Up In The Air

'Up in the Air'
G Sakamoto

I started working on this article nearly a week age. I thought our deadline had arrived so I was scrambling to put some words on paper. I felt the pressure of the approaching turn in time and the weight of the responsibility to turn in something worthwhile. It was then that I was told that our deadline was not for another week and that it would fall on the Tuesday after I leave for Japan. Good enough reason to further ponder the content of my article. So here I am sitting in the San Francisco International terminal writing this article. I normally I take several days to write but I’ll start this article in San Francisco, complete it in the air and deliver it to our editor via email from Japan. Sounds like a trapeze act only with words. If something should fail Sally is prepared to print previously pondered paragraphs from the past. Of course if something goes wrong you won’t be reading this but rather a specially selected submission from Sally’s several series of past Dharma issues.

I am currently cruising at an altitude of 34,000 feet and I’ve encountered the first challenge of this article. I had planned to use a power adapter for my laptop in flight. Unfortunately in Economy, our seats are also economy. Although, power outlets are available in first class and business, we do not have such amenities here. So I have less time to write this article as I watch carefully the diminishing charge left in the battery. The length of this article is being determined somewhat by a battery. The quality will be of course of my own doing or undoing.

Writing this article on a plane as it crosses the Pacific is probably novel but certainly not unique. People have been writing and sending back reports to home offices for a very long time. Whether by telegraph or telephone or fax or Internet, writers having been gathering information about remote places. As the technology became more accessible more people began telling stories through blogs and photo sharing sites people sharing their stories with anyone who would listen.

Technology is a tremendous tool. It put probes on Mars and produced life extending cancer therapies. It created hybrid cars and deployed the Internet. But technology has also produced global warming, thalidomide babies, Bhopal and Love Cannel, The aircraft I ride is spewing hydrocarbons into our atmosphere at a rate comparable to months of running several SUVs. When the internal combustion engine came into being it was break through technology; stored energy could be converted into work. I don't think anyone at the time realized the consequences of burning fossil fuel. To ignore the consequences, as they are understood today would continue a misperception and result in further difficulties.

To see things clearly. To ask questions. To follow the logic of cause and effect. Neither Shakyamuni Buddha nor Shinran faced the kinds of technological consequences we face today. But the recognition of causal relationships and the difficulties that hatred, greed and ignorance introduce into life are still valid today. Like this article, the circumstances of its writing are not as important as its contents. The core principles that Shakyamuni addressed can be applied to our circumstances today. Ignorance and greed and hatred still result in difficulties. Only the difficulties we face can have catastrophic consequences.