How Does Practice Transform Us and Our World?

We are always practicing something, whether we are conscious of it or not.- Ng’ethe Maina & Staci Haines, The Transformative Power of Practice

How does transformation happen - for ourselves, for our communities, and for our world? I explored this question with folks in Torino, Italy this morning (via Skype) as part of the Third Annual Conference for the International Day of Happiness. This year's theme, "Economies of Becoming" and its focus on economy as relational work, had me wondering how we get from where we are to where we want to be.In The Transformative Power of Practice, Maina and Haines describe the difference between default and intentional practices.

• Default practices are behaviors we do automatically, consistently, and unconsciously. These are learned and inherited.
• Intentional practices are behaviors we choose to do to transform how we show up in the world. Through repetition it becomes a new habit – and we become someone new.

By becoming conscious of what we practice and intentionally choosing to practice something new, we can transform ourselves and our world.

Beyond Mindfulness: The Buddhist practice of ethics

At Buddhist Peace Fellowship, we explore our default and intentional practices, especially how they relate to one of the three pillars of our Buddhist practice - ethical conduct or sila. We talk not just about our personal practices, but also the collective practices embedded in our communities, societies, and larger economic and social systems.In Buddhism, we have the Five Precepts as guidelines for behavior that fosters the conditions for liberation:

• Do not kill
• Do not steal
• Do not harm others with our sexual energy
• Do not lie
• Do not cloud the mind with intoxicants

How do we practice these ethics within unethical systems? Is it possible to practice "non-killing" if we live and pay taxes in a country constantly at war? What does it mean to not steal when we benefit from economic systems that thrive on exploited labor and stolen resources? Is it possible to avoid clouding the mind, despite advertising’s attempts to mold us into good consumers? [We have explored the questions in greater detail within The System Sinks curriculum on The Five Precepts.]

Fossil Fuel Dependence: Default practices that harm our earth

In this picture, we see the results of our default practice of prioritizing oil extraction.In North America, there’s a debate raging about a method of extracting oil from tar sands. A pipeline has been proposed by the multinational corporation TransCanada. Called Keystone XL, it would pipe the oil extracted from the tar sands from Alberta, Canada to Texas in the southern United States. The pipeline is slated to go through indigenous or Native American tribal land, and some tribes like the Rosebud Sioux have said that authorizing the pipeline is an act of war against their sovereign nation. US President Barack Obama recently vetoed a bill to authorizing building the pipeline, but only because it circumvented the State Department's process for evaluating the pipeline. If the State Department determines that the pipeline is good for the US, Obama may still authorize it at a later date.

Supporters of the pipeline are focused on energy independence and jobs. It's not simple to say “stop the pipeline” without thinking about where people will work, how they will get to work. As Communities United for a Just Transition argue, we must confront the ecological and economic crises we fact at the same time.Even if there are jobs, the community’s air quality suffers. I live in a community in California with a major oil processing plant owned by Chevron. Two years ago, an explosion at the plant sent thousands of area residents to the hospital with respiratory issues. Chevron pays little in taxes, and now that local hospital is closing because of lack of funds.The tar sands extraction and oil refineries are often most harmful to people who are already marginalized, including indigenous communities who are on the front lines of this fight.

Intentional Practices of Resilience and Resistance

We sent photographer aneeta mitha to Alberta to document not only the destruction, but also the resistance to tar sands extraction that harms our earth. As documented in her blog about the experience, Pipeline Nation: Stories from the Tar Sands, she followed the Healing Earth Walk led by the Athabascan Chipeweyan First Nation in Alberta, Canada and a Buddhist-led Compassionate Earth Walk that traced the route of the pipeline.From Richmond to Alberta, there are so many points of intervention to shift our over reliance on non-renewable energy. In late 2013, we performed street theater at a large action on the one-year anniversary of the Chevron refinery explosion described above. We vowed to "Marry the Movement," fighting back against climate injustice for the long haul.

More recently, we took our meditation practice to an anti-fracking action, pressuring California Governor Jerry Brown to ban an extraction process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.Fracking Kills Precious Beings: BPF Eco Action from Turning Wheel Media on Vimeo.We are strengthening our skills at compassionate confrontation on related issues like militarized police brutality and through nonviolent direct action training in California and across the US.

Transformation as Spiritual Awakening

I have much compassion for those who have lost their spiritual intellect.- Francois Paulette, Chipewyan First Nation

I’m speaking today at an academic conference not to encourage everyone to become Buddhists, but to talk about the importance of spiritual intellect in what Joanna Macy calls the Great Turning to a post-capitalist society.

Yet of all the dangers we face, from climate change to nuclear wars, none is so great as the deadening of our response.-Joanna Macy & Molly Brown, Coming Back to Life

Intentional practice requires that we be awake to our own experience and that of our fellow beings and the world. For human life to have any hope of continuing on this planet, we must practice being alive now. If we remember to be alive again and again, we might practice our way into a new habitual way of being.