Introduction to Meditation

Published by Jordan August 19th, 2008 in Mind Body Medicine and Peace. 1 Comment

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When I was a teenager (1972-79), I suffered from a sense of confusion, uncertainty and fear as I tried to make sense of things. This was at the height of the nuclear arms race, a time when our world leaders subscribed to the theory of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD). The idea that Mr. Reagan and the Soviet leader would refrain from pushing their red buttons knowing that the other would certainly retaliate with enough megatons of explosives to blow up the planet fifty times over - did little to reassure me that the world was a safe place.

f we look around the world today, there is still great conflict and suffering, not just among human beings, but all life forms. Nonetheless, in the past thirty years, somehow, I’ve learned to feel a greater sense of peace in the face of the ever present insecurities which come with the gift of life. I’d like to share with you what has been helpful for me in developing that inner peacefulness.

In the eleventh grade, while I was on a school field trip, I attended a seminar on meditation. I can’ t remember why I signed up for it, except that I was curious. Something inside told me that there might be something interesting here to learn.

I learned a technique to calm the mind by sitting quietly on my bed each morning before breakfast, and each evening before sleep, observing my breath. Immediately I felt a sense of calmness and peace that I had never really experienced before.I remember the teacher sharing that practicing meditation is like watering the garden of your mind. In time, the soil becomes very rich, flowers blossom, and one creates a beautiful inner sanctuary within.

But meditation seemed weird because none of my friends or family did it. I succumbed to the peer pressure of wanting to fit in with my friends, and after about a year, I stopped doing it. Ten years later, while I was going through another difficult transition in life, I remembered how meditation had helped calm my mind and so I picked it up again and began searching for a teacher.

What is meditation? Meditation is different things to different people. A general definition of meditation is that it is a training of the mind or the heart. While it is true that our school years and the business world provide a sort of training, meditation is qualitatively different.

In school and the business world, we tend to focus a lot of energy on increasing our intelligence, our conceptual knowledge, in a broad range of subjects like math, language, science, history, economics, and so forth. This is important. Our world depends on people with practical knowledge and information in order to solve problems of modern society - everything from urban growth, transportation, employment, technology, education, childcare, family planning, environmental restoration, and so forth.

But in order to begin to solve these problems, we need a balanced approach. Thinking and analysis, which involve concepts, needs to be balanced by peaceful reflection and wisdom. A machine can process data, but it lacks the human qualities of compassionate awareness and non-conceptual wisdom. If we rely only on the thinking part of the mind to solve the problems of our life our solutions will be mechanical and we run the risk of burning out (e.g. hypertension, stress) when faced with many difficult problems. Knowledge without wisdom is not helpful, even dangerous in today’s world.

How do we develop the qualities of peaceful reflection and wisdom? Through meditation. Meditation utilizes the same spirit of inquiry as science does. Scientists seek greater understanding of the physical universe through experimental analysis of matter, motions, energy, etc. Meditators are like spiritual scientists, seeking deeper understanding of the mind by learning to see the mind clearly.

At first, this inner inquiry is like a trip to the local landfill as we discover the heaps of mental garbage we are carrying around with us. Eventually though, we learn to remove the layers of garbage - anger, pride, greed, ignorance, etc. Once this is done, we begin to experience our innate purity from which we access and develop all the positive qualities - wisdom, love, altruism, compassion, equanimity, patience, generosity, etc. Meditation is not a destination we are seeking, but a doorway through which we continually engage in spiritual practice.

Working with Anger. For example, we all have to work with the energy of anger if we wish to be happy within ourselves, as well as to live in a peaceful world. If someone directs anger at us, through thoughts, words, or behavior, instead of simply responding to anger with anger, causing the conflict to escalate, we can choose to resist our habitual impulse, realizing that this will only increase pain, both within our self, and the other person.

In that moment when someone has directed anger at us, we can utilize our reflective capacity of mind, which is what we strengthen through meditation practice, and we can begin to perceive the situation from a different perspective: less self-centered and close-minded, more compassionate, understanding, and open-minded. “A mind is like a parachute — it only functions when it is open.”

