I have been absent from Substack for quite a long time, which is perhaps a little unfair on the tiny band of loyal supporters who took out paid subscriptions – thanks again to all of you. The main reason for my truancy is that for most of December and January I have been head down with a grant application which, if successful, would have launched Regeneration UK very satisfactorily. Sadly, this was not to be; though the funders said they loved the proposal, it wasn’t aligned enough with their urgent strategic priorities (of course saying that did not cost them anything, but I am sure it was sincere.) Since receiving this news I have again been head down, this time in the proof corrections for the second edition of an anthology of my mother’s philosophical writings – just sent off the final version so I’m now returning to the fray.
There has however been a further reason for my silence. Over the Christmas and New Year period I completed an eleven day Vipassana silent retreat, during which I took the practice deeper than on any previous occasion; this has impacted on my thinking about the planetary crisis in a very challenging way, and I think I would have found it hard to write about this shift before now. As I neared the end of the retreat, I increasingly felt a pull to remain in the meditative environment I was fortunate enough to be enjoying; I really did not want to return to engaging with the enormity of what was going on in the so-called ‘real world’. Worse (in a way) I was full of doubt about the value of doing so – as I focussed, for many hours a day, on the inner root causes of the human malaise, my sense of the possibility of transformative action within the theatre of the outer world receded. Many Buddhist teachers advocate letting go of the aspiration to effect change in the external world, at least until one has fully transcended the imperfections of normal consciousness – this narrative had begun to lodge itself quite deeply in my awareness.
However, though I was highly motivated to take part in the immediately following Vajrayana retreat, I resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to stay longer and returned to immerse myself again in my funding proposal. To say the least, the global scene awaiting me as I re-engaged with the news – what looked like the impending total breakdown of the international order, with all that implies for the prospects for addressing ecological breakdown – was not calculated to resuscitate the sense of active hope I needed to activate in order to present an inspirational case for funding the Regeneration project. It took me about two weeks to re-find that active hope, but on the day of the crunch meeting with the funders I was able to speak with an authentic voice about how I hoped the project could make a transformative impact at the UK national level.
You can perhaps imagine that when I got the news that, despite the high level of enthusiasm the funders had shown throughout the process, the funding was not after all going to materialise, it became hard to sustain that active hope. I had been working for the best part of a year without funding; my own funds were running seriously low, and I had to confront the very real prospect that I would have to let go of this cherished project. So for the past three weeks, in between bouts of correcting proofs, I have been on a journey of exploration; if an insight into the deeper causes of the present global situation has eroded my conviction that it is worthwhile to devote my life – with others of course – to the effort to transform that situation, can I recover that conviction?
There can only be one answer. As I have tried to convey throughout this series of written and spoken pieces, a sense of hope in an eventual positive outcome is an essential precondition for such efforts to be meaningful; without that hope, there is no rational motivation to make the attempt. To relinquish hope, therefore, is to join the ranks of those who passively await disaster – whereas it is precisely the widespread non-involvement of so many in the work of transformation that is one of the primary sources of our problems. For me to retreat from the challenge of finding a pathway to hope in the present grim circumstances would be a betrayal of the many courageous souls who continue, despite the ongoing stress of confronting the enormity of what is occurring, to dedicate their lives to promoting and implementing the solutions, and thereby to shine the beacon of hope to others, that they may follow and – one day – achieve the critical mass that will be needed to overwhelm the forces of darkness that are now in the ascendant.
But I am under no illusions. The disintegration of the international order appears to be accelerating, and there are very ominous signs that a major war may be brewing. In an environment of such deep uncertainty and anxiety, divisive and poisonous narratives find it easy to gain traction; and those who see the promotion of such narratives as a way to consolidate their power and influence have at hand very powerful technologies to amplify them. At a time when it is more vital, perhaps, than ever before that we seek common ground and connect, the forces that are driving us apart seem to be getting stronger day by day. I don’t know how much further this dangerous dynamic will proceed, or how much damage it will inflict on the fabric of human society and the natural world, but I know one thing: it is neither omnipotent nor eternal.
At times like these it can seem that we are headed on a one-way journey into an ever darker future; but I don’t believe this is consonant with the nature of Life. Life, in its very essence, has a power to regenerate itself, that perhaps manifests most strongly when it is most challenged. We may be in for a long winter – but the green shoots will return. I say this in full awareness of the element of irony, since climate change, by disrupting the rhythm of the literal winter, might indeed greatly prolong the metaphorical one. Even so, the work that is being done now by those who understand the meaning of Regeneration – and there are hundreds of thousands of them across the world – will, when their work finally bears fruit, have played a vital part in laying the foundation for a new chapter in the history of humanity, one in which its relationship to the cycles and harmonies of the living world have returned to balance, and we can begin to repair the damage done by four centuries of the mistaken Enlightenment project of subjugating and conquering Nature.
That, at any rate, is the vision that I want to align my life to, and however dark the immediate future may look, I consider it my duty to keep alive the flame of active hope; the determination to act as if such a positive future is within the domain of possibility – that it is something worth striving for, however remote the prospect might appear at this moment. And the truth is – we don’t know! A turning point could come at any time; the fact that is has not happened yet is no proof that it will not happen tomorrow. Let us nurture the aspiration to be the spark that ignites the flame that makes the difference.
I don't feel as gloomy as you, David. I have recently watched a couple of YouTube videos of Alessandro Occasio Cortes at meetings in Germany, plus several of Zack Polanski and Hannah Spencer campaigning in Gorton and Denton. Today, I watched a video of the co-leader of Standing Together, Alon-Lee Green talking to a meeting in London recently about Palestinian-Jewish co-resistance in Israel. All these people of the generation younger than me, fill me with hope that a new world is coming. They all exhibit powerful positive clear and articulate leadership qualities.
Meanwhile, on the ground, in the US recent examples of the Walk for Peace, and the popular response to it, and the resistance to ICE in Minneapolis show me that a movement for positive change is gaining momentum.
Sure, the dark clouds of fascism and the threat of WW3 loom large, but whatever has causes may be changed by changing the causes. Countless good people throughout the world are creating positive causes every day.