Chapter 2 of the book Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Young-Brown talks of what the pain of the world is,
What deadens our heart and mind,
And what is the cost of blocking our pain for the world.
The Great Turning arises in response to what we know and feel is happening to our world.
As conscious embodied beings endowed with multiple senses,
We are geared to respond.
Instantly we leap from the path of an oncoming truck,
Dash to douse a fire,
Dive into a pool to save a child.
This response ability has been an essential feature of life throughout human evolution.
It enables whole groups and societies to survive,
So long as their members have sufficient information and freedom to act.
In systems terms,
Response to danger is a function of feedback,
The information circuit that connects perception to action.
Appropriate response depends on an unblocked feedback loop.
What we are dealing with here is akin to the original meaning of compassion,
Suffering with.
It is the distress we feel on behalf of the larger whole of which we are a part.
It is the pain of the world itself experienced in each of us.
Feeling pain for the world is as natural to us as the food and air we draw upon to fashion who we are.
We are not closed off from the world but integral components of it,
Like cells in a larger body.
When that body is traumatized,
We sense that trauma too.
When it falters and sickens,
We feel its pain whether we pay attention to it or not.
The problem therefore lies not with our pain for the world but in our repression of it.
So let us explore two questions.
First,
What causes this repression and then what does that repression cost us and our world?
So what deadens the heart and mind we ask?
These are some of the points that are raised in the book,
Coming Back to Life.
Firstly,
The fear of pain,
Easily explained.
Secondly,
The fear of despair.
Thirdly,
Spiritual traps,
Thinking that we need to heal ourselves first.
Spiritual bypassing or so-called.
The fear of not fitting in,
That's also a big one,
For sadness and regret are seen as a sign of weakness often,
While impassivity is seen as cool.
Plus,
No one wants to be seen as a prophet of doom or a conspiracy theorist.
We also have distrust of our own intelligence,
Fear of guilt,
Fear of distressing loved ones,
And some circumstances this can be aggravated if our loved ones are not well.
And the view of self as separate.
And of course hijacked attention by all the gadgets and social media around us.
And the fear of powerlessness,
That feeling of what's the point?
I can do nothing,
I am too small.
And then there's the fear of knowing and speaking.
Because we cling to the image of our leaders as well-meaning,
Even if they are incompetent.
Like we would cling to an abusive parent,
Sometimes even fearing retaliation.
Then we point out the role of mass media in this deadening,
As mass media constantly bombards us with messages of consume and obey and be silent.
And then there's other factors which are very different depending on each individual,
Such as time pressure and job pressure and the social violence and injustice that takes over our lives.
So what is the cost of blocking our pain for the world?
Joanna Macy and Molly Young-Brown introduce a series of impeded functions which I'm going to relate to you now.
We may try to protect ourselves from feeling pain for the world,
But that very effort costs us a great deal.
We pay a big price in diminished awareness,
Understanding and authenticity.
Impeded cognitive functioning.
The mind pays for its deadening to the state of our world by giving up its capacity for joy and flexibility.
There is less of our natural intelligence available to us if we cut ourselves from information that contradicts our numb assessment of the situation.
Impeded access to the unconscious.
What we ban from consciousness does not disappear.
It will manifest on an individual level through illness or on a collective level through history.
Impeded access for self-preservation.
The blocking of the muladhara cuts off primal intelligence and energy that is essential to survival.
Impeded Eros.
To be cut off from this root chakra robs us from our birthright to deep static connections within the web of life.
Without Eros,
Our lives become more desiccated and robotic.
It also gives access to more porn and more violence,
For example.
It also impedes our sense of aesthetic,
Our relation to creativity,
So art as a process is ignored and neglected,
Only remaining as a display of wealth.
Impeded Eros gives way to hedonism,
Short-term gratification,
Desperate pursuit of pleasure,
Consumption,
But more than sheer appetite,
It's the absence of erotic connection to the web of life.
Impeded Empathy.
Eros fosters empathy,
That vital connection to those with whom we share this world.
There is fear that when the situation becomes desperate,
It will be every man for himself.
Impeded Imagination.
Imagination opens us to new ways of seeing and new ways of being,
Liberating the mind from the dead hand of habit.
The crucial source of all creativity is blocked when we resist images,
Ideas or feelings that might trigger moral pain.
Impeded Feedback.
Each act of denial,
Conscious or unconscious,
Is an abdication of our power to respond.
It relegates us to the role of victim,
Before we even see what we can and want to do.
Coming Back to Life.
Our pain for the world is dysfunctional only to the extent that it is misunderstood and repressed.
We don't retrieve our passion for life,
Our wild innate creative intelligence,
By scolding ourselves and soldiering on with a stiff upper lip.
That model of heroic behavior belongs to the worldview that gave us the Industrial Growth Society in the first place.
The worldview emerging now,
Opens us to the vast intelligence of life's self-organizing powers.
It lets our pain for the world be a gateway to deep participation in the world's self-healing.
That was Gaia speaking.
Thank you for listening.
