The Interconnectedness of Well-Being Zen Buddhist Teachings on Holistic Sustainability

Tess Edmonds AHS Capstone Project, Spring 2011 Disciplinary Deliverable P a g e | 2

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete, The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken I swear, there is no greatness of power that does not emulate those of the earth, There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate the theory of the earth, No politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth,

Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of the earth. I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds love, It is that which contains itself, which never invites and never refuses. I swear, I begin to see little or nothing in audible words, All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth, Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths of the earth, Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch.

-Walt Whitman

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A PERSONAL NOTE OF INTRODUCTION

This project began with a personal journey of exploration, experience, and thinking about how to bring together areas I have increasingly sensed are interrelated. As far back as I can remember, I have always had a deep-rooted love for Nature – a quiet reverence for the mountains and rivers, animals and plants with which we share this planet. This intimacy with the natural world motivated me to seek alternatives to the current systems and ways of life that are eroding natural resources and ecosystems.

A twin motivation of mine has been the desire to better understand human nature and specifically the aspects of human nature that lead to the purest, greatest happiness in an individual – that steer people away from poverty, fear, violence, greed, discontent and towards a flourishing existence.

Pursuing these two paths through the creative problem-solving framework of design rooted in humanities and social sciences, I have expanded my way of thinking about these issues academically.

Pursuing them through the study of the self, I have found that Zen Buddhism has much to offer on these topics. It is difficult to say what Zen is, exactly. Its connotation and colloquial use in western culture do not offer much in the way of truly understanding this teaching “which is against the current, which is lofty, deep, subtle, and hard to comprehend.”1

In many ways, I am unqualified to be writing on the topic of Zen and how it draws deep connections between the well-being of people and the well-being of the environment. Zen is “beyond words” and “fundamentally impossible to write about.”2 Rather, it is best experienced directly, as we will discuss.

In acknowledging that this work is about Zen teachings more than it is Zen teachings, I also seek to show that these core principles can offer new perspectives on why people and our environment are not flourishing, why many of our current approaches to these issues are not working, and how we might shift these paradigms.

1 Walpola Rahula. What the Buddha Taught (U.S.A.: Grove Press, 1974), p. 52. 2 Matthiessen, Peter. Nine Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982 (Shambhala Dragon Editions), p 1. P a g e | 4

THE BIG PICTURE

Three Stories

In 2003, the residents of Shishmaref, Alaska, decided by majority vote to move their native village from the tiny island of Sarichef to the mainland. This Inupiat village was quickly being eroded into the sea as shorter and shorter winters meant the permafrost upon which their houses were built was melting. Storms buffeted the shore of the small island, lacking its usual protective layer of ice, and as homes sunk into the sea, it was clear that their future there was uncertain. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers surveyed possible new sights for the village and determined that it would cost the U.S. government $180 million to move Shishmaref. However, the real cost to the residents was not measurable in terms of material loss. Many feared that by leaving the island, “they would give up their connection to the sea and become lost.”3

One day in April of 2009, Mrs. Kellerman went down to her basement to find her husband dead. Freddie Mac Acting Chief Financial Officer, David Kellerman, had hung himself with a piece of exercise equipment. Apparently, Kellerman had been strongly considering resigning from the company but feared what it would look like to the public, in light of the Freddie Mac’s crippling financial troubles. Sources said “he had hardly seen his family, including his young daughter, in recent months” and that “he had been consumed at work by a growing number of challenges.” He ended both his life and the sixteen year long career that he had built from when he joined Freddie Mac as a young analyst.4

Late one night in 1978, Clyde Foster, the mayor of Triana, Alabama – a small, poor, mostly black community – received an alarming phone call. An anonymous reporter told him that he had heard through a leak at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) of a study showing DDT concentrations in local fish forty times above the level considered safe by the federal government. Mayor Foster was greatly troubled by this information and called the TVA the following day for corroboration. Indeed, they were aware of the report on Indian Creek. Mayor Foster replied to the TVA man he was speaking to, “Sir, I must tell you that I am greatly concerned over this threat to the life of my town. I’m sure you’re aware that we swim in that creek, that we fish in it every day – for food, damn it, not for trophies – and it was our only local source of water until 1967.” The TVA man said he was sorry and hung up.5

These three stories expose some of the most perplexing realities of our world. We have created mind-bogglingly complex technologies that are consuming all manner of non-renewable resources, but we are only beginning to grasp their dire effects on our climate and ecosystems. We have encouraged the view that self-made affluence marks success in life, and yet the stresses and pathology present in certain versions of that lifestyle are clearly overwhelming. We have instated dozens of environmental acts and regulations, but not infrequently they negatively impact the well-

3 Elizabeth Kolbert. Field Notes from a Catastrophe. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2006), p. 9. 4 Zachary Goldfarb. “Freddy Mac Official Spoke of Resigning.” In The Washington Post. April 24, 2009. 5 Michael Haggerty. “Crisis at Indian Creek.” In Unequal Protection, Ed. Robert D. Bullard. (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1997), p. 23. P a g e | 5 being of people – and disproportionately people of low-income and color – because they do not take into account people’s needs or are not enforced in communities with less political sway.

Modernity and prosperity have brought with them many benefits; however, a growing body of anecdotal and research-based evidence suggests that traditional measures of progress and success have led us to a reality in which we face a degraded environment and societies in which unhappiness is still rampant despite affluence. Many thinkers from diverse disciplines have taken up the question of human well-being; fewer have engaged in a deeper discussion of the connection between human and environmental well-being. If we hope to enjoy a future on this planet, then both the human and the environmental dimension must be addressed, for an existence devoid of well-being seems hardly worth sustaining, and no existence of any kind can be sustained on an earth that is hostile to humans and other living things.

This paper is concerned with the interconnections between issues of environmental sustainability and human well-being. It examines these connections through the lens of Zen Buddhism and focuses on the United States context. These two angles were chosen based on both personal relevance and the recent engagement of American Zen scholars and students in environmental issues. Furthermore, while the developing world merits extensive attention and efforts to increase the well-being of people living in low-income and resource-poor settings, it is the lack of environmental and human well-being in the developed world that is perhaps even more perplexing.

From a conceptual discussion of these issues, I will venture into an exploration of applications to sustainable design thinking as it relates to systems. While several scholars of Buddhism and of environmental studies have put these two subjects in dialogue with one another, no one to my knowledge has applied this thinking to sustainable design. Sustainable design, or ecological design, is the application of a semi-structured creative problem solving process to finding innovative solutions that address the needs of stakeholders within their social and environmental contexts. However, many people and entities practicing their version of sustainable design are still focused on the symptoms of environmental issues, as opposed to the entire problem from roots up. To this developing field of work, I hope to add an appreciation for the need to address human well-being in concert with environmental well-being.

Suffering and Empathy

The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is that suffering is inherent in life. The truth of this statement is apparent in our daily lives, whether or not we are familiar with Buddhist teachings. From the most affluent to the most resource-poor, the most optimistic to the most pessimistic, there are very few people on this earth who feel that their lives lack nothing. If by nothing else, we are globally united by the human reality of suffering, whether it is physical, emotional, or spiritual.

Certainly, we experience unique challenges and causes of suffering according to our contexts, personalities, and perceptions. The suffering caused by lack of food and water is very different to the suffering caused by a lost sense of security or the suffering caused by a struggle to find purpose in life. Yet, at the same time, the basic sensation that results from these unmet needs is remarkably P a g e | 6 similar: a longing, a thirst, a deep desire for the current most pressing need in your life to be met as soon as possible.

While we cannot directly experience another’s unique reality, the ability of humans to empathize with other humans has the power to blur the line of separate realities. Recall the last time you had a conversation in which not only an exchange of words but also an exchange of emotions occurred. Perhaps you fleetingly felt some of the other person’s frustration or pain as your own. Perhaps your response to this deeper appreciation for the other’s reality was a feeling of compassion. You felt as though you really understood, on some level, what this fellow human being was experiencing, and your response – whether expressed in body language or words – conveyed this compassion to the other person, who gratefully accepted it as a signal that they were being understood on a level that neglected the usual barriers between two individuals’ experiences. It is in these moments of deeper than usual communion with other people that we may sense an interconnectedness beyond that which words can express. At these moments, can you satisfactorily answer the question, “Where do you end and where do I begin?” If you feel another’s emotions deeply enough for them to almost be your own, how can you cause pain to others without in some ways causing pain to yourself?

