Namaste friends

Welcome to another post. Just a little note before we get into it: This one picks up where the last one left off. Kind of. No need to read that one first, unless you want to.

And that’s the whole thing in one sentence, or at least in part of a sentence: unless you want to: none of it is any of my business. What do I mean when I say ‘none of it’? Just that. None of it. Or we can say it in another way: the only thing that is your business is you.

But, all of us are bound to ask, how can I simply mind my own business in a world torn by endless war? How can I ignore the environment I live in and that it’s dying before my eyes? How can I turn away from the evils of racism, injustice, greed, and cruelty?

Well, the simple answer is we can’t and we shouldn’t. Of course, in order to reconcile this apparent contradiction, it would be helpful to clarify exactly what we mean by minding our own business.

In essence my business (or yours or anyone’s) is anything that has to do with me: what I do; how I behave; what I think, feel, and believe; my behaviour and attitudes towards others; and—and this is the key—how I interact with and respond to the world as I experience it as I go about living my life.

So, it isn’t completely accurate to say that the wars, racism, injustice, and the killing of the environment (and everything else) is none of my business; my business is limited to my interaction with and response to all of it. And that has to be determined by a range of factors like my nature, my abilities, my circumstances, and so on.

Above all, and as Susan Sontag, American writer, philosopher, and political activist, said in a speech in 2004:

To be a moral human being is to pay, be obliged to pay, certain kinds of attention.

While the theme of that speech had to do with the writer’s responsibility to truth, I think her assertion applies here and may provide a solution to the seeming contradiction between minding our own business while at the same time stating that our business can, should, and does indeed include what goes on outside of ourselves (actually as we shall see, in reality there is no outside or inside)

How we utilise our own personal resources is in the end for each of us to decide. In the sense of our engagement with the world, the most precious of these resources are arguably time and attention.

Each of us possesses these things in our own unique quantities, just as we all have our own unique qualities, so each of us has the opportunity to decide how we use our time, and what we pay attention to.

It is so very easy to be overwhelmed by the constant torrent of information detailing the horrors threatening to consume and destroy our poor Earth and the life she supports. It is so very tempting to throw up our hands in defeat, and shrug our shoulders as we turn away exclaiming ‘It’s none of my business’.

While none of us would blame anyone for retreating in this way, a great many of us realise that for us this is not an option. Well, as the Buddha taught, there is a middle way. A way that allows us to avoid this kind of ‘none of my business’ denial, at the same time as protecting us from being overwhelmed and beaten down by the scale of it all.

The first step involves surrender. Surrender to the idea that there is no ‘me’; there is no ‘you’. There is no ‘them’, no ‘us’. There is only ‘I’. Surrender to the notion that not only is all life ‘connected’ or linked, but to the thought that all life—human, other animals, plant, mineral — everything —  is one. There is no separation.

Easy eh? Hardly. But this is where the paying attention thing comes in. Rather than being swamped by the never-ending tsunami,  choose where to put your attention. Ask yourself, where am I able to place my attention? How can I—how am I able to—use my time so that I avoid drowning yet still contribute to the well-being of the whole of which I am a part?

Obviously, as I hinted at above, the answers will be different for each and every one of us. For some, the kind of attention they pay will involve being on the literal front lines, working in the political field, or with activist groups working for social justice.

Then there will be those whose nature compels them to  choose to put their attention on a life of prayer, meditation, and contemplation.

For these people this requires the quiet and solitude of monastery, ashram, or cave (whether it be in forest, mountain, or suburban home). And along the huge spectrum in between, there is a a unique spot for every one of us.

Each of us is a part of the whole. Everything we do affects the whole. Remember that saying that goes something like: A butterfly flutters it’s wings in the forest and the sun rises? Okay, maybe I’m pushing it a bit, but you know what I mean.

Never underestimate what (you perceive of as the little) you’re able to do; no one can say what impact it will have. All that is required of you is that you mind your own business.