From roper @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 17 10:36:20 1996 Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 10:36:19 -0700 (MST) From: Don Roper Subject: Welcome to the NonDual Ecology Seminar Dear subscribers, Let me welcome you to the first of a series of CSF environmental seminars. For the week Nov 18-24, we have John McClellan online for a discussion of his interesting article "NonDual Ecology" -- the discussion is now open. The proceedings of the seminar will be available on-line through ftp, gopher, email and through the web at http://csf.colorado.edu/sol We look forward to a fascinating discussion, Don Roper CSF-Program Director From mccaffrm @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 17 19:42:36 1996 Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 19:42:34 -0700 (MST) From: Mark McCaffrey Subject: Being Sentient: In Nothing Sacred? Where do we begin a discussion of Nondual Ecology? At the beginning, of course. In this particular instance we have an article by one John McClellan-- an article one might add that sparked some heated discussion a few years back after it appeared in TRICYCLE magazine. And the article begins: "Recognizing the inherent Buddhanature of rocks and clouds is not that hard-- many now acknowledge this idea in principle.....But recognizing this prized quality of aliveness in technology, in human-machine social behvaiors, and in the activity of abstract symoblic systems is something else again" Indeed. Now, the term "Buddhanature" may throw those unfamiliar or even suspicious of the term. Redefining this notion in fresh, experiential terms ought, perhaps,to be a key part of our discussion here in the next week. For our purposes now why don't we simply define it as the essential unity of "everything that moves," every single iota of Being.....and yet paradoxically (and wonderfully) it is also the basic nothingness/emptiness of this material/physical/phenomenal world. (Perhaps some of our Buddhist friends involved in this discussion can further unravel and refresh our understanding of this term"Buddhanature". Buddhanature is, if I understand it correctly, like the lowest common denominator, so low, so essential that it isn't any "thing" in particular, but is in fact "nothing." In our "thing" oriented world the idea of nothing being sacred runs against the grain. We tend to think of the sacred as something, someplace, someone special. Many environmentalists-- and according to John McClellan-- deep ecologists in particular have not made this leap from "things" being sacred (be they biological or technological) to "nothing" itself being purity. Deep ecologists, he claims, fall into the age-old dichotomania that comes from splitting "things" up into finer and finer pieces without looking at or acknowledging the whole. Much of his original article focuses on the dueling dynamic that has occurred in environmental circle that perpetuates the good guys/bad guys polarization, particularly as it applies to technology. (My hunch is that most people engaged in an on-line electronic discussion will have made peace in some perhaps ambiguous way with the benefits and perils of technology (especially tv/computer/phone) in our personal environments; those who are seriously anti=tech and regard "it" as a cross between Frankenstein's Monster and Pandora's Box aren't likely to subscribe to a seminar on line.) It is refreshing to reread this article, remembering why I originally enjoyed it so much. It is humorous and sometimes outrageous, and perhaps it uses on occasion some of the same dualistic dueling that it proports to be critical of. Yet there is also an attempt here at grand synthesis through the lenses of ecology (of the deep rather than shallow variety) and spirituality (of the dharmic rather than moralistic flavor). As we embark on discussing these ideas I'd like to see if we can from time to time draw on our own fresh experience of these notions. I do have a concern that we'll get bogged down in the theoretical and abstract here rather than investigate whether these radical notions are in fact true. Is there only Sentient Being, as John McClellan suggets? Have we been in the trance of dueling dualism for so long that even our noble attempts to "save the planet" are stunted if not doomed due to our inability to fully embrace the "Primordial Purity" of everything/nothing? I'd say: Yes. Yet I also recognize that on some core cerebral level this duel and dance of dualism still churns along: the ongoing mediation effforts between the right and left lobes, the currents of negative and positive ionstreams drifting through the universe, the dance of male and female hormones, night and day, darkness and light, life and death. awake and asleep.... Yes, there are good guys and bad guys....and environmentally and socially it sometimes does feel like the bad guys are winning. Yes, there is a war on the planet that is happening as natural resources are harvested and consumed, as people and other sentient beings are sacrificed for profits and progress. Yet there is an overarching peace that must also be acknowledged and honored, the "integral principle" if you will that can serve as the ultimate coordinant, the beacon that puts everything else into perspective. Tonight I saw a film entitled "Synthetic Pleasures" which focused on all the high-tech attempts to further "control" nature and create an electrically based alternative environment that is obth a substitute and also a theoretical improvement over what are considered to be the limitations and wildness of the natural world. The movie was a fascinating exploration of how we seek to create and control our own reality. Many of the images in the film were stunning (though none as stunning as watching the sun set behind the Flatirons) and some of the people talked about very interesting things: the notion of in some way "loosing" or transcending the "mind" through technology. I wonder if part of the fear many have of technology is simply an updated version of the fear people have felt towards the "natural" world for so many years prior to now. We have used technology as a means of gaining some sense/illusion of control over nature's wildness, but now technology has taken on a life of its own and-- like a proverbial wildfire-- can't be stopped. From kurtz @ top.monad.net Mon Nov 18 11:41:02 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 13:40:22 -0500 From: Steve Kurtz Reply-To: kurtz @ top.monad.net Subject: Re: Some Deep Ecology thoughts ... Greetings, Whether we worship cows, computers, TVs, rock stars, atheletes, or the internet is a personal choice. To proselytize for a dual, non-dual, deep, anthropocentric, or any other kind of spiritual ecology is IMHO no different than being a missionary for a religion. I hope you folks pray real hard & often. If you're right about the "supernatural", we need all the help we can get. I will stick around and observe, but suspect I'll have little to add to these comments. I'll leave you with one question: What do you think motivates atheists to work for a sustainable, healthier,(& less populous) future? Good luck with your seminar. Steve Kurtz From elehner @ iastate.edu Mon Nov 18 14:57:44 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 16:59:22 -0600 From: elehner @ iastate.edu (Ed Lehner) Subject: Hello from the heartland Hello to all you in cyberworld. My name is Ed Lehner and I am writting this message from the heartland of central Iowa. After a weekend of balmy winds and heavy rains, the temperature has now dropped into the 20s and 30s. We have entered in to the winter grey that begins around November first and lasts through April.....lots of cloudy days....little sun. I live in the country amongst acres of corn, bean, and hog farming operations. (I do not farm but most of my neighbors do.) I see first hand the seasons change, the planting, care, and harvest of the crops. The harvest is, for the most part, finished....a bumper crop from all reports. The issue of technology is apparent everywhere you look in the farming business and is an issue that many in Iowa are concerned about. We are concerned about pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers in our ground water. We are concerned with what to do with millions of gallons of liquified hog manure generated by "factory" hog confinements farms not to mention run off from other livestock operations. We are concerned about "accidental" spills from gigantic waste "lagoons" that serve the hog confinements. As well, we are concerned about the stench of these manure pits when the wind is from the right direction. We are concerned about wind and water erosion that is depleting our rich soil much faster than it can ever be replaced. We are concerned about the loss of family farms to the corporate agriculture giants. We are concerned what will be left for our future generations. These all result from modern farming methods generated by "new and improved" technology. So, we can ruminate about these issues and debate the alternatives and set new policies and so on. But the upshot of all this is that, as the great mystery unfolds moment by moment, each human will make her/his own personal choice as how to address the issues at hand. As I see it, here in lies the problem: how the microcosm of each individual choice affects the macrocosm of the rest of the world. Some choices are responsibly mindful of all sentient beings, some are irresponsibly self centered and are not. When power, greed, and bottom line, not to mention survival of the self (or survival of the ego) are the main focus of decision making, generally others suffer, inluding the earth along with all the four legged and winged ones. Technology aside, all things result from our own individual decisions, actually simply by our being alive and present. So, who is the culprit???? Will stay tuned in. Ed Lehner 321 Y Avenue Story City, IA 50248 515.733.2404 From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Mon Nov 18 16:16:22 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 18:21:03 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: nondual Howdy: Wow, how to start. Intro.= i'm a prof. at a college in WI. i've been pursuing the face of Tao since the late 60's and in doing so see it reflected in the unfolding Cosmos all around me, but esp. in the bio/organic context of my life. Other than that it prob. doesn't matter a lot who or what i am. i've looked at the summary version of the paper and am now in the process of reading the 10pp version. As i do so, i feel the need to respond on the one hand and on the other i feel like this is really very irrelevant to the "real" dharma being played out outside my window. This is all so intellectual as to very seldom touch the ground (there is an old indian saying -- does it grow corn? as a gardener this seems like pretty barren soil to me). McCellan writes "All we see in the world around us, just as with what we find in our minds is good, or at least authentic, valid, workable." He says this in the context of chastizing deep eekers for being dualist, yet his statement sounds pretty dualistic to me -- good vs ?, authentic vs ?, valid vs ?, workable vs ? how has this changed anything other than created a mere rhetoric of obfiscation of the real issues at hand -- the destruction of that which is? All any of us know is what is present, and possibly some of what has been, and in that case, using the rules of the logical language game McCellan is playing it would seem to me that the known present is more prepotent than the only possible future. Sure evolution may play out in such a way as to preclude humans (in fact i can't imagine us here 1 mill. yrs. from now much less than 5 or 6 bill.) but we -are- here now and so are all our relations and that does give us, the present biota, some significance. To abdicate our responsibility to the unfolded Universe under some pretense that anything goes, because "All we see in the world around us...is good..." seems to me to be pretty thin soup and not very good Buddhism. In fact, as McCellan argues that deep eek isn't really all that deep, i'd have to say that his understanding of the responsibilty of truely grappling with the boundless magnitude of the Tao is fairly shallow. A somewhat "deep" fellow asked folks to practice a way of acting which, even in the face of the nondual nature of all things, made them make choices. This fellow wanted people to practice a way of life defined by a practice called ahimsa. Now, although this practice is dualist in that it defines action in relation to alternative modes of behavior i think the fellow espousing this type of action understood the "depth" of what McCellan is talking about. Gandhi's challenge to live "right life" seems quite relvant to me here in as much as in order to do this one must make decisions -- that seems to me to be also a part of our Dharma. More later -- maybe. Green Dreams, r.c. From tmccallu @ laplaza.org Mon Nov 18 16:26:05 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 16:16:53 -0700 (MST) From: Tracy McCallum Subject: Re: Technology is human behavior, not "new life" In-Reply-To: <9611182256.AA08755 @ hposl02.cup.hp.com> I guess a definition of technology is needed here because I think of technology as the RESULT of human behavior rather than the behavior itself. The photons and pulses within the equipment have existence in themselves and their configuration exists after the behavior of creating them ceases. So, then, the questions become, are we responsible for what we create, and did we really create it? Also, let us not forget that these are, essentially, just ideas we are having From amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Mon Nov 18 16:37:26 1996 nondual-ecology @ csf.colorado.edu, amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Subject: Re: Technology is human behavior, not "new life" In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 18 Nov 96 16:16:53 MST." Date: Mon, 18 Nov 96 15:37:13 -0800 From: Alan McGowen > I guess a definition of technology is needed here because I think of > technology as the RESULT of human behavior rather than the behavior > itself. The photons and pulses within the equipment have existence in > themselves and their configuration exists after the behavior of creating > them ceases. A beaver dam, or a bowerbird's nest, or the night nest of a chimpanzee, are also results of behavior which have existence in themselves and configuration that exists after the behavior of creating them ceases; they are part of the extended phenotype. > So, then, the questions become, are we responsible for what > we create, and did we really create it? Are we responsible for a nuclear weapons and did we really create them? Well, do you think they could they have evolved on their own? :-) Alan McGowen From pgrignon @ island.net Mon Nov 18 17:33:19 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 16:37:07 -0800 From: pgrignon @ island.net (Paul Grignon) Whenever my computer and I get into an argument about which one of us is more "valid" I play dirty and and hit the power switch. When the living planet can take no more of human disrespect I assume it has equivalent power to pull the plug on human activity. Just as I am challenged and exhilarated (sometimes) by the extension of abilities and cognition my computer offers me, I assume the living planet is also challenged and exhilarated (sometimes) by the extension of abilities and cognition the existence of humans provides. Both the planet and I have worked long and hard and made sacrifices to gain these abilities. Maybe we're both deluded and self-destructive. Paul Grignon Paul Grignon RR2 Site 24 C-5 Gabriola, BC, V0R 1X0 (250) 247 8350 From MoCtrLite @ aol.com Mon Nov 18 17:45:52 1996 From: MoCtrLite @ aol.com Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 19:45:42 -0500 Subject: Re: Author Replies to Naess' Deep View How wonderful to hear my own sentiments echoed by another! Yes, things are perfect, just as they are. Dualistically-inclined individuals fail to see that this view does not impose inaction and paralysis, but rather frees us from the prison of self where our actions are performed within the confines of illusion. In this interrelated and dynamic existence, where all is in flux, perfection lies in the ability to come to rest in motion. From amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Mon Nov 18 18:40:58 1996 Subject: Re: Author Replies to Naess' Deep View In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 18 Nov 96 19:45:42 EST." <961118194539_1552204102 @ emout18.mail.aol.com> Date: Mon, 18 Nov 96 17:40:57 -0800 From: Alan McGowen > How wonderful to hear my own sentiments echoed by another! Yes, things are > perfect, just as they are. A well-fed view. I think Voltaire handled Pangloss adequately; no need to repeat. I will merely point out that with extinction rates projected at four orders of magnitude above normal [Lawton and May, op. cit.], this current state of perfection is about to be replaced by a considerably more biologically impoverished state of perfection. With pending climate changes, soil losses, and water shortages, this well-fed perpective on perfection may become considerably more rare. But that, too, would be God's Will. Reagan Interior Secretary James Watt used to hint much the same when people asked him whether he cared about the future. William Bennett yesterday said (carried on CSPAN) that we needen't worry about whether "the sky is falling", because He (you know Who) will take care of the sky (i.e. greenhouse emissions, ozone depletion). > Dualistically-inclined individuals fail to see > that this view does not impose inaction and paralysis, but rather frees us > from the prison of self where our actions are performed within the confines > of illusion. In this interrelated and dynamic existence, where all is in > flux, perfection lies in the ability to come to rest in motion. The question is, can it bring habitat destruction "to rest in motion" -- and then reverse it through ecosystem recovery? If not, then it is of little use to species and natural processes in jeopardy. But McClellan explicitly rejected ecosystem recovery in these words: >Meanwhile, they idealize the vanishing dream of >free, wild biological systems. They seem to want to restore them to >their erstwhile splendor-as though evolution ever moved backwards! >This is wishful thinking, like when we imagined the earth was the >center of the universe, or that humans represented the culmination, >and hence the end, of evolution. The notion that evolution would have to "move backwards" for biological integrity and native diversity to be maintained is rejected by conservation biologists. See R. Edward Grumbine 1994, _Ghost Bears: Exploring the Biodiversity Crisis_, Island Press, for a conservation biology perspective on ecosystem management for biodiverity and for maintaining the splendor of the Cenozoic biosphere that made us. I fully agree that the "prison of self", as our culture has biophobically architected it, is a large part of the problem, and that ways to form biophilic self-concepts, or an "Ecological Self" as Warwicke Fox called it, are badly needed. But I do not see the biophilia in this "nondual ecology". I see many excuses to care less about other species. And that, friends, is the worst kind of dualism: human exemptionalism, the notion that we are outside it all. Alan McGowen From rtree @ stout.entertain.com Mon Nov 18 19:06:31 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 19:06:33 -0700 From: rtree @ stout.entertain.com (Bruce Nygren) Subject: Re: Author's Operning Statement-Nondual Ecology >Greetings, This is my intrduction, My name is Bob Ewing and >I live in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada on Lake Superior's >North Shore. Today, Monday, the sun is shining but the strong >winds which have been blowing for over a week may change that at any moment. > >My ability to communicate with others, geographically far away, and to >look for ideas and thoughts in databases and libraries in many places >has enlarged by awareness of the diversity that inhabits Mother >Earth. > >Bob Ewing >cclash @ web.net Bob (and all), Your post intrigued me, partly because I lived in the bush in British Columbia for many years, partly because I travelled through Thunder Bay (and Wawa!) one forty-below (farenheit) winter in a car with no heater, and partly because, while I have a hard time including silicon entities in the category of Sentient Beings, I have no trouble at all recognizing that they may help us immensely as a civilization. And, in my own personal lexicon, Civilization (that's "civilisation" to you, Bob) includes all sentient beings, not merely humans. With these machines, and the cumulative thought that has made them accessible to many, our world has indeed shrunk in a way which makes it possible for us to carry on this conversation, thus creating a potential watershed for Changed Vision. Changed in what direction we don't know, but then that's part of the wildness of it all, isn't it? I would even say that this form of communication is fundamentally different from all forms which have gone before, not just quicker or more inclusive. At the same time, we must recognize that the making of these machines entails the mining, transportation, toxic chemical transformation of sand, plastic components (i.e., oil), heavy metals, etc., and the societal and natural disruption that these activities precipitate. What to do, what to do? -Bruce Nygren ________________________________ Bruce Nygren 1515 Redwood Avenue Boulder, CO 80304 ________________________________ ....I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms.... -Richard Brautigan, 1968 From mccaffrm @ csf.Colorado.EDU Mon Nov 18 19:10:34 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 19:10:33 -0700 (MST) From: Mark McCaffrey Subject: Perfection!/? While it's been hard for me to wrap my mind around this discussion group's focus, I'm enjoying it so far, particularly the sutras from Alaska. This notion of ever deeper inquiry into who we are (who I is!) and what "life" is all about interests me greatly, though I confess on this cold evening in Boulder that I'm not clear how to articulate my thoughts now. I'll just have to let them stream for a bit. In teaching the basics of environmental systems I've found the earth systems approach can be helpful in focusing learners on basic dynamics and feedback loops of this planet's ecologic systems. The five systems necessarily overlap and weave together: the atmosphere/hydrosphere/geosphere/biosphere/technosphere. Much of the debate relative to the environmental movmement and deep ecology has focused on the technosphere's impact on the biosphere: chemical pollution, destruction of habitat, etc. But the bio/techno dynamic-- important though it is-- does seem to have an inherent dualistic tunnelvision, and it all too often ignores the other living systems which swirl and dance together. Being a hydromancer, I've always assummed water to be alive, certainly worthy of wonder if not worship. And it certainly passes the McClellan litmus test of being something that moves. But of course the question not whether or not to worship water (or cows or computers or cars) but to explore through on-going inquiry what is essential, what is the core behind all that moves? Rest in movement, yes! Who/what is moving? Who/what is resting? At risk of being dualistic (which naturally is "bad" if one is trying to be nondual) it seems like most folks are either Splitters or Lumpers. Splitters like to break things (ideas/phenomenon/matter) into pieces. Lumpers tend to look for common denominators, patterns, wholeness. Science and technology have been criticized for their splitting/fragmenting tendancy. Lumpers-- mystic or contemplative types-- are called to task for being sloppy on details, for ignoring differentiation/individuation in their haste to find oneness. While more a Lumper than a Splitter, it seems as though both are somehow wrong. Neither this nor that. Not lumping nor splitting. Not eternalism nor nihlism. In the proverbial relative world dualism seems to serve a purpose by establishing coordinants that can serve as reference points. But unless there is an accurate way to triangulate, to overcome the dichotomania, relativism runs amuck. Pulsing between the "relative" and the "absolute" seems to be classically dualistic....yet it is almost as if the relative/dual world is more a matter of focus than anything else; zooming in deeper (or zooming out wider) reveals (potentially) the "nondual" wonder/oneness. On a personal note I'd like to offer this modest testimonial: the more I get freed up from this dueling dualism the more interesting and downright delightful experience of "my life" is. Has anyone read Mihalyi Czezsentmihalyi's sequel to FLOW? I believe it's entitled the Evolutionary Self and I think some of his insights relate strongly to our discussion here. From 102151.2157 @ CompuServe.COM Mon Nov 18 19:17:32 1996 Date: 18 Nov 96 21:16:39 EST From: "Eugene F. Monaco" <102151.2157 @ CompuServe.COM> Subject: Non-Dual Hey folks, I'm Gene Monaco, permaculture teacher, consultant, Tracker student of Tom Brown, Jr., civil engineer, father of 3 writing from the country near Knoxville, TN, USA; here in the Tennessee valley between the well known Great Smokey Mountains National Park (GSMNP), and the less-known Cumberland Plateau. I picked this spot because I thought it was safe from the humans but it turns out its not (then I looked in the mirror and the enemy was me!). The nuclear program at TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) and Oak Ridge (Originators of the Manhattan Project), coupled with the acid rain from the powerplants are the latest assault on the GSMNP. The suburban landuse patterns are a cancer of another story. So as we sit tapping away at our computers (Vessels for the Dali Lama?), the nuclear powerplants hum in the next valley. But this is evolution!!! This non-dual stuff is quite academic; however, having said that, I think its true that everything here does have its spiritual counterpart. We could call it good or bad if we must; that being entirely relative. But since non-dual awareness doesn't do away with natural selection and survival of the fittest, when those spirits threaten my children, then they're bad and must be stopped. This middle-of-the-road attitude about accepting the spirit of everything and being neutral works until something knocks or rather beats down your front door and rapes your wife and children. Then you'll know what side your on. >From the net: Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten." - Cree Indian Prophecy --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------- Gene Monaco and East Tennessee Permaculture Education, training, consulting, and implementation for sustainability 102151.2157 @ compuserve.com PO Box 11851, Knoxville, TN 37939 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ From jhughes @ changesurfer.com Mon Nov 18 19:33:38 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 21:32:51 -0500 From: jhughes @ changesurfer.com (J. Hughes) Subject: Buddhist Social Ecology, and the Greens Its a real pleasure to participate in this forum, since the article expressed things that I'd been struggling to say for years. I had been closely following the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and buddhist social ethics in general, while an activist in the Green and socialist movements. In 1989 I was moved to write about the conflict between Murray Bookchin, proponent of anarchist "social ecology", and the deep ecologists in the journal Socialist Review (J. Hughes, "Beyond Bookchinism" Socialist Review 89(3):103-110, available on the Web at http://www.changesurfer.com/Bud/Bookchin.html). What struck me about their conflict was that Bookchin made the saem mistake that he condemned in the Deeps: saying "this is nature, therefore good, and this is bad un-nature". In Bookchin's case, it was to insist that human hierarchy was unnatural, the cause of our estrangement from nature. I wrote, and believed, that just as nuclear power plants are part of the IS (tathata), so is genocide, slavery, child abuse and Pat Buchanan. The IS doesn't tell us what OUGHT to be (metta, compassionate action, skillfull means for the liberation of all beings). Bad things are also products of evolved ecological complexity. I took a swipe, in the first draft, at Buddhist deep ecologists, that was edited out: "It is a profound misinterpretation of the Buddhist tradition, one perpetrated by Buddhist Greens, Deep Ecologists and Bookchin, that Buddhists believe that there is no ethical difference between people and mountains since everything is the same in the void. Continuing the metaphor above, the One-ness, or Void-ness, is only the IS; but the bodhisattva is guided by compassion for suffering sentient beings, and on the basis of this OUGHT the bodhisattva is not only required to make ethical distinctions between mountains and animals, but also between animals and humans, since only the latter can attain enlightenment. Deep Ecology is in profound contradiction with Buddhism on this point." Anyway, thank you John for finally getting this essay out into noosphere. In 1994 I assigned "Non-dual Ecology" in a class I taught on Social Ecological theory in Chicago (Syllabus available at: http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/SocEco.html) , alongside Bookchin's writings, and the person who articulates what i think is the secular philosophical equivalent of Non-Dual Ecology, Walter Truet Anderson. His book. To Govern Evolution says, we're gonna impact nature, so let's learn to do it responsibly. He's also written a great little book on post-modernism with a lot of Buddhist implications "Reality Isn't What It Used to Be" ------------------------------------------------------- James J. Hughes PhD, U of Connecticut & U of Hartford (CT) 860-429-4932 * jhughes @ changesurfer.com http://www.changesurfer.com From mccaffrm @ csf.Colorado.EDU Mon Nov 18 19:34:15 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 19:34:13 -0700 (MST) From: Mark McCaffrey Subject: Clarification My last posting mentioned using earth systems as a means of demonstrating through mental models the living systems of atmosphere/geosphere/hydrosphere/biosphere and technosphere. What become clear fairly quickly when examining the nuances and details of living systems is that in fact there is only one system, and that no matter how enamored we happen to be of our favorite sphere or niche (whether it is living water, charismatic fauna or flora, or silicon memory fueled by drifting ions) when we get down to the heart of matter, there is some fundamental Awareness from which all this movement and stuff arises. To me that Awareness is the rest in the heart of the movement. Does that make any sense to anyone out there? Finally, I'm not convinced that this notion of inherent goodness and perfection is so well fed as Alan McGowen insists it is. The "eternalism" of the religious right and the cynicism and/or nihlism of those out to "save the planet" both miss the boat. Knowing this simple perfection has to be experienced firsthand since talking about it can't convey the elegant beauty of being. Chao for now Mark McCaffrey From bjfinga @ mindspring.com Mon Nov 18 19:54:20 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 21:37:41 -0500 From: "Betty J. Foster" Reply-To: bjfinga @ mindspring.com Organization: Home PC Subject: technology/seminar/ecology Introducing myself - Betty Foster - retired master's level psychologist with 31 years of work in the mental health field left behind - back in school (MA Journalism/Certificate in Environmental Ethics) to hone skills in writing (BA Jour so many years ago) and get updated on Gaia. - Just want to mention that while I am impressed with my computer, I never once considered that it was a lifeform - that the work of my friends on artificial intelligence never once convinces me that it is or will be more than a machine - fancy but a machine -and the dualism reminds me of the apparently unsolvable dualism of the mind-body question that I have followed all my learning life. Betty 1LOVER From zmartin @ ionet.net Mon Nov 18 21:31:40 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 22:25:34 -0600 (CST) From: Zachary Martin Subject: NDE Seminar Greetings and namaste. How appropriate that this discussion is taking place at the opening of winter, making us aware not only of our ancient struggle against "hostile" nature but also our ambivalence towards the technology ("our extended phenotype") which protects us. I write this from rural Oklahoma where my heater is broken and I burn the gracious offerings of some beloved trees to protect my family tonight. Mr. McClellan's article gives voice to ideas I have nurtured for years- at least since the first Earth Day celebration so long ago. His detractors make interesting points, but almost always from the standpoint of reinforcing duality rather than transcending it which is his whole point. For an excellent example, Alan McGowen states, >McClellan's "absolute perspective" appears to be the view that all states >of energy are equally good -- ...ignoring or possibly unknowing that nonduality is of course not about good _or_ bad and that when a nondualist says "things are perfect as they are" it has nothing to do with how "good" or "bad" they seem from a relative standpoint. Steve Kurtz asks: >What do you think motivates >atheists to work for a sustainable, healthier,(& less populous) >future? Why does anyone? As a Buddhist and an atheist, I believe that George Carlin got it right: self-interest seems to be the ultimate motivation here. The difference is how one views the self. Concern for the environment runs the gamut from the very limited-- "Is there going to be a place for me (my children, my favorite animal) to live?"-- to the most profound-- "my life and health are not separate from that of all other creatures and the earth itself"-- depending on how deeply one understands one's connection to "others." With this understanding, it only makes sense that the perspective of nonduality is the "deepest" ecology, though it upsets people who are stuck in a "good guy/ bad guy" ethics. What beavers create is natural/ good, what people create is unnatural/ bad? Back to the same Old Testament idea that humans are in some way themselves unnatural, bad, or worse- in charge of it all. Not a bad paradigm, just not very profound and increasingly inadequate. Typically, people react as though nondualism somehow equals a nihilistic or fatalistic ethic which is simply not the case. The truth of the saddharma which is nondual is played out in the phenomenal world (which is, of course, perceived as dualistic) but the dharma we play out in the world is informed, enriched, and made meaningful by our understanding of the deeper (nondual) sense of things. A better question to my mind is why would a theist, esp. of the adventist variety, work for a sustainable, healthier future? With my deep respect, Zach Turtle Grove, Oklahoma "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead From "cleef @ well.com" @ well.com Mon Nov 18 21:32:28 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 20:36:35 -0800 From: Cheryl Foltos <"cleef @ well.com" @ well.com> Subject: [Fwd: Re; Author's Opening Statement] Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 19:07:14 -0800 From: "cleef @ well.com" @ well.com Subject: Re; Author's Opening Statement Hello fellow readers and writers and thinkers and dreamers. Thinking about this conference today, I was a little excited at the prospect of a new adventure and also dreading a bit wading through the endless verbiage on a little screen. I can hardly describe my delight upon reading John McClellan suggest that participants include a little color by decribing their surroundings, etc. What else is there? My cat is watching me type this, and my sweet 85 year old Ethel, who can't hear very well and can't remember anything, very regularly beams her magnificent smile at me when I spend the day with her and right now there's a warm light rain fallin from the black night skies. All of these things are the absolute because at this very moment there isn't anything else anywhere except what's right here. That includes my computer and my hot chocolate and now you who are reading this - everything in it's own absolute particularity. It includes the kitchen garbage I need to take outside to the bin, my car in the driveway and the Green Bay/Dallas game that I'm about to turn on to check the score. I cherish all the particulars because there isn't anything else and that's the absolute truth! (she said, swallowing her hot chocolate). Looking forward to reading and writing and thinking and dreaming about how to take care of this planet which holds my cat and my Ethel and cup and yes, even the Dallas Cowboys! Cheers! From NoDoz @ aol.com Mon Nov 18 23:20:58 1996 From: NoDoz @ aol.com Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 01:20:56 -0500 Subject: Future Dharma Lawyer speaks... Paul Grignon writes: <> Thanks for the chuckle. Whether or not your computer is "valid", it's certainly at the weaker end of a lop-sided power relationship. I'm participating via my computer in Spokane, Washington, where I am a "returning student" in my first year of law school. Prior to my current painful endeavor, I spent the better part of10 years working with developmentally disabled adults in Portland, Oregon. Spokane is not far from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, nor from the "down-winders" who are currently involved in a lawsuit to recover damages for illnesses they likely suffered due to radiation exposure. I can see the worth in viewing 'Everything that Moves' as "perfect", in the sense that it is futile to long for a samsara that is free of suffering, or that is any different than it is right at this moment. In that sense, I am perfect. I have Buddha nature, and everything I do, constructive or destructive is a perfect expression of that Buddha nature. If I want to become liberated from samsara, I have to do something different, however. Most of us are familiar with Pema Chodron's book START WHERE YOU ARE (not "be satisfied with where you are"). What I want to throw out for comment, is my understanding that "recognizing...the quality of aliveness in technology, in human-machine social behaviors, and in the activity of abstract symbolic systems" can be seen as a starting point, from which we are called upon to act skillfully. There is a paradox in Buddhism that is well illustrated by the life of Thich Nhat Hanh. Offering the advice, "don't just do something, sit there", he nevertheless remains active as one of the world's foremost engaged Buddhists. Acknowledgement of the "emptiness" or "primordial purity" of all things can serve to give us a profound sense of perspective, but I can't see that it relieves us of our duty to relieve suffering. Rather, it is the necessary foundation of compassionate action. Thanks to everyone involved with this. I'm looking forward to comments and more stimulating mail. Yours, Mike Morris From pbunch @ crash.cts.com Tue Nov 19 08:21:26 1996 From: "Philip M. Bunch" Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 19:21:32 Subject: Re: Author's Operning Statement-Nondual Ecology Not one, not two. Hi All: My name is Phil Bunch. I'm a biolgical consultant in the San Diego, California area who spend much of his time working as a go between for clients that want to develop something and the agencies that issue permits for development. My education and personal interests are in botany and vegetation ecology. A lot of my work involves the impacts of human activity on threatened and endangered species. As you might guess I am bewteen the rock and the hard place on a regular basis. > The main problem we will face in this discussion is likely to > revolve around the apparent difference between an absolute, or >"deep" view, and a more practical, relative view. > Absolute view: Everything is perfect, or at least complete as it stands. > There is nothing to do or add. > Relative view: Things in this world are never good enough. Consider > suffering. These inadequacies matter a lot, and urgently need our > attention. Not one, not two. These apparent distintions are illusion. We are faced with both every moment. My approach is to incorporate the "relative" into my practice (is there any other choice?). After sitting I get up and go to work. There I find opportunites to see greed, anger and ignorance arise and disappear. A client owns a piece of land and wants to put houses on it to make a profit. This land may have an endangered species on it. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has a mandate and legal responsibility to protect that species and the local office takes this very seriously. This is where the rubber-hits-the-road. The client is a person. A particular person in the Service has the responsability to review the project and wants to keep his/her job. The Endangered Species Act is part of the world we have created. There is lots of room in this system for greed, anger and ignorance to manifest and a lot of suffering arises. The clients desire for profit has its fruit. The Service persons desire to protect the resource has its fruit. Each party brings their fruit to the table and feast begins. The fruit is often unripe or bitter. I find that practicing the precepts is helpful. Being a layman I'm working with the five basics. Not killing. Not lying. Not taking that which is not mine. Not engaging in improper sexuality. Not becoming intoxicated. In the day-to-day experiance of working with the apparent conflicts beteen the absolute and relative aspects of our relationship to the natural world these precepts are very helpful. Being aware of greed anger and ignorance also helps. I think we must be very careful to keep in mind that our efforts to "save all beings" happen each moment and that if we engage in excessive abstraction about right and wrong we get confused and lose our effectiveness. I find that understanding the issues and then just doing the next thing that needs to be done is the only useful approach. Well I've got to go to work. From mwilding @ lungta.naropa.edu Tue Nov 19 10:06:04 1996 Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 10:05:57 -0700 From: mwilding @ lungta.naropa.edu (Mark Wilding) Subject: Re: some thoughts Michael, Have read some of your thoughts on this subject before -- in a class with Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon -- glad you are involved. I am sitting at a desk on the 2nd floor of the Allen Ginsberg Library on the Naropa Institute campus -- looking out through two huge Sycamore trees to the front range of the Rocky Mountains... There is a beautiful clear blue sky with some wispy clouds drifting along ... with regards to your comment on: >difficulty of squaring a cause-effect (sequential, diachronic) model of >reality (obviously favored by the scientific ecology to which deep >ecologists so often appeal) with the spontaneous co-production >(simultaneous) model of reality (pratityasamutpada) so important to >Mahayana Buddhism. Indeed, Buddhism itself has difficulties squaring these >two with one another. I know many ecologists and scientists who view their work from a systems view, which is very consistent with co-dependent arising or mutual causality. I believe it may be the practice of certain scientists to view ecological problems from linear causality point of view -- but it is not inherent in the discipline to do so. - are you familiar with Joana Macy's book on the subject - "Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory", 1991 OR Maturana, Humberto R. & Varela, Francisco.,"The Tree of Knowledge" -- an excellent book describing evolution from co-dependent arising view. But as you stated -- the more challenging problem lies with the often misunderstood point of view of "perfection" or the absolute point of view mentioned by John McClellan. I think John did a great job of laying this out in his opening discussion of relative and absolute truth -- I will leave that one for a later message, but leave you with a quote instead: "Those who believe in substantiality are like cows; those who believe in emptiness are worse." Saraha It may be clouded over tomorrow in Boulder -- but that will not change the existence of the vast blue sky above. Cheers, Mark :^) Mark Wilding | 2130 Arapahoe Ave. The Naropa Institute | Boulder, CO 80302-6697 Environmental Studies | Tel (303) 546-3550 mwilding @ naropa.edu | Fax (303) 444-0410 From mccaffrm @ csf.Colorado.EDU Tue Nov 19 12:55:30 1996 Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 12:55:29 -0700 (MST) From: Mark McCaffrey Subject: Such Beauty Woke up on a farm outside of Boulder with a chinook blowing away last week's snow. Back to toasty indian summer but with winter hanging out up on the Great Divide just to the west. Delightful. Yes, there is something ironic/ionic about trying to discuss what we're calling nondual. But it's important to do so. What has been well fed, it seems to me, is the polarized view of life/existence, as if there were no true common denominator. Beauty/Grace is, for me, that l.c.d. (lowest common denominator). Chao for now Mark M From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Tue Nov 19 14:00:36 1996 Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 14:00:34 -0700 (MST) From: mcclellan john Reply-To: mcclellan john Subject: THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: THE DEEPEST ECOLOGY Good morning everyone. What an avalanche of fabulous, thoughtful, provocative, inspiring letters. Thank you. I am considering these, and will try to distill some main themes and reply soon. But with this amount of material, I encourage you to respond to each other, so that the discussion does not flow through me alone, but in all directions, among all of us. If anyone would sort out some of these themes and attempt to map the territory, following the little creeks into their rivers and watersheds, it would help a lot. I am impressed with the level of the dialogue. When this article first came out, it seemed like a wildly radical point of view, and provoked such a shock wave that it was difficult to discuss the material itself clearly. Now, three years later, the idea of accepting all forms of negentropic activity as imbued with some valid form of "life" does not seem so wild or implausible. As a community, we deep ecologists seem to have matured, and are now willing to discuss a view that earlier provoked mainly attack and defense reactions. That puts us in a position to work with the concept we have here, to refine it, develop it into something useful. The world is unfolding out of itself at an explosive evolutionary rate, creating enormous suffering and confusion. No one is unaffected by these changes. They are happening to US, all of us. How can we understand? How can we learn to help, to contribute something useful, to alleviate suffering, clarify confusion, our own and that of others? I think a deeply truthful and trustworthy view of Deep Ecology and its mother, Evolution, would be a most extremely helpful contribution. Such a view not only carries the Creation Story that explains things to us, how things came to be this way, it also shows us how to behave in this world we have to live in. I hope this discussion is going to take the original vision of relatedness with all forms of life, including technologies and technobiotic life systems, and show us how to understand and live with such things. I am looking for useful concepts, beyond likes and dislikes. They are gathering already in this discussion. I am hopeful we can do this. The email traffic is running high. It's difficult to get through all this material, and keep the feeling of a sustained coherent discussion. But don't worry, we will be collecting the proceedings of this discussion, and publishing them on Communications For A Sustainable Future, if not in print as well. So even if you can't keep up with all there is to read here, if you have a contribution to make, please do so. Anything goes here, thoughts, feelings, poems & sutras. Let's lay down a fantastic record of thinking on these subjects. If the material is there, we your humble servants will sift through it all later and pull something together that is readable and useful. Let's not feel obliged to hang around the trailhead of my original article either. We will soon tire of supporting or attacking McClellan's outrageous nonsense, or couragous vision. Let's move off down the trail into the greater wilderness of Deep Ecology and Evolution, and their sister, profound spiritual understanding. A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT Meanwhile, I would like to conduct a thought experiment. So many fine minds and hearts are gathered here (200+), let's try something fun. Lean back in your chair and close your eyes. Forget everything you think you know or don't about ecology. Try to imagine The Deepest Possible True Ecology. What would it be like? How deep can you go!? What is really truely real and unshakable, vajra, or indestructible as the Tibetans put it. Wwhat lies beneath all our cultural expectations and habits and worrys, beneath all our hopes and fears? Describe THE DEEPEST ECOLOGY in 100 words or less. I want to see what people really think. What's radical and what's really deep. Let's limber up this discussion, kick the roof off, throw down the walls and take a look around, see what's really out there. From mwilding @ lungta.naropa.edu Tue Nov 19 14:16:34 1996 Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 14:16:31 -0700 From: mwilding @ lungta.naropa.edu (Mark Wilding) Subject: Re:Splitter & Lumpers >from McCaffrey -- >At risk of being dualistic (which naturally is "bad" if one is trying to >be nondual) it seems like most folks are either Splitters or Lumpers. >Splitters like to break things (ideas/phenomenon/matter) into pieces. >Lumpers tend to look for common denominators, patterns, wholeness. > >Science and technology have been criticized for their >splitting/fragmenting tendancy. Lumpers-- mystic or contemplative types-- >are called to task for being sloppy on details, for ignoring >differentiation/individuation in their haste to find oneness. > Yes -- good stuff -- -- It seems that "Lumpers" are constantly trying to remind "Splitters" of their mistaken bias and -- of course vice versa. It also seems that all of us are trying to balance the other "unbalanced" point of view. > I have been thinking about the process of this discussion itself too! I will offer a quote: "Our paranoia and our 'I'm right and you're wrong' mentality are reflected in the arguments you hear among deep ecologists and social ecologists and ecofeminsts and whatever. We're not really transformed yet. We would like to be, but our behavior shows that we are not. We're groping for an alternative way of having conversation." from Michael E. Zimmerman "Introduction to Deep Ecology", "In Context " #22 and how about a peice of verse -- Excerpt from The Thunder, Perfect Mind - Gnostic tractate For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the mother and the daughter. I am the members of my mother. I am the barren one and many are her sons. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband. I am the midwife and she who does not bear. I am the solace of my labor pains. I am the bride and the bridegroom, and it is my husband who begot me. I am the mother of my father and the sister of my husband, and he is my offspring ... I am she who does not keep festival, and I am she whose festivals are many. I, I am godless, and I am the one whose God is great... For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins, and incontinencies, and disgraceful passions, and fleeting pleasures, which men embrace until they become sober and go up to their resting place. And they will find me there, and they will live, and they will not die again. Mark Wilding | 2130 Arapahoe Ave. The Naropa Institute | Boulder, CO 80302-6697 Environmental Studies | Tel (303) 546-3550 mwilding @ naropa.edu | Fax (303) 444-0410 From amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Tue Nov 19 17:09:19 1996 amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Subject: Re: On Arne Naess"s Deep Ecology Platform -Reply In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 19 Nov 96 16:04:14 MST." Date: Tue, 19 Nov 96 16:09:26 -0800 From: Alan McGowen > I look up the hill and see the buildings where tons > of plutonium reside at Rocky Flats probably for 20,000 years - or until the > wind blows it into our garden. I may try to see it as something other than > human ignorance at work, but my innermost being says this is > human-created ignorance given form for awhile. I have nothing against > the "absolute" pure nature/quality of plutonium, and no, plutonium is not > "bad", but yes, humans gathering it in one place and figuring out ways of > killing one another with it - on the relative level, I say STUPID humans. > And I'll dare speak for the rest of the universe and say "No thanks" to > seeing that as some kind of "evolution" - we can do better, even within > our own little narrow view of things! Hear, hear, Susan! Yes, we can do better. These things are made by humans -- they are not cosmic inevitabilities or the result of some fanciful evolutionary progress. Neither is squeezing other species out of habitat they need to survive. Humans take too much -- let's call that what it is, and not try to blur it out of view with metaphysics. This is not the will of a god, transcendental, evolutionary, or any other kind -- and unless we can discover ways to live while leaving more for nature, our own evolutionary prospects are as grim as those of our Cenozoic kin. Maybe "what goes around, comes around" is about as much depth of "ecology" as we truly need. Alan McGowen From SallyClay @ aol.com Tue Nov 19 19:41:52 1996 From: SallyClay @ aol.com Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 21:41:46 -0500 nondual-ecology @ csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Thought Experiment: THE DEEPEST ECOLOGY It is early evening in central Florida. In the citrus grove behind my house, green grapefruits hang heavily on the trees on one side of the path, and ripe tangerines drop from from the branches on the other side. The lake across the street is quiet and glassy. It is about 70 degrees, and the sweet autumn air moves gently. The busy traffic on the road has subsided now, and the stillness is only occasionally broken by the roar of a pickup truck speeding down the road. In a message dated 11/19/96 9:32:15p, mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu (John McClellan) wrote: >Now, three years later, the idea of accepting all forms of negentropic >activity as imbued with some valid form of "life" does not seem so wild or >implausible. As a community, we deep ecologists seem to have matured, and >are now willing to discuss a view that earlier provoked mainly attack and >defense reactions. I agree that all phenomena have some valid form of "life," or at least a sacred essence. It is important to start from that ground, to value the sacredness of all things. I question, however, whether we should refer to this as "buddha nature." To me, buddha nature describes the essence of a sentient being. It implies a kind of consciousness. In the absolute sense, this essence may be the same thing as the essence of non-sentient phenomena. But ecology by definition is a relative term. It refers to a duality between human beings and their environment. The dictionary describes ecology as: 1.a. The science of the relationships between organisms and their environments. Also called bionomics. b. The relationship between organisms and their environment. 2. The branch of sociology that is concerned with studying the relationships between human groups and their physical and social environments. Also called human ecology. 3. The study of the detrimental effects of modern civilization on the environment, with a view toward prevention or reversal through conservation. Also called human ecology. Karma, as the law of cause and effect, includes causes that are both mechanical/systemic and intentional/individual. It results in effects that are both objectively measured and subjectively experienced. To discuss ecology, we must consider the relationships between these aspects. We need to distinguish between the nature of intention and the nature of mechanics. In particular, we need to consider individual consciousness in relationship to environmental phenomena. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz * Sally Clay ZANGMO BLUE THUNDERCLOUD * Website & writing Email: or Lake Placid, FL *Lightning Capital of the World* zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz From "cleef @ well.com" @ well.com Tue Nov 19 19:48:05 1996 Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 18:51:09 -0800 From: Cheryl Foltos <"cleef @ well.com" @ well.com> Subject: Rest in the heart of movement I can't remember who brought up the topic of "a fundamental Awareness from which all this movement and stuff arises" (McClellan?) but he/she called that Awareness "the rest in the heart of movement" {McCaffrey] and asked if that made sense to anyone. I can't say it makes sense to me but I was reminded of Aristotle's concept of the Unmoved Mover, which sets the Universe in motion. Centuries later St. Thomas Aquinas interpreted Aristotles Unmoved Mover as God, if I remember correctly. It's been many years since I looked at Aristotle or Aquinas but I also have this vague memory that Aquinas, in referring to the Unmoved Mover, described it as Love. It is interesting to contemplate the fundamental motion of the Universe, i.e. that which sets all else in motion, as love. I'm not particularly a theist and heaven knows the concepts of God and love are a can of worms but Aristotle and Aquinas both are certainly formers of our Western heritage of thinking and I think these concepts are worth poking around in. I just want to say I'm loving the quality of conversation here More later. From MoCtrLite @ aol.com Tue Nov 19 23:39:28 1996 From: MoCtrLite @ aol.com Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 01:39:26 -0500 Subject: MISSING THE POINT OF NON-DUAL THINKING Tonight, I sit at my computer, in a large Victorian home; a new house, a new neighborhood, a new city, all with which my wife, my children, and I have fallen in love. Although we are in a new place, it does not feel new - it feels, instead, as though we are home at last. All we ever dreamed of has come true. Most of what we had before is gone. Just over a year ago, we lost virtually everything, except for our lives and the lives of some of our pets, to a fire which started in the basement of the home in which we had lived for almost twenty years. The fire robbed us of things both tangible and intangible. As a consequence, our lives have been radically transformed. Later on tonight, I will sit in front of the fireplace in our new home and enjoy, of all things, the charm and comfort of a fire. I do not love fire, I do not hate fire, and though I awoke from a sound sleep in our new home and started yelling "Is that smoke? Is that smoke..." I am not afraid of fire. Reading the responses of some of the participants in this seminar, I feel there is still much misunderstanding with regard to non-dual thinking. What some seem to be missing is that the output of ideas and actions become the input of other ideas and/or actions. As soon as a position crystallizes, it is outdated. While you can attack a "snapshot" of the non-dual thinking process, the process is dynamic and cannot be attacked directly. Furthermore, the snapshot might provide fodder for detractors, but has no relevance. The first thought is already one thought away from reality. The more you think, the more you argue, the further away you get. That which is, is. No argument. Can reality be comprehended? Maybe, maybe not - but if so, only with an open mind. My mind remains open, so please do not take exception to what I say; I already agree with you. P.S. I DON'T THINK ANYONE IS ADVOCATING AN ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY IN THIS DISCUSSION. FOR A SYSTEM IN A STATE OF FLUX, THINGS BEING PERFECT AS THEY ARE (I.E. CHANGING AND SUBJECT TO ALL WE DO OR NEGLECT TO DO) DOES NOT IMPLY STASIS AND NON-ACTION. ==>> WHAT IS = WHAT WAS + WHAT IT TOOK TO MAKE WHAT WAS WHAT IT IS AND WHAT WILL BE = WHAT IS + WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO MAKE WHAT IS WHAT IT WILL BE, SO WHAT IS IT? P.S.S. THE IDEAS EXPRESSED IN THIS SEMINAR ARE ONLY FINGERS POINTING TO THE MOON - LET US BE THANKFUL FOR THEIR DIRECTION AND NOT RESENT THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT THE MOON. From hollick @ cwr.uwa.edu.au Wed Nov 20 00:39:50 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 15:39:44 +0800 From: hollick @ cwr.uwa.edu.au (Malcolm Hollick) Subject: Re: In response to Robinson O.: Are humans unique? Yes. No other gaian species is like us. No two species are the same, as has already been pointed out. Are humans different to the rest of life? Yes and no. We are no different in that we depend totally on the rest of life and the living planet for our existence. Without rocks, water, trees, bacteria, fungi, insects, mammals ... all interacting within ecosystems we do not exist. Similarly, without our fellows in our society, we have no recognisable human psychlogical, mental or emotional existence. (See accounts of children raised by animals) But we are different in that we have created technologies which massively extend our senses, our mental capacities and our power over other beings. It is an indisputable fact that no other species currently alive on earth has such powers. As I wrote earlier, this gives us awesome responsibilities. In arguing that humans are infinitely greedy we swallow the economists propaganda. Theirs is but one model of human behaviour and motivation. One that has considerable power and attraction, but one that is nevertheless incomplete and inadequate. Quite simply, we all have many other motivations which may be equally or more important depending on the context. As is always the case, if you manage a system using a particular model, that system will gradually come to resemble the model, no matter how poor the model was to start with. Hence economism is turning us into insatiable consumers. But we aren't necessarily or always that way. Hubris has always been a problem. But our difference, as outlined above, does bring with it responsibilities even if not rights with regard to other species and the planet. Malcolm Hollick Senior Lecturer, Centre for Water Research, Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, W Australia 6907 Tel. 61 9 380 3082 Fax. 61 9 380 1015 From r.j.faichney @ stir.ac.uk Wed Nov 20 03:18:34 1996 id <01BBD6CB.38FF4820 @ findhorn.stir.ac.uk>; From: Robin Faichney Subject: Perfection and reality Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 10:08:00 -0000 Reality is as perfect today as it has ever been. Except, that is, for some environmentalists, who require reeducation. John McClellan, you are no Buddha. -- Robin Faichney http://www.stir.ac.uk/envsci/staff/rjf1/ From r.j.faichney @ stir.ac.uk Wed Nov 20 03:33:53 1996 id <01BBD6CD.C7D67120 @ findhorn.stir.ac.uk>; From: Robin Faichney Subject: RE: technology/seminar/ecology Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 10:25:00 -0000 Betty J. Foster wrote: >...the work >of my friends on artificial intelligence never once convinces me that >it is or will be more than a machine - fancy but a machine -and the >dualism reminds me of the apparently unsolvable dualism of the mind-body >question that I have followed all my learning life. As a Buddhist I reckon I'm on the track of mind/body dualism, but to feel compassion for a machine is no more appropriate than to do so for a rock. If we kick them, do they not bounce down hill? Yes, and unless there's something sentient, or something valuable to someone in their track, who gives a shit? To try to venerate equally everything that moves is what we used to call a "head trip". It's not real, man!! Let go of the thoughts and follow your feelings, just for a while. (And yes, of course, machines are valuable, so we should care for them in the sense of not kicking them down hill, but in *this* life there's a difference between maintaining office equipment and looking after our loved ones. To deny it is to deny emotional reality.) -- Robin Faichney http://www.stir.ac.uk/envsci/staff/rjf1/ From r.j.faichney @ stir.ac.uk Wed Nov 20 07:29:48 1996 id <01BBD6EE.709739A0 @ findhorn.stir.ac.uk>; From: Robin Faichney Subject: Chilling out Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 14:17:00 -0000 I just got back from lunch to find 3 new messages from nondual-ecology -- all sent by me! In mitigation, I plead a frantic attempt to catch up after a day away from my machine. Which is not a very good excuse, as my tone in these messages also seems rather confrontational, compared to most of the others. A hangover from other net forums, perhaps. In any case, I'd like to apologise, and to make a peace offering: Here in central Scotland, the past few days have been, weatherwise, the first of winter. As I write I can turn and look out at the nearby hills, with the various browns and muted greens of mixed woodlands and open moors at this time of year. It is brilliantly sunny right now (and I'm looking forward to going out shortly), but yesterday there was much disruption caused by blizzard-like conditions, last night it was very cold for these regions, down to -10C in places, and I guess it will be colder again tonight. I'm about to go and pick up some logs for firewood, available here on campus due to the gales we had a week or so back. Most of my direct interactions with the natural environment these days are mediated by chainsaw and axe, as I prepare for the many long dark evenings to come. When I was first learning to use these tools I sometimes felt that I was amputating limbs. Fanciful, of course, but I don't think we should dismiss such experiences as meaningless. Though I still haven't found the time to study it properly, Edward Wilson's concept of biophilia is a very profound one, for me. The hypothesis is that we do all have a inbuilt tendency to value the natural environment "for its own sake". One of the most obvious manifestations of this is aesthetic appreciation. I develop software for a living (presently in the service of environmental economics research), and I very much enjoy using computers, chainsaws, axes, etc. But compare that to the experience of a quiet Scottish glen in autumn? I don't think so! OK, so I fell back into proselytising. Sorry again, and metta to all. Robin Faichney http://www.stir.ac.uk/envsci/staff/rjf1/ From "cleef @ well.com" @ well.com Wed Nov 20 07:39:56 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 06:42:57 -0800 From: Cheryl Foltos <"cleef @ well.com" @ well.com> Subject: Morning Offering Good morning to most - (evening to some) Before I hop off to work - a little thought which I keep taped to the border above my screen - "When the mind is at peace the world too is at peace. Not holding onto reality, not getting stuck in the void, you are neither holy nor wise, just an ordinary fellow who has completed his work." This came to me on a Christmas card a few years ago and I was it as guide for not getting stuck in either the absolute or the relative. There's some wondersul wisdom being put into this discusion - what i will carry with to me to work today and muse on is that the Universe is a system in flux - to try to pin down at any moment "the way it is" is futile and a waste of energy - also I like this notion that technology is like a base protein that is even now begining to weave humanity into a new kind of resonant microorganism - a structure which is both sensient (since its movement originates and is propelled by humans) and non-sensient since the resonance itself is neither biological nor locatable. Cool. I look forward to seeing whatever gets cooked up today. The dawn is just breaking here in Northern California and it promises to be another mild and damp grey day on the outside and cheery on the inside. But who knows - that too will change many times before it's over. From pbunch @ crash.cts.com Wed Nov 20 07:45:27 1996 From: "Philip M. Bunch" Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 18:45:24 Subject: Non-Dual Taking Action > > Dualistically-inclined individuals fail to see > > that this view does not impose inaction and paralysis, but rather frees us > > from the prison of self where our actions are performed within the confines > > > of illusion. In this interrelated and dynamic existence, where all is in > > flux, perfection lies in the ability to come to rest in motion. > > The question is, can it bring habitat destruction "to rest in motion" > -- and then reverse it through ecosystem recovery? If not, then it is > of little use to species and natural processes in jeopardy. We have the problem of inertia. The combined effort of the human race, driven by desire, is a powerful force. We also have the problem of ignorance. We are very good at developing new technologies but we often do not understand them prior to implementing them. It is premature to consider the development of tecnology as evolution toward a new life form. At this point, technology is an extention of human will and at times willfulness. We as humans communicate, protect and feed ourselves, do work, and dispose of our waste. We do these things with or without advanced technology. Technologies extend our ability to carry out these human activites and are an extention of our actions. Action is deeply interconnected with the expression of mind, which in turn is part-and- parcle of our evolution. All actions have their fruit. Desire drives action. Technology developed by humans is ours, and we should not try to dodge the responsability. We want to be safe. In the 50's we implemented nuclear technologies to protect "our _selves_." We took action in ignorance. Rocky Flats, Colorado and Fernald, Ohio are fruits of our actions. We must be very careful in taking action. This does not absolve us from responsability to take part in life, it means that we must be guided by the precepts. We have substantially reversed many of the processes that were contaminating the waters of the United States. We are not done, but we have made a good start. We are cleaning up our contaminated sites. Can we do it fast enough? Are we? All this around us is perfection. The cause and effect machine functions perfectly. Seeing the problems and dealing with them is also perfection. We may not like the fruits of our actions but there they are in all their splendor. I really think we need to do the next thing that needs to be done. We can speculate about the nature of life and all that, but does it lead to the elimination of suffering? Clear thinking may help. Being attached to ideas will not help. Phil Bunch From rtodd @ unlinfo.unl.edu Wed Nov 20 09:08:05 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 96 10:08:01 CST From: Richard Todd Subject: On what do we depend? Greetings from the Great Plains of North America, from the watershed of the Platte River, where its forks open to the high plains and Rocky Mountains. A lot of words flow through this symposium. Like the river not far from here, most will flow on by me. But I will drink a little and that water will nourish me. Mr. McCellan's Evening News was good, I think, because it was simple. He asked "So what are we trying to do here?" And he answered "My goal is to learn to understand the world I live in in a sacred way" I respectfully propose a way to do this based on a quote whose attribution I wish I had, but don't. It is this: "That is sacred on which the people depend." So, as another thread to this discussion, and perhaps as first steps toward Mr. McCellan's goal: On what we depend? __________________________________________________________ Richard Todd At the forks of the Platte rtodd @ unlinfo.unl.edu On the edge of the Sandhills From tbm @ access.usa.net Wed Nov 20 09:08:25 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 09:08:20 -0700 (MST) From: Stephen Evans Subject: Sacred? Profane? Sitting in my Dilbert cubie, in a windowless inside corver of a downtown building, subduded lighting, purple walls, wistfully remembering the glorious Indian Summer outside, sureptitiously posting to this seminar, open to the perpetual summer and fresh breezes of the intelectual world of the net. Soon I'll go back out, walk across the campus, happy among the trees so recently and breifly flaming with autumn colors and try to convey the Noble eightfold path to my Eastern philosophy class. I remember the article quite well -- not for its main thesis, with which I largely agree -- but as a prime example of Westernized and frankly rather sophomoric Buddhism. The main thesis I take to be that the techno-industrial "plant" is a natural product of natural human activity. It has //become// environment. For many of us the city //is// the forest -- the natural environment into which we are born, live and die. Moreover, like a rain forest, it has a logic and dynamic of its own -- in some since is a living thing. At least: the techno-sphere is a human-industrial cyborg. It defines us as we define it. Like all animals, we alter the environment, that //new// environment //as our real environment// alters us in turn, then we it in continuous and unpredictible ways. This has always been our situation and we have often in the past perceived that tenuous situation to be critical. Also, as always, there are real threats to our survival -- threats which often, as now, are real and need to be met and dealt with. The truest and most telling line in the article is: Deep Ecologists show the same fear and loathing toward today's out-of-control technology as humans have had -- until just recently -- toward uncontrolled Nature... Though I would simply substitute "we" for Deep Ecologists. It is only in the context of an already subdued nature that so many could make it a kind of ultimate good over against the evil of technology -- or even concieve it an object capable of being saved or lost. I.e. the ecology movement itself is a product of the technological age. Probably, moreover, coming to grips with this new and massive force will require meeting it on its own terms and getting to know it. Mc Clellan does not suggest that we do nothing to preserve the biosphere. Indeed I came away from the piece thinking -- good, lets stop posturing our "depth" and get to work. I am, however deeply disturbed by Mc C's "Buddhism." Non-dualism does not and has never (except recently in the West) meant that some things and activities are not better or worse than others. This is a mock-enlightened point of view, remeniscent of the mock-Gods-eye view evident in the self-righeous pronouncements that Mc Clellan seems to abhor. I don't think any of us know how the fully enlightened would see the world and its problems -- yet we know how //we// see it and that one sided view -- conscious of its one-sidedness -- is the authentic approach. Trying, on the other hand, to take a Buddha's-eye ("non-dual") view leads to absurdity at best. Too often it is a bad faith device for promoting one's own view. For example, Mc C. says that reality is //already perfect// and that technology, as part of that perfection, is a living being which non-dualists will not judge. Some might counter that the demonizing of technology is part of the perfection of reality too, and cannot be judged. Neither, of course may the article be judged. We end up unable to say anything about anything -- or at best, going back to our lives trying to forget the whole conversation. What usually happens with this sort of deconstruction of relative meaning though, is that one stops the chain when he gets to the link that supports his view: "I must not be criticized for objecting to the article, since my objections are part of the existent perfection of reality." In any case, McClellan seems to think that those who are not "contempletive mystics" are considerably less perfect than those who are. McC want's to see everything as "sacred" I really don't know what that means -- except as a medieval European concept used to divide the cosmos between the "sacred" and the "profane" with the "sacred" having a much heightened, even transcendent, importance vis a vis the "profane." In any case, who are we to proclaim things "sacred?" Or to pretend to understand, in a living vital way, "Buddha Nature?" And why should a highly metaphorical passage in the Diamond sutra apply in a rough and ready way to the world as pictured by Westerners of the late 20th century? Does this all have some bearing on McC's assertion that there is only one nature? But certainly the "nature" in "Buddha Nature" is not the same as the nature that is the subject matter of biology. And if everything is "nature" (or "perfect", or "sacred") then the word has no practical meaning. Anyway the arrogance of every little buddhist taking on the task of saving sentient beings is breathtaking. We've simply renamed the puritan conceit of creating the city on the hill, the kingdom of heaven on earth. What does "saving" even mean in this, bodhisattva, context anyway? And the notion of a unitary (or at least non-dual) Sentient Being to which we could stand in a saving relationship! Again, this is taking a mock-Buddha's-eye view. As though we could be outside of Being itself, able to pronounce it non-dual, perfect -- and to save it. In fact we are participants //in// the world, with no more than loose guesses as to what the whole is -- or even what the needs of other individuals are. This, in fact is part of what "non-dualism" means -- that we -- our whole being -- are part and parcel of the world process and //cannot// stand outside it pronouncing it perfect or empty or... anything. But the hubris shines fully toward the end: Sacred beings roam out there on the streets... the gods are in charge out there.. No one tries to control what goes down on the street, no one but gangs, drug lords, and cops. You don't want to bee like that. You want to be a bodhisattva ... [and] tiptoe through the street in a state of reverence... Even a non-dual ecologist can't avoid a little we-they. One in which "we" are bodhisattvas no less. To be fair, when McC is practical, he makes a lot of sense and much of the metaphysical non-sense sounds almost toungue in cheek as though he were laughing at himself all through. Anyway, this kind of arrogance -- imagining that we have true knowledge and the duty to save others -- concerns me. It sounds rather puritanical and we know the destruction that those well intentioned folks brought -- even the Quakers did more harm than good trying to "save" the Indians (part of my family is Pawnee -- they remember). "Santipala P.S. sorry for the late checking in -- I sent this monday, but it somehow got lost in the mail. From hogant @ spot.Colorado.EDU Wed Nov 20 10:06:08 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 10:06:04 -0700 (MST) From: HOGAN TIM M Subject: Non Dual Ecology My thanks to John for his original piece - provocative thinking well wrought - and for his energy in pursuing these thoughts via this seminar. Dogen wrote: "Mountains and waters right now are the actualization of the ancient buddha way." For some time i have been working with the idea that if this is true, is it also so that "skyscrapers and sewers are the actualization of the ancient buddha way"? Holding this idea near at hand has softened my view toward a late 20th Century world of concrete, steel, and glass. The original article was of great help in challenging my ideas on wildness, nature, etc. Nevertheless, it is also true that mountains and rivers are not the same as skyscrapers and sewers. Dogen also wrote (as pointed out in Snyder's essay Blue Mts. Constantly Walking): "You should know that even though all things are liberated and not tied to anything, they abide in their own phenomenal expression." (Throughout this discussion i keep thinking of ol' Henry David listening to the music of the wind as it hums through the telegraph lines.) Richard Todd At the forks of the Platte rtodd @ unlinfo.unl.edu On the edge of the Sandhills From J.C.HENDERSON @ dundee.ac.uk Wed Nov 20 10:13:15 1996 20 Nov 96 17:06:54 +0 From: Jennifer Henderson Organization: University of Dundee, Dept of APEME Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 17:06:27 Subject: un-lurking Hello to all, It was with some intrepedation that I opened my mail this morning, having forgotten about the starting date for the discussion. I havn't had a chance to read all your comments yet, but the stream of thoughts, dreams and comments which I have had a chance to read have been really interesting. The most inspiring parts for me,are those which describe, with great appreciation and passion, the surroundings of those who are participating. It has been a great reminder for me as I am not surrounded by great beauty at the moment, I am in a very unnatural environment and can safely say that that I do not consider any computer to be a sentient being! There is nothing more beautiful and grounding than witnessing Nature as her true self, which isn't always by our definition a pleasant experience. She is more powerful than any piece of technical equipment that any of us could have the pleasure (or not) to "control" !! :-) Our Natural environment embodies all that we are ,just as Buddanature embodies all that we strive to be. And just as we think we have gained some understanding of how she works and how we can change and control her, she sends us subtle reminders of impermanance and change and unpredictability. We can only gain greater understanding of how things really are,both on a personal level and on a universal level, and an awareness of the conditions that bring suffering about, and with skilful actions work towards the cessation of suffering however possible, whether it be through technology, speech,or actions. It is the state of mind we are in when we act that determines whether or not our actions are skillful or unskillful , and aware states of mind can only be developed through being true to our own nature. As I head home on a very cold, dark Scottish night I send my thanks for your thoughts. From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Wed Nov 20 10:45:02 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 12:49:43 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: if buy premise, then buy bit Its getting cold here in WI, preping for winter. Things have changed alot in the last month -- its interesting to watch time unfold naturally vs as an aspect of culture (ie., calendars and clock time). Hey, so lets play!! *********************** There is an old notion in comedy that if you can get folks to buy the premise then you can get them to buy the bit. It seems to me that this applies here. McCellan grounds his argument on the premises of Buddhist spirituality and then critques deep eekers for not doing the same, but deep eek isn't a strictly Buddhist form. Buddists may be deep eekers but as i understand it, deep eek is a nondenominational "deep" look at what premises we use to organize ourselves as social systems/groups. There seems to be a bit of apples and oranges here. Further, as a sociologist i ground belief systems in the cultural context which produces them (at least to some extent) and in this case i believe that much of McCellan's quietism is an out growth of the fatalism and quietism of the cultural context of a caste based system which believes in reincarnation. i, as a deek eek neo Taoist pagan don't buy the same set of premises. Rather, i believe in celebration vs suffering as the driving force and therefore, rather than quietism i act in terms of ecstacy. i also believe in the notion of co-creation and hence, i am partly responsible for that which is created. In that sense i am more a nondualist than McCellan (if i understand him correctly) when he says"This is God's world, not ours." i also feel that there is a flavor of my god is better/bigger than your god in the tone of McCellan's paper. There is also a certain arrogance in his pronouncement that deep ecologists "don't listen...carefully enough..." to their dharma teachers. Maybe they do but find a different answer given forth by the unfolding Tao -- are you so sure you have Truth with a cap. T. Certainly i agree that at some level all things simply are, but this unfolds at such a level of abstraction as to be rather meaningless to one's everyday life. Maybe i'm way off base here but it seems to me that being human has a dharma (a truth or code, such as a survival instinct) to it as well and to deny or denigrate my personal/human dharma is to deny the outflowing of the god/goddessforce in me. If what i am doing as a deep eeker is trying to find that way of living which best suits me and all creation (helps us all reach our full potential while trying to maintain harmony) than i feel this is in accord with the Great dharma and my own and i think deep eek tries to do this. As for tech., i'm not against it per se, i'm just concerned that we use it with responsibility and respect for all of life, not just to enhance our own (and we may not even understand whether in fact we are enhancing our lives with it, esp. when we take an uncritical view of its place in the grand scheme of things). Note that many in the field of evol. psych. are arguing that our modern techno-consumer society may in fact be delatorius to our health (both physical and psychological). More later, maybe. Green Dreams, r.c. From mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu Wed Nov 20 11:36:42 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 11:36:36 -0700 (MST) From: mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu (John McClellan) Subject: Re: Author Replies to Naess' Deep View >Date: Wed, 20 Nov 96 10:37:42 GMT >X-Sender: unitarian-ga2 @ mailhost.airtime.co.uk >Mime-Version: 1.0 >To: mcclellan john >From: John Clifford >Subject: Re: Author Replies to Naess' Deep View > >Autumn has suddenly given way to winter in Britain, as well as in the parts >of North America where most commentators are based. While the bike has not >been mothballed, I did "enjoy" the "luxury" of the underground train for the >17 km journey from digs to work -- even if the semi-regular "cattle truck" >reading did creep up to the wrong side of "sardine tin at 100 fathoms" this >morning. This example of modern technology certainly feels at times as if >it had a will of its own, independent of its human creators and users. > >I write as someone with a long-term interest in ecology and with basic >sympathy for the deep ecology approach but whose free time activities >(cycling, dancing, and recently piping) and work time commitments (part-time >pastor and full-time denominational bureaucrat) permit all-too-little time >to read serious writers in this area. I'm not an academic and offer the >following comments from the context of a personal struggle to lead a simple >life of balance and harmony amid a real concern for the future of this >planet under the impact of the human race and its inventions -- including >the invention of systematic killing of that which is not eaten. > >Philosophically I would accept a non-dualist labelling because I believe in >the overal unity of everything that is, linked by processes that are >partially observable. This unity, however, contains various "levels" of >contexts (McClellan's shells?) and within each context there seems to be a >polar or even multi-polar nature to reality. Some contexts we cannot fully >appreciate because we are locked into our own sensory processes and bound by >our own collections of experiences and desires. The goal of non-attachment >for me is a process of moving to some deeper or more inclusive context. >Thus, while there is stillness at a centre that is operating at one level, >there is activity informed by that context at another level. > >Perhaps the key pragmatic point in the issues raised by McClellan is not the >balance or imbalance between absolutist or relativist approaches but the >attempt to find some means of exploring whether there is any empirical >reality to the personifications that he suggests for human inventions. For >non-biological systems how do we apprehend any dominant "actual" entity >(ANWhitehead) that integrates the fundamental elements into an organism? >How do we ascertain with some level of confidence that technological systems >or abstract systems have an independent "motive" that qualifies it as an >organism? If I understand his images properly there is also the contrary >question of how we can tell that the animal world is not currently being >manipulated by the plant world (and it in turn by the bacteriological world) >for its own ends. Can we distinguish necessary conditions from conscious >manipulation? I think we can at least partially do so, although models will >of course be based on our collective experience and therefore be very >blinkered. > >Having an ideal model (eg Gaia/Technobia/The Four Horsemen) as an heuristic >tool to see where to look for evidence of such an organism via its actual >entity is not the same thing as showing the empirical existence of such an >actual entity. The evidence must be accumulated and tested. The >recognition that every fundamental element has buddha-nature can cause us to >"respect" the basic operating rules that permit a nuclear bomb and the >elemental particles that are involved but that does not, to my way of >thinking, transfer to providing it with Sentient status as a bomb -- and if >we did do this what is the nuclear bomb that has this status (a) a ready to >go bomb safely tucked away in an underground chamber; (b) a disarmed bomb >sitting on a museum shelf; (c) an exploding bomb at some test site? I don't >believe that McClellan is suggesting we continuously set off nuclear bombs >as protection of its/her/his Rights as a Sentient Being but that is the >implication of accepting his argument and answer (c). > >I close with reporting a discussion I once had with a leading member of a >Japanese Buddhist group over a game of shogi -- partially in my primitive >Japanese and partially with the aid of an interpreter: As he discussed the >buddha-nature in everything that is, his language still forced him to use >different verbs when discussing the buddha nature in stones and tables >compared with discussing the buddha nature in people and animals -- even >when this was pointed out to him. It is not just English that finds it hard >to grapple with non-dualistic concepts without making value judgements. > From tbm @ access.usa.net Wed Nov 20 11:57:23 1996 From: Stephen Evans Subject: We? Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 11:57:19 -0700 (MST) In-Reply-To: from "Malcolm Hollick" at Nov 20, 96 12:54:20 pm Malcolm Hollic sed: > and other natural disasters. We humans created our technology, are > conscious of what we have done and are doing, and are capable of changing > our technology so that it has different effects. I believe the > availability of this conscious choice and power makes us responsible for > our actions in a way that no other species is. For the first time in the > history of this planet, a single species can determine its future. An > awesome responsibility. This begs an important, and rarely addressed question: Is there, after all, a "we" a humanity which is conscious? Is "we humans" a being which makes choices and is responsible? This concept is poorly articulated and its meaning is vague. The relationships between the person (clearly: conscious, choosing and responsible) and community, society... species are by no means clear. "Santipala (No clear yes or no answer) From CHU @ bear.com Wed Nov 20 12:56:06 1996 From: CHU @ bear.com id sma020333; Wed Nov 20 14:49:57 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 14:50:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: The Evening News :Message-Id: :Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 20:22:00 -0700 (MST) :From: mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu (John McClellan) :To: nondual-ecology @ csf.colorado.edu :Maybe I have made a mistake in spending so much time trying to demonstrate :the phenotypic, biological lineage and evolutionary authenticity of :technology. It seems to provoke a lot of controversy and disputatious :uncomfort. I think it's true enough, but maybe this isn't a good approach :to the subject for everyone. Perhaps it would be less controversial to discuss the coevolution of human culture and human genes and lead into the views of memetic. There is a small but substantial body of exploration into the area of coevolution of memes and genes. Sforza-Cavallli has written about it. William H. Durham's "Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Humand Diversity" Stanford Univ. Press, 1992. is my favorite. It contains many pointers to related researchs. Several concrete examples, such as marriage customs, were examined to discern the impact of cultural patterns on gene repoductions and vice versa. From there, one can review the evolution of ideas/fashions which should make a fairly good case for 'memes as lifeforms.' Technology being a part of humn culture would clearly be alive as well. Sentience would still be controversial, but it's not very clear to me how sentient an amoeba is anyway! The other contentious points I've seen in many messages is the relation between evolution and ends or the Darwinist vs. de Chardin. This appears to be another form of the conflict between nihilists and those looking for 'meanings' in the world. I might suggest a middle-way here: that both views are provisional ways of seeing existence and neither exhausts all there is to say about it. Would you like to hold a paradox or two in you lap? Regards, A. Chu From amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Wed Nov 20 13:23:44 1996 Subject: Re: The Evening News In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 20 Nov 96 14:50:14 EST." <961120145014.21c00dcb @ vax10> Date: Wed, 20 Nov 96 12:23:23 -0800 From: Alan McGowen > There is a small but substantial body of exploration into the area > of coevolution of memes and genes. Sforza-Cavallli has written about it. > William H. Durham's "Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Humand Diversity" > Stanford Univ. Press, 1992. is my favorite. It contains many pointers to > related researchs. Several concrete examples, such as marriage customs, were > examined to discern the impact of cultural patterns on gene repoductions and vice > versa. From there, one can review the evolution of ideas/fashions which > should make a fairly good case for 'memes as lifeforms.' Technology being > a part of humn culture would clearly be alive as well. While Durham supports "memes", readers should be aware that the theory of cultural evolution by selection does not depend on postulating "memes" and other authors (e.g. Cavalli-Sforzi, Boyd and Richerson) formulate the theory in terms of *traits*, rather than "memes". "Memes" suggests entities analgous to genes as the units of cultural transmission. However, no one has ever identified a material carrier of memes analogous to DNA, and the "population biology" of "memes" is nothing like that of genes (e.g. "memes" have no analog of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.) It is arguable whether genes are "lifeforms", since genes cannot survive and reproduce without organisms. It is even more arguable whether "memes" are "lifeforms", and whether cultural evolution needs to postulate "memes" as opposed to (behavioral) traits. It was a selectional view of behavioral traits I had in mind when I suggested that "technology is human behavior". Of course technology is part of human social systems, which are living systems. But this does not make technology organisms any more than beaver dams or bowerbird nests are organisms. The coevolution of genes and culture (to use a less controversial phrase than memes) does not provide support for the idea that technology is autopoietic and independent of human behavior -- quite the contrary. Alan McGowen From claudir @ hubcap.clemson.edu Wed Nov 20 16:03:06 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 18:02:42 -0500 (EST) From: Claudia Robinson rosss @ ci.boulder.co.us Subject: Re: On Arne Naess"s Deep Ecology Platform -Reply Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 16:04:14 -0700 From: Susan Ross >don't see machines - or even ideas - DOing much in that direction. Its >more than movement, its more than emptiness. Since the conversation >Susan It's more than movement, its more than emptiness... It's resonance. Cheers, Claudia From SallyClay @ aol.com Wed Nov 20 18:55:14 1996 From: SallyClay @ aol.com Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 20:55:12 -0500 Subject: All That Is, and particular beings In a message dated 11/20/96 6:28:19p, you wrote: >-- A passionate, loving Lifeforce imbues every particle and energy field in >this universe, and is built into the fabric of timespace itself. From this >all things arise from the background Void, in the beginning and also afresh >in each moment. This Lifeforce is Awake, and has a personal, loving >Intention. You can talk to It. ..... >John McClellan >________________________________________ Sounds theistic to me. I agree more with MoCtrLite and Robin Faichney -- we must remain grounded in particular experience, even while keeping our eye on the absolute, and listening to it (Him?). The absolute, or dharmakaya, may be All That Is, but it is not the same thing thing as Deep Ecology, and it is not the same thing as a particular rock or even a particular sentient being. I don't think the dharmakaya is sentient (having sense perception; conscious). I may commune with nature, or even "be" It, but I don't talk to it. If I did talk to it, I would be making it an Other Because the All That Is has no feelings it can't feel compassion (which means, literally, "feeling with.") Because it does not experience compassion, it does not have skillful means. Skillful means, and the social engagement necessary for Deep Ecology, are, I think, qualities of nirmanakaya and of particular beings. Deep Ecology is a process and not a thing. It is really a subset of All That Is, since ecology deals with relationships among environments and beings and things. Life itself is a subset of All That Is. We as humans are part of both life and dharmakaya. We are sometimes compared to drops of water in the ocean of dharmata. Deep Ecology, I think, is the process by which we simultaneously regard both the drops and the ocean. Can't we have feelings and perceptions and at the same time acknowledge Sacred Being that is not sentient? Isn't Sacred Being present even where there is No Life? Can we find some level in this discussion in which we do regard Deep Ecology with the respect that John McClellan calls for, yet do not slip into theism or complacency? Our particular world is in deep trouble. What are we to do? ------ start quote ------ >I see people currently acting upon the basis of >projected outcomes, which no one can possibly know, instead of upon their >feelings, which can be experienced directly. .... >MoCtrLite >...by going "Deep", you inevitably transcend that dichotomy >(like all others), and therefore lose the capacity to make change. ...... >Robin Faichney >______________________ zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz * Sally Clay ZANGMO BLUE THUNDERCLOUD * Website & writing Email: or Lake Placid, FL *Lightning Capital of the World* zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz From mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu Wed Nov 20 18:58:24 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 18:58:19 -0700 (MST) From: mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu (John McClellan) Subject: maybe you could use a chuckle > >Johnny - you shining light!! > >Thanks to you I have more e-mail than I can possibly ever read and it is >all so incredibly DEEP. I am delighted, amazed, overwhelmed, pissed off >that I didn't figure out and find a way to be a motel room somewhere with >lots of bandwidth, a bottle, a babe, a laptop and a modem hook for the >week. >In short I have just begun to swim into this onrushing flood of high-tide >information that is sure to wash me sprawling and gasping on the beaches of >week's end. > >So, I am thinking, maybe you could use a chuckle. When I opened my mail I >found one that was sort of buried in the middle of 89 others, having >arrived from a friend who shares chuckles. I pass it on - somehow it even >seems germain, though I haven't quite figured out how, so just trust me on >this one. A nod to on-screen synchronicity, if you will. > >> An Irishman walks into a bar in Dublin, orders three pints of Guinness >> and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in >> turn. When he finishes them, he comes back >> to the bar and orders three more. >> >> The bartender asks him, "You know, a pint goes >> flat after I draw it; it would taste better if you bought one at a >> time." >> >> The Irishman replies, "Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in >> America, the other in Australia, and I'm here in Dublin. When we all >> left home, we promised that we'd drink this way to remember >> the days when we drank together." >> >> The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there. >> The Irishman becomes a regular in the bar, and always drinks the same >> way: He orders three pints and drinks them in turn. >> >> One day, he comes in and orders two pints. All >> the other regulars notice and fall silent. When he comes back to the >> bar for the second round, the bartender says, "I don't want to intrude >> on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your >> great loss." >> >> The Irishman looks confused for a moment, then a light dawns in his >> eye and he laughs. "Oh, no," he, says, "everyone's fine. It's myself, >>you see. I've quit drinking." > >More soon. >GTR From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Wed Nov 20 19:25:46 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 21:30:27 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: More on Bowing, Civilization & Technology References: It seems to me that this is in fact much of the prob. at hand -- tech. has gotten out of control and what many of us are trying to do is figure out how to gain control once again before it is too late, not just for us but for the whole damn thing! i agree that we are more out of control regarding tech than in control, but unlike you i define the sit. as something like an addiction. If i become addicted to a drug that doesn't mean i have to or even should adore or sacrelize it. i may bow to it and in so doing respect it for its hold on me but i don't/probably shouldn't have to put it on a par with god. For ex., i smoke a pipe. i wish i didn't, but i do. i'm an addict. Does that mean that tobbaco is somehow sacred (regardless of or in destinction to its use as a sacred plant by native peoples) just because i have become biologically dependent upon it? For me at least, NO! Does it have power (for lack of a better word)? Yes. Should i respect its use? Yes! But does it have (i'm stumbling for a term here) sentience (only for lack of a better word)? Not to me -- just addictive power coupled with my weakness and ignorance. Green Dreams, r.c. From tbm @ access.usa.net Wed Nov 20 20:12:53 1996 From: Stephen Evans Subject: Re: Learning to Cry & Bow At Same Time Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 20:12:47 -0700 (MST) In-Reply-To: from "John McClellan" at Nov 20, 96 02:42:55 pm Bravo! for what John has to say about fighting and being a warrior and battle and bowing and crying! Fighting isn't easy -- and I've been in massively lethal battles -- this is -- with respect -- the best way to fight. Even when the opponent will kill you. John -- write about that. Loose the theology & the Luminousity & the speculation about whether technology is alive. Like in the Gita -- fight the battles that present themselves -- with courage, strength and hope yet without expectation and with the humility of knowing you may be wrong! Thanks for todays post John, "Santipala From kozan @ mho.net Wed Nov 20 20:16:19 1996 for ; Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 20:16:15 -0700 From: kozan @ mho.net (Koerner, Darrell) Subject: (no subject) The true irony in all of this is that we of the western mind all bow mostly to our comfort zone - whether it's John McClellan sitting in his peaceful valley with the wood stove, computer, tepee and splendid isolation from the masses, or the rest of us trying to carve out a splendid enough piece of the pie so that we may enjoy our wood stove, computer (latest model), tepee (or not) and splendid isolation from the masses; be it in the name (or not) of deep ecology, paganism, buddhism, etc. It's all quite romantic, isn't it? A monk inquired, "What's the problem?" The master said, "You don't notice the stench of your own shit!" -Darrell Koerner, Boulder From ddunn1 @ ix.netcom.com Wed Nov 20 20:21:26 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 19:16:33 -0800 From: Doug Dunn Reply-To: ddunn1 @ ix.netcom.com Subject: Re: More on Bowing, Civilization & Technology References: <32937873.5052 @ carroll1.cc.edu> Rich Coon wrote: > > It seems to me that this is in fact much of the prob. at hand -- tech. > has gotten out of control and what many of us are trying to do is > figure out how to gain control once again before it is too late, not > just for us but for the whole damn thing! i agree that we are more out > of control regarding tech than in control, but unlike you i define the John had written: We humans like to think of technology as our toy, our plaything. We assume we have complete control over it, and argue among ourselves how best to use it. We don't realize that we are the sorcerer's apprentice, and this Toy has slipped out of our control, and now rules the planet. *We* have become *its* plaything. I am just getting into the discussion for some reason I did not recieve the previous e-mail but I have tried to read most of the postings to date. It is difficult to bow to the technological world but as long as we maintain the fantasy of control we cannot begin to change the impact that tech. has on the planet. I agree with John that we have become the sorcerer's apprentice and when the apprentice tried to control the broom (at least in the Walt Disney version) he was unable to control the forces that he had started in motion. It wasn't until the sorcerer himself was called on to dispell the forces that order was restored. He understood what had been started in motion and was able to cooperate with those forces and use them productively. By bowing to the forces of civilization and technology, that is acknowledging their power in our world we may then begin to understand the forces that we have created. The act of bowing, at least from my perspective, does not mean that we acknowledge that tech. is a god. We are merely acknowledging the power of the forces that have been created. Another practice that helps me with this is to envision or try to envision the soul of technology. Robert Sardello has written about the need for us to view the world of technology has having a soul. Perhaps a first step in achieving a cooperative relationship rather than an adversarial one. Doug Dunn From rtree @ stout.entertain.com Wed Nov 20 20:51:18 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 20:51:24 -0700 From: rtree @ stout.entertain.com (Bruce Nygren) Subject: Re: I'm not sure I've made myself as >clear a I hoped, but you certainly see the point. > > As you must have all guessed, I am John McClellan's son, and I'm a >music major at Vassar College. I have been enjoying these discussions as a >spectator, but I thought a little generation x perspective might be >helpful-- > regards, > Robinson O. >______________________________________________ Boy, Robinson, you made yourself crystal clear, and of all the statements I've read so far, yours cut to the quick. Thank you so much for your (and, I hope, your generation's) practical and holistic perspective. -Bruce Nygren ________________________________ Bruce Nygren 1515 Redwood Avenue Boulder, CO 80304 ________________________________ ....I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms.... -Richard Brautigan, 1968 From rtree @ stout.entertain.com Wed Nov 20 20:51:19 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 20:51:26 -0700 From: rtree @ stout.entertain.com (Bruce Nygren) Subject: Re: Perfection and reality >Reality is as perfect today as it has ever been. Except, that is, >for some environmentalists, who require reeducation. > >John McClellan, you are no Buddha. > > -- >Robin Faichney >http://www.stir.ac.uk/envsci/staff/rjf1/ >__________________________________________ Ah...the No Buddha school of Buddhism... -Bruce ________________________________ Bruce Nygren 1515 Redwood Avenue Boulder, CO 80304 ________________________________ From mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu Wed Nov 20 21:07:49 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 21:07:33 -0700 (MST) From: mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu (John McClellan) Subject: Author Answers His Mail !?! Dear Friends: I'm having a very nice week, with all your interesting letters. I spend long hours at the computer with all of you, a good party that so far just gets better, and take long walks in the mountains in the late afternoon and evening to clear my brain and refresh my body and spirit. The skies are clear, and the waxing gibbeous moon is almost in conjuction with Saturn, in the constellation Pisces, rising behind Twin Sisters Mountain here after dark, but much earlier for those of you who can see the east horizon. Jupiter shines on in Sagittarius, pretty much due south after dark. Nice. You could see neptune and Pluto just east of that if you had a good enough glass. I thought I'd try another experiment. I'm going to fly through the mail, some 146 letters by now (noteveryone will have that many; I get a lot of direct mail from people), and respond selectively and intuitively to things that strike my fancy. Point out what I think are important statements. Without trying to quote the material, or give anything more than the briefest reply or comment. Mark up the territory so far. (and show you I've read your letters!) Let's see... -- Wilding Mon 18. Arne Naess' Platform for Deep Ecology. The point of departure for Deep Eek altogether. The spring board we are bounding off from. -- Michael Zimmerman Mon 18. Foundation text in this discussion. Please read it. Thoughtful and well written, I'm not sure what we need to add to this. Atmosphere and fun, which is what we're doing. Hope to hear from you again Michael. In a book called GENTLE BRIDGES (dialogues with the Dalai Lama on computer technology and consciousness), the Dalai Lama concluded that he could imagine being reborn as a computer, if computers had reached the point of becoming self-conscious. I take such a statement very seriously. We may not like the future, and we may find ways of altering its course in a more eco-friendly direction, but some centuries from now, the issues that burn so brightly for so many of us will be forgotten. To work effectively, we must not cling to the consequences of our actions. -- Mark McCaffrey's various messages. Soulful, atmospheric, sincere expressions of personal nondual presence in the world. Thanks, keep em coming. -- Steve Kurtz Mon 18 The only mention of prayer. Do deep ecologists ever pray? A sensitive subject I will tiptoe around, but which lies at the core of everything here. -- David Lachapelle. Mon 18 Sutras from Alaska. The best quality material so far. Bears more rereading than the rest of our meassages. Two entries so far. Please send in more. -- Ed Lehner Mon 18. From the Heartland. As ever. Lives in the real landscape. -- My old friend Tracy McCallum: So, then, the questions become, are we responsible for what we create, and did we really create it? -- Alan McGowen. Many thoughtful entries. A strong presence. Don't always agree with him, but browse these messages. Paul Grignon Whenever my computer and I get into an argument about which one of us is more "valid" I play dirty and and hit the power switch. When the living planet can take no more of human disrespect I assume it has equivalent power to pull the plug on human activity. Joseph Milne Department of Theology & Religious Studies University of Kent at Canterbury -- Several warm, engaging walks through the lansdcape of evolution and ecology. Visit with him. Betsy Barnum Mon 18 The best word on compassion so far perhaps. Close reading of the article. Thank you. Squash soup was lovely tonight, velvety and sweet. It feels good to eat food grown locally, in the fertile farmlands that surround the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, in the Upper Mississippi River Basin bioregion. Now that winter is pretty much here for the duration, and the bright crunching leaves of October have become a brown undercarpet to icy snow, we will be eating a lot of root vegetables, like potatoes and onions and yams, and other good keepers, like squash and apples. I'll miss the lightness and delicacy of green salads and fresh berries, but they are part of summer, and this season's fare is richer, heartier, earthier. Cheryl Foltos. Great atmosphere. Pay her a visit, her cat, and her friend Ethel. MoCtrLite. ** Copper, zinc, magnesium, iron...sentient? Moot point - what would my sentient body do without them? Susan Ross, old friend. Nice atmospheric thinking, traditional deep ec perspective. Malcolm Hollick. Nothing, pure emptiness. Beyond atoms and subatomic particles. Beyond spacetime. Beyond the Big Bang. Beyond the quantum vacuum field. It is here that all sciences, all human knowledge, all spirituality and mysticism meet in the ultimate Oneness of Nothing. Yes indeed. Thanks Malcolm Bruce McFarling Tues 20 (he's in Aukland I think) Picking & Choosing. Read this, it's right on, though most critical of me, and the funniest thing so far, except for the Irish joke. Sent me chuckling off to bed last night. (Incidentally, does anyone have any more good jokes?) Gus DiZerega. Tues 19 It is still raining here in Northern California. The first big storms of winter continue to blow and surge through our hills and forests, bringing anend to one of the most beautiful falls in years. The brilliant yellows of the big leaf maples, flaming torches of sweet gum, and yellows and bronzes of our rolling vinyards are falling to the ground to nourish next year's generation of plants. It is a good time to sit in front of the computer and ponder the issues raised in this seminar. A lovely, long interesting essay follows this good beginning. One of the most substantial "reads" in the discussion. Thanks. Put together another one if you can before we're done. This is what a discussion should be. He's got another good one Wed 20. Malcolm Hollick Senior Lecturer, Centre for Water Research, Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Western Australia. Several thoughtful, probing contributions. Good meat. Thank you. Don Roper. Our Invisible Host. The unsung hero of this seminar, on whom more later. He says if anyone wants the proceeding by email, when this is over, "you might also remind them that they can get the proceedings by sending listproc @ csf.colorado.edu get sol mcclellan.96 J. Hughes Tues 19 "Re: technology, I guess I'll let me freak flag fly - I think technology is well on its way to weaving humanity into a super-organism. The most recent treatment of this theme that I like is Stock G. Metaman: The Merging of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorganism. NY: Simon and Schuster; 1993." Don't tell anyone, but I agree. This is what we're up against. robinson mcclellan 11/19 (generation x'ers don't use kapitals) "secondly, people seem to believe that if only we humans could do things a little differently by being smarter and more cooperative, we could reverse the imminent destruction or severe harm to our life support systems. i think this view is incredibly unrealistic, and it belongs with a whole class of other such outdated and idealistic paradigms." Thanks, Robin. I wouldn't have dared say that. John Clifford Wed 20 (still Tues over here) Another British gentleman. Elegant discourse, interesting, stop in for tea and learn something. Robin Faichney. 11/20 Sparky Scottish lass, lots of messages (more please), lots of fun to have around. Most direct comment on the author's credentials: John McClellan, you are no Buddha. Mark Wilding 11/20 A Nodified Deep Ecology Platform. So now read this. How about some more of these. I will write one myself at some point. I like Mark's mostly. Richard Todd. Mr. McCellan's Evening News was good, I think, because it was simple. He asked "So what are we trying to do here?" And he answered "My goal is to learn to understand the world I live in in a sacred way" I think this is the whole point of our entire discussion. Thank you. Stephen Evans: Sitting in my Dilbert cubie, in a windowless inside corver of a downtown building, subduded lighting, purple walls, wistfully remembering the glorious Indian Summer outside, sureptitiously posting to this seminar, open to the perpetual summer and fresh breezes of the intelectual world of the net. Soon I'll go back out, walk across the campus, happy among the trees so recently and breifly flaming with autumn colors and try to convey the Noble eightfold path to my Eastern philosophy class. A. Chu: Would you like to hold a paradox or two in you lap? Read his note. John McClellan. Naturally I find this person's numerous contributions both to the point and entertaining. It's curious that so few of his timely and penetrating remarks have been answered, or taken up for discussion. He reports feeling a bit as though he were asking rhetorical questions. His enthusiasm and good spirits remain undimmed however. I'm sure we will hear from him again. Thanks, John Claudia Robinson. A stream of lively, brief comments. All is Resonance. Gives an interactive feeling to the list. My old friend Gary Rieveschl. The Irish Joke. Thanks Gary. Any more good ones out there? My friend Kelly McGinnes. Help! I'm drowning in E-Mail. Well, 10 more messages when I looked just now. I can't relate anymore. See you all tomorrow. I remain, Your humble servant, John mcClellan From rtree @ stout.entertain.com Wed Nov 20 21:40:24 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 21:40:31 -0700 From: rtree @ stout.entertain.com (Bruce Nygren) Subject: Re: Chilling out .... I develop software for a living (presently >in the service of environmental economics research), >and I very much enjoy using computers, chainsaws, >axes, etc. But compare that to the experience of a >quiet Scottish glen in autumn? I don't think so! >... >Robin Faichney >http://www.stir.ac.uk/envsci/staff/rjf1/ >______________________________________________ This gets better and better. Your post brought tears to my eyes. When the discussion becomes a synthesis of abstract thought and human realm immediacy, stuff begins to happen. -Bruce ________________________________ Bruce Nygren 1515 Redwood Avenue Boulder, CO 80304 ________________________________ From rtree @ stout.entertain.com Wed Nov 20 22:22:15 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 22:22:22 -0700 From: rtree @ stout.entertain.com (Bruce Nygren) Subject: Re: All That Is, and particular beings >Sounds theistic to me.... > >I I don't think the dharmakaya is sentient >(having sense perception; conscious). I may commune with nature, or even "be" >It, but I don't talk to it. If I did talk to it, I would be making it an Other ____________________________________________________ Dharmakaya, like still pool. Yet, ripple forms. Why? Speaking as one who has literally talked to trees, and listened to them, I know that they are simply friends along the way: like any other friend, ripples on the surface. Ahh...but we arise. -Bruce ________________________________ Bruce Nygren 1515 Redwood Avenue Boulder, CO 80304 ________________________________ From rtree @ stout.entertain.com Wed Nov 20 22:37:41 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 22:37:47 -0700 From: rtree @ stout.entertain.com (Bruce Nygren) Subject: Re: (no subject) >The true irony in all of this is that we of the western mind all bow >mostly to our comfort zone - whether it's John McClellan sitting in his >peaceful valley with the wood stove, computer, tepee and splendid >isolation from the masses, or the rest of us trying to carve out a >splendid enough piece of the pie so that we may enjoy our wood stove, >computer (latest model), tepee (or not) and splendid isolation from the >masses; be it in the name (or not) of deep ecology, paganism, buddhism, >etc. It's all quite romantic, isn't it? A monk inquired, "What's the >problem?" The master said, "You don't notice the stench of your own >shit!" -Darrell Koerner, Boulder _______________________________________________ Well, I think you are thinking that John is living in Animal Realm or Buddha Realm, but from what I have heard, he is living firmly in Human Realm, where there is no comfort zone to be had. Externally, perhaps, he is closer to all our own ideals; but his questing, at least from what I hear him asking, comes from the same deep and persistent discomfort which afflicts us all and makes us Human, if we dare to listen. -Bruce ________________________________ Bruce Nygren 1515 Redwood Avenue Boulder, CO 80304 ________________________________ From steev @ monitor.net Wed Nov 20 23:32:44 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 22:26:11 -0800 (PST) From: steev @ monitor.net (Steve French) Subject: Overcast skies I'm writing this at nine at night in my home in Sebastopol in Northern California. I took my son to his karate class this evening, driving he and another student through the wet streets, listening to Jerry Brown (ex-Calif. governor) on the radio. It's been grey and overcast most of the day, except late this afternoon the sun broke out through the clouds. It's between rainstorms of the first storms of the winter. Hawks (Coopers) circled and screeched outside my office. The hills and fields are green. Just like that, they change from their brown summer phase to the green winter phase. All those seeds just waiting for moisture to germinate. I've had the feeling for many years that the world is sacred. I hadn't the words for it, so I've painted it. Whenever I painted or drew I tried to put myself in that place of mind where I could see the specialness of everything. A couple of weeks ago, I traveled with my family. We were waiting in the crowded airport gate area surrounded by weary people of every type. I drew a tired asian couple in the seats opposite me with a ballpoint pen on lined paper and for a moment I saw the specialness. A quote comes to mind. Isadora Duncan replied when asked by a reporter what she was trying to say with her dancing - 'If I could say it, I wouldn't dance it.' Most of the time, I have a difficult time seeing the world as sacred. I worry about bills. I read the newspaper. I rush to meet deadlines. The phone rings. I have doubts. I do think there is evil in the world. I don't think everything's perfect. I think we should try to make things better. Gandhi said, 'whatever you do is probably insignificant, but its very important that you do it.' No great revelations here, but it beats lurking. Steve French ************ **** ****** Steve French Landscape Architects Laguna de Santa Rosa Tributary 2616 Meier Rd. Russian River Watershed Sebastopol,California 95472 Shasta Bioregion Voice: 707-829-1200 Fax: 707-829-7808 North America steev @ monitor.net From ecbm @ cc.newcastle.edu.au Wed Nov 20 23:55:03 1996 nondual-ecology @ csf.colorado.edu; Thu, 21 Nov 1996 17:54:52 +1100 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 17:54:52 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Technology is human behavior, not "new life" Alan McGowan [Hi, Alan] writes: >... > McClellan seems convinced that humans have opened a new > chapter of evolution with technology, and he writes of > technology as if it were as autopoietic as organic life. In fact > all technology is dependent on humans to maintain it, and > through humans, on the life support services of ecosystems. > Technology is not a new form of postbiological life, it is part > of the extended phenotype of human life, just as the beaver dam > is part of the extended phenotype of beavers. It is part of > biology -- a fragile part, every bit as dependent on the > maintenance of biological integrity and healthy ecosystems as we > humans are -- because technology is human behavior, human > culture, human traits. > ... A computer is not a "technology". The ability to make a computer, and to program it to do something, is "technology". Techno Logos. Technique Words. Knowledge of Techniques. And so our technology is intrinsically social, since human capabilities are intrinsically social. [Insert favorite wolf-boy story here] We have to be careful of the difference between technology being under our control and imaging that technology is under our control. If the argument is that in the 18th and 19th centuries, technology was thought to be under human control, and now we can point to evidence that it is not, why *assume*[1] that 'they' were right in the 18th and 19th centuries? After all, the illusion that human societies in general -- and technology in particular, which is an important aspect of human society -- is under our control depends upon people's perception that the rules of behavior that they are accustomed to are the "natural" and/or "right" ways of doing things. So, perhaps it is the accelerating pace of technological change that dispels the illusion that we are in control of our societies. If so, this is something we have been on the road to for quite a long while, since technological change has been accelerating for the last 5 millenia at least. People that imagine that they can stop all of our societies from destroying irreplacable, essential systems in our material environment by being just a little bit smarter, more cooperative, better, wiser (etc., etc., and so forth), are, in one dimension of the problem, entirely right, and in another dimension of the problem, wildly wrong.[2] Our technology is what we know how to do, and so they are right: stopping it is not "out there", but "in here", among us. Right technology is simply one facet of right action. But changing what we know how to do is one of the hardest things there is to do, and it never turns out the way we expect it to, so they are wrong (assuming, of course, that they exist at all[2]). BTW: the only deep ecology dream I could dream at the spur of the moment was pretty shallow: I walked to the local store, and bought a cherry muesli bar. Cherries, after all, were in season. I went back to work on the university computer, and that's all, there is nothing else. To be specific: there was no garbage can in the office to throw the wrapper "away", no hint of the notion that there is an away to throw thing to, and, therefore no wrapper; therefore no wholesaler; therefore no delivery truck; therefore no big meusli bar factory; therefore no surprise that the person who made them dropped them off on their way to Uni. Etcetera, Etcetera, and so forth. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm @ cc.newcastle.edu.au [1] BTW, using all caps is *not* the only way to place emphasis on what we write in these forums, and I want to underline that: _that_. [2] And it's important to note that AFAIK these people have only entered the discussion in the third person. From ga2 @ unitarian.org.uk Thu Nov 21 03:30:09 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 96 10:26:59 GMT From: John Clifford Subject: Devotional aspects of commitment Having to do most of my work in an office in the large urban sprawl which Salmon Rushdie called Ellowendeeowen (London), my weekends at home in Edinburgh are very precious to me. My flat is only 50 m from the beach and I love walking the beach in (almost) all weathers, looking out across the firth to Inchkeith (a small island) and the opposite shore of Fife, collecting empty seashells, throwing non-empty ones into the sea ("interfering with nature and their karma" I hear the seagulls cry, but I still do it). At night there are various lighthouses and the lights of ships. Recent enhancement of local sewage treatment has improved the water quality along this stretch of coast but there is still some way to go before the impact of human living in the area is ameliorated sufficiently -- it will probably never be erased as long as there are so many people, but perhaps the level of bacteriological pollution will soon be low enough that natural forces will be able to achieve a new equilibrium that most of us would judge "healthier". Everywhere I turn I see beauty and I see ugliness. Ugliness is part of the context in which I live and since it exists, attempting to be open to its place in existence is part of what I take to be a nondualistic approach. But this is not the same as standing aside from my personal responsibility to try to create a bit more beauty rather than a bit more ugliness in my corner of the ecosphere and in my circle of primary relationships. Nor does a nondualist approach at a cosmic detachment level blind me to the needs of direct action based on value judgements in particular contexts. It's not easy to lead a life of harmony and balance (in spite of being a Libra) but something that helps me is a daily period of reflection. My most frequently used reading material is The Prophet by the Lebanese Christian mystic, Khalil Gibran, and I share with you some isolated quotes that I think bear on the seminar topic as it is developing: "Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; and let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes." "Say not, 'I have found the truth', but rather, 'I have found a truth'. Say not, 'I have found the path of the soul'. Say rather, 'I have met the soul walking upon my path'. For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The sould unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals." "In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you. But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest. And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the shore." "All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self. .... Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all. Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute, the things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight. For in reverie you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures. And take with you all men [and women]: for in adoration you cannot fly higher that their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair." I close with a paraphrase of the important Talisman of Gandhi: When considering action, consider the impact it will have on the poorest and least powerful person you know. From ga2 @ unitarian.org.uk Thu Nov 21 07:26:50 1996 id AA03266; Thu, 21 Nov 96 14:16:23 GMT Date: Thu, 21 Nov 96 14:16:18 GMT From: John Clifford Subject: re: On what do we depend? I like the contribution of Yves Bajard from the National Centre for Sustainability (well spellt, too) when he says: " Although I heard and will hear loud cries of disagreement with me on the subject, I do not agree at all with the qualification of biology as negentropic. Life, however long it has existed on Earth, and however diversified it has become with time, is absolutely not a challenge to the second law of thermodynamics. This law is correct and applies everywhere to closed systems. Living forms have operated as open systems as long as they did not hit limits to their expansion. They have operated as open systems within the closed system which is the Earth by feeding their growth and development on other species, minerals, water, air, etc.., and at the expense of their integrity. This is quite normal. By compressing the limits of the domain within which the sources of its existence operated, life has reduced their lifespan, and precipitated the growth of their entropy. Now that life, and in particular one species, Homo sapiens, has reached its limits, it has to function in a closed system, back to a steady gain in entropy, because it cannot replenish any longer its energy and re-order it at the expense of external supplies." I am not sure we have yet reached the end of our ability to utilise energy from 'outside' -- who knows what future technology will enable us to do (use cosmic gravity waves?) but I agree that in practice we are approaching closed system limits as we pollute our way through the earth's resources. On what do we depend? 1. We depend, as all organisms do, on an environment/context/ecosphere that has the right blend of sufficient 'quantities' (gravity/oxygen/minerals/temperature/ etc) for our physical organic systems to achieve a working equilibrium within and with it. 2. As a special category of the above: we depend on regular energy input, whether we are discussing electromagnetic radiation from the Sun or a delicious apple. (or even a McDonalds creation). This also requires an effective recipient means of utilising this energy form. 3. We depend, of course, on each other. Ein Mensch ist kein Mensch. Our sense of community is almost always more limited than it needs to be and constant conscious attempts to widen our perceptions and appreciations are necessary to avoid mental and emotional ruts. 4. We depend on stimulus and feedback at every level of our perceptions. What is not used, atrophies. I lack stereoscopic vision because eye-brain coordination did not get established during its crucial window-of-opportunity. 5. As sentient beings, I believe we need some sense of direction/purpose that will itself be a blend of awareness of our own unfolding intrinsic nature and a response to the various contexts in which we exist. 6. We need, perhaps most of all as sentient beings, a large dose of humility because of our inherent limitations. Reality is so much richer/deeper than we can apprehend and we have to take actions whose consequences can't be fully foreseen. DDT did, after all, save many human lives as intended, but..... Is there a difference between a prayerful approach to the world and approaching everything in the world as sacred? The recognition of the reality of ugliness/bad/falsehood etc in the former approach may be more goal oriented than in the latter approach. Is this a Bad Thing or a Good Thing? From bjfinga @ mindspring.com Thu Nov 21 07:45:15 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 09:27:12 -0500 From: "Betty J. Foster" Reply-To: bjfinga @ mindspring.com Organization: Home PC Subject: bravery; following your gut; whatever I don't think,John Mc, that you need defend your thoughts or writing - they are/were you at the time of writing - you are meritorious for speaking your thoughts for others to see and hear and bounce against or sink into - Thanks to John for putting the most fitting words of Gibran into our midst at this time - Thanks to Steve for his quote from Isadora Duncan - in the mdist of our humility about our human condition - both the evil and the good (and I prefer this dualism to the averaging out of those two estremes which makes a tasteless mess with no energy)is where we find the impetus to yearn and wonder and push ahead with our thinking - One night Technology is Us as is the Beatific Dream - Duality? The trick for me is to keep both fired up and alive. Betty From matkbb @ shakti.CS.Gsu.EDU Thu Nov 21 09:12:16 1996 From: matkbb @ shakti.CS.Gsu.EDU Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 11:14:11 -0500 Subject: On Life as a part time lurker... The good side: I am constantly amazed that my question for the day seems to invariably answered by someone who has followed a specific thought process along the same lines. The bad side: it seems to be a reflection of one of the common problems with the internet. There is too much information coming in and I just cant seem to find the time to grasp the content and assimilate all the information zipping around. I saw a message a couple of days ago that pondered on the seemingly conflicting view of "not caring deeply with sympathy" that buddhism tends to portray. Walking on the street the other day, I overheard this statement "I dont care if the world goes to hell" and my immediate thought was "Would you say the same if I told you the world was going to heaven? Would you not care? Would your actions still be the same?" Should our actions always be driven by the "carrot-in-front-of-donkey" principle? If so, what's the carrot? who's the donkey? Technology for me (from screwdrivers and Caterpillars to computers) are all manifestations of energy created to serve a specific goal. Putting a tag of good or bad on anything could go wrong in two ways... - The wrong tag is used... War/killing/atomic bomb is GOOD... - The wrong thing is tagged... technology used for deforestation is BAD... (I would think it is the short sighted greediness of beefing up the profit column which is the true culprit and not the technology that is used to attain this goal...) Being in the research field of computer networks, I watch with overwhelming awe the speed and growth of this area. So it is in other fields where my lack of even the basic knowledge fills me with even more amazement that I know so little. So, from a first time almost-a-lurker to all of you... Thank you for all your mails... Life is good and bad... or maybe I should say... Life just is -Krishnan From mwilding @ lungta.naropa.edu Thu Nov 21 09:33:50 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 09:33:46 -0700 From: mwilding @ lungta.naropa.edu (Mark Wilding) Subject: Sutra for Environmental Activists Well =96 it is cool and cloudy this morning. The brief experience of summer in November has given way to a more typical November day. The Flatirons are barely visible behind a foggy/cloudy haze. Among some Native American peoples, fog is said to be associated with a thinning veil between the physical and spirit worlds. The Flatirons by the by -- are large rock structures along the front range -- ancient pre-cursors to the Rocky Mountains that were pushed up when the current "new" Rockies were formed. = =20 It feels like it could snow-probably is in the mountains . is it snowing up their John? I am imagining you with another warm fire burning. For myself I have a long day ahead =96 work until five or so and then a class on "Culture/Nature Partnership" till 9:00 pm. My offering for today is based on the Buddhist Heart Sutra maybe someone could post the Heart Sutra?? Mantra from the Heart Sutra = Om Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha=20 This mantra translated says:=20 "...gone, gone, gone beyond, completely gone. =85The meaning is 'given up, completely unmasked, naked, completely open.' Svaha is a traditional ending for mantras which means, 'Sobeit.'(1) =20 'Gone, gone, gone beyond, completely exposed, awake, sobeit." (2) Nalanda Translation Committee, from fresco in Gegye Chemaling, Samye vihara, excerpted.(1) Trungpa, Chogyam, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, p 199.(2) _____________________________________________________ A sutra created for environmental activists: Therefore an environmental activist should think and act in this way: Think and act both globally and locally, Global thinking is local thinking, global thinking is no other than local thinking. Local action is global action, local actions are no other than global action. There is no global, no local, no thinking, no non-thinking, no action, no non action, no activists, no non-activists, no right view, no wrong view, no beginning of struggle and no end of struggle. Therefore since environmental activists have no accomplishments they abide by means of skillful action. Since there are no final outcomes they do not burn out. They transcend ends and means and work simply for the benefit of all. Mark Wilding | 2130 Arapahoe Ave. =20 The Naropa Institute | Boulder, CO 80302-6697 Environmental Studies | Tel (303) 546-3550 mwilding @ naropa.edu | Fax (303) 444-0410 From michaelz @ mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu Thu Nov 21 10:31:27 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 11:57:08 -0600 From: michaelz @ mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu (Michael Zimmerman) Subject: Re: Dear Malcolm, I really enjoyed your recent posting on nondual ecology. I share with you the conviction that the university exhibits a directional-developmental tendency, one that will eventually require a serious overhaul of neo-Darwinism. I've written about some of this in my book, CONTESTING EARTH'S FUTURE; RADICAL ECOLOGY AND POSTMODERNITY that was published in 1994 by U. of California. Your views on technology also resonate with me, especially the notion that "good and bad" are perspectival evaluations, not matters of fact. I've been going through a long evolutionary process myself regarding all these complex issues. Perth--what a far off place. I've often thought about going there, just to be so far away! Though, of course, being in Perth, I would still be where I am! Hope all goes well with you. Cheers, Michael Z Michael E. Zimmerman Department of Philosophy Tulane University New Orleans, LA 70118 504-862-3391 504-862-8714 (fax) michaelz @ mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Thu Nov 21 10:54:57 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 12:59:31 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: bowing and giving thanks Just wanted to say thanks Mr. M. for teaching me the manner of peaceful engagement. i'm impressed with how well you are able to remain softly engaged and compassionate while under such vigorous attack -- i wish i could do the same. You are a good dharma teacher! It snowed last night here in southeast WI. First real snow of the year. Getting up this morning and walking in to school i got to thinking about this and the idea of bowing to even those things one isn't crazy about -- in my case cold and snow (winter in the north). A number of years ago Ken Keyes wrote a book called "A Handbook to Higher Consciousness". In it he noted that it is OK to have preferences but that one shouldn't have addictions. Earlier this fall, as i was woking in my garden i notices the leaves beginning to turn and felt a bit down with the prospect of the coming of winter. As i had this feeling i realized that if i just went with the changing seasons and tried to get the goodness out of what ever season presented itself i'd be much better off than if i got upset about the inevitable (ie., if i bowed to the coming winter). i had this same feeling this morning -- so let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. What i'm getting at here is that i think this is basically what i'm getting from you. That is, i *prefer* summer! i like to sit at the beach and let the sun shine down upon me, let the river touch my skin, be completely (or as completely as i can) at one with this, my favorite watershed. But if i let myself become addicted (attached) to this one season and i can't bow to the rest of the unfolding year, i'v done myself and all that is a disservice. i do prefer some things to others and its OK to work for those things but i am less happy, harmonious and effective if i allow myself to become addicted to them. Am i close? Green Dreams, r.c. From tsmith @ antiochsb.edu Thu Nov 21 11:35:14 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 96 10:33:34 -0800 From: tsmith @ antiochsb.edu (Student-Travis Smith) Organization: Antioch University Subject: The Path Buddham sharanam gacchami Dharmam sharaam gacchami Sangham sharanam gacchami Hello to the Seminar and all its (200+) limbs, I'm writing from sunny southern California (actually rather bit cloudy today) from inside the windowless prison of our university computer lab -- a thriving ecosystem for certain technological life forms, but tough livin' for those of us who prefer sunlight and fresh air. But a job's a job, and you can't beat the free internet access and the ability to participate in this seminar while on the clock! First of all I'd like to thank John (may I call you John? ; ) ) for his article, which I thought was refreshing and exciting to read. From a Buddhist perspective it is impossible to refute the thesis: that all things are inherently perfect in and of themselves, just as they are in this moment. Similar statements have been made in the Upanishads (e.g., "All this is verily Brahman"), and in countless other scriptures. But, given this ultimate truth, how are we to behave on the relative level? After all, we are still subject to the shortcomings of minds which have not yet developed the capacity to perceive all phenomena as inherently pure. Simply put, I think we need to behave in ways which reduce the obstructions to realization of "the View". I'm with the guy from Alaska (nice post, thanks) who said: >Perceiving the absolute, not just talking about it, requires a >systematic refinement of the nervous system. Sure, everything is perfect, but "the Path" or practice lies in eliminating our(internal) enemies such as greed, anger, selfishness, and ignorance. The main thing I found lacking in the original article was an acknowledgement of the fact that the condition of our planet has arisen from an overwhelming proliferation of greed, selfishness, fear, opression, etc. Does anyone disagree that these factors are more prevalent in our society than in most "traditional" cultures? And, as much as I enjoy and exploit my own "symbiotic" relationship with these new technological species, I do so with the awareness of their relative origins in impure human emotions. And for my own practice of striving to develop wisdom and compassion, I'm probably better off keeping my distance. To quote Sri Ramakrishna: "Indeed, all creatures are manifestation of Narayana (God), but you should stay away from the tiger-Narayana, lest it may eat you!" I support an environmental activism not because I think it will necessarily be successful in recreating some garden of Eden, but because it encourages mindful action and compassion, which are attributes which lead to Buddhahood, the state in which all things are *actually* perceived as perfect. This perception is one which is not only a theory but a direct and continuous experience -- more real and profound than we can conceive of with our minds bound to ideas of self. I've got one other thing to throw out: what about the much-lauded (in Buddhist and Hindu scriptures)"preciousness of a human birth"? How does that fit in with the apparent fact that we are nothing special in this vast universe? I'll stop here for now; warm regards to all. Travis Smith Antioch University, Santa Barbara (CA) From chu @ bear.com Thu Nov 21 11:36:31 1996 From: chu @ bear.com id sma024195; Thu Nov 21 13:34:25 1996 Subject: Re: Technology is human behavior, not "new life" Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 13:34:37 EST >From: Joseph Milne >More than this, to objectify what is actually human (art, technology) is to >slip precisely into the dualism John is proposing we escape from. The >foundation of dualism is the notion of independent objects or entities - the >foundation of logical empiricism. It is this view of reality that allows >the instrumental view of nature in, which I suggested yesterday was one way >of seeing how modern man comes into a false relationship with the universe. It seems to me that whenever we speak, we are objectifying. The 'absolute' is literally un-speakable. What one says about 'it' ( see the problem here ) is inaccurate and dualistic. Thus, any philosophy of ecology must be inherently dualistic. It might be useful to keep posting warnings along the way: not this, not that, not this and that, not not this and that,... On the other hand, the 'absolute' cannot be used to support or refute any positions within an ecological philosophy. Nevertheless, a glimpse of the 'absolute' is an excellent antidote to bitterness, despair, and self-loathing. Clarity that may persist after such glimpses may help discern portions of philosophy which are inconsistent. Another way to minimize attachment to a particular ecological philosophy is to switch back and forth among different perspectives on the same phenomena. In our case, deep ecologists espouse switching from and anthropocentric view to a biota-centric view. Richard Dawkin advocates switching to gene-centric view. McClelland suggests considering a meme-centric view (though he doesn't use that term). These perspectives are not necessarily in conflict. I would suggests that it is useful to be able to switch from one to another fluidly as appropriate to the situation. Writing from a relatively balmy day in New York. A. Chu From bbarnum @ polaristel.net Thu Nov 21 11:48:28 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 12:49:29 -0600 From: bbarnum @ polaristel.net (Betsy Barnum) Subject: Re: Rest in the heart of movement Rest in the heart of movement. Another seeming paradox, or combination of opposites that shouldn't (to the linear, western mind) be able to happen at the same time. The Alexander Technique, a type of movement training (but *so* much more than that!) teaches a person to be present to, or aware of, her entire physical being (and *so* much more than that!) rather than just her arms and hands, which are pressing on a keyboard, or her head and arms, which are active in playing a musical instrument. This presentness to oneself and ability to tune into the body reveals a fascinating phenomenon: the body is continuously moving, even when it is at rest. One begins to sense this micromovement--constant tiny corrections in balance, minute muscle twitches--after a while it seems one can feel the movement of blood and fluids, the infintesimal sloshing within cells, the firing of neurons and even the movement of molecules and atoms. When one is in outward motion, the most grace and ease of movement happen when bodily activity stays in tune with all these micromovements, recognizing and incorporating their direction and energy. Rest in the heart of movement? Movement in the heart of rest? Movement-rest is dynamic. It is two kinds of activity, indeed opposite to each other, and it is also one integrated, unified process from which the two seemingly different parts cannot be extricated. It is both. Betsy +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Thu Nov 21 12:26:58 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 14:31:39 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: Why i have prefs. for bio. References: After i finished reading the posts in my office last night i went home to do a bit of reading and picked up "Wisdom of the Elders" by Suzuki and Knudtson and the point where i began reading seemed to be perfect for what i was thinking of -- i think it is relevant to our discussion. See what you think. "The statement that the earth is our mother is more than a sentimental platitiude: we are shaped by the earth. The characteristics of the environment in which we develop condition our biological and mental being and the quality of our life. Even were it only for selfish reasons, therefore, we must maintain variety and harmony in nature." Rene Dubos, microbiologist. The other day i posted something on worldview/perspective -- "In the tewa worldview, which is, in essence, like all worldviews, a system of symbols designed to transorm the awesome physical dimensions f the cosmos into experiential ones..." Suzuki and Knudtson In writing about an Aboriginal comm they state: "The Dreaming's inherent ethos regarding the proper relationship between human beings and other species can be roughly distilled down to four basic Laws, suggests Rose. *Balance: A system cannot be life enhancing if it is out of kilter, and each part shares in the responsibility of sustaining itself and balancing others. *Response: Communication is reciprocal. There is here a moral obligation: to learn to understand, to pay attention, and to respond. *Symmetry: In opposing and balancing each other, parts must be equivalent because the purpose is not to "win" or to dominate, but to block, thereby producing further balance. *Autonomy: No species, no group, or country is "boss" for another: each adheres to its own Law. Authorty and dependence are necessary within parts, but not between parts. Green Dreams, r.c. From mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu Thu Nov 21 14:41:45 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 14:41:39 -0700 (MST) From: mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu (John McClellan) Subject: General Address to the Discussion, at Halftime *Good Morning.* A gentle sunny day here in paradise, yellow grass meadow ringed by gleaming white, strong-shouldered mountains. I apologize for living in such an exquisite place, it is my good fortune for these few years. I've lived "out there" too, and will again I'm sure when our landlady decides to return from Maine. We are halfway through this interesting week. I am quite pleased with this discussion so far. A great deal of solid, in depth criticism and exploration has been presented, by such people as Clifford, Nygren, Wilding, Coon, Zimmerman, McGowen, Chu, diZerega, Evans, Barnum, Hollick, Bajard, and McFarlin, to name just a few that come to mind. I wish I could really take up the points these people have raised, and respond in detail. I will try to touch on a few things later today. The material deserves no less. But I cannot possibly address it all. There's so much! All these fine people will have to let their words speak for themselves, without benefit of support, argument or further elaboration from me. Many of you respond to each other in these ways, and that is good enough. We will sift all this out in the proceedings that will follow. *Discovering Self in Discussion* The atmosphere seems to be one of great caring and sincerity, with enough humor and lightness on the side to keep us awake and glad to be here. Everyone seems to speak from that place in themselves where these questions most deeply reside. Ultimately, these are not only academic and theoretical questions, but extremely pressing, personal issues for each one of us. Our answers to these questions determine how we live our lives, and feel about what we have been given, the world, each other, and so on. Our lives of course manifest the kind of understanding we have arrived at already. I don't mean just where we live or what we do all day--we don't always have control over that. But in the way we look at things, relate to the world around us, and feel and behave in our hearts and bodies. This is why it's so interesting to catch glimpses of who we people really are, where we are, what we are doing today, what the weather is like at our spot on the planet. Please continue to enrich the record with these brief field reports. This list is not just a closely focused academic discusision, although that end of things is surprisingly strong and good so far. But we have an experimental, expansive feeling going here, which I would like to continue. I think this approach is appropriate to the full elucidation of the subject matter at hand, which is that of *eco-logy*, the knowing relationship between self and world, set in the context of today's explosive and troubling landscapes. What we are trying to do in this gathering of minds and keyboards is not only establish a sound theoretical understanding of deep ecology. We are doing that, and it seems good so far. But we want to go further, and create an atmosphere in which every subscriber, lurkers and posters both, can evolve and develop *their own* understanding and relationships in this area. So I apologize to the many fine academics who are present here, and others who prefer a more strictly cognitive approach. But we are inviting additional creative energies to help us here. *Report on The Experiments* So, in addition to careful, analytical thinking about deep ecology, our experiments so far have included 1) Brief personal field reports. (A success so far.) 2) The 100 word essay on The Deepest Ecology. (Please keep these coming, everyone will benefit personally from giving this a try, and a good mosaic needs many tiles.) 3) A call for jokes. (Not too many please, and good ones.) 4) A general receptivity to personal feelings and uniues direct perceptions, including the submission of sutras, poems, and relevant quotations. (So far just right. Not too many, but enough--send more.) I would like to add another: 6) Does anyone have a _brief_ (brief) example of written work on Deep Ecology which they would like to submit to the record? I know that many of you do have such things. PLEASE keep this to one page or so, or our Host, Don Roper, who runs csf for us, will never forgive us. It should be quite directly aimed at Deep Ecology too, please, or we will lose the focus we have so far miraculously managed to maintain. I will submit something myself, to set a good example. Give it the Subject heading Deep Ecology Writing, so we can recognize these items and sort them out from the rest of the discussion. In hope that we can enrich this record further, I remain yours truely, John McClellan 1567 Twin Sisters Road Nederland, CO 80466 (303) 449-1346 From amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Thu Nov 21 17:01:56 1996 Subject: Re: On What Do We Depend? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 21 Nov 96 15:43:40 MST." Date: Thu, 21 Nov 96 16:02:12 -0800 From: Alan McGowen Some natural capital dependencies of agriculture McClellan missed: - Topsoil and the ecosystem services that produce it - Fresh water and hydrological purification services - Pollination services of insects - Population buffering services of ecosystems for pest control - Benign climate - Genetic diversity for pest and disease resistance; this requires genetic diversity of wild relatives of cultivars as a source for biotechnology. Alan McGowen From NoDoz @ aol.com Thu Nov 21 18:38:13 1996 From: NoDoz @ aol.com Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 20:38:10 -0500 Subject: Nature intervenes... Two days ago I was sitting in front of my computer here in Spokane, reading the copious e-mail this seminar has brought my way. Outside, an ice storm was beginning to rage. My lights went out, the computer went off, and I knocked a full cup of hot tea over onto my keyboard. Two days later, my power is still off, and the temperature in my house is somewhere near 40 degrees. My cat has a cold. For some reason, I still have hot water. I've never appreciated a hot shower so much. Interesting that this should hit during this seminar. I am now sitting in a friends warm house, typing on her computer, and feeling very good about technology. Yours, Mike --------------------- Forwarded message: From: dlachape @ ptialaska.net (David Lachapelle) Sender: owner-NonDual-Ecology @ csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: dlachape @ ptialaska.net To: nondual-ecology @ csf.colorado.edu (nondual ecology) Date: 96-11-19 19:32:15 EST Subject: Soul Greetings, I have enjoyed very much the level of discussion and particularly the snapshots of ecosystems that we all represent. I have this image of the winds blowing between our nodes of inquiry: the winds of Boulder, the Great Lakes and the soft beezes of the Midwest, the coastal gales of california, the sultry breath of New Orleans..... Our Winds here in Juneau are ample. A large arctic high is in place over most of Alaska which means the Taku winds are blowing here in Juneau: random blasts of atmopshere which spin and dance across Gastineau Channel in front of my home. Our local ecology is adapting to the half million cruise ship visitors a year which invade from our docks. The haze of cruise ships hangs equally in the air with spruce pollen for many hundreds of miles up the inside passage. We are living here in what is called the Goldbelt.... a zone of mineralization which brought Juneau into being,(and wiping the flounders out in the process)... There are shadowed movements of mining conglomerates gathering in every direction around our fair land. We have managed to stay the course of what would be the largest urban mine in the world from opening its doors adjacent to downtown... but the potential for massive mining has this particular philosopher coming down squarely on the relative side the divide. Some further condensations: feedback is the corpus collosum of duality. Of the five precepts non-lying has been the most difficult for me to work with. Right Speech implies a level of ressonance between all levels of my being which I find most challenging. Aleut kayakers crossing the open ocean to the Pribolof islands for fur seals relied on chants to time the wave the crests arriving at the prow of their vessals. By accurately measuring the distance of the wave crests in time they would infer the interference pattern of the islands and use this knowledge to "ecolocate" their way to their goal. Compassion born of discernment I have found to be more selfless. A local ecology teacher was waxing eloquently to a group of third graders on a field trip. He was pointing at a Bald Eagle and said, "Can't you just see the fish in the Eagle's stomach." To which one of his class replied, "Yah right, and I can see the fruit loops in Louie's stomach." The Yogis, (ala Yogananda) would speak of the causal plane of reality as a level of consiousness in which the seed patterns of all forms reside. Is modern technology prefigured in the causal plane? The Kabbalists speak of soul work as returning the shards of light back to the original container.(Which they say apparently broke apart under the impact of the original impulse for creation). As we all sit before our screens I wonder if there is a glimmer of soul shards trying to collect themselves through our gathered attention. A bit of historical perspective on deep ecology: "I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills, I Know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Give oblations to God Fullfill your vows to the Most High. and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me." -Psalm 50 (deep ecology with an Old Testament vengence!) Contrary to the strict scientific interperation of evolution mentioned in this discussion I find evolution very purposeful. I would venture to say that a seed of profound unrest which is in most human hearts is because there is some disjunction between what each one of us knows ourself to be and what we know we can become. This knowledge of what we can become I do not think lives in the realm of worlds, thoughts or culture, (Though surely we are influenced by said realms)... it lives in the breath of a sunset on the closing blues of a day, it ripples from the dorsal fin of a killer whale, it calls through the passion that unites loves, and it exhales on a perfect clear night when the northern lights wash the stars with magnetic veils of delight. From amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Thu Nov 21 18:42:59 1996 Subject: Re: On What Do We Depend? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 21 Nov 96 16:02:12 PST." Date: Thu, 21 Nov 96 17:43:15 -0800 From: Alan McGowen > > Some natural capital dependencies of agriculture McClellan missed: > > - Topsoil and the ecosystem services that produce it > - Fresh water and hydrological purification services > - Pollination services of insects > - Population buffering services of ecosystems for pest control > - Benign climate > - Genetic diversity for pest and disease resistance; this requires > genetic diversity of wild relatives of cultivars > as a source for biotechnology. Additional economically major biological resources are forests (wood and fiber) and marine ecosystems. These too depend on many of the above; e.g. global warming could suppress deep upwelling in marine ecosystems; deep upwelling brings nutrients to the surface. This would depress marine productivity and thus catches. Additionally, increasing UV-B stresses on both marine and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as increasing bioaccumulating organic synthetic chemical stresses (e.g. leading to endocrine and reproductive disruption) could accelerate to much loss of biodiversity. Overall, the health of ecosystems is critical to human survival whether "modern civilization" (or is it mainly brownlashers?) think they can do without it or not. This view is becoming increasingly marginal in informed quarters. For example, Nobel prize-winning economist Kenneth Arrow has joined with ecological scientists in endorsing the idea that economies must maintain ecological resilience, the ability of ecosystems to maintain services in the face of disturbances; biodiversity and biological integrity are central to this, and this does indeed imply that large blocks of natural ecosystems naturally evolving are necessary. So the recognition of the importance of these things is growing. But, in response, so is the opposition and the production of disinformation aimed at convincing the public that we don't need these things. BTW I reserve my judgement about either the "depth" or the "ecology" involved in the self-proclaimed "Deep Ecology" of someone who forgets the dependence of civilization on agriculture, forests, the ocean, the climate, the ozone layer, benign global biochemistry, biodiversity, etc -- and then suggests that the police will be able to hold it all together when the going gets rough. This is roughly like hoping that increasing the number of hearts offered up to the gods would improve the deteriorating ecological support of Mesoamerican civilizations -- a hope that the priests of those societies no doubt once held :-) Alan McGowen From tbm @ access.usa.net Thu Nov 21 18:53:22 1996 From: Stephen Evans Subject: Re: The Path Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 18:53:19 -0700 (MST) In-Reply-To: <335144.ensmtp @ antiochsb.edu> from "Student-Travis Smith" at Nov 21, 96 10:33:34 am > Actually probably not many of the cultures we like to idealize (e.g. plains indians) practiced canniblism, human sacrifice, slavery -- raiding other nations for women & stuff. Only our greed, hatred and delusion have modern technology behind it -- making us much more destructive and able to be more insulated from the effects -- as well as from our inter-connectedness with the broader community of life and death. Come to think of it -- maybe not more greedy and hateful but perhaps much more deluded. :) "Santipala From tbm @ access.usa.net Thu Nov 21 19:05:24 1996 From: Stephen Evans Subject: Re: Sutra for Environmental Activists -Reply Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 19:05:20 -0700 (MST) In-Reply-To: from "Susan Ross" at Nov 21, 96 10:07:16 am >From Susan Ross: > might be. While I will continue to respectfully disagree with John on his > premise for action, we may still end up acting in the same way - I doubt > that he will let his seeming resignation in the face of overwhelming odds > stop him from acting as a warrior, with courage and compassion. > Forgive any lack of clarity - is so much right off the top of my heart, and I No -- you are very clear. How could anyone be more clear than right of the top of the heart? > want to acknowledge Mark's contribution, and also to acknowledge that I > think we should also try to steer this out of "Buddhist" terminology, and > into some common experiential terms - is this possible? >From someone who's been a Buddhist for over 30 years: "Yes. Please." "Santipala From cclash @ web.net Thu Nov 21 19:27:30 1996 via send-mail with stdio id for NonDual-Ecology @ csf.colorado.edu; Thu, 21 Nov 96 21:29:21 -0500 (EST) (/\##/\ Smail3.1.30.12.0 #30.1 built 5-jul-95) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 96 21:29:21 -0500 (EST) From: cclash @ web.net (Jocelyn J. Paquette Bob Ewing) Subject: Re: Deep Ecology Writing I woke this morning at approximately 7:45 am , just in time to watch the sun rise out of the Giant's belly[the Sleeping Giant, nanbijou aka Sibley Peninsula]. Watching the clours change from deep red to orange to grey-white as the clouds rolled in from the north. I fel that familar, yet always changing sens of awe that comes from far down inside me whenever I encounter nature face-to-face. There are times when I'm surfing the net that I also develop a sense of awe at the possibilites and tremendous diversity and depth of information that resides out there. To know what is one must know. I feel no need to eat meat to feel the suffering, Pain and suffering surround us and are part of Life, it is the thoughtless, unnecessary killing, maiming and torture that tmeat industry practises. I reject meat as I encompass the anger, fear and pain it perpetuates. Be thankful for all you use. Bob Ewing cclash @ web.net From chu @ bear.com Thu Nov 21 19:35:13 1996 From: chu @ bear.com id sma012730; Thu Nov 21 21:29:27 1996 Subject: Re: More on Bowing, Civilization & Technology Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 21:29:33 EST First, a big thank you to all of you who's been sharing your thoughts, be they inspiring or confrontational. It's the most fun I've had online for the past year! I DO belive Mr. Milne has put his fingurative finger on a source of confusion in Mr. McClellan's original paper. >Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 14:20:59 GMT >From: Joseph Milne >We are confronted with a double problem here. On the one hand, John is >suggesting that we make ecology into a kind of religion, while on the other >hand it is being suggested that science (of which ecology is a branch) be >taken as a model of the universe. It seems to me that both these moves are >erroneous. ... >So the problem seems to me that 'ecology' is presenting us with difficulties >because it is only a map of the world, not a value system or a philosophy. >What is needed, it seems to me, is a philosophical way of reflection on the >presentations of ecological findings to our attention. Some process of >reflection is required to mediate between what we see and what we ought to do. >Our difficulty seems to be that we jump simply from the scientific model to >the sacred model - from the findings of scientific investigations of the >plural to a model of nonduality - supposing this jump indicates a course of >action. I fear it does not. It is simply comparing two paradigms of >reality, not facts with a possible course of action. It seems some people DO see deep ecology as such a jump which indicates a course of 'action'. John, I see as making a further jump which indicates a course of 'being'. Moving between these paradigms, I believe, CAN be useful in clearing away inconsistencies and revealing blind spots. Though buddhist sutras warn everywhere that whatever is said about reality is false and delusional, they nonetheless contains some of the most sophisticated models of reality. The Hua-Yen school placed much emphasis on 'Indra's Net' which is a network of jewels adorning the ceiling of Indra's abode. Each jewel reflects infinitely all other jewels reflecting infinitely all other jewels... (I can't realy do it justice in a short message.) Surely this is an excellent tool to cut away many layers of dualisms. I fully agree with Joseph's proposition that technology is a part/product of human culture. I'd go further to say that the source of human suffering is rooted in our tendencies of ignorance, greed, pride, etc. whose expressions are propagated and defended within the human cultural symbolizing system. Technology as technique tends to amplify and accelerate the playing-out of these tendencies. So I do not think that modern societies are any MORE oppressive or unhappy than medieval or ancient times. The influnce and reach of any particular meme or fashion simply are farther and faster than any times previously. Today, in the midst of reading some of the messages, I came across an article in the New York Times describing the escalating number of children wandering alone, lost or orphaned in the wave of refugees crossing from Rwanda. It was very hard not to cry and bow to the human pride and greed which led to this surely unnecessary suffering. So I did. In years passed, I had spent considerable energy working on the problem on world hunger. It is very similar to the conern of deep ecologist in that there is NO logical reason why chronic hunger need to persists as there are ample food produced. The glimpses and ideas of the 'absolute' defintely helped shepard me through the process of anger, sadness, and coming to rest (sometimes) with such human follies. Reading that article, though, also demonstrated powerfully how human technology and culture can connect me and people from literally half way around the world. It is here that I think a view of the human cultural system as alive can be most powerful ( whether it meets the criteria of being autopoietic or not). Though I cannot control the whole system, I CAN feed it. I CAN try to shape it. There is little doubt in my mind that the picture of lynchings in the south galvanized support for the civil rights movement. I'm sure that pictures of Vietnam or Tienanmen Square crystallizes entire network of feelings and thoughts for each of you. I submit that a sufficiently seductive meme can work as powerfully for an activist as 100 press conferences by major governments or corporations. So if we cannot control our cultures and technologies, let's dance with it. Regards, A. Chu From mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu Thu Nov 21 19:46:45 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 19:46:40 -0700 (MST) From: mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu (John McClellan) Subject: Re: On What Do We Depend? >> ________________________________________________ Dear Alan; Much thanks for your many good postings. You help keep things moving around here. Chief Ouray (?) of the Iroquois came here to campus to speak at my wife's invitation a few years ago. He told a good story about a town of white men where they got together and passed a law that no one in that town would ever need water again. A special priviledge granted by fiat to those lucky citizens. Everyone was very happy that evening, less so the next morning, and of course by the end of the week... For us the point is, it's not clear what we can and cannot do without. Not yet. We've proved already we can do without potable water, or unfenced nativbe peoples, we can do with the buffalo, the tall grass prairie. Maybe we can live with a lifeless ocean, certainly we have gone for 10,000 years now without anything near social justice or equality of access to life's good fruit. I'm told you don't need soil anymore, and that many big farms hardly use it. You just pour chemicals into sand and gravel, and the plastic vegetables we find in the supermarket will grow fine for years. I have begun to wonder where the limit is, and as much as I love the beautiful natural biologies, they have disappeared from so many places and no one complains that much... I don't think we know yet where this limit will be reached. Doesn't mean I'm heartless and don't *care* and all that... It's just that so much of the deep ecology and environmental agendas are based on wishes and likes and dislikes. Ask the American Indians just how hard a ballgame Western Civilization can play. I think we will surprise ourselves in our treatment of our remnant biologies. J. Mcclellan From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Thu Nov 21 20:36:12 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 22:40:54 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: On What Do We Depend? References: Well no one knows for sure of course but numerous folks, as far back as Rene Dubos in So Human an Animal, have begun to articulate a point of view that seems to say we do need a fair amount of "natural" areas. Its not that we can't "survive" without them (that is uncertain) but it is more like in what capacity can we do so. As i noted earlier, evol. psych. research is indicating a strong link betw. the human condition and the condition of our natural systems -- even in so far as whether we simply interact with green spaces enough. i posted a quote from Dubos in an earlier post which gets at this. It may be that in order for humans to function optimully it isn't a matter of how little we need but how much -- here may be a case where more is better. Green Dreams, r.c. From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Thu Nov 21 20:54:31 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 22:59:13 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: Deep Ecology Writing References: Or you could go hunting. There is nothing like it. Eat what you kill. Kill what you eat. Try it, there is nothing like it to tenderize a tough heart. i've hunted much of my life--its what got me turned on to the greater than human world. i try not to eat much industrial meat, not because it is karmicly correct but because i think there is a better way to meet my needs with less impact on the eco system. Try composting if you really want to get into the feel of direct contact with the breakdown-release-rejuvination of the life world. You'd be supprised just how spiritual that can be -- if you approach it that way. Green Dreams, r.c. From claudir @ hubcap.clemson.edu Thu Nov 21 21:01:07 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 23:01:02 -0500 (EST) From: Claudia Robinson Subject: Re: More on Bowing, Civilization & Technology Hello, > >Our difficulty seems to be that we jump simply from the scientific model to >the sacred model - from the findings of scientific investigations of the >plural to a model of nonduality - supposing this jump indicates a course of >action. I fear it does not. It is simply comparing two paradigms of >reality, not facts with a possible course of action. > Joseph speaks to the two causal approaches to life: scientific causality and volitional causality and offers a discourse seeking to integrate these approaches, attempting to find a way to deal with these two seemingly clashing views. Willis Harman and John Hormann in their book _Creative Work: constructive role of business in a transforming society_ offer this model to consolidate these views: -------------------------- ^ SPIRITUAL SCIENCES | | -------------------------- | | HUMAN SCIENCES | scientific| -------------------------- | volitional causation causation | BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES | | -------------------------- | | PHYSICAL SCIENCES v -------------------------- "The prejudice of science is really a matter of levels in the hierarchy of understanding. Teleological questions have no place at the level of reductionist science of physical reality. At the level of biological sciences, however, it is appropriate to ask about the function of elaborate instinctive patterns in animal behavior. At the level of the human sciences, volition is acceptable as a causal factor, and personality characteristics are meaningful constructs. In exploring the deepest insights of traditional cultures and our heritage of the world's religions, one may encounter the concept of "other realities" experienced through non-ordinary states of consciousness." I recommend the book. It is fascinating. Cheers, Claudia From ecbm @ cc.newcastle.edu.au Thu Nov 21 21:48:56 1996 NonDual-Ecology @ csf.colorado.edu; Fri, 22 Nov 1996 15:48:27 +1100 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 15:48:27 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Ultra-pessimist In-reply-to: <1.5.4.16.19961121170017.6e877d46 @ mail.islandnet.com> On Thu, 21 Nov 1996, National Centre for Sustainability (Yves Bajard) wrote: > Dear Alan, dear participants in the seminar: > At 12:09 21/11/96 -0800, Alan McGowen wrote, in response to Bruce N's > ultra pessimistic post about our incapacity to change course toward > an adjustment to ecologiocaol constraints: While it is a rainy spring afternoon here in Newcastle (Australia), it is a sunny day up in Brisbane for the 1st day of the 1st test against the West Indies, or as the Ozzies say "Windies". We took a quick wicket from the Ozzies in the morning,[1] but then it was a long, hard day of bowling before the next wicket fell. That's the way a good test match goes when the best cricket playing nations face off: it's a challenge. Some days wickets fall quickly, some days they don't. But the West Indies will not give up before the last wicket falls. If my post came across as ultra-pessimistic, it was misleading. I meant to say: - Changing our society is the hardest thing we can do - Changing out society enough might be at the edge of our abilities - It might be beyond the edge of our abilities - It won't turn out the way we expect it to turn out Watch out for introducing conclusions that are not there. "Therefore it's already too late", "therefore don't plan to meet the challenge", "therefore give up" are not floating around behind the curtains. Sometimes people are faced with doing the hardest thing possible, and fail. Sometimes people are faced with doing the hardest thing possible and succeed. Giving up doesn't make it any easier, or less important. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm @ cc.newcastle.edu.au [1] I first met cricket in Grenada in the West Indies, and I say "we" even though there is no Grenadian on the West Indian side. That's how Grenadian root for cricket teams: for the local Secondary School against the neighbor, for the local town against the neighboring town, for the Grenada side against the neighboring island, for the Windward Island side against Barbados, Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana, and the Leewards, and for the West Indies against the world. From ecbm @ cc.newcastle.edu.au Thu Nov 21 23:06:20 1996 NonDual-Ecology @ csf.colorado.edu; Fri, 22 Nov 1996 17:05:20 +1100 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 17:05:20 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: More on Bowing, Civilization & Technology In-reply-to: <199611211420.OAA05290 @ gollum.globalnet.co.uk> On Thu, 21 Nov 1996, Joseph Milne wrote: > John has suggested today that technology has created civilisation. > Such a suggestion needs to be carefully elaborated before we know > what it might mean. from the discussion on this seminar to date it > is evident that we have not even reached an understanding of what > technology actually is, let alone what it may have produced or may > produce. > There is a tendency in recent thinking to regard practically > everything in technological terms. For example the social sciences > are now analysing society in terms of technological mechanisms. > I would suggest that, at best, such a mode of thinking can only > be metaphorical. I am concerned, however, that the metaphor is > now being taken as literal. This means that the technological > paradigm is being taken as a *key* to how all things work. Taken > this way it is a classic instance of empirical reductionism, and I > wish to suggest that it is this type of reductionism that is > creating our modern problems and also many of the confusions > in our present discussion. > > I would wish to suggested that the causal order is the other way > round to the one John has suggested. It is civilisation that has > created technology. Technology is an aspect of human civilisation, > not is cause or its defining feature. One of the empirical tools I like to use is historical sequence. TECHNOLOGY We've had technology for so long that it goes well beyond history into the realm of paleontology. A flint ax is technology, after all. Technology is certainly not *everything* that we have been about for the last 100,000's and millions of years, but it's been an important part of the story. CIVILIZATION Civilization, by its timing, is what happens to people when there is not enough unoccupied terrain (in terms human niche and pre-agrarian technology) close enough at hand to make "stay and be conquered" a proposition that is not absurd group of people. From that we get increasingly complex societies and technologies, including organized warfare, cities ("civilized" taken literally means "citified"), agriculture, spinning jennies, etc. That's been the last 5 millenia, more or less. TECHNOLOGY: 100's, perhaps 1,000's of millenia old CIVILIZATION: 5 millenia old, more or less. I very much doubt that it is a mechanical relationship between technology and civilization, but technology leading to civilization (with all the organized horror and mayhem that typifies civilized life) seems, on historical sequence, a lot more plausible than civilization leading to technology. BTW, why, given all the nastiness that civilization adds on top of the pre-existing nastiness that is part of the human condition, is "Being Civilized" considered to be a compliment rather than an insult? I suspect that the answer is that we institutionalize the rules of *our* civlization, and come to see them as 'right' and 'normal'. So when someone says "Be Civilized", he or she means "follow the rules of *my* civilization, that I am comfortable with". Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm @ cc.newcastle.edu.au From mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu Thu Nov 21 23:10:21 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 23:10:15 -0700 (MST) From: mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu (John McClellan) Subject: So How Do We LIVE? MAJOR DOCUMENT >i liked your response (to fight,cry & bow) the most of anything you >have posted to date. It showed me something i wasn't sure was there >up to this point -- emotion, someone who gives a damn, someone willing >to act in the real world vs intellectualize about it. BUT, it still >doesn't convince me that a mach., or as some have put it "a screw >driver" has an evolutionary "life" unto itself. Respect tech., yes, >but that seems to me to be quite dif. than much of the connotation i >have destilled from your paper and other posts. > >Maybe this will further clear things up for me -- at least it will >help clarify where you stand re acting in the world. What do you feel >are the implications of holding a stance such the one you propose in >your paper -- be down to earth here please, i'm not looking for a well >versed rhetoric or diatribe here just straight talk. Talk to me as if >i'm an eight grader and you are telling me what you think we need to >do now, here, in this world. What do you think we should do? How do >you see this effecting the way real people live their real live? >Green Dreams, r.c. (Rich Coon) _____________________________________________ Rich-- This is the best question. The real question. It is, I hope, where our discussion will soon lead us. Before replying, let me thank you for your clear and direct letters, straight to the point and into the heart, like this question. This afternoon I felt adled and anxious. I worried what to say to all these fine people who have gathered around this cyberplace like a cloud of spirits. All sincere, wanting to understand the world we live in, wanting to live in it well. What can I say to these good souls, now that I have caught their attention with my provcative and unsettling article? How can I resettle this energy, bring it to rest, soothe and resolve it? I had some hardware problems too (at a time like this!), so altogether I felt bothered. Went for a long walk. I walked up around the back of Twin Sisters. The sun set on the Continental Divide in a clear sky at exactly 16:24 h. I continued on around to the east in the gloaming, then moonlight, until I came onto a ridge at about 18h from which I had a clear view of Denver out on the eastern plains. Metroplis, spread out as far as the eye could see like a blanket of jewels, glowing, throbbing with electric energy. A few small planes flew about like moths in the orange smog above the city. Around me in the mountains all was moonlight and peace. So here am I, standing deep in the heart of the ancient planet's peace, gazing out like a time traveler on the futuristic landscape of the actual present age. How do we walk this path? To investigate Deep ecology as we are doing is to attempt to understand this evolutionary past and present-future, to make sense of it, to integrate this new world we live in with our old Paleolithic genes and biophilic instincts. To integrate things in a peronal way too--we're not looking for a general theoretical system. Deep Ecology is not a sociological or biological theory, it is not a political program. That kind of thing is good enough, and very necessary, and is called Environmentalism. Deep Ecology is different. It's _personal_. It borders on religion, which should be acceptable in this company I hope, but which I know is not everyone's cup of tea. Religion, as we know, does not make good subject matter for intellectual discussions, much less political or social programs. Religion is persoanl stuff, and must be experienced in a personal way. Maybe we can't get far with this in the cerebral atmosphere of the Net, but maybe we can. I'm hopeful, based on who is here. So, it is good for us to investigate Deep Ecology the way we have been doing, but we shouldn't linger here too long. Endless research and cognitive refinements become self-indulgence and procrastination so quickly. This inquiry is not to become a profession or an endless hobby. An important question like this, What is this world, and how do we live in it? should lead to an answer. The kind of answer that many will find is a curious sort of, indescribable authentic personal experience, some taste of indeniable reality that cuts doubt. Anyone of us can do this for themself. In fact that's the only way it happens. There's no mystery here. Many such experiences and situations have been reported already during this discussion, and have even been described as a taste, or at least a recognition of the Absolute, or Nondual. Cheryl Foltos, Betsy Barnum, the Alaska Sutras, and many others right here in our Inbox. That. Will anyone please confirm that this is solid ground, recognizable territory= ? As soon then as some first _personal_ understanding has been reached, a solid taste, rest is brought to the doubts and worries, hopes and fears of the inquiring mind. A little rest anyway, a bitof rest. So jump on it. That's what you're looking for. IMMEDIATELY then, we are ready to answer your perfect question: How are we to live? ******************* In a sacred way. ******************* It is too late tonight to take this further. I'll attempt it tomorrow morning, in a fresh young day. I don't think it matters that much what I say either, because each person's understanding of this can only come from hisr direct experience of sacred world. Taste it, know it for yourself, and behave accordingly. Please help me answer your own question from this point on. Anyone reading this, help us out here. I hope the discussion is leading in this direction, as we only have a few days left together. But I don't want to go too far this way unless some people are coming along with me. Probably I should leave things here for others to develop further. Probably I shouldn't even post this message. Definitely in fact I probably shouldn't. Thanks, and Good Night John McClellan From mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu Thu Nov 21 23:59:52 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 23:59:47 -0700 (MST) From: mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu (John McClellan) Subject: Gus DiZerega's Letter, Some Problems with McClellan's etc Dear Gus, It's late at night, and my wife and I were reading randomly through the post when we came across your first long letter, Some Problems with McClelan's & Hughes etc., which unaccountably I had not seen until now. A coyote is howling down in the meadow, loud and long, the sky is filled with grey herring circus clouds. We were very moved by your eloquent and beautiful letter. I can't reply in detail, but want to thank you. I agree with you of course, on compassion. If we do not enter into this wide open gate, we miss everything. John From Gusdz @ aol.com Fri Nov 22 00:59:14 1996 From: Gusdz @ aol.com Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 02:59:11 -0500 Subject: Re: Deep Ecology Writing Dear Kristy, I just read your response to my email, and want to elaborate the reasoning behind my argument. My Hitler comment was only aimed at those, such as apparently the writer to whom I was responding, who equate meat eating with murder, and who hold their vegetarian position with extraordinary self-righteousness. It aint that simple. I agree with you that Hitler's being a vegetarian in no way constitutes a criticism of vegetarianism. But it does, I hope, give self-righteous vegetarians pause when they simplemindedly equate eating meat with the ability, and even the inclination, to murder. With regard to comparing human and animal predators, frequently human killing is far more efficient and less conducive to suffering than what happens in the wild. A well placed shot brings death almost immediately. A wolf pack does so far more slowly. And when confronted by truly abundant prey, some carnivores kill to excess. Nature is beautiful, wild, and sacred enough not to need romanticizing (a word?) You write of excesses in eating meat. Speaking solely for myself, I eat very little. A meal or two a week. And my reasons are in part the ones you give. When I do buy meat, I try to buy that which has been raised humanely, and presumably killed humanely. I do not support factory farming in any way. But if I knew someone who was almost a total carnivore, I would not criticize him or her on that account. Primarily because for me what is important is our mindfulness as we consume, not what we consume. I think it is far less objectionable to eat beef with gratitude than to eat tofu thoughtlessly. On ethics and hunting, I recommend Richard Nelson's The Island Within. You may find it thought provoking. He also had an interview in Parabola, summer 1991. My experience in nature, and in shamanic practices, has convinced me that plants are aware beings. They experience life, and so presumably experience death. I admit that is a spiritual conclusion, but it is one I find well grounded in experience, not dogma. In my view, everything in nature possesses awareness to some extent. And so nothing can ever be appropriately treated simply as a means to our ends. I honestly do not see death as a sign of a fallen nature, a sad mistake by nature, a punishment for some shortcoming, or a sign that the universe is uncaring. It is a stage in life, and I have had sufficient experiences in my spiritual practice to believe that death is not annihilation. But neither is it to be taken lightly. I cannot prove that this view is true to people who have not had experiences similar to mine, and those who have do not need the point proven to them. So I do not set my ethic out as one everyone should follow. But one thing many of us can agree on is that to deliberately cause death without concern, respect, or compassion for what passes from the scene is to act thoughtlessly. It is inappropriate for human beings to act that way. You write you are "somewhat flummoxed" by my claim that applying the abstraction to kill as little as possible is not as easy to do as it seems. I had hoped my examples would illustrate my point. I will try again. We must eat. If we eat meat that we hunted, we kill a relatively small number of animals. If we eat vegetables that we raise it is quite possible that we kill more animals numerically, because of the need to protect our crop from rabbits, gophers, birds, deer, and the like. Often farmers have a far more deleterious impact upon the natural world than hunters, and seek far more to subject it to their control. It is significant, I think, that the mythologies of hunting and gathering peoples often see the natural world as more well disposed towards people than the mythologies of many farming peoples. If a person in, say, Alaska can hunt for much of his or her sustenance, it is not immediately obvious to me that they have more negative impact on nature than a vegetarian who eats organic produce here in California. Further, if we raise meat animals, and do so with a modicum of decency, many of the individuals we eat will have lived longer, and in less fear, than if their equivalents had been born in the wild. If the meat animals are raised in the plains or similar country, they are raised on land that should not be farmed for vegetables anyway. The climate is frequently too dry and unpredictable. I go into all this to make one point: the ethically best solution does not simply unambiguously jump out at us. It is difficult to decide sometimes what is best. And whatever we decide, we may be wrong. That is why I am so put off by self-righteousness in these cases. That is also why I argue mindfulness is important. With regard to excess, actually traditional Inuit people are probably among the world's most carnivorous. Far more so than us Westerners. It is hard to grow vegetables in the arctic. If vegetables are imported, as they are today, it is by means of a technology which has plenty of blood on its hands. And even among Westerners, Americans are far from the most carnivorous. I think the Argentines have us beat by a mile. I once asked myself what I could eat if I were to kill nothing. Milk, honey, and unfertile eggs were all that came to mind. No woman could survive long on such a diet (no iron) and men wouldn't do well with it either. Some people physically need meat. Going on to a high meat low carbohydrate diet can lead to loss of obesity for some, when low fat diets fail. Certain people have physical problems being vegetarians. Metabolisms differ among people more than many think. We have no morally simple solutions here, and I believe each person should decide for him or herself without having to be subjected to a self-righteous attack such as accompanied the posting to which I replied. To tread even more on controversial ground, it seems to me that our society tends to be in denial about death. And so, often enormous energy is expended denouncing it except in cases when there is truly no choice. The most passionate vegetarian types who denounce others' eating meat seem similar in this respect to the anti-abortion types. Both simplify morally ambiguous situations into simple contests between good and evil. I wish it were so easy. Which brings me to your last point, about passion. When I said moral passion was not in itself an argument, I did not say that it was unnecessary. Only that it was insufficient. To refer again to the abortion issue, there is plenty of moral passion on both sides. But that passion has not, and will not, lead to a resolution because the loudest voices on both sides are so sure that all virtue rests on only one view. Only arguments will decide, and given the nature of the issue, I think that different people will be persuaded by different, and often opposing, arguments. Which is why it should be a matter of choice. The same point holds with eating meat. I hope at this point my point of view appears to be neither so alien nor so perplexing as it may have first appeared. Gus diZerega From Gusdz @ aol.com Fri Nov 22 01:19:22 1996 From: Gusdz @ aol.com Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 03:19:17 -0500 Subject: Re: Gus DiZerega's Letter, Some Problems with McClellan's etc Dear John, Thank you for your letter. It is indeed late at night, as I just received it, and it is midnite here. As I have had the pleasure of reading more and more of your contributions, I have come to think that while there may be a gulf in some of our logical and philosophical positions, at the level of personal practice in these matters there is not much. And that gives me hope, because I think the Universe speaks to us all in different tones, and if we have to agree on the details inorder to solve our common problems, they will simply get worse and worse. Our hearts can agree on priorities as our minds engage in debate as to their meaning. I find myself nostalgic as you write of the Twin Sisters. As a young boy, the high point of each year was a month spent in and around Rocky Mountain National Park, where I attended a summer camp. I return every chance I get, and there is scarcely a trail in the park that I have not been on. But to live near there! I have been invited to Boulder in April for their Conference on World Affairs, and hopefully will get a chance to get up there for a day. Thank you for putting all this togather. It has been a fascinating experience. And, like you, I have been impressed with the overall civility and focus that has pervaded the discussion(s). The disadvantage of email is that it is so easy to send out ill conceived and overly combative missives. I try to watch that in myself, and I am deeply impressed by the capacity of so many to do so, better than I. Blessed be, Gus From "cleef @ well.com" @ well.com Fri Nov 22 06:19:23 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 05:22:22 -0800 From: Cheryl Foltos <"cleef @ well.com" @ well.com> Subject: Another Day Morning greetings - I awoke this morning to the sound of heavy rain and a cat purring at my side - after about a half hour a grogginess I'm begining to be about my day. Given my recent schedule of late nights and early mornings I've barely been able to keep up with reading the posts let alone comment but I want to reply to some people - to Yves.. wonderful statement "manage yourself in your context, don't try to manage the ecosphere" It's that kind of thought that keeps me paying attention to my cat and Ethel and cleaning up my house (when I can manage) and not joining philosphical discusions (when I can help it - my past as a philosphy major still has it's traces - hence the comments about Aristoltle and Aquinas which I'm somewhat embarrassed about)I like the simple version of your eloquent statement Yves - Think global, act local" To Betsy Barnum - thanks for your comment about Feldenk. I am currently in a 3 year training based largely on the work of this man - some past history in meditation taught me that you can indeed hear the blood gushing through the heart, etc. etc. I try to appreciate the smallest movements inside this micrcosm of the body ( i.e "think Global, act local - you can't get much more local than your own body) and try to cultivate enough inner stillness to hear what they are telling me... I'm learning like everyone. And last but not least to Claudia Robinson - becuase I can't help myself (with a giggle) I'd like to hear more about how all is resonance..Nothing like making statements to stay in the particular and then ending by asking a physicist to comment. Ah, the lucious intertwining of it all... The rain is intermittent now and my body is coming alive..the drive to work will be slow due to the weather..in my dreams last night one of the doctor's I work with was playing a concerto the music of which I could hear..except when it isn't, life can be very good. Have a good day everyone. Remember to giggle if you start to take yourself too seriously. Cheers. From ga2 @ unitarian.org.uk Fri Nov 22 06:23:32 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 96 12:57:24 GMT From: John Clifford Subject: EcoRealities and veggies I have not hunted for some 40 years and then it was with rod and reel. If I lived in some of the areas described by fellow commentators I might well be inclined to be part of the natural scene in this way. As an urban creature, however, whose cycling and tenting/hostelling visits to some of the natural (just how natural is a tarmac road?) wild sites of the US, Germany, Australia, and Scotland and the gentler sites of England are brief and not integral to the ecology/sociology of these areas, hunting would be a hobby rather than an integral part of living in these areas. i.e. I would not be putting myself into the position that if my hunt was unsuccessful I would go hungry. Hobbies are important but it strikes me that matters of life and death should be a bit more integral to life style than hobbies. This is one of the grounds (there are others) why I have not eaten 'meat' for 15 years -- I do, as a compromise (and that's what it is) eat some seafood. But this is a personal decision of my own balance point, not something to be imposed on others and certainly not to be a platform for moral superiority over others whose personal decisions have found other balance points. This is not to stop me from using my influence as a citizen in trying to get laws that stop unnecessary suffering or damage to the environment-- not only in terms of the raising, transport and killing process for domesticated animals but also in relation to 'sport' killing and cruel methods of hunting. I also try to use my very little bit of influence as a citizen in stopping the economic monster that turns whole peoples into cash-crop farmers, destroying previous agricultural selfsufficiencies, putting women into more dependent positions, and transferring vast resources from poorer to richer societies while whole militaristic structures are supported by the rich (and that includes the national political leaders of virtually every commentator in this seminar) to keep political 'stability' while corruption and nepotism, already existing but localised, become efficient national institutions. The political power of agribusiness and pharmaceuticals is one of the realities that anyone concerned about ecology needs to confront and we each need to confront it in our own countries and in our own lifestyles as well as seek international cooperation in the struggle for a more just global society and a healthier ecosystem. This is as true for those of us who are "townies" as much as for our "country cousins" lucky enough to have computers and modems in their cabins. I'm glad that the link between ecology and food production has come up in this seminar but I hope it doesn't deteriorate into a debate about vegetarianism. From SallyClay @ aol.com Fri Nov 22 07:35:32 1996 From: SallyClay @ aol.com Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 09:35:27 -0500 nondual-ecology @ csf.colorado.edu Subject: Once Born - a poem Many thanks to all of you on this list for your uplifting and compassionate comments. I find myself unable to formulate an essay on Deep Ecology, and get tangled up in thoughts when I try to participate in the the discussion. So, as John has requested, I will instead contribute a poem. ******************************************* ONCE BORN One does not discard a gift lightly. You take the whole package, The whole estate -- Ribbons, trees, cats, and refuse, Houses, fireflies, snow, and quicksand. Friendly trespassers And malicious caretakers. It is a question of environment, A bell jar in a larger exhibition, Disposable in the larger scheme of things But no less precious for that. Here is the ridge where the sun set pink and gold last week, And over there my mother sat with me when I cried. Deep in the woods is where I first smelled pine, And at the front gate my father built a snowman. The house is full of moldy photographs -- Not too many relatives left. But I drove into town the other day And stood in line with a lot of nervous people To see a movie about reality. On the way home my car broke down, And I walked the rest of the way into a gray sunset, Remembering how my mother picked at trifles And my father hated her. In high school my friend John died of cancer, He had shiny brown hair and kind eyes. Another friend married an alcoholic And her life careened into chaos. My sister has forgotten me -- she is too busy Preaching about faith, hope, and charity. It is strange how these old wounds ache As the leaves in the trees and bushes settle And hang still in the evening. It is quiet at home and cheery with lamplight. I build a fire, and watch with satisfaction As the paper catches, then the twigs and sticks, And the logs absorb the flames and return warmth. Something works. Tomorrow I'll get the car fixed. - Sally Clay zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz * Sally Clay ZANGMO BLUE THUNDERCLOUD * Website & writing Email: or Lake Placid, FL *Lightning Capital of the World* zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz From bosada @ in.net Fri Nov 22 07:54:10 1996 From: "David Martin/Bonnie Jakobsen" Subject: Re: So How Do We LIVE? Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 09:49:18 -0500 Greetings all, I give heartfelt thanks to John McClellan and all of the others who have contributed such deep and sensitive thoughts on life (whether biological or technological), nature and personal fulfillment. After reading so many well-considered perspectives, I have found myself awakened many times in the early morning to consider this or that point, to weigh against my own experience and life path the views expressed in the paper and discussion. I have spent much time considering my personal views on life, technology and the future of this planet in the past week - I have taken another step along my life path - thank you all. Considering these views, I went for an early morning walk today to reflect. Its a morning very like the rest of this week has been here in the suburbs of Indianapolis, cold, crisp, with grey filtered light passing through the thick cloud cover. A moderate wind dropping the temperature below freezing, making beautiful ice patterns on the exposed metal and glass of cars in the apartment complex parking lot. Yet as I walked along a roadside path, I came across a sight that finally prompted me to settle the internal debate prompted by this conference. I came upon the only open field in my nieghborhood, a special place from which I have been able to draw a sense of strength each time I pass. A place seemingly respected by the residents for the freedom of its open space, the beauty of the migrating birds that landed there, the multitude of plants that grew, blossomed and died each season amidst the surrounding clusters of housing developments and anonymous shopping complexes. Sadly, I discovered that while I had been so busy this past week with my internal debate, the field had been bulldozed clean of its winter foliage, the earth laid bare and the first foundations of a new addition to the neighboring shopping complex embedded in its surface. This sight brought me directly to the exchange between Rich Coon and John McClellan and crystallized exactly why I respect, but cannot agree with John's perspective on non-dual ecology. Rich Coon wrote: > What do you feel are the implications of holding a stance such the one you propose in your paper -- > What do you think we should do? How do you see this effecting the way real people live their real lives? >Green Dreams, r.c. (Rich Coon) This then, is the real question. While we may intellectualize all we wish about whether or not technology is representative of a new stage in evolution or whether negentropy is the proper definitional characteristic of life, the rest of the world continues on its merry way, consuming the land from which so many of us draw our strength, our Personal fulfillment. I see only negative implications from adopting a stance in which we refuse to act against those developments that prevent the achievement of our personal fulfillment. John responded: >Deep Ecology is not a sociological or biological theory, it is not a >political program. That kind of thing is good enough, and very necessary, >and is called Environmentalism. Deep Ecology is different. It's >_personal_. I can certainly agree with him that Deep Ecology is personal and closely related to religion, but, being the political scientist that I am, I even more strongly agree that the personal IS political. Martin Wight and R.B.J. Walker have written that political theory is nothing more than a philosophy of how to achieve 'the good life' applied en masse to entire societies by individuals or institutions that possess political power. Thus, we are all constantly interpolated by a state-sanctioned definition of what the good life should be. Tied up in this is the assumption that personal fulfillment is to be found through the internalization of an omnipresent ideology. For this reason, though there is technically a separation of church and state in modern democracy, political leaders still feel it necessary to invoke the mantle of the divine in public speech -- "God Bless America," "God Save the Queen," "In God We Trust" etc. Thus, the 20th century ideology is a Christian/Capitalist definition of personal fulfillment through continuous economic growth, mindless personal consumption and the promise of an even better life after this one. It's a vision of fulfilllment that encourages one to act in certain ways to achieve certain goals -- personal fulfillment through continuous economic growth -- the favoring short term investments over long term effects. The technology that this 20th Century combination of the personal and political has produced is a tool that is used to further one vision of personal fulfillment. Some may reconcile Deep Ecology with Modernity by embracing technology as a new stage in the evolution of life, but in doing so, one is also embracing a vision of fulfillment that each day reduces the chances for fulfillment by those of us who cannot draw spiritual value from a world of silicon and steel. This is a fundamentally political act. It is an acceptance of the validity of the dominant ideology of fulfillment and the relationships of power that it has established. Deep Ecology is deeply political because it is deeply personal. By expanding the 'depth' of Deep Ecology to include the technology that is being used to destroy that which provides fulfillment to those of us who achieve it through personal experiences with the diversity of biological life (I hesitate to use the term nature because of its undefined nature . . .. er, status), one is implicitly embracing the staus quo ideology and allowing it to spread. Though I admit that the assumption that the philosophy of Deep Ecology stands little chance in replacing Modernity as a life path for the majority of the population, I want to make sure to preserve the ability and will to fight as well as to cry and bow. I guess that means that I support the duality of Deep Ecology and am still embedded in Modernity myself. But, I cannot envision my personal fulfillment in an existence where only people and their machines (both silicon and flesh) reside. I wonder where the birds will rest next year. Peace be with you, David Martin Zionsville, Indiana From cathleen @ inch.com Fri Nov 22 08:30:58 1996 From: "Cathleen A. McGuire" Subject: Indigenous Voices Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 10:31:02 -0500 I am a grassroots ecofeminist activist and writer who lives 2 blocks = from Times Square, New York City. My pay-the-rent gig is = computer/Internet consulting, but I basically subscribe to the = neo-Luddite, Jerry Mander/Chellis Glendinning/Helena Norberg Hodge = school of thought. While I am inclined to I disagree with the Non-Dual Ecology position, I = find it very provocative. I am especially intrigued by the Buddhist = take on it, given that the cyber folks are usually the ones promoting = the acceptance (and acquiesance and cheerleading) of technology. =20 I read the entire first days comments, but was unimpressed. Basically I = didn't think anyone had added much to the conversation. I regret to say = that I have been too busy to read the voluminous postings from the rest = of the week, but I've saved them for the holidays and hope to encounter = some interesting ideas. Since I haven't read the threads, I apologize if my contribution below = has already been touched upon. I just wanted to be sure that the = thoughts of some indigenous people are made known. =20 There are several Native Americans that in their own spiritual ways are = also putting forth ideas similar to John McClellan's argument. If their = writing has not been mentioned in this seminar, please refer to the work = of Sherman Alexie, Paula Gunn Allen, Carol Lee Sanchez, or Marilou = Awiakta. Alexie's "Reservation Blues" interweaves non-dual ecology premises = throughout his brilliant, hilarious novel. In addition to their own = writings, the essence of Allen's, Sanchez's, and Awiakta's analysis can = also be found in Jane Caputi's thoroughly engaging look at the popular = culture of nuclear energy in "Gossips, Gorgons and Crones." Thank you to the people sponsoring this seminar. I appreciate its = existence and look forward to future conversations. Cathleen McGuire From mccaffrm @ csf.Colorado.EDU Fri Nov 22 08:45:43 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 08:45:40 -0700 (MST) From: Mark McCaffrey Subject: Smells Like Money Up in Greeley, CO this morning-- in the heart of Ag country with lots of cattle feedlots (hence the odor that they say is the smell of money) and sugar beet processing. The South Platte and Pourde rivers come together just east of here, with various pollutants wafting down the river from Denver and Ft. Collins comingling with the ag emissions. When I wake up in the mornings here though the smell often reminds me of India. Something about the mix of earthiness and firey energy is refreshing and (to use Claudia's mantra) resonates with me. I bow to its beauty and power. And I bow to the beauty and power of this discussion; I confess there's no way I can keep up right now; it's spun "out of control" and I've just got other things cooking that I can't put on hold right now. Chao Now Mark M From ga2 @ unitarian.org.uk Fri Nov 22 09:35:23 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 96 16:29:15 GMT From: John Clifford Subject: DEEPEST ECOLOGY I am wary of unqualified --est words, but trust that this will be taken in the spirit in which it is offered: Reality for me is based on relationships in context, where contexts overlap and encompass in a messier way than implied by McClarens "shells". The Ultimate/All Inclusive/Universal context is deeper than can be appreciated by individuals. The elemental particulars are richer and more complex than can be appreciated by individuals. Within a given context, however, we can parially sense the shape and connectedness of our lives with Life and the reality of the potentials everywhere and everywhen for growth in quality and value. The secret, for me, is the *concurrent* need for discipline and freedom, the *concurrent* need for engagement and non-attachment. Deepest ecology refers to this Sense that is more than just Awareness. This Sense will have cognitive and affective dimensions and will be as aesthetic as rational. Buber's _I and Thou_ combined with Gandhi's satyagraha describes somewhat, for me, the affective dimension -- a compassionate relationship that overcomes The Other syndrome. The Dance requires dancers, but it also requires that the dancers give themselves to the dance and to each other. The Dance has many tunes, some ecstatic and wild, some measured and calm. To dance well requires focus, care for one's partners in the dance, technical expertise and abandonement of self to the music. From w6 @ woodruff-sawyer.com Fri Nov 22 09:51:24 1996 by slip-3.slip.net with smtp (Exim 0.57 #1) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 96 08:51:16 From: John Wall Subject: Technobia I don't see technology as a new eveolutionary entity but as a power extension, and a kind of creative expression, for human beings. At my deepest gut level, the corn lilies in the picture on my partition at work are far more interesting and beautiful than the computer I'm typing on right now. The computer is only interesting because it lets me in on conversations like this. There's some basic difference between mountains, rivers and corn lilies on the one hand, and cars, heavy industry and computer mainframes on the other, and it's more than an aesthetic difference. The biggest difference is that the latter are all self-referential. Technobia is anthropocentrism. Technobia is a kind of art therapy, but the artist is still too busy creating to have figured out that he is creating himself. Self-referential loops aren't inherently bad; they can culminate in apotheosis. Carl Jung quoted the medieval alchemist Michael Maier as saying, "This is the line which runs back upon itself, like the snake that with its head bites its own tail, wherein that supreme and eternal painter and potter, God, may rightly be discerned." Now that's some deep ecology, brother. --John Wall From amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Fri Nov 22 11:01:14 1996 Subject: Re: On What Do We Depend? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 21 Nov 96 19:46:40 MST." Date: Fri, 22 Nov 96 10:01:33 -0800 From: Alan McGowen J. McClellan claims we can do without potable water. I challange him to live without potable water for one month, and to explain how agricultural irrigation would be done without fresh water at anything like the same costs as it is currently done. He also says he "has been told" agriculture can operate without topsoil. On a tiny economic scale plants can be grown hydoponically, but that is not at all the same thing as global agriculture not depending on soil: there is a gigantic difference of economic scale. I would like to see how McClellan proposes to substitute hydroponics for topsoil on the scale of global agricultural production, again making the costs at least a bit more explicit. The issue is not "can we demonstrate a laboratory proceedure" it is "can we replace global agriculture with that proceedure". The latter problem faces economic constraints. [Which I predict McClellan will dismiss, as brownlashers do, by appeal to immense economic growth. The problem with this is that growth of manufactured capital is dependent on the very natural capital McClellan hints we can replace with manufactured capital. This is a cornucopian dream of creating something out of nothing.] McClellan did not respond to the other natural capital dependencies of agriculture and civilization that I listed. McClellan: > For us the point is, it's not clear what we can and cannot do without. This is an educational problem. Alan McGowen From J2Callie @ aol.com Fri Nov 22 11:20:40 1996 From: J2Callie @ aol.com Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 13:20:38 -0500 Subject: Re: On Life as a part time lurker... << The bad side: it seems to be a reflection of one of the common problems with the internet. There is too much information coming in and I just cant seem to find the time to grasp the content and assimilate all the information zipping around. >> Me too. Wow. Whee. Whew. PS I'm in the Columbia Gorge, about an hr east of Portland OR. The NW had its first winter storm, with massive flooding (and a fatal mudslide) on the western side of the Cascades. It snowed here, starting Monday night, a heavy snow and not very cold. By morning, the power was out throughout the region. All day we heard reports that it would be up to a week before some homes would be restored. I no longer felt guilty for the 4WD I bought last summer when I was able to get out through the 2 ft of snow in my driveway to stay with friends in town. Most of NE Washington and Northern Idaho were completely without power sounds like. I was luckier than some and was back "online" by the next morning. I sure appreciate those utility linemen working through the frigid night to find, clear and repair all those downed lines and frozen transmitters. And the road crews that got the plows and sanders out. I thought things would get back to normal Tuesday when it changed to rain, but it freezes at night, leaving a thick glaze over the earlier snows in all their drifts and ruts. It's treacherous to walk/drive on and impossible to shovel -- needs a pickaxe. Called a solid halt to the Best Laid Plans. Left me lots of time to read e-mail, though not enough to digest it properly. Is the Technology I depend on part of the Essence? Is it even part of Me? I can get along without the 4WD -- I can walk. I've lived without electricity before, but I still had the technology to insulate/protect/defend myself from the weather. Humans are particularly unsuitable to live/function without tools, however simple. At some point, that makes it a sort of symbiosis, but what does the individual tool receive in this relationship? It receives a new essence, an identity apart from that of its constituent elements. But does it care? The Deepest Ecology: A sense of place, a sense of oneness, a sense of identity. Seeing and recognizing the spirit of the wind, the secret in an infant's eyes, in a coyote's flitting form, in the smoke and fog, clouds and sky. The air, the water, the earth we share. If I am it and it is I, I act in self-preservation to let it flow to me, through me, beyond me. The web, the net of Essence. And so I measure each individual action for its effect on the essence or any part of it, and forgive myself for falling short. Awareness is the first necessity. "And whatsoever you do unto the least of my creatures you do also unto me." In a message dated 96-11-21 18:08:00 EST, you write: << Why Serious Vegetarians Should Eat More Meat Or, Taking Full Responsibility for Being in This World >> Now, THAT's being specific. And clear. Even the Zen master part. Thank you. Callie From w6 @ woodruff-sawyer.com Fri Nov 22 12:24:48 1996 by slip-3.slip.net with smtp (Exim 0.57 #1) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 96 11:22:06 From: John Wall Subject: RE: McClellan's view is dangerous (Was: vegie thread >"What is is perfect." McClellan's argument is just a fancy-pants >version of Doublespeak, jazzed up in Buddhist lingo. The statement isn't doubletalk; it's an insight. Say a bowling ball keeps falling on your head. Years go by, and this happens again and again, until you learn to live with it. One day you decide there must be a better way to live, so you head over to Green Gulch Farm and do some zazen. One day you're sitting there and you realize why bowling balls keep falling on your head. You see that there is no way bowling balls could NOT have been falling on your head, therefore it is seen as "perfect." Luckily, you now have the option of learning how to get out of the way. --John Wall From mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu Fri Nov 22 12:26:45 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 12:26:39 -0700 (MST) From: mcclelj @ csf.colorado.edu (John McClellan) Subject: Nondual ecology : Online seminar >Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 10:24:52 -0500 >From: Stephen Hopkins <106367.3332 @ compuserve.com> >Subject: MAIN DOC-Nondual ecology : Online seminar >To: John McClellan > >(I've been having some trouble reaching you, and I haven't had time to read >the email responses, but I'm sending this off to a new email address in the >hope that I can a least get a word in before the lights go out.) > >Dear John, >As this is both a late and a first (and possibly only) contribution, please >excuse me if I stray over old ground here. I'm responding because I've been >pretty fired up by what has been said on issues that have been of interest >to me for years. >I guess I should start by noting that as, according to some Tibetan ways of >thinking, we're living in Kali Yuga - a kalpa of destruction - it's hardly >surprising that we're all going to hell in a handcart. Whether we describe >the journey as 'evolution' or simply 'change', and what we might have to >say about the scenery along the way, in some ways doesn't matter all that >much. After all, we all know where we're headed. Can anything be done >about this? Can we at least make the journey less painful? Perhaps. >It might be that the perspective of archetypal psychology could be useful >here. You make only passing references to the gods (I leave aside those to >'God'), but I'd remind you that over the doorway to his own home Jung >himself carved >"Bidden or not, the gods will be present". So what might they - the gods - >want, and how might they help us? >James Hillman, in a recent response ("Spring" 56, Fall '94) to the truly >terrifying Wolfgang Giegerich (a man who Hillman credits with "the most >important Jungian thought now going on....so thoroughly radical that even >Ivan Illich was shocked speechless....when he argued that the omnipresent >and omnipotent destructive force of the nuclear bomb is the only true face >of the living God today), had this to say: >"I propose that we've got things the wrong way round. It's not more bulls >and pigs that need the knife, but the God for whom they are already dying, >The Economy. Only deicide can revalue what the animals are already >performing. Only taking down the dominant God can release the soul to be >made again by poesis and release the animals from only secularized >slaughter. Precisely this deicide is what archetypal psychology has been >about since its inception twenty-five years ago, and ever since. On the one >hand it has continually maintained a running argument with Christianism >because Protestantism and Capitalism belonged together at their start and >still run together toward their finish. While, on the other hand, >archetypal psychology has continually evoked the mystical imagination of >pagan powers, probably the only powers in the whole wide world who haven't >a cent." >I'd add, of course, that it isn't only the animals who are being sacrificed >on the altar of The Economy - whole bioregions together with their human >and non-human inhabitants are routinely starved, impoverished and destroyed >in order to propitate that God. So it seems to me that unless and until we >sincerely begin the individual and collective work of re-ensouling the >world,then this endless suffering - which may or may not be usefully >described as 'evolution' - will simply continue. And here, perhaps, I might >agree with Alan Hunt-Badiner in his call to "get out in front of >techologicalization and make it sacred". Nondual ecology, un-ensouled, >looks to me surprisingly likely to lead us all willy-nilly to the same kind >of global desertification that 'dual' ecology warns us of. Whether or not >that matters in the cosmic time frame, well, who can say? As Ram Dass >reminds us: "The Great Way is easy for those who have no preferences". >Sincerely. >Steve Hopkins. From Gusdz @ aol.com Fri Nov 22 12:58:11 1996 From: Gusdz @ aol.com Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 14:58:07 -0500 Subject: Re: McClellan's view is dangerous (Was: vegie thread John, I am glad to know you were