Now, let us zoom out from this intimate exchange between two individuals – all the way out until you are envisioning the earth in its entirety, a blue orb contrasting with the profound darkness of outer space. The image you now hold in your mind is probably similar to that captured by the crew of Apollo 8 as it sped away from the earth in 1968. Time Magazine described the magnitude of humanity’s first glimpse of the earth from space with the following words:

It was a journey into man’s future, a hopeful but urgent summons, in Poet Archibald MacLeish’s words, “to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold – brothers who know now they are truly brothers.”6

Not only did this new perspective unite all humans as inhabitants of this remarkable planet, but it also reinforced an anthropomorphization of the earth. Our “little earth entire, a remote, blue-brown sphere hovering like a migrant bird in the hostile night of space” called for our protection and deserved our empathy. Seeing the earth in its entirety refreshed the Western sense of the “wonder of nature” and sent a pang of compassion through the hearts of many Americans7. As the environmental movement continued to gain momentum and issues of toxicity and pollution came to the forefront, it became increasingly clear that the environmental damage people were wreaking was also having a negative impact on their health and well-being. Much like the blurring of lines between two individuals connected in empathy, the separation between the well-being of people and the earth became less distinct.

6 “Nation: Men of the Year.” Time Magazine. January 3, 1969. 7 Lewis Lancaster. “Collective Cultural Perceptions.” In Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds, eds. Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Williams. Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, 1997. P a g e | 7

An Inadequate Definition of Sustainability

Now more than ever, humanity is faced with a host of serious environmental challenges that threaten our survival on earth. And yet, we are turning away from this difficult reality. Joanna Macy, a scholar of systems theory and Buddhism, describes this irony:

I tried to confront our capacity for denial. I could see how we as a society were ready to turn our faces away from the radioactive waste, as well as other horrors we didn’t want to see. For me this became the big koan, the big mystery – have we finally created something that we cannot face?8

There is little hope for our continued survival if we refuse to fully see, acknowledge, and take responsibility for the environmental degradation we have caused. Certainly, more people are paying more attention to the environmental impact of our systems and societies. However, the focus, at least in the United States, remains largely on the problems and what we should not be doing: we should not be dumping known toxic substances into water ways, we should not be driving cars with low fuel economies, we should not be building any more coal power plants… In simply saying “No” to all of these activities, we are seemingly denying people’s right to “self- fulfillment and the fulfillment of their desires according to the ideas of infinite freedom, rebellion, and creativity.”9

The overwhelming message is that we must give-up the parts of our lives that are “unsustainable” – we must sacrifice our own well-being in order to preserve the planet. For many people, this negative messaging evokes a regulated, constrained vision for the future that misaligns with their lives and priorities. Calling for an end to coal power means telling the man who has supported his family by working at a coal plant for most of his life that he should value the environment more than he values his family’s well-being. Telling a mother that she should give up her big car might amount to telling her she that she should not support the diversity of activities her three children are involved in. Forbidding a village in northern India to gather fire wood from the surrounding forest because it is now a Natural Reserve is to seriously compromise the survival of that community. To tell people that their current livelihoods, value systems, and sources of happiness are unsustainable creates the perception that their happiness and the well-being of the environment are in direct opposition. In short, such a world does not appeal to many people as one worth sustaining.

In fact, the most commonly quoted definition of sustainability does little to conjure up a glowing vision for the future: “sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”10 If everyone agreed to work towards this definition of sustainability, we might reach a world in which all resource consumption is tightly regulated, waste over the lifecycle of any system approaches zero, and

8 Wes Nisker and Barbara Gates. “Guarding the Earth: A Conversation with Joanna Macy.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 295. 9 Peter Timmerman. “Western Buddhism and the Global Crisis.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft, Shambhala, 2000, p. 366. 10 Brundtland Commission. “Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development.” UN Documents. April 1987. P a g e | 8 negative effects on the environment are reduced and controlled. However, this “sustainable” world is in direct opposition with the American ideals of freedom, independence, and liberal consumption. Furthermore, it says nothing about the well-being of people11, such that under this definition of sustainability, this world could be one in which rates of depression continued to increase, violence and crime remained unchecked, and general discontent and dissatisfaction were still considered a fact of life.

It may be possible to attain such a regulated world, but I would argue that such a world would not be easily sustained because it does not address the root causes of our current “unsustainable” systems. MIT professor John Ehrenfeld asserts that reducing “unsustainability” will not result in a sustainable global society. He looks to principles of systems dynamics to illustrate that in many cases we are addressing the symptoms rather than the root causes of unsustainability.12 We have a tendency to look to the most obvious and immediate problems, e.g. “the belching smokestack,” rather than the underlying causes of those problems, e.g. “the manipulation of desires that made certain objects seem essential to our personal well-being – and which made the smokestack happen in the first place.”13

How do we begin to uncover and address the root causes of unsustainability and of human suffering? Furthermore, is it possible to address both the well-being of people and the well-being of the environment, or must we sacrifice one for the sake of the other?

This work seeks to address these questions through the lens of Zen Buddhism. Zen has much to offer regarding the fundamentally human experiences of suffering, compassion, and interconnectedness. Its aim is decidedly pragmatic: “it provides a set of practical guidelines for leading a life free from suffering – a happier, more fulfilling life.”14 Furthermore, it teaches that not only can we address the well-being of people and nature in tandem, but that we must, for they are inextricably linked.

I begin by laying a foundation for Zen Buddhist teachings in Part 1. Then, in Part 2, I apply these concepts to understanding the underlying causes of unsustainability and suffering, and in Part 3, I discuss the remedies that Zen prescribes to these problems. Finally, in Part 4, I bring the higher level discussion down to earth with an exploration of how these principles might be applied to creating societies which are holistically sustainable using the creative frameworks of design thinking.

11 Ironically, this definition is taken from the Brundtland Report, which does address human well-being, but it is so often quoted out of context that it has lost this essential connection. 12 John Ehrenfeld. Sustainability by Design. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010, p. 16. 13 Peter Timmerman. “Western Buddhism and the Global Crisis.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft, Shambhala, 2000, p. 367. 14 Simon P. James. Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2004, p 1. P a g e | 9

PART 1. AN INTRODUCTION TO ZEN

During a month-long stay at the Zen Mountain Monastery in 2008, I attempted to capture some of rhythms of daily monastic life:

January, 4:45 am - The resonating beat of a drum from down in the zendo15, somewhere in the back of my consciousness, perhaps puncturing a colorful dream… Then bells outside the door gently call us into the frosty predawn hours of another winter morning in the snowy Catskills. We wake up in silence, turning inward to begin the day with an hour of zazen16.

I savor a last moment below the warmth of my blankets and then cast them off to tip-toe to the bathroom, splash my face with water, and then wind down the staircase to the zendo. My fellow residents enter one by one in long grey-blue robes and bare feet. The senior monastics wear black robes, with a white under-layer that shows around the collar and ankles. Their shaved heads shine subtly in the dimmed lights.

Ancient heaters click energetically in an attempt to warm the spacious hall, lined on both sides by wooden-framed windows. The rows of zabutons and zafus (sitting mats and cushions) mirror the windows on either side of a wide central aisle that leads to the central alter. Incense scents the air and a bronze cast Buddha sits in perfect stillness, framed with flowers and candles.

The han – an instrument made from a wooden hanging block and mallet– gradually fades into quietude like a ball slowly coming to sit after being dropped from high up. Three singing notes from the time-keeper’s bell signal the beginning of the first sitting period. Sniffles and robe- rustling subsides into utter silence.

Even so much as a shifting of weight or heavy breath will receive a stern reminder from the monitor: “Breath quietly,” “The mind cannot be still if the body is not still. Trust yourself. Give yourself to your practice,” or sometimes “WAKE-UP!” The two half-hour sessions are separated by a five minute kinhin, or walking-meditation. No matter how quietly we step, the old floors creek like stiff backs stretching themselves.

