It is not difficult these days to feel the world is sliding into insanity. Apologists may argue that we are better off than any generation in history, that technology has freed us from drudgery, and that progress is real. Nevertheless, civilization’s gains appear to be stagnating, or even more alarmingly, slipping away at an accelerating rate.

Given the unrelenting firehose of bad news, I find myself increasingly hopeless about humanity’s ability to solve the challenges we face. Every day I am confronted by our stupidity, mendacity, and unwillingness to care. My natural response is to care less and less about more and more. And I don’t like that feeling.

Recently reading a newspaper article about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., describing him as a vaccine cynic rather than a vaccine skeptic, “cynic” struck me as a good word for how I feel.

“When modern Buddhism came to the West, much of the focus of the teaching was on liberating ourselves from desire…. today … we’ve passed a tipping point and morphed into a world where hatred seems to be the dominant poison.”

As an optimist and Buddhist practitioner, I am finding my own emotions hard to reconcile. I can see that cynicism isn’t the Bodhisattva Way I envision. So, I have been digging in to learn more about how to cope with these negative feelings.

My first stop was Wikipedia, to learn about the ancient Greek philosophy of Cynicism, established by Antisthenes. I was immediately surprised to see a separate entry for Contemporary Cynicism, which has a very different focus. The former, a noble perspective with many parallels to Buddhist thought, is quite different from the latter perspective. Contemporary cynicism embodies a lack of hope or faith in people and seems much more fitting for our times.

Then I began scouring the internet searching for “Buddhism and Cynicism” to see if I could find some sutra or commentary that might guide my inner work. I found many interesting articles, but none that really address the social anomie causing me so much distress.

Buddhist teachers often refer to the Three Poisons: desire, hatred, and ignorance. When modern Buddhism came to the West, much of the focus of the teaching was on liberating ourselves from desire, epitomized by materialism and the perils of late-stage capitalism. It was the 60’s! The zeitgeist today, though, is radically different; we’ve passed a tipping point and morphed into a world where hatred seems to be the dominant poison. Some Buddhist teachers are working hard to adapt, incorporating activism and social engagement into the mix, while others are content to keep replaying “Buddha’s Greatest Hits” like the classic rock I keep hearing in the supermarket when I shop.

While there is much of value in teachings of the past (as evidenced by our reliance on ancient texts), the psychological motifs based on Western interpretations of Buddhism of 50 years ago seem to me to be tone-deaf to the cultural changes we have subsequently undergone, especially since the pandemic. Buddhists are frequently heard to comment on how Buddhist practice and culture transformed themselves as Buddhism migrated from country to country but are less attuned to how transformations have been essential over time in individual cultures.

Next, I started wondering about that third poison: ignorance. These days, I think “confusion” might be a more accurate term. Between misinformation, disinformation, AI, cybercrime, political destabilization, and a cornucopia of other negative trends, one hardly knows what to believe. It’s not that we don’t know stuff; it’s that we are being actively gaslighted or hit by weapons of mass distraction.

Looking at my trusted source for good advice, Gampopa’s The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, in Herbert Guenther’s pioneering translation, published by Shambhala back in the 1960s, I see that chapter five is titled “The Vicious State of Samsara.” Given that the book was written almost a thousand years ago (ponder that for a moment), we might think, what goes around comes around. I don’t subscribe to a teleological sense of linear time, but it is quite easy to have the sense that we are in what is called the Kali Yuga, or “Degenerate Age,” in which the dharma disappears until Maitreya arrives. If there are cycles within cycles, as the Kalachakra (“Wheel of Time”) Tantra teaches, this Age has to reach its logical conclusion. Nothing is permanent; everything that is born dies. I’d like to think what I’m experiencing isn’t cynicism, but rather anticipatory grief, a much more workable emotion, but I know that emotions often have very amorphous boundaries.

Being a Buddhist practitioner has always involved some renunciation, a turning away from the blandishments and fears of samsara, toward a life of purpose: the attainment of wisdom and compassion, also known as awakening. In that sense, it feels appropriate for me to care less and less about more and more. But what I continue to care about is the basic sanity and heartfelt connection with all beings that is the foundation of bodhisattva practice.

In the teachings of Nagarjuna, about a thousand years before Gampopa (ponder that too), he warns about the false promise of nihilism, and in some passages warns it is even more dangerous than addiction to the engine of samsara, described aptly by Gampopa a millennium later as fuelled by the energy of conflicting emotions and primitive beliefs about reality.

I don’t have a quick fix for my feelings of cynicism and nihilism. I wish I did, but I know that is unrealistic.

As Arthur Ashe famously said: “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.” That reminds me a lot of the late Bernie Glassman Roshi’s Three Tenets: Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Compassionate Action.

That’s great advice from both Ashe and Glassman, but awakening doesn’t miraculously appear simply from sharing inspirational memes. If it did, we’d all be living in the Pure Land now! Rather, being a Buddhist means committing, practicing, for the long haul. It’s a long maturation, as Mitra Bishop Roshi has put it.

I still have a lot of questions, even after more than fifty years since taking refuge. There’s a lot of Buddhist stuff that rubs me the wrong way. But I’m not about to abandon the raft before getting to the other shore. In fact, it’s a big raft with lots of room for everyone. Come join me. Let’s chat. The moon is beautiful tonight.