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Lenore: So being the one to come from a practical perspective.

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Several of my sessions with you over the coming days are not going to be

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Lenore: strictly and solely on one

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Lenore: path at one fold in the path. We're gonna we're gonna riff across a few of them.

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Lenore: because that's kind of how it happens in real life. Right?

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Lenore: So we're gonna have a bit of imagination.

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Lenore: We're going to have a bit of intention, and we're going to have bit of action. Tonight.

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Lenore: in thinking about this. a

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Lenore: ethical engagement in a world in crisis.

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Lenore: I often come back to

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Lenore: the principle or the value that runs through so much of the Duma

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Lenore: being non-harm

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Lenore: Ahimsa! Non-harm.

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Lenore: And actually, when I talk about non-harm again.

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Lenore: we've already talked about how many of these things are on spectrums. They're not this or that, and I think of harm versus non-harm as having

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Lenore: harmfulness, destructiveness down one end.

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Lenore: kindness down the other.

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Lenore: indifference probably just left of centre and non harm, just right of centre. So when I'm talking about non harm, I'm talking about that whole end of the spectrum between non-harm and kindness.

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Lenore: And so.

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Lenore: as I'm sure all of us

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Lenore: are aware.

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Lenore: non harm soaks through the Dhamma.

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Lenore: So I want to talk tonight and do some reflections with you

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Lenore: on the difference between not having an intention of harmfulness and having

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an intention of non-harm.

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Lenore: and, as I say, this will cut across

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Lenore: application, imagination, and action, probably. But I'm going to use the word intention in the way that we think of it

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Lenore: day-to-day.

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Lenore: So if mindfulness, Sati is

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awareness of

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Lenore: essentially the past.

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Lenore: because even there's not really any such thing as present moment awareness, because the moment that we become aware that

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Lenore: the mind is agitated, you know that sensation's actually already passed so.

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Lenore: But for the sake of practicality, let's say, mindfulness is awareness of present and past

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Lenore: intention is in a way, an awareness of a possible future.

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Lenore: Stephen talked this morning about it being imagination being a bridge between the contemplative life and and active life.

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Lenore: And

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Lenore: it's for me. It's that bridge between now and the future as well.

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Lenore: my my intentions and my values now, and when I imagine the future, what can I bring into being. What can I bargain? What can I cultivate to bring it about?

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Lenore: So the first thing as I, as I pondered this that came to me is that

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Lenore: credible intentions

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Lenore: are actively imagined.

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Lenore: So this issue of imagination is really.

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Lenore: really relevant. And they're they're mentally rehearsed

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Lenore: in the field of organizational change which is kind of my background. I did psychology and organizational psychology.

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Lenore: There's a model of values that

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Lenore: distinguishes between espoused values

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Lenore: and what are called values in action.

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Lenore: So what is it that I think? And I say that I value? And what is it that if you were to watch me in my life you would deduce that I value from my actions

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Lenore: so essentially. This, this is the extent to which we walk the talk.

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Lenore: Now, what's

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Lenore: how well aligned are those 2

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Lenore: I used to I mentioned earlier. I used to teach leadership, and one of the things that

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Lenore: I would find myself saying to them sometimes. And it was one of those things that really stuck with people. It's one of the things that

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Lenore: sometimes my leadership participants would get to the end of the program which would usually go for a few months and say, You know.

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Lenore: that's really stuck with me. is this little saying? And I can't even remember where I first heard it myself, but

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Lenore: it goes like this. Your actions speak so loudly. I can't hear what you say.

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Lenore: so if we've got a very, very small

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Lenore: gap between his spouses values and venues in action. Obviously there's no conflict.

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Lenore: But if there's a big gap between what we say we value and what we actually do.

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Lenore: What we do is probably

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Lenore: a better indicator of what we actually valued.

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Lenore: And I want to suggest that imagination

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Lenore: is a key part to closing that gap

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Lenore: to helping us walk the talk.

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Lenore: And that's obviously critical to this issue of engaging ethically in a world in crisis.

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Lenore: Can you share a little sports story with you to bring alive how important this imagination is when it comes to

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Lenore: impact on what you actually do.

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Lenore: A couple of years ago I went to compete at the World indoor championship. So for those of you who don't know my sport is track and field. I'm a hurdler and sprinter

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Lenore: jumper and occasional hip athlete. This particular year I had

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Lenore: I'd had a bit of a nightmare time. I'd contracted the Ross River virus, and then. So I wasn't. I wasn't at my best.

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Lenore: but

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Lenore: I decided to go anyway, because they're really good fun and fantastic experiences. And so I went to world indoors. It was in Poland. And  I thought to myself, the thing with Ross River virus was you get really fatigued?

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Lenore: So there was just no way I was going to perform at my best in, you know, the 200, or I decided not even to run the 400,

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Lenore: but I thought the 60 metre hurdles. I might be able to do okay at that. because it's not very long.

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Lenore:  you know, if I can do a good job of the first 2 hurdles. If I can really nail those like, get over those really quickly.

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Lenore: you know. Who knows if any fatigue might hit me after that I don't know, but even if I can at least do that, maybe I'll have a shot.

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Lenore: So I'd mentally rehearsed it

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Lenore: many, many times

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Lenore: getting out fast getting to that first hurdle, getting over it fast, getting to that second hurdle fast.

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Lenore: and in these imaginings I knew I was going to have the current world champion, probably one of the lanes outside of me.

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Lenore: and because at that time I didn't actually train for the sprint hurdles. I just kinda long hurdles was my main thing, and I'd just go on. I'd do the sprint hurdles.

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Lenore: So she she I thought, you know, maybe she'll catch me after her 2,

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Lenore: and you know, if I run out of

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Lenore: if II get fatigued, or whatever there's nothing I can do about it. So all I did was, I'm really excited some of these first 2 hills.

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Lenore: So come the race, and I nailed those first 2 hurdles. I was in front by hurdle, too.

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Lenore: at which point I took my feet off the foot off the pedal, and she passed me

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Lenore: because I'd only imagined the first 2 hurdles.

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Lenore: and in this, in this imagined scenario. There was also the possibility that she might pass me after the second hurdle. So actually, in my imagination.

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Lenore: I'd let her pass me.

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Lenore: Now this is the real thing.

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Lenore: Mental rehearsal for technical skills.

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Lenore: It actually works.

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Lenore: If you mentally rehearse something, how how to do something physically.

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Lenore: you actually get better at it. I won't get you fitter.

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Lenore: but but it can get you more proficient at a technical skill.

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Lenore: So mental rehearsal bakes it in.

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Lenore: and this is true for

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Lenore: our intentions as well.

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Lenore: not just in sport and physical movement.

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Lenore: but in how we are in the world.

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Lenore: So this imagining

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Lenore: of what our intention might look like if we were to embody it.

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Lenore: It's a mentally active process.

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Lenore: It involves imagining situations that you're going to face or likely to face and picturing how you would like to behave

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Lenore: in that scenario.

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Lenore: Now, of course, it may or may not represent what actually happens. But

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Lenore: I would suggest that without it, without having done that active imagining. you're more likely to blow with the worldly winds.

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Lenore: We know about those worldly winds.

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Lenore: We're more likely to be influenced by our biases of perspective.

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Lenore: and if it gets stressful

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Lenore: we're less likely to behave in line with our values and more likely to chicken out.

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Lenore: So Stephen mentioned this morning the old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. and this points to the common pattern of a seed of an intention being present. but that's where it ended.

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Lenore: It wasn't cultivated

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Lenore: through imagining.

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Lenore: through mental rehearsal, through, or it may be planning as well.

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Lenore: So the seed. The seed wasn't tended to. It lay dormant and failed to grow into the powerful internal condition. We talked about internal conditions and external conditions coming together to produce our

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Lenore: experience last night.  so

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Lenore: our our intentions can become powerful internal conditions. But we need to cultivate them.

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Lenore: and if we don't, they become those kind of intentions that pave the road to hell.

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Lenore: Actually, I noted. And this is from the you're talking about jumping across a few folds. This is from.

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Lenore: and a section in Stephen's pre-reading. On application. he said, application is applying oneself to creating the inner and outer conditions for reactivity, not to determine our lives

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Lenore: and for enabling liberative skills and virtues to play a greater role.

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Lenore: So it's applying oneself to creating the inner and outer conditions for reactivity, not to determine our lives. And what I'm suggesting is that

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Lenore: if we don't cultivate an intention through this mental

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Lenore: activity that we're not

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Lenore: really growing, that into the powerful condition, internal condition. It can be

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Lenore: so. As I say, one of the most fundamental values permeating the Dhamma is non-harm, non-harm to kindness.

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Lenore: and so I want to tease apart the difference between not having an intention of harm

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Lenore: and an intention of non harm to kindness. So the former, not having an intention of harm

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Lenore: doesn't actually require me to do anything.

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Lenore: I can just let stuff happen.

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Lenore: And as long as I'm not personally actively contributing to it.

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Lenore: no problem.

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Lenore: however, that attitude allows harm to go on around me.

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Lenore: and doesn't require me to do anything to mitigate it.

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Lenore: It allows me to let opportunities to prevent.

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Lenore: mitigate or ameliorate harm. It allows me to let those opportunities go through to the keeper.

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Lenore: For those who are joining from perhaps other countries that don't play cricket.

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Lenore: Letting something go through to the keeper just means that it's a cricketing term where the batter just doesn't even bother trying to hit the ball.

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Lenore: and just don't engage with it at all. You just let it go through, and the wicketkeeper catches it. So if we just have an intention, no, no intention of harm. We can let those opportunities

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Lenore: to insulate against harm, to ameliorate against harm. to mitigate harm. We can let them go through to the keeper.

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Lenore: So you probably all had some version of this kind of small example. You're sitting on a bus.  woman sitting across the the aisle from you

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Lenore: agitated person gets on.

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Lenore: says something rude to the, to the person across the aisle from you, and their

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Lenore: visibly

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Lenore: kind of shaken by it, maybe feeling a bit threatened.

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Lenore: Now, if you don't have an attitude of harm, you can just ignore that. I didn't do it. It's nothing to do with me.

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Lenore: If I'm practicing an attitude. If I'm holding an attitude, if I'm cultivating an attitude of non-harm, there's an opportunity to do a little harm. Mitigation.

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Lenore: it might be as as little as catching her eye across the aisle and kind of going.

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Lenore: You know. What was that about

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Lenore: to let her know I'm here. I see you. I saw what happened, and it's not your fault

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Lenore: if you've ever been a recipient of that kind of situation, having some kind stranger kind of reach out to you and go. Hmm!

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Lenore: You know

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Lenore: that, wasn't you? It can. It can reduce your anxiety quite a bit now that's just a really small example.  but the the attitude of non-harm. If we're going to genuinely cultivate it

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Lenore: would say, Hey, I can. I can do something here

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Lenore: that might in this case it's just, you know. Bring a bit of anxiety down a little bit. Maybe

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Lenore: so. If there is an opportunity to mitigate the harm in some way.

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Lenore: even to a small extent, then I'm predisposed to take it

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Lenore: if I really absorb that as my intention.

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Lenore: Now, this is an unanticipated in the moment. Kind of example.

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Lenore:  that obviously, you're not going to plan for

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Lenore: that. There are lots of harms that we can anticipate. and for these ones the thinking ahead meadows. it requires us to think ahead. to imagine what might come of the current causes and conditions.

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Lenore: and to try and insulate

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Lenore: where we can against harm. It requires us to notice to be mindful

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Lenore: of factors that are relevant to that harm. Not having an intention of harm requires no such thoughtfulness.

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Lenore: It doesn't require me to notice.

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Lenore: So what I'm going to suggest is that we take a look at

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Lenore: the idea about making non-harm a perception setting.

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Lenore: I just made that out.

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Lenore:  So I'll tell you what I mean by that. So

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Lenore: we need to devote headspace

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Lenore: to imagining not just the consequences of our actions and our choices. but also to noticing the conditions around us.

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Lenore: And if we have non-harm as one of our perception settings. we're going to start noticing things that we didn't before. So, for example. I'm sure many people in the room and who are joining us online have

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Lenore: been caregivers for infants.

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Lenore: I don't have children myself, but I was 15 when my youngest brother was born.

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Lenore: and so I participated in parenting.

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Lenore: Imagine you have an infant crawling age infant crawling around your lounge room, and you see a marble

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Lenore: on the floor. What are you gonna do with that marble?

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Lenore: You're gonna pick it up

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Lenore: because your perception setting says, Oh, marble dangerous to infant.

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Lenore: Choking hazard.

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Lenore: that same perception setting so that kind of lens that we're viewing through the the world through would also be looking at that glass vase that's sitting on a bench, that is, you know, arms reach height by the infant and going mmm, I might shift that vase

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Lenore: so potential damage to infants

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Lenore: becomes a part of your perception setting.

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Lenore: You're mindful of the

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Lenore: potential damage of various impacts around the house.

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Lenore: If we haven't actively cultivated an intention of non-harm non-harm to kindness.

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Lenore: Then we're practising an intention of allowing it.

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Lenore: It's like rushing the infant to hospital and saying, Well, I didn't feed her the marble.

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Lenore: It doesn't. It doesn't have that same element of agency about it.

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Lenore: So

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Lenore: I'm gonna share with you an example. I've always, for a variety of reasons been

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Lenore: really oriented towards kindness to animals.

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Lenore: had very strong heartfelt intentions about  protecting them from cruelty and from harm.

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Lenore: And so I practiced this perception setting quite a bit.

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Lenore: So I notice conditions when I'm walking around in daily life that

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Lenore: you know. Send off the alarm bells in that perception setting. So I'm going to share a few of them with you. See how many of them you recognise?

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Lenore: Whenever I see bits of thread lying on the ground. So bits of cotton or nylon, or what have you? And you would be surprised how many there are when you actually start looking?

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Lenore: I pick it up, and I put it in the bin. and the reason is, what I've noticed

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Lenore: is a lot of birds, for some reason, get thread

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Lenore: wrapped around their toes or their feet.

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Lenore: and then obviously, they can't get it off.

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Lenore: So over time it tightens. and as it tightens, the blood supply diminishes.

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Lenore: and they end up, often losing those toes or feet, or even parts of legs, if it tightens. And you can tell from the way that they move, it's incredibly painful.

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Lenore: So yeah, whenever I see thread on the ground that goes in the bin.

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Lenore: any buckets or vessels with slippery, sloping sides.

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Lenore: I leave face down because small lizards will often go in there, especially if there's some drops of water in there, or what have you? And then they can't get out. And I remember

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Lenore: one time, years ago, seeing it was a beautiful big gecko I was living in Brisbane and had died. I'm guessing of dehydration in the bottom of a bucket that I'd left face up.

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Lenore: and I thought to myself, right buckets they're planted into the perception settings of non-hull

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Lenore:  If I leave any kind of water vessel open to the environment. So, for example, I've got a little bird bath in my front yard

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Lenore: I'll always leave a stick in it.

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Lenore: That sort of leaning on the side of it, so that if any little critters fall in they can get on the stick and get themselves out.

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Lenore: If I ever have a campfire which I do not do very often anymore, because I've unfortunately discovered how bad they are for the environment.

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Lenore: Not to mention your own health. I know we all love campfires and the smell of smoke, but it's a little bit like breathing in Diesel fumes

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Lenore: for our health. Unfortunately, anyway, occasionally

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Lenore: only occasionally we we have one.

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Lenore: but if we do, every piece of wood that goes on, that fire has been whacked

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Lenore: so many times to make sure that any little critters that might be in there that are out before I stick it on the fire

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Lenore: plastic bags. Obviously I see any of those blowing around around the streets. I pick those up. They can damage marine life.

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Lenore: And lastly.

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Lenore: defunct old

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Lenore: spider's webs.

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Lenore: I think there's something really sad about a living creature dying because it got caught in a trap of a creature that's not even there anymore.

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Lenore:  so you know, insects and things get caught in old spider webs that aren't even used anymore. And we need insects

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Lenore: in our ecosystem.

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Lenore:  so there are some.

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Lenore: There are some examples of, you know. If you've got a if you've really paid attention, if you've really

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Lenore: and I can't say, you know, I have this same level of

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Lenore:  you know, intentional acuity with everything in my life, but it's an example of one where I have paid a lot of attention a lot of care where I can honestly say

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Lenore: I have really strong and genuine incredible intentions around

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Lenore: non harm.

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Lenore: So an intention of non harm requires us to act on opportunities to prevent, minimize, or mitigate

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Lenore: when those opportunities present themselves.

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Lenore: not having an intention of harm doesn't.

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Lenore: As long as it's not my doing, it's not my problem.

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Lenore: So this means we have to pay attention to our environment. We have to be mindful

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Lenore: when we're just walking around

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Lenore: which we can't do. By the way, when

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Lenore: we're looking at a phone.

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Lenore: Trust me mad, seeing people do that.

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Lenore:  Those of you who read my book might remember the story I told in there about my parents who used to live on a farm.

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Lenore: and they had a dog, lovely dog. His name was Jungle, and they were going away for a long weekend.

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Lenore: My parents are a classic case of people who they didn't have an intention of harm with animals, but they also didn't have an intention of non harm. And anyway, so they're going away for a long weekend.

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Lenore: They take off. They come back 3 days later. arrive home. and like. where's jungle?

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Lenore: Nowhere to be seen.

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Lenore: They go. They open the front door and out races, this very, very distressed dog. They'd locked him in the house.

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Lenore: which was a real problem, because they had an eco toilet.

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Lenore: so he couldn't even drink water out of the toilet.

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Lenore: and they hadn't. They know he was in the house, so they didn't leave any water in the house for him, so he'd been stuck there in the house with no water for 3 days.

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Lenore:  Very, very distressing. Now.

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Lenore: Never forget my dad telling this story as if it was an entertainment.

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Lenore: you know. And I,

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yeah.

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Lenore: so it's a classic example of they didn't have an attitude of harm. They didn't have a value of harm to animals.

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Lenore: But they certainly didn't have an attitude of non-home either. because value of non harm says

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Lenore: insulate, mitigate.

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Lenore: And they didn't even check to see where he was before they left. I mean to me, even leaving him on his own in a bush, setting for several days with no company in itself

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Lenore: kind of harmful. But

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Lenore: yeah, it's just a demonstration of that difference.

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Lenore: Now, a couple of things before I'm gonna walk you through a bit of a reflection about your own intentions

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Lenore: around non harm.

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Lenore: The issue of courage has come up a couple of times already, and actually my session with you tomorrow night is on practicing courage.

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Lenore: But I think it's important to point out with this that the intention of non-harm is not the same thing as never upsetting anyone

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Lenore: again. If I use the example of parents.

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Lenore: You know your kid wants breakfast, lunch, and dinner ice cream, you're going to upset him. Right?

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Lenore: You can't care means sometimes you're going to upset some people

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Lenore: so, especially those of us whose character structures involve pleasing people

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Lenore: as a way of filling our needs for connection or belonging. We can be a little bit challenged by this one, because

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Lenore: and it can be a a strong impetus to please, a strong impetus to not displease.

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Lenore: and sometimes

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Lenore: to genuinely, incredibly practice, the attitude of non-harm. We have to speak up.

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Lenore: We have to stand in the way of home.

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Lenore: we might have to say no.

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Lenore: we might have to do our best to arrest harm in progress that we come across.

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Lenore: So it's not. It's not necessarily always being

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Lenore: giving people what they want or being nice.

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Lenore: There is. It does require some courage sometimes. And then the other. The other thing I just wanna point out about

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Lenore: credibly practicing this intention

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Lenore: is that it's possibly never more acutely tested.

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Lenore: Then when someone hurts us

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Lenore: so the desire for revenge can can raise its head.

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Lenore:  which is

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Lenore: a self-protective urge. That's kind of gone too far

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Lenore: seeks to hurt in return.

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Lenore: And while it's really important. Obviously, if we've been hurt, too. have compassion to self and look after oneself.

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Lenore: If the if the desire for revenge to harm

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Lenore: is arising.

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Lenore: a really helpful question that I've found it usually means we're not willing to feel something.

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Lenore: This that this situation has

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Lenore: made is causing me to feel something that I'm not willing to feel

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Lenore: so sometimes just simply asking myself the question, What is it?

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Lenore: What is this feeling? I'm not willing to feel?

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Lenore:  shows me

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Lenore: what it is I need to be with. Have the courage to be with.

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Lenore: in order to be able to yes, protect myself, soothe myself.

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Lenore: but not continue the trajectory of harm by seeking revenge, seeking to hurt in return.

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Lenore: So I'm going to suggest you'll grab if you haven't already some pen and paper and get yourself into a position where you can write.

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Lenore: I, personally don't find this one as

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Lenore: needing a privacy is last night's session, but that's just me.

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Lenore: So if you'd like to have a bit of privacy while you're writing, feel free to spread out like we did last night.

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Lenore: you might need a few few pages I've got. Got a few questions for you.

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Lenore: Okay. so let's start with our roles as consumers.

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Lenore: So in what areas. So just sort of answer this for yourself. This is

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Lenore: Just individual practice. In what areas do I currently practice a credible intention of non-harm anywhere between non-harm and kindness.

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Lenore: thinking, food. clothing, transport

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Lenore: leisure activities.

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Lenore: What areas as a consumer?

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Lenore: Do you currently practice a credible intention of non-harm

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Lenore: as a citizen?

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Lenore: In what areas do I currently practice a credible intention of non-harm.

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Lenore: so that might be in your local community, or

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Lenore: either of those the second or the third of those concentric circles he talked about last night

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Lenore: the last thing that I said the the second and third.

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Lenore: Last night I talked about the 3 concentric circles so as a citizen thinking about the second and the third. So, citizen of maybe your local community.

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Lenore: your country.

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Lenore: or the globe. there's 2 outer layers.

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other circles.

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Lenore: Yeah.

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Lenore: So non-harm anywhere between non-harm to kindness

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Lenore: anywhere on the non harm to kindness. End of the spectrum.

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Lenore: What kind of positive stuff are you thinking here? Just so that I can.

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Lenore: Sure. yeah.

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Lenore: anywhere between non-harm and kindness. So yeah, as I was saying earlier, when I say non-harm, I'm referring to that whole end of the spectrum. Yeah?

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Lenore: And then in relationship. So as a friend, as a partner. maybe as a parent or grandparent.

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Lenore: in what areas do I currently practice a credible intention of non-harm to kindness.

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Lenore: Okay, back to your role as a consumer.

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Lenore: In what areas do I turn away from imagining the harmful impact of my actions?

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Lenore: In what areas as a consumer. in what areas do I turn away

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Lenore: from imagining the harmful impact of my actions?

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Lenore: So again, think about food. clothing. transport. leisure activities.

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Lenore: all the things you spend money on.

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Lenore: and by turning away from imagining a harmful impact, I mean. So so if I'm turning away from it, I haven't imagined

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Lenore: or found out in detail what the harmful impact is.

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Lenore: and same as a citizen or community member.

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Lenore: In what areas

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Lenore: do I turn away from imagining or finding out

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Lenore: the harmful impact of my actions.

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Lenore: And then same question in relationship

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Lenore: as a friend, as a partner.

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Lenore: parent. grandparent. In what areas do I turn away?

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Lenore: I'm imagining the harmful impact

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Lenore: of my actions or finding out about them.

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Lenore: Okay, identify a time

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Lenore: when you could have spoken up about some harm or potential harm. or you could have mitigated it in some way. But you stayed silent.

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Lenore: or you didn't act.

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Lenore: and when you've got an example in mind.

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Lenore: Imagine how you'd respond differently.

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Lenore: practicing non-harm to kindness somewhere on that spectrum. if that situation to a reoccur

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Lenore: and describe that reauthored response

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Lenore: on your paper.

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Lenore: So when was there an opportunity that you let go through to the keeper?

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Lenore: And if you could reauthor that. how would it be?

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Lenore: Oh, okay, sure, no problem.

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Lenore: Aye.

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Lenore: who is excluded from the intention of non harm.

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kindness

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Lenore: for you. whether through thoughts, words, or deeds.

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Lenore: So, for example, no voters at the referendum

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Lenore: people who harm me.

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Lenore: Non-human animals.

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Lenore: people of certain political persuasions.

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Lenore: non-cute or scary, non-human animals

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Lenore: who's excluded when it comes to

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Lenore: a credible intention of non-harm to kindness view.

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Lenore: whether intentional exclusion or not.

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Lenore: To what extent have I done the ethical imagining of a world where the climate crisis has hit.

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Lenore: where the food bowls of the world are being hit by extreme weather so frequently that they don't have time to recover. For example.

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Lenore: food's becoming scarce crazy, expensive.

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Lenore: So to what extent have I done the ethical imagining of a world where the climate crisis has hit?

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Lenore: So, as an example

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Lenore: of imagining this world where the food bowls of the world are being hit by extreme weather

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Lenore: so frequently that they don't have time to recover.

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Lenore: and food is becoming scarce and crazy. Expensive.

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Lenore: That's just an example of that ethical imagining.

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Lenore: Or do you just not go there? Don't want to think about it.

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Lenore: To what extent have I done the ethical imagining of the decisions I can take to mitigate my contribution to the climate crisis.

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Lenore: To what extent do I lack the head space to imagine, to ponder to cultivate a credible intention of non harm.

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Lenore: And if you do.

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Lenore: what might you do to carve out that time and headspace? What might you do to carve out

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Lenore: that time and headspace

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Lenore: given that this is such a central value to Dhama practice.

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Lenore: And lastly.

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Lenore: in what way, if at all. would I like to deepen my commitment to the principle of non-harm.

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Lenore: And how will I do that?

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Lenore: Imagine it

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Lenore: so?

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Lenore: Stephen Winton and I, in our little pow hour tonight

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Lenore: decided that most of the burning questions that are coming in

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Lenore: can be addressed through

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Lenore: talks the next day.

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Lenore: and if not, we'll find a way to do them. But there aren't that many? So a couple of things, number one

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Lenore: really love to hear thoughts and insights that might have been sparked in this activity.

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Lenore: Secondly, we didn't really have much of a chance to discuss last night's talk, either, because we moved straight into burning questions. So if there is anything around that that people would like to

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Lenore: discuss or ask, or what have you? We can do that as well.

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Lenore: And then, just before we finish tonight. We'll

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Lenore: touching with you on a couple of things logistically.

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Lenore: So.

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Lenore: yeah, thoughts, reflections, insights, questions, confusions.

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Lenore: Yeah.

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Lenore:  a few. A few things are coming up for me. One is on the

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Lenore: spectrum of harm to kindness.

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Lenore: I think. What's missing for me? There is this thing of competence, that it's not enough to be kind. It's not enough to be compassionate.

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Lenore: You have to have competence, you have to have skills. So that kindness. compassion on their own aunt enough, we have to become competent.

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Lenore: So then, going to

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Lenore: the thing about the consumer, how we make a difference personally reminds me of a film that I saw many years ago called black balloons. I don't know if anybody else saw it about how much carbon dioxide we were using, and they filled black balloons, and if we could just minimize our use of electricity of this and that and reduce the number of black balloons that would help mitigate climate change.

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Lenore: and soon after that it became apparent that no matter if everybody

408
00:58:56.960 --> 00:59:13.029
Lenore: kind of drastically reduced, it wasn't going to make a difference, because the system is set up in a way that it's not going to make any difference. It's the system itself. So I think it was Winton who was saying earlier. We have to be tactical.

409
00:59:13.450 --> 00:59:27.480
Lenore: And it's like, where do we put our energy and resources? So in some ways, activism is so essential, we have to target the right things, because we might want to have good intentions and have good results. But

410
00:59:29.170 --> 00:59:37.429
Lenore: we have to become competent. We have to know what to do. That's going to get the results to minimize the harm.

411
00:59:38.170 --> 00:59:39.540
Lenore: Yes, thanks.

412
00:59:39.880 --> 00:59:49.809
Lenore:  my sense on that is that. And we actually, we're gonna we're gonna delve into this tomorrow. It's both.

413
00:59:51.130 --> 00:59:54.120
Lenore: It's both end. It's not either or

414
00:59:54.770 --> 01:00:00.379
Lenore: saying, oh, it's all up to the system, and we've got to change the system. Yes, we do. And

415
01:00:01.240 --> 01:00:02.760
Lenore: every one of us.

416
01:00:03.140 --> 01:00:30.959
Lenore: you know, added together, can make a massive difference. Yeah. So so there's also that justification. You know, what do we use as a justification for not doing anything. But but I really, I really think this idea of competence is so important, because it's like, where do we put our energy? Where do we put our resources? Where do we put our time to have the greatest effect? And from that we have to learn we have to develop. We have to have skill in action.

417
01:00:32.120 --> 01:00:36.030
Lenore: I think in many cases. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, and

418
01:00:37.090 --> 01:00:46.680
Lenore: not always. Okay. So, for example. human consumption of meat contributes more CO. 2, to the environment than every form of transport put together.

419
01:00:47.820 --> 01:00:50.910
Lenore: You don't need a whole lot of competence to stop eating meat.

420
01:00:52.190 --> 01:00:59.230
Lenore: So yes, you need some competence when it comes to. How do we organise? How do we, you know, change the system?

421
01:00:59.840 --> 01:01:06.039
Lenore: But there are also whole stack of decisions we make on a daily basis

422
01:01:06.360 --> 01:01:08.580
Lenore: that add up

423
01:01:08.760 --> 01:01:10.839
Lenore: to massive harm.

424
01:01:11.140 --> 01:01:11.830
Kip.

425
01:01:12.600 --> 01:01:24.049
Lenore: So I think it's both. And it's we. We have an individual responsibility. And it's almost those 3 levels of the of the world. You know, I have an individual responsibility in my direct

426
01:01:24.120 --> 01:01:25.869
Lenore: impact on what I do.

427
01:01:26.120 --> 01:01:38.649
Lenore: I have an impact in my community. And I have an impact. Where? And there are systems at both those 2 outer levels. There's a system at the community level. There's a system at the global level. And yeah, we gotta shake that up, too.

428
01:01:39.030 --> 01:01:40.909
Lenore: But I don't think it's either or

429
01:01:41.070 --> 01:01:42.570
Lenore: okay.

430
01:01:43.210 --> 01:01:45.600
Lenore: you're got Sean online. Yeah.

431
01:01:47.140 --> 01:01:59.630
Shawn Powers: Hi, my name is Shawn. Thank you so much. For this retreat, and for all of the efforts to include those of us joining remotely. I'm based in Kampala, Uganda, although I'm Americans. So

432
01:02:00.020 --> 01:02:10.750
Shawn Powers: my decision not to come was exactly this issue of my impact on the climate. But my question, actually, I think it relates to the previous point about competence.

433
01:02:10.850 --> 01:02:24.349
Shawn Powers: And it's about how to deal with ambiguity. And I think this also relates to Steven's talk about getting out of binary thinking. Because I think our choices aren't always necessarily all that clear cut.

434
01:02:24.660 --> 01:02:25.800
So

435
01:02:26.060 --> 01:02:41.090
Shawn Powers: I don't know if this is a great example, and I don't wanna launch a debate about the facts about working conditions and and so forth. But you know. The question about clothing made me think a little bit about the fact that, you know I think there is a spectrum, and there's some

436
01:02:41.460 --> 01:02:47.650
Shawn Powers: manufacturing. That's quite exploitative. But there's also a reality that

437
01:02:48.590 --> 01:02:53.509
Shawn Powers: you know, it's in countries like the one where I live. It's these types of

438
01:02:53.630 --> 01:03:02.759
Shawn Powers: jobs are an opportunity for people relative to, you know, eking out a subsistence living on a on a farm, for example.

439
01:03:02.810 --> 01:03:19.209
Shawn Powers: So anyway, I we won't dwell too much on the example, because I worry that that one might be a little bit controversial. But just in if if we are faced with choices where there's maybe a lack of clarity, and I suppose we could always do our more, more research.

440
01:03:19.250 --> 01:03:30.300
Shawn Powers: But but other than that how do you suggest? We deal with the fact that it's not always binary that this is the harmful choice, and this is the non harmful choice. Thank you.

441
01:03:30.490 --> 01:03:38.189
Lenore:  My mind goes back to a talk that Winton gave at Mysanger many years ago.

442
01:03:38.860 --> 01:03:42.589
Lenore: Where he talked about the difference between morals and ethics

443
01:03:43.610 --> 01:03:44.970
Lenore: and morals.

444
01:03:45.100 --> 01:03:51.309
Lenore: if I'm remembering correctly, are a code, almost a set of rules about what to do.

445
01:03:51.430 --> 01:03:52.710
Lenore: how to behave.

446
01:03:52.840 --> 01:03:58.160
Lenore: And they're often, you know what our religions provide us. Ethics are a set of values.

447
01:03:58.850 --> 01:04:01.060
Lenore: That we

448
01:04:02.240 --> 01:04:04.990
Lenore: that sometimes conflict in real life.

449
01:04:05.380 --> 01:04:07.089
Lenore: and that we take with us

450
01:04:07.890 --> 01:04:13.150
Lenore: in our real day-to-day lives and try to do our best

451
01:04:13.460 --> 01:04:25.989
Lenore: to live accordingly. and anyone who I have never studied ethics. But I know people who have. I have a sister who's a doctor, and she had to study it, and I remember talking with her about it.

452
01:04:26.540 --> 01:04:42.290
Lenore:  you know, ethics are an incredibly interesting thing to think about, because they are often not straightforward. They're often not clear cut. It's often not the case that oh, choice A is the good choice and choice. B is the bad choice, or which do I do

453
01:04:42.540 --> 01:04:51.329
Lenore: often choice? A will be good for these reasons, and not good for other reasons and choice. B as well. And then there's a whole bunch of stuff. We don't even know

454
01:04:51.610 --> 01:04:58.180
Lenore: about both choices. And so my sense is that

455
01:04:59.520 --> 01:05:01.400
Lenore: within the

456
01:05:01.730 --> 01:05:10.099
Lenore: realms of realism, I mean, we can't spend our entire lives on the Internet, researching everything to the nth degree.

457
01:05:10.920 --> 01:05:11.810
Lenore: But

458
01:05:11.950 --> 01:05:18.779
Lenore: within within realistic sort of parameters, we do our best to inform ourselves

459
01:05:18.990 --> 01:05:26.629
Lenore: about the consequences about the processes of production. If we're talking about our role as consumers.

460
01:05:27.050 --> 01:05:31.289
Lenore: We, if we're talking about.

461
01:05:32.890 --> 01:05:41.269
Lenore: you know, governments at least know what the government's policies are when you go to the voting booth

462
01:05:42.210 --> 01:05:50.390
Lenore: corporates the same, you know, there's there's a certain amount of information that we have access to. So there's a certain amount of due diligence that we can do

463
01:05:51.230 --> 01:05:53.900
Lenore: as consumers, as members of society.

464
01:05:54.000 --> 01:05:57.160
Lenore: And even at that really personal level, you know.

465
01:05:57.700 --> 01:06:01.109
Lenore: sometimes asking the question of people.

466
01:06:01.150 --> 01:06:05.619
Lenore: you know, how did that land with you, or I noticed you were a little

467
01:06:07.020 --> 01:06:19.179
Lenore: iffy when I suggested this the other day? Were you Ok. With it? Asking the question, finding out what is the impact of of my actions or my inactions depending on what it is

468
01:06:19.850 --> 01:06:22.969
Lenore: with, you know. But again, a spectrum

469
01:06:24.410 --> 01:06:26.389
Lenore: from

470
01:06:26.540 --> 01:06:30.910
Lenore: not having found out anything at all. 2.

471
01:06:31.330 --> 01:06:35.790
Lenore: This is taking over my life, you know, we all have lives to lead. So

472
01:06:36.020 --> 01:06:42.960
Lenore: yeah, I think we have to do. What's a reasonable amount of due diligence as consumers, as

473
01:06:43.530 --> 01:06:46.380
Lenore: citizens and as people.

474
01:06:47.470 --> 01:06:58.370
Lenore: And back to what I was saying yesterday is feel the the unpleasantness of uncertainty and ambiguity and act. Anyway.

475
01:06:59.400 --> 01:07:03.670
Lenore:  we're probably not going to make perfect decisions.

476
01:07:06.990 --> 01:07:12.400
Lenore: The I mean 1 one approach is to say, do the low-hanging fruit

477
01:07:13.810 --> 01:07:17.800
Lenore: do the things where we know? Yeah, there's not a lot of debate

478
01:07:18.380 --> 01:07:29.229
Lenore: around climate change. you know. Even if we were just to go. Well, okay, let me have a real look at not just you know, my inner circle. What am I doing with my personal choices.

479
01:07:29.830 --> 01:07:35.200
Lenore: But how many of us have gone and met with our local Mp.

480
01:07:36.320 --> 01:07:37.260
Lenore: And said.

481
01:07:38.260 --> 01:07:41.129
Lenore: we need to do more. This is urgent.

482
01:07:42.570 --> 01:07:49.269
Lenore: you know. I this thing about imagination actually got me imagining this morning.

483
01:07:49.450 --> 01:07:57.750
Lenore: and I was just starting I let go of oh, what's realistic? And I just went. What could we do we need to do more. What could we do?

484
01:07:58.160 --> 01:07:59.979
Lenore: What if everyone

485
01:08:00.030 --> 01:08:03.440
Lenore: and this is going to sound crazy? But just it's imagination right?

486
01:08:03.900 --> 01:08:11.859
Lenore: What if everyone who cares about climate change and the climate crisis went and camped on the streets of the city

487
01:08:12.190 --> 01:08:22.489
Lenore: until the government agreed to do more. Yeah, I mean? There's there's there's organizations that do that, your stink extinction rebellions. And you know, what have you? But what if?

488
01:08:22.630 --> 01:08:23.470
Lenore: What if

489
01:08:23.609 --> 01:08:27.230
Lenore: somebody was to organise the big kahuna

490
01:08:27.550 --> 01:08:29.509
Lenore: of climate change protests

491
01:08:30.210 --> 01:08:39.479
Lenore: in the city, and the citizens just went and blocked the streets and said, This is existential. We're not moving until you promise to do more faster.

492
01:08:40.770 --> 01:08:41.520
Lenore: right?

493
01:08:41.920 --> 01:08:44.149
Lenore: It was just a thought. But I just.

494
01:08:44.290 --> 01:08:45.659
Lenore: I thought to myself.

495
01:08:47.560 --> 01:08:49.179
Lenore: even on a personal level.

496
01:08:49.890 --> 01:08:56.040
Lenore: what can I do? What can I do? This question's been asked a few times in the last 2 days. What can I do?

497
01:08:56.450 --> 01:09:04.249
Lenore: All right, Tim. The 2 of us will block the streets.

498
01:09:04.370 --> 01:09:08.139
Lenore:  yeah. So I think you know.

499
01:09:08.149 --> 01:09:13.100
Lenore: Yes, it's ambiguous. And yes, we're not going to have perfect information. But

500
01:09:14.090 --> 01:09:16.870
Lenore: we've probably in a lot of areas we've got enough.

501
01:09:17.609 --> 01:09:20.319
Lenore: And if we add some imagination to this.

502
01:09:22.010 --> 01:09:27.019
Lenore: you may as well sleep in your room. Death instead of on your chair.

503
01:09:32.350 --> 01:09:35.999
Lenore: Yeah. Does that go to answer the question in E.

504
01:09:36.310 --> 01:09:37.140
Lenore: Why.

505
01:09:38.689 --> 01:09:44.680
Lenore:  he's done, I think. Are you done

506
01:09:45.260 --> 01:09:46.080
Lenore: so?

507
01:09:46.899 --> 01:09:48.710
Shawn Powers: Oh, yes, sorry. Thank you so much.

508
01:09:51.050 --> 01:09:55.169
Lenore: There's a lot of belief systems in what we're talking about

509
01:09:55.530 --> 01:09:56.609
Lenore: tons of them.

510
01:09:57.840 --> 01:10:02.340
Lenore: I do probably 80% of my shopping at garage sales

511
01:10:02.520 --> 01:10:07.450
Lenore: garage garage sal food sales. Okay.

512
01:10:07.950 --> 01:10:11.300
Lenore: I have friends that wouldn't go near them.

513
01:10:12.960 --> 01:10:17.800
Lenore: They have a belief system that what who wants other people's junk right?

514
01:10:18.580 --> 01:10:21.220
Lenore: My living expense is probably

515
01:10:21.600 --> 01:10:27.430
Lenore: 20 to 30% less than theirs because of that. And I get to reuse stuff

516
01:10:28.200 --> 01:10:30.069
Lenore: till it's really worn out

517
01:10:30.620 --> 01:10:33.269
Lenore: and then recycle it right.

518
01:10:33.410 --> 01:10:36.700
Lenore: Another one would be. what party are you?

519
01:10:37.300 --> 01:10:43.810
Lenore: Party? Yeah. What political? I'm a swinger, buddy. I what swing out? No, I can't use you anybody else.

520
01:10:44.270 --> 01:10:45.860
Lenore: Labor.

521
01:10:46.470 --> 01:10:49.370
Lenore: which one is the Conservative party. Liberal

522
01:10:49.710 --> 01:10:52.470
Lenore: rules are conservative in Australia. Yeah.

523
01:10:53.790 --> 01:10:54.950
Lenore: Okay.

524
01:10:55.780 --> 01:11:04.679
Lenore: yes. Yeah. And the if they're the Conservative, who's I mean, if there's a if

525
01:11:04.700 --> 01:11:12.849
Lenore: I can't do it. Labor is the slightly left liberal is the slightly right.

