Recently I had an ecological epiphany.
There is an endless stream of opinion about what constitutes
appropriate and sustainable agricultural practice. There is also a plethora of people providing their own personal examples. Each of these can help to define a framework for farming that is
personally satisfying, philosophically and socially cogent, and ecologically
sustainable.
Over the past few years my farming inspiration
has increasingly come from Buddhism.
Stephen Batchelor, in talking of personal interactions,
characterises a ‘wise’ relationship as one that is ‘caring and careful’. He
writes of authenticity in terms not of what-we-can-get but in terms of
what-we-can-give; not of being-with-others but of being-for-others. His
approach reflects many of the fundamental tenets of the Buddha’s approach to a
fulfilling life.
In a similar way, we can restore a balance to our interaction
with our world by accepting that we are an integral and inseparable part of
something much larger. As Thich Nhat Hahn offers - it is a world from which we have emanated, and into which one day we will
disseminate.
When we consider only what we can take from our relationship with the world we practice disservice. Our relationship becomes dysfunctional, as though we exist separate from and uninfluenced by our environment.
We and our environment are interdependent - or, as Thich Nhat Hahn has said, we inter-be.
Our ecosystem, irrespective of our impact upon it, will
persist long after our particular emanation. However, we and our children are unlikely thrive if it does not thrive.
For farming the epiphany was simple. We mine our land for profit at our peril. If we simply look for what-we-can-get we miss the opportunity for enduring and proliferating thriving that is generated when we start to look at what-we-can-give.
This afternoon, I stood at a fence on the top of a rocky ridge. The fence had been destroyed by recent wildfire. I asked why such a hard won fence had been built on such a remote and unpromising piece of land. I suspect it was avarice. Will I restore it? I am not sure. But if I do I will do it as a labour of love. The fence will be-for-another.
