Mandala

Evening Orchid on our screen porch.

Today feels like the first day of autumn. The French doors are open to the cool breeze. Sunlight and shadow from the Crepe Myrtle form a dancing pattern on the living room curtains. The leaves of the oaks are pure green. The sky is pure blue.

The climate disasters happening around the world, from India to Texas, to the Caribbean, have weighed on my mind the past weeks. How is it possible to be indifferent to the suffering and the loss faced by millions of people? What should my response be to this destruction of human existence and livelihood by the forces of Nature? It is tempting to do what so many do: give a little money to the Red Cross or other charity, and go about my business. I haven't the means to do more. Right? Could I roll up my sleeves, quit my job, and take my 70-year-old self to Texas to help rebuild Houston? Alas, I am not Jimmy Carter.

Yet, I cannot ignore what is happening, either. As a philosopher, I am driven by the question of a mindful response. How do I reconcile sitting on my porch, sipping my coffee, eating something with cinnamon and honey, enjoying the cool breeze when such horrors are taking place ?

There is no ethical answer for me. There is only the wider perspective. I see civilization as a Mandala, as a sand painting:

Chenrezig sand mandala created at the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on the occasion of the Dalai Lama's visit in May 2008

Wikipedia

The Buddhists who create such beauty in the form of mandalas are aware of impermanence. They do not try to keep what by nature cannot last. The mandala has been known and used in the creation of art and religious symbols in virtually all civilizations. Psychologists have studied the relationship of the mandala to the human psyche. Jung was especially enchanted by mandalas and their universality. In its own way, the Total Eclipse we saw in August was a perfect Mandala.

Photograph by Steve Killian

By accepting impermanence, by knowing that the world of becoming will perish -- unlike Plato's world of being, of pure forms-- we can more fully appreciate and love what beauty there is, what wonders we experience. The orchid above will wither and decay. Flawed humans, bent on development, over-population, wars, materialism, and competition, will bring about the destruction of the very habitat they need to survive. Humans will undermine their own existence, taking with them countless other species. Given our present conditions, given the facts presented by the scientists and those enlightened enough to follow their reason from what is happening to the approaching future, the inevitability of our death is certain. Knowing the sublime Mandala's erasure, its scattering, is at hand, I return to my porch, to the lovely morning, to the timely sound of the wind-chime. 

Jameson

Fresh flames rage at Texas chemical plant flooded by Harvey

http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-chemical-plant-fire-federal-investigation-launched/story?id=49548581

Tonight, the strongest storm ever to arise from the Atlantic Ocean brings terror to the Islands and eventually, it seems, to Florida. Its winds near 200 mph. portend even more climate disaster. This time it may be the Mandala that wipes us away, rather than the other way around.