Healing Ecology: A Buddhist Perspective on the Eco-crisis

Do Buddhist teachings imply a different way of understanding our relationship to the biosphere, which can really help us at this critical time when we are doing so much to destroy it? There are reasons to doubt it: Buddha lived in a very different time and place, Iron Age India. But the Buddha did know about dukkha, the term usually translated as ‘suffering’‚ yet to be understood in the broadest sense: dissatisfaction, discontent, anxiety‚ basically, our manifest inability to be happy, which does not mean that life is always miserable but that even those who are wealthy and healthy experience a dis-ease that keeps gnawing. That we find life frustrating, one damn problem after another, is not accidental, because it is the nature of an unawakened mind to be bothered about something. What, if anything, does that imply about the ecological crisis? This presentation will point out the precise and profound parallels between our usual individual predicament, according to Buddhism, and the present situation of human civilization. This suggests that the eco-crisis is as much a spiritual challenge as a technological and economic one. Does this mean that the Buddhist response to our personal predicament also points the way to resolving our collective one?

Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: Six experiments

The hypothesis that consciousness collapses the quantum wavefunction was tested using a double-slit optical system. The principal measurement was the ratio of double-slit to single-slit spectral power associated with the interference pattern. The consciousness collapse hypothesis predicted that this ratio would decrease when participants focused their attention towards the optical system, as compared to when they withdrew their attention. Six experiments were conducted to test various aspects of the hypothesis. Each study consisted of 40 counterbalanced attention-towards and attention-away periods, with each period lasting from 15 to 30 seconds. Results combined over a total of 250 test sessions indicated that the ratio decreased in accordance with the hypothesis.

Self-Inquiry: Discovering the Non-Duality in Duality

In order to survive, our minds are hardwired to make the first distinction of me and other. That duality usually becomes our perspective on life. We project that duality on to everything. We either have something or we don’t have it. We are happy or we are sad. We are right or we are wrong. We won or we lost. All distinctions have their place, but only as transitory points of view, present for the survival of an organism. Regarding true self-realization, which is non-dual realization of self, nothing can be excluded. True non-duality also includes whatever appears to be dual. With inquiry, non-dual unity can be found in the core of all perspectives including duality.
Often on the spiritual search, we seek an experience of non-duality by transcending physical, emotional, mental and circumstantial aspects of living. Transcendence implies leaving something behind. In this meeting, Gangaji demonstrates how through self-inquiry, non-duality can be directly experienced, with no need to leave anything. When we are willing to stop rejecting, fixing or controlling our very human experiences, there is the opportunity to discover the ever present truth of non-duality: pure consciousness, pure spaciousness. Gangaji invites us to welcome all aspects of ourselves in all states and forms, even the most difficult of experiences, so that we can discover inherent fulfillment.