Environmental Consciousness as a Spiritual Practice
Speaker: George Beeler
Worship Leader: Stacey Meinzen
Recent research in behavior and the workings of the brain has reinforced George’s “theory” (from the school of disappointments) that people will not be effectively motivated to live in an environmentally conscious way through guilt or obligation.  They will, however, be motivated by love for the earth’s glorious diversity of life forms. George’s love of the earth has grown though experiencing the wonders of nature. Early in life, his epiphanies occurred by lucky accident, and later, through mind-altering techniques. However, the most reliable and long-lasting results come through a practice of mindfulness and meditation.

Being environmentally conscious as a spiritual practice

Talk given by George Beeler ©, Unitarian Universalists of Petaluma 2/19/2012

Intro –abstract
Recent research on behavior and the workings of the brain has reinforced my “theory” (from the school of disappointments) that people will not be effectively motivated to live in an environmentally conscious way through guilt or obligation. They will, however, be motivated by love for, or better yet knowing their true oneness with, the earth’s glorious diversity of life forms. My love of the earth has grown though experiencing the wonders of nature. Early in life, my epiphanies occurred by lucky accident. However, the most reliable and long-lasting results come through a practice of mindfulness and meditation.

Practice!
The word practice is carefully chosen here because being mindful takes effort. Reverend Mary made several statements in her talk on love last Sunday that are important to this topic. She said, “Spiritual practices work best if they are self-love practices.” She went on to say, “We should choose whatever brings us to the quiet and helps us hear the small voice within. One requirement is mandatory, that we must practice everyday, religiously!”

Our minds and our physical brains, are like muscles that when not used atrophy. Jack Kornfield says that even when one reaches higher states of consciousness through meditation the effects are not lasting unless one puts them into practice in one‘s daily life. He talks about this in his book After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. It includes interviews with many great spiritual leaders of our time. [hold book up] The good news is that the practice of mindfulness, itself, brings great joy! We begin to take pleasure in the present moment. Everyday chores can change from drudgery to satisfying experiences. Ellen and I have a very efficient washer and dryer but we avoid burning natural gas by hanging our laundry outside. I love spending that time, hanging out, with Ellen in our yard. Just being present, chatting and seeing and hearing the antics of the birds and our chickens.

Let me break here for a brief advertisement. At the March 4th UUP auction you will be able to get a good deal on a premium quality stainless steel clothes line that I will install for you.

There are reasons to act
Here are some reasons why we need to live our life in a state of being environmentally conscious.

There is lots of scientific information
I will not talk much about the scientific information about climate change today other than to say that the future of life, as we know it, on this planet depends on humans changing how we use energy, water and almost all resources. Nobody knows how long we have to change course but mounting evidence indicates that urgent action is required. We live at a very powerful point in history because our choices will affect the rest of life that will live, or not, for the many thousands of years on this planet.

There are urgent reasons to act
Lester Brown who started the World Watch Institute and Earth Policy Institute says that climate change has progressed to the point that at any time now a very hot summer in the Chicago area like what happened around Moscow in 2010 could reduce world grain production enough to cause a worldwide food catastrophe. He says that the consequences of water and food shortages will eventually lead to the end of western civilization like happened to the great Mayan and Sumerian civilizations.

How does hearing that make you feel? I get terrified. I feel hopeless. I feel like I am carrying the world on my shoulders, and my posture suffers.

I am saved from the abyss of despair by striving to live a more mindful life. By experimenting with being mindful of my true relationship with the environment, all living creatures and Mother Gaia

Being a man of science, I still take journeys into the abyss of the bad news about the environment. However, I am careful about sources of information. This is not the time or place to go into detail like we did with the wonderful UUP Carbon Ring study group a few years ago but the following are a couple of things that give perspective on these issues.

Our Ecological Footprint
I find it helpful to set goals for myself. What would be a fair budget for our fair use of the planet’s resources? The Ecological Footprint from the World Widlife Fund is a powerful tool to look at the full spectrum of environmental issues. Look at the graphic in todays’ Order of Service. It shows how many earths would be needed to sustain our current American lifestyle- more than 4. If you are thinking to yourself, “but I’m not an average American – I’m more like a European – please take a look at Germany. It’s a long way down to sustainability for the whole developed world.

Our lack of information
While looking at this graph, it may feel depressing to be American, one reason that Americans use so many resources is not that we as individuals are so irresponsible but that we do not have the supportive policies that would help us make wise choices. Here is one example. When making decisions about transportation, for most Americans this means which car to buy. If you DO concern yourself with fuel efficiency, your next question is likely how long is the payback of a more efficient vehicle? With the true cost of fossil fuels externalized and not accounted for in this decision, the answer is likely “the payback is too long to pay more for a fuel-efficient car.” However, in Europe taxes on vehicle fuel bring fossil fuel use closer to its “real” cost. As a result they have and use other more efficient modes of transportation and buy more fuel efficient cars.

How bad then, is the information we have about the “real” cost of gasoline? Lester Brown is a very reliable source of information on these topics. He says: “When gasoline costs $3 per gallon in the U.S. the indirect costs of climate change, respiratory illness treatment, oil spills, and U.S. military presence in the Middle East totals an additional $12 per gallon. These are real costs. If we do not bear them our children will.” Therefore, if we are going to honestly use the materialism method to make our decisions using payback, we must use the ‘real’ cost, which in this case is $15 per gallon.

UU reason to act
The next reason to act is my current focus. Our Unitarian Universalists’ Seventh principle says it beautifully: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

I will be talking about levels of consciousness in more detail later but for now let me just say this. At a lower level of consciousness, one will save and energy, water, and reduce waste out of responsibility and duty. This means to do no harm. This approach gets some results but it is not much fun because we do it out of obligation and guilt. The problem is, as Reverend Mary Said last week, self sacrifice breeds exhaustion and resentment.

At a higher level, or more accurately, wiser level of consciousness we are motivated by feelings like gratitude, empathy, love, or reverence. Even these beautiful words fall short. The key is knowing that we are “one with the interdependent web of all existence.” Us humans are separate individuals like the cells in our body are separate. They are part of our body as we are part of the earth and the universe. A cell can say: I am separate and I will do what I want without regard for the rest of the body. If it starts using body resources to multiply in an uncontrolled way it becomes malignant and puts the whole body at risk.

So how do we go about understanding people’s values or level of consciousness?
Growing wiser or reaching higher levels of consciousness happens to everyone as we mature through our stages of life from infancy through our elder years. It mostly happens from life experience until we reach young adulthood. It usually stops then, probably because we are so busy with careers, raising children and struggling in the material world to make ends meet or trying to get ahead. We are just too busy to think about deeper issues. Besides, modern western culture seems hell bent on distracting us from those issues. At the stage of midlife crises when the material things or status that we have worked so hard for lose their luster. Or perhaps for the first time we realize that we will not achieve our goals or we chose the wrong path or we have a life threatening experience. We might go shopping or we might turn inward. We might be the rare person who has an epiphany on our own or we might turn to a good therapist or spiritual guide. Many of us miss that opportunity and have another chance at it when we retire and realize that or time is running out.

I think as UU’s you will be interested in knowing that when I first tried meditation I was in my 20’s and it was not for spiritual growth. My first experience of meditation was at a Zendo in Manhattan. My goal was be more consistently creative in my architectural work. Many of us have experienced “being in the zone” or “flow” where we become focused and totally absorbed in our task.

Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional Intelligence, describes it well: “It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. … The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.” However, modern times present significant barriers, he goes on to say: ”To be caught in the (weariness) of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow.”

Decades later, Petaluma psychologist Peter Dunlap told me that my problem communicating about environmental responsibility is a problem of worldview and suggested that I read Spiral Dynamics and Value Shift. Here is what I learned:

“…a persons worldview is also a description of their awareness or consciousness of the world around them. In fact each person’s worldview is based on his or her level of consciousness.” The author goes on to say how this effects our perceptions of reality “Modern analysis of the nervous system and mind shows that Instead of experiencing the world as it is people experience one trillionth of outside events: a small world indeed.

A person “learns in effect to edit and translate reality into the social terms held in common with others. Obviously an individual must learn to transform his experience into socially meaningful units if he is at all to communicate with those around him. This is in fact the meaning of “membership” in a society (or culture or group…) for a person becomes a member of his society when he has successfully internalized the maps, or sets of symbolic relations, constituting that society. To put it simply a person is in society when society is “in” him. … In a word, this means learning to see and respond to a world as we believe others believe we should!”

The book Spiral Dynamics gives a beautiful graphic description of how people and cultures mature in consciousness over time.

“Each upward turn of the spiral marks the awakening of a more elaborate version (of consciousness) on top of what already exists. The human spiral then consists of a coiled string of value systems, worldviews and mind sets each the product of its times and conditions.”

New times produce new thinking. “…each major social upheaval has spawned a different view of life itself – why we are here, what is our nature, what is our ultimate destination? Each develops its own views of the rules that should govern social systems, who should make the decisions regarding what, the forces that drive the evolutionary surge toward complexity, and why different people are passing through different levels of development at the very same time.”

“These are not inherently “better-than” or “worse-than states” but they do reflect different perspectives on what the world is like and the complexity one finds in it.

Levels of consciousness have gradually changed throughout human history. It always starts with a few thinkers and early adopters. Others join in when they see that it is possible and better. There are always a group of laggards. I will give you a rough timeline described in Spiral Dynamics that helps me understand the context.

• 50,000 years ago leading thinkers had the idea of forming tribes for mutual protection. Some inner city gangs revert back to this level because of dire conditions.
• 10,000 years ago leading thinkers had the idea of being a warlord and amassing wealth for themselves and their tribe. I think organized crime is a sick example.
• 5,000 years ago somebody had the idea that life has a higher purpose. Monotheism grew out of this. Top down management is an example.
• 1,000 years ago leading thinkers had the idea of individualism and mobility. Modern theories of economics were eventually developed. Some businesses that provide benefits to support and encourage the full potential from each employee are healthy examples of this.
• Just a mere 200 years ago leading thinkers had ideas concerning human rights, liberty, and collectivism. The abolition, feminism and green movements grew out of this understanding. Horizontal management is an example.
• Just a mere 100 years ago leading thinkers had ideas concerning complexity, chaos and interconnections. Quantum physics and the leadership ability to work with all previous levels of consciousness belong to this paradigm.
• Just a mere 50 years ago leading thinkers had ideas concerning globalism and eco-consciousness. I wonder how will this new level manifest itself?

The emergence and adoption of wiser levels of consciousness has occurred steadily but slowly throughout history. Be aware, however that people and societies often revert backwards during hard times.

So what does knowing this information about levels of consciousness tell us about motivating people. Modern advertising uses knowledge of psychology for selling good green products like the Prius.

However, recent research shows that convincing people to do the right thing by keeping up with the Jones or prestige are only temporarily effective and will make it more unlikely that those people will do better for the next purchase. Their materialist or prestige values are reinforced. This rings a similar cord for me as the UUA’s book Serving with Grace that emphasizes that within UU congregations the means to reaching our goals should always be consistent with our principles. We UU congregations are not a business and the environment is not a business. For that matter I do not think Mother Gaia is an indulgent parent that will have infinite patience for our culture’s adolescent behavior.

From this journey, the lessons I have learned are:
A. To successfully work with people I must understand their worldview and what motivates them.
B. I cannot change another person’s worldview but I can work on mine to go to a wiser level where I will be more holistic in my view of others and be able to work with them.
C. The upper levels of the spiral have few members but proportionately increasing power to create change.
D. My calling is to find and work with likeminded people to explore and pioneer the frontier of sustainable living to create models of what can be done locally.
E. If we grow to not only love the earth, but also understand that we are one with her, we will do whatever we need to do t be healthy with her.

