The Ecology of Compassion

Lost in the politics and commerce of stem-cell research, at least as this drama has been played on the public stage, is the essential issue: How are we to live in harmony with our bodies, our environment, and each other? The question at the heart of this (valuable) research is: How can we use technology to make everything right? These are different questions and reflect radically diverging perspectives on life and what it means to live as if we were part of all that is. There is no question that stem-cell research can have a dramatic effect on diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's that cause immense suffering. The president seems to have unnecessarily limited the scope of that research not only to existing lines but to existing commercial arrangements. In the short run, and perhaps even in the long run, there is little doubt that the primary beneficiaries of stem-cell research will be corporations, universities, and researchers. The health care system in this country will limit the usefulness of new p rocedures resulting from stem-cell research to the wealthy. The poor and even the middle class will continue to die of the diseases stem-cell research is designed to address.

Some scientists are suggesting that another issue is of even more importance, although it has not received quite as much attention as stem-cell research. That is the immediate future of the ecosystem that sustains us, even when we are sick. It has been estimated that we need to make major lifestyle changes in the next thirty years or it may be too late to reverse the course of environmental decline that will end life as we know it. Jack Miles wrote about this subject in CrossCurrents a year ago. The new administration has rejected international efforts to begin to address what has to be the most critical question on the human table -- and is busily rolling back the relatively minor attempts to preserve the existing environmental balance. It is bizarre that so much political and scientific energy-not to mention media attention -- has been directed toward this one research issue -- stem-cell research and, even, cloning -- and so little to the problem of environmental degradation that will make medical and tech nological fixes irrelevant. The reason, I suspect, is myopic self interest. In thirty years when the thirty- and forty-somethings need replacement parts, the supply will be there.

Personal survival versus community (or even planetary) survival is a spiritual issue. Every religious tradition teaches that the self must be given up in some form if one is to achieve a clear understanding of reality. Zen Buddhism says that our attitude toward the past should be gratitude, our attitude toward the present service, and our attitude toward the future compassion. What that means is that we are here now to serve others in a way that takes care of the needs of the people who will come after us. There is nothing in this about making sure that my body never wears out or that I never grow old or weak. Stem-cell research is certainly part of that caring for the future, what we might call an ecology of compassion that includes developing appropriate technologies, caring for the environment, nourishing the work of the heart, and learning to live in community.

Imagine a freezer full of organs and a planet devoid of life.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Association for Religion and Intellectual Life
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning