Precious

It was spring of the 12th year of training at the Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth. Soryu had just given a course lecture in the Buddhism for AI series on the planetary wide-scale destruction of life that has been made possible by the meeting of dominant religions (views) with industry and market. The pain and love, the grief and horror of this situation is something I have known in my direct experience for a long time. Soryu was the first person I ever met who seemed to understand my experience of what it is to be so deeply connected to a web of life that is being killed by systems and views that run the world.

As such, in the mudroom a few days prior, Soryu had asked me how to speak about this in a lecture. He had been saying to Bodhi that this was the hardest course to prepare for, that he didn’t know how to communicate this. I also didn’t know how to convey this. But I did my best to say something that might be useful.

I told him that one thing I used to do was trace the production of a single item from its raw sources to the finished product, and so he might try to describe all the harm that is done in the production of one single thing that we buy. He asked what happened when I started tracing items back. I told him it became increasingly difficult to engage in the economy. He said, “And you ended up here”. I nodded my head.

A few days later, I was surprised when he used this suggestion and spoke about the horrors and killing involved in the various stages of the production of a cell phone. He said the information about it - the mining, the slave labor, the polluting, the oil, the chemicals, the shipping freights, the oceans, etc as he explained the various stages of production of various components in various countries. As I was hearing it I was also feeling it in a very deep and visceral way. I was crying. But it didn’t seem to be landing the same for others in the audience. This alive connection, this care, is not in the dead information. Facts and figures didn’t seem to help them realize love.

After the lecture, I was in the kitchen putting away food that had been left out to cool down. Soryu came in, walked over to me, pointed at me, and told me that I needed to realize how precious I was. He said this repeatedly. My facial expressions indicated that I was not following that instruction. He told me not to make that face. Or that next face.

“You understood much of what was in that talk. You have compassion”, he said.