Being environmentally conscious
Being environmentally conscious as a spiritual practice is simple but it takes commitment and practice. When we are aware of the resources that we are using in each present moment, we will start finding ways to be more efficient. This includes both purchasing choices and, most importantly, behavior choices. We can buy very fuel-efficient vehicles and better yet, we can drive less. I recently carpooled with Phil to a Sustainable Communities Justice Forum by the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry in Berkeley. I asked a member of the UU Berkeley Fellowship if he knew where I could charge my electric car. He said I’m sorry that I do not know because I gave up driving several years ago. I was humbled and impressed. I like to think of my green living efforts as a series of experiments that evolve over time. Just when I think I have done enough on any one issue I learn that someone has carried it to the next level beyond me. These are joyful discoveries when I ignore my ego wining about my slipping down a rung on the ladder of green status.

Bringing one’s meditation practice of mindful awareness of our thoughts, emotions, reactions and actions throughout the day is considered a spiritual practice by many Buddhists and other religions. When I am able to carry this practice into my day, being in the present has many rewards.

Last Sunday Reverend Mary spoke to the core issue of rising to our full human potential. She said that we must love ourselves enough to find a practice that resonates with us. When we are healthy and vibrant we will be capable of being one with all life.

Mindful walks
The walking and running route that I use for exercise is the same most of the time. Even though it is just a small town neighborhood it never gets boring when I am mindful. There are microclimate changes to feel as I go up and down the hills. There are different bird neighborhoods to hear and see.
The crows seem to argue a lot but they occasionally respond to me. One day when I was walking in a prison shell of petty anger over an ego bruise, a magnificent crow flew within inches my face hovering for a moment flapping its powerful wings. It was like a Zen master slapping me on the back for falling asleep during meditation. The crow woke me up to the beautiful present that I was squandering.

I enjoy the front yards that have been converted from lawns to native plants or vegetable gardens. Even in the winter plants are changing in interesting ways. I recently noticed the gorgeous way a “century plant’s” leaves peel off from the center but leave a silhouette pattern of its shape on the leaf that peeled off before and the one after it. I had noticed this before but this time I stopped and really looked at it the way an artist would when trying to do a drawing capturing every exquisite detail. It was a very joyful experience that could easily be missed.

How to take action
If we love the earth, or better yet, if we know that we are one with it, we will change our lifestyle to be environmentally responsible. We can start by reducing our use of fossil fuels and gradually become mindful of how our every action affects the earth.

We can start anywhere but not all actions are equal. The actions starting from the heart are most likely to become everyday practice but to be most effective the rational mind needs to evaluate. Investigate what reliable sources recommend. This book was published over a decade ago but it is still the best I know on making effective choices. Other publications that Stacey and I recommend are on the table in the back. One of them is a small poster by Yes! Magazine of how the Joneses, an average American family can become carbon free over a 10 year period of changing habits and phased upgrading.

If you are interested in working with members of this congregation on an environmental project that you are willing to lead please talk to Stacey or me. Local organizations like Daily Acts , Petaluma Bounty and the Climate Protection Campaign offer ways to be involved with world-class projects in our community. The main thing is to get started. Be gentle with yourself and take on one better habit at a time. Ellen and I started experimenting with reducing our environmental footprint over 25 years ago and we are not finished yet even though our footprint is now about 1/8th the average American. Our mindful lifestyle brings me great joy.

Later today, I hope that you will read Your Daily Actions for a Better World in today’s Order of Service. Discuss it with your family. You will see that you have the power to make a difference! , ,

I also hope that you will read and treasure the UUA Statement of Conscience because it is profound. It makes me proud to be a Unitarian Universalist!

In closing I will tell you about a dream I had decades ago that probably best describes how I feel about the life that shares this planet with us.

In this dream I saw a magnificent oak tree from a distance with a large ocher colored disk embedded in its trunk. The disk looked velvety, luxuriant, alive. As I moved in for a closer look I saw a snail sitting on a large horizontal branch. Before this dream I found snails to be repulsive. Then, in the dream I was the snail and it felt good to be a snail. I felt beautiful. I was filled to the brim with the life force, ecstatic. But then a shadow approached and as I looked up, a snake was about to swallow me. I woke up terrified. The terror subsided but that feeling of oneness with snails has stayed with me. I still think they are beautiful.