resilience

Zen and the Art of Dissatisfaction – Part 35

/ Mikko Ijäs / Jätä kommentti

Losing Myself and My Suitcase

This post explores how the stories our minds create – stories of guilt, inadequacy, or fear – can become far heavier burdens than the events that inspire them. A lost suitcase, a moment of confusion in a foreign railway station, or a lapse in attentiveness can transform into a mental storm. Yet within these storms lies an invitation: to examine who we believe ourselves to be and to recognise our deep entanglement with everything around us. Drawing from personal experience and classical Zen teachings-from Emperor Wu of Liang to Bodhidharma and Shitou Xiqian – this post reflects on illusion of the sense of self, perception, and the inseparable connection between all beings.

At times, the stories and self-accusations created by our own minds are our worst enemies. Anyone who has ever accidentally broken or lost something, or missed an important meeting or means of transport, knows how upsetting such moments can be. Even if nothing significant was ultimately harmed or endangered, the mind may still twist the situation into something impossibly difficult.

Lost Suitcase

I lost my suitcase in August 2018 while travelling to a week-long silent Zen retreat in the Netherlands. My train stopped at Rotterdam station. I was heading toward a small Dutch town whose name I could not even pronounce. My phone’s internet connection wasn’t working, and I did not know where I was supposed to change trains. I saw a uniformed conductor on the platform and went outside to ask him for help. He told me that I was already running late. My train would leave in minutes, and I would have to switch platforms.

I ran to the new platform, arrived just in time to see the train that had brought me there gliding away. Another train arrived. I stepped in, found myself a seat, and realised that I had not taken my suitcase with me from the previous train. I had only a small shoulder bag and the clothes I was wearing.

My stomach dropped into a deep abyss beneath my feet. It felt as if all the blood in my body fell down with it. I tried to prevent myself from falling into that abyss, but my mind seized control. I began making a plan to retrieve my suitcase. I found the conductor; he gave me the number for the lost-and-found service. I called, but it was no use. No one could tell me where the train I had lost my suitcase on would go after its terminal station. Despite my best efforts, I never saw my suitcase again.

The Longest First Day

When I arrived at the retreat centre, my teacher burst out laughing. It was not mean at all, actually it felt nice. I knew I was safe. ”This is exactly why we practise mindfulness,” he said. His wife promised to bring me a toothbrush and toothpaste. The first day of the retreat felt endless. I noticed how my mind replayed the event again and again from different angles. I sat there in silence, watching how my mind meticulously showed me just how careless, stupid, and thoughtless I had been.

At bedtime my mind was still boiling, replaying the events and insisting on my stupidity and carelessness. Eventually I fell asleep but soon woke up again, my mind still seething with self-accusations. As the days passed, I began to see how utterly unnecessary this whole mental process was. It was merely the torrent of self-blame and fixation on loss. Though at first I had imagined that my suitcase held my entire life, I eventually realised that this was not true. Life is something entirely different.

What Is This Life We Are Living?

But what is this life of ours? Is it even possible to say? I notice that I cannot state with certainty what I mean by my self.

The Emperor Wu of Liang (c. 502-549) is said to have met the semi-mythical ancestor of Zen, the great Bodhidharma (c. 440-528), who arrived in China from somewhere along the Silk Road, presumably from India. During their short encounter, Emperor Wu questioned Bodhidharma about who this man standing before him really was. Bodhidharma replied laconically: ”I don’t know.”

What are we, what am I, truly? It feels irrelevant at first, but when I look deeper, I find it impossible to point to any one specific thing and say that this is me. If I pointed to myself and examined more closely, I would notice that it is not true. If I pointed, for instance, to my shoulder and asked whether that is me – no, it is not. It is only my shoulder, but even that is not so simple. The shoulder is merely a entaglement of various interconnected parts. It is a collection of things: skin, tendons, bone, nerve fibres, blood, and other fluids. The closer I look, the less any of these seem like ”me”. Any one of them could perhaps be replaced without that essential sense of ”I” disappearing. It is like the Ship of Thesius in this regard. Or its Chinese counterpart, the Zen Koan regarding the Cart of Keichu.

Even if my mind insists it is the same ”me” as it was meybe ten years ago, this is not the case. Our minds change, and our memories change with them. The atoms and molecules forming our bodies are replaced as we eat and drink. Food becomes part of us. Old material leaves us when we breathe out, or go to the bathroom, or brush off dry skin.

The skin surrounding the body is not me. It is merely skin. My bones are not me, for they too are merely bones. Yet if I must prove my identity to a police officer or to my computer, I instantly become a unique individual, distinct from all others in some incomprehensible way.

Interbeing: The World Within and Around Us

I sit by the window of our home and listen to the birds singing at the bird feeder. A great spotted woodpecker has given way to squabbling tits. Sound waves carry the birds’ calls to my ears. What separates me from those birds, when even the sound waves travelling through the air connect us? As I listen, the window between us ceases to exist.

The wind rustling the branches of spruces and pines takes shape in the sound it produces as it moves through them. The same play of awareness occurring in my mind is present in everything. It is in the branches of trees, in birdsong, even in the empty space binding us together. I breathe the oxygen these trees have produced. We are all interwoven together. None of us could exist without the other.

And yet, even though we are intertwined with birds, trees, and air, I can also view the same reality from another perspective, where each part becomes sharply distinct. The tit and the woodpecker take on their individual forms, and each of us has our own unique task in this moment. We are separated by our unique ways of being-yet still bound to one another.

The Chinese 8th-century Zen master Shitou Xiqian (700-790), known in Japanese as Sekito Kisen, ends his famous poem Sandokai (The Identity of Relitive and Absolute) with the words: ”Do not waste your time by night or day.” Both darkness and light are two aspects of reality intertwined and, in themselves, the same thing – two dimensions of experience. Everyday dissatisfaction and the bliss of freedom are both right here, right now.

Summary

What begins as a story about a lost suitcase unfolds into a reflection on the self, awareness, and our profound connection with all beings and things. The mind can turn trivial events into overwhelming crises, yet it also possesses the capacity to recognise their emptiness. Through personal experience, ancient Zen teachings, and the simple presence of birds and trees, we are reminded that life is both deeply individual and inseparably shared. In every moment-whether painful or peaceful-there is an invitation to see clearly and live fully.

Zen and the Art of Dissatisfaction – Part 33

/ Mikko Ijäs / Jätä kommentti

From Poverty to Productivity

Across the world, economists, sociologists and policymakers have long debated whether providing people with an unconditional basic income could help lift them out of poverty. Despite numerous pilot projects, there are relatively few long-term studies showing the large-scale social and health impacts of such measures. One striking exception, highlighted by the Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, provides rare empirical evidence of how a sudden, guaranteed flow of money can transform an entire community — not just economically, but psychologically and socially.

In 1997, in the state of North Carolina, the Eastern Band of Cherokee people opened the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort. By 2010, the casino’s annual revenues had reached around 400 million USD, where they have remained relatively stable ever since. The income was used to build a new school, hospital and fire station — but the most significant portion of the profits went directly to the tribe’s members, about 8,000 in total.

The Findings: Money Really Did Change Everything

By 2001, the funds from the casino already accounted for roughly 25–33 per cent of household income for many families. These payments acted, in effect, as an unconditional basic income.

What made this case extraordinary was that, purely by coincidence, a research group led by psychiatrist Jane Costello at Duke University had been tracking the mental health of young people in the area since 1991. This provided a unique opportunity to compare the same community before and after the introduction of this new source of income.

Costello’s long-term data revealed that children who had grown up in poverty were far more likely to suffer from behavioural problems than their better-off peers. Yet after the casino opened — and the Cherokee families’ financial situation improved — behavioural problems among children lifted out of poverty declined by up to 40 per cent, reaching levels comparable to those of children from non-poor households.

The benefits went beyond behaviour. Youth crime, alcohol consumption and drug use all decreased, while school performance improved significantly. Ten years later, researchers found that the earlier a child had been lifted out of poverty, the better their mental health as a teenager.

Bregman (2018) uses this case to make a clear point: poverty is not caused by laziness, stupidity or lack of discipline. It is caused by not having enough money. When poor families finally have the financial means to meet their basic needs, they frequently become more productive citizens and better parents.

In his words, “Poor people don’t make stupid decisions because they are stupid, but because they live in a context where anyone would make stupid decisions.” Scarcity — whether of time or money — narrows focus and drains cognitive resources, leading to short-sighted, survival-driven choices. And as Bregman puts it poignantly:

“There is one crucial difference between the busy and the poor: you can take a holiday from busyness, but you can’t take a holiday from poverty.”

How Poverty Shapes the Developing Brain

The deeper roots of these findings lie in how poverty and stress affect brain development and emotional regulation. The Canadian physician and trauma expert Gábor Maté (2018) explains how adverse childhood experiences — known as ACE scores — are far more common among children raised in poverty. Such children face a higher risk of being exposed to violence or neglect, or of witnessing domestic conflict in their homes and neighbourhoods.

Chronic stress, insecurity and emotional unavailability of caregivers can leave lasting marks on the developing brain. The orbitofrontal cortex — located behind the eyes and crucial for interpreting non-verbal emotional cues such as tone, facial expressions and pupil size — plays a vital role in social bonding and empathy. If parents are emotionally detached due to stress, trauma or substance use, this brain region may develop abnormally.

Maté describes how infants depend on minute non-verbal signals — changes in the caregiver’s pupils or micro-expressions — to determine whether they are safe and loved. Smiling faces and dilated pupils signal joy and security, whereas flat or constricted expressions convey threat or absence. These signals shape how a child’s emotional circuits wire themselves for life.

When children grow up surrounded by tension or neglect, they may turn instead to peers for validation. Yet peer-based attachment, as Maté notes, often fosters riskier behaviour: substance use, early pregnancy, and susceptibility to peer pressure. Such patterns are not signs of inherent cruelty or weakness, but rather of emotional immaturity born of unmet attachment needs.

Not Just a Poverty Problem: The Role of Emotional Availability

Interestingly, these developmental challenges are not confined to low-income families. Children from wealthy but emotionally absent households often face similar struggles. Parents who are chronically busy or glued to their smartphones may be physically present yet emotionally unavailable. The result can be comparable levels of stress and insecurity in their children.

Thus, whether a parent is financially poor or simply time-poor, the emotional outcome for the child can be strikingly similar. In both cases, high ACE scores predict poorer mental and physical health, lower educational attainment, and reduced social mobility.

While Finland is often praised for its high social mobility, countries like the United States show a much stronger intergenerational persistence of poverty. In rigidly stratified societies, the emotional and economic consequences of childhood disadvantage are far harder to escape.

Towards a More Humane Future: Basic Income and the AI Revolution

As artificial intelligence reshapes industries and redefines the meaning of work, society faces a profound question: how do we ensure everyone has the means — and the mental space — to live well?

If parents could earn their income doing the work they truly value, rather than chasing pay cheques for survival, they would likely become more productive, more fulfilled, and more emotionally attuned to their children. In turn, those children would grow into healthier, happier adults, capable of sustaining positive cycles of wellbeing and productivity.

Such an outcome would not only enhance individual happiness but would also reduce public expenditure on health care, policing and welfare. Investing in people’s emotional and economic stability yields returns that compound across generations. A universal basic income (UBI), far from being utopian, could therefore represent one of the wisest and most humane investments a modern society could make.

Conclusion

The story of the Eastern Band of Cherokee people and the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino stands as powerful evidence that unconditional income can transform lives — not through moral exhortation, but through simple material security. Poverty, as Bregman reminds us, is not a character flaw; it is a cash-flow problem. And as Maté shows, the effects of that scarcity extend deep into the wiring of the human brain. When financial stress eases, parents can connect, children can thrive, and communities can flourish. In an age of automation and abundance, perhaps the greatest challenge is no longer how to produce wealth — but how to distribute it in ways that allow everyone the freedom to be fully human.

References

Bregman, R. (2018). Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-Hour Workweek. Bloomsbury.
Maté, G. (2018). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. North Atlantic Books.

Zen and the Art of Dissatisfaction – Part 16

/ Mikko Ijäs / Jätä kommentti

Ancient Lessons for Modern Times

“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”
— Ansel Adams

In a world increasingly shaped by ecological turmoil and political inaction, a sobering truth has become clear: humanity is at a tipping point. In 2019, a video of Greta Thunberg speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos struck a global nerve. With calm conviction, Thunberg urged world leaders to heed not her voice, but the scientific community’s dire warnings. What she articulated wasn’t just youthful idealism—it was a synthesis of the environmental truth we can no longer ignore. We are entering a new era—marked by irreversible biodiversity loss, climate destabilisation, and rising seas. But these crises are not random. They are the logical consequences of our disconnection from natural systems forged over millions of years. This post dives into Earth’s deep past, from ancient deserts to ocean floors, to reveal how nature’s patterns hold urgent messages for our present—and our future.

Originally published in Substack https://substack.com/home/post/p-165122353

Today, those in power bear an unprecedented responsibility for the future of humankind. We no longer have time to shift this burden forward. This is not merely about the future of the world—it’s about the future of a world we, as humankind, have come to know. It’s about the future of humanity and the biodiversity we depend on. The Earth itself will endure, but what will happen to the ever-growing list of endangered species?

The Sixth Mass Extinction: A Grim Reality

Climate change is just one problem, but many others stem from it. At its core, our crisis can be summarised in one concept: the sixth mass extinction. The last comparable event occurred 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs and many land and marine species went extinct, and ammonites vanished. Only small reptiles, mammals, and birds survived. The sixth mass extinction is advancing rapidly. According to scientists from the UN Environment Programme, about 150–200 species go extinct every single day.

One analogy described it well: imagine you’re in a plane, and parts begin to fall off. The plane represents the entire biosphere, and the falling bolts, nuts, and metal plates are the species going extinct. The question is: how many parts can fall off before the plane crashes, taking everything else with it?

Each of us can choose how we respond to this reality. Do we continue with business-as-usual, pretending nothing is wrong? Or do we accept that we are in a moment of profound transformation, one that demands our attention and action? Do we consider changes we might make in our own lives to steer this situation toward some form of control—assuming such control is still possible? Or do we resign ourselves to the idea that change has progressed too far for alternatives to remain?

The Carbon Cycle: A System Out of Balance

Currently, humanity emits around 48.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, which ends up dispersed across the planet. The so-called carbon cycle is a vital natural process that regulates the chemical composition of the Earth, oceans, and atmosphere. However, due to human activity, we have altered this cycle—a remarkable, albeit troubling, achievement. Earth is vast, and it’s hard for any individual to comprehend just how large our atmosphere is, or how much oxygen exists on the planet. This makes it difficult for many to take seriously the consequences of human activity on climate change.

Nature absorbs part of the carbon dioxide we emit through photosynthesis. The most common form is oxygenic photosynthesis used by plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, in which carbon dioxide and water are converted into carbohydrates like sugars and starch, with oxygen as a by-product. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air, while aquatic plants absorb it from water.

In this process, some of the carbon becomes stored in the plant and eventually ends up in the soil. Decaying plants release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. In lakes and oceans, the process is similar, but the carbon sinks to the bottom of the water instead of into soil. This all sounds simple, and it’s remarkable that such a cycle has created such favourable conditions for life. Yet none of this is accidental, nor is it the result of a supernatural design. It is the product of millions of years of evolution, during which every organism within this system has developed together—everyone needs someone. We should view our planet as one vast organism, with interconnected and co-dependent processes that maintain balance through mutual dependence and benefaction.

A Planet of Mutual Dependence: The Wisdom of Plants

Italian philosopher Emanuele Coccia explores this interdependence beautifully in his book The Life of Plants (2020). Coccia writes that the world is a living planet, its inhabitants immersed in a cosmic fluid. We live—or swim—in air, thanks to plants. The oxygen-rich atmosphere they created is our lifeline and is also connected to the forces of space. The atmosphere is cosmic in nature because it shields life from cosmic radiation. This cosmic fluid “surrounds and penetrates us, yet we are barely aware of it.”

NASA astronauts have popularised the concept of the overview effect—the emotional experience of seeing Earth from space, as a whole. Some describe it as a profound feeling of love for all living things. At first glance, the Sahara Desert and the Amazon rainforest may seem to belong to entirely different worlds. Yet their interaction illustrates the interconnectedness of our planet. Around 66 million years ago, a vast sea stretched from modern-day Algeria to Nigeria, cutting across the Sahara and linking to the Atlantic. The Sahara’s sand still contains the nutrients once present in that ancient sea.

In a 2015 article, NASA scientist Hongbin Yu and colleagues describe how millions of tonnes of nutrient-rich Saharan dust are carried by sandstorms across the Atlantic each year. About 28 million tonnes of phosphorus and other nutrients end up in the Amazon rainforest’s nutrient-poor soils, which are in constant need of replenishment.

In Darren Aronofsky’s 2018 documentary, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield describes how this cycle continues: nutrients washed from the rainforest soil travel via the Amazon River to the Atlantic Ocean, feeding microscopic diatoms. These single-celled phytoplankton build new silica-based cell walls from the dissolved minerals and reproduce rapidly through photosynthesis, producing oxygen in the process. Though tiny, diatoms are so numerous that their neon-green blooms can be seen from space. They produce roughly 20% of the oxygen in our atmosphere.

When their nutrients are depleted, many diatoms die and fall to the ocean floor like snow, forming sediment layers that can grow to nearly a kilometre thick. After millions of years, that ocean floor may become arid desert once again—starting the cycle anew, as dust blown from a future desert fertilises some distant forest.

Nature doesn’t always maintain its balance. Sometimes a species overtakes another, or conditions become unliveable for many. Historically, massive volcanic eruptions and asteroid impacts have caused major planetary disruptions. This likely happened 65 million years ago. Ash clouds blocked sunlight, temperatures plummeted, and Earth became uninhabitable for most life—except for four-legged creatures under 25 kilograms. We are descended from them.

Ocean Acidification: A Silent Threat

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction, American journalist Elizabeth Kolbert writes about researcher Jason Hall-Spencer, who studied how underwater geothermal vents can make local seawater too acidic for marine life. Fish and crustaceans flee these zones. The alarming part is that the world’s oceans are becoming acidic in this same way—but on a global scale. The oceans have already absorbed excess CO₂, making surface waters warmer and lower in oxygen. Ocean acidity is estimated to be 30% higher today than in 1800, and could be 150% higher by 2050.

Acidifying oceans spell disaster. Marine ecosystems are built like pyramids, with tiny organisms like krill at the base. These creatures are essential prey for many larger marine species. If we lose the krill, the pyramid collapses. Krill and other plankton form calcium carbonate shells, but acidic waters dissolve these before they can form properly.

There’s no doubt modern humans are the primary cause of the sixth mass extinction. As humans migrated from Africa around 60,000 years ago to every corner of the globe, they left destruction in their wake. Retired Harvard anthropologist Pat Shipman aptly dubbed Homo sapiens an invasive species in her book Invaders (2015). She suggests humans may have domesticated wolves into proto-dogs as early as 45,000 years ago. On the mammoth steppes of the Ice Age, this would have made humans—accustomed to persistence hunting—unbeatable. Wolves would exhaust the prey, and humans would deliver the fatal blow with spears.

Hunting is easy for wolves, but killing large prey is risky. Getting to a major artery is the most dangerous part. Human tools would have been an asset to the wolves. In return, wolves protected kills from scavengers and were richly rewarded. Since humans couldn’t consume entire megafauna carcasses, there was plenty left for wolves.

Why did some humans leave Africa? Not all did—only part of the population migrated, gradually over generations. One generation might move a few dozen kilometres, the next a few hundred. Over time, human groups drifted far from their origins.

Yet the migration wave seems to reveal something fundamental about our species. Traditionally, it’s been viewed as a bold and heroic expansion. But what if it was driven by internal dissatisfaction? The technological shift from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic cultures may signal not just innovation, but a restless urge for change.

This period saw increasingly complex tools, clothing, ornaments, and cave art. But it may also reflect discontent—where old ways, foods, and homes no longer satisfied. Why did they stop being enough?

As modern humans reached Central Europe, dangerous predators began to vanish. Hyenas, still a threat in the Kalahari today, disappeared from Europe 30,000 years ago. Cave bears, perhaps ritually significant (as suggested by skulls found near Chauvet cave art), vanished 24,000 years ago. Getting rid of them must have been a constant concern in Ice Age cultures.

The woolly mammoth disappeared from Central Europe about 12,000 years ago, with the last surviving population living on Wrangel Island off Siberia—until humans arrived there. The changing Holocene climate may have contributed to their extinction, but humans played a major role. Evidence suggests they were culturally dependent on mammoths. Some structures found in Czechia, Poland, and Ukraine were built from the bones of up to 60 different mammoths. These buildings, not used for permanent living, are considered part of early monumental architecture—similar to Finland’s ancient “giant’s churches.”

Conclusion: Ancient Wisdom, Urgent Choices

The planet is vast, complex, and self-regulating—until it isn’t. Earth’s past is marked by cataclysms and recoveries, extinctions and renaissances. The sixth mass extinction is not a mysterious, uncontrollable natural event—it is driven by us. Yet in this sobering truth lies a sliver of hope: if we are the cause, we can also be the solution.

Whether it’s the dust from the Sahara feeding the Amazon, or ancient diatoms giving us oxygen to breathe, Earth is a system of breathtaking interconnection. But it is also fragile. As Greta Thunberg implores, now is the time not just to listen—but to act.

We need a new kind of courage. Not just the bravery to innovate, but the humility to learn from the planet’s ancient lessons. We need to see the Earth not as a resource to be consumed, but as a living system to which we belong. For our own survival, and for the legacy we leave behind, let us make that choice—while we still can.

References

Coccia, E. (2020). The life of plants: A metaphysics of mixture (D. Wills, Trans.). Polity Press.

Kolbert, E. (2014). The sixth extinction: An unnatural history. Henry Holt and Company.

Shipman, P. (2015). The invaders: How humans and their dogs drove Neanderthals to extinction. Harvard University Press.

Yu, H., et al. (2015). Atmospheric transport of nutrients from the Sahara to the Amazon. NASA Earth Observatory. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov