Quote of the Week: Joanna Macy

This week’s quote comes from Buddhist scholar and eco-philosopher Joanna Macy.

Joanna is the author of a number of wonderful books, including World as Lover, World as Self, and Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World. I was delighted to learn that Joanna is working on a new book, “The Gift of Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy” with Chris Johnstone, a British physician.

You can find this quote on Joanna’s website, JoannaMacy.net, from the section on “Engaged Buddhism”:

…Everything we do impinges on all beings. The way you are with your child is a political act, and the products you buy and your efforts to recycle are part of it too. So is meditation–just trying to stay aware is a task of tremendous importance. We are trying to be present to ourselves and each other) in a way that can save our planet. Saving life on this planet includes developing a strong, caring connection with future generations; for, in the Dharma of co-arising, we are here to sustain one another over great distances of space and time.

The Dharma wheel, as it turns now, also tells us this: that we don’t have to invent or construct our connections. They already exist. We already and indissolubly belong to each other, for this is the nature of life. So, even in our haste and hurry and occasional discouragement, we belong to each other. We can rest in that knowing, and stop and breathe, and let that breath connect us with the still center of the turning wheel.