526
01:11:13.110 --> 01:11:16.080
Lenore: Okay? So you, I can do left and right. Okay.

527
01:11:17.010 --> 01:11:19.310
Lenore: so you normally vote left.

528
01:11:20.400 --> 01:11:27.670
Lenore: That's your. That's your mindset. You normally vote left. and lo and behold, the guy on the right comes up with the best

529
01:11:29.380 --> 01:11:32.500
Lenore: climate change plan

530
01:11:34.050 --> 01:11:38.790
Lenore: that you've heard of what are you gonna do? I'll vote right

531
01:11:40.100 --> 01:11:42.210
Lenore: right now. Yeah.

532
01:11:44.270 --> 01:11:50.709
Lenore: But I don't identify with a political party. I don't identify with a political party back to our

533
01:11:50.840 --> 01:11:53.430
Lenore: issue of identifying and selfing.

534
01:11:56.210 --> 01:12:09.239
Lenore: Yeah, it's not just making choices. Okay about doing things because you're gonna come up against belief systems right and left. But with a lot of those choices, they're not just simple.

535
01:12:09.380 --> 01:12:11.519
Lenore: Well, I'm gonna

536
01:12:11.690 --> 01:12:14.220
Lenore: recycle. Or I'm gonna do this

537
01:12:14.410 --> 01:12:20.860
Lenore: because lots of those things are my mom did it that way. Alright.

538
01:12:23.310 --> 01:12:27.440
Lenore: I mean, it's interesting. I've got a session later in the week.

539
01:12:27.650 --> 01:12:32.399
Lenore: where we're gonna look at what we pay attention to, and how we choose what to engage with

540
01:12:33.170 --> 01:12:35.940
Lenore:  and

541
01:12:37.340 --> 01:12:39.810
Lenore: part of it is for me.

542
01:12:41.860 --> 01:12:45.839
Lenore: What do I have but to the issue of competence and to the issue of energy.

543
01:12:46.200 --> 01:12:49.199
Lenore: You know. What do I have skill for? What do I have energy for?

544
01:12:49.680 --> 01:12:54.469
Lenore: As well as what do I care about? There's way too many things that I care about to give

545
01:12:55.100 --> 01:12:57.400
Lenore: my time and skill to all of them.

546
01:12:58.130 --> 01:13:04.140
Lenore:  and for me personally, where I've gotten to

547
01:13:04.270 --> 01:13:07.699
Lenore: is, I think the biggest contribution I can make

548
01:13:08.180 --> 01:13:16.160
Lenore: is to do my bit to get people growing.

549
01:13:16.430 --> 01:13:18.790
Lenore: and I consider dharma practice growing.

550
01:13:19.610 --> 01:13:24.729
Lenore: So getting them to start paying attention, being mindful.

551
01:13:25.190 --> 01:13:27.340
Lenore: being mindful that, hey.

552
01:13:27.440 --> 01:13:34.130
Lenore: I care about climate change. But it's actually the other party that's offering the why would I resist

553
01:13:34.350 --> 01:13:38.590
Lenore: voting for that party if they're offering a better policy just in your

554
01:13:38.640 --> 01:13:40.250
Lenore: fictitious example there

555
01:13:40.800 --> 01:13:47.950
Lenore: starting to help people be aware of their internal processes so that they can more mindfully make

556
01:13:47.970 --> 01:13:51.919
Lenore: their life choices according to their espoused values.

557
01:13:53.270 --> 01:13:57.920
Lenore: You know, if I could, if I had a magic wand, if I could go. What's the one, you know? One

558
01:13:58.750 --> 01:14:03.770
Lenore: difference that I could make? Well, I'd actually probably want 2 wishes, but

559
01:14:04.520 --> 01:14:06.139
Lenore: one of them would be

560
01:14:06.570 --> 01:14:12.239
Lenore: to wake people up in terms of what I mean by that is.

561
01:14:12.970 --> 01:14:15.930
Lenore: increase their mindfulness of their own

562
01:14:16.380 --> 01:14:21.930
Lenore: in a world, their own processes, the thing that their their internal processes

563
01:14:22.820 --> 01:14:27.399
Lenore: so that they can see. You know. I mean, II see this all the time, you know.

564
01:14:28.210 --> 01:14:33.220
Lenore: out at the track, you know. I'm getting out of my car. I'm going into the track. There's

565
01:14:33.950 --> 01:14:36.689
Lenore: a woman sitting there in her formal drive.

566
01:14:36.930 --> 01:14:42.019
Lenore: with her windows down and her car turned on with the air conditioner on

567
01:14:43.250 --> 01:14:50.810
Lenore: cause. It's a bit of a warm afternoon. and and I know this woman and have a good relationship with her and

568
01:14:51.030 --> 01:14:56.900
Lenore: we had a little chat, and then I said, just, you know, very, in a very friendly way.

569
01:14:57.130 --> 01:15:01.909
Lenore:  something about her, you know. Air conditioner on with the

570
01:15:01.930 --> 01:15:10.789
Lenore: with the windows down, I said, you know it's really lovely and breezy out here. And she was like, Oh, yeah, I guess that's pretty bad, isn't it?

571
01:15:10.870 --> 01:15:12.130
Lenore: And she turned it off.

572
01:15:13.000 --> 01:15:17.429
Lenore:  A lot of people are just not paying attention

573
01:15:18.130 --> 01:15:19.490
Lenore: to what they're doing.

574
01:15:20.180 --> 01:15:28.859
Lenore: So for me when I ask myself What's the single biggest contribution I think I can make with my energy, my passions, my time, my skill.

575
01:15:29.170 --> 01:15:34.950
Lenore: It's too help stimulate people growing

576
01:15:36.160 --> 01:15:39.560
Lenore: the other thing. By the way, the other magic wish I'd make is

577
01:15:40.700 --> 01:15:45.140
Lenore: to drop the barriers to compassion.

578
01:15:47.120 --> 01:15:52.239
Lenore: just if if everybody could just automatically not have those barriers

579
01:15:52.380 --> 01:16:00.500
Lenore: and think of themselves as the earth-dwellers instead of the. you know. I'll have compassion for this group, but not that group.

580
01:16:00.900 --> 01:16:10.319
Lenore: I think the world would be a very, very different place. II wanna one of the other things that goes on with the whole thing is priorities.

581
01:16:10.580 --> 01:16:12.080
Lenore: And I can't remember

582
01:16:12.170 --> 01:16:17.550
Lenore: where I read this or what I'm just. I'm a paraprason right?

583
01:16:18.090 --> 01:16:20.929
Lenore: One airplane ride is worth 10,000 cars.

584
01:16:23.850 --> 01:16:25.310
Lenore: What are you going to do about that one?

585
01:16:26.450 --> 01:16:31.620
Lenore: I mean, it's like, do you go after the airlines? Or do you stop flying?

586
01:16:32.620 --> 01:16:42.630
Lenore: Or what what happens with that one? Because that's the priority one. If you get that one fixed you. Do. You just drop a carbon footprint a lot

587
01:16:44.230 --> 01:16:45.279
Lenore: a lot

588
01:16:47.440 --> 01:16:52.740
Lenore: a lot less than not eating meat. I'm sorry than you a lot less than not eating meat.

589
01:16:53.240 --> 01:16:55.179
Lenore: I'm sorry I didn't understand.

590
01:16:57.570 --> 01:17:06.799
Lenore: Yeah. So eating meat. Yes. Good ones. More Co. 2 to the environment than every form of transport put together. Not just the aeroplane, right?

591
01:17:08.750 --> 01:17:10.470
Lenore: But anyway, it's you know.

592
01:17:11.160 --> 01:17:21.380
Lenore: we all have to make our choices, and and there are so many things that we could do. You know my sense is, you go for the low-hanging fruit first.

593
01:17:21.540 --> 01:17:27.360
Lenore: What are the things that are easy that could make a difference? Don't require a lot of time and resources.

594
01:17:29.020 --> 01:17:32.950
Lenore: Are you? Are you benefiting? Do you plan on running for Parliament?

595
01:17:33.370 --> 01:17:48.650
Lenore: I would be terrible, terrible representative of the people. You're a low-hanging fruit. I am so not representative of the average person on the street. I was asked about it once. I think that's crazy idea.

596
01:17:54.220 --> 01:17:55.639
Lenore: Meredith had a question.

597
01:17:56.050 --> 01:18:11.829
Lenore: Hi! I'm Meredith. Thanks, Leonora. That was, that was a great talk. And lots to think about. I just wanted to, I guess. Make a reflective comment that sort of picks up on. Sorry. It's just working that picks up on, I think, what we're talking about, the difference between

598
01:18:12.080 --> 01:18:29.349
Lenore: making small changes which don't in themselves do very much to the very large. You know problems of the world, you know. They don't fix the problem, and it would be easy to say my actions are worthless, or they don't make any difference. So I should do what I like, or whatever some people do, that they get

599
01:18:29.360 --> 01:18:32.200
Lenore: exhausted by

600
01:18:32.680 --> 01:18:35.879
Lenore: feeling so overwhelmed by something that can't affect.

601
01:18:35.980 --> 01:18:40.810
Lenore:  I just. I'm in defense of the small action.

602
01:18:41.020 --> 01:18:55.870
Lenore: I think it's really really important to do things which indicate to yourself, if nothing, if no one else, that you're actually behaving in a way that's consistent internally with your own values. And I really believe that that rubs off on people.

603
01:18:55.950 --> 01:19:02.709
Lenore: I think people notice. And it's you summed it up beautifully before talking about

604
01:19:04.150 --> 01:19:08.799
Lenore: basically what people say versus what they think they believe, and I think that

605
01:19:08.860 --> 01:19:16.109
Lenore: by acting consistently in your own internal system, then you really are sort of

606
01:19:16.590 --> 01:19:40.400
Lenore: nobody could. Nobody could say you're acting in a way that you don't believe, or that you're telling people to do things they should, I think, just being who you are, and acting with integrity, and according to your values, is actually an inspiring thing for other people. And I think people pick up genuineness in others, and and they look with curiosity. Oh, you're doing that! What does that mean? What would that mean for me? And I think

607
01:19:40.420 --> 01:19:43.249
Lenore: that there's a lot of change that can happen

608
01:19:43.630 --> 01:19:59.400
Lenore: by just attending to those really small things. So it's not really a question. Just a thank you for the reflection and and I guess it's the sort of reason to be motivated to still make small changes, even if you can't change the world.

609
01:19:59.660 --> 01:20:03.510
Lenore: Yeah, I thorough thanks, Meredith. I thoroughly agree with that.

