February 28, 2011 By Andrew Durling
http://transitionvoice.com/2011/02/nirvana-in-climate-chaos-and-peak-oil/
Medicine Wheel
How can Buddhism help us deal with fear and anxiety as we face of the converging issues of peak oil and climate change?
One way is to understand that the reality of climate change is inseparable from the actual, specific experiences of living beings here and now.
Climate change is not some external, impersonal phenomenon that exists separately from all other phenomena, and especially from people. It’s actually a dimension of our daily experience, an aspect of the suffering that is an inexorable part of our lives.
In recognizing that climate change is suffering, and that climate change is a pervasive and an increasingly pressing part of our lives, then we have to face up to it in the same way that we have to face up to that ultimate dimension of our suffering: our own death and the loss of all we are and have.
Death be not proud
Facing up to our own death is a good analogy for how we have to learn to face up to climate chaos.
Recognizing the reality of global warming and the horror and fear that it induces offers a moment of clarity. We can then use that clear-eyed recognition to strip away what is meaningless and trivial from our lives and re-focus on what will help us to move with a renewed sense of purpose, beyond the fear, to meaningful action.
So many people who find out that they have a terminal illness go on to fill what time they have left doing what they always really wanted but never got around to. Ironically, overcoming the often overly suppressed (but often mentally disruptive) fear of death can be the prelude to a more joyful and fulfilling life, as philosophers, psychologists and religious teachers have told us through the ages.
In the same way, helping ourselves and others to overcome the denial or suppression of the reality of climate change can help to create the motivation to engage in ways of living that are more fulfilling and creative than before.
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