By Michael Brooks and Joshua Summers, associates at Sati Solutions (Boston, MA), a mindfulness-based consultancy providing strategic guidance to ecologically-minded organizations.

Recently, a flurry of new literature in the meditation world has investigated the link between contemplative practices and perhaps the most pressing issue of the day: global warming. In response to this dialogue, we see the opportunity for a powerful synergy between meditative skill sets and recognizable actions that will supplement and facilitate the aims of sustainability.

As a general overview, there seem to be three categories of responses to the climate crisis: 1) those who get it, are alarmed, and are working like hell to avert catastrophe, 2) those who get it, are alarmed, but who are too overwhelmed by the complications and busy-ness of their everyday lives to take it beyond curb-side recycling, and 3) those who don’t get it, aren’t alarmed and, therefore, scare the hell out of Types 1 and 2.

Of these three, the group that holds the most potential for environmental change is, obviously, Type 2. One of America’s most eminent meditation teachers, Joseph Goldstein, recently self-diagnosed himself as a Type 2 in Tricycle, the Buddhist Review: “Although I am aware of the magnitude of the problem, perhaps like many others, I have not spent much time reflecting on it or seriously considering what I could do about it. It was this response that then piqued my interest. Why hadn’t I spent time thinking about one of the major problems confronting our planet? Why had it slid to the back burner of my interests?”

President Obama had an answer. Before his inauguration, Obama was asked about last summer’s hike in oil prices. In responding to the question, Obama captured the analysis with a terse phrase: “We go from shock to trance.” In other words, oil prices hike, and the culture of consumption enters an emergency response of shock. The need for change and action seems pressing. People entertain hybrid cars, drive less, plan stay-cations, call for investments in new technologies, and the green movement subsequently swells with anticipation of the culture’s tipping point towards all things green.

But not so fast… Oil prices then drop, the cracks seal over and the trance of numbing indifference returns. In great simplicity, Obama identified a trend that encompasses our individual and collective psychology – a trend which stands smack in the way of genuine transformation.

We contend, albeit boldly, that meditation – a process of sitting down, getting still and relaxing into awareness – holds the very key for stepping off this endless wheel of shock and trance, nudging Type 2’s towards more pro-active participation. First and foremost, meditation trains and strengthens the faculty of awareness without which behavioral change is a non-starter. But on a more subtle level, meditation exposes and uproots the very causes of the shock and trance cycle itself, and it does so in two ways.

One, meditation – at its heart – is a discipline that subordinates immediate pleasure for a rugged, long-term happiness. It cultivates a strategic awareness, which over time values enduring sustainability instead of immediate gratification. Such an inner-reorientation between actions and their protracted results is necessary for establishing sustainable systems.

Furthermore, we believe the shock and trance pattern to ultimately be driven by the same forces of mind that meditation endeavors to overcome, namely: greed, aversion, and delusion. In the face of environmental shock, a common response is to express an unfocused indignation but then to lapse back into complacency, deluded by one’s seeming impotence. As Goldstein has written, “We have probably all had moments of what we might call a sudden awakening to the truth of global warming… Yet those moments can quickly pass, and the beginningless habit energies or forgetfulness, other desires, and basic ignorance resurface once again.” In other words, back to trance.

So it follows that, because meditation is also a practice of ‘waking up’ from our inner-trance, we are less inclined to be numbed into larger trends of trance and stay immediately current with the issue at hand. Ironically, without this inner training of mind - a training of engaged presence and open receptivity - more information, more vociferation is actually part of the trance itself because people do not have the skill sets to metabolize such information.

Far from being a warm-and-fuzzy solipsistic escape, meditation attenuates automatic default behavior patterns and enhances reflective modes of thinking that shift one’s center of gravity from constricted spheres of self-centered care to more inclusive domains of global care.

Joshua Summers and Michael Brooks, co-authors of The Buddha's Playbook, are principals at Sati Solutions a Mindfulness-based strategy firm. Meditation has a proven track record of increasing health, boosting creativity and strengthening clarity. However, many people are confused not only about how to meditate, but even more so, how to sustain the habit of meditation. The Buddha's Playbook is a playful, stimulating and unique integration of cutting edge theory on decision-making and mindfulness meditation.

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