Simply by virtue of our birth in this human body, each of us retains an inalienable belonging to Life. Without lifting a finger, saying a word, or even “being good,” we are entitled to a home in the ancient ancestry of the Earth. Woven from the earth, air, fire, and water around us, we are very literally the Earth walking. Acknowledging this basic fact is a profound act of self-compassion. It allows us to reclaim our rightful place as part of the family of Life and gives us strength to face the world heart-on.
Environmental scientists have long documented the vast network of interactions that create this planet. From the interior tectonics of the planet to the water, ice, and atmospheric systems, each interacts with the other to create the living Earth. In his Gaia Hypothesis, John Lovelock and others have suggested a synergistic and self-regulating (i.e., intelligent) nature within these interactions. In this view, the entirety of the Earth acts more like a singular organism.
This suggests that, like cells cooperate to make up our physical form, we are cells within a greater body of Earth. Just like our cells receive information from the environment so we may sense our reality, the Earth, too, may collect and organize our individual perceptions to perceive its reality. In support of this possibility, scientific evidence shows that consciousness is not limited to our brains but is shared. Hence, we may be but a node in a more extensive information flow. If this was so, we could imagine that each of us has access to a planetary consciousness or “self.”
Whether scientifically provable or not, it is a concept approximating a liberating spiritual experience we each subjectively can have. As Buddhadasa Bhikku, my teacher’s teacher, said, “The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the stars live together as a cooperative.” Physicists like Stephen Hawkins have theorized a similar concept, that the entire universe acts like a giant neural network. As we expand beyond ourselves, the felt sense of a larger field of being is not only possible for us – it may be critical to support our composure as we come up against the great challenges of the future. For this reason, exploring it is perhaps the most crucial act of self-compassion yet.