A Status Report as We Come Toward the End of 2015 (by our Common Reckoning), Together With a Small Suggestion

Life continues.

It does seem things are precarious. Well, at least for those of us who breathe oxygen. For those who are concerned with technical accuracy this precariousness is probably not a lot worse than at many times since we living things appeared about three and a half billion years ago on this lovely little rock spinning around a middling star at the edge of a midsized galaxy pretty much in a corner of nowhere. Sadly, tragically, our personal interference with the atmosphere, and probably more importantly with that the normative temperature range of the oceans, has created an instability in the ecosystem that may endanger our species, or, probably more likely, a pretty large proportion of it.

We live in a moment where the ecological stasis is being disrupted, but the check has only just been called in. And while that check has come due, we still indulge those who for various kinds of short-term gain can even pretend it isn’t happening. Astonishingly we even give them decision-making power.

But, happening it is. The check is on the table. And we are ignoring it. I guess, hoping someone else will pick it up.

Close to if not exactly suicidal.

Our relationships among nations and just about as much within nations, sadly, tends to be marked more by predation than cooperation. As it has always been. The only difference these days, really, is that we have ever more dangerous weapons to toss around.

Considering we certainly appear to have brains that can figure stuff out, maybe it really is suicidal.

Can incline one to pause and think.

Moving as I am into the later part of my seventh decade, as I feel the beginnings of my own decay, my personal mortality has gotten pretty hard to ignore, and I find my thoughts going to the Buddha’s admonishment that all things made of parts are coming apart. Species die. Planets die. Stars die. And, each and every one of us die. Me. You…

And, my thoughts and heart move toward what it is I and we can do in the face of that harsh truth.

Everything dies.

And, one more thing. We’re all connected. In the face of our astonishing self-destructiveness, that’s what I find myself thinking most about. We are all connected.

For the most part we’re not particularly aware of it. The ways we are separate from each other is the leading thing. The great me in the face of all the action. The connection knowing is latent in our consciousness. But, in strange and mysterious moments we know this truth. At least in our dreams. Often just by living we are gifted with the noticing, if only sporadically, only in flashes. That gift as fleeting as it is, is some wonder of our being human. Actually some of us give our lives to disciplines that incline us in that direction, opening us to the possibility of our noticing. Big part of my life. But intentional or not, we are given that insight.

And, here we are. Dancing, as it were, at the edge of one more apocalypse.

Greed, hatred, and endlessly arising certainties, the shadow of the contours of our human minds; clouding our clear seeing. And yet, even caught mostly in that cloud, there are moments of clarity. Think of them as unearned and unasked for gifts from the universe, or if you like the turn of language, gifts from the divine.

So, knowing our fragility, more precisely, knowing our certain demise, you, me, all of us, and at the same time, the very same time, knowing somewhere deep within our hearts our deep connections each of us with the other, more intimate than any words can convey, perhaps a certain kindness is called for.

Kindness.

The Dalai Lama once said his religion is kindness.

Kindness.

A religion we can all aspire to.

So, noticing our status at this moment, our precarious existence, our tottering at the edge, if not of extinction, certainly of very, very hard times, while at the same time knowing in my bones how profoundly we’re connected, I find a wish arising, like morning dew.

Kindness. Kindness for each of us, and for all lives on this planet.

That’s my wish for this coming New Year.

Just a little more kindness.

I hope its not hoping for too much.