The Trump ban on immigration from seven Muslim countries has caused harm to millions of families, students, travelers, scientists, and workers, both in the United States and abroad. His ban on refugees whose lives are at stake is cruel. To close off U.S. borders to Muslims, Syrians refugees, Mexicans, and who knows what group is next, goes against American values, and is immoral.

Trump’s ban on Muslims hurts all of us, both at work and in our communities. A ban on one religion is a threat to all religions.

Let us turn to Buddhist economics to guide us.
Buddha taught that we are all interdependent. Visualize Indra’s Jewel Net (above), with the net stretched to infinity in all directions, each knot containing a brilliant jewel that reflects every other jewel. Each reflection bears the image of all the other jewels. Whatever affects one jewel affects all jewels.

Buddhist economics teaches all people are interdependent, and people and earth are interdependent. Interdependence changes how we think about who gets what. We move from the free market zero-sum approach, where additional resources to one person must come from another person, to a collective approach, where everyone’s well-being is connected. In Buddhist economics, the well-being of everyone improves when we transfer resources from those who consume much more than is required to live comfortably to those who are impoverished, even when total resources remain the same. Now individual well-being and societal well-being become intertwined.
All major religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism) teach a version of the Golden Rule, “treat others as you would like others to treat you.”

As the Dalai Lama tells us, “Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, and the sharing other people’s suffering,” with all the major religions aiming to help people achieve lasting happiness.

The New York Times reports, “A broad array of clergy members has strongly denounced Mr. Trump’s order as discriminatory, misguided and inhumane…By giving preference to Christians over Muslims, religious leaders have said the executive order pits one faith against another. By barring any refugees from entering the United States for nearly four months, it leaves people to suffer longer in camps, and prevents families from reuniting.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/us/christian-leaders-denounce-trumps-plan-to-favor-christian-immigrants.html?smid=fb-share

Here is Buddhist master Shantideva’s teaching of “we are one” (The Way of the Bodhisattva). May this verse live in your heart.

Since I and other beings both,
In wanting happiness, are equal and alike,
What difference is there to distinguish us,
That I should strive to have my bliss alone?

Since I and other beings both,
In fleeing suffering, are equal and alike,
What difference is there to distinguish us,
That I should save myself and not the others?

May we join together to protect people at home and abroad, and may we live peacefully with prosperity for all!

President Trump pushes for economic policies that will harm the health of people and lower the standard of living of many American families. Trump combines a hypothetical free market model for his domestic policies, with an obsolete mercantilist model to close the borders and stop foreign trade.

This blog focuses on domestic policies, and next week on trade and globalization.

In the theoretical free market model, markets are competitive and everyone has perfect information and knows what the future holds. Competitive markets mean no company can make more than a normal profit (about 3% profit rate), and no CEO will become super rich. People find jobs that use their talents, because the economy operates at full employment. People can obtain the education they desire, and receive higher wages that reflect their higher productivity. The free market provides the consumer goods that people desire (and more is better), and competitive companies produce these goods and services without excess profits.

Does this sound like the world we actually live in, where large multinational companies in fact dominate markets, earn high profits, and pay their top executives millions of dollars? Where the few rich executives and celebrities live lavish lifestyles while millions don’t have adequate food, shelter, and health care?

Using the unrealistic free market model, Trump thinks that reducing taxes for the rich and for corporