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Good morning

I’ve been writing this August. Holiday comes at the end of the month. One of my tasks is to finish a biography I’m co-writing of one of the first British people to become a Buddhist monk. Allan Bennett, - not the playwright - became Ven. Ananda Metteyya in Myanmar in 1902. Before going to Asia, he’d lectured on Egyptian mythology and alchemy, and made quite a name for himself as a ceremonial magician who could do big time stuff. Once a Buddhist monk, he left that behind and focussed on bringing his new-found religion to the west. He was aware of a growing materialism and individualism in British society, alongside overflowing gaols, alcohol abuse, and poverty. In his eyes, old-time morality was dying and Buddhism offered answers, because letting go of self-centredness and embracing compassionate action lay at its heart. The law of action, -of karma – appealed to him too , because it teaches that every good action has good results, no ifs, no buts, no reliance on capricious outside forces. It was a law that gave Metteyya confidence. If humanity could truly recognize it, humanity would be mature.

Buddhism’s law of action is what I see unfolding in the Amazon to the detriment of the forest. President Lula de Silva’s summit has gone some way to building unity of purpose among the nations responsible for the forest. Before the summit, indigenous leaders in South America called for radical action – ‘The forest isn’t an oil well, it’s not a gold mine. It’s our temple’, said one. What they want is the creation of more reservations and an immediate pledge to stop deforestation. Only that form of action will protect the future of the forest and of the world.

My conviction, as someone who draws both on Christian and Buddhist wisdom, is that we shouldn’t rely on an outside, interventionist power to take away the world’s crises. Human maturity lies in recognising that we alone are responsible for the mess the world is in and only human action can turn things round.

But I also believe that there’s a power, an energy, that can help us act wisely. Christians call it the Holy Spirit, and its fruits include love and self-control. Metteyya saw it as a power that can help us move from selfish greed to compassion. The path to our liberation, he wrote, lies open if for a moment ‘we forget our Self; and live, aspire, and work for Life at large. That includes the ‘temple’ of the Amazon and our own rivers and trees.

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