Joanna Macy, PhD, has a legacy at Naropa that is hard to go unnoticed. She was already a pioneer in environmental activism, early adopter of Deep Ecology philosophy, and scholar of Buddhism and general systems theory by the time she came to teach at Naropa in 1978. Since then she has had a decades-long relationship with Naropa, has authored 12 books, and is a modern luminary in anti-nuclear causes, peace, justice, and environmentalism.
Her life’s work, The Work that Reconnects, is a seamless marriage of Buddhism with environmental activism, the threads of which weave into much of what Naropa stands for and does. Our undergraduate Environmental Studies program and graduate Ecopsychology program are mostly informed by her work, and our dedicated Joanna Macy Center for Resilience and Regeneration continues to train scholars and activists in her groundbreaking approaches. It is without question that her place is cemented in Naropa’s history through her powerful teachings.
The below section is excerpted from an interview she gave with alumnx, David DeVine (BA Interdisciplinary Studies, ’12) in 2019 for Naropa’s MindfulU Podcast and gives a brief window into her work, its ties to Naropa, and our shared ethos.
DAVID:
So, you have the Joanna Macy Center at Naropa and they’re teaching the work that you do with the Work that Reconnects and nuclear activism and more. What is it like having that program at a Buddhist-inspired university for you?
JOANNA MACY:
Oh, it’s just wonderful. You know my initial fascination and appetite for Naropa started when I came to Boulder in ’78. That’s when it was proposed to me that there’d be a center for the work I do, and it was just such a blessing that seemed too good to be true. I had already been teaching environmental studies there. I had already been there as a Lenz scholar. I had so much affection for that and so much gratitude for the Buddha Dharma—that ancient and ever new tradition was being brought where young people and people from all ages could enjoy it and feel its relevance to this time.
DAVID:
Yeah. When I was looking into the Work that Reconnects. I had this thought—what is it we are disconnected from and what is it we are reconnecting to?
JOANNA MACY:
Yes, we are rootless in a way. We’re disconnected from our bodies. And so, it’s wonderful that Naropa has so many courses that help people re-inhabit and reconnect with their senses. And then through that, and through the meditations that ground you in your body, we become curious and develop an appetite for knowing this world and knowing it directly.
I think much of the problems of our world—whether it’s economic problems or climate—all stem from a disconnection from the inside to the outside, and we’ve used modern technology and modern consumer society to create pleasures that distract us from the world. So Naropa and the Buddha Dharma help us get real with: who we are, what’s passing through our minds, what’s obsessing us. In the gentlest way, it’s bringing us back again and again to just be here—be with the wealth of this and to see with fresh eyes the beauty of this world, slow down a little bit, and open our hearts to things we don’t want to see as well.
Through the meditations that ground you in your body, we become curious and develop an appetite for knowing this world and knowing it directly.
You know what’s happened in our time, I’m thinking of from the middle of the 20th century on, is a realization coming to us from science that the Earth is a living system. The ancient ones and all of the ancient traditions—and we’re all from Aboriginal roots—have carried the knowledge that we are in a larger living home. We belong here, and there’s certain traditions and original instructions for living with reverence for this living home—to taste it, to hear it, the fragrance of it, the beauty of it for the eyes, this wonderful body that takes it in—and suddenly you’re waking up into the most incredible garden of reality. It doesn’t feel, smell, and look like a garden now with industrial wastelands and endless factories, but our planet is alive. That’s become such an important anchor for me. Before it was the mystics perhaps that could feel that wider mystery, a living mystery around us, and now through Gaia theory, it’s like these two great rivers of science and spirituality are flowing together to reassure us: you belong to something ancient, ever fresh, gorgeous, and intelligent.
The Buddha Dharma—particularly in the Tibetan tradition—there’s the first of the preliminary reflections, which is to realize how rare and precious it is to have a human life. Is that because humans are better? No. Or because they’re superior? No. Then why is it so rare and so precious? It’s because as humans we can change the karma, because of this blessing of being able to choose.
You really come alive and you really feel connected to the larger intelligence that we’re part of when you can make a choice whether it’s by marching, whether it’s by digging, whether it’s by planting an organic garden, whether it’s by going to a hearing, or going to something right near Naropa. There’s so much that we can do, and what I love about that is the feeling of solidarity with other people. You know when you link arms with others and show up together and especially maybe when it’s a little risky—you become so grateful for each other, and you feel so much respect for each other.
It’s with this choice of like: what version of reality do we want to get behind? And in the Work that Reconnects, we can boil it down to basically: is it business as usual? That is corporate worldwide globalization and the last stages of capitalism that is finding huge profits in plastics and in coal and gas and in military hardware. I mean the amount of military—the bombs, the tactical weapons—it’s staggering. It’s what the Buddha warned of the poisons of aggression and greed— they marry there and in the military industrial complex. That’s just what the Buddha proposed of what can absolutely totally distract us and then enslave us. So, when you’re working for an institution—working with it and as a product of it that helps people to discover choice, people are given a wider lens. It’s sharpening their senses. It’s bringing them to life.
DAVID:
Yes. You do the same thing. You’re giving people hope. You’re giving people choices. You’re letting them know what the choices are. You bring to light some facts, and you’re also giving us a strategy with the Work that Reconnects of how to make these choices and how to benefit all. And also with the Joanna Macy Center at Naropa—there’s another choice we can make. We can be educated in a way to move forward and make the decisions.
JOANNA MACY:
Yeah, and that choice one makes is to dare to say, okay, I’ll feel uncomfortable a little bit. I will not blind myself to the sources of suffering that we’re creating. I will not distract myself and keep the lid on my grief and my sorrow and my outrage at the way we’re treating the world and its people. I will not just keep a lid on my feelings or pathologize them you know. I know at Naropa that’s a part of the Work that Reconnects that has been used quite a bit.
One of the forms, the ritual of the Truth Mandala, is where we’re facing together what’s going on. Or even admitting that we’re part of it, and we’re stuck in a kind of powerlessness. Have you noticed how that builds solidarity to see it and say it? People come out of hiding. Instead of feeling the cool, not seeming to care; they realize what’s really cool is to show how much you care and be in the expressions of sorrow and the expressions of outrage and anger. You know, when you look at some of these things going on—how can you not feel upset?
So that’s the first thing that happens, but let’s go back a little bit—in the Work that Reconnects we follow a plotline. We always start by coming from gratitude because things are so scary today. I mean they really are, and we have a birthright to feel glad to be here. This is an incredible planet, and we have this incredible body that can take it in, that can choose. And we have a mouth that can speak and eyes that can see and ears they can hear and traditions we can draw from. Wow! What’s not to be thankful for that? And what’s not to be thankful for: air that you can breathe—even if it’s full of smoke like ours, these hearts that know how to treasure life, and hearts that know how to break. We can be glad for that because that’s what the bodhisattva does too. The bodhisattva is the boundless heart that not only can hear the birds singing in the highest heavens and the songs of the spheres, but also the cries from those depths of suffering. And that’s what a heart is for: we are grateful we have a heart, and that puts ground under our feet.
DAVID:
Yeah. We have the ability to feel the spectrum. We’re not segregated to one emotion and that is the beauty of being alive. I think there’s a way to allow your heart to break without being broken, and that’s what we’re developing. We’re becoming holistic people that can see the brokenness of the earth in this way of business as usual, but yet not be broken and deactivated from moving forward.
JOANNA MACY:
Yeah. And you know, what I’ve come to believe is that the heart that breaks open can hold the whole universe. It’s that big.
DAVID:
It’s a big heart.