610
01:20:04.040 --> 01:20:10.480
Lenore:  I shared an example at our small group chat yesterday.

611
01:20:10.940 --> 01:20:15.039
Lenore: When I first became a vegetarian.

612
01:20:15.200 --> 01:20:21.449
Lenore:  I was a bit preachy about it. I was a bit proselytizing

613
01:20:21.700 --> 01:20:25.619
Lenore: and that process itself is interesting. But

614
01:20:25.830 --> 01:20:36.280
Lenore: I over time, I realized, that's that's not helpful. It's not helping achieve anything, you know. All it does is sort of make people take a step back.

615
01:20:36.790 --> 01:20:45.079
Lenore: And then I, over the course of years, sort of really started to subscribe to the beaver change. You want to see

616
01:20:45.680 --> 01:20:49.620
Lenore: theory, and that people will only

617
01:20:50.100 --> 01:20:51.620
Lenore: be inspired

618
01:20:52.340 --> 01:20:56.520
Lenore: by your example if they are inspired by you as a person

619
01:20:57.270 --> 01:20:59.670
Lenore: and so becoming a

620
01:21:00.510 --> 01:21:10.220
Lenore:  I don't know what word to use growing as a person becoming the person that I think is a good person to be.

621
01:21:10.380 --> 01:21:13.109
Lenore: You know we heard earlier about the the

622
01:21:13.600 --> 01:21:17.550
Lenore: the ancient Greeks. You know. What what kind of person do I want to be?

623
01:21:17.990 --> 01:21:22.239
Lenore:  was kind of where II directed myself.

624
01:21:22.520 --> 01:21:36.090
Lenore: and then, many years later. I've had at least 3 people, possibly more. Say to me in the last decade. I'm now a vegetarian because of you

625
01:21:36.350 --> 01:21:41.549
Lenore: or I. At least I eat less meat because of you, and it wasn't because I was

626
01:21:42.120 --> 01:21:44.609
Lenore: preaching to them I'd never said a word.

627
01:21:45.130 --> 01:21:52.900
Lenore:  They they got curious, you know we'd go to dinner and not eat vegetarian, vegetarian food, and

628
01:21:53.190 --> 01:21:57.120
Lenore: and then ask me why? And I'd tell them and

629
01:21:57.980 --> 01:22:01.549
Lenore: They said it was because it was who I was that actually

630
01:22:01.790 --> 01:22:03.030
Lenore: influenced them.

631
01:22:03.690 --> 01:22:10.829
Lenore: So I do think those, you know, we think it doesn't make any difference, but it does who we are in the world sends ripple effects, and

632
01:22:11.260 --> 01:22:13.569
Lenore: around, everywhere we go, everyone we deal with

633
01:22:15.020 --> 01:22:16.529
Lenore: many drops in a bucket.

634
01:22:17.900 --> 01:22:20.050
Lenore: Yeah. thanks, Meredith.

635
01:22:22.180 --> 01:22:30.090
Lenore: Hello! My question kind of follows your reflection. I think, Meredith, and when

636
01:22:30.290 --> 01:22:44.479
Lenore: you said, just before your second magic wand would be opening the door of compassion. what I'm thinking about is something I heard in the room through the afternoon. Discussion as well is that

637
01:22:44.980 --> 01:22:48.630
Lenore: when we get mindful of the

638
01:22:48.750 --> 01:22:52.050
Lenore: conditions of harm, and we start seeing it all.

639
01:22:52.300 --> 01:23:02.640
Lenore: It can be so overwhelming, or it can be, you know, when we do have compassion we open our heart to the suffering, and you start seeing it. You're like.

640
01:23:02.890 --> 01:23:10.980
Lenore: excuse my language, but fuck me like that's a lot of suffering, and it's a lot to stay open to

641
01:23:12.580 --> 01:23:23.199
Lenore: And I. You know my practice is to try and do the things I can like almost for myself, because it makes me feel better in my life.

642
01:23:23.310 --> 01:23:32.349
Lenore: But really feel this, you know, like that deep ecology thing of like I you know, my, I am

643
01:23:32.360 --> 01:23:37.020
Lenore: the earth as well. It's that sort of lack of separation. But this

644
01:23:37.070 --> 01:23:38.939
Lenore: makes me

645
01:23:39.020 --> 01:24:02.059
Lenore: overwhelmed, and I'm often emotionally flooded by tiny things like, you know, the lizard in the bottom of the bucket. I might lose my shit over that, and that's not very practical or functional, because then I'm not, you know, in a space to respond skillfully. And it leads me to get this sense of desperation sometimes, like my actions are being driven from.

646
01:24:02.150 --> 01:24:07.879
Lenore: have to get everyone to see it my way. And I almost noticed this like

647
01:24:08.070 --> 01:24:22.860
Lenore: moral superiority that's coming in like, I'm right about this. And then. So I think there's a lot of questions in there. But like I'm interested in how you do it because you seem very resilient.

648
01:24:23.050 --> 01:24:31.640
Lenore: Yeah. So part of that answer will come on about Thursday, but part of it is also.

649
01:24:32.920 --> 01:24:38.100
Lenore: and this is where, you know, Dharma, practice can be so helpful is

650
01:24:39.440 --> 01:24:50.089
Lenore: oftentimes, and I think that superiority thing that I was doing when I first became a vegetarian.

651
01:24:50.280 --> 01:24:52.559
Lenore: It's it's an attempted

652
01:24:52.720 --> 01:24:55.020
Lenore: protection mechanism

653
01:24:55.060 --> 01:25:01.150
Lenore: that if I can just leverage everybody to stop doing all this harm, then I won't have to feel this

654
01:25:01.970 --> 01:25:06.440
Lenore: horrible feeling that I feel because I've opened my eyes to it.

655
01:25:07.310 --> 01:25:17.959
Lenore:  I think that's why I didn't become a vegetarian until I was in my thirtys, even though my heartfelt care for animals had been all the way along.

656
01:25:18.340 --> 01:25:27.069
Lenore: You know I can easily tell you the causes and conditions that led to that. Like my parents saying, Yeah, you can be a vegetarian. You can have lettuce for the rest of your life.

657
01:25:27.590 --> 01:25:33.229
Lenore: You know. Parents are a lot more accommodating these days. But

658
01:25:34.400 --> 01:25:38.460
Lenore:  So

659
01:25:39.390 --> 01:25:44.580
Lenore: there's there's a part of it that is, there's something here. I don't want to feel

660
01:25:44.960 --> 01:25:47.370
Lenore: this question, what am I not willing to feel?

661
01:25:47.880 --> 01:25:50.390
Lenore:  So

662
01:25:51.820 --> 01:25:53.010
Lenore: so

663
01:25:53.360 --> 01:25:58.589
Lenore: in in some cases there's real benefit in in feeling it.

664
01:25:59.530 --> 01:26:07.229
Lenore: I think it was. Yeah, there are cases where there's a benefit to feel it. And this is what I'm going to walk through with you in one of my!

665
01:26:07.390 --> 01:26:13.529
Lenore: How to engage with our overwhelmed sessions is sometimes we have to guard our senses.

666
01:26:14.810 --> 01:26:17.799
Lenore: It was so interesting this morning.

667
01:26:17.920 --> 01:26:22.940
Lenore: I went and did my little gym session, and

668
01:26:23.940 --> 01:26:31.380
Lenore: I got my stuff out of the back of the car, and right on the grass where I was about to set up was this dead bird.

669
01:26:32.680 --> 01:26:41.470
Lenore: and it looked like it had been recently killed, and who was only about a third of it left legs.

670
01:26:43.160 --> 01:26:45.330
Lenore: some feathers, wings.

671
01:26:45.340 --> 01:26:48.579
Lenore: and some intestines. and I felt

672
01:26:48.830 --> 01:26:51.259
Lenore: really sad when I saw that.

673
01:26:51.720 --> 01:26:52.870
Lenore: And I

674
01:26:53.270 --> 01:26:56.370
Lenore: so, and the mind went. Gee! I wonder what did that?

675
01:26:56.380 --> 01:26:57.830
Lenore: Was it a fox

676
01:26:58.430 --> 01:27:04.700
Lenore: foxes would normally not. It looks so fresh, and the mind started getting killed. Was it a bird of prey.

677
01:27:04.930 --> 01:27:07.250
Lenore: And then I just thought to myself.

678
01:27:07.850 --> 01:27:14.099
Lenore: there is absolutely no benefit whatsoever in me thinking about that. All it's going to do is distress me.

679
01:27:14.710 --> 01:27:25.560
Lenore: So I moved over away from where I was.  I didn't put in the bin. I think you know, if it's dead now, it may as well be dinner for a fox.

680
01:27:25.960 --> 01:27:32.350
Lenore: But there's there's an element of, I think, skillful practice

681
01:27:32.440 --> 01:27:39.520
Lenore: that is guarding those sense doors, including this one of where we let it go.

682
01:27:39.750 --> 01:27:49.940
Lenore: So it was. It was kind of when you told the story this afternoon. I was just like, Oh, there goes that guarding of my sense tour. I'm just being told what happened.

683
01:27:49.980 --> 01:27:52.950
Lenore:  so that was

684
01:27:53.280 --> 01:28:00.699
Lenore: that was interesting. But yeah, I think there's a part of this that we cannot take it all in.

685
01:28:00.950 --> 01:28:02.659
Lenore: We cannot feel

686
01:28:02.890 --> 01:28:08.029
Lenore: the pain of the world, all of it, or it will render us completely useless

687
01:28:09.480 --> 01:28:12.989
Lenore: to. We won't be able to engage with the world. We'll either numb out.

688
01:28:13.560 --> 01:28:16.159
Lenore: or we will just disengage.

689
01:28:17.180 --> 01:28:21.480
Lenore: because it'll be overwhelming. So I think it's a really important. This is why I've got

690
01:28:21.660 --> 01:28:24.090
Lenore: 2 whole sessions on various parts of

691
01:28:24.890 --> 01:28:29.500
Lenore: engaging with that overwhelm, and a huge part of that is self-care.

692
01:28:30.580 --> 01:28:32.410
Lenore: that if we're going to be useful

693
01:28:32.440 --> 01:28:38.440
Lenore: as agents of ethical action in the world. We have to look after ourselves.

694
01:28:38.790 --> 01:28:42.669
Lenore: and part of that is guarding our scent stores.

695
01:28:44.270 --> 01:28:45.480
Lenore: Oh, yeah.

696
01:28:45.700 --> 01:28:48.340
Lenore: stay tuned. Thank you.

