive our own desires and fears. Maybe we are competing with the conscious life on other planets to see who can survive the longest, and the winner gets a big prize. If our Earth team is going to win, or if we simply want to survive for a little while longer, we humans had better wake up and smell the CO2. The wolf is now at the door, stopping by on its way to extinction.
We are living in the middle of a biological disaster, the consequences of which make our current economic struggles and nationalist wars seem like petty diversions. When trying to convey the gravitas of the situation, I usually cite research that says we are in the middle of the fifth or sixth largest species die-off in evolutionary history. The naturalists call it an “extinction spasm,” which conjures an image of the Earth itself shivering and convulsing from serious infection.
Recently I read an article in the back pages of the San Francisco Chronicle under the headline “Humans’ Basic Needs Destroying Planet Rapidly.” (The front page of that day’s Chronicle was of course devoted to more important stories.) The article cites the results of a four-year United Nations study “The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,” which found that humans have “ruined approximately 60 percent of Earth’s ecological systems to meet our demands for food, fresh water, timber and fuel.” We have discovered a problem, and it is us.
When I reflect on our predicament, I think: “We have to do everything in our power to stop the destruction of the Earth’s life support systems.” At the same time, part of me says, “We have to learn to let it all go.” It sounds paradoxical, but I live with that dilemma, just as I assume others do in this post-post-modern world. We are aware of the disaster that is taking place on Earth, and at the same time, we have knowledge of hundreds of billions of solar systems like our own. Are we over-dramatizing our human existence? The discoveries of Western science reveal that we are at the mercy of massive streams of cosmic and biological evolution, forces that couldn’t care less about our desire to survive as a species, let alone our hope of creating justice and peace. Can we expect to have any significant influence on the length of time that life will continue to evolve on this tiny little rock hurling through space? As the Taoist sage Chuang Tzu once asked: “Do you really think you can take over the universe and improve it?”
What resolves the dilemma for us is Mother Nature herself, who boldly writes out directions for us in our DNA, the primary command being: “Survive!” We are built to struggle for survival, however we come to envision the necessary action, because that’s just the way we are built. You must try to save the world! Ironically, for all of previous human history our survival instinct had us spending our time and energy trying to protect ourselves from nature, and now suddenly we are called on to protect nature from us. (But of course, we are nature, so who’s leading in this dance anyway?)
Some would say we are lucky to have a planetary crisis like this on our watch. As my eco-Buddhist activist friend Joanna Macy says, “Rejoice! Opportunities to become a bodhisattva (a Buddhist saint of compassion) are extremely plentiful right now!” I draw on a more mundane motivation, which concludes: “What else is there to do?” You can either try to keep yourself stimulated with the latest toys of the empire, or work to thwart the idiots in power and undermine the juggernaut of destruction, the “self-consumption” economy. The later activity is much more satisfying, because, in the process, you get to exercise your heart and learn how to love beyond the small circumference of self and family.
So here’s what you should do to help save the world — something! Each of us has our own temperament and talent and has to decide how best to use them, but everybody can do something. Just thinking subversive thoughts is a good start. Try to imagine other ways to organize an economy. Some of you might decide to picket in front of an oil company of your choice, while others will want to go to the ocean (the primal amniotic fluid) and chain themselves to an endangered coral reef. Since part of our challenge is to bring the divine back home again, you might want to get involved in some regular pagan ritual. Go ahead and hug a tree, or bow down and kiss the Earth. The age of cynicism is dead!
I have practical suggestion for the politicians in Washington, D.C. Over the past year or two, they have tried to create a new intelligence agency, with a “czar” who would coordinate whatever intelligence our agencies manage to find. But what the United States really needs is a Department of Wisdom, a government agency that would be staffed by philosophers, anthropologists, historians, some jesters, and even a few mystics; people who see the world in a different way than economists, generals, and senators. Although the political right may currently be in charge, our real oppressor is the “left-brain” government. A Department of Wisdom just might provide some critical balance of powers.
