Needs and their Solutions

Imagine if you could change history on the span of a moment.  If the "I" that you inhabit becomes the "I" of all creation.  In this place would there be any problem?  Would there be any need to solve something?  

We struggle today to feel connected.  Our mismanaged values fray at the edges, unattended promises and the magnifying pain of injury done again and again in our unwillingness to face the error of our altruism:  That any creation, any act to connect or repair or fix, even with the best intention, carries with it a darker side of hurt and destruction.

We fix the ground under our industrial farms by putting poison into it.  We fix our traffic by building bigger and wider roads.  We help the population by providing more food and better living standards.  And in each step, the poison begets a stronger and stronger pest--diseases wipe out entire farms, roads inspire more cars to be driven, food and shelter grow the population.  We temporarily satisfy our needs, and in the vacancy of our "successful" work, the human organism grows once again to spill over, requiring once again more fixes, more help, better infrastructure and the like.  This cycle consumes us.

As an activist, this is a difficult position to accept.  I can imagine this leading to a feeling of hopelessness and degradation.  How can I, in my attempt to cultivate connection, guide my actions to bear a completely positive impact on my environment?

The answer:  What makes me think that I can have power over my environment?

Nature is the best farmer.  The forests have flourished for hundreds of thousands of years without intervention.  The food that was needed for organisms to survive was provided.  Even humans were provided what they needed.

As soon as we began looking into nature as something to be owned and operated, as soon as we had to "Manage our Forests" and "Provide Food," we created a culture of lack.  Suddenly we did indeed require more food.  Suddenly the forests did indeed take an incredible amount of energy to maintain.

The best farmer is the one that allows nature to do the work it knows how to do.  The one who removes obstacles, who removes the poisons and imbalance and creates a space that nature uninhabited can transform.  It is folly to think that we have to "do" anything, because that implies a dualism, that something needs to be fixed, that the world needs to be saved.  

And so in that moment of purest connection an realization, no, there would be no need to solve anything.  There would be no need.  The "I" of all creation would witness the complex and intricate story from beginning to end.  Life and death would be equals.

But we are not there.  We are still bodies, still minds surrounded by solid objects and real needs, and we see the world, and ourselves in it, in turmoil.   We DO participate in this game of duals, of estimating value and making choices, simply by eating food and keeping ourselves alive.

So the work is then twofold:  1) Prepare the mind for a more true sense of listening, for a capacity to sit with uncomfortable truths and feel connected to things in their natural order, and 2) Act in a way that removes obstacles in the way of this connection.  

Advertise connection, give it away for free, and adhere to the precepts of non-harming. We harm the problem by trying to solve it.  If we act in a way that positively communicates abundance, then abundance will be ours at last.