A Meditation on Consumerism, Attachment, and Compassion

Journal Entry, Jeanne Sommer

During my first experience in Thailand, I accompanied another college group and an elder hostile group from Seattle. I was struck by the ways that the rhythm of our time was divided by educational tourism and shopping. I am grateful that I was allowed to join this group on their study tour. From that experience I learned a lot about what to do on our field course and what not to do. What I wished, more than anything, to avoid during my next experience in Thailand when I brought Warren Wilson students with me, was any sense that we were there to shop, either for stuff, experiences, or ideas. I wanted the WorldWide field course to be marked by a sense of intimacy and relationality. When we visited a site, I wanted to stay long enough to begin to get a sense of its internal rhythms and the things that we might not be seeing because we were intruders. When we met briefly with individuals to learn about their work, I wanted to stay long enough for them to get to know us a bit too, to ask us questions. While I knew that it would be inevitable to keep the students from shopping, I wanted them to explore their need to purchase in light of the other things they were learning about themselves and in relationship to Buddhist teachings.

After only a few days in Thailand, we were, as is to be expected, tired. We had arrived in Thailand with our feet on the ground, meeting that first evening with our host, Una, from Payap University, then going to dinner at a local riverside restaurant. The next day, we were in class in the morning and traveling to temples in the afternoon with a similar pattern on subsequent days. By the fourth day, several in the group expressed a need to slow down, to do some shopping, some journaling. We decided to open up the schedule on that day to allow for more individual choice. Over half of the group decided not to visit with one of the development monks from Wat Suan Doc (link here to his teachings). We added in an extra night so people could go to the Night Bazaar more than once, the central outdoor shopping area, in Chiangmai. While there was a part of me that did not wish to add this particular kind of flexibility into the schedule--because it was encouraging the very thing I hoped to avoid--I decided it was the right thing to do.

It seemed to me that the best way for people to learn about their own consumerist addictions was to allow them to explore them in the context of their study. Why did we purchase? What kinds of things did we purchase? How did our presence in Thailand contribute in positive and negative ways to the local economy? What happens inside of ourselves when we get this "urge to shop"? How can we walk in Thailand with a very light footprint when it comes to consumerism? Why would some people give up the opportunity to meet a dedicated grass roots activist so they could go shopping? What was the source of my own and others judgments on this issue? These were some of the questions I explored in my own mind. Especially after the home stays in the village-- where people had virtually no possessions and very few clothes--I began to see my own addiction to "stuff" beginning to lose its hold.

When I returned from Thailand, one of the first things I did was to go through all of my closets and drawers and to give away to the Good Will Industry 13 bags of clothes. The next thing I did was to go to my closet where I have stored 16 boxes of books. I pulled them out, took them to the college, had them catalogued on paper, and then gave them all to the college library. These are my two primary consumerist addictions: clothing and books. For years, I had thought that when I got my mental world in order, I would take the time to rearrange my physical world. Upon my return, I decided to try it the other way around: to work on my physical world with a view toward nonattachment and to see if there are repercussions for my internal world. I can only say that I have felt a great deal of freedom, having made those choices to divest myself of some of my possessions. I was very happy that, when I went to the Good Will and unloaded all the clothes, the man who was taking them from me did not look me in the face, nor did he speak to me. The act of giving them away came with no special perks, no thank you. I just gave them away.

The other thing that I found interesting with regard to nonattachment, upon my return from Thailand, was what I discovered in relation to three incidents that happened upon my return. On the first day of my return, I attended our faculty retreat. The Dean of the College had asked me to return home early from Thailand so I could attend. I was not too pleased with the request to return from ½ around the world for a faculty meeting, but I decided that perhaps there would be something important for me to learn at the meeting. Dr. Parker Palmer was our guest leader, a man who first introduced me to the thought that I might be a good teacher someday, back in 1984 when I first met him. As usual, he spoke eloquently of what it means to be an engaged teacher who teaches with the whole self, but who does not put the self at the center, but rather the rich subject matter that is being explored. We broke into small groups. I had the fortune of sitting with a colleague who very quickly made the announcement that he did not have respect for ANY of his colleagues on campus. He made this statement in front of two colleagues from his own department! I still had not "come down from the mountain" of my experience in Thailand, particularly the forest walk, so I asked my colleague: "That would seem to include me, but, to my knowledge, you don't know me, so how can you not have respect for me?" "You're right," he replied, "I don't really know you, but I know that you are a Christian and I don't have any respect for Christianity." I decided to take a deep breath and to listen, not to judge. "That must be a difficult way to live," I said, "must be lonely to think that way."

I'm still not sure why I flew ½ way around the world for a faculty retreat. But I was happy to see, within myself, that I did not need to let someone else's ignorance define my own understanding of myself and the world. What was more important to me at that moment and right now is to ponder and enact compassion for my colleague, for, as I try to imagine what it would be like to think that you are the only person who is right, I think that it must be painful, there must be great suffering. So instead of judging him, I am praying for compassion and I am looking within myself and trying to find the parts of me that think I am the only right one, my own judgmental self.

On the second day after our students returned from Thailand, our largest dormitory on campus caught fire and burned completely to the ground. Fortunately, no one was killed, but over 100 students lost all of their possessions within just a few hours. During the first week of our Socially Engaged Buddhism class last term, one of the students had asked everyone to think of what possessions they are attached to, what they might not be able to part with. Most of us imagined what we'd take if we had to leave a burning building. Some of our closest friends had to make that decision just a few days after our return. We still find pieces of the dormitory that flew out with the flames, scattered across our campus. In addition to compassion for those who have lost their homes and a reinforcement of the truth of impermanence, what else are we to learn from this event?

Then, two weeks after the dorm burning, I watched the space shuttle "Columbia" fall from the sky in broken and burning pieces. I wept for the wives, husbands, parents, children and friends, who literally saw their loved ones fall from the sky. I watched President George Bush deliver the morning address and give his condolences to the family and the nation. I wept for George Bush. He is a person with whom I highly disagree. My heart is bent on avoiding war while his appears to be intent on creating it. Yet I looked at him and loved him, felt for him as he was called to do what I've been asked to do so many times before: to put words to something, some grief, that is beyond words. What am I to learn from this loss and from this affinity with our President?