697
01:28:50.600 --> 01:28:55.670
Lenore:  I had a couple of

698
01:28:55.870 --> 01:28:57.739
Lenore: things that end a question.

699
01:28:58.380 --> 01:29:05.669
Lenore: Think following on from what Meredith and Tessa were both saying and talking about self-care.

700
01:29:06.050 --> 01:29:07.200
Lenore: I think

701
01:29:07.660 --> 01:29:15.030
Lenore: the the value of those really small steps is also that it can make you feel

702
01:29:15.120 --> 01:29:26.490
Lenore: emotionally good. You know, when Des before was talking, for example, about this small step of improving the nature strip, and then the birds coming back. It might have had a

703
01:29:26.880 --> 01:29:30.170
Lenore: not as big as an impact as

704
01:29:30.560 --> 01:29:37.630
Lenore: Some of the other changes you could make, but I think because it it hit home and

705
01:29:37.710 --> 01:29:41.840
Lenore: a lot of things you can do, for example, divesting your super.

706
01:29:42.100 --> 01:29:44.059
Lenore: You don't really, you know.

707
01:29:45.080 --> 01:29:58.529
Lenore: doesn't doesn't really feel like anything.  so another yeah champion of the the small actions.  but I think what I wanted to ask about was,

708
01:29:59.130 --> 01:30:02.270
Lenore:  internal hypocrisy

709
01:30:02.300 --> 01:30:03.460
Lenore: when

710
01:30:04.500 --> 01:30:10.279
Lenore: and I suppose it's slightly in defensive non-vegetarians as well.

711
01:30:11.000 --> 01:30:13.610
Lenore: I think that

712
01:30:14.300 --> 01:30:19.759
Lenore: food is such a delicate and personal and important

713
01:30:20.040 --> 01:30:24.600
Lenore: think it's something that I've struggled with in different ways. And

714
01:30:24.680 --> 01:30:28.790
Lenore:  And I know that there are some people

715
01:30:28.850 --> 01:30:30.050
Lenore: who

716
01:30:30.170 --> 01:30:35.580
Lenore: simply made as a part of their lives, for whatever reason.

717
01:30:35.830 --> 01:30:37.000
Lenore: And

718
01:30:38.540 --> 01:30:40.790
Lenore: you know whether that's a a

719
01:30:40.990 --> 01:30:46.359
Lenore: because it falls on a different idea of of harm or non harm. It doesn't

720
01:30:47.510 --> 01:30:58.039
Lenore: really matter. I suppose I was just using that as an example to get to when you're aware of in internal hypocrisies in your own life, for example. Yes, I

721
01:30:58.150 --> 01:31:03.600
Lenore: turn away from this. But II don't right now. That's what I'm

722
01:31:03.610 --> 01:31:16.870
Lenore: sitting with, and yes, maybe I can make more headspace. But today, in this moment, I'm a person who, you know, is a vegetarian, but is absolutely terrible with fresh food waste.

723
01:31:17.130 --> 01:31:22.590
Lenore:  How how do you

724
01:31:23.350 --> 01:31:26.120
Lenore: balance those things when they're a reality?

725
01:31:27.160 --> 01:31:29.749
Lenore: Things are balancing here in the question.

726
01:31:30.320 --> 01:31:42.070
Lenore:  the knowledge that you're acting in line with your values in some ways, and out of line with your values in other ways, but not having the capacity to

727
01:31:42.660 --> 01:31:45.759
Lenore: to flick a switch.

728
01:31:46.150 --> 01:31:51.260
Lenore: So my sense is from my personal experience. There's this constant dance

729
01:31:51.760 --> 01:31:53.040
Lenore: between

730
01:31:54.130 --> 01:31:57.970
Lenore: self-compassion and giving myself a kick in the pants.

731
01:31:59.040 --> 01:32:08.819
Lenore:  again, like a parent. You know you've got to be kind and loving, and sometimes you got to. You got to say no until you know. Come on, you can do better than that.

732
01:32:09.660 --> 01:32:14.140
Lenore: So I guess this comes down to

733
01:32:14.640 --> 01:32:28.400
Lenore: conviction. Certainly think you know, in in almost any endeavor, in almost any change we try to make in our lives. You know, right. I'm gonna do this. We set this intention. We start. We're gonna fall off the wagon

734
01:32:29.020 --> 01:32:33.729
Lenore: along the way. And my thing is.

735
01:32:34.850 --> 01:32:36.020
Lenore: understand it.

736
01:32:36.410 --> 01:32:39.090
Lenore: Have compassion for it. Get back on the wagon.

737
01:32:42.230 --> 01:32:54.840
Lenore: So you know what what we're doing again is we don't want extremes. The the I like the phrase that stuck with me from Stevens. Writing was the fuzzy fabric of life.

738
01:32:55.970 --> 01:32:57.150
Lenore: You know, it's

739
01:32:58.660 --> 01:33:03.600
Lenore: it's fuzzy, and it's multifaceted, and it's moving all the time. And and

740
01:33:03.680 --> 01:33:06.740
Lenore: so sometimes it's gonna be really hard.

741
01:33:07.220 --> 01:33:11.980
Lenore: And sometimes it's not. But the more we do it the more it becomes our habit.

742
01:33:12.640 --> 01:33:15.419
Lenore: And so

743
01:33:15.770 --> 01:33:27.670
Lenore: the thing about in defense of vegetarians. I'm not about to attack any vegetarians. I was not a vegetarian until I was 32, despite the fact that I had this strong sense of

744
01:33:27.840 --> 01:33:34.280
Lenore: care for animals. So I totally get how? It's difficult. Totally. I like meat.

745
01:33:35.960 --> 01:33:41.629
Lenore:  but I think we've got to have a conviction to keep getting back on.

746
01:33:42.230 --> 01:33:52.790
Lenore: you know. Yeah, we fall off and and to kick ourselves up the you know, in the pants every now and then, like you said. You know food is Would you say it's

747
01:33:53.280 --> 01:33:56.340
Lenore:  delicate. And

748
01:33:57.330 --> 01:34:02.100
Lenore: I mean people. People love their food right, and they love their food that they love

749
01:34:02.840 --> 01:34:06.990
Lenore:  and

750
01:34:07.450 --> 01:34:09.510
Lenore: at least at this point in time.

751
01:34:12.200 --> 01:34:26.729
Lenore: this, this climate emergency. you know. If II struggle to think, if somebody has done the ethical imagining. If we've actually gone. Okay, let's let's read the books. Let's listen to the people who are telling us what this

752
01:34:27.310 --> 01:34:39.180
Lenore: society is going to look like in in 5,800 years time. And if you do that, and can still say, Oh, well, I'm you know. food's special to me, so I'm going to keep eating meat

753
01:34:40.450 --> 01:34:53.509
Lenore: in a food is special way, or anything. I meant more for health reasons, or I mean, plenty of people simply can't sustain vegetarian diets.

754
01:34:54.490 --> 01:34:56.900
Lenore: I know there are certain people who

755
01:34:57.740 --> 01:35:09.839
Lenore: for, like something about their physiology, means that they can't process certain nutrients. If they don't eat meat. then they've got to eat meat. You know. There's this issue of self-compassion.

756
01:35:10.630 --> 01:35:14.120
Lenore: The other 99% of the population.

757
01:35:15.530 --> 01:35:18.320
Lenore: Different story. Perhaps.

758
01:35:25.020 --> 01:35:25.950
Lenore: Yeah.

759
01:35:26.470 --> 01:35:28.970
Lenore: I get it. It's it's not easy.

760
01:35:32.760 --> 01:35:42.350
Lenore: More a comment rather than a question. Try and draw a simple thread from yesterday's theme, and today's theme.

761
01:35:42.760 --> 01:35:46.739
Lenore: So from perspective, we went into imagination, which the

762
01:35:46.820 --> 01:35:54.379
Lenore: pose, the question, Stephen of, well, what are we going to do about it? And I just want to try and lift the mood of the room a little bit and say.

763
01:35:54.900 --> 01:36:05.010
Lenore:  Once we imagine that we want to exercise some intentionality about doing something about all sorts of things.

764
01:36:05.370 --> 01:36:18.220
Lenore: and particularly if we have an orientation that everybody can do something. Then the missing piece seems to be for us to actually be a little bit kind to ourselves, and know that

765
01:36:18.480 --> 01:36:22.400
Lenore: everybody can bring a different, unique school

766
01:36:22.550 --> 01:36:30.160
Lenore: or knowledge or understanding to to the a unified goal.

767
01:36:30.340 --> 01:36:32.150
Lenore: So

768
01:36:32.650 --> 01:36:40.830
Lenore: this exercise at a workshop a few weeks ago, where characteristics of whether you're asked whether you

769
01:36:41.270 --> 01:36:50.239
Lenore: you had the characteristics of a prophet. Go and stand in that corner. If you were an educator in that corner, etc. Etc. So we have, you know.

770
01:36:50.650 --> 01:36:57.310
Lenore: theologian and writer, we have other skilled Thespian

771
01:36:57.420 --> 01:37:09.310
Lenore: practical, and in your in your own skills. I think that this might come out of the next few days, that we should

772
01:37:09.480 --> 01:37:16.690
Lenore:  be kind on ourselves to know that we can bring something unique to.

773
01:37:16.780 --> 01:37:19.190
Lenore: too. They

774
01:37:19.260 --> 01:37:29.039
Lenore: The issue, whether it's in your own life, your family, your community, or the world.

775
01:37:29.130 --> 01:37:32.000
Lenore: And that we don't all have to

776
01:37:32.170 --> 01:37:43.940
Lenore: come along and be all the organizer, or the prophet, or the academic, or something else. I just wanted to leave that thought so that we can sort of feel that

777
01:37:44.070 --> 01:37:51.370
Lenore: a sense of confidence that we can all do something, but in our own special, unique way.

778
01:37:51.420 --> 01:37:56.489
Lenore: And when you put it all together. It's really, really potent.

779
01:37:57.260 --> 01:38:04.969
Lenore: And I think that goes back to the issue of competence and energy. What do I have energy for? What do I have competence for.

780
01:38:05.710 --> 01:38:06.530
Lenore: Yeah.

781
01:38:12.060 --> 01:38:16.580
Lenore: Just a footnote on this, I worked for many years in health, promotion.

782
01:38:16.800 --> 01:38:18.740
and people in health, promotion

783
01:38:18.930 --> 01:38:26.209
Lenore: have spent many years in media campaigns and all kinds of ways to persuade people to do things they're not currently doing

784
01:38:27.330 --> 01:38:35.389
Lenore: turns out the best predictor of whether, for example, someone will lose weight is whether they know someone who's lost weight.

785
01:38:35.510 --> 01:38:41.650
Lenore: This predictor of whether someone will take up exercise is whether there are no people who exercise.

786
01:38:41.990 --> 01:38:45.970
Lenore: So the processes of change

787
01:38:46.840 --> 01:38:52.730
Lenore: amongst social animals like us are, in fact, precisely the things that you're talking about, Lenore.

788
01:38:52.880 --> 01:39:02.450
Lenore: and they're far more potent than reading the books and seeing the films on television, and all of those things which stir the imagination.

789
01:39:02.500 --> 01:39:04.000
Lenore: arouse the guilt.

790
01:39:04.050 --> 01:39:13.639
Lenore: but don't necessarily lead on to what you get from talking to your neighbour about how her run was yesterday, and she says, Oh, it was great! How did yours go

791
01:39:14.360 --> 01:39:15.730
Lenore: so yep.

792
01:39:18.380 --> 01:39:31.190
Lenore: so close to handing it over. Yes. So there's been books written about how to talk to people about climate action or climate change and climate action. And there's a whole divvy up of how people respond. Some people

793
01:39:31.230 --> 01:39:58.100
Lenore: will respond to the shock horror. Some people will be completely turned off. Some people will want to do something, but oh, it's all too hard. Let's go and have a beer. I mean, there's just different ways to approach different people, and I imagine most people here are already pretty highly motivated and and thinking about their footprint and their impacts. So I think you know what John said, it's really just teasing out. Where

794
01:39:58.100 --> 01:40:26.740
Lenore: do we have the greatest strengths in our own lives. I mean, certainly pay attention to the detail of what we're consuming, and so on. But I think each of us will be different in in what we have to offer, and not to try to get us all uniformly getting as good as each other about every little detail, but rather to see where our strengths are and really focus on that. And also this is this came out of rebecca, sonitz

795
01:40:26.890 --> 01:40:41.649
Lenore: podcast was someone. She referred to. It might have been a climate person, anyway, he said, the most oft asked question he has is, what can I do as an individual? And his response would be.

796
01:40:41.790 --> 01:40:50.280
Lenore: join. Other people, become part of a team, become part of a network, because that will give you the empowerment and the strength and the learning and the

797
01:40:50.280 --> 01:41:12.910
Lenore: joy and the fun and all the energy that you need to actually move on and learn and and become a part of it all. So yeah, I think we need to be careful not to feel that everyone has to be doing the same thing, because people for varied reasons won't all be on the same page in the same way. But, as John said, I think it's just that thing. We all have

798
01:41:12.910 --> 01:41:18.589
Lenore: something to contribute, and I think everybody here is highly motivated to make that contribution

799
01:41:21.510 --> 01:41:23.120
Lenore: anybody else.

800
01:41:31.690 --> 01:41:33.490
Lenore: He was lost to have the last witch.

801
01:41:39.710 --> 01:41:52.570
Lenore: I just wanted to just say one thing, to follow on from Suzy's comment. I was at an international conference of family doctors about a month ago in Sydney.

802
01:41:52.620 --> 01:42:12.770
Lenore: and one of the people in charge of this international organization who's very public health focused in in her approach. She made the comment that in thinking about how people are overwhelmed by climate change and what to do about it. She tried to flip it a bit, and said.

803
01:42:12.820 --> 01:42:17.680
Lenore: the other way of thinking is, if we look after people, we will look after the climate.

804
01:42:17.770 --> 01:42:38.470
Lenore: and a whole lot of aspects of caring for each other will actually have the result of caring for the climate or caring for the planet, and I really liked that approach to sort of bring it from something which was totally intangible to, you know, the community level and and the health of each person in that community. So that was just another thought.

805
01:42:40.910 --> 01:43:01.220
Lenore: yeah, I mean interesting when you say, health of that community, are you talking physical health. yeah, or physical, mental or all of the you know who definition of health, which is not just the absence of disease, but the presence of I can't remember the definition exactly, but it's it's about all aspects of well-being.

806
01:43:01.350 --> 01:43:09.119
Lenore:  hmm! There! There are parts of that that I really that really resound with me like. You know my thinking about my.

807
01:43:09.740 --> 01:43:18.559
Lenore: The biggest way I can contribute is to help people grow and flourish as human beings, and that that will have knock-on effects, because they're now going to be mindful.

808
01:43:18.660 --> 01:43:21.630
Lenore: you know, more caring and responsible. And what have you?

809
01:43:21.740 --> 01:43:25.489
Lenore: There's also a part of it, though, that if we

810
01:43:26.100 --> 01:43:36.340
Lenore: if we're too kind of Mother Hoody about that, and don't look at the detail. Yeah, there are people. My my sister is a surgeon, general surgeon. So she does a lot of.

811
01:43:36.590 --> 01:43:45.630
Lenore: you know, work on intestines and appendix appendices and all that sort of gear. And so she works with obese people quite often as well.

812
01:43:45.700 --> 01:43:47.170
Lenore: and

813
01:43:47.700 --> 01:43:49.689
Lenore: and you know

814
01:43:49.730 --> 01:43:57.699
Lenore: she does these surgeries, and then oftentimes they go back home and start it all over again.

815
01:43:57.780 --> 01:44:08.040
Lenore: So caring, you know, just caring for her in the sense of fixing her physical problems, didn't change a thing just meant, she could, you know, go back and start again.

816
01:44:09.610 --> 01:44:33.690
Lenore: I think I was. We were. I guess we were family doctors, so we're all about preventative medicine. We're all about preventing chronic disease starting. In the first place, looking at the causes of obesity before they turn into obesity and cardiovascular disease. You know that that's the level. I guess it's a more upstream perspective than the surgeon who has to fix a hopeless situation. That's

817
01:44:33.900 --> 01:44:39.669
Lenore: not necessarily going to get better just because there's been one surgery. So yeah.

818
01:44:41.210 --> 01:44:43.700
Lenore: I don't do that, too, though even healthy people

819
01:44:44.730 --> 01:44:47.469
Lenore: aren't necessarily civically engaged people.

820
01:44:47.920 --> 01:44:52.910
Lenore:  yeah, I'm I'm a part of 2 communities and a secular Dhamma mob

821
01:44:53.060 --> 01:44:57.340
Lenore: and my athletics mob and my athletics mob are pretty healthy people.

822
01:44:57.850 --> 01:45:00.720
Lenore:  but

823
01:45:01.420 --> 01:45:11.459
Lenore: they're not terribly, you know, no more than the average person on the street in terms of engaged in these ethical, you know, crises of our world.

824
01:45:11.560 --> 01:45:16.790
Lenore: There's much more engagement in in in this mob.

825
01:45:17.390 --> 01:45:19.410
Lenore: so my sense is.

826
01:45:22.230 --> 01:45:33.169
Lenore: that's why I guess my 2 magic wands are you know. If I could increase the mindfulness of actually seeing my choices and seeing the consequences of my choices, both for myself and for my

827
01:45:33.260 --> 01:45:36.679
Lenore: family and for my community and for my world, and

828
01:45:36.770 --> 01:45:40.599
Lenore: dropping those compassion barriers to care about it.

829
01:45:41.490 --> 01:45:51.400
Lenore: I think. Yeah, I don't know. That's just my thinking about where's the? There was another concept in organizational psychology. It was called the catalytic mechanism.

830
01:45:51.530 --> 01:45:58.160
Lenore: And and the idea is, you know. Where's where's the point? Where? If I if I change that.

831
01:45:58.220 --> 01:46:03.990
Lenore: everything else would flow?  and

832
01:46:04.580 --> 01:46:05.410
Lenore: that's

833
01:46:05.610 --> 01:46:13.349
Lenore: I think there are some systemic, you know, catalytic mechanisms that if we could get them working, yeah, potentially could have those big knock-on effects.

834
01:46:13.590 --> 01:46:16.000
Lenore: But in terms of at at a personal level.

835
01:46:16.190 --> 01:46:20.999
Lenore: my sense is, you know, the kind of work that we do in our dumber practice.

836
01:46:22.570 --> 01:46:27.950
Lenore: personal growth, mindfulness of of our processes

837
01:46:29.280 --> 01:46:31.970
Lenore: paying attention being present.

838
01:46:33.630 --> 01:46:38.869
Lenore: They're they're the tickets to those knock-on effects on a large scale if we could do it.

839
01:46:40.250 --> 01:46:53.019
Lenore: Yeah, we're talking. We're spanning lots of things in this conversation. Yeah. And I guess just to clarify. I was probably thinking more on on a population level than an individual level. Right? So if we think about

840
01:46:53.560 --> 01:47:08.600
Lenore: how to help girls in a developing country. We know that if we educate girls they delay, they they spend more time at school, they delay having children. They learn how to have access to contraception. They have smaller families.

841
01:47:08.850 --> 01:47:19.829
Lenore: The demands on the planet are less. They look after the children, they have better. There's a whole lot of. Really, they have less domestic violence. There's a whole lot of really really positive knock on effects from.

842
01:47:20.040 --> 01:47:37.840
Lenore: you know, simply educating girls, or, you know, giving them the opportunity to to break out of the poverty cycle, of being the one in the, you know, in the fields having to do the manual work, or whatever. So I was kind of thinking on a much sort of not our personal level, or even our

843
01:47:38.100 --> 01:47:51.129
Lenore: country level, but just more of a the whole planet. Because, yeah. the planet is full of people that all aspire to be. You know, first world citizens, and have all of the things that we have

844
01:47:51.210 --> 01:47:55.929
Lenore: and you know, an increasing population which is just.

845
01:47:56.350 --> 01:48:08.659
Lenore: I guess, wanting more stuff and not able to look after their own is not one that's going to help the planet. So I guess that's just to tie that up.

846
01:48:12.470 --> 01:48:19.399
Lenore: Was there someone up there, did you say? No. pretty much our vegetation time I passed 9,

847
01:48:20.010 --> 01:48:22.369
Lenore: did we? Wanna was there

848
01:48:23.270 --> 01:48:27.079
Lenore: anything we needed to talk about before the end of the day?

849
01:48:34.450 --> 01:48:37.400
Lenore: Pardon?

850
01:48:38.040 --> 01:48:39.920
Lenore: Yes, yes.

851
01:48:40.520 --> 01:48:54.940
Lenore:  Sorry. I had this idea that there was something we were supposed to tell you. But maybe it'll come to me in the meditation.

852
01:48:55.770 --> 01:48:56.430
Yeah.

853
01:48:57.600 --> 01:49:00.510
Lenore: thank you.