Why is overcoming empire so hard?

Cosmos: Full moon. Sun fast (clock behind sun).

Hell realms, heaven realms, and freedom from realms

Our goal is to live in the land of love, is it not? Yet we continue to live in the wasteland, do we not? Why is it so difficult to make the move? What is the problem? How do we solve it?

The “land of love” is shorthand for a kind of “heaven on earth” envisioned by diverse wisdom traditions: the promised land (Judaism), the pure land (Buddhism), the kingdom of god (Christianity), the summit of the universe (Jainism), paradise (Islam), wakan tanka (Lakota), etc.

The land of love is a place where we extend ourselves for the common good.

The “wasteland” is the result of living in traditional empire: “alienation, fragmentation, despair and disenchantment.” This is T.S. Eliot’s description of his modernist poem, The Waste Land.

Both terms refer to our inner life as much as they do to our outer life. They really refer to both – our whole life – inner and outer.

Where do you live? Where do you spend the majority of your time? In the land of love, or in the wasteland?

Speaking for myself, I commute between the two. I spend a lot of time in the wasteland: alienated, fragmented, desperate – but not yet disenchanted. I have glimpses of the land of love, even some extended stays there.

Most of the time, however, I live in between the two, in the commute: desperate yet hopeful. It’s a moment-to-moment dwelling place. So much of it depends on our mental formations, a Buddhist term for the thoughts and emotions that rise and fall in our consciousness.

But much of our dwelling place also depends on our culture and society. Where does our society live: in the land of love, or in the wasteland? If our culture is a wasteland, can we still dwell in the land of love? It’s complicated, as they say, right?

Not really. The wisdom traditions say it’s simple.

The problem-solution

The consensus is that three toxins (or negative energies) are endemic to human nature. Buddhism calls them delusion, hatred, and greed (the Three Poisons).

• Delusion is the toxin of the mind
• Hatred is the toxin of the spirit.
• Greed is the toxin of the body.

What do you think: do these toxins exist in all human beings, to some degree? Do you think they can sometimes overwhelm a person and lead that person to do things they later regret? Maybe you have had this experience?

If you see the universal nature of these negative energies, do you also see the need to heal or manage them? Or do we think these negative energies will subside on their own? If you see the need to handle the Three Toxins with intention, skill, and support, Love God is for you.

The three toxins are not merely personal. They operate on the level of society as well. As pointed out in an early essay, the collective forms of delusion, hatred, and greed today are individualism, casteism, and capitalism.

The good news? There is a well-known cure for each one of these toxins. Ancient Greek philosophers called them the four virtues (aka cardinal virtues, a term coined by Saint Ambrose). I call them the four fruits:

• Wisdom is the fruit of the mind, and the antidote to delusion.
• Courage is the fruit of the spirit, and the antidote to hatred.
• Kindness is the fruit of the body, and the antidote to greed.
• Wholeness is the fruit of existence; it is the antidote to all the toxins.

These can also operate at both the individual and collective level. The collective forms I envision for curing our social ills are oneness, friendship, and commonwealth.

There’s more to say about all of this – these problems and these solutions. But for now, naming them is enough. We cannot cure what we do not understand. We cannot understand what we do not name.

In the next post, I will share some ways of cultivating these fruits in everyday life, god willing.

From Guns to Trees

To end this post, I can share another highlight from Wild Goose Festival 2025.

One of the most dramatic stories I heard at Wild Goose this year was the conversion (my word) of Aaron Davis. Aaron guided two experiences at the festival this year: “From Guns to Trees” and “Forest Bathing.” I was interested in both of them but didn’t make it to either one. (There are 400+ things to do at Wild Goose in 3.5 days.)

As luck would have it, during dinner at the commons area Friday night, a woman at a nearby table noticed me and said they were talking about the presentation I gave earlier that day. Could I remind them of the four stages I discussed? Sure, I’ll be there in a minute.

Finishing the conversation with the couple who had invited us to join them, I moved to the neighboring table and had a seat. My wife, guessing (correctly) that this would be a longish conversation and not needing to hear me recap my presentation, headed back to our tent to hang out with my aunt. At the table I joined there were two women – one who attended my presentation – and a man, Aaron Davis.

After kind of summarizing my talk as requested, I asked Aaron what kind of work he does. He is in the tree business, he said, which was great to hear. When I asked him what brought him to the festival, he told me that he used to work with the National Rifle Association (NRA), but when he discovered corruption, he left and tried to expose it. We ended up talking for a while.

Turns out he has an aunt in Delray Beach, Florida, where I work. And he has talked to the Executive Director of Community Greening, a tree-planting agency founded in Delray, inspired in part by the work of Soil & Soul, the mindfulness agency I serve, based in Delray. By the time the festival ended, after hanging out a couple more times, it felt like we were old friends.

The spiritual wisdom of trees

The last session my wife, my aunt, and I attended at Wild Goose – together with Aaron Davis – was “The Spiritual Wisdom of Trees.” It was a wonderful experience, even though it didn’t touch on overcoming empire. : )

Trees are the way to overcome empire. The four fruits – wisdom, courage, kindness, and wholeness – grow on the tree of life. And a healthy tree can transform toxins in the soil, air, and water into less harmful substances.

So if spirituality ever seems too complicated and empire too hard, we can always learn from the stillness and peace of trees. As long as we are in touch with the tree of life in us and around us, we are free: free from the wasteland, living in the land of love.