So instead of responding to anger with anger, we can reflect on the fact that the other person is in pain and wants to be happy, but is experiencing some confusion and difficulty. Instead of resorting to our habitual way of seeing things, through the filters of “I”, “me”, and “mine”, we can adopt the perspective of “we”, “us”, and “ours”…all beings. Again, this takes practice, but it is possible to change. In fact, change is the only stable principle of our lives.

So you see, meditation is more than just getting calm and emptying the mind of all its thoughts. Calming the mind is a wonderful foundation and will certainly help lower our blood pressure, but if we wish to truly transform our minds, we need to build on the foundation by developing various levels of wisdom which can enhance our happiness infinitely.

We need to meditate on the disadvantages of anger, and it’s antidotes. Remembering how anger makes us feel, we practice developing compassion for people who suffer from anger. After all we don’ t get angry when other people are sick with the flu, or have a broken leg - we give them medicine for their illness. The most effective response to the disease of anger is the medicine of kindness and understanding. So these are just a few among many techniques for developing a healthy response to anger.

Meditation has been part of the cultures of all people throughout recorded history and probably a lot longer. In America, meditation has become more and more popular in recent decades. As people witnessed the horrors of the Vietnam War, the nuclear arms race, the injustices of the Civil Rights era, and other struggles, many began to realize that without creating inner peace, there can be no peace in the world. His Holiness the Dalai Lama frequently refers to “inner disarmament.”

Guided Meditation. (Read this slowly to yourself, or record these instructions and play them back):

Begin by adjusting your posture so that your spine is vertical, head tilted slightly forward, tongue lightly touching the upper palate just behind the upper teeth. If you are sitting in a chair, place your feet flat on the floor, hands gently folded in your lap.

Now, take a few deep breaths and close your eyes…..or you can leave them slightly open. Beginning at the base of the neck, imagine that your spine is getting longer, like a sturdy tree growing in the sunshine…Imagine your mind as a sphere of light. Move this light down the spine, filling all the internal organs….relaxing all of the muscles… letting go of all forms of tension.

At the base of the spine, the light divides in two and travels simultaneously out through the hips, down through the thighs, calves, ankles, feet, toes, entering the Earth and reaching deep down into the core of the planet.

Bring the ball of light back to the base of the neck, and again dividing this in two, move the light out into the shoulders, upper arms, forearms, wrists, hands, fingers. From the tips of the fingers, the light radiates out as far as you can imagine, to the most distant galaxies in the universe. Allow all of the joints in the body to relax, open, and lengthen.

Again, bring the light back to the base of the neck and move it upwards, across the base of the skull, over the crown of the head, spilling downwards in all directions, softening the eyes, relaxing the jaw, relaxing the tongue, filling the entire space inside your skull with light.

Now, imagine a ball of white light floating in space above your head. As you breathe in, imagine that this light enters your body at your crown and washes down through you like a waterfall Breathing out, it sweeps away all disease, toxic emotions, stress, negativity, anxious or busy thoughts, and sleepiness, leaving your body as black smoke, through the soles of your feet.

If you have a particular illness, focus the healing power of the light in that area. If you are habitually troubled by emotions such as fear, guilt, anger, sadness, worry, imagine the light purifying those emotions. Imagine feeling confident, happy, kind, joyful, relaxed, content.

Stay with this visualization if it feels right, or expand it a little by reflecting for a moment that all beings desire happiness, just as you do, and imagine what it would be like to live in a world where gentleness and kindness for others was universal.

Visualize yourself surrounded by all beings, your parents, brothers, sisters, friends, teachers, even strangers, and enemies if you can. Above each of these beings is a white light which purifies and heals them of their physical and mental sufferings.

Feel that your body and mind, as well as all others have become like crystal - clear and bright, like a perfect mirror reflecting all the light in the universe. Concentrate on this for a while.

If you get lost in day dreams, simply notice that there is thinking, conceptuality, and gently, without any self-judgment or condemnation, bring the attention back to the awareness of the innate clarity of your mind. If you notice emotions, or moods, such as judgment or condemnation, gently acknowledge these and bring the mind back to spacious awareness.