being sarcastic rather than angry. One of the weaknesses of this form of communication is that because we have to write rapidly or be left behind, it is easy to not be as clear as we would be if we were writing in a more liesurely vein. I think this is particularly true when we care deeply about what we are saying. (I speak as a sometimes guilty party.) But I have encountered sentiments such as yours with a big dose of anger attached. As you may have noticed, my first posting to McClellan was a critique along the lines that you describe. From reading postings of his since, I think his arguments have implications he does not himself intend. Yes, I think his basic argument is dangerous, and also predicated on a confusion as to what evolution and life are. My own belief, from having had nondualist experiences, is that nondualism provides a valuable context within which we have to live lives inevitably, and by no means unfortunately, tied up with making dualistic choices. It provides a guide for the attitude by which we make those choices, but provides no guidance at all about what those choices should be, because all choices are made within a dualistic context. That is why we call them choices, after all. Gus diZerega From elehner @ iastate.edu Fri Nov 22 14:06:25 1996 In-Reply-To: Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 03:07:48 -0600 From: Ed Lehner Subject: Re: Deep Ecology Writing John wrote: >Why Serious Vegetarians Should Eat More Meat >Or, Taking Full Responsibility for Being in This World >So how to turn this nice abstract theory into a vivid personal experience, >to give it the sharp edge of real practice? What you're looking for is a >high ratio of awareness to consumption. Killing it oneself is of course >the best, but no one wants to do that anymore. When the native peoples went to kill an animal, there was an honoring of the animal's spirit and an asking for forgiveness by the hunter. The hunter accepted the responsibility for the death deed and understood what was to happen. Ther was recognition of life. There was honor in that. There is no honor in the civilized methods of placing meat on the table, and here I will generalize when I say that there is no honor either in the modern hunter. >Try this: go visit a factory farm or slaughter house; wherever you live >there's one nearby. This is not a nutty thing to do. Yes...I challenge all out there to visit a modern slaughter house. See not only the unhonorable carnage of the animals and their terror when they smell the death all around them; but witness also the carnage of the human spirit in those who work there in the death factories. No honor....only money. >You just want to >have a look at the animals on our society's farm, like in those Little >Golden Books from the fifties, when the city boy goes out to the country to >see where all those hams and apples come from. This is a charming story we >all remember, with red barns, grandpas with pipes, autumn foliage, and >friendly animals. Has it gotten so bad no one is allowed to even look >anymore? All the more reason to go there yourself in person. Be wary of >trespassing charges, but be sure to meet your animal products face to face. No, the Little Golden Book grandfather's farm does not exist anymore, if it ever did. For even those pastoral, picturesque, farms were to provide "meat and potatoes" for the city folks. The new factory farm is not any different in purpose, only more efficient. >Talk to the animals in their cages. Hear their cries. Honor them; they >greatly deserve it. Pray with them, for their lives, for your own life. >They are dying so that we may live, suffering so that we may enjoy. What >can we do with our lives to redeem this? All the buddhas will help us >investigate this difficult situation. Honor not only the animals in their cages, but all the four leggeds and winged ones, both domestic and wild for they are all under pressure from the greed and need of the two leggeds. The next time you sit down to your steak or pork chop, remember from where it came and the price paid in suffering to get it in front of you. Do I eat meat.....yes, in moderation and awareness. Great input of ideas from so may spectrums. I wish that I had the time to read them all and reply to more. I do tend to steer away from the high end intellectual debate areas. Beast to all....Ed From elehner @ iastate.edu Fri Nov 22 14:24:53 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 03:26:18 -0600 From: Ed Lehner Subject: Last midwest greetings Grey again today. No sun now since Sunday. Ice storm Wednesday night. Drove home to my place ten miles north of Ames on an "ice rink" caliber road with a wretched east wind that kept blowing me to the left side......slow driving. Another winter storm of ice and snow predicted for tonight and tomorrow. We here in Iowa think that this kind of weather builds character. A questionable assumption. But even the grey days carry their own intrinsic beauty. Another thing we learn in Iowa is to appreciate the subtle beauty of the land and sky and weather. This has been a great week with this seminar. Totally enjoyable. My thanks to my good friend John and his support team. Bless you all and happy solstice. Late November rain Underfoot ice. Stone quiet. No cricket sound. Ed From amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Fri Nov 22 14:55:53 1996 Subject: Re: From the Book NONDUAL ECOLOGY: Economics of Ecology, and the Issue of Control In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 22 Nov 96 12:13:19." Date: Fri, 22 Nov 96 13:56:11 -0800 From: Alan McGowen > >This is the way evolutionary biologists monitor negentropic > >activity. > > OK, I've been out of school for a long time and operate on possibly > outmoded terms, and maybe this is a minor point and/or side issue > anyway. But is "negentropy" for real? Doesn't the "goes into" > still gots to "goes outta?" Do free lunches happen in evolutionary > biology but nowhere else?? > > --John Wall You are right, this is fluff. There are no free lunches in evolutionary biology. Biological systems are dissipative systems (sensu Ilya Prigogine) -- they maintain order by dissipating entropy to other systems or other hierarchical ecosystem levels. Eventually this entropy is dissipated to space as waste heat. Dissipative systems have an organizational integrity that is scale dependent, i.e. there is a maximum energy flux and maximum amount of disturbance (power fluctuation) they can withstand without loss of integrity. For ecosystems, the maximum amount of disturbance is called the "resilience" [Hollings] (some call it "resistance" [Pimm]). The resilience of ecosystems is supported by biological diversity. Ecosystems are always facing disturbances, whether natural or anthropogenic, and their ability to provide essential life-support services *sustainably* depends on maintaining resilience. So these life support services depend on biodiversity. See: Brooks, D. R. and Wiley, E. O. 1988. Evolution as Entropy: Toward a Unified Theory of Biology. University of Chicago. O'Neill, R. V., D. L. DeAngelis, J. B. Waide and T. F. H. Allen. 1986. A Hierarchical Concept of Ecosystems. Monographs in Population Biology 23. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey, Alan McGowen From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Fri Nov 22 15:21:37 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 17:26:15 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: From the Book NONDUAL ECOLOGY: Economics of Ecology, and the Issue of Control References: John: i must say that i agree with a couple of other posters in that it would be a totally different seminar if we weren't tied to the holy cow of buddhism. Everything you say is tied back into a buddhist understanding or one sort of buddhist understanding based on the void as the defining criteria. Hell man maybe thats all it is -- a void, done, nada, caput, finished!! So, if that is the case then here we stand in the present and anything we do is what will be done. No more, no less. Soooooo, from this perspective, this is/maybe all we've got and as an offspring of this great mother, along with all my relations, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to take better care of her, considering this is it (maybe we should be dancing a few more ceremonials at least that way we would feel like we were alive and meant something in this grand expanse). And maybe the holy concept you keep bantering about -- evolution -- is just that, a concept, made by humans to hang their hat on. It makes us feel better when things go bump in the night -- sort of like relying on the soft edges of the great void to remove any of the hard knocks of taking responsibility for the present. Or it gives us a feeling of order at least, it makes us feel better. It has a nice linearity to it as well -- fits nicely with your notion of moving in some sort of direction wherein the "techno dudes" take over. Maybe all there is is right now and when you die thats it, no dharma, no reicarnation, just gone! And maybe we, as Dubos says, are organic outcomes of an organic event and need the organic context of the Earth to function properly, and become dysfunctional as we move farther and farther from this context. Maybe we have moved so far infact that we are starting to mistake the jargon of our cultures (like the buddhist sutras) for life -- kind of like mistaking virtual reality for reality. Hell, if there isn't anything else, maybe we need to recognize the egocentricity of ecocentricity -- we are what is and if who we are depends on the eco context of our origination then we better hope like hell people don't listen to you. Just some thoughts brought on by your piece. Green Dreams, r.c. From amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Fri Nov 22 15:43:25 1996 Subject: Re: From the Book NONDUAL ECOLOGY: Economics of Ecology, and the Issue of Control In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 22 Nov 96 17:26:15 GMT." <3295E237.30AA @ carroll1.cc.edu> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 96 14:43:44 -0800 From: Alan McGowen > And maybe the holy concept > [McClellan] keeps bantering about -- evolution -- is just that, a concept, made > by humans to hang their hat on. McClellan's "evolution" has about as much to do with real evolutionary processes as his "technozoa" have to to do with life. His entire thesis is an exercise in newspeak, in neutralizing important concepts by misapplying them; in the case of "evolution", he thinks (or wants you to think) that it means "anything that can happen". It does not. The living world around us has been shaped by *specific* ecological and evolutionary processes: nutrient cycles, hydrology, natural disturbance regimes, succession, biotic interactions such as predation, metapopulation processes, migration in response to climate change. These are the processes that matter for maintaining the Cenozoic biosphere; this is biological evolution in action, not whatever widget the ad agencies promote next week. These are the processes we need to respect and protect above all -- not the accumulation of more wealth by the wealthy, which is what McClellan's pseudoevolutionary apologetics for unsustainable society is really all about. Alan McGowen From cht01 @ health.state.ny.us Fri Nov 22 15:58:49 1996 From: cht01 @ health.state.ny.us X-From: "Charley Town" Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 05:55:23 +0000 Subject: RESONANCE OF PONDERANCE > LURKERS COME OUT! The waxing gibbeous moon is floating through Aquarius Yes! Greetings all! I have read and enjoyed all your post on this dualism/nondualism paradigm/chaos. My thoughts flow now like the Hudson river that ebbs and flows one hundred and fifty human miles north from the salt marshes of manhattan island. First the term lurker means to me as like Webster " waiting to attack". This feels to me like dualism. If not lurking does attacking continue every post thereafter. No. In my case it is not lurking rather Ponderance. was it lurking when the mystic (excuse my gibbs of memory) uttered "die like the fly". a little Ponderance leads to "crap so that the fly may live" Bhudda would understand the ponder of the bits that byte their way through cyberspace. The thought that the pygmy might think the bison were flies in his eye intrigued me. Would not the walkers of the rainforest floor know to ascend the trees like the kings "tree spotters" climbed the white pine to search the horizon for a fresh stand. did they spot the yellow green pollen mist that are spoke of in Alaska and which greeted the white sailed ships far out to sea not visible to the eyes ashore. These thoughts I ponder. Resonance. I know of Claudia. Thanks and A bow. Just regret I never post to your echo list. I am not a schooled person. I am the ponderer of the bits. My school is that of Doestovysky/ Tolstoy/ Joyce/Keraouc/Ginsberg/. Bill Gates knows only of "infinite greed" only because he never saw Francis of assisssi casting off his clothes in the courtroom with the words, "dad are you so greedy that you will take the clothes off my back?" This leads around to Rich's posting, "the sage is a fool". yes From Francis arose the Holy Fools soothsayers of orthodox Russia. No logic or reason but is there conjuration here. Perhaps logic and reason are themselves conjurations or a meme passed thru the ages. . This for me is the essence of the nondualism whether it be ecologically driven or driven by something else. That essence is the paradox inherent in everything. How can a fool be wise? With the understanding of the togetherness of the earth less worry would be necessary for the destruction of it. I read Chief Seattle's speech of linear year 1854 to refresh my thought of things dual and nondual. The cubicles are now empty of scurrying and the gentle wisp and crack of wastepaper baskets being emptied tell me my finger exercises are done for now. I thank and bow to all. esp to john for his stimulation of thought on this subject. Keep the thoughts and bits coming not like the Hudson's tidal ebb but like the snowmelt of the distant mountains and vales with its clamoring chunks of ice and fine soil from the North, East and West ready to cover the shore. Now I leave to follow the river North thinking it is too late to glimpse the bluest of blue patches seen recently surronded by the dark winter nightfall. Will the river be flowing North or South? So long and I ponder the resonance of response. Charley Town cht01 @ health.state.ny.us NYSDOH 2 University Place Albany NY 12203 Bureau TSA 518-458-6402 Phone 518-458-6402 From rlq @ ix.netcom.com Fri Nov 22 16:22:34 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 15:22:48 -0800 From: "Roselma L. Quinn" Organization: CCJS Subject: Re: Zel send this on to non-ecology References: <199611222237.PAA04979 @ chile.lascruces.com> Steve has asked me to please send this to the list. RLQuinn Stephen T. Quinn wrote: > > Relax folks. I don't know what all this fuss is about. I have the answer to > your problem. :-) You don't need Buddha, Christ, this philosophy, that > belief system, the other paradigm. Its simple. If you don't control the > massive greed that runs this country and the rest of the world you will not > have to worry about evolution, ecology, or eating meat. > If you bow down to an Anaconda earth mover on its way to rape a mountain of > its ore it will run over you and grind your body into the dirt. > The greed must be controlled by a rule of law that has very sharp teeth > because it knows no other boundaries. > If I need an operation to save my life I damn sure want the necessary > technology available and a surgeon with the technical skill to use the > technology. We can not throw technology out the window with the wash water. > The use of technology may need a little control also. > If we can make millions of people go down to DMV and buy a drivers license > we should be able to stop a corporation from laying waste to what took > nature eons to build. > If you have any more problems let me know.:-) > > Steve Quinn From itrains @ concentric.net Fri Nov 22 16:26:41 1996 by franklin.cris.com (8.7.5/(96/11/08 3.6)) [1-800-745-2747 The Concentric Network] by beasley.cris.com (8.8.3) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 15:33:55 -0700 From: gailnnadia Reply-To: itrains @ concentric.net Subject: Re: Some Deep Ecology thoughts ... Regarding your question as to why atheists work toward the future, ecology and all, perhaps they come from the purest (unencumbered) stance of doing "good" because they believe it there "moral"/ethical obligation. While writing an article this summer regarding extinction, I came across an idea which I feel is of importance to this discussion. If our lives, anyone's human life, is to have value then it would be best expressed in taking action to ensure future generations a quality of life worth living. Could this not be the highest expression of our ethics relating to this planet? Maybe that's where the atheists are. But wherever, their concern and work toward healing lives of any being is worthwhile. From rosss @ ci.boulder.co.us Fri Nov 22 16:35:42 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 16:38:18 -0700 From: Susan Ross Subject: Re: More on Bowing, Civilization & Technology -Reply Betsy, and All- I resonate, indeed. Just a quickie, as I try to read through all these posts before leaving this desk for the weekend - spent most of the day walking around on Open Space doing my work, feeling mighty blessed with in All of This. Random thoughts: Gandhi said, when asked what he thought of Western civilization: "It would be a good idea." A quick 42 words on Deep Eco: Be grateful for your birth - whomever you are. Everything changes - enjoy each moment you have to contemplate this. Act with good intent and humility - no excuses. Take on suffering, share the bliss. Perseverance furthers, as long as you're not looking for fruition. No time for more. Love to All, Susan From cfran @ micron.net Fri Nov 22 16:52:51 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 16:52:46 -0700 (MST) From: cfran @ micron.net (Chris Francovich) Subject: thinking ecology I keep telling myself that I will read all this and then I will know what to say. I am just enjoying the avalanche of feelings, thoughts, and beliefs - saving it all to look at when I am not so busy. I think ecology (deep, non-dual, enactive, etc.) is our recognition of being (finally) on the margins/borders and in the liminal space of becoming. I say we and I say finally because this seems to be the result of our collective and historical efforts at explanation and understanding. We are finally finding the words that make this all so. And now the words spread like flames. Chris Francovich Boise, Idaho in the rain (near the heater by the window) home From amcgowen @ hposl02.cup.hp.com Fri Nov 22 17:52:36 1996 Subject: Re: Zel send this on to non-ecology In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 22 Nov 96 16:00:46 MST." <3296309E.1E4B @ concentric.net> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 96 16:52:55 -0800 From: Alan McGowen Steve Quinn wrote: > The greed must be controlled by a rule of law that has very sharp teeth > because it knows no other boundaries. > ... > If we can make millions of people go down to DMV and buy a drivers license > we should be able to stop a corporation from laying waste to what took > nature eons to build. Gail Rains responded: > Greetings from Sacramento and Steve, aren't you being just a little > simplistic? Greed. That's it? Stopping greed is the answer to every > problem to every experience of suffering on this planet? I agree to > some extent in that so frequently, issues do condense/boil down to > economics. But I hardly think that global economic collapse is the > answer. I didn't hear a call for "global economic collapse" in Steve Quinn's post. I heard a call for biologically sustainable limits on extraction of resources, so that potentially renewable natural capital that nature took eons to build is not gobbled up nonrenewably by the wealthy nations in one generation. Such unsustainable resource use is what risks global economic collapse! Ecological economists speak of the "ecological footprint" of an economy, how much of the world's biological resource base (habitat area, fresh water, photosynthetic production, etc) economic activities appropriate. A sustainable ecological footprint, one that maintains biodiversity and biological integrity, is an eminently reasonable limit to resource extraction. See Rees W. E. and M. Wackernagel. 1994. Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: measuring the natural capital requirements of the human economy. pp. 362-389 in: A. M. Jansson, M. Hammer, C. Folke, and R. Costanza (eds). Investing in natural capital: the ecological economics approach to sustainability. Island press, Washington DC. Alan McGowen From bbarnum @ polaristel.net Fri Nov 22 18:13:17 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 19:14:23 -0600 From: bbarnum @ polaristel.net (Betsy Barnum) Subject: deep ecology writing The deep ecology of mosquitos The deeper I get into deep ecology, the more I think twice about killing anything, even pesky insects like mosquitos. I think twice, but I do kill mosquitos, especially when they buzz in my ears. And I kill ants in my kitchen if they don't leave voluntarily, and also flies--though if a bee gets in, I try to capture it and release it outside. However, I do not believe it is wrong to protect oneself and one's family, including garden and nurtured plants, from insect pests--but there are ways to do that short of hauling out the heavy artillery of toxic sprays and repellents. Killing grasshoppers that are making a lunch out of one's green beans is a much better way of dealing with them than spraying them to Kingdom Come, and any organic gardener knows how often one has to pick worms, aphids, beetles and other crop-destroying bugs off the plants, one by one (that is, if one wants to have crops). Sometimes, I almost blush to admit (as a deep ecologist, I mean), I experience upwellings of glee at snagging nasty little potato bugs and crushing them underfoot, or slicing tiny cutworms in half before they've had a chance to girdle my tomato plants. I haven't forgotten the year I loosed my housecat on the garden, hoping he would kill a rabbit or two after they nibbled *all* my broccoli seedlings *right* down to the soil. (Of course, he never caught any.) The pathological fear of being bitten even once by a bug, or letting a single one munch a leaf of one's garden, and using barrages of toxic chemicals to prevent it, is a sign of how far we've come from feeling ourselves part of the natural world, and even bespeaks something akin to the repression of the shadow side of human nature--the idea that we can, by force if necessary, maintain the fiction that we are not subject to nature, that we are not both predator and prey and are outside of the endless cycle of birth-death-rebirth. Take, once again, the mosquito, to whom we are prey. Here in Minnesota, we have a lot of them in summer. People spend tremendous amounts of money on insect sprays, some of them highly toxic and much more harmful to the human being than a bug bite. They slather these on their tiny children, to prevent even one mosquito bite. This complete lack of acquiescence in our position as prey for the mosquito reveals a profound and pitiful lack of awareness of our place in the biosphere, as well as a sad lack of appreciation for the simple but exquisite way in which we and the mosquito have co-evolved: When one lets a couple of mosquitos bite, the bites itch like crazy for a while, but right away, the body begins to make antibodies to the venom. Later bites don't itch nearly as much, if one allows the first few. Insistence that we can arrange our lives so we needn't be bothered ever again by insects denies our embeddedness in the same world they are in and denies the basic commonalities we have with them--yes, even with mosquitos we share much. There are a lot of them, and they are very small and quite pestiferous, but they are made of the same stuff we are, by the same force, and they have as much desire to live and fulfill their own natures as we do. Betsy Barnum From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Fri Nov 22 18:41:02 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 18:41:01 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: Trouble in Paradise:SyzthemmmKraschzctds%##!??+==... Dear Friends This afternoon I suffered a horrible system crash, and lost access to everything on my regular machine for weeks! i am now limping along on an old rig I've never used this way. It's like coming home from a WWII bombing run all shot up, but still flying, sort of. It'll take weeks! or at least many days to repair this damage. This will encourage the luddite nature that lurks just beneath my polished nondual-techo surface. I share this techno disaster with you all, as I assume each one of you is delicately balanced on the tippy-top of a fragile cybernetic stack of bits and bytes, and are experienced in these kinds of disasters. I can still read the discussion, and post to it, so here we go... My friend Terry Noyes writes, Subject: Bowing and Wowing {He subbed himself to the list, then unplugged his modem from the wall in fright after the downloading had gone on continuously for a half hour or so. He says:} I cut out just after the machine had down-loaded your message to the universe, which doesn't seem so unified in terms of verse as you might wish, but so what else is new? I thought your note was pretty good, still havent read the article yet because i dont dare hook on because i don't know if i can get aloose again. i didnt know you lost the big old trees (i didn't know there were big old trees up there) but you know they will be back, maybe not tomorrow but eventually, for sure. Like us and everything else, they can't help it. But really Johnnie, the smiling stone(d) Buddha, the tipi and all, these people are either going to invade and never go away or they are going to creep up and slit your throat or they are going to think you are actually living in a high-rise apartment somewhere like detroit and a complete fruitcake, which they may be right about. You are certainly heavy enough... Well terry is right of course. I shouldnUt open things up so careless and free the way I do. IUm sure many people would prefer a more restrained, careful discussion of the fine points of deep ecology theory. IUm just trying to spark up a little interest, get a game going.... Sometimes in this discussion I feel like a coyote who leads the dogs off the farm into the woods, running ahead, making provocative remarks in coyote body language, all the dogs after him. EveryoneUs having a good time chasing him, and heUs enjoying it too, because meanwhile back at the farm his wife is stealing chickens and killing calves. But itUs a little bit lonely work. Sometimes I wish I were more of a kind and gentle presence in the discussion, like so many of the wonderful people in this seminar. Thoughtful, warm and personal. We all would be friendly dogs together, lying around the farmyard in the sunshine, enjoying the same View of things. But here we are, tearing across the cognitive landscape of deep ecology, half the hounds in the deep eek neighborhood after me. -- Last night I posted a message, How Shall We Live?, that tiptoed up to the very edge of personal religious experience, and peeked over. How shall we live? In a sacred way. I donUt want to take this any further without some strong support and encouragement to do so, which I havnUt yet heard, so weUll leave things there for the time being. I am planning to post two more selections from the book version of Nondual Ecology, one on How Shall We Live, the other on Observing Natural Boundaries. I feel an enormous sympathy for the 100 word statement made by Yves Bajard, on the Deepest Ecology. ItUs at the top of the list in this morningUs Latest Results. Hells Bells, I canUt find it on this quaint and rickety system IUm on now, otherwise IUd quote it again. Surely you all have noticed it by now. Indian people call this, Staying Home. Deep Ecologiests call it Reinhabiting OneUs Lansdcape. I hope our discussion leads us in the direction of these two kinds of understanding. Authentic and direct personal experience of this world, leading to trying to Walk through the world in a sacred manner, and understanding more about observing Natural Boundaries, i. e. Staying Home. I think I better post this before something else crashes. I bow deeply to the shining hearts who have joined me in this fragile noosphere. John McClellan From rtree @ stout.entertain.com Fri Nov 22 21:57:43 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 21:57:48 -0700 From: rtree @ stout.entertain.com (Bruce Nygren) Subject: Re: More on Bowing, Civilization & Technology > BTW, why, given all the nastiness that civilization adds on top of >the pre-existing nastiness that is part of the human condition, is "Being >Civilized" considered to be a compliment rather than an insult? I >suspect that the answer is that we institutionalize the rules of *our* >civlization, and come to see them as 'right' and 'normal'. So when >someone says "Be Civilized", he or she means "follow the rules of *my* >civilization, that I am comfortable with". > >Virtually, >Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW A good question. One that Daniel Quinn, in his book, "Ishmael," eloquently attempts to answer when he talks about Mother Culture whispering self-congratulatory messages in our ears. I'm surprised that we haven't heard more in this discussion from "ishmael." It is one of the most accessible expositions of Deep Ecology around. When I read it a few years ago, it gave me an entirely new way of looking at problems which had plagued me for a long time. Quinn's explanation of the creation of the Garden of Eden myth and the Fall in especially adroit. Highly recommended to those of you who haven't yet encountered it. -Bruce Nygren ________________________________ Bruce Nygren 1515 Redwood Avenue Boulder, CO 80304 ________________________________ From J2Callie @ aol.com Fri Nov 22 22:03:45 1996 From: J2Callie @ aol.com Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 00:03:41 -0500 Subject: Re: So How Do We LIVE? In a message dated 96-11-22 01:12:24 EST, you write: << This afternoon I felt adled and anxious. I worried what to say to all these fine people who have gathered around this cyberplace like a cloud of spirits. All sincere, wanting to understand the world we live in, wanting to live in it well. What can I say to these good souls, now that I have caught their attention with my provcative and unsettling article? How can I resettle this energy, bring it to rest, soothe and resolve it?>> << Probably I shouldn't even post this message. Definitely in fact I probably shouldn't. John, Glad you did. It's just that late night awe facing the immenseness. Easy to be discouraged we're such a mote. But we're all motes together and it's good to know that. I'm sorry you've felt at any point that it was up to you to have the answers just because instigated the discussion. No one has the answer and each one has to find the answer. Asking is important. Callie From MoCtrLite @ aol.com Fri Nov 22 23:08:31 1996 From: MoCtrLite @ aol.com Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 01:08:25 -0500 Subject: PERFECTION Of all the obstacles on the path to spiritual growth, the greatest is perfection. May we all learn to embrace the flaws within ourselves - only then can the real work of healing find its true beginning. John Pokorny MoCtrLite "I stopped hating the world when I started loving myself." From jrmiln @ globalnet.co.uk Sat Nov 23 06:52:43 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 13:56:07 GMT From: Joseph Milne Subject: Re: SOME PROBLEMS TO ADDRES At 23:08 22/11/96 -0600, you wrote: >Joseph, >Sorry to have to disagree here. You said. > >>2. A second major difficulty lies in the language used in discussing >>ecology. There is a great deal of metaphorical language - of describing >>one thing in terms of another. This always confuses rather than clarifies. >>Also it conceals ideologies and hidden agendas. I mentioned in a previous >>post the distortions caused by the use of the word 'humans' for man. To >>deprive man of his personal name is to alienate him from himself. We are >>all human, but our collective name is Man. To say 'I am man' is to speak >>responsibly in my own person. To say 'I am a human' to speak about myself >>from outside. It is to avoid saying 'I am man'. >Betsy > > Dear Betsy, The word 'man' is generic and not gender specific. We all know perfectly well that this is so. Also the convention of using 'he' or 'him' when speaking generally is commonly known to be non-gender specific. It is the assumption or accusation that the speaker is being sexist (an absurd word because the suffix 'ist' is being called to play a perjorative function) is a projection onto the speaker that distorts the speakers intended meaning. The word 'man' refers to the whole human race and always has done in its varients from each language. It refers to 'who' we are, while the term 'humans' refers only to 'what' we are. I do not know why there is no longer this understanding of grammar. I use the word 'man' always because I respect all human beings according to their inner being and not because of gender. I see no reason to reduce my respect merely to gender differences. I thought I had made it quite plain that I had no intention to offend. The very opposite was my intention. My concern was with the language used generally in ecology and the suggestion that it ought not to be loaded with terms with various ideological agendas. On another note, I agree with your post commenting on John's somewhat extreme suggestions. I am sure we all acknowledge his good intentions, but there comes a point when our ideals trespass beyond reality, or at least beyond reality open to our general human understanding or perception. I am sure that we are completely together in believing that a true or meaningful exposition of ecology must be open to common recognition and understanding. The tendency to create its own 'insider' language ends up doing the opposite. As I have indicated in my previous posts, I am concerned that ecology is trying to form a world-view with a very limited anthropology. In part this is because my field is philosophical and theological anthropology and I see a great deal of ecological thinking reduces the human species to that of its biological functions and so excludes study of the social, cultural and ontological aspects, which are the distinguishing features of humanity. Even your concern over gender lies here, not at the biological level. Also the general problem of ethics lies here and not at the biological level. You will have observed that there have even been posts that argue that society or civilization are unnatural or evil. It is this divisivness that concerns me and even seriously worries me. It is a common feature of all destructive ideologies to reduce humanity to some single feature or aspect. My concern in ecology is to try to understand the relation of human society to nature generally. This means that society itself must be understaood as a living organism and part of the wider ecosystem. But it also means that a general overview of the ecosystem has to include the various biolological, psychic and pneumatic levels of being. So, in the spirit of all-inclusiveness I am with you and wholly respect your view. Joseph From jrmiln @ globalnet.co.uk Sat Nov 23 06:52:46 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 13:56:20 GMT From: Joseph Milne Subject: Re: rainmaking and boat house fires At 21:10 22/11/96 +0000, David Lachapelle wrote: >I would like to take exception to Joseph Milne who sounds the alarm at >metaphor... that they hide hidden agendas and obscurate discussion. >They may at times do this... but I think they are necessary as ways to >link our triune brain functions together. The reptile and the mammal >and the neocortex have different symbol systems and need to be fed >simultaneously or else they get real cranky. (try teaching philosophy to >teenagers without a metaphor some time if you want to see cranky!)They >are the keys to unlocking understanding which is not processed >sequentially and involves radical figure ground shifts... your basic aha >experiences. >In my experience a good metaphor slips past the defense structure of >our conscious mind and weaves a basket of understanding which we can >call the doorway to our soul... >Metaphor is the only way I think I could possibly approach the absolute >and survive to tell the story... >I would suggest a rigorous stroll down the path of Rumi and other Sufi >poets if you want to come to appreciate the power of metaphor to >instruct and soothe the heart. >In the face of technology, which achieves its power based on predictable >outcomes, metaphor is the savior our humanness, the flower of our >ability to transcend the obvious and arrive at solutions to dilemmas >which seem without cure. > Dear David Lachapelle, Thank you for your comment. I see your point and can only agree. I see now that I chose the wrong word when I said metaphor. What I was trying to get at (at 4 in the morning!) was the tendency to redescribe things in term of other things. For example to describe society in terms of a technology. I think the word I should have used was 'analogy'. But there comes a point where it is forgotten that an analogy has been called upon and we then think we are talking of something in exact language. What we name things embodies our mode of understanding them. An analogy conceals as well as reveals things. For example i have heard many people talk of thought as 'just firing neurons'. Such an analogy may tell us something quite true about the brain, but the analogy also ends up concealing what the activity of thought is in direct experience. Do neurons really 'fire'? I do not think so. A lot is in the word 'just', and it is this word that conceals in that analogy. So it is the danger of reductive descriptions that I was concerned with, not metaphore. At the same time I doubt if the natural sciences ought to use metaphors at all. This conceals their empirical basis. An example is 'the singularity' when speaking of the 'big bang'. Neither 'big bang' nor 'singularity' really describe anything acurately. I have spoken with scientists about this and have been told that the word 'singularity' was sellected to give an impressive term for an unknown factor and that it does not actually indicate anything at all. It is a cover-up word. The problem now is that, because that unknown something has been given a name, we are led to think that there is in a fact a singularity and so lay people end up speaking of scientific knowledge of the singularity. So we imagin we know of something when we do not. But you are quite right to defend all the different modalities of language and communication and I am sorry if I gave the impression I was attacking them. With all good wishes, Joseph Milne From mauriceg @ mauriceg.demon.co.uk Sat Nov 23 07:54:17 1996 id aa500216; 23 Nov 96 13:20 GMT Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 13:19:02 +0000 From: Maurice George Subject: A Short Comment In-Reply-To: <199611171736.KAA01007 @ csf.Colorado.EDU> Whether machines become sentient or not, the Dharma will continue so long as sentient beings on this or any world devote themselves to it. Well, someone has to state the obvious ... Maurice George From "cleef @ well.com" @ well.com Sat Nov 23 08:45:23 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 07:48:17 -0800 From: Cheryl Foltos <"cleef @ well.com" @ well.com> Subject: Language and Half the World YIPES! Last night I dreamt about a tipi - first time in my life I think. Truly enjoyed David Lachapelle and John Milne's recent exchange concerning language - I'm glad language has ome up for a closer look in this conference - I think Milne's comments were right on in this case. However, I don't always ...Joseph, in your reply to Betsy Barnum you wrote, " using "he" or "him" when speaking generaly is commonly known to be non-gender specific." I have to ask - by whom? In my own life experience, I never realized how much I discounted the female perspective and devalued by own ability as a female to contribute to the work around me until I started hearing the word "she" be introduced more and more frequently into normal discourse. In fact, just hearing the word occasionally jolted me. SHE?? I am a she. SHE??? Please don't dismiss (as I think you don't) how powerful language - or a single word - can be in lulling us to sleep and keeping us blind to whole realms of experience. I've talked with other women about this experience and heard quite often how much this slight shift in language usage helped them also to begin to see how much the common use of "he" or "him" had helped create a world that discounted (or ignored completely - just look at written hstory) their participation. All the best, Cheryl From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Sat Nov 23 09:24:37 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 11:29:20 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: Responsibility for technology References: <1.5.4.32.19961123005108.00688934 @ asis.com> Seems to me you are doing just what needs to be done right now -- trying to live in an alternative fashion to the macro-industrial complex. The next step is to pass the idea along. Not necessarily what you are doing but that something can be done. Vol. at some local schools to talk to students to let them know there other olternatives to comsumerism. Green dreams r.c. From cclash @ web.net Sat Nov 23 09:49:12 1996 via send-mail with stdio id for NonDual-Ecology @ csf.colorado.edu; Sat, 23 Nov 96 11:51:04 -0500 (EST) (/\##/\ Smail3.1.30.12.0 #30.1 built 5-jul-95) Date: Sat, 23 Nov 96 11:51:04 -0500 (EST) From: cclash @ web.net (Jocelyn J. Paquette Bob Ewing) Subject: Re: So How DO We Live? I attempt to live by a simple, yet, challenging, way: Do what you want and harm nothing. This requires me to question everything which requires paying attention to even the smallest of my actions; this mindfulness enables me to honour the black fly even as I kill it. Here in Thunder Bay, the sun is strong and brillant today; the harbour is beginning to freeze but it will take several weeks before the ice is too thick for ships to navigate. The black fly is our spring summer nemesis; not so bad in town but step into the bush in June and understand the concept of swarming; walk further in and the no-see-ums wait. There are ways to reduce the need/desire to kill the attackers, chamomile tea used as a lotion repeals them for a short time. Staying out of the bush in June also helps. Bob Ewing cclash @ web.net From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sat Nov 23 10:33:02 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 10:32:59 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: On Communication Dear Joseph, I hope you don't mind if I post this brief exhange to the group.Thanks, John Dear John, Thank you for your kind words. I will read your closing statement with care and offer what I can. I do hope that my comments have not seemed too critical. They have been written entirely in the spirit of trying to understand and see more clearly. I do not think it matters that the discussion has been a little chaotic. The fact that we are all talking together is itself a monumental achievement and I am sure every one of us has learned something through it. We have all learned something from others and also perhaps become aware of the limits of our own understanding. I believe very deeply that it is when we struggle at our own limits that real work is being done and new insight is then possible. Somehow we all know the complete unity of everything in the depths of our being, but the work is to bring this to conscious perception and understanding. With warmest wishes, Joseph At 00:28 23/11/96 -0700, you wrote: >Dear Joseph: Your letter this evening struck a note, which you have >sounded before, of gentleness, precision, and clarity, which I realized >has been missing, amid all the excitment, from my own communications. This >led me to consider the seminar as a whole, now that we are coming near the >end, and to wonder whether I have succeeded in sharing my thoughts >skillfully with these many sensitive, thoughtful people. > >so then I wrote the Author's Closing Statement, posted a few minutes ago, >to try to fill in some of the areas of weakness I think I see in my >handling of this seminar. >So thank you, and I would be interested in your comments on this statement >if you have time before we close on Sunday evening. >Sincerely, John From baranowski @ earthlink.net Sat Nov 23 10:57:42 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 09:56:17 -0800 (PST) From: Connie Baranowski Subject: Dancing with the earth Greetings to all: The great Charan Singh-ji taught his followers to live fully in this realm of duality (for that it is and will always be), but to work on the inside to achieve consciousness of nonduality through meditation and "right living" (which includes fulfilling ones responsibilities lovingly and abiding by the laws of the land in which one resides). To become too immersed in trying to figure it all out intellectually is to become trapped by the very duality we are trying to transcend. Thought, emotions...part of the duality. Do I understand this? Not fully, probably not even fractionally. I will continue to try. Radha Soami Connie Powers Baranowski Geology Dept., MSE Div. Saddleback College From ygarcia @ zephyr.net Sat Nov 23 11:08:34 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 10:08:30 -0800 (PST) From: ygarcia @ zephyr.net (Yvonne Garcia) Subject: Re: Lurkers Come Out, Tired Subbers Go Free! Delurking myself, with John's nudging... Given that I have no background knowledge of Deep Ecology and a very limited one on Buddhism, John's article and most of the discussion this week has been like a tsunami pounding at my brain and heart. Most of the postings I have saved for furthur contemplating,questions, incorporating. I spend most of my time working with computers: troubleshooting, teaching, maintaining, and (my favorite) creating. I see technology as a tool that allows me to accomplish things that perhpas I couldn't do without it, or couldn't do as well (like drawing a picture). Like any tool, it also changes the paradigm that I view the world through, the same way that a person's paradigm is shifted as they view the world from the position of a bicycyle seat as opposed to driving a car. I'm also in the position of trying (for the umpteeth time) to get a college degree, majoring in some form of yet undecided environmental studies. So, the key for me is balance. At what point do I need to stop working on my computer, or studying and go out for a walk to reconnect? When I forget why I'm doing the first two. This discussion has given me a glimpse at the questions I have not asked myself and at the things I did not know that I did not know.I cannot even begin to answer the questions raised here in the terms of a global community, my country, my state, my gender, my race...only in the terms of who I am as I sit at this keyboard trying to get the thoughts in my head formulated enough to begin to understand. At this point in my life, my only contribution to this process must be a thank you to everyone who has allowed me to glimpse into their thoughts, their worlds, their views. And an offering of someone else's words: Here, root yourselves beside me. I am the Tree planted by the River, Which will not be moved, I, the Rock, I, the River, I, the Tree I am yours--your passsages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. -Maya Angelou, On the Pulse of Morning. From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sat Nov 23 11:11:03 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 11:11:01 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: Re: AUTHOR'S CLOSING STATEMENT In-Reply-To: <3296E993.DF5 @ carroll1.cc.edu> Good point Rich. There are many, very many places to be at in relation to these things, though some I think come closer to the center than others. I don't feel I'm trying to bring people to my own present (tentative, always evolving) way of seeing things, but I do want to feel that they can see what it is I am trying to say, or point in the direction of. That's more my feeling in the words I used here. And I don't quite feel that this view or outlook *has* been communicated all that clearly. At least I can imagine doing it better. Not that I then want everyone to adopt this nondual view as their own, but just at least to see what it is. John McClellan On Sat, 23 Nov 1996, Rich Coon wrote: > John: > i don't agree with your presentation of our not being at the same > place as you. It may not be that we haven't arrived at this place -- > it may be that atleast some of us have been there and have chosen not > to remain there. There is once again a tinge of arrogance in this > sort of statement, or if not arrogance, then at the minimum a > fundamentalist sort of zealotry as if you are sure you have found that > point to which all will finally gravitate once they actually > understand what is the REAL TRUTH. i must say that this does scare me > a bit about your approach. When i do workshops on shamanic practice i > always tell people that if the noises i make don't work for you (don't > resonate) make some to your self that do. Its not so much what i say > as what i do. i try to give them their truth, because i, unlike you, > am not sure there is only one way. > > By the way, in these last few posts i'm not trying to be a jerk and > i'm not mad or bummed out with you, i'm just telling it like it is > from my perspective. I've enjoyed this conf. more than anything i've > done for a long time. The posts from all of you have been very > instructive in many ways. > ************************************************ From pbunch @ crash.cts.com Sat Nov 23 11:41:00 1996 From: "Philip M. Bunch" Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 22:18:32 Subject: Sorcerer's Apprentice and Ox Herder > We humans like to think of technology as our toy, our plaything. We > assume we have complete control over it, and argue among ourselves how > best > to use it. We don't realize that we are the sorcerer's apprentice, and > this > Toy has slipped out of our control, and now rules the planet. *We* have > become *its* plaything. I must repeat that technology is a tool we create. As such it is an extension of self. When we bow to technology, we bow to self and the fruit of our actions. (When bowing is recognition this is a wonderful thing!) There is currently no way that our tools can function outside our will. In fact we have to expend a lot of time and energy just keeping the vast majority of our technologies functional. Fixing potholes is one of governments most politically important tasks. If we lack control over technology it is a sign that we lack control of self. The sorcerer's apprentice is the classic tale of willfulness and ignorance. So whats new? The vast effect of our actions on the "natural world" is a matter of scale. There are a lot of us now. Would someone supporting the position that technology has "slipped out of control and now rules the planet" please explain just what they mean by this? If you decide to respond to this please explain how technology is anything but a manifestation of self. >From the Ox Herding Pictures: He must hold the nose-rope tight and not allow the Ox to roam, Lest off to muddy haunts it should stray. Properly tended, it becomes clean and gentle. Untethered, it willingly follows its master. "The state of delusion does not originate in the objective world but in our own minds." Argggh... language is such a slimy thing. Phil Bunch From rc36 @ unix1.ccac.edu Sat Nov 23 12:18:00 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 14:21:38 -0500 (EST) From: RClark Subject: OPENING & CLOSING STATEMENTS Greetings ONE and ALL I have been overloaded with the sheer bulk of ideas flooding into my emailbox/mind. I see that I will not finish reading them much less have time to integrate them before the lifeline. I am again left with describing the lights or sidelights that the ones I have read have sparked up. I also have found very charming the various weather descriptions, quotes, jokes, poems and other delights that were unexpected joys along the trod. Here is my attempt at reciprosity. =20 I am called Robert Clark, have 40 years, two years ago crushed and nearly killed in a motor vehicle accident and disabled which has put me on the trod of returning to school for pre-med, this is my first semester. It is not a good time to be ill in Amerika. The healthcare industry is just that and has very little in the way of caring in it. I am making lemonaid from the lemons of my experiences there and look forward in the next millenium offering Alternative(low tech.) choices to folks in need and helping to alleviate some of the suffering that I know only too well. Every thing happens for a reason. I write to ya'll from Pittsburgh, PA "City of Bridges" formerly a big steel producer and major polluter. Not that many years ago PGH was described as 'hell with the lid off' -black, sooty smoke and belching fire. The steel industry is now largely dead and gone elsewhere. My drive to the college here goes by a coke(derivitive of coal not Kola) plant that is still operational and belches out huge plumes of acid steam and sulphury smells. They have painted on the side of the tallest building the slogan: CITE an acridnym for "_C_ontinuous _I_mprovement _T_o the _E_nvironment", must be some kind of gag. Yet as I drive by with my car windows tightly shut against the stink I often find the plumes of smog from the smokestacks and the fog, from the thermal pollution, hugging the river Monongahela an awefull and beautifull sight.=20 =20 The weather has been colder than normal with frost rimeing the stalks of frost killed tobacco plants in the garden. They were lovely and fragrant with the scent of Jasmine what seems to be last week altho I know it was more like a month. I echo the sadness of other respondents in this drawing back of the ocean of plant life that will swell and crash again next year. The plant allies are such a comfort and blessing when in full swing, I feel a loss at their dormancy or demise. Stil I will have a few in pots indoors to keep company with. The potted ones are getting a sunbreak now that we are into Papoose summer today(the summer that follows Squaw summer, that follows Indian summer) no frost is reported for this strong front, anyway(I hope the weather folks don't change their minds, again). =20 Onward and upward with my give on the uptake:=20 =20 On "perfection", to say that all is infinite perfection does not make the word perfection dilute or meaningless rather makes _what is_ meaning *full*. =20 On all this talk of fighting and bowing to the _enemy_ and all, This is only one of many ways to respond to threat. I often shudder when I hear about the "War" on: Some Drugs; Cancer; Poverty; AIDS; Crime, and so on. As if fighting the good fight, and resistance to what is, is the only way that social ills will be balanced. There must be more elegant ways of approaching and bowing or honoring *what is* than this. Here are three ways that I often see ones responding to threat 1) All out war, no holds barred, no quarter asked for and none taken. Drawing a line in the sand and then attacking what is on the other side before the opposing force can. Known as defending ones borders by extending them to the other sides opposite border. 2) Protection/Saving drawing a circle in the sand and defending all that one sees as belonging and connected to the enclosed group. And 3) Accepting, embracing, entering into and becoming the opposing force so that there is no conflict. Drawing that line in the sand and whatever crosses it is now on the same side. A one can only steer the horse when astride the horse and going in the same direction.=20 On requests for jokes, here is my favorite cosmic one:=20 What is the difference between the Optimist and the Pessimist? The Optimist thinks that this is 'the best of all possible= worlds'... The Pessimist agrees. The Optimist is facing the light and sees no shadow and Pessimist is facing away from the light and see nothing but shadow. I would dearly love to thank and praise you all individually and will need to settle for collectively. Especially where the love road of communication ala J.Krishnamurti has been open and paved with gold and also where definition of terms was included as this is essential to knowing that we are speaking to the same thing(check J.MILNE 11/21/96 2:20pm Re: More on Bowing... for excellent example of what I mean). If I have been unclear or have made references with which you are unfamiliar feel free to contact me by email rc36 @ unix1.ccac.edu and I will respond as soon as possible or= sooner. 1 LOVE R =20 1LOVER From perychut @ open.org Sat Nov 23 12:48:29 1996 id sma028510; Sat Nov 23 11:34:34 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 11:23:49 -0800 From: The Perry - Chute Household Subject: One lurker's view OK You talked me into it. Like some Klingon Ship removing its cloaking device . I de-lurk. And so I remove the veil, and "Ta-da". Here I am. Peek-a boo! Surprise! I was here all the time! Or was I? Here in Salem Oregon, its cold, cloudy but no rain, for a while. The ground is soggy from all the recent rains. In the park, sea gulls walk through the ponds that cover the grass, poking at worms. Inside, the house is filled with the smell of steaming pumpkin. First, many thanks to everyone and especially to our fearless leader. I am left with a tremendous affection for all you deep-eekers. And to John who wonders whether you could have done better - It was perfect, and next time it'll be even better. You said: "I'm just trying to spark up a little interest, get a game going.... Sometimes in this discussion I feel like a coyote who leads the dogs off the farm into the woods, running ahead, making provocative remarks in coyote body language, all the dogs after him." You've led us all on a merry chase. An exhausting, exhilarating, dizzying, awe-ful ride which I won't soon forget. And like a kid who screams his way 'round the roller coaster, I say "Let's do it again!" (But not too soon) Second, as to all these fantastic questions, who knows? I rather like the notion of paradigms as tools. There are many possible ways of looking at things, some work better in some situations. Maybe space is curved, maybe the earth is round, but when I put up a deck in my backyard, it'll be OK to treat it as though it were flat. Maybe its like the Taoists said the ultimate truth can't be put into words. Maybe there's a Godel's Theorem for philosophical matters: There is no set of consistent first principles that will not generate false results. I find this intellectual word play to be wonderful, stimulating and perhaps important. (Isn't all play important?) But when it comes to day-to day stuff I assume that the Buddha learned something worth knowing and he showed us a path to "grok" it, for it can't be known intellectually. So I continue to sit. With respect to compassion, I note that it not a de-tached approach. (There may be something called unattached compassion - I'll have to take that on faith, too.) And it seems likely that without some voluntary changes in human behavior there is going to be some serious misery down the road. One compassionate approach would be to try to help make the path to sustainability a little smoother. I also tend to agree with the pessimistic poster who noted that the odds of a voluntary transition are not high. All we can do is try. And with the tremendous energy of this group and others like it, who knows? My only advice: we must also play. Make music! Shoot hoops! Dance! Tell jokes! Juggle! Its divine. affectionately yours -Walter From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Sat Nov 23 13:03:06 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 15:07:41 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: Sorcerer's Apprentice and Ox Herder References: Philip, i tried to speak to this the other day when i noted that it seemsed to me that it is like becoming an addict. The junkies needle is an extention of him/herself also. In many ways they are what they take/drink. Food can be/is a sacred thing but some fall to food addiction and then food isn't any longer something they use to sustain their life it becomes their life. My weight is also something that i can control most of the time but for some of us that becomes a prob. as well. Anorexia is an ex. of being lost in one's relationship to one's body or becoming addicted to mastery over one's self to the point of losing that mastery and become mastered by it. > Would someone supporting the position that technology has "slipped > out of control and now rules the planet" please explain just what they > mean by this? If you decide to respond to this please explain how > technology is anything but a manifestation of self. > Phil Bunch I wouldn't say that i think that tech. has completely slipped or grip but i would say that we are mightly in awe of its shiny glare. Its like giving a child a hammer, once they get ahold of one it just seems to them that everything needs to be hammered on. In the thinking of A. Naess the self is a relational outcome ( this would also fit well with many of us sociologists). We are or have an idea of our presence in relation to something ( i think of my "self" as a father because i relate my being to my children. without kids i'm not a father, that isn' part of my self). This is part of the prob. for me. If Dubos and others are correct ( and i think they are) and we are a fundamental expression of this organic eco. web, manifest by Earth, shaped by our rlation to it for mills. of years then our self is "probably" (i think is", but i'm trying not to be too absolute here -- i mean no one really knows) encoded with organic/nature based patterns that are not nurtured in a highly techno. envir.. The prob. here is in terms of pathology. Since we are an organic outcome of an organic event and now find ourselves in a mech/tech context my fear is that the "self" becomes dysfunctional. We begin to identify ourselves with what we are not -- as i alluded to above the master becomes mastered. Now part of the issue, which i certainly don't have figured out, is what is the correct ratio of nature (for lack of a better term) and tech.? Certainly some tech/tools is/are good but if it begins to destroy the foundation of our self (the Earth here would be understood as the most all encompassing defining relational aspect of the self) it defeats its purpose. After all, as i think you are asserting, tech is to serve us and if in our use of it we lose sight of who we are through some pathological relationship to it, i think we need to rethink that relation. Its like the person who is addicted to food. Some is good for you, too much can kill you. Green Dreams, r.c. From dlachape @ ptialaska.net Sat Nov 23 13:18:36 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 11:25:37 +0000 From: David Lachapelle Reply-To: dlachape @ ptialaska.net Subject: Re: precision and language References: <199611231356.NAA06121 @ gollum.globalnet.co.uk> Joseph... Thank you for clarifying your position in regards to language. It has helped me. I have appreciated the clarity of your thoughts and so it was a bit a bump in the road when I hit the metaphor pot hole. As the child of scientist I have a deep appreciation, (and at times even a longing for) the clarity of rigorous language. I support what you have to say about the dangers of analogy when trying to be precise about our meaning. I appreciate the call to precision... and I have to respect the fountain of my own voice which is to craft my understanding in lyricism so as to keep my heart watered as I think.... Thank you again for your contribution David From pbunch @ crash.cts.com Sat Nov 23 13:48:07 1996 From: "Philip M. Bunch" Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 00:47:23 Subject: Re: On What Do We Depend? John Mac. wrote: > However, modern civilization behaves as though healthy naural biological > systems were of little at least marginal interest. Perhaps, becuse I work in the interface between regulatory agencies and developers, I have a different view of (U.S) societies commitment to the protection of biological systems. If you ever need to get a permit (under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act) to dredge or fill a wetland in southern California you will find that this is not a marginal issue. You will mitigate at a 1:1 ratio (mimimum) and it will be expensive. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) must issue the permit. In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) will be very likely to have concerns for endangered species since our wetlands are of limited extent and several T&E's occur in local wetlands. The Corps, no pun intended, must respond to Service comments and concerns when issuing a permit. So, "imperfect" as all the actors in this drama may be, society here in the U.S. has taken on substantial powers to protect natural systems. Indeed, when the recent Congress attacked environmental protection policies it found that public interest in these issues has not disappeared. We are learning to regulate actions that adversely affect the environment. We are deeply mired in ignorance, we don't understand the things we are capable of doing and often learn our lessons to late. We are greedy and often quick to anger. If you don't belive me on this one please attend a meeting between the agencies and a developer seeking a permit! I'm monitoring several mitgation projects and some of them are doing very well. Least Bell's vireo (listed as endangered by the Service) is nesting in places that were once disturbed uplands. In southern California the State and the Service in cooperation with local government, utillites and others are developing a system of natural reserves designed to protect T&E species along with the habitats they are part of. This is a classic implementation of technology designed to ameliorate the effects of other technologies. (Others include the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act.) We are still mired in ignorance. We don't really know how large a block of habitat needs to be to maintain integrity nor do we know if the corridors that connect the core blocks will work as predicted. The political realities have forced us to impliment without full (adaquate?) understanding. This approach is better than the piecemeal preservation of "open space" that ends up fragmented and surrounded by residential development. But in the end, the blind continue out in front of the parade. The marching bands are playing the Carmina Burana, the Ode to Joy, John Philip Sousa and the Gyuto Monks are bringing up the rear. Over there at the roadside, Avalokitesvara is hearing the sounds of the world. Thank you so much for this forum, Phil Bunch From Gusdz @ aol.com Sat Nov 23 14:00:44 1996 From: Gusdz @ aol.com Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 16:00:40 -0500 Subject: Re: SOME PROBLEMS TO ADDRES Reading the discussion on words such as human and man, I thought I would add a brief observation. I am struck with the different tones involved in related words: With "man" we also have "manly." Manly carries a sense of self-sufficiency and ruggedness. With "human" we have "humane," "humanity" as in "acting with humanity." Here we have senses of caring, of kindness, of empathy. It is not the opposite of manly - the two terms are not in conflict, but one does not completely overlap the other, either. Therefore "man" carries two implications that color its generic sense. First, of course, is gender, which feminists correctly bring to our attention. The second is a style of relating with our surroundings. Similarly, when I replace "man" or "mankind" with "humankind" nuances from humane and humanity enter in. I agree with the women who argue that "man" leaves them out in some way, but I think the issue goes even deeper than that. To my mind, Aldo Leopold made a observation which has not yet been adequately appreciated much by either most deep ecologists or their detractors. Writing of human beings and passenger pigeons: "For one species to mourn another is a new thing under the sun. . . . Had the funeral been ours, the pigeons would hardly have mourned us." This "new thing" is captured in terms such as humanity and humane. It is not captured in manly. And so it is far more implicit in "human being" than in "man". Perhaps alone among all creatures we have the capacity, so little used, to care for that which is of no possible utility to us. Any word which opens us to this insight is far better a description of our kind than one which tends to close us off from it. Gus diZerega From tbm @ access.usa.net Fri Nov 22 21:07:37 1996 From: Stephen Evans Subject: Re: So How DO We Live? Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 21:07:33 -0700 (MST) In-Reply-To: from "John McClellan" at Nov 22, 96 07:50:30 pm But isn't compassion enough while bodhisattvas twist non-dual discourse in the sky I don't even know what it means delaying fullness for the sake of saving sentient beings isn't compassion enough, along with joy though emptiness engulfs the very occasion for compassion or joy and I cannot understand even the emptiness of my own heart isn't joy enough, and friendship while suchness disputes with the void over the title primordial and constancy in sickness or health, good or bad? Friendship, compassion, joy, constancy with the effort to extend them always to the next wider circle of friends. Isn't this enough? "Santipala (based on the four brahma viharas -- metta, karuna, mudita, uppekkha) From pwilloqu @ indiana.edu Sat Nov 23 14:20:26 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 16:20:16 -0500 (EST) From: paula willoquet Subject: Re: SOME PROBLEMS TO ADDRES In-Reply-To: <961123160039_2015019232 @ emout16.mail.aol.com> Gus diZerega writes: "Perhaps alone among all creatures we have the capacity, so little used, to care for that which is of no possible utility to us" And it's a good thing we do. Perhaps to counterbalance another "capacity" we have, which is to think so much in terms of the "utility" that other creatures have for us. We must develop this little used capacity to care for what has, seemingly, no utility. In fact, it is perhaps our realization that we are so dependent on the ecosystem that frightens us and drives us to pretend all is under our control. Paula. From bbarnum @ polaristel.net Sat Nov 23 20:11:58 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 21:13:18 -0600 From: bbarnum @ polaristel.net (Betsy Barnum) Subject: Re: AUTHOR'S CLOSING STATEMENT UPDATED >THE AUTHOR'S CLOSING STATEMENT My dear John, why didn't you just say it this way in the first place? ;-) Betsy p.s. The above is my 15-word response to John McClellan's "closing statement;" I have much more to say, and may not get it all into the computer tonight, Saturday. I am pondering, and will post a reply as soon as. From roper @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sat Nov 23 20:35:01 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 20:35:00 -0700 (MST) From: Don Roper Subject: Staying in Touch Dear NDE subscribers and participants, CSF has been delighted to host this conversation with John McClellan around his fascinating appeal for a NonDual Ecology. This week-long discussion has been extraordinary in a number of ways. Just from the quantitative perspective, it is extraordinary that 1. 68 different people have participated in a week 2. very few people have unsubscribed despite traffic volume which has now averaged an astonishing 41 messages/day Now -- as a way to stay in touch: CSF is developing several seminar series around our name Communications for a Sustainable Future The seminar series is called SOL for Seminars OnLine. Copies of all seminar proceedings are found at http://csf.colorado.edu/sol If you would like to be notified of future one-week seminars, please send LISTPROC @ csf.colorado.edu the 4 word command sub sol Yourfirstname Yourlastname Joining SOL means that you will receive notices of CSF seminars -- there is no other traffic on SOL. When you subscribe to a csf mailing list, you are assured that we will not relinguish your email address to commercial concerns that gather and sell internet mailing lists. I would like to thank John for all of his pre-seminar work helping to build the web page http://csf.colorado.edu/sol/nondual-ecology for the terrific energy and wisdom that he put into the discussion and for the skill with which he drew so many sentient beings (former 'lurkers' :) into the conversation. I would like to thank people from Naropa, especially Mark Wilding and Mark McCaffrey for their critical support behind the scenes as well as their online contributions. Public conversations on the internet are so infamous for flames that we start imagining that the flames must somehow be encoded in silicon chips. This group, more than any of the hundreds of computer mediated discussions that I've seen, has shown that this silicon-based technology can be experienced with warmth, love and grace. Thanks to you all, Don Roper CSF-Editor From claudir @ hubcap.clemson.edu Sat Nov 23 21:20:47 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 23:20:44 -0500 (EST) From: Claudia Robinson Subject: Re: So How Do We LIVE? Hello All, >[...] >developments and anonymous shopping complexes. Sadly, I discovered that >while I had been so busy this past week with my internal debate, the field >had been bulldozed clean of its winter foliage, the earth laid bare and the >first foundations of a new addition to the neighboring shopping complex >embedded in its surface. >[...] >The technology that this 20th Century combination of the personal and >political has produced is a tool that is used to further one vision of >personal fulfillment. Some may reconcile Deep Ecology with Modernity by >embracing technology as a new stage in the evolution of life, but in doing >so, one is also embracing a vision of fulfillment that each day reduces the >chances for fulfillment by those of us who cannot draw spiritual value from >a world of silicon and steel. This is a fundamentally political act. It >is an acceptance of the validity of the dominant ideology of fulfillment >and the relationships of power that it has established. > >Deep Ecology is deeply political because it is deeply personal. By >expanding the 'depth' of Deep Ecology to include the technology that is >being used to destroy that which provides fulfillment to those of us who >achieve it through personal experiences with the diversity of biological >life (I hesitate to use the term nature because of its undefined nature . . >. er, status), one is implicitly embracing the staus quo ideology and >allowing it to spread. Though I admit that the assumption that the >philosophy of Deep Ecology stands little chance in replacing Modernity as a >life path for the majority of the population, I want to make sure to >preserve the ability and will to fight as well as to cry and bow. > >I guess that means that I support the duality of Deep Ecology and am still >embedded in Modernity myself. But, I cannot envision my personal >fulfillment in an existence where only people and their machines (both >silicon and flesh) reside. > >I wonder where the birds will rest next year. > >Peace be with you, > Oh, David, what a beautiful message. I have found that some of my best insights come from deep within my heart, and I can tell that this message of yours comes from the deepest of places, heartfelt, where the deepest ecology resides. I too have felt the pain of a favorite spot being bulldozed, often. Now the field rests in peace in your heart, and our hearts beat together, David. Cheers, Claudia * + + + + Join ECOPSYCHOLOGY at listserv @ sjuvm.stjohns.edu + subscribe ecopsychology Firstname Lastname + "Integrating Mind and Nature" >|< >|< claudir @ hubcap.clemson.edu The Deepest Ecology: > >A sense of place, a sense of oneness, a sense of identity. Seeing and >recognizing the spirit of the wind, the secret in an infant's eyes, in a >coyote's flitting form, in the smoke and fog, clouds and sky. The air, the >water, the earth we share. If I am it and it is I, I act in >self-preservation to let it flow to me, through me, beyond me. The web, the >net of Essence. > resonance I am reminded of a story where a couple had their second child. The older, five-year-old brother, insisted on seeing his younger sibling alone, without his parents around. After much persistance, his parents consented, but couldn't resist taking a peek anyway. The boy asked his new baby sibling: "Please remind me how God looks like, because I am forgetting." Hello To Our Shadow Sides, > >The pathological fear of being bitten even once by a bug, or letting a >single one munch a leaf of one's garden, and using barrages of toxic >chemicals to prevent it, is a sign of how far we've come from feeling >ourselves part of the natural world, and even bespeaks something akin to >the repression of the shadow side of human nature--the idea that we can, by >force if necessary, maintain the fiction that we are not subject to nature, >that we are not both predator and prey and are outside of the endless cycle >of birth-death-rebirth. > The Borgs...forcing resonance of carbon-based life with silicon-based chips...stepping out of the birth-death-rebirth cycle with which carbon resonates... >Betsy Barnum > Oh, Betsy, I have been avidly reading and resonating with your wonderful posts, also in the other discussion lists we are on, and I am one hell of a fan of yours! :-) From J2Callie @ aol.com Sat Nov 23 23:19:43 1996 From: J2Callie @ aol.com Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 01:19:40 -0500 Subject: Re: Staying in Touch I want to second all the thanks and appreciations. This has been a very rewarding experience for me. I'm tempted to subscribe to SOL --the fascinating topics I'm sure will be presented -- but I know I can't really afford the time/money/energy for another one of these so I'm going to resist. I also know I won't be able to find this level of communication again so I will cherish it. (Thank Goodness John is making a record to refer to.) There are two things I see have made the most impact for me this week. One, the unwonted respect and consideration from and toward all participants. Very valuable memory to hold onto. The second is the inspired suggestion that we check in with our "weather reports". It's made you all seem so real. In closing: Our first Winter Weather came on Monday night. Today I finally got the snow drifts cleared out enough to get in and out of the driveway and house, to get the hay out of the barn, with help from a neighbor with a tractor and loader, and the teenagers down the road who shoveled for two days (well, they only work a couple hours at a time but hey, it's wet and cold out there). And now it's rain/snowing out there. These first snows on the hills frosted the evergreens white on black but blanketed the grass. The mountains are swathed and hidden in clouds. The river was silver reflecting the sky shades of pale grey, barest wash of blue. The world is almost monochromatic, quiet; even sunsets are pastel (the air must be clean) blush fading to mauve. Quiet. Days are simpler in the winter, when I stay home and be quiet. They're more complicated if I have to go anywhere, but that makes me consider the trips I do make and help concentrate/focus my life. I'll think of you all, sitting by the stove with a cat and cup of tea, walking in the mtns or cities -- the images are company. Maybe we keep in touch with little weather reports. Callie From "cleef @ well.com" @ well.com Sun Nov 24 04:57:36 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 04:00:46 -0800 From: Cheryl Foltos <"cleef @ well.com" @ well.com> Subject: Redwood Trees Appear Various people have described environmental happenings around them this week - boat house fire in Juneau, flood in Oregon, bulldozer razing, computer crashing...Acouple of days ago, my landlady knocked on my door with a present. Barbara is a retired biology teacher/self-styled naturalist who makes wildflower trips to India and presents seminars at Yosemite on mushrooms and lichen among other things. She handed me a shallow bowl containing a redwood burl sitting on water, already sprouting more than a dozen little shoots. She had brought this back from one of her many trips - one for me and one for her grandson. In addition to being quite touched, I saw this a sign of hopefulness. I hope you all do too. I want to echo statements by others my appreciation in being able to participate in this seminar - although I have heard about flaming, etc. this is the first time I have been a part of something like this so I'm happy to have been with all you fine people. I don't know if this is my last post but just in case it is a deep bow to all of you. Cheryl From SallyClay @ aol.com Sun Nov 24 07:13:51 1996 From: SallyClay @ aol.com Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 09:13:48 -0500 nondual-ecology @ csf.colorado.edu Subject: Resonance (Claudia Robinson) wrote: >>Maybe we deep ecologists are missing something here. Could there be more >>to this ethic of wildness than we have thought? Can we say in good faith, > >resonance... >>------------------------------ There was a young man of Hong Kong Who forever was ringing a gong. One day it hit him, How his head did swim! Now he resonates all day long. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz * Sally Clay ZANGMO BLUE THUNDERCLOUD * Website & writing Email: or Lake Placid, FL *Lightning Capital of the World* zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz From "cleef @ well.com" @ well.com Sun Nov 24 08:10:35 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 07:13:37 -0800 From: Cheryl Foltos <"cleef @ well.com" @ well.com> Subject: Re:Resonance I laughed outloud twice during this seminar - once when someone told John McClellan that he was no Buddha and someone else replied "ah, the no-Buddha school of Buddhism" and now at your limmerick. I might tape it to my computer also. Thanks! From rtree @ stout.entertain.com Sun Nov 24 09:55:25 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 09:55:18 -0700 From: rtree @ stout.entertain.com (Bruce Nygren) Subject: Re: SOME PROBLEMS TO ADDRES >Dear Betsy, >The word 'man' is generic and not gender specific. We all know perfectly >well that this is so. Also the convention of using 'he' or 'him' when >speaking generally is commonly known to be non-gender specific. ____________________________________________ Dear Joseph, Language is an evolving tool. Changing language changes subtly the associative paths routed through the neural net. Confucius knew this theory well, and gave us the science of the Rectification of Names. That science has been used for good and ill throughout history, of course. There are many of us, myself included, who believe that in our modern age (by which I mean our Civilization's modern age) the power balance has been shifted way to the side of Male, and that this imbalance is one of the Primary ( I would say THE primary) reasons why what we call Civilization has been so ruthless to its own members and to its support system, the Earth. We are engaged in a battle on many fronts to change the male-thought dominated culture and so rebalance our presence on this planet. One of these fronts is linguistic. The fact that, in our language, the words for man (gender specific) and Man (the community of human beings) are identical imbues our thinking with a male-dominated perspective. It is not the only thing which does, of course, but those linguistic associations do most definitely exist and color our perceptions and actions. One tool we have at our disposal is to seperate the two ides by seperating the nomenclature. This is Rectification of Names. Unless we find a way to remove male domination from our civilization's power centers, will we ever be able to break through the institutionalization of abuse with which our planet is currently infested? We are Out of Balance. If we don't change the way we see things to appreciate the naturally fluid dance between the equal power of male and female energies, no amount of posturing has a prayer of breaking through the course we are on. Respectfully, Bruce Nygren ________________________________ Bruce Nygren 1515 Redwood Avenue Boulder, CO 80304 ________________________________ From rlanier @ radius.vector.net Sun Nov 24 12:02:34 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 14:11:25 -0500 (EST) From: Ray Lanier Subject: On Horses, Tractors, Planning & Thanks Hello Folks, I'm writing from North-Central Florida (home of the Gators, for you sports fans :-)), where it's a cold 75F days and about 45-50F nights. Had to put away my shorts and put on a sweat shirt! (and long pants) Finally worked up nerve enough to offer a comment. But first, my deepest appreciation for your discussions on an issue important to me but from a point of view with which I am not familiar. I know that I have not yet grasped the essentials of "Nondual"; but John McClellan, rest assured that you have stimulated me to a further pursuit of the concept. May I offer some personal comments on a couple of topics; perhaps they will resonate with someone. On Technological Change - An anecdote: I grew up on the rural prairies of southern Alberta Canada) in the 20's & 30's. I remember when my father shifted from horse farming to tractors. B.T. (before tractors) we started the day feeding, watering the horses and other chores. We would have a comparatively leisurely breakfast while the horses ate. When we started work in the field, well after sunrise, we had to be protective of the horses - stopping for rest & water regularly. At noon we went back to the barn - feed & water again. We would have a hot dinner and then a nap while the horses rested. Then back to the routine until time for supper. Back to the barn, feed & water, let the horses roll and spend the night asleep. Then Dad got a tractor. It could go hour after hour, night and day, stopping only for gas, grease, oil & maintenance. A short stop for lunch (sometimes hot) eaten with the smell and taste of gas/oil, often sprinkled by the wind with dust. There seemed to be no end to the monotonous drive. (See Chaplin's film _Modern Times_) The horses were our friends, warm and sheltering when it was cold, offering a spontaneous nuzzle, playfully cavorting in the early morning. I loved the barn, the smell of animals, hay, straw & even the manure was preferable to gas & oil. Of course, technology made much of farm life much easier, especially for my mother after electricity and indoor plumbing. (I remember being amused when my in-laws installed a bathroom after WWII. My father-in-law never really got comfortable with a toilet indoors - too unsanitary!) But for me, the tractor changed the relationship I felt with the farm, farm life & work. It interjected itself, in subtle ways, between me and Mother Nature as manifested in rural life of that time. On Truth - one image: Truth (big T) is a working hypothesis; a work in progress. And there are many ways of seeing it. Perhaps as many ways as there are people. Sort of like the blind men describing the elephant, each one seems to have a little bit of truth (small t). This became apparent to me while working with people during my career as an analyst of water and land "problems", programs and policies. I finally came to realize that I had to try to understand at least some important categories of truths held in the communities. Because it was my responsibility (with colleagues) to provide information to others about the consequences of actions/inactions, I needed to give information that had meaning to people in terms of their several truths and related values. It seems to me that we who are concerned about the world around might further the cause by offering information about the issue in terms that resonate with folks with differing views of the world. ---------------------------- Everyone in this seminar has shown some aspect of truth that helps me in my continuing search. Thank you, John McClellan, for being such a successful and caring catalyst; and to each of you all, please accept my most sincere respect for your wisdom. (I've never been much for "bowing", but I have a lot of respect to offer) Don Roper, this was an excellent seminar on one aspect of a most important issue. It was good to set an end time. But, as evident, there are other ways of seeing this world and our environment. I wish that this could be the first in a series of seminars on the same subject but each beginning with a contribution from another viewpoint. Sincerely, Ray Lanier (rlanier @ radius.vector.net) P.O. Box 698, Micanopy, Florida, USA 32667 From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 12:14:46 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 12:14:45 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: A Poet Speaks My other son, Jethro McClellan, handed me this last night and asked me to post it for him. He is a student at Naropa Insitute, majoring in environmental studies. " The Deepest Eek deep ecology is crystaline landscape of the fingers deep ecology is feeling yr way into a situation where deep ecology is crystaline fingers and "right here right now" deep ecology is knowing what others see deep ecology is is is is is, and is is-is (is) is deep ecology what? what is deep ecology question mark backwards deep ecology is sacred naked nature deep ecology is knowing oneUs own tanline where one stands on the beach deep ecology means respecting the lifeguard all the "bubba" girls and every grain of sand deep ecology is too many minds deep ecologyUs meaning is hidden to all buried running deep in the heart of the maze called romance deep ecology is slash of light tentative illumination...". I dunno about these poets. Where's the propositionsupportingargumentsandconclusion? John McClellan From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 12:33:08 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 12:33:06 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: Re: AUTHOR'S CLOSING STATEMENT UPDATED In-Reply-To: On Sat, 23 Nov 1996, Betsy Barnum wrote: > >THE AUTHOR'S CLOSING STATEMENT > > > My dear John, why didn't you just say it this way in the first place? > ;-) Betsy > Well Betsy,I usually don't know how to say something until I've said it sideways, backwards and upside down a few times.Heck I don't even know quite what I think until I've tried to say it a few times. That is one of the great benefits of a discussion like this. {-: John McC.:-) From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 13:39:04 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 13:39:02 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: Re: AUTHOR'S CLOSING STATEMENT (fwd) Rich, I am posting this note to the discussion, as I think you make some useful remarks here. What is the brown lash? Is it rest-in-perfection smugness of God (or Suchness, or Divine Unity etc) will take care of everything attitude? Yours, John ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 14:26:28 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: AUTHOR'S CLOSING STATEMENT John: i can very much appreciate this. i'm pretty much at this point all the time in my teaching -- either in the class room, in the sacred circle, among my friends, or with my children. So, ya, i can empathize with you here for sure. i am also in a constant state of "evolution" (or maybe a better way of putting it is in terms of David Baums(sp) thinking, "unfolding") myself. Every day as i do my own medicine prayers and contemplative work the WAY continues to unfold in front of and/or in/thru/around me. i seem to be in a great river flowing forth all of the time -- always but never in the same place. On a dif. subject.****** Just to be as honest with you as i can be, Alan McGowan has stated in this conf. in some of his postings that he feels you are part of the brown lash taking place. i must say that since i don't know you and so can't really feel you, i've wondered about this since he has brought it up. i don't know how that fits into this other than i want to be as up front with you as i can be. Something for you to think about here is that not many people have traveled the path that you have and so for them to actually hear what you have to say and not have it derail them may be very difficult. As Gus has stated in his latest post, in the samsara that we are in, whether one likes it or not, there is Yin and Yang(Yin,Yang are my words not Gus'). Maybe the words of the Tao would be a better vehicle. The Tao is, but so is the Yin and Yang. Neither better nor worse, both just are. It is from the Tao that all things are born, but born they are and we are part of this expression. In my way of thinking this includes action as part of the turning of the Grand Ultimate -- action is! It seems to me that in order for people not to be confused as to what you are trying to say you will need to preface your remarks with some sort of statement that notes that you are not trying to say inaction is the way. Unless confusion is one of your motives -- which may be the case, sort of a crazy wisdom, Zen thing!? Green Dreams, r.c. From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 14:06:56 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 14:06:54 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: LAST CALL FOR LURKERS!! Dear Lurkers: I find many of the most interesting messages, most human, most original, curious, and engaging, arrive when you lurkers Unlurk. Often it's just a single message, but I feel these contribute enormously to the richness of the record we have laid down here. This is a call for you to UNLURK YOURSELVES before the closing time of 10 pm Rocky Mt Time tonight. Who are you, where are you, how do you live, what do you think? However you wish to do this is good, deliberately or spontaneously, longly or briefly, happy or sad, learned or unlearned. Raise your voices together with us in this glorious Howl to the Moon of Nonduality!! John McClellan From mccaffrm @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 14:21:29 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 14:21:28 -0700 (MST) From: Mark McCaffrey Subject: What a Relief! The End is Near! And what a whirlwind delight/ordeal it has been this past week. This morning the field in front of my garden cottage was glazed and sparkling with frost. Blue sky and fresh snow on the Great Divide. Catching up with techno-stuff this afternoon and thinking about movie this evening. The new start trek? Surviving Picasso? The Big Night (which is great fun with food)? Or Macrocosmos (the french bug movie)? Choices arise, and yet there is this choiceless choice of freedom; recent discussions (off-line with in-the-flesh folks) have focused on whether we need to get rid of our ego/fixation/neurosis in order to be free. The therapy and many spiritual realms say: Yes. But, as a friend said last night during a laughter-filled discussion, this approach tends to be "a means to no end." The fixations and ego-stuff are endless. Better to start with freedom as a given, then working on whatever arises (call it ego, dualism, suffering, madness) can be approached with freshness rather than fear. No doubt such logic may seem like a rationalization to those with vested interests in fixing their fixations or killing ego (if you can catch it). It does seem like heracy in some way, yet what a relief! If freedom/perfection IS, then we can respond to whatever arises with Love and hearty compassion and interest rather than reacting in desperation (YIKES! TIME ISRUNNING OUT! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!) Enough is enough. One last poetic piece from Wendell Berry that looks dualistic at first glance but has (to my mind) a delicious nondual flavor to it: at night make me one with darkness in the morning make me one with the light From elmer @ winternet.com Sun Nov 24 14:36:44 1996 From: elmer @ winternet.com Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 15:36:41 -0600 (CST) Subject: ending thoughts Well, a week has gone by all ready and so fast indeed. The weather here in Minnesota has changed from 3 or 4 days of continuous rain, into a freezing rain that caused much slipping and sliding in the condensed urban area of the capital city, St.Paul. Then mid-week, it changed to beautiful, white, glittering, fairy-like snowflakes that have almost continuously filled the air for the past several days. Today the sun reaches out its radiant hands and kisses all of the beautiful fluff and fills it with spirit. As I shovel the snow in my driveway the snowflake fairies begin to dance in the air as I empty my shovel and I dance in the beauty of it all with them. I've been waiting all week to write in, absorbing as much as I could of the conversation going on. I have enjoyed learning from everybody, I have learned about the many different views that exist on the topics mentioned, yet I feel like we are all heading towards the same light. I have also learned much about myself and continue to reshape my connections with the universe. Yesterday, I was watching an interview with poet, Anne Waldman and she stated that our Western culture and mentality "could be a Bodhisattva act, that it is all a possibility for enlightenment and the shedding of ego, manifested by the white dominance in our society." I found this to be an interesting thought. I feel we need to concentrate on similarities between ourself and others (regardless of whatever form the other takes) not on the differences, to enlarge the compassion for all things. I continue to struggle with the challenge of understanding some of the philosophical language and structure, counteracting my continuous concrete, scientific- type language that is constantly taught in college. Yet, I feel that I 'get' the major points and they will remain food for my thoughts for quite some time. It helps me to shape some of the theories and ideas brought up in my Environmental Ethics class into new formations. I hope that as I realize the intensity of my feelings regarding these topics concerning 'all that moves' I am able to live my life with integrity, and can touch all that is with a compasssionate hand. Thanks again to all for such a warm and wonderfully stimulating week. May the full moon tonight illuminate all of our souls with renewal of energy to take the words that have been said and toss them into the night sky for all to experience!! Peace to all! Kari Lavold From wish @ lclark.edu Sun Nov 24 14:52:23 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 13:26:00 -0800 (PST) From: John Wish Subject: Ishmael Take a look at Daniel Quinn Ishmael, 1992 The Story of B, 1996 Both are a retelling of the Genesis story from a very different viewpoint, the view that indigenous culturers have been more understand of the place of humans than "Civilized". Additionally, see Herman Daly, Beyond Growth, Beacon, 1996 I find the arguments in these three books overlapping with the content of this seminar and worthy of their own seminars. John R. Wish, Visiting Professor, Economics Lewis and Clark College, Box 40 0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd. 97219-7899 phone 503-768-7602 Weather in Portland,35-50 F. and raining, raining, flowing. me 62, caucasion male, married to same lover, Mary Ann, for 40 years.Moved to Portland in '88 as trailing spouse. Horrible mother in law; 3 wonderful children who have 8 children where one of the parents stays home with the children and helps in their education and care. Have had own business, worked for a large bank. Traveled and lived in several other nations. Recently became a Quaker. Experienced the untimely death of A colleague and friends, spouse Friday night in a National Guard C-130 crash in the Pacific. Life and relationships are precious. John R. Wish, Visiting Professor, Economics Lewis and Clark College, Box 40 0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd. 97219-7899 phone 503-768-7602 From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 16:49:40 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 16:49:38 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: Sunday Afternoon Good Friends; It is Sunday Afternoon. The world is supposed to be at peace on this day, resting, and as far as I can see from here (about 30 miles over 180 degrees), it is, and most pleasantly too. A soft shawl of fairy dust snow was tossed lightly over the shoulders of the mountains here last night. A bunny hopped by the bedroom window in the early morning, followed by four deer, a buck, a doe, and two teenage fawns. *Charming* young family. Quite cold, so I lit a fire first thing, then sat on the porch in a blanket for a while considering the vastness of space, the good taste of coffee, the mysteries of meta-mind, which we have been experiencing together this week, and the lovely evening my wife and son Jethro (the poet) and I spent last night with some friends. I am feeling much better about the way in which we have shared our minds and hearts together during this week. Perhaps a certain amount of my anxiety arose from the mysteriously abstract medium we are attempting to communicate in. Rich Coon (I think) writes i don't think we would be having (or at least i wouldn't be) nearly as much trouble finding a common ground if we were sitting around a fire talking to each other. that way i could feel John's presence, i could embody his truth. It wouldn't be some disembodied string of words that carried specific meanings for him because of his pattern which might not carry those same meanings for me because of mine. Yes we would still be removed from each other's Truth by the words themselves but we would be closer. i could feel his anger, compassion, rage, empathy or what have you. This seems instructive to me. This tech.(the computer) we are using certainly does have many wonderful features (it has given me the opp. of participating in this) but it also removes us one more step from this simple truth of the heart. >[...] I do feel that all of us are young in our understanding of these things, groping to find ways to live, ways to see the world, having trouble even finding a language in which to talk to each other. The world of course does not wait for us to understand it. It blesses us with life at conception, refreshing this blessing again and again in each new day and moment, and without waiting to find out if we know what to *do* with this Incredible Situation, off we go... Moment after moment, over our heads in the Mystery of Life. I have always felt that to enter more deeply into this Mystery, it is most useful to go directly to the Source of Life, however we may understand that, and Hang Around with it Being there in person is better than spending too much time talking about what this mystery is, trying to draw up maps, pass them around to each other, and so on. I would prefer to see a greater number of retiring mountain yogis, or quietly spiritual householders, professionals, craftsmen, and so on, and fewer new age workshops and discussion groups and glossy magazines about sacred this or nondual that. So I have tried to spend as much of my life as possible in what I think of as Direct Contact, in spiritual practice environments, and in the woods and fields, streets and mountains themselves, and I have generally avoided teaching and learning situations, such as classrooms or discussion groups. Though I do such things on request, I am a reluctant teacher, publishing author, or panel member. This is a part of what I call Staying Home, described eloquently by Ives Bajard in his great 100 words on DE. (See The Deepest Ecology, Latest Results, in the record, above.) This is good enough, and I stand by it. But still, maybe I am missing something here. This discussion list has shown me a lot. IUm gaining a much greater appreciation for this practice of group inquiry, the ancient ceremony in which sincere minds and hearts gather together to discuss their feelings and thoughts, as we have been doing this week. I canUt easily pull the quotes out as I would like to, due to FridayUs computer crash, but since I posted the AuthorUs Closing Statement Updated, yesterday morning, a number of you have written in with words of encouragment regarding the value of our exchange here. As one of you said, neither I nor anyone else can presume to say how much learning and growing has or hasnUt taken place. Such things are often invisible, subtle, and mystifying, take place over longish periods of time, and cannot be quantified or evaluated well from the outside anyway. I agreed to lead this discussion with some skepticism as to the value of so much talk. IUve always felt that to understand deep ecology, itUs best to go to Mother Nature in her cities and wild places, and talk with Her directly. But maybe this kind of discussion isnUt such a waste of time after all! I feel encouraged by what we have done here to spend more time talking this way. This week has been wonderfully helpful in furthering my own understanding of these matters. So many clear voices and sincere hearts, all speaking at the same time, help!, but together in some way. Being new to these lists, in the beginning I thought I should lead the discussion somehow, but soon realized that this mind we have awakened together is Self-Organizing, and spontaneous. I have learned a lot from it, and enjoyed dwelling in its many linked chambers. Thank you. IUm looking forward to editing the Procedings, which you will all have a chance to see. In talking with many of you, I have also learned much about gentlenes and clarity. We have moved forward together in a nice way, able to hear each others thoughts and feelings however expressed. There is a kind of personal quietness which I have felt from many of you, that I would like to discover further myself. Hearing about your weather and landscapes has also helped to ground the sometimes abstract and fluffy ideas in the rich soil of personal presence, as Rich Coon describes in the quote hereabove. I wish you a good evening, wherever you are, and will write again before we close at 10 pm tonight. PS Please see my next post regarding some final matters of substance on the subject under discussion. John McClellan 1567 Twin Sisters Road Nederland, CO 80466 (303) 449-1346 From bbarnum @ polaristel.net Sun Nov 24 17:28:33 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 18:29:44 -0600 From: bbarnum @ polaristel.net (Betsy Barnum) Subject: River, truck, graffiti, ice, moon Before we say farewell: This evening just after sunset, I stood above my beloved Mississippi, on a bridge in the cutting wind, watching moon rise over river's eastern bank. Below, dark, cold water, ice floes moving under me in the current, scraping against the sheet of snow-covered ice extending from shore. The bridge's tramelling supports sunk into black depths, allowing fossil-fuel-guzzling cars to move people faster, faster, easier on their heedless ways. Across, lights along the next bridge, 2 miles downriver, radio tower winking red light, powerful steel structure sprouting from among leafless trees, smoggy haze on the horizon, river stretching to its next bend in mist. Above, lights of jets taking off and landing at the airport, about 10 miles downriver, stars visible amid city lights winking into sight. Behind, traffic on the bridge, an oil truck, a speeding sports car, further upriver the next bridge, graffiti on the road sign where I'm leaning. Everywhere snow twinkling, wind blowing, lights burning, trucks rumbling, techno-industrial life going on. And moon's cold, gentle light falling over all. How much of this can I love? How much of this can I not love? I thought of Whitman, invoked by John in the original article that started this seminar. And, rats, now I can't find my copy of Leaves of Grass. It's something like, "Urge, and urge, and urge/Always the incessant urge of the world." Not incessant--procreant?--the whole quote is inexact--do you know the passage? My river and big, full yellow moon taught me tonight what we've been talking about all week. Words can only point to it, refer to it--moon and river know and their lannguage is the language of the heart. I feel as if I've travelled a tremendous distance in the past seven days. John, and all of you here, even still-cloaked lurkers, have been my companions on this road. It has been a significant journey, and I thank and bow to each of you and all of you. May your continuing journeys be sweet and deep. A multitude of blessings, Betsy From rcoon @ carroll1.cc.edu Sun Nov 24 17:39:18 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 19:44:01 +0000 From: Rich Coon Subject: Re: THE DEEPEST ECOLOGY:" LOVE" References: i and a good friend went up to the land and cabin i act as steward of (i pay the bank for the privilege of doing this of course) today (sun., last day of the seminar) to take down the tee pee and put another bed in the place. We had a good talk on the way up, as we watched the WI deer hunting scene unfold, lots of guys(and fewer but still some) gals got lucky this weekend -- many deer weren't. Yet we've all got to eat! When we got there we found a bit more snow than we had expected -- about 12". Car got stuck going in so we had to carry the folding sofa bed up the drive and back in, (quite a haul -- my back and shoulders are telling me all about it right now, but then i remebered that this is all nondual anyway and all of a sudden it didn't weigh anything any more, wow, just blew me away. Ya but how come my back still hurts?) then up the stairs to the 2nd floor of the 12 sided circular log cabin. The tee pee was frozen and covered with the white stuff (Betsy, you may know why the north calls you, i however am becoming more and more aware of how much the west of Wash. or OR. are calling me) which made for an interesting afternoon. But we got it inside atleast -- it'll last longer that way. It was good to be outside moving around see, feeling, working! I'm going to miss you guys (and all of you who go by other terms -- gals, women, females -- my personal term for all of us is "huper" -- thats human with out the man and person without the son, cool huh. i mean no slight by the term guys, it just seems more layed back and at this point i feel pretty relaxed with some of you. Who the hell am i talking to anyway?) This has been a fun, invigerating, instructive, deepening, expanding (anything i left out that you'd like to put in there feel free) experience for me. i think i'd like to hang out with a bunch of you -- wouldn't it be fun to all go over and have a beer and do this (for those of you who don't drink we can only hope that other states follow Cals. lead, and if you aren't into that then a nice lattie(sp) will prob. just have to do. For all of you who aren't in the US, can i come live with you?) ***My vote for best post of the seminar:*** The Irishman three beers joke -- man that just cracked me up!!! Hey, but i'm easy. JOHN: Great job man!!! i don't know who you are, couldn't pick you out on the street and you prob. wouldn't want to come and have a beer or shot (either way is fine with me) with me, but if you ever do something like this again i'd sure like to go along for the ride!!! i admire your ability to take as many shots as you did (and i threw a few of them) and still not *really* come out fighting. You have taught me something there brother -- we may not see the world in the same way but as some one just recently posted, unity from diversity. *** REALLY, THANKS TO YOU ALL!!! *** NOW THE REAL WORK BEGINS. AS AN OLD ZEN (paraphrase) STORY GOES: EAT YOUR BREAKFAST AND THEN WASH YOUR BOWLS (ya hey, i could never figure it out either but i just thought it sounded cool). GREEN DREAMS TO ALL OF YOU AND TO OUR WONDERFUL MOTHER, THE EARTH ,WITHOUT WHOM ALL OF THIS GREAT INTELLECTUAL JIBBERISH COULD NEVER HAVE TAKEN PLACE!!!! Love ya all -- you sure i can't have your Miller lite! r.c. From kozan @ mho.net Sun Nov 24 17:40:19 1996 for ; Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 17:40:13 -0700 From: kozan @ mho.net (Koerner, Darrell) Subject: buddhism, materialsim, etc. John: Despite my previous posting, I must say that I'm quite appreciative of your efforts here and also of your article, when it appeared in Tricylce Magazine. I lived for one year in the community of Sazaki roshi, both in New Mexico and at Mt. Baldy; then for five years at the San Francisco Zen Center. I would like to make two points (which I feel are relevant here) based on my experiences with Buddhism in general and Sazaki roshi in particular. 1)In all spiritual practice, humility is recognized as the rock-bottom foundation and key. This quality of humility I found to be missing in the Boulder Tibetan Buddhist community of the 1980's, among the residential followers of Sazaki roshi (and I think even of the roshi himself), and I sorely see it lacking when you publicly take to task other prominent practitioners (such as Gary Snyder) for not listening to their own dharma teachers well enough. I especially see it lacking when you imply that other people in this seminar have not, or haven't yet, arrived at your understanding of non-duality. 2)I disagree with the essence of this discussion revolving around "dual/non-dual, or relative/absolute" views. The problem which concerns all of us is how to take care of that which is - we have created technology and we must assume full responsibility for this/these ongoing act(s). Isn't a more critical question "Why do we as a collective continue to assimilate everything in our path?" And what/who gives us the right to think that we can do so? We being the colonizers of the world. I would refer you to a book by Jack Forbes, entitled, "Columbus and Other Cannibals - The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism and Terrorism" (1992). Rather than bowing to our nightmarish creations, perhaps we should deeply mourn our all-too apparent separation from life, each other and the common good. Sorry I can't suggest any answers; rather I would suggest we be wary of high-falutin' and high-sounding spiritual views which can have the ill effect of separating us from each other and the earth. Once again, thank you for your deep concern and efforts. Darrell Koerner From tbm @ access.usa.net Sun Nov 24 17:51:23 1996 From: Stephen Evans Subject: Re: SOME PROBLEMS TO ADDRES Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 17:51:19 -0700 (MST) In-Reply-To: from "Betsy Barnum" at Nov 22, 96 11:08:39 pm Re: Joseph & Betsy on "Man" Yes how to name ourselves -- this odd mix of collectivity-community-being that has been called "Man" -- is a //problem// today as we realize how exclusive the old name is. "Humans" only points to the collectivity, not the "we" that in some mysterious way can "act" and be "responsible." Humanity may come to work with usage -- it works for me, as a human, personal, name -- remembering that it doesn't just mean the species. We're trying here to universalize the personal -- and that's tough! One interesting thing about John's article is his inability to see the communal being of humanity, and the humanity of civilization so that he can only see the alienated side of technology -- the part that confronts us individually as independent power -- and not //also// the side of it that is an extension of our communal power. And I suspect that his inability to see the communal (or, better "moral") "We", humanity, is based in the objectifying modes of thought that Dr. Milne has pointed out. On the other hand, those who say uncritically: we created it we can control it or dismantel it, fail to recognize the side of technology (or culture in general for that matter -- including the "primitive") which stands over each of us, defining us individually. "We" may have created cars and highways -- but "I" was born into a world in which these were already given as part of the environment and which defined the sence of distance and duration that make up "my" time and space -- and which are //already// there polluting the air and soil. I think that if we're going to take the kind of over all view that John M. wants to take, and he is clearly struggling to overcome the alienated view that techonology is no more than an inhuman, out of control -- machine -- then we need to explore and to clarify the relationships between the "I" and the "We" -- among individual - society - person - community - nation - corporation - etc. including, of course the great enhancer of technology. Including, of course, the ways in which things shift from being self to being other (grotesquely simple e.g.: arm - hammer are extentions of self in relating to the other of the nail, till you hit your thumb and the hammer and sore thumb both slip over into the realm of other). How does the "We" //act//? And //with// what does it act? "Non-dualism" doesn't get it -- as anything more than a hint it obscures the details that might make our situation comprehensible and possibly manageable. From bbarnum @ polaristel.net Sun Nov 24 18:09:03 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 19:10:24 -0600 From: bbarnum @ polaristel.net (Betsy Barnum) Subject: Re: THE DEEPEST ECOLOGY:" LOVE" Rich wrote, >i think i'd like to hang out with >a bunch of you -- wouldn't it be fun to all go over and have a beer >and do this? Yes, yes--I want to have a beer with you, too! I'd be so happy if we all lived near Molly Quinn's, my local watering hole on Lake St., and could step in for a cold one and talk into the night. Rich, are you sure you haven't already had a few? ;-) Betsy From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 18:32:30 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 18:32:28 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: Re: THE DEEPEST ECOLOGY:" LOVE" In-Reply-To: <3298A581.11C2 @ carroll1.cc.edu> Rich-- I'll join you for a few beers anytime, but I don't know about that Miller lite. Don't you guys/girls up there have anything better to drink? I'm glad this seminar is winding up, I'm tired. I thought I'd dance through this lightly, but I wound up caring more than I expected. So many beautiful spirits came when I called, I didn't know what to say to them all. I trust they will take care of themselves and each other, and I know they do, but still, if there were something more I could give them, I would. I felt empty handed somehow when they all showed up in my computer, eyes and hearts brimming with awareness and curiosity... Stay in touch. John From tbm @ access.usa.net Sun Nov 24 18:38:34 1996 From: Stephen Evans Subject: Looking up Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 18:38:31 -0700 (MST) In-Reply-To: from "John McClellan" at Nov 22, 96 08:02:38 pm Whenever John speaks of looking down on the city -- I feel myself here in Denver, under our brown haze under John's gaze & I wonder If he can sense my smile sent back up the hillsides -- though I've been critical -- friendship is stronger. I give a Theravadin service Sunday mornings in the Thai temple -- something for us city folks, something for us workers in multiple languages. This morning we concentrated our friendship, extending it to all... I hope John & Betsy & Joseph & Allen & Claudia &&&& allo'y'all could feel it. ::)) "Santipala From MoCtrLite @ aol.com Sun Nov 24 19:05:07 1996 From: MoCtrLite @ aol.com Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 21:05:05 -0500 Subject: PARTING THOUGHT/THANKS Physicist Niels Bohr held that the opposite of a conventional truth is a lie, while the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth. Let us not forget that Deep Ecology is profound ecology. More to the point, what is needed is the view that there is not *a* Deep Ecology, but rather Deep Ecolog*ies*. For anything meaningful to come about, we must abandon arguing with each other about *if* a given view is true, and reflect within ourselves upon *how* it is true. My most profound thanks to Mr. McClellan and everyone who has sponsored/participated in this seminar. I will have much to digest in the near future as I go back over the great volume of information that I was able only to skim during the seminar. I will do all that I can to integrate everyone's profound thoughts. Thanks again. John Pokorny From djfuller @ juno.com Sun Nov 24 19:16:18 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 19:08:08 PST Subject: Re: LAST CALL FOR LURKERS!! References: X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0,2-6,9-10,17-18,24-25,29-32,37-41 From: djfuller @ juno.com (David Fuller) > John, I lurked shamelessly throughout this discussion - one which occasionally moistened my eyes, and humbled me with the knowledge that there are good people thinking and living well. I live in the Sonoran desert, and was mildly envious of those of you who have described the approach of winter and all that implies for this quiet time of rest and renewal for the coming spring. I looked over the screen to my humming bird as he sipped at the nectar, flashing his brilliant ruby gorget in the evening sun and wondered about all I had read and how much of it seemed embodied in his quick motions. What a bird of the sun... I often wonder what his slice of time is. Whether he recognizes me as other than landscape in his world of invisible (to me ) wing beats and instant reaction to nearby motion. And yet in the cool desert morning, I sometimes spot him perched on a twig strategically chosen to catch the first warming sun - a feathered golf ball, head and feet drawn in, heart beat slowed in the daily gamble of his kind. Wiil I warm and wake up, before all my energy is gone in the chill night air, and I continue my long sleep for ever? So far he has bet well, and I watch him ruffle his feathers and stretch before taking a first grateful sip at the feeder. I care for him a great deal. We all gamble in our own ways, but reading this prolonged conversation between such fine people has warmed my cold and occasionally dispirited soul with the sense that with enough care and attention to the slow knowledge aspects of our place in the tapestry, we may wake to a new morning. My respect to you all, David Fuller. From pbunch @ crash.cts.com Sun Nov 24 19:47:52 1996 From: "Philip M. Bunch" Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 06:47:22 Subject: The Buddha's remarks to the Kalamas Today was sunny and fairly warm in San Diego. Blue sky and brown earth turned over for the winter garden. My wife and I planted peas, beets, carrots, lettuce, radishes and five or six different kinds of greens. Since winter is our wet season, this garden needs less watering and grows best. By way of closing I thought that this might be useful to keep in mind. The first part is a little strong in the context of this forum. People have been very open, compassionate and the egos have been in the background. It's the closing part that expresses so clearly the buddhist attitude of mind. The buddha once visited a small town, home of the Kalamas. They had been visited by many claiming to be teachers of the TRUTH. In talking with the buddha about this they said, "They explain and illumine only their own doctrines, and despise and condemn and spurn others... But for us Sir, we have always doubt and perplexity as to who among these venerable recluses and brahmanas spoke the truth, and who spoke falsehood." The buddha replied, "Yes, Kalamas, it is proper that you have doubt, that you have perplexity, for a doubt has arisen in a matter which is doubtful. Now look you Kalamas, do not be led by reports, or tradition, or hearsay. Be not led by the authority of religious texts, nor by mere logic or inference, not by considering appearances, nor by the delight in speculative opinions, nor by seeming possibilities, nor by the idea; 'this is our teacher'. But O Kalamas, when you know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome, and wrong, and bad, then give them up... And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them." (From What The Buddha Taught, Walpola Rahula.) Again, many thanks to all who have made this conference possible. Phil Bunch From jrmiln @ globalnet.co.uk Sun Nov 24 19:50:56 1996 Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 02:55:26 GMT From: Joseph Milne Subject: Re: SOME PROBLEMS TO ADDRES At 17:51 24/11/96 -0700, you wrote: >Re: Joseph & Betsy on "Man" > Dear Stephen Evans, I think your exposition below is maginificent and your question about coming to an undestanding of the 'I', 'we', 'society', 'humanity' etc. is a truly well put and vital one. It is here right on our dooorstep, yet it it the question that holds the key to relating deeply and truly with everything. I will keep and treasure your words and reflect upon them. Forgive me if I now have no time to talk in detail. Its 2 in the morning here in the U.K. and I've a train to catch in the morning. May I take this opportunity to give my warmest thanks to you and also to every other participant in this community of thought. It has had a quality of satsang. Also a special good wish to Betsy who corrected me with a gentle feminine hand. May finally thank Raymond Massey for his long response to note on guilt, which i simply have not had time to reply to, but which I most gratefully recieve and accept wholeheartedly. Joseph Milne >Yes how to name ourselves -- this odd mix of collectivity-community-being >that has been called "Man" -- is a //problem// today as we realize how >exclusive the old name is. "Humans" only points to the collectivity, not >the "we" that in some mysterious way can "act" and be "responsible." >Humanity may come to work with usage -- it works for me, as a human, >personal, name -- remembering that it doesn't just mean the species. >We're trying here to universalize the personal -- and that's tough! > >One interesting thing about John's article is his inability to see the >communal being of humanity, and the humanity of civilization so that he >can only see the alienated side of technology -- the part that confronts >us individually as independent power -- and not //also// the side of it >that is an extension of our communal power. And I suspect that his >inability to see the communal (or, better "moral") "We", humanity, is >based in the objectifying modes of thought that Dr. Milne has pointed out. >On the other hand, those who say uncritically: we created it we can >control it or dismantel it, fail to recognize the side of technology (or >culture in general for that matter -- including the "primitive") which >stands over each of us, defining us individually. "We" may have created >cars and highways -- but "I" was born into a world in which these were >already given as part of the environment and which defined the sence of >distance and duration that make up "my" time and space -- and which are >//already// there polluting the air and soil. > >I think that if we're going to take the kind of over all view that John M. >wants to take, and he is clearly struggling to overcome the >alienated view that techonology is no more than an inhuman, out of control >-- machine -- then we need to explore and to clarify the >relationships between the "I" and the "We" -- among individual - society - >person - community - nation - corporation - etc. including, of course the >great enhancer of technology. Including, of course, the ways in which >things shift from being self to being other > (grotesquely simple e.g.: arm - hammer are extentions >of self in relating to the other of the nail, till you hit your thumb and >the hammer and sore thumb both slip over into the realm of other). How >does the "We" //act//? And //with// what does it act? > >"Non-dualism" doesn't get it -- as anything more than a hint it obscures >the details that might make our situation comprehensible and possibly >manageable. > From Gusdz @ aol.com Sun Nov 24 20:02:30 1996 From: Gusdz @ aol.com Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 22:02:27 -0500 Subject: Re: THE DEEPEST ECOLOGY:" LOVE" Today the sun mostly shined here in northwestern California. And what is left of our fall colors, that still cling to trees and vinyards, have a freshly washed look that almost glows in the light of a low sun. The bright red of flamethorn in particular leaped out from the warm but muted tones that characterize most of a northern California fall. I did not spend much time with my computer today - the day was too beautiful. But what a treat the past several days have been. Even though I have been one of the more critical critics of John's work (most of the time, anyway) I have been deeply impressed with his capacity to honor all of us who are having trouble with concepts to which he is devoted (attached?). And the hard thinking involved to try and say something intelligent when the discussion is moving so rapidly has been a good tonic for me. I ended up with some insights I will spend a long time unpacking. What more could anyone ask for? Civility, that's what! And there was civility, respect, even gentleness and affection, displayed over and over again among us dueling keyboards. What a treat! I have never participated in a online seminar before. I had no idea what to expect. It has been well worth the unexpected time I put in trying to keep on top of the many discussions and occasionally interjecting something of my own. As someone else said, John, I hope you have another one. But as that person also said - not too soon. I let some things slide to participate, and have some catching up to do. Blessed Be, Gus diZerega From aa750 @ freenet.carleton.ca Sun Nov 24 20:07:45 1996 Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 03:07:31 GMT From: aa750 @ freenet.carleton.ca (Gail Stewart) Subject: Thank you Reply-To: aa750 @ freenet.carleton.ca >From snowy Ottawa, my thanks for this seminar. It has reminded me that "our situation within a thin film of life on the surface of a spinning planet," a perspective I had rather liked, is just a perspective. A healthy reminder. One comment: lurking needs a new name, less perjorative. It can be (and has been for many of us, I suspect) respectful listening and learning. Warm thanks to all. Gail Stewart aa750 @ FreeNet.Carleton.CA From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 20:29:18 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 20:29:17 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: May Our Work Continue to Florish This from Joseph Milne <> From bbarnum @ polaristel.net Sun Nov 24 20:35:26 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 21:36:48 -0600 From: bbarnum @ polaristel.net (Betsy Barnum) Subject: Re: THE DEEPEST ECOLOGY:" LOVE" >Dear Betsy, >A special good wish to you. >Joseph Likewise, doctor. I have learned much from you--though your posts were at times almost too erudite, rich and dense with learning, your humble and personable self shone through every word. I feel blessed to have made your acquaintance and shared these virtual brews with you. With love, Betsy From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 21:07:23 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 21:07:22 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: Re: Looking Out In-Reply-To: <199611250138.SAA03625 @ earth.usa.net> Dear Stephen -- I so much appreciate your two fine messages this evening. This beautiful day went by like a sustained note on violin, sinking at last into shadows and moonlight. Our valley, though behind Twin Sisters, is faintly lit by the ghostly glow of Denver, and I will remember your face and loving friendship in that. As for the remarks you posted earlier on self and other, I agree with Joseph this goes to the heart of the matter. This is the split I wish to see healed. On one level it is healed already, or rather has never been split. We are whole creatures living in a whole universe. But on another, relative level, we are troubled by the rift, nature and civilization, sickness and health, happy and sad, self and other, mountains and cities.... It is our nature to experience such divisions, to be saddened and confused by them, to struggle with them. But I always feel it should be possible to experience these divisions, and wrestle with them, without *believing* in the story line that comes with them. This might be like fighting with your brother opr sister, or better, one's parents of children.(we tend to believe in our fights with borthers & sisters). So you fight, yet you always remember you are of the same blood, same family. You can never win, and get rid of the "other". They are a part of you. It should be possible to open our arms and accept a kind of Relatedness with all manifestations of life and death. If they have arisen in this universe, on this planet, they must be somehow connected to us. We cannot get rid of them, or of the forces that gave rise to them. Get rid of them? Too late! They are already here, like cars and highways. You say this so nicely. I throw confusion into simple ideas like this by adding in nuclear bombs and cows and TV's. I think you are talking about this. Thank you for this good understanding. If you ever wish to come up to this pretty mountain valley and share a cup of tea with me, please call, I will tell you the way.449-1346. My very best wishes. JOHN Stephen wrote: I think that if we're going to take the kind of over all view that John M. wants to take, and he is clearly struggling to overcome the alienated view that techonology is no more than an inhuman, out of control -- machine -- then we need to explore and to clarify the relationships between the "I" and the "We" -- among individual - society - person - community - nation - corporation - etc. including, of course the great enhancer of technology. Including, of course, the ways in which things shift from being self to being other (grotesquely simple e.g.: arm - hammer are extentions of self in relating to the other of the nail, till you hit your thumb and the hammer and sore thumb both slip over into the realm of other). How does the "We" //act//? And //with// what does it act? "Non-dualism" doesn't get it -- as anything more than a hint it obscures the details that might make our situatio comprehensible and possibly manageable. From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 21:47:37 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 21:47:34 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: Virtual Meta-mind Of Meta-Mind Discussion List In a lecture hall there may be some 225 people, as we have had here this week. And some 75 of them may have a chance to speak, 25 or so frequently or at some length, as has been the case here. But only one person speaks at a time, and all the rest listen and hear each statement in turn. The greater or meta-mind of the lecture hall may be large, but it is unified. In a virtual seminar, however, this familiar reality does not obtain. Many of the people may be speaking at the same time. The flow of information is far greater than anyone participant can possibly hope to absorb, so everyone is browsing and skipping, and has heard a different selection of the proceedings than everyone else. Many of these people are talking privately to each other at the same time. Not only that, but everyone is RlisteningS or reading to what they do manage to pick up at completely different times. So when one posts a message, it is impossible to know who may be listening, or when anyone who is listening might read it, now , later, or not at all. Being new to discussion lists, I began this seminar with the lecture hall model. It all started out nicely enough, the author, host and moderatorsU opening statements were the only thing on the blackboard all Monday morning. A few messages started to trickle in, and I began to reply to them, then more came in, which made no reference to my considered reply, and others responding to messages that hadnUt read any of the above -- by Tuesday everyone was talking to everyone else and I realized that if this was a lecture hall, I had better either call Security in to restore order, or rethink the whole seminar. What I have come to understand is that this seminar is a self-organizing, larger mind-being which arises spontaneously in response to a certain mysterious signal, and creatively adapts to its complex extended eco-deme, or habitat. This habitat includes not only everything said online, but everything that is happening to people all during the week. It includes all the major, RvisibleS voices, and all the respectfully silent listeners, perjoratively referred to as lurkers. It is impossible to lead such a discussion. All one can do is help to tone it, along with everyone else. I myself have not read more than three quarters of all that has been said here. In fact no one of us has a complete overview of the whole seminar! A Zen master would say, the seminar knows itself, like a forest that no one has walked all through. I find this an exciting, and for me very new kind of group mind. Its intelligent and persistent, even passionate inquiry into the subject(s) before us will produce a new, nonlinear, cooperative kind of understanding. The extended senses, broad based of knowledge, diverse experience and understanding should generate a most extraordinary fresh perception. Thank you. I look forward to talking with you again, and to reviewing the Proceedings, which I have the perhaps naive illusion will give a more coherent view of what happened this week. John McClellan From mcclelj @ csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Nov 24 21:55:13 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 21:55:11 -0700 (MST) From: John McClellan Subject: Our Host, Don Roper I wish to extend a special thanks to our Humble, mostly Invisible, Hard as Hell Working Host, Don Roper. This seminar series is his personal vision, getting a show like ours up off the ground into virtual "reality", and keeping it there, is an Incredible amount of work. Don, we thank you, and hope that your good work will become its own reward, as these seminars gain momentum, popularity, and usefulness to people everywhere in Virtualland. Very best wishes to my friend and mountain neighbor. John McClellan