LIN JENSEN from Deep Down Things

As both a Buddhist and a student of deep ecology, I’m struck how much the two have in common, each exacting of the follower a genuine paradigm shift in perception.

For the Buddhist the shift is an awakening to earth as an extension of one’s own body wherein the dichotomy of self and other dissolves. For the deep ecologist the shift is a similar awakening wherein earth is realized as one indivisible body comprised of all beings of any sort.

In both instances, this awakening is of profound proportions arguing for a shared communal relationship with earth that is unknown in modern industrial society.

My prayer is that to the very last of this planet’s brief tenure in the vast cycle of the universe someone will remain to say “earth” and to say it from the heart’s core.