So as we return our awareness to this room and the people around us, make a determination to act with greater wisdom and kindness for the rest of today, and every day. And remember that whenever life seems overwhelming, you can return to this perfect place of knowing inside. All you have to do is remember to breathe in peace, breathe out stress. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free of suffering.

[end of guided meditation]

Sometimes meditation may bring up painful experiences, which have been lying hidden in the dark corners of our mind. This is natural and it is part of the cycle of healing. Patience with the process is very important. Too often we expect push button results in life. It is very helpful to remember the patience of Nature: the mighty oak tree that grows from a tiny acorn, the drop of water that falls on the mountain and gradually makes its way to the sea, the spring that returns each year.

Meditation is a refined art form that involves making full use of our mind, which is dependent upon taking care of our physical health and using our time well. Modern science has estimated that we are only using about five percent of our brains. I think a person who uses ten percent is considered a genius. So we have a lot of room for improvement. If we forever stay enmeshed with our old habits, it is difficult to develop our mind’s infinite potential. It takes work, but every one of us has the potential to improve.

Dedication. By reading this article and practicing the meditation, may this plant the seeds of peace in your life. May these seeds grow into a beautiful garden, a source of happiness for you and all beings.

Further Reading:

Open Heart, Clear Mind, by Thubten Chodron,

A Path with Heart, by Jack Kornfield,

Practicing the Path, Yangsi Rinpoche

The Experience of Insight, Joseph Goldstein.

Healing into Life and Death, Stephen Levine.

Loving Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, Sharon Salzberg

Healing Anger: The Power of Patience from a Buddhist Perspective, The Dalai Lama

Tathagatagarbha

Published by Jordan August 11th, 2008 in Mind Body Medicine and Stories. 0 Comments

Sometimes it seems we are resigned to being passive listeners to Big Media spewing its endless toxic effluent stream of multi-international corporate newspeak. Yesterday, a Tibetan nun asked me if I was following the Olympics and I said no, I did not wish to lend legitimacy to a political regime with an open policy of genocide towards Tibet and its unique culture …but on closer examination, that was not found to be true. One has to be highly disciplined to both stay in tune with what deserves our careful attention in the media, and to tune out that which does not.

Now that every major media outlet is ramping up nationalistic medal counts from Beijing, while perennially feeding and lampooning the hubris of political dignitaries, I must again remind myself that each person creates their own reality. Yes, the responsibility is ours to choose – resignation? Or hope? So while it is important to have our eyes open and not deny troublesome situations – for example, Microsoft’s cowardly deference to this same Beijing regime, denying protected First Amendment free speech rights based on thinly disguised fables conveniently protecting their bottom line – the task of a peace warrior is to see the bigger story fable (called samsara in Buddhism) - not to get sunk by it, and to help free others from drowning in it.

Yesterday, I listened to a 75 year old Tibetan lama one of the few remaining great masters who escaped from Tibet in 1959 during the Chinese invasion, explain that all sentient beings, even ants, mosquitoes, pythons, piranha, hell beings, ghosts, and all 6.5 billion humans on Earth – have at their core, tathagatagarbha or Buddha nature. This is outlined in full in a Mahayana sutra called Uttaratantrashastra.

Briefly, Buddha nature means that every sentient being is essentially pure, without any sin, transcending all concepts of good and evil in a state which is only fully realized after lifetimes of spiritual practice. It sounds remote and inaccessible, but anyone can achieve it. All of our mental garbage can be removed – sent to the recycle bin or compost heap. The fundamental clarity of our mind is like a perfectly stainless mirror – sometimes referred to as the innate mind of clear light. Okay, this may seem a weighty load of esoteric jargon for a general interest blog?

Please take what you like and leave the rest. The point I am trying to make here is that there is hope. Our demons and problems are only temporary. You and I can make a difference in the world. Just as importantly, you and I can make a difference in achieving a state of lasting happiness within ourselves, without needing to ride the rollercoaster of drama fed to us by personal and social conditioning.

Yesterday, I had a momentary insight into the surrealistic fantasies of modern life which obscure our ability to see things as they are. I had blissfully soaked up a morning of teachings from my Tibetan teacher, and then after being transported across town in a fossil fuel burner, found myself in Cal Anderson Park for an afternoon of play with my five year old daughter. As she started in on the monkey bars, we heard a commotion of strange and foreboding musical sounds coming from a different part of the park.

What’s that? Let’s go see…”, her five year old mind busily scanning the world for new information to analyze. We walked closer and encountered three female dancers with painted white faces, moving in mysterious ways in the middle of the water sculpture - designed to resemble a large river flowing down from a volcano. A man was playing the trombone. Another man was sounding gongs. Everyone was in the water, moving in unison.

We had stumbled into the middle of a free outdoor performance of the Greek opera, Psyche. The dancers at times stepped out of the sculpture river, moving out and around the onlookers. Nearby, some people were juggling. A woman walked through the middle of the performance, talking on her cell phone, seemingly oblivious to all dramas but her own. Mothers nursed their infants. A 747 flew directly overhead. Broadway, Seattle, Planet Earth time: Now. The brilliant orb of the sun moved in and out of the clouds casting shimmering diamonds on a Columbia River in miniature, flowing from Mount Olympus. The American tragicomedy of our incessant search for happiness blended with the jealousy and revenge of ancient Gods and Goddesses, like the waters of the fountain mixing with itself.

We follow the performance as it moves from one area of the park to another. I swim through multiple worlds of mind simultaneously. We stay mesmerized halfway through a second showing, before eventually the monkey bars and playmates call my daughter away. I sit down in the shade, one eye on my singing giggling dynamo, the other studying non profit quarterly balance sheets, pausing now and then to savor my momentary insights into inner freedom.

What does any of this have to do with community acupuncture? Nothing, everything. Water in water. Time and freedom to contemplate and practice seeing things clearly.

Tangled Mind

Published by Serena August 6th, 2008 in Mind Body Medicine, nuts and bolts and Sustainability. 1 Comment

There is an old Chinese saying-which loosely translates to: “Think or don’t think but, if you think, make a decision and take action.” The basis of this core belief is the belief that thought, begun but not transformed into meaningful action, is at the root of all stagnation and dis-ease in the body. And that the converse is also considered true: Even a minute decision can break the cycle of inaction.

Many schools of meditation and spiritual practice seek to give us advice and guidance in how to train and discipline our minds. My spiritual teacher calls our minds “problem-solving, goal-seeking computers.” And there are numerous methods, techniques, and practices taught the world over. Some use dance, music, chanting or repetitive mantra/prayer, and drums to achieve the inner quiet necessary. It can feel confusing to decide what to listen to, where to start. Do I have to drink the kool-aid to get the benefits?

I have had a number of patients recently ask me advice on beginning meditation. How do I get started? What methodology do I adhere to? First, many people don’t realize that one of the ways in which we are unique is how we experience our inner world. Some people are very visual, some just sense energy shifts, light, smell, sound. Any sense may dominate the experience for you, and this doesn’t mean you are more or less talented/advanced - just how you are wired. It is good to discover how you experience this so you don’t spend your time trying to manufacture an experience based on what you think it should be like, rather than what is. And then you may miss what is true, second guessing it as ‘not as advertised’.

Much about meditation is still shrouded in mystery, thought to be some obscure, unattainable goal. I will try to give a few simple tips to help start this journey. Most important is to start out with a great deal of compassion for yourself. This is infinitely more important than what position you sit in or how you pose your hands. For that, just get comfortable and settle in. Seriously, nothing more complicated needed. The practices that utilize certain physical movements or positions to activate the engineering marvel that is our electro-magnetic body are real and profound but not necessary to start out. better to keep it simple and get in the habit first. building blocks, k?

In the moments before we reach a quiet space in our minds, all the uncooked/undigested thoughts and feelings we’ve been busy ducking float into view. This can cause anxiety at first. The temptation is to either stop and start engaging with these thoughts and feelings or run from them entirely. They are often uncomfortable and feel urgent. Unless one of them is telling you that you left the stove on and the house is going to burn, don’t let them derail your goal! Using whatever form/sense works for you, gently swish them to the side to deal with later from a centered and wise place. There is time, and all decisions are better served by coming to them calm.

