I can not stop thinking about this excerpt I read in a piece by the Dalai Lama:
Despite the rapid advances made by civilization in this century, I believe that the most immediate cause of our present dilemma is our undue emphasis solely on material development. We have become so engrossed in its pursuit that, without even knowing it, we have neglected to foster the most basic human needs of love, kindness, cooperation and caring. If we do not know someone or do not feel connected to a particular individual or group, we simply overlook their needs. And yet the development of human society is based entirely on people helping each other. Once we have lost the essential humanity that is our foundation, what is the point of pursuing only material improvement? - Buddhism and Democracy: Washington, D.C., April 1993
The title of this blog, An Endless Knot, is a reference to the idea that all beings and events are inextricably linked. There is a concept in Buddhism called Pratītyasamutpāda, or "dependent arising." Dependent arising means that nothing exists or happens independently. In my many years as an artist, educator, and leader, I have found that all worthwhile human endeavors demonstrate this fact. Art, spirituality, education, peace building, and leadership, at their best, all revolve around the idea of interdependence.
The sad truth of our current reality is that, despite all of the superficial connections many of us experience online, we have never been more isolated. A 2017 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine links increased social media usage with higher levels of social isolation, particularly among young people. According to the authors, “Perceived social isolation (PSI) is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality.” In other words, we are not simply becoming more lonely. This epidemic is affecting our physical, mental, and emotional health in very profound ways. To put it indelicately, it is slowly killing us.
We are experiencing an unprecedented lack of civility, empathy, and compassion in our culture. A 2019 study by Pew Research shows that roughly a quarter of all Americans under the age of 30 do not know any of their neighbors. Perhaps worst of all, so many of us fail to truly listen to others. We listen to reply, judge, or help, but we do not listen to hear. We look at people with different gender identities, orientations, religions, races, ethnicities, or ideologies as inherently different, instead of companions on the journey of life.
So what are the solutions to these issues? Unfortunately, I doubt there is a simple answer to that question, but I know that art and activism are both essential parts of it. Leonard Bernstein said it better than I could ever hope to: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” And, as Pope Paul VI put it so beautifully and succinctly, “If you want peace, work for justice.” These are the solutions that we will be discussing at An Endless Knot.
As with any creative work, there are many inspirations for the ideas in this blog, and no one has inspired me more than Valarie Kaur. If you have not done so, check out her Revolutionary Love Project. This young woman is redefining compassion in a culture that does not value it, with vision and bravery beyond anything that I have witnessed in my lifetime. My next post will be about both her mission and the story of Serve 2 Unite, an organization founded by a former skinhead and a Sikh activist whose father was killed by white supremacist terrorism.
It is about time we started taking our responsibility to each other more seriously. More than anything, that’s what An Endless Knot aims to do. After all, as the late Ram Dass wrote just a couple of years before he passed away, we are all just “walking each other home.”
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