Morning service follows: we chant the Heart Sutra and “Sho Sai Myyo Kichijo Dharani” – a verse of healing syllables mixed with Sanskrit words sent out into the world and dedicated especially to friends and family of the sangha (monastery community) that are currently ill. Although the words don’t mean anything in a literal sense to me, the power of our combined voices reverberates through my body and conveys meaning beyond words: “No mo san man da moto nan oha ra chi koto sha sono nan…”

Breakfast breaks both our fast and our silence just as the sun is peaking over the hills. Nourished with warm food, we begin work practice at 8:15 and continue until noon, with the first hour and

15 The zendo is the meditation hall. Most terms specific to Zen Buddhism are in Japanese because most of the Zen schools present in the United States evolved in Japan. 16 The term zazen literally means “sitting Zen” and is most commonly used to describe Zen meditation. However, it is also the state of mindfulness that Zen students endeavor to cultivate in all aspects of life. P a g e | 10

a half in silence. In our work practice, we extend our zazen from the cushion into every moment of life: cleaning toilets, chopping carrots, and raking leaves…

Zen Buddhism is rooted in practice. Whereas some of the other Buddhist traditions emphasize the study of written texts, Zen focuses on the study of the self. This begins with seated meditation – zazen – and then moves into every aspect of life. Through practice, a student develops joriki – the power of concentration and increased mindfulness. Gradually, this practice opens the way to samadhi, or ‘single-pointed mind.’ In this state, the mind does not attach itself to thoughts, emotions, or transient states; it is primed for awakening. Awakening to what? As John Daido Loori, late abbot of the Zen Mountain Monastery in New York State, explains,

You and I are the same thing, but I am not you and you are not me. Both of those facts exist simultaneously, but somehow that doesn’t compute. Our brains can’t deal with it. The two things seem mutually exclusive. That’s why practice is so vital. You need to see it for yourself, and see that words don’t reach it. There is no way this reality can be conveyed by words, any more than the taste of the crystal clear water can be conveyed in any other way than by tasting it.17

As with all teachings in Zen, this reality that “you and I are the same thing, but … I am not you and you are not me” must be directly experienced through practice. When Zen students realize this intellectual paradox directly, the experience is called kensho: “In a moment too short to measure, the universe changed on its axis and my search was over.”18 A student can have a number of kensho experiences that last several days as “a stream of great delight” running through the body and the vivid experience of everything as “enjoying free communion, harmoniously united.”19 Ultimately, though, kensho experience becomes permanent, as satori or full enlightenment is attained.

The particulars of Zen training vary between schools and teachers. Often, once a student has reached a certain level of control over their mind, a teacher will begin koān study. A koān is “a spiritual puzzle that cannot be solved by the intellect alone.”20 Because they defy conventional logic, they cause an existential crisis or ‘Great Doubt’ in the student and only through meditating on the koān can the student overcome the doubt and gain greater insight.21

However, sitting meditation and koān study are only components of a full Zen practice. The manifestations of Zen training in every aspect of daily life have emerged from the various cultural traditions that have influenced Zen. In the United States, where there has been strong influence from Japanese teachers, Zen practice is infused with many Japanese art forms and elements. For example, the Zen Mountain Monastery in New York State lays out a training program that includes Eight Gates, which are similar to the Eight Fold Path (to be discussed shortly).22 Through the Eight

17 John Daido Loori. The Eight Gates of Zen (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2002), p xv. 18 Katsuki Sekida. Zen Training (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2005) p. 195. 19 Ibid, p.196. 20 Peter Timmerman. “Western Buddhism and the Global Crisis.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 405. 21 Simon P. James. Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004), p 19. 22 John Daido Loori. The Eight Gates of Zen (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2002). P a g e | 11

Gates, a student studies the self through Zen archery, through the art of calligraphy, through taking out the garbage, through making an honest living, through studying ancient and modern texts… This comprehensive practice is embodied by poet and student of Zen Gary Snyder’s words: “Zen is a way of using your mind, living your life, and doing it with other people.”23

Zen practice has evolved over the course of thousands of years, through diverse cultures. A look at the history of Buddhism and the source of core Buddhist teachings will allow us to better understand the particular embodiment of Zen that arrived in the United States. We begin with the Buddha himself.

Around 480 BCE, Siddhārtha Gautama24 was born to father Suddhodana, ruler of the Sākya people. For the first thirty years of his life, Siddhārtha lived a sheltered, princely life inside palace walls, and his father ensured that no amount of pain or suffering be present in his life. According to the traditional story, this illusion of a perfect world was suddenly shattered when Siddhārtha ventured outside of the palace and came across in succession an old man, a sick man, and a corpse, none of which he had ever seen before. The reality of great suffering and impermanence struck the prince “like a poisoned arrow.”25 Soon after this experience, Siddhārtha left his royal life and became an ascetic, in search of a solution to universal suffering. On his six year journey, he mastered the teachings and practices of many gurus but still felt there was a deeper truth that escaped him. So he abandoned these traditional practices of self-mortification and set out on his own, finding himself one evening under the Bodhi-tree, where he is said to have attained enlightenment. He was thereafter known as the Buddha, which means the “Awakened One,” and his insights became the foundation of Buddhism, which has since evolved through various cultural and geographical ecosystems26. Common to all of the schools of Buddhism are the core teachings of the four Noble Truths, which can be simply stated as follows:

Suffering is inherent in life. Suffering is caused by craving. Craving and hence suffering can be destroyed. The Holy Eightfold Path is the course leading to this.27

These four Noble Truths encompass the symptom, the root cause, and the cure for suffering. They will be fully explored in the context of environmental issues in Part 2. Buddhism emphasizes directly experiencing these truths rather than simply taking them at face value. The Buddha taught that “each person must develop himself and work out his own emancipation, for man has the power to liberate himself from all bondage through his own personal effort and intelligence.”28 While the

23 John Daido Loori. The Eight Gates of Zen (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2002), p. 27. 24 For consistency’s sake, all Buddhist terms are written in Sanskrit rather than Pali as these are more familiar to Western audiences (e.g. Siddhārtha Gautama rather than Siddhattha Gotama and Nirvāna rather than Nibbāna). 25 Simon P. James. Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004), p 4. 26 Walpola Rahula. What the Buddha Taught (U.S.A.: Grove Press, 1974), p. xv. 27 Simon P. James. Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004), p 5. 28 Walpola Rahula. What the Buddha Taught (U.S.A.: Grove Press, 1974), p. 1-2. P a g e | 12

Dharma, or teachings, of Buddhism are important guides along the way, ultimately, the individual has to transcend a strictly intellectual understanding and experience their truth directly.

The path that leads to this liberation is the Eightfold Path – the “Middle Way” that avoids two extremes: one extreme being the search for happiness through sense pleasures and the other extreme being the search for happiness through self-mortification and asceticism. The Eightfold Path aims at developing ethical conduct (sīla), mental discipline (samādhi), and wisdom (prajna). Through developing these mutually reinforcing qualities, the student of Buddhism will awaken to their intrinsically pure and perfect being, or “Buddha-nature,” that is “clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions, […] the burdensome armor of the ego.”29

According to Buddhism, the generally accepted idea of some permanent, unchanging self, soul, or ego is false and the cause of suffering. Buddhism “stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of such a soul, self, or ātman.”30 The universe from the Buddhist perspective is better described as follows:

[All things] have an interdependent origination: when one thing arises, all things arise simultaneously. And everything has a mutual causality: what happens to one thing happens to the entire universe... a universe in which all the parts and the totality are a single entity; all of the pieces and the whole thing are, at once, one thing.31

We will further explore these ideas of not-self, or anātman, and its natural corollary of ‘conditioned genesis,’ or pratīya-samutpāda, in later sections. Keep in mind that all of these principles are grounded in the insights gained from the Buddha’s direct experience and confirmed by enlightenment experiences of thousands of men and women since the Buddha’s time. The fact that the Buddha’s teachings have evolved and been adopted in many cultures over the past 2,500 years is quite remarkable.