Using a repetitive sound or mantra is often used to keep the brain busy so you are free to meditate. It is good to keep your focus situated in a given area (the energy centers known as the chakras are helpful here), staying focused on the third eye (the space between the eyes, directly in front of the pineal gland) for example. And breathe. Slowly and deeply breathe. Keeping this up for a gradually expanding length of time does wonders in itself. Ten minutes, 15, 20, 30 minutes. Just like any muscle. you get tired and need to build up the ability to retain a deep level of focus and internal quiet for any length of time. In the beginning, much of the time is going to be spent bouncing thoughts back to their corner and returning to the chosen focal point. Again and again. Don’t get frustrated, I swear it does get easier! After some time, keeping the mind quiet has become familiar and easier and you can move your focus deeper into,”no-thought” and beyond. The next step is in bringing this expansive internal space into your daily life and allowing your internal wisdom to inform your choices and relationships. Far reaching effect, I promise.

Danger: Wireless Technology

Published by Jordan July 15th, 2008 in Mind Body Medicine and Sustainability. 0 Comments

I’m taking a lesson from modern journalism and using a blog title that grabs your attention, even if I am not 100% sure of my facts. However, anyone who says that wireless technology is proven to be safe is simply not telling the truth. The truth is - we really don’t know. It’s a new technology. What a growing body of evidence is telling us though is that there is cause for extreme caution - an alarming increase in brain tumors, for example, over the past few decades.

Wireless technology has been on my radar now (all puns intended) for a few years. I do use a cell phone, even though I often use the speaker function and hold it at elbow’s length from my brain.  The safety question refuses to evaporate whenever I soberly examine the information available from all sources.

On the one hand, we have the FCC and industry spokesman saying there are no credible scientific studies pointing to harm by cell phone use, etc. There’s nobody out there dying with a smoking cell phone in their hand (an absurdly unrealistic standard to hold the safety of the general public hostage by).

On the other hand, we have various activist groups pointing out that - just as oilmen run the EPA, just as pill pushers (past and future pharmaceutical execs often hold high positions at NIH), executives at corporations like Motorola (and their hand picked friends) are in charge of the FCC.

Another difficulty I have in falling into line behind public pronouncements of safety towards wireless technology is that what little “science” is directed towards studying its safety, is largely funded by industry. In other words, there is biased science which is non-science (nonsense).

In one of the video’s below, a scientist shares how his research was increasingly filtered through the mouthpiece of industry (where the funding was), until he decided to sever his connections on ethical grounds.

We need independent science and for that, we need politicians and regulatory officials who aren’t in the pockets of industry.

Thanks Amanda for getting me back on track with this. Check out these excellent videos (about 30 minutes each) by the Council on Wireless Technology:

Part one of video:

Part two of video:

Peak Oil

Published by Jordan June 6th, 2008 in Sustainability and Peace. 0 Comments

I just finished watching “A Crude Awakening”, the latest film attempting to jolt human beings into meaningful action towards averting a global catastrophe of epic proportions. Whenever a film moves me deeply, the first viewing is required for emotional processing. On the second viewing my cognitive brain starts to grapple with the issues raised. See this movie. Meanwhile, I offer you a blend of my emotional and cognitive impressions:

One of the most riveting scenes was aerial footage of a high mountain, showing beautiful meadows leading gradually upwards to a set of ominous jagged teeth on the horizon. The Phillip Glass (Koyanisqattsi, Kundun) soundtrack escalates into a psychotropic beat while a voice – eerie in its calmness - states that once we’ve exceeded the sustainable peak supply of oil (with the heavy implication that that time could very well be right now – 2008), what is then important is the view that comes into sight on the other side (beyond our current profligate consumption of oil). The camera then rises beyond the summit to reveal a sheer cliff hidden in deep shadows.

Now the sobering facts: “We are moving into an era of scarce and expensive energy.” The oil we are consuming now is literally the blood of the dinosaurs – cooked over 90 to 150 million years of geological time. This happened once in Earth’s history, and in the space of a few centuries, we have nearly exhausted this supply.

