By ~ Lizzie Finn | Click here to download this piece as a PDF
When I first started announcing Community Wildlife Corridor hand weeding events last year at the end of our Zen group sits in Western Australia, I felt a little silly. I thought an invitation to hand weed on a relatively small area of land might be considered a little bizarre as an environmental action project for the Zen group, given the huge damage to the global environment and its inhabitants with associated climate change. ‘What difference is that going to make?’ was the question I figured people might be asking in their heads, and this question is the question underpinning this writing.
Like me, everyone in the Zen Open Circle group is likely to have experienced an ongoing sense of grief, distress, worry and powerlessness in the face of endless news about practices such as widespread destruction of rainforests and land clearing. These leave native animals homeless and very possibly facing extinction. The recent fires in the Eastern States of Australia, which devastated the bush and its inhabitants, are a grim reminder of the effects of climate change. Associated climate warming now urgently threatens the biodiversity which sustains all life on our planet with a recent Global Assessment report concluding that 25% of plant and animal species are threatened with extinction as the result of human activity.
These facts are both alarming and overwhelming in the sense of asking the question, ‘What can we do about it? What can I do about it?’ At Zen Open Circle extended practice events and after every Taking Part in the Gathering meeting we sing the Great Vow ‘the many beings are numberless, I vow to save them’, but how on earth do you do that when everything seems to be falling apart?
As you would be aware, a drop in the ocean means ‘a very small amount, or a drop, compared to the amount needed’. The ocean and a drop of water are also metaphors used in Zen teaching as a way of referring to the great mystery which we explore in our practice…