An Interview with Dr. Joanna Macy

Dr. Joanna Macy is an American Buddhist teacher, writer, and activist in
the campaign for environmental and social justice. When Dr. Macy was in Tokyo in
November to participate in the twenty-fourth General Conference of
the World Fellowship of Buddhists, DHARMA WORLD interviewed her on
the significance of the Buddha's teachings for global healing.

How can we cultivate our awareness of the reality of the world we live in?

So often people say, "What shall we do?" "Give me a solution." They want to have a solution before they look at the problem. In America President Johnson, when he was in office in the White House during the Vietnam War, is known to have said to his staff, "Do not bring me a problem unless you bring me the solution." And for many of us--and certainly in my country today--that is what we want. In systems-theory terms he was closing himself to the feedback loop, or to actuality. And that is happening, of course, in many political governing circles today, even if this is an uncomfortable truth.

We do not want the discomfort of looking at the problem. We want a ready-made solution. That attitude turns our attention away from the world. We cannot see what is going on in a period where suffering is accelerating: ecosystems are being disrupted, there is climate change, there are huge gaps between the rich and the poor, more and more of our resources are going to the military, and there is the loss of our resources and the extinction of species on every side. There are things that are hard to see. And many of us want to look away so that we will not have to feel sorrow, so that we will not have to feel fear. We want to protect ourselves from a broken heart. And so we close down, we divert ourselves; we turn to entertainments or distractions, consuming, or drugging our mind. Or we become very passive and try to persuade ourselves that we do not care very much or that the experts will take care of it.

How do we cultivate true awareness? To practice, see the power of mind. At the beginning of my workshops I say to people, "Tell me what you love about life." You love the sunrise, you love the sound of the waves of the ocean, you love the wind in the trees or in your face. Our bodies and our senses can help us to pay attention, and if we can awaken our love for life, then it helps us pay attention to the beloved. This world is like our beloved one, and we can look. We do not turn away from our beloved because our loved one is sick; or if our loved one has a disease, we do not walk out and leave. To cultivate awareness, we must get in touch with the love of our heart for this world and also the love of our body. So, paying attention to the breath, paying attention to the rhythm of our heartbeat, all of these bring us into touch with what is going on in the moment.

The greatest gift that we can give to the world and our fellow beings is our attention--our full attentive presence, because as humans we have the capacity to choose. It is precisely that capacity to change karma that we need to be aware of right now, because the social systems, political systems, and ecological systems are becoming unstable; and when systems are unstable, they can change very quickly, and you need particular attention then so that you can intervene with your choices as a citizen, as a healer/teacher in any profession, as a consumer, as a reflective mind, and as an activist.

We have the choice not to turn away from the world. I find that the Buddha Dharma helps us with the teachings of the first Noble Truth. There is suffering. Do not pretend there is not. And it is also helpful to learn to watch what your mind is doing, how you are trying to turn away. When I teach my classes and graduate school seminars on the planetary crisis, I assign the students insight meditation practice, or vipassana. They do not need to believe in Buddhism, they do not need to adopt any belief system, but they learn a discipline of paying attention to what is in front of them. So I like to say to them, "This is the greatest gift you can give your world. Do not pretend to have the answers yet. The answers are groping in your hands, but you have the opportunity and the courage to see what is going on."

Have you been sharing ideas about how to transform the present, closed industrial society into a more life-sustaining civilization?

This shift, or what we call "the Great Turning," to a life-sustaining society begins with a sense of what our relationship is to each other and to the living earth. And I say "the living earth" because the great paradigm shift in our time is bringing us back to a realization that this world is alive.

In Japanese culture from the beginning, before Buddhism, there was always a sense of the presence of this living world. And that is reinforced by the central teaching of the Lord Buddha. Well, that is also central to this healing shift to a life-sustaining society. Let us see and engage in the new forms that are arising for active community development. Some of them are ancient, and some of them are new, and all bring us solidarity. That is necessary because we are facing a dark time. Economic and social systems are unraveling, coming apart. We cannot survive if we do not hold on to each other. Social and environmental activism gives us new ways for experiencing our solidarity, our mutual belonging in the web of life.

How do the Buddha's teachings apply to global healing?

The knowledge of our interconnectedness helps us to see the effects of every action--how we preserve our water, what we do with our trash, how we raise our children. All of those aspects reflect on each other, showing us that we are living in a web of relationships and that if we act with a clear intention for the healing of the whole, that has results far beyond our separate and individual capacities. We cannot see the results, so we just trust--we know we belong to each other. That gives us strength to act, to speak the truth about present conditions. Even small actions like writing a letter can affect the whole web.

Another of the Lord Buddha's teachings, of course, is self-restraint. Refraining from overconsumption fits well with traditional values of frugality. You know, people take pride in using things and keeping them. People can have a new relationship with their belongings as they care for them, mend them, and develop an affection for them instead of just throwing them away.

Then, I find the Buddha Dharma gives us the courage, the strength, to be with what is. The practice of meditation helps us train in that; particularly, the mindfulness and insight practice of the Theravada tradition schools us to just be present, and we do not have to like something in order to be present to it. So that is very helpful.

Then there are methods like the Brahmaviharas, or the Four Immeasurables. I use them and guide people in all of my workshops, so that they can learn to see each other without fear and competitiveness. Metta [loving-kindness], karuna [compassion], mudita [rejoicing in others' joy], and upekkha [equanimity] are magical in terms of their immediate effectiveness in transforming relationships and worldviews.

You see, all you need to do is remember, and so we practice in the workshops. We call them "Learning to See Each Other." We learn to see each other without fear by practicing loving-kindness. We learn to keep our hearts open to the suffering of the world through the practice of the karuna.

The third immeasurable, mudita, helps people overcome competitiveness and envy and divisiveness. It helps people take pleasure in other people's accomplishments. This is a truly wonderful spiritual treasure, a psychological release, and then, of course, upekkha--equanimity. I share these practices with people irrespective of their own traditions. You do not need to be Buddhist to use them.

Some say that nuclear power is more effective and cleaner for sustaining people's daily life. But you have mentioned somewhere that going nuclear is not effective and is more expensive.

Well, it is a delusion to say that nuclear power is clean, and it is a delusion to think of it as economical. It is a big money-maker for the corporations that have decided to provide it. Unfortunately, they have been able to block information about the immense suffering caused by nuclear power stations. I continue to work with people who have suffered from nuclear accidents, particularly at Chernobyl, but that was not the only one; there are accidents very frequently elsewhere. The safe decommissioning of nuclear power plants is, like nuclear waste, an unsolved problem.

So that is an area that I continue to feel very passionate about, and my interest and concern about nuclear power and nuclear weapons--because they are inseparable--has been a great gift for me. It has opened my heart and mind to future generations, the scores of thousands of generations who will be crippled and stunted by the poisons that we leave behind. And while this breaks my heart, it has also stretched my heart and mind so that I now do quite a bit of active work in the workshops to help people feel a living connection with the beings of the future, to speak for them. And to feel the presence of the beings of the future is actually one of the gifts of this moment in time. Because our karma, which is the consequence of our actions, extends into a geological time-frame, the choices we make now will affect people for a long time. So we are given the responsibility, but it also gives us a sense of--yes, a moral power and moral imagination to feel the presence of the health and well-being of the future generations with us now.