98% of all transportation energy is currently derived from oil. A microchip requires 630 times its own weight in oil to produce. The average car requires somewhere between 25-50 barrels of oil to produce. Every calorie you eat in the U.S. Requires 10 calories of hydrocarbon energy to produce.

Historians estimate there were about 300 million humans on the planet at the time of Christ. This slowly grew to about 600 million by the early 1800s – the dawn of the era of coal and oil. Today, there are 6.4 billion humans on the planet. According to current trends, global population will reach 9 billion by 2042. This population rise is due in large part to the “green revolution” - the transformation of traditional farming by massive application of petrochemical (oil based) fertilizers on the Earth, as well as a steady march of larger and larger fossil fuel burning farm machinery.

Boom to Bust

The first oil boom began in the 1870’s in Baku on the shores of the Caspian Sea in what is now the country of Azerbaijan. Venezuela and Texas soon followed in the early decades of the 20th century. For a time up until the 1950s, the U.S. was the leading producer of oil in the world. But as the mayor of a bust town in Texas wryly commented “they aren’t making dinosaurs anymore”.

Oil is a Magnet for War

Oil starts wars. It prolongs them. It intensifies them. World War II was “the war of engines” and was won by the Allied Powers in large part because of the Russian (Baku) and U.S. (Texas) oil production capacity. The current Iraq war, launched in 2003 was not a war on terrorism, as was claimed at the time by our government leaders. All evidence now points to the fact that the war was motivated by oil. Maps of oil fields were involved in planning the war as early as 1998. The Iraq war underscores the dangerous predicament of the American and global economies: More and more of the oil today comes from less and less stable political regions.

The Numbers Don’t add up

Since 1985, OPEC nations have been exaggerating their reserves in order to keep up production quotas. The wealthy sheiks are apparently not interested in sustainability, but instead wish to maximize their short term profits so that they can purchase and maintain gilded palaces, mega yachts, luxury cars and of course some diversified foreign investments.

Every year, these countries state the same amount of reserves, inexplicably denying the fact that as billions of barrels are pumped out of the ground, nothing is replacing that pumped oil. These leaders will all be dead in 20 years. More about the increasing destabilization of the Saudi regime a bit later on.

U.S. oil production peaked in 1970 at about 10.2 million barrels per day. In 1956, Dr. M. K. Hubbert, a geophysicist for Shell Oil predicted that peak production of oil for the U.S. would occur in 1970. His prediction proved extremely accurate, although at the time, he was nearly laughed out of his profession. In 1969, he predicted that peak oil for the world would occur by the year 2000.

Whether or not global peak oil has already occurred, is occurring now, or has not yet occurred is widely debated. What is agreed upon – when it is not outright ignored much of the time – is that peak oil is a certainty. When the oil is gone, there will be no more oil.

The Middle East is the only area of the world where production has perhaps not yet peaked – and we are now witnessing what is likely to become a generation or two of oil resource wars until all the oil is gone – unless we collectively develop the vision and willpower to end our unsustainable addiction to oil now. We need to both reinvest heavily in alternative energy research and development, and implement massive energy conservation programs - at all levels of society - individual, family, community, town, county, city, state, country, world.

Global Demand keeps rising, supply flattening out

Global demand for oil and energy continues to rise. The Chinese economy is doubling in size every 7 years based on a 10% annual growth rate. India is poised to pass China as the world’s most populated country and they too seem eager to step up to the party plate and join the American way of life – a car for every individual. Only now, “the glass is half empty.”

The United States has 4.5% of the world’s population. We have 2% of the global oil reserves inside our borders, and yet we consume 25% of the oil. Even if every car on the planet were magically transformed into a Prius hybrid electric, in five years, our demand for oil would still exceed supply. The demand for energy simply keeps expanding without any apparent restraint.

When the crash happens, American suburbia will be in deep trouble because it is built around people stepping into their car and driving 50 to 100 miles round trip each day. It’s only viable if gas is cheap.

As long as there is cheap gas in America, there will be no incentive for change. However, time is getting short, and unless we prepare, we may be faced with “a crude awakening” - unemployment, bankruptcy, poverty, starvation. The U.S. needs to lead the world in conservation and alternative energy research, but the politicians have little incentive to push such measures unless the general public supports them, otherwise, they will be quickly voted out of office for advancing unpopular measures.

Beginning in 1945, U.S. foreign policy was very clearly linked to oil based upon America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. We offered the ruling elite military protection, and they provided us with oil.

Ten years ago, the per capita income in Saudia Arabia was $28,000. Today it is $6,000. The average Saudi youth and young adult feels alienated within their own country, left out of the global economy. Fundamentalism is sharply on the rise, and the stability of the aging regime is increasingly questionable. If the regime were to collapse, the pressure coming from the U.S. corporate controlled government to step in militarily would be immense.

In the end, this “liberated” Saudia oil will only extend the American lifestyle of excess for a decade or two, but at an incredibly high price – more young American war dead and wounded, an even deeper cancerous effect on the American economy and debt our children will inherit, certain terrorist retribution, and making the transition to a non-petroleum based economy even more abrupt due to continued denial of the basic problem – right up until the oil is all gone. Haven’t we learned anything from Iraq?

Technology to the Rescue?

Hybrid cars are not the answer. Hydrogen fuel cell technology is “conceptually a good idea.” But there are numerous challenges for both developing this resource and creating a market for it. A few experts suggest it will take another 30 to 50 years before this can even begin to start meeting global energy demands. Biomass similarly will only provide a proverbial drop in the bucket in terms of meeting demand. In addition this technology has ethical shortcomings as it appears to be playing a role in the current world food shortages. People are literally starving because palm oil plantations and speculation in similar crop futures are crowding out food for human consumption.

Nuclear power similarly faces huge questions in safety – both operational and storage of wastes, as well as vulnerability to terrorist attack and plutonium bomb making materials becoming available on the black market. Even if we were able to build the 10,000 plants that it would take to meet current global demand for energy (in the absence of oil production), the world’s supply of uranium would be gone in 10 to 20 years.

Solar power still faces huge challenges to make it viable on a large scale. The number of solar panels in existence might cover about 10 square kilometers when what we need is to cover an area about half the size of the state of California. Oil shale extraction technologies are incredibly expensive and inefficient at present.

Air Travel will essentially end

Air travel will essentially come to an end for all but the super rich. Our entire way of life will radically change and the longer we wait to prepare for the inevitable justice meted out by the Earth, the less able we will be able to adapt successfully. Global population is certain to decline. As the parent of a five year old, it troubles me to think of her fighting for her survival, but her uncertain path is up near the jagged ridge line - a beautiful meadow on one side, dark abyss on the other. Her future - and the future of her generation, depends upon what we do right now. Will it be a continuation of life? or the beginning of survival?

First, we need to conserve – and I’m not just talking about recycling paper and pop cans. We need to go a lot further - like rethinking the rationale for producing nonessentials such as pop, beer, and ten thousand other consumer products (the vast majority involving plastic and petrochemicals. Think how much cleaner our cities and towns would be without beer and beverage trucks belching diesel into the air? We need to stop thinking “life as usual” and start preparing for phase two of the oil era. BIG changes folks.

Consider not using your clothes dryer and put up a clothesline. Ride your bike or take mass transit. Get rid of your car if you can. Plant an organic garden. Invest and participate in local sustainable economies (like community acupuncture). Think about right livelihood in terms of a sustainable global economy. If you work involves extensive travel, rethink that now. Your options are definitely going to be reduced very soon. Finally, let’s get real about U.S. foreign policy. There is no place for a superpower in a dominator role as the world’s police force. Soon there will be no maritime fuel to power the aircraft carriers. No jet fuel to power the jets. Better to dismantle the killing machines now so that when the walls of Rome II (that’s America) come tumbling down, the millions we have oppressed do not repeat history with a modern campaign of barbaric revenge against the empire. All of this may be only a few years away unless we pull our heads out of the sand and take a serious look at the gathering storm clouds on the horizon.

Now, it’s up to us to think about every human being alive, not just our own selfish concerns. May all beings develop a compassionate mind, with concern for every living being. May we all be happy as we learn to live with less.

 

August 2008
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