“When your sense of separation dissipates, it becomes not what’s in it for me, but what can I do to help make this a better world for everybody?”David Loy

David Loy, Zen teacher, scholar, and prolific author, reveals his acute understanding of the crises we face today, the psychology at the root of the problems, and how we can make our way forward in this in-depth discussion. He has adopted the term ecodharma to focus attention on the challenge Buddhism faces now: integrating personal transformation with global activism and social transformation. As David points out, the focus needs to be on this world, with transcendence being a metaphorical understanding but not an excuse to abandon the problems we and our planet face today.

Besides gaining great depth of knowledge from being a scholar and student of koans, David’s insights come from a plethora of nondual experiences, which led David on a path of eco-action. Ecodharma asks: How does Buddhism need to change? How much is dwelling in emptiness becoming problematical in these challenging times? What’s best for the Earth? Everyone says practice, practice, practice…when is the performance? Is evolutionary pressure going to create a new way of living sustainably?

Recorded February 22, 2020.

Topics & Timestamps: Part 1

• Social activism, Zen practice, philosophy, koan study: how it all started (03:52)
• How does David’s Zen practice inform his activism? It was the experiences of nondual reality (05:48)
• The emergence of compassion: when your sense of separation dissipates, it becomes not what’s in it for me, but what can I do to help make this a better world for everybody (09:14)
• The cold civil war in the U.S. and the need to find a way to talk with each other and understand conflicting points of view (12:03)
• Our fundamental problem is that we don’t feel real, because the separate self is a construct, inherently insecure, inherently uncomfortable, and we experience this as a sense of fundamental lack (14:03)
• The psychological and sociological implications of this sense of lack and how society is constructed to take advantage of it: the contemporary world religion is consumerism (17:31)
• The positive and negative sides of individualism (22:23)
• The heart of the bodhisattva path: personal transformation and social transformation (24:57)
• The challenge of integrating nondual experiences (27:31)
• 3 elements of the Pali Canon’s Motivation for Awakening (28:31)
• Dukkha (suffering) is structural not just individual (30:09)
• Awakenings: transcendent, imminent, and the decline of Axial religions that devalue this world (36:26)
• The problem with mindfulness and the 3 poisons: greed, ill will, delusion (40:51)

Topics & Timestamps: Part 2

• The role of technology, moving into an age of virtual reality, and the creation of supernormal stimuli (01:41)
• Ecodharma: addressing the need for a new understanding of practice and walking the bodhisattva/ecosattva path (04:37)
• Keeping “don’t know” mind in the face of the eco-crisis (09:57)
• How can Buddhism contribute to facing the critical issues of our time? (10:54)
• The Extinction Rebellion, a grassroots direct action movement (11:49)
• The election of Trump has highlighted our problems in making them worse (15:16)
• The problem of complacency (17:24)
• What signifies that one has started to walk the bodhisattva path? (19:42)
• Desire versus craving (21:26)
• Karma yoga and not being attached to the outcome (22:14)
• The cycle of withdrawal and return common to those people who have contributed the most to humankind (23:45)
• The deepest challenge of our practice is integrating the knowledge that everything is perfect, but also knowing action is needed to improve things (26:36)
• Evolutionary psychology, the evolution of religion, and what we need to do today (28:18)
• What socially engaged Buddhism has to contribute (34:02)
• The challenge of the gnostic intermediary to transmit a wisdom tradition across cultures and across time (34:59)

Resources & References

• David Loy, EcoDharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis*
• David Loy, NonDuality: In Buddhism and Beyond*
• David Loy, co-editor, A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency*
• Full list of David’s writings: https://www.davidloy.org/writing.html
• David Loy’s website
• David Loy, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center
• Yamada Kōun Roshi, David’s teacher and author of The Gateless Gate : The Classic Book of Zen Koans* (2004)
• Robert Aiken, one of the original founders of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship
• Dōgen, Japanese Buddhist priest, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen
• William Blake, poet, painter, mystic
• Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death*
• Mahatma Gandhi, “The world has enough for everyone’s need…”
• Theravada sutras, the Pali Canon, Bodhipakkhiya Dhamma
• Aldous Huxley, Island*
• Dogen’s Genjokoan, Actualizing the Fundamental Point
• Loyal Rue, Everybody’s Story: Wising up to the Epic of Evolution*
• Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate*
• Stockholm Institute’s 9 markers of ecological sustainability
• Edward O. Wilson, aka the Darwin of the 21st century
• Guhyapati, founder of the Eco-Dharma Centre in northeast Spain
• David Loy and Guhyapati, Remaking Our Dharma: Expanding the Scope of Ecodharma
• David Loy, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center
• David Loy, “The Bodhisattva Path in the Trump Era”
• Greta Thunberg and the School Strike for Climate
• Extinction Rebellion: Grassroots movement engaging in direct action focused on climate, species extinction, population, toxins, plastic and more
• The Bhagavad Gita
• Arnold Toynbee, A Study of World History* (abridgement by D.C. Somervell)
• Robert Thurman, first Westerner Tibetan Buddhist monk ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
• Shunryu Suzuki, author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
• Paul Hawkins, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World*
• Wes Nisker, You Are Not Your Fault and Other Revelations*
• Roger Walsh, The Transmission of Wisdom: The Task of Gnostic Intermediaries* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

About the Deep Transformation series

We are clearly in a new era, facing world-threatening challenges and graced with barely conceivable opportunities. In this mind-boggling new world, we all face two crucial questions:

• First, the ever-present conundrum of how to best live fully, deeply, wisely, and well.
  Second, the new question unique to our times, how to best understand and heal our endangered world.
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