David Beatty – Kairos and the Double-Edged Sword of Techne
How can we turn the meta-crisis into a meta-opportunity?
The Mindfulness Revolution and the explosion of interest in Buddhism, a religion and practice barely known in the ‘secular’ West 60 years ago, has been seen as both a symptom of and a response to a profound crisis of meaning. But is it a cure? In my book The Island, A Mirror for the Soul, I offered a personal chronicle of my own struggle with the aporias of the Age of Anxiety. The figure of Siddhartha Gautama in 5th C BCE embodied for me that liminal moment we call the Axial Age. Today our global meta-crisis bears many resemblances to that critical period the ancient Greeks called Kairos, indicating a time of turning from crisis to new opportunity.
But are we seizing the opportunity with sufficient urgency? How can Dhamma Practice help us when confronted with the overwhelming implications of the Technium and its dehumanising tendencies? Of Buddhism’s three Gems – Awakening (Buddha), the Path of Practice (Dhamma) and Community (Sangha) has the last, Community, received the least attention? Is wholesome community not our most urgent need? To what extent has Western “Buddhism”, a peculiar modern derivative of the Dhamma, been co-opted in the service of the atomistic Machine ideology that many perceive as a threat to humanity?
With the hegemonic power of digital technology and the drive towards transhumanism – the Machine’s substitute for transcendence – how can Sangha become a vital resource against the dystopian trends of global governance, and the nihilistic narcissism infecting democracies? Techne, from which the word technology originates, also meant art or craft, as a form of embodied knowing. How has it now assumed the monumental proportions of a threat to our fragile world? Has it taken on a Promethean life of its own that undermines human choice and agency while professing to deliver the same with ever accelerating innovations we are unable to adapt to in appropriate ways, while the energy and materials needed to sustain this are dismantling the ecological basis of life?
How can dhamma practice in self-correcting communities help us to discern between our tendencies to self-deception and our desire for wholesome integration? In this webinar, I will try and answer some of these questions and suggest some paths of exploration towards restoring a sense of wonder and what we mean by the sacred. I propose that this can only happen if we can plausibly establish the meaning of Participation through dialogue that leads to a metanoia and a deep understanding of what is meant by the over-used word interdependence. This may enable us to regenerate communities of practice that honour the values of Beauty, Truth and Wisdom that were once our only guides towards virtuous conduct and social cohesion.
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About the speaker:
Born and educated in England David Beatty’s life has been characterised by diversity as a photographer, author, traveller, and now mindfulness teacher. At various times he has lived on three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa, finally settling on the latter. His work as a photographer has taken him to over forty countries, with a particular interest in social and environmental issues. He is passionate about the need to cultivate ecological awareness through practices that can create a shift away from separation and dominance over the earth to communities of participation that live in symbiosis with earth’s living systems.
In 2012 he founded DEEP, a Centre for Diversity, Ecology, Ethics and Practice. He is qualified in permaculture design and for many years has been a Dhamma Practitioner in the Theravada tradition of insight meditation. He is also trained as a Mindfulness Facilitator in the MBSR Programme, and holds a Diploma in Relational Mindfulness from the Karuna Institute in Devon, UK. He is also on the founding team of MSC Africa (Mindful Self Compassion Africa) affiliated with the Centre for Mindful Self Compassion USA (Founders: Chris Germer and Kristin Neff).
His recently published book (2020) The Island, A Mirror for the Soul: Journeys towards the Heart of Dhamma, tells the story of his journey and his conflictual relationship with the ideology of secular materialism, exposing the pathologies of modernity. He also writes poetry and a collection of his poems entitled Mapping the Silence is currently being prepared for publication, as well as a book of his photographs Travels in the Margins of Time.He currently resides in Kenya where he has lived for over twenty years, and where he runs courses that combine different practices including movement, cognitive science and mindfulness practice. These often include nature retreats in Kenya’s abundant wilderness areas.
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Speaker
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David BeattyPhotographer, Author, Mindfulness teacherBorn and educated in England David Beatty’s life has been characterised by diversity as a photographer, author, traveller, and now mindfulness teacher. At various times he has lived on three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa, finally settling on the latter. His work as a photographer has taken him to over forty countries, with a particular interest in social and environmental issues. He is passionate about the need to cultivate ecological awareness through practices that can create a shift away from separation and dominance over the earth to communities of participation that live in symbiosis with earth’s living systems.
In 2012 he founded DEEP, a Centre for Diversity, Ecology, Ethics and Practice. He is qualified in permaculture design and for many years has been a Dhamma Practitioner in the Theravada tradition of insight meditation. He is also trained as a Mindfulness Facilitator in the MBSR Programme, and holds a Diploma in Relational Mindfulness from the Karuna Institute in Devon, UK. He is also on the founding team of MSC Africa (Mindful Self Compassion Africa) affiliated with the Centre for Mindful Self Compassion USA (Founders: Chris Germer and Kristin Neff).
His recently published book (2020) The Island, A Mirror for the Soul: Journeys towards the Heart of Dhamma, tells the story of his journey and his conflictual relationship with the ideology of secular materialism, exposing the pathologies of modernity. He also writes poetry and a collection of his poems entitled Mapping the Silence is currently being prepared for publication, as well as a book of his photographs Travels in the Margins of Time. He currently resides in Kenya where he has lived for over twenty years, and where he runs courses that combine different practices including movement, cognitive science and mindfulness practice. These often include nature retreats in Kenya’s abundant wilderness areas.
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