The most common school of Buddhism in the United States is Zen Buddhism, and the particular ‘flavor’ of Zen was shaped by the specific Japanese teachers that initially brought the practice here. There are several defining elements of Zen in its embodiment of the core Buddhist teachings.

According to tradition, Zen Buddhism can be traced to Bodhidharma, an Indian monk that traveled to China in the late fifth century CE. Out of his interpretation of Buddhist teachings, grew the Ch’an school. ‘Ch’an’ is the Chinese transliteration of dhyana, the Sanskrit term for meditation. As well as a special emphasis on seated meditation, Ch’an relied on direct teacher to student transmission of the teachings over study of scriptures. The following description of Ch’an is attributed to Bodhidharma:

A special transmission outside the scriptures; Without depending on words and letters; Pointing directly to the human mind; Seeing the innate nature, one becomes a Buddha.32

29 Matthiessen, Peter. Nine Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982 (Shambhala Dragon Editions), p1. 30 Walpola Rahula. What the Buddha Taught (U.S.A.: Grove Press, 1974), p. 51. 31 Loori, John Daido. Teachings of the Insentient: Zen and the Environment. Mt. Tremper: Dharma Press, 1999. 32 Simon P. James. Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2004, p 15. P a g e | 13

From this foundation, Ch’an spread to other countries including Japan, where it was translated to ‘Zen’ Buddhism. In Japan, Zen had a great influence on the arts and was in turn shaped by Japanese culture. For example, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, who was one of the Japanese teachers to bring Zen to the U.S., emphasized the connection between Zen Buddhism and nature. He asserted that “Zen helped a great deal to deepen the aesthetic sensibility of the Japanese mind and finally to root it in the religious intuitions that rise from a mystic understanding of Nature.”33

This is one of the undertones of the Zen teachings that were transmitted to the United States. The other is that early on, the teachers who came to the U.S. wrote about and taught predominantly Rinzai Zen, which focuses more on koān study. Sōto Zen, which emphasizes zazen, came a bit later. Many Zen schools in the U.S. today teach a mix of Rinzai and Sōto Zen.

This brief description of Zen training, teachings, and history is rather simplified but will provide a basic understanding upon which to build our discussion. With this foundation, we can begin to explore the implications of Zen thought on our understanding of the current environmental and social challenges and the connections between the well-being of nature and of people.

33 Ibid. p, 26. P a g e | 14

PART 2. EARTH IS SUFFERING; PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING: WHAT’S WRONG?

According to the Buddhist legend regarding the evolution of the world, there were once primordial beings that were free from the suffering and longing we consider facts of life today. These beings were “self-luminous, subsisting on joy and traversing in the skies.”34 Once these beings began to eat the sweet, fragrant butter-like substance that was said to cover the earth at the time, they gradually began to lose their radiance. As the butter-like substance was consumed, greed appeared. With this greed came hatred, as the beings competed for the largest lot, and soon they had become heavy and lost the ability to subsist on joy and traverse the skies.

This legend illustrates the Buddhist belief that “though change is a factor inherent in nature, human moral deterioration accelerates the process of change and brings about changes which are adverse to human well-being and happiness.”35 We can see this truth in our present day world, in which we recognize that our rates of consumption are not sustainable, in which greed and hatred and ignorance are realities, and in which we struggle to liberate ourselves from suffering.

Buddhism perceives all of these problems as merely different symptoms of the same underlying cause: trsna (literally “thirst”, or craving). The Buddha said, “The world lacks and hankers, and is enslaved to ‘thirst.’”36 Through an inquiry into the nature, the source, and the results of this thirst, we will better understand the connections between people and the environment.

The Four Noble Truths, mentioned briefly in the previous section, are often compared metaphorically to the process of a good doctor. First, he observes the patient’s symptoms in some depth, then he identifies the underlying cause or disease, and finally he prescribes an effective treatment. Let us examine these steps in the context of people and the way in which they relate to their natural environments.

The First Noble Truth is that suffering is inherent in life. In the context of Buddhism, our English translation of duhkha as ‘suffering’ results in an incomplete understanding of what is meant. Duhkha can be understood from three different angles:

1. Duhkha as ordinary suffering: produced by old age, sickness, association with unpleasant persons or situations, separation from beloved ones, and all forms of physical and mental suffering 2. Duhkha as produced by change: a result of the reality that even happy feelings and conditions are impermanent, and thus when they change they produce pain and unhappiness 3. Duhkha as conditioned states: suffering that results from the “five aggregates of attachment”: aggregate of matter, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

34 Lily de Silva. “Early Buddhist Attitudes toward Nature.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 93. 35 Ibid. p. 95. 36 Walpola Rahula. What the Buddha Taught (U.S.A.: Grove Press, 1974), p. 30. P a g e | 15

The third form of duhkha is the most obscure and difficult to grasp intellectually. The five aggregates comprise essentially all physical and mental activity and responses to external stimuli – in short, everything that creates the idea of a permanent ‘I’ ‘Self’ or ‘Ego’. Buddhism holds that these aggregates cause suffering precisely because, when working together in combination as a “physio- psychological machine,” they produce the sense of ‘I’. From this sense of ‘I’ emerges all other problems. Just as with the primordial beings from the Buddhist evolution legend, a heightened sense of ‘I’ also brings forth the desire to fulfill selfish needs and with it the “ignoble impulses of greed, hatred, and delusion.”37 The effect of these impulses is seen in human conflict and in environmental degradation. De Silva explains this connection as follows:

Greed, hatred, and delusion produce pollution within and without. Generosity, compassion, and wisdom produce purity within and without. This is one reason the Buddha has pronounced that the world is led by the mind, cittena niyati loko. Thus people and nature, according to the ideas expressed in early Buddhism, are interdependent.38

The heightened sense of ‘I’ also creates separation between individuals and between people and the environment. All Western areas of thought are based primarily on a dualistic way of seeing things – one based on separation rather than interconnectedness. The natural sciences generally perceive humans as separate from nature, and there are many disciplines that aspire to controlling, regulating, and conquering the ‘wild’ aspects of nature. The social sciences tend to focus on the differences between human beings such that they can be divided into groups, and this results in the tendency to “look at society in terms of the struggle for power.” The humanities see “freedom, the goal of life, as an external condition, as the power to control other things, such as nature or fellow human beings.” We have created a society and mode of thinking that makes us perceive happiness as “being intimately related to the power to control external circumstances, which in turn can be used to satisfy personal desires.”39

This way of thinking is intrinsically unsustainable because it requires an infinite quantity of resources to ensure the moment-to-moment happiness of individuals. Furthermore, this belief that “the more material possessions we have, the more happiness we will have” is completely backward from the Buddhist point of view: 40

Economists measure development in terms of increasing currency and material items, fostering greed. Politicians see development in terms of increased power, fostering hatred. Both measure the results strictly in terms of quantity, fostering delusion. From the Buddhist point of view, development must aim at the reduction of these three poisons, not their increase.41

37 Lily de Silva. “Early Buddhist Attitudes toward Nature.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 100. 38 Ibid. p. 95. 39 Praydh Payutto. “Buddhist Solutions for the Twenty-first Century.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 172. 40 Ibid. p. 174. 41 Sulak Sivaraksa. “Development as if People Mattered.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 183. P a g e | 16

Buddhism asserts that true happiness cannot be attained through external means. The Buddha himself said that “even a whole mountain of gold would not be enough to render a single human being truly satisfied.”42 In relation to environmental concerns and the current patterns of consumption, this is a scary prospect indeed.

The Second Noble Truth further elucidates the causes of duhkha. It states that “it is this ‘thirst’ (craving, trsna) which produces re- existence and re-becoming, and which is bound up with passionate greed, and which finds fresh delight now here and now there.”43 The fact that it finds fresh delight now and then means that desire can be quenched temporarily, but this would be akin to the symptomatic quick-fixes described earlier. Sooner or later, a new desire will arise and similar external resources will be sought out to appease it. In Buddhism, the root problem is the cycle of samsara, of continual suffering and striving, of which ‘thirst’ is the most palpable cause.

This cycle is known as ‘Conditioned Genesis’ and describes the tightly interconnected elements that contribute to human experience and the development of a sense of ‘me’ and ‘mine’. This cycle, depicted above, continuously repeats itself in every moment of every day. In this cycle, we see the thirst for sense-pleasures and the thirst for existence and becoming (literal and figurative birth and death). Again Buddhism sees this thirst for and attachment to sense-pleasures, ideas and ideals, views, opinions, wealth and power as the root of all social, political, and environmental problems.44 Also emergent from this conception of the human reality is the doctrine of no-soul or not-self: anātman. It is the constantly changing stream of thoughts, opinions, sensations, and emotions that produce the idea of the self, but it is according to Buddhism “an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality.”45 The principle of no-soul is one that goes against two deeply rooted ideas: self-protection and self-preservation. In many cases, these instincts have been necessary for our survival as a species:

In a sense, that strong ego, that strong sense of self and separateness that has been part of the process of evolution, is how we have survived as a species. We are not as fast as the other animals, nor as agile. We can’t fly. We’re not as strong as they are. All we have is our intellect, our wit. And Big Ego. Our intellect has now developed to the point where it threatens to extinguish the species itself.”46

42 Praydh Payutto. “Buddhist Solutions for the Twenty-first Century.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 177. 43 Walpola Rahula. What the Buddha Taught (U.S.A.: Grove Press, 1974), p. 27. 44 Ibid. p. 30. 45 Walpola Rahula. What the Buddha Taught (U.S.A.: Grove Press, 1974), p. 51. 46 Loori, John Daido. Teachings of the Insentient: Zen and the Environment. Mt. Tremper: Dharma Communications Press, 1999, p. 26. P a g e | 17

The deeper issue related to the Big Ego of human beings is not that we act in order to preserve and protect ourselves, but that this idea of a free-standing Self reinforces the idea that we are separate from other people and our environment. In this separation, it is much easier to act within the confines of self-interest, instead of concerning ourselves with untangling our sprawling systems of production and consumption to discover our true responsibility.

Buddhism turns these issues on their head by asserting that separation is an illusion. If we make an earnest effort to see things as they truly are, we will come to see intellectually and through direct experience that boundaries are not only unclear but also harmful. Separation permits environmental degradation, as people separate and prioritize their needs over those of nature. Separation causes environmental injustice, as people who have the power to voice their concerns are able to push undesirable waste, polluting industries, etc. on people who have less power. Separation causes pain to all individuals because it causes “bondage and inhibits and restricts our freedom.”47 A familiar Zen saying is “be the pain” or “be the anger.” If you take what was an “other” inside of your conception of self, it ceases to be an external object you can hold on to. It becomes just what it is without the filters, connotations, opinions, and reactions that the mind naturally forms when considering externalized objects or sensations. Looking at anger objectively, as an impermanent state which results from the worn mental pathways of the mind, it ceases to enslave you. You discover that you need not cling to it, and in doing so, you free yourself from its bondage.

John Daido Loori offers another interpretation of this shift in experience:

What is the cause of that separation? A thought. A single thought and heaven and earth are a million miles apart. How can we avoid the thought?… ‘By thinking non-thinking.’ When there’s not a single thought, then what? What do you do next? Get rid of it. ‘Not a single thought’ is another thought; throw it away.”48

By neither ‘thinking’ nor ‘thinking non-thinking,’ we see things as they truly are – that is, not separate. Until this dissolution of barriers occurs, we will continue to be, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, “imprisoned in our small selves, thinking only of some comfortable conditions for this small self, while we destroy our large self.”49

Certainly, we cannot neglect the fact that we must tend to physical needs and social needs; however, even with these needs met, we will not be truly happy until we address the need for freedom on a personal level. This freedom means finding “happiness that is more independent of externals, no longer dependent on having to exploit nature or our fellow beings.”50

Having explored the ways in which Buddhist principles explain our current ecological and social crises, we know look to applications of these teachings, and Zen training in particular, to increased human happiness and overall environmental well-being.

47 Ibid. p. 52. 48 Loori, John Daido. The Eight Gates of Zen: A Program of Zen Training. Dharma Communications, 2002, p. 89. 49 Thich Nhat Hanh. “The Sun my Heart.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 183. 50 Prayudh Payutto. “Buddhist Solutions for the Twenty-first Century.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 175. P a g e | 18

PART 3. THE PATH TO COMPLETE WELL-BEING FOR PEOPLE AND EARTH

It is said that when Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, gained enlightenment more than two millennia ago, he exclaimed, “Isn’t it incredible! All sentient beings have the Buddha nature. At the very same moment, I and all sentient beings together enter the Way.” In essence, he was saying that all sentient beings are intrinsically complete and perfect51. This statement may seem at odds with the discussion of the first three Noble Truths in the preceding section – how is it that people who are already perfect can lead such imperfect lives that cause themselves and the earth such suffering? Peter Matthiessen offers an evocative description of how this paradox comes to be:

Zen has been called ‘the religion before religion,’ which is to say that anyone can practice, including those committed to another faith. And the phrase evokes that natural religion of our early childhood, when heaven and splendorous earth were one. But soon the child’s clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego52.

It is this “burdensome armor of the ego” that the Buddha Way and all of Zen training seeks to pry off in order for the individual to fully realize the truth. As previously mentioned, this truth, according to Buddhism, is that there is no self and that the separateness we perceive between our “selves” and the rest of the universe is merely a delusion created by a continuous cycle of external conditions. 53

Zen training asks the individual to examine the self, peel back the layers of conditioning, and realize his or her own Buddha nature. How do we arrive at an understanding of no-self from an examination of the self? I posed this question to Daido Roshi, late Abbott of the Zen Mountain Monastery, and he responded with the words of Zen Master Dogen54: “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.” Daido Roshi then continued to explain, “To be enlightened by the ten thousand things is to recognize the unity of the self and the ten thousand things – the whole phenomenal universe.” Zen asserts that if we look hard enough – with our whole body and mind – we will discover that there is no separation between self and other or sentient and insentient.

However, Zen training does not end at the point where the student realizes “no-self.” True non- dualistic understanding requires a step further: “You and I are the same thing, but I am not you and you are not me.”55 To the logical brain, these two statements do not compute; they seem mutually exclusive. Daido Roshi asks us to consider the following metaphor:

51 Ibid, p. 14. 52 Matthiessen, Peter. Nine Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982 (Shambhala Dragon Editions), p1. 53 These conditions were touched upon in the previous section. They include all external stimuli and the internal responses to those stimuli. For example, a sound, the ear, hearing, and the physiological and emotional response it produces are all included in the so called Aggregates. 54 Loori, John Daido. The Eight Gates of Zen: A Program of Zen Training. Dharma Communications, 2002, p27. 55 Loori, John Daido. Teachings of the Insentient: Zen and the Environment. Mt. Tremper: Dharma Communications Press, 1999, p65. P a g e | 19

Master Dogen addresses the secrets of the river and of all water: The river is neither strong nor weak, neither wet nor dry, neither moving nor still, neither cold nor hot, neither being nor non-being, neither

delusion nor enlightenment. It is none of the dualities. Water is H2O, composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, two odorless and tasteless gases. You bring them together and you get water. But water is not oxygen, and it is not hydrogen. It is not a gas. It is the third thing.56

Realizing the “third thing” has many different names in Zen: “no separation, no attachment,” “no gain and no loss,” “cause and effect are one,” “responsibility,” “forget the self,” “really be yourself”… All of these things are different ways of saying “be intimate.” This is the core teaching of Zen Buddhism and one that offers much in the way of understanding the connection between the well- being of people and the well-being of the earth. Again, Daido Roshi:

In general, our ecology is based on separation. The teachings, on the other hand, are about intimacy. The way we view ourselves and the way we view the ten thousand things is the fundamental matter that makes all the difference in how we live our lives and how we relate to all of the so called “externals.” In engaging Zen training with an eye on its relationship to ecological concerns, we ask the question, “Where does the earth end and where do I begin?”57

Where does the earth end and where do I begin? In a very literal sense we are the earth, simply borrowing molecules while we exist in this “bag of skin,” as Daido Roshi so fondly calls the human body. But even aside from the literal sense, it is increasingly difficult to separate ourselves and our lives from the myriad other things and lives in this world. Our food systems, social networks, manufacturing industries, and energy economies touch environments and lives all over the planet. If what you wear, how you think, where you eat, who you know, and what you do figure anywhere into your understanding of “I,” then it is difficult to deny that “where the earth ends and where I begin” is none too clear of a boundary.

The way we view ourselves and the way we view the ten thousand things is the fundamental matter that makes all the difference in how we live our lives and how we relate to all of the so called “externals.” Zen practice encourages the development of “an ever increasing ethical sense of responsibility for an ever greater circle of realized relatedness.” This is expressed by the Buddhist term karunā – compassion or “wisdom in action.”58 The figure describing “Compassion Evolving” illustrates this relationship between compassion and expressed interrelatedness that Alan Sponberg perceives is the result of Zen practice. As a student of Zen, you develop insight into the true nature of things (evolving consciousness on the graph), and your sense of interrelatedness and compassion for all will naturally increase. If you understand deeply that all things in the universe, sentient and insentient – have a mutual identity, an interdependent origination, and a mutual causality, you understand that you can and must take true responsibility for your life.

56 Ibid. p.61 57 Loori, John Daido. Teachings of the Insentient: Zen and the Environment. Mt. Tremper: Dharma Communications Press, 1999, p.13. 58 Sponberg, Alan. “Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion.” In Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds, eds. Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Williams. Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, 1997. P a g e | 20

Taking responsibility for your life empowers you to “do something about whatever is hindering you.”59 This is a powerful realization indeed. If you are the only one responsible for the ups and downs you create around you, understanding that fact allows you to stop clinging to these ups and downs and to realize you “create and destroy all things.”60 Taking responsibility for your life means realizing that what you do to the earth, you do to yourself. Then, “there is no need for an Environmental Protection Agency, or for any protective legislation whatsoever. […] There is no way, having once realized the earth, that we could live our lives in the old way.”61 To “realize the earth” means to bring the earth into your reality – to understand that it is in fact not separate from you. While this way of thinking is not readily understood intellectually, its implications can be understood in more concrete terms. Consider the following:

We tend to think of the wild, the free, as being somehow far removed. […] But in actual fact, we’re surrounded and interpenetrated by wildness. […] The body itself is wild; certain aspects of us, our reflex actions, are manifestations of no mind, no effort. They just respond according to circumstances. The mind is also free and wild. [It has a side] that is very still, quiet, open and receptive. It is not reflective, analyzing, or judging each thing. It simply sees with the whole body and mind, hearing with the whole body and mind.62

Zen looks to nurture and develop this non-judging state of being, and in doing so, the student finds that there is no difference between the stillness of being and direct experience of every moment practiced by people and practiced by nature. For this reason, Zen sees nature as a teaching in and of itself, as Buddha-nature in action. In looking to nature as a teacher, we find that it reflects human nature in many ways:

Nature is not logical. It’s not predictable. It’s not really understandable. We can categorize and analyze it, but that is not what nature is really about. A description of nature is no more the thing itself than descriptions of ourselves are what the self really is.63

Countless sages, philosophers, and seekers of meaning have looked to nature as holding truths that escape us in the manmade world. Zen does not discriminate between nature touched and untouched by people. The wildness – the Buddha-nature – is reflected in both. In the non-manmade world, we see directly “essence of transience in the rhythms of nature – the falling of flowers, the

59 Loori, John Daido. Teachings of the Insentient: Zen and the Environment. Mt. Tremper: Dharma Communications Press, 1999, p.11. 60 Ibid, p. 12. 61 Loori, John Daido. Teachings of the Insentient: Zen and the Environment. Mt. Tremper: Dharma Communications Press, 1999, p.28. 62 Ibid. p. 80. 63 Ibid. p. 21. P a g e | 21

decaying of leaves, and the changing of seasons.”64 The transience of nature is directly reflected in our own transience – the constant movement of sensations, emotions, and thoughts, the cycles of birth and death, and the reality of impermanence. Our states of mind are reflected in the way we relate to nature. The stillness of nature can serve as an invigorating environment for those who are “pure of heart.” But, for others – “those who are impure with ignoble impulses of greed, hatred, and delusion” – “even the rustle of leaves by a falling twig in the forest sends tremors through the heart.”65 Thus, the state of the mind is reflected in our relationship with the natural world, and affects the natural world directly and indirectly.

In conclusion, we see that “how we understand the self is how we understand the universe, and how we understand the universe determines how we relate to it, what we do about it, and how we combust our lives within it.”66 In taking full responsibility for our own well-being and our actions, we can begin to more fully appreciate the interconnectedness of our lives, the lives of others, and the natural world in its entirety. However, moving from a conceptual understanding of these concepts to action is not easy. Changing something as deeply imbedded as the psychological conceptions of the self and the way the individual interacts with all other individuals and elements in life is no small task. It took the Buddha six long years to reach the depth of understanding that finally satisfied him. However, the teachings of this practice, which are only fully understood through direct experience, can also be applied to the concrete issues currently facing the world. In this way, change can be encouraged from the outside in as well as from the inside out.

There are many ways to begin considering how to impact this sort of change; however, one particularly effective tool lies in applying design thinking. Having identified and acknowledged what is wrong or dysfunctional in our societies and ways of living, we naturally look for the better alternative. Design thinking can initiate the creative process involved in envisioning and implementing an ideal future. The next section explores the possibility of interweaving Buddhist principles and design thinking in order to envision a holistically sustainable world.

64 Padmasiri de Silva. “Buddhist Environmental Ethics.” In Dharma Gaia, ed. Allan Hunt Badiner. California: Parallax Press, 1990, p. 15. 65 Lily de Silva. “Early Buddhist Attitudes toward Nature.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 100. 66 Loori, John Daido. Teachings of the Insentient: Zen and the Environment. Mt. Tremper: Dharma Communications Press, 1999, p. 33. P a g e | 22

PART 5. TOWARDS HOLISTIC SUSTAINABILITY

From the conceptual understandings of the interrelatedness of human and environmental well- being, we now enter the space of possible implementations of these ideas. Since it is hardly likely that all Americans will suddenly decide to enter a deep study of the self and completely reject the unsustainable parts of our culture, an alternate approach is necessary.

As previously mentioned, design thinking offers much in the way of innovating solutions to complex problems. This type of design is very different from that criticized by ecologically and socially- minded Victor Papanek, who was very vocal in the 1970s about the potential harm of design aimed at “persuading people to buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, in order to impress others who don’t care.”67 Papanek earned none too many friends from this critique of the materialistic focus of many designers of the time. He instead called for a radical shift in design to minimize environmental impact in serving essential, and not false, needs.

In applying Zen Buddhist principles to the creation of new systems within our communities, there is the possibility for such a radical shift: “Instead of gimmicks, there is our immediate presence; instead of quick-fix mentality, there is thoroughness of commitment; instead of external buffers, there is uncompromising honesty.”68 A holistic sustainable design would increase the well-being of people and the environment in a positively reinforcing cycle through addressing root problems rather than symptoms.

Existing frameworks and principles of sustainable design are based on life-cycle thinking and innovation to minimize environmental impact across as many stages of the product-system creation, use, and disposal phases. The basic intention is to deliver a product-system with low environmental-impact that addresses a need currently being met by conventional, environmentally-impactful means. This type of thinking is important, but it misses the essential opportunity of improving human well-being through and in connection to improving environmental sustainability. Truly sustainable existences can only be attained through uncovering systems that produce exceptional levels of happiness in people and allow our natural environments to flourish.

In considering the ways in which Zen Buddhist principles might be applied to sustainable design, it is clear that a systems perspective is necessary. In this section, I present frameworks that embody Zen-inspired holistic sustainability contrasted with existing notions of sustainability and well- being. I also explore characteristics of a sustainable world vision in which human well-being and environmental flourishing co-exist and mutually reinforce one another.

67 Philip White. Okala: learning ecological design. iDSA, 2007, p. 15. 68 John Daido Loori. The Eight Gates of Zen (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2002), p xvii. P a g e | 23

Existing Paths and Zen Paths to Well-being and Sustainability

In order to best understand how different our ways of being could be in a world inspired by the ideas discussed in previous sections, we begin with a juxtaposition of existing approaches and Zen approaches to sustainability and well-being.

In the United States, the pursuit of well-being – of a good life – is tightly linked to the pursuit of increased income. Our economic model is based on this deeply rooted belief. We measure progress in terms of monetary gain – that is, revenue minus the cost of labor, goods, etc. In this sort of equation, work becomes a necessary evil, and both the employer and the employee would like to decrease the amount of work necessary while maximizing profits. This view of economics is in direct opposition to a Buddhist view in two main ways. First, it sees work as a means to the end goal of income, and second, it sees income as a means to well-being. E.F. Schumacher discusses these differences eloquently in his 1973 book Small is Beautiful:

[The modern economist] is used to measuring the “standard of living” by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is “better off” than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.69

Set side-by-side, it is clear that the Buddhist approach tends towards lower environmental impact and a more direct pursuit of well-being. Furthermore, instead of viewing work as a necessary evil, Buddhism sees work as a fundamental human activity that can lead to joy and development of the consciousness in and of itself, regardless of the end goal. This is why “work practice” is integral Zen training and other schools of Buddhism. Through work practice or Right Livelihood, one of the eight skillful means of the Eight Fold Path, we take the mindfulness from meditation practice to every other aspect of our lives.

Beyond being intrinsically unsustainable, the modern economist mode of thinking has been shown to fall short of offering boundless well-being. John Stutz, a senior fellow at the Tellus Institute, synthesizes the general findings of well-being studies into the compelling graph pictured on the following page.70 Many studies carried out internationally have confirmed the overall shape of the lower curve. Increased income does have an impact on well-being, and in developing regions, small gains in income yield large gains in health, contentment, and freedom. However, the curve quickly levels off and the difference in well-being of individuals leading extravagant lifestyles is not significantly greater than those leading comfortable ones. Stutz further suggests that in order to continue increasing well-being substantially, a direct pursuit is necessary. Zen Buddhism is one method to pursuing well-being directly. Furthermore, this direct pursuit of human well-being incorporates the pursuit of environmental well-being because they are fundamentally connected – every aspect of the world interpenetrating every other.

69 E.F. Schumacher. Small is Beautiful. (New York: Harper Collins, 1973), p. 61. 70 John Stutz. “The Role of Well-being in a Great Transition.” Great Transition Initiative Paper Series. (Boston: Tellus Institute, 2006), p. 3. P a g e | 24

In the Flower Garland Sutra, there is a beautiful metaphor for the interpenetrated universe. Imagine a net that expands infinitely in all directions and dimensions. At each node of this net is a perfectly cut diamond that contains the reflections of every other diamond in the net. Thus, this Diamond Net of Indra conveys the Buddhist understanding of “how each and every thing in the universe contains every other thing throughout all time.”71 Applying this conception of the interrelatedness of everything to a framework for holistic sustainable design results in a liberating and positive view of our global ecosystem and society.

Sustainable design is most commonly envisioned as the intersection of environmentally benign, socially equitable, and economically viable solutions. The ven diagram in the framework below illustrates this understanding. Visually, it communicates that there are suitable solutions to each of the three areas or to only two of the three areas, and that there is only a small area of intersection where the needs of all three areas are adequately met. This suggests that there are ways to meet people’s needs which must be discounted, even if they more thoroughly address them, because they are not “sustainable.”

The second framework for sustainable design, which is not nearly as widespread as the first, conveys a slightly different message. It suggests that every aspect of society is constrained and shaped by its environmental context, and that every institution and economic system lies within its social context. In other words, sustainable design must fit within the social and environmental contexts of whatever system you are working with. While this depiction of sustainability rings true in many ways and presents a less segmented model of our world than the first does, it is still based

71 Loori, John Daido. Teachings of the Insentient: Zen and the Environment. Mt. Tremper: Dharma Communications Press, 1999, p. 34. P a g e | 25 on constraints and boundaries. This lends a slightly negative angle to sustainability, with social needs being limited or dominated by environmental ones, and places the burden on government or some other entity to figure out how to manage societies and economies within environmental limits.

A representation of sustainability according to Buddhist principles might look more like the third framework below. Based on the Diamond Net of Indra metaphor, all elements of the natural environment, society, and institutions and systems within society interpenetrate one another perfectly. Every node of the net contains reflections of every other node. This moves away from a hierarchical and separated view of the world and towards one that would better resonate with all people, whether they identify with environmental concerns or not. This new paradigm for sustainable design would demonstrate equally deep levels of attention to environmental well-being and human well-being. Sustainable design grounded in this framework would seek to understand the unmet needs on the level of root causes, and would bring each area of concern (environmental, human, etc.) into dialogue with each other in order to create a solution that reflects the interpenetration of all these elements.

The Interdependence of Human and Environmental Well-being

One might be concerned that in putting human and environmental needs on the same level, our anthropocentric tendencies would result in continued environmental degradation. However, pursuant our discussion of Zen teachings, I would argue that if you create a system that results in exceptional human well-being, you also create a system that is intrinsically environmentally positive, and vice versa.

To further examine the relationship between human and environmental well-being, let us first look at them independently and then together. Below are two figures, one comparing environmentally positive impact over time and one comparing increased well-being over time. In both cases, there are three trajectories plotted which correspond to three different possible approaches to P a g e | 26

sustainable design: optimize, re-design, and system innovation72. Optimizing a product or system to be more sustainable amounts to taking a rather superficial look at sustainability and addressing a component of the system. Re-designing a product or system means looking at the benefit it is delivering and then re-packaging the solution in a less environmentally-impactful way. System innovation looks at the need being addressed and may create an entirely different product-system.

Here’s an analogy from the cooking world: If you decided to make a better fruit salad recipe (where “better” is an analogy for better environmentally or in terms of human well-being), the three different approaches might be as follows:

Optimization: you substitute mango for the usual cantaloupe Re-design: you decide to barbeque tropical fruit and then toss it with lime juice System innovation: you reflect upon why you want to make a better fruit salad recipe in the first place, realize that it is because you miss your sister, who makes wonderful fruit salads, and decide to give her a call instead.

As shown in the first figure, there is a trade-off between time and amount of positive environmental impact. Optimization can occur relatively quickly without many modifications to the product or system but has limited results in terms of reducing burden on the environment. Re-design takes somewhat longer but has correspondingly greater results for the environment, and system innovation takes the longest with the greatest positive environmental effect.73

The effect each of these approaches to sustainable design has on human well-being is more complex and a bit more speculative. I argue that optimizing a product-system has no effect on well-being because it does not fundamentally change the way a person interacts with the product or system.

72 RAND Europe. Technologieradar. The Hague, The Netherlands: RAND Europe for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs; 1997. 73 The Environmental impact vs. time plot is adapted from Benjamin Linder’s class at Olin College on Sustainable Design, from Fall 2009. P a g e | 27

Re-designing the product-system may have an initial positive or negative effect on well-being because while it might be environmentally better, it could be more or less optimal from a user standpoint. Over time, however, this initial change would approach net-zero compared to the previous system, as people adjusted to the new norm. This sort of resilience or norming is illustrated in the study of individuals’ overall happiness following either a very negative event like becoming paralyzed or a very positive event like winning the lottery. Studies show that after 3 months’ time, both groups returned to approximately the same level of happiness as before the event occurred.74

System innovation is the outlier in this case because it has the potential to fundamentally change not only the way in which a need is being addressed but the underlying need itself. In the case of the fruit salad example, you re-examine the original problem statement: “To make a better fruit salad” and realize that the actual problem statement that needs to be addressed is “Connect with your sister.” This returns to our discussion of symptomatic as opposed to root causes. In system innovation, the hope is that you are questioning not only the manner in which you deliver a product-service, but also the entire premise of the product-service. Initially, this realization of a deeper need may result in a dip in happiness (What a shame my sister lives so far away!), but over time addressing the real need or problem results in a sustained increase in happiness (Instead of spending countless evenings trying to perfect your fruit salad and never quite being satisfied, the realization that you really miss your sister leads you to move closer to her 6 months later).

Looking at environmental and human well-being plotted against one another further illuminates this interrelationship:

74 Dan Gilbert. “Why are we Happy?” TED Talk, posted Sep 2006. Available online at www.ted.com. P a g e | 28

In the plot above, the three groups of trajectories are somewhat different to those in the previous plots. They are 1) a conventional pattern of satisfying needs in the United States (addressing symptomatic problems of unacknowledged root causes with consumerist solutions), 2) most of the existing sustainability efforts (approaches on the Optimization and Re-design end of the sustainable design spectrum), and 3) holistic sustainable design (sustainable design based on Zen, which is being developed through this discussion).

We begin with a slightly pessimistic (although I would argue, realistic) view of the state of things: not particularly environmentally positive or boasting happy, fulfilled people. From the lower left quadrant, we venture out in three separate directions: 1) In order to satisfy a perceived need, the predominant social norm in the United States recommends that we consume in one form or another: Feeling bored? Go to the movies! Mid-life crisis? Buy a sports car! Stressed-out? Go on an exotic vacation! This almost always results in some form of environmental impact. Happiness increases initially as the experience or new toy is being enjoyed, but once it is over or consumed or old, happiness returns to its previous state. 2) Most existing efforts in the name of sustainability remain on the “green-washed” to “light-green” end of the spectrum. As seen in the well-being vs. time plot above, these solutions have some positive environmental results (thus the upward trend) and initially slightly negative or positive effects on well-being, which over time return to normal. Because many of these initiatives, products, and services are still addressing the symptomatic need and are skewed towards reducing environmental impact over anything else, the effectiveness of these solutions may dwindle over time. Thus, there is the possibility that they will eventually fail due to lack of support on the human behavior side, diminishing the positive environmental effects. For example, take-back systems that seek to reacquire their products at the end of their lifecycle often fail because the majority of customers lack motivation to make the effort of returning the broken product. 3) Holistic sustainable design, on the other hand, takes into account the underlying needs of people and the environment in a way that considers the well-being of each to be inextricably connected. Thus, the positive environmental effects reinforce the positive effects on human happiness, and vice versa, such that the trend is continually positive. This interplay resonates with the Hierarchy of Compassion introduced in Part 3, which showed a mutually reinforcing dynamic between and individual’s sense of interrelatedness and extent of compassion for all beings. As your authentic needs are increasingly met, your compassion for all beings, sentient and insentient, will increase, and your sense of interrelatedness with the “Ten Thousand Things” will increase, and back and forth.

Qualities of Holistic Sustainability

Rather than focus on how to design more sustainable products and services, as do most proponents of sustainable design, I have directed my attention towards envisioning a world in which Zen principles are deeply embedded. Such a world would naturally yield less impactful products and services, and it would foster flourishing societies. The following discussion explores three important shifts that would need to occur in our way of perceiving the world in order to move towards that ideal. P a g e | 29

Well-being is liberated from relying on ‘externals’

Seeking well-being through the accumulation of wealth or power is environmentally unsustainable and ineffective in attaining the highest degree of true happiness and freedom. A holistically sustainable world would necessitate the recognition that you are ultimately responsible for your well-being and that external material goods can only support you along the way. In this recognition, you are liberated from being “dependent on having to exploit nature or fellow beings.”75

While beginning with a close examination of the self is critical, Zen requires an extension outwards to the “larger self” as well. Therefore, in taking responsibility for yourself, you must take responsibility for the outwardly expanding circles to which you are interconnectedness as well. In our modern world of complex and sprawling systems, this rapidly becomes difficult in a practical sense, even if you want to take responsibility for your role in them. Many Zen students have resolved this tension by making the systems in which they interact directly smaller. The Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in California, for example, has combined monastic life with a self-sufficient community model.76 In many practical senses, therefore, Zen may suggest that in simplifying your life and minimizing the material means necessary to maximizing well-being, scaling down these systems tightens the connections between “small self” and “large self.” And it is in this connection that you realize clinging to desires of the small self negatively impacts your own well-being and the well-being of other sentient and insentient beings.

Self is expanded to interpenetrate all other selves

The teaching of “no self” is impossible to fully grasp without direct experience; however, the connections between selfish actions and greed, hatred, and delusion are quite clear in our world. Zen is concerned with reducing these “three poisons,” and a holistically sustainable world would aim to do so as well. Our society has not always been so Ego-focused. It is really just in the past hundred years that a remarkable shift towards the self has occurred in Western countries, as Freud’s work on the “murky world of the subconscious” helped change the way business, politics, and society functions77. A shift back to a less individual-centric mindset may well take the next hundred years, but Zen would argue that it is a necessary shift if we wish to achieve environmental and human flourishing.

Such a flourishing society would be one that focuses on commonalities over differences, on triumphs of the group over successes of the individual, on the joy of work itself over the material gain from work… In short, the world would be more intimate, in the Zen sense of the word. Understanding that your well-being is deeply connected to the well-being of all other beings naturally leads to social engagement and a de-emphasis of the self. In giving what you can, compassion and equanimity are deepened, and this positive feedback cycle promises to yield an ever deepening sense of well-being in yourself and others.

75 Prayudh Payutto. “Buddhist Solutions for the Twenty-first Century.” In Dharma Rain, eds. Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), p. 175. 76 Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. http://www.sfzc.org/ggf/ 77 The Century of the Self. BBC Documentaries. Aired April 2002. P a g e | 30

Mindfulness penetrates everything

Our current world does not encourage mindfulness. Zen begins with mindfulness – awareness free from the burdens of judgment or opinion. If you make yourself blind to what is truly going on internally and externally, you have no chance at taking responsibility and action to change what is not serving you well. If you listen with your whole body and mind, authentic needs will be made clear such that you stop falling into the trap of satisfying symptoms of deeper problems and instead address issues from their roots.

A holistically sustainable world would encourage mindfulness in every interaction. Being mindful of the environmental and social impacts of your actions naturally leads to more conscientious decisions. Being mindful of the way in which you interact with other people and with your environment opens your eyes to the assumptions and opinions that shape these interactions. Mindfulness is the direct route to pursuing well-being; as you become more deeply aware of everything around you, you are empowered to develop your mind and way of being in the most positive way possible.

I have intentionally kept the discussion of these “Qualities of Holistic Sustainability” to a high level rather than attempting to bring them down to practical application. They are meant to probe at some of the underlying assumptions on which our current Western society is based and to suggest alternative ones. Instead of providing a set of guidelines or rules for creating holistically sustainable systems and products, these qualities would permeate all aspects of life. Figuring out exactly how to transform the guiding undercurrents of our current society to one that better serves the well-being of people and the environment will have to be left to a future project.

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CLOSING

The earth is suffering. People are suffering. The first step is to acknowledge the depth of trouble we have caused ourselves and our fellow human beings. The second is to take responsibility and take action. Continuing to treat symptoms of our problems instead of the authentic, root causes will only increase the negative side effects, the environmental destruction, and the suffering of individuals around the world.

Design thinking offers the creative problem solving capacity to innovate solutions that have a complexity of stakeholders and needs. Infusing sustainable design with Zen Buddhist principles opens the way towards a more holistic sustainability. Addressing the well-being of people and the well-being of the natural environment as two interpenetrating facets of the same problem, we can radically change our vision for a sustainable future.

John Daido Loori eloquently points to the way ahead:

It is no small thing to be born human. With it comes tremendous responsibility. That responsibility is due to our intelligence, our awareness. We have the power, each of us, not only to change our own lives and bring them into harmony with the ten thousand things, but also to nourish others, to heal this planet. The harmony, nourishment, and healing are within the capabilities of the same science and technology that have created the destruction. We can do it. All it takes is the will to do it. When will you do it? Please don’t waste this precious life.78

A shift in consciousness that uproots the foundations upon which our society and institutions are built is no small undertaking. However, understanding that environmental sustainability and human well-being are not at all mutually exclusive is a powerful teaching. Amidst the apocalyptic visions of our world ending in ecological or political disasters, the possibility for a future full of flourishing shines through. As we explore the path that leads there, Zen Buddhism is one of several bodies of thought that can offer deep insight into the nature of human and environmental well- being.

78 Loori, John Daido. Teachings of the Insentient: Zen and the Environment. Mt. Tremper: Dharma Communications Press, 1999, p.93.