Dear Friends of World Dharma,

Among the great mysteries in the world (the origins of life, space, time, and gravity) the mystery of consciousness is perhaps the least understood. No one knows from where it first came, nor where it goes after we die. The only thing we know with absolute certainty is that this virtual world of complex energies sheathed in flesh exists. And its exploration has never been more important. As the Dalai Lama said, "Perhaps now that the Western sciences have reached down into the atom and out into the cosmos finally to realize the extreme vulnerability of all life and its value, it is becoming . . . obvious that the field of what we call 'inner science' (dealing with inner things) is of supreme importance."

The mind is a living organism that chaperones us everywhere, haloing our bodies as the biosphere does the earth. It informs us of everything we think, feel, and say. Consciousness is as central to life as the ecosystem is to the earth. We can't live without it, nor can it be escaped. It is home.

Neglect consciousness (denigrate it, violate it) and like the earth, the individual suffers, and often causes suffering too. On the other hand, nurture consciousness (understand its nature, inhabit it wisely) and we flourish, and elevate society too. Albert Einstein said it this way:

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. They experience themselves, their thoughts, and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of their consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of love and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

But is Einstein's appeal naive? Is it an impossible ideal? Is it delusional to think that each of us can play a vital role in the future of freedom and the survival of life? Maybe we're simply discouraged, thinking that our lives are too small to make any real difference? It's certainly easy to become cynical, snared into a fatalistic belief that control is in the hands of the politically and economically powerful. Perhaps our hopelessness goes even deeper. Maybe we think that the damage has already been done, and now there must be a massive human die off before the earth can sufficiently regenerate, and sustain a much smaller, more conscientious population? Is it even possible to secure our world, even if we wanted to?

These are extreme times. Gary Gardner writes on page one of the State of the World 2002 Report, "The human family has suffered sickness, but rare is the plague that can kill a third of a nation's adults, as AIDS may well do in Botswana over the next decade. . . . Our planet has regularly seen species die-offs, but only five times in 4 billion years has it experienced anything like today's mass extinction. . . . Nations have long grappled with inequality. But how often have the assets of just three individuals matched the combined national economies of the poorest 48 countries, as happened in 1997?" Is there hope?

One of the most precious attributes of the Dharma, finding liberation through living, is that it fosters magic, making impossible dreams come true. Empowering human liberation through the awakening of consciousness is saying that from within our hearts and souls, from the very depth of our beings, there is a natural, radical, and creative intelligence that holds the answers to the cosmos and our flourishing as a species. I believe the exploration, understanding, and mapping of human consciousness is the answer to our survival.

Consciousness is our common heritage. It is our bond with all life. It can be friend or foe. It can give life or take it. It can serve or enslave. It can give hope or drown in despair. It can dream or denigrate. It can create beauty or concoct evil. All that we think and imagine originates from within the mind. It's all right there, behind our eyes.

As Gandhi said, "As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world . . . as in being able to remake ourselves." He insists that we must "become the change want to see in the world."

I think we all know, deep inside, that love doesn't begin or end upon the lips of a lover, any more than a war begins or ends on a battlefield. True love and lasting peace must come from a radical change of heart, of the mind, your mind, my mind, our minds together, us, right now. As Aung San Suu Kyi said, "a revolution of the spirit begins . . . by first learning how to liberate our own minds from fear, apathy, and ignorance." I hear so much hope in her vision. It is a call to become a lover of beauty and change, each of us playing our part in further igniting a worldwide revolution of consciousness, one that honors and celebrates our inherent mutuality, and our inseparable freedom and dignity.

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, in a letter written in 1965 to Dr. Martin Luther King, immortalized the essence of compassionate activism with these words:

I believe with all my heart that the monks who burned themselves did not aim at the death of the oppressors but only at a change in their policy. Their enemies are not man, but are the intolerance, fanaticism, dictatorship, cupidity, hatred, and discrimination which lie within the heart of man. I also believe with all my being that the struggle for equality and freedom you led in Birmingham, Alabama, is not really aimed at the whites but only at intolerance, hatred, and discrimination. These are the real enemies of man, not man himself. In our unfortunate fatherland of Vietnam we are trying to plead desperately; do not kill man, even in man's name. Please remove the real enemies of man which are present everywhere, in our very hearts and minds.

We must be vigilant in our defense against indoctrination. Do not let anyone shape you in the image of his or her dogma. Don't even let teachers call you their student, unless that's what you want. Rather, be on equal footing, and learn from each other. There is no ultimate teaching to learn. Existence is the Dharma. Consciousness is the teacher. Life is the living art of finding and expressing liberation. There is no core philosophy that will free your mind. Being free frees the mind. Freedom is the only religion and it's where all true religions meet.

What fashions itself between spontaneous local beauty and the innate intelligence of the cosmos is the interrelated fabric of our social and political world. In order to discover the Dharma life that suits us, we must each come alive to the inner responsibility that our self as social and political being entails. This means opening our eyes to the world that surrounds us, from the inequities and misfortunes that force people to live on the streets of our neighborhoods to the blind logic of aggressive militarization that global powers are currently forcing upon distant nations and millions of innocent lives. We should not turn away from that suffering.

But witnessing is not enough. We must discover the conviction that declares the difference between right and wrong, the difference between status quo and making things better. It is your task, right now, to find the inner certainty and direction to commit our whole beings to bringing about the best natural freedom has to offer us as neighbors. There's no central plan of action for the next bold move. Let the mysterious constellation of the whole universe, inside and outside, be your guide, your guru, and your ultimate teacher.


Respectfully, for World Dharma
Alan Clements