Jain Spirit 2000 03 No 03

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 50

AN ECOLOGY OF BEING
In recent years, life has become much more sedentary and compartmentalized. To practice Jain values we need to move to more a holistic life writes Matt Maxwell.
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To say that we live in a box is not a metaphor, but the truth. Let us follow the course of a day of the typical modern male. In the morning he wakes up in his heavily mortgaged house (box 1), catches the latest report about the crashing stock-market in the Far East on the TV (box 2) while gulping down instant cereal (which is poured from box 3) with a cup of milk (which comes from factory-farmed cows in box 4). He steps into the garage (box 5) and into his car (box 6). He passes by a thousand box-like factories and warehouses, and arrives at the underground parking lot of his office building (box 7). He gets into the elevator (box 8), arrives at the office (box 9) and stares at a computer terminal (box 10) for the better part of the day. In the evening when he returns home he puts his pre-packed dinner (box 11), made with factory-farmed food (box 12), in the microwave (box 13). Finally, before retiring to bed, he flips on his personal computer (box 14) and surfs the net.
It is only logical that this would lead to an urban culture where the large bulk of residents live in structures known as "apart-ments". It is just as logical that - if our prime mode of competition is to see how much we can each consume with minimal regard for the others that these patterns of behaviour will result in profound ecosystem destruction around the Earth, as well as in a plethora of economic and social injustices.
So how do we "unbox" our lives? It doesn't really come with a set of instructions, but we must be rooted in an understanding that I like to refer to as an ecology of being. By this I do not simply mean being ecological in our
SLOW DOWN/AN ECOLOGY OF BEING
| actions, although this is a critically important element, but rather that we understand intellectually, emotionally and spiritually the dynamics of ecology, typified by such qualities as interrelatedness, complexity, diversity, co-evolution and balance. Such an integrated perspective is essential to make one's actions, words and thoughts part of a cohesive whole. Moreover, the recognition by different parties within the environmental movement of the need for a holistic perspective would create common ground along the
Nature knows no boundaries. We create them.
"blue-green", "green-green", and "redgreen" continuum. In this view, ecology is not a separate discipline but a way of living one's life, thinking one's thoughts, and being present to the world. Such
an
calls for philosophers to become activists; activists to become philosophers; and engineers, scientists, teachers and everyone else to become both. It calls for groups and organisations to focus on relatedness and commonality, rather than on dissimilarities. We must see that all of our lives are of one fabric - living bioregionally, drinking fair-trade coffee, supporting organic agriculture, walking in the wild, working in the garden, using sustainable transportation or investing in green mutual funds. Just generally using less space and consuming less stuff, and directly or financially supporting activist organisations, will all naturally flow from this deeper understanding.
This is all well and good, you might say, but how does one go about shaping such an understanding? It begins with those of us concerned with issues of an ecological nature stepping back a bit from our particular areas of interest and seeing the whole within the parts. It requires of the scientists, who "just want to get on with the job" of designing a more sustainable infrastructure, to explore their inner territory. It calls on academics to bridge the gap between the theoretical and the practical, and to make their work as accessible as possible. And it asks for each of us to take off our blinders, and to see what Bateson referred to as the metapatterns which speak of the dynamism and interrelatedness underlying all things. The boxes that define our physical existence were created in our minds and hearts. This is where they must first be disassembled!
Matt Maxwell is a PhD student at the experimental/conceptual framework University of Toronto.
March May 2000 Jain Spirit
49