The Four Global Truths Awakening to the Peril and Promise of Our Times

by Drda, Darrin

• ISBN13: 9781583943212
• ISBN10: 1583943218
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-10-25
• Publisher: EVOLVER EDITIONS

Summary

With the planet increasingly threatened with catastrophe and perhaps even collapse, many seekers are looking to past, proven models to create meaningful change in their lives. One such model is Buddhism's Four Noble Truths: the reality of suffering, the root cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path to the end of suffering. This fresh, timely book taps and modifies that ancient wisdom to address the pressing environmental and spiritual crises facing us. In The Four Global Truths,author Darrin Drda contends that as global temperatures rise and natural systems decline, humanity is forced to confront the destructiveness of unfettered material progress and mechanistic thinking. He posits a more enlightened worldview that honors the interdependence of all forms of life and aspects of reality, a concept increasingly see as a practical and compassionate approach to averting disaster. Writing in a warm, open style recalling that of Eckhart Tolle in The New Earth,Drda integrates elements of Western philosophy, transpersonal psychology, deep ecology, modern cosmology, and quantum physics to get at the heart of worldwide ecological suffering. In the process he encourages a responsible and joyful-and ultimately healing-participation in this critical moment in life. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Author Biography

Darrin Drda is a longtime practitioner and occasional instructor of Insight meditation, as well as a facilitator for the Awakening the Dreamer symposium, which promotes ecological sustainability, social justice, and spiritual fulfillment. He lives in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Images and Illustrations	p. xiii
Preface	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
A Novel Perspective	p. 1
The Web That Binds	p. 4
The Buddha's World and Life	p. 7
The Four Noble Truths	p. 11
The Reality of Global Suffering	p. 15
The Radiant Core of Buddhism	p. 15
Confronting the Shadow	p. 17
Disease of the Biosphere and Planet	p. 20
The Human Factor	p. 22
Climate Change and Rising Seas	p. 23
Mass Extinction of Species	p. 29
Shrinking Forests and Expanding Deserts	p. 33
Topsoil Disappearance and Degeneration	p. 35
Air and Water Pollution	p. 36
Ocean Pollution and Fish Decline	p. 37
Radioactive Waste and Electromagnetic Pollution	p. 39
Overpopulation and Overconsumption	p. 41
Economic Disparity and Violence	p. 44
Dwindling Water and Oil	p. 46
Sprawl and Urbanization	p. 49
Regional Conflicts	p. 51
Human Disease and Dis-ease	p. 53
What Ails Us	p. 54
Life, Liberty, and the Pandemic of "Happiness"	p. 57
Apathy and Alienation	p. 59
The Uniqueness of Our Situation	p. 61
The Roots of Global Suffering	p. 65
In the Beginning	p. 67
Evolution, Involution, and The Fall	p. 69
Cycles of Four	p. 72
The Story of the Universe, Condensed	p. 75
The Unfolding of Consciousness	p. 78
Structures of Consciousness	p. 79
The Mythic Mind and Monotheism	p. 86
Call Him Ishmael	p. 87
The Birth of the Mental	p. 90
The Western Worldview	p. 92
Ancient Greece and the Rise of Reason	p. 94
The Stoic Sensibility	p. 97
Christian Vision and Revision	p. 99
Space and Time Redefined	p. 101
The Perspectival World	p. 104
Rebirth, Reform, and Individualism	p. 105
Planetary Revolutions	p. 107
Rationalism and Empiricism	p. 111
Science vs. Religion and the Death of God	p. 115
The Enlightenment's Shadow of Subjectivity	p. 119
Modern Revolutions	p. 121
Existentialism and Postmodernism	p. 125
The American Mindset and Globalization	p. 128
America Means Business	p. 129
The Three Poisons	p. 134
A Sort of Homecoming	p. 137
Something of a Summary	p. 139
The Relief of Global Suffering	p. 143
The Potential for Progress	p. 143
Hope, Optimism, and Faith	p. 147
A New Way of Thinking	p. 149
The Great Transition	p. 152
Eschatons	p. 152
Arenas of Change	p. 155
Initiation and Individuation	p. 156
Through the Hourglass	p. 158
Dark Night, Early Dawn	p. 161
Integral Consciousness and Cosmology	p. 163
Microcosmic Insights	p. 165
A New Map of the Cosmos	p. 168
A Growing, Fecund Universe	p. 170
An Omnicentric Universe	p. 174
A Synthesis of Sacred and Secular	p. 177
Evidence of Evolution	p. 181
The World's Largest Movement	p. 182
Declarations of Interdependence	p. 188
New Monetary Models	p. 190
A Spiritual Renaissance	p. 191
North Meets South	p. 193
The Road to Recovery	p. 199
A Way Forward	p. 199
The Buddha's Noble Eight-fold Path	p. 201
Transformation and Translation	p. 204
Thinking Universally, Acting Personally	p. 206
In Search of Wise Relation	p. 209
Wise Relation with Self	p. 209
Ego and Then Some	p. 211
The Body	p. 213
Mindfulness Meditation	p. 217
Wise Relation with Others	p. 221
When It All Comes Down	p. 223
Universal and Unconditional Love	p. 225
Loving-Kindness Meditation	p. 230
Wise Relation with Other Species	p. 233
Jains and Carnivores	p. 236
The Food Chain and the Web of Life	p. 239
Wise Relation with the Earth	p. 242
A Brief Tour of Solar System and Psyche	p. 244
World Transits and Ages	p. 248
2012 and Beyond	p. 251
Wise Relation with the Feminine	p. 255
Integrating the Anima	p. 258
The Business of Birth	p. 262
The Sacred Marriage and Its Child	p. 263
Wise Relation with Space	p. 264
Buddhist Cosmology	p. 267
On Earth as It Is in Heaven	p. 270
Wise Relation with Time	p. 272
The Spiral of Existence	p. 274
Types of Time	p. 278
Looking Back through Time	p. 280
Wise Relation with the Divine	p. 282
Immanence and Transcendence	p. 285
Non-Duality, Wonder, and Mystery	p. 287
"Miracles"	p. 291
Epilogue	p. 293
Appendix: Poems	p. 297
Notes	p. 301
Primary Sources	p. 311
Index	p. 313
About the Author	p. 329
About Evolver Editions	p. 332
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