May We Recommend: World as Lover, World as Self by Joanna Macy

World as Lover, World as Self:
A Guide to Living Fully in Turbulent Times
by Joanna Macy
★★★★★

This overview of Joanna Macy's innovative work combines deep ecology, general systems theory, and the Buddha's teachings on interdependent co-arising. A blueprint for social change, World as Lover, World as Self shows how we can reverse the destructive attitudes that threaten our world, with concrete suggestions on how to address "An Inconvenient Truth".

The essays are based on the Buddha's teachings of "Paticca samuppada" (interdependent co-arising). Reduced to deceptively simple terms this says that everything in the world- every object, feeling, emotion, and action is influenced by a huge, all-inclusive web of factors. Any change in the condition of any one thing in this web affects everything else by virtue of interconnectedness. It makes World as Lover World as Self a quintessential guide for those readers who want to integrate their Buddhist practice with concerns for social issues like global warming. It also breaches the dualities that have haunted much of both Eastern and Western thought, namely the dichotomies between mind/body, humanity/nature, reason/emotion, self/world, science/spirituality.

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