If I were in the Department of Wisdom, I would call for an immediate moratorium on progress, to last at least a half-century. We had a whole lot of progress in the last couple of centuries and, although it brought us pain-killing drugs, space-telescopes, and Velcro, it appears that we can no longer keep up with our own ingenuity. We now race madly around in our individual boxes of steel, chasing after satisfaction, and, in the process, we are throwing the atmosphere out of whack by burning up 2 or 3 geological epochs worth of the sun’s stored energy in one great choking bonfire of the vanities!
We spent the better part of our genius figuring out new ways to blow each other up or learning how to go faster, and in our fear and haste we forgot about who we are and where we are going. We need to relax, deeply, and let our hearts and minds catch up with our tool-making ability, which has gotten way “out of hand.” What we need is a century of less doing and more “being.” The next revolution is a big slowdown.
I also have some broad suggestions on how we might help heal our sick civilization and the ailing planet, based on the understanding of crazy wisdom, a long-running tradition of tricksters, saints, self-proclaimed fools, and other disreputable characters. Rather than practical solutions, crazy wisdom offers a stance, an attitude to carry with us as we proceed through these ominous days. (When the revolution comes, I am angling for a seat on the ambiance committee.)
First and foremost, keep a big perspective in your pocket, ready to be unfurled in your head at a moment’s notice. The big perspective reminds us that nature is one tough mother, and that life has so far survived the collision of continents, mountain ranges erupting in volcanoes, murderously cold ice ages, the plague, Attila the Hun, and even Henry Kissinger. So there is reason for optimism. I also took heart the other day when a friend who is an expert on Hindu prophecy told me that there are only 470 thousand years left in the Kali Yuga, the era of destruction. Whew! We’ve turned the corner.
The big perspective also carries your intuitive understanding that you are part of it all, and so are they, the people who the Dalai Lama calls, “my friends, the enemy.” If your big picture does not talk about the big love then it won’t transform anything.
My favorite big perspective is the epic of evolution, which offers us all forgiveness by revealing that we are a baby species, just getting started on our history. There were 100 million generations of dinosaurs, at least 10 million generations of mammals before humans came along, but there have only been 20 or 30 thousand generations of modern homo sapiens. We only recently acquired these big brains and still don’t know how to use them very well. From the perspective of biological evolution it is clear: humans should not be tried as adults.
The story of evolution is also a good place to discover self-liberation. Contemporary biology tells us that we are all cells in a single living organism which is life on Earth: the Greeks called that being “Gaia,” the goddess. Your life is not about you so much as it is about life itself, and when we feel ourselves to be part of this grand earthbound experiment, then we can find meaning and purpose in working for its preservation.
If we look at ourselves in evolutionary history we also find hope, because we can see that we are currently acquiring a new level of consciousness. Lao Tzu, Socrates and the Buddha appeared only 2,500 years ago — a blink of an eye in biological time — while Darwin, Freud, Jung, Einstein, and Hubble are virtually our contemporaries. We are just now waking up to a radically different understanding of ourselves in the scheme of things, and it is exciting to be alive to witness it. Of course, we are feeling the growing pains as we move through this transition period, but maybe we will soon find a way to adapt to our latest story about human life. Maybe we will even discover how to use our hearts and minds better, and finally learn how to be happy.
Along with your big perspective, I suggest that you cultivate a hearty sense of humor and always keep it handy. As Wavy Gravy says, “If you don’t have a sense of humor, it’s just not funny.” Remember that nobody really knows what’s going on here, and that we are all at the mercy of the great mystery. So admit your basic foolishness, laugh as much as possible, and step lightly through this world. You will cause less damage that way.
Of course, in the end, the most important thing is to learn to love yourself and to love life and the world, in all its fragile, fleeting, cruel beauty. If we don’t love it, then we won’t be able to find the energy to heal it.
Finally, stay high but keep your priorities straight, and if you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own.
Wes “Scoop” Nisker is an author, radio commentator, Buddhist meditation teacher, and performer. His bestselling books include Essential Crazy Wisdom (Ten Speed Press), and The Big Bang, The Buddha, and the Baby Boom (HarperSanFrancisco). Mr. Nisker is the founder and co-editor of the international Buddhist journal Inquiring Mind.