In large international gatherings convened to agree on limiting fossil fuel emissions and protecting biodiversity, the challenges we face as a species are stated solely in the language of science. Undoubtedly science is crucial for solving our current crises, but it’s not enough; science is an incomplete description of reality. I’m not remotely anti-science, but I believe science needs a good friend.
What if we also brought spiritual solutions to bear on the polycrisis—climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, inequality, and global injustice? Our systems of production, governance, legislation, and distribution mirror our collective consciousness. If consciousness shifts, the systems will follow. The key lies in transforming our views—our views of what we are, what the planet is, and what our relationships with the more-than-human world can be.
Though many of us intellectually accept that we’re interconnected and exist only in interdependence with all beings and the earth, in professional settings, we tend to revert to an outdated cosmology—that of nineteenth-century physics. So, the problems and solutions discussed in these settings all assume the standard story of scientific materialism as their frame.
“By listening deeply to our own bodies and feelings, we’re listening to Mother Earth.”
Scientific materialism tells us that the entire universe is made of “matter,” or bits of dead, indifferent “stuff,” which interact according to “laws of physics,” and which are completely indifferent to consciousness. The fact that this is outdated science is conveniently overlooked, and the insight of interbeing is dismissed as “woo-woo” and unrealistic, at least at the level of international laws and treaties.
After attending meditation retreats, in which they connect with a deeper awareness of interbeing, many people feel they must return to the “real world,” whatever that may be. There’s an apparent divide between spiritual life and the professional realm. We should challenge this by applying our spiritual insights to the challenges we face at work, right up to the level of international climate agreements.
Buddhist teachings present two seemingly contradictory ways of describing reality: the historical dimension and the ultimate dimension. In the historical dimension, you’re outside of me, and I’m outside of you; there’s cause and effect, before and after, this and that. According to this view, which is the commonly accepted way of looking at reality, there’s an overwhelming sense of urgency in the face of the climate crisis. Many scientists already believe it’s too late to prevent civilizational collapse. CO2 and methane emissions, industrial agriculture, pollution, and habitat loss have destabilized our climate, vastly increasing the severity of floods, fires, and hurricanes, while also triggering cascading losses of wildlife on land and in the oceans, as well as accelerating the collapse of Arctic ice cover and Antarctic glaciers.
So, it’s confusing when you hear teachings in a Buddhist monastery like, “You already are what you want to become.” From the perspective of the ultimate dimension, we’re all part of an unbroken web of relations. Everything is in everything else, and there are in fact no separate entities. According to this view, birth and death are concepts that are incompatible with our true nature. The challenge of these teachings is that both the historical and the ultimate are true. This is hard to accept when the two ways of seeing appear to contradict each other so completely. But the two truths—the ultimate and the historical—depend on each other and can only manifest together. Understanding this is the key to applying these teachings.
Scientific materialism typically recognizes only the historical dimension—what can be measured and quantified—while the ultimate dimension is considered imaginary or irrelevant. Our technological civilization is founded on the belief that matter is indifferent, dead “stuff,” to be manipulated at will. This belief is what has allowed us to consider the earth as a mere agglomeration of “resources,” there solely for our use, and with no moral consequence to their extraction. But this view is unique to the industrialized world. In most cultures throughout history, and in many still extant today, the earth and all living beings are known to be sacred.
When considering the teaching of the two dimensions of reality, we don’t try to get away from the historical and take refuge in the ultimate. Instead, we learn to be skillful in applying the two ways of seeing, moving smoothly between the two views with the practice of looking deeply. To find the ultimate truth, we must look deeply into the historical truth. When we look deeply into a flower, we see that it’s not only a flower, but also the clouds, rain, earth, and sunlight that have given rise to it. We can look deeply into any phenomenon, and what we find is a tightly woven net of relations. In each apparently separate thing, we find the whole cosmos.
Looking into our own body, we find our ancestors—both genetic and spiritual. It’s our genetic and cultural inheritance that has to a very large extent determined how we speak, think, and act today. Our body contains all our human ancestors, but also all our more-than-human ancestors. Our body is an expression of the whole history of life on planet Earth. In fact, the entire history of the cosmos has given rise to this moment that we’re now living. And this very moment is the ground of the whole future unfolding of the cosmos. Looking deeply into the present, we discover the interconnection of past, present, and future—the interbeing of the three times. This is the view from the ultimate in the dimension of time.
We could look at a tree and ask: Is it part of the historical or ultimate dimension? Science describes trees as efficient carbon-capture machines. They remove carbon dioxide from the air, cause no pollution, and also happen to be nice to look at. They’re efficient—offering shade, oxygen, fruits, and aesthetic satisfaction—but is that view complete? Could we be missing something by seeing trees only in terms of human utility?
When tackling the polycrisis, we tend to frame the problems in terms of the historical dimension alone—how many parts per million of this or that gas, how many fractions of a degree variation in average temperature, and so on. That’s where our attention tends to collapse when we feel panic—when we think we’re running out of time. We think we don’t have time to consider a spiritual approach—we tell ourselves we have to be practical and realistic.
But if scientific materialism is an incomplete picture of reality, then the solution space it affords us is also incomplete. What if, at the negotiation tables and in the boardrooms, we could still respond to the urgency of the historical view, but with the freedom and insight of the ultimate? What if we could stop denying the presence and importance of the spiritual, especially when we face our most pressing challenges?
My teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, made it simple: Anything we do can be spiritual. Meetings, decisions, business—the parts of life we think are separate from retreat or practice—aren’t separate at all. He said the only thing that determines whether or not something is spiritual is the quality of our presence.
Learning to be truly present is a practice; we can learn to be more present. To generate the energy of presence, all we have to do is come back to what is going on in the here and now. How do we know if we’re in the here and now? It’s very simple: All of our bodily sensations are taking place only in the here and now.
If you can feel the ground under your feet, the air on your skin, your inhalation and exhalation, you’re in the now. You can’t feel these sensations anywhere other than in the now. The more you are with these present moment sensations, the more energy of presence you have. And when we can speak, act, and think with that energy, everything we do will be different, everything we say and do will carry the signature of the ultimate. A simple daily act like pouring a cup of tea can become deep, meaningful, and spiritual—if we do it with our whole being, with our full presence.
If we’re determined to cultivate the insight of interbeing, so that it can truly become a force for systems change in our society, then we need to make the cultivation of this insight a daily practice. Every meal, for example, offers an opportunity to contemplate interbeing. In this way, we’re gradually softening the grip on our consciousness of the story of separation told by scientific materialism. According to that dominant story, we’re all fundamentally alone, separate, and distinct. That view of separation is at the root of so much suffering, competition, and strife in our world. We know intellectually that it isn’t the whole truth, but we need to download that intellectual understanding into our unconscious mind—seeing with the eyes of interbeing has to become a habit.
When chewing a piece of broccoli, or a spoonful of rice, we have an opportunity to directly experience our interconnection with the entire cosmos. We have a chance to taste the radiant sunlight, the bounteous earth, the wandering moon, and the softness of rain. This is not mere intellectual understanding—it’s living insight. But how often do we invite this kind of practice into our day? That’s why we need communities of practice to sustain cultures of practice. If we can build communities that embody this kind of insight, we can transform our whole society.
Our bodies are an expression of Mother Earth; we are Mother Earth. By listening deeply to our own bodies and feelings, we’re listening to Mother Earth. The distress and discomfort we feel may not be ours alone but a reflection of the pain of the entire biosphere. By slowing down and feeling safe enough to listen, we can hear Mother Earth. She’s always with us, and if we listen attentively, she will show us the way.
