Gloom, Doom and Dharma

On the plane last week, I settled in and read a couple articles that I’d tucked in my bag. First up was James Howard Kunstler from The Sun, “The Decline and Fall of the Suburban Empire.” Sayeth Kunstler, 

The peak-oil problem means that we can no longer expect to run an economy based on never-ending growth, which means ultimately that we can’t service our debts at any level — personal, corporate, governmental. We’re comprehensively broke.

That may not strike you as strikingly new but the guy’s been singing this song for years. I’ll spare you the details but his view is really sobering about the possibilities of returning to “normal.” And in his view, the new normal won’t arrive for a long time after massive adjustments revitalize the local economy.

The second piece was from the current Atlantic by James Fallows, “After the Crash: How America Can Rise Again.” To over simplify, Fallows thinks most of our systems are in pretty good shape (he ignores peak oil) except for our government, “…old and broken and dysfunctional, and may even be beyond repair.” 

“That is the American tragedy of the early 21st century: a vital and self-renewing culture that attracts the world’s talent, and a governing system that increasingly looks like a joke.” 

So what does the dharma have to say about our predicament? A lot – but just one point for now.

Years ago, when old Katagiri was still around, we studied the Lotus Sutra carefully from beginning to end. In that sutra-less sutra, the Buddha predicts everybody’s buddhahood. Faith in the Lotus Sutra hinges, from this view, on the one single point that we’re all moving toward the big B, much like Teilhard de Chardin’s philosophy. 

The doubting Thomas that I was (and still…) had a hard time with this. “Roshi,” I said, “most of the evidence points in the other direction at this point in time (and that was ~1985!).” 

“Maybe so,” he said, “but faith in buddhadharma is not an idea or an emotion. Faith is action. So just do something small everyday to benefit all sentient beings, anyway, something small. That’s all we can do, dropping one drop of ink in the universal pool. No one knows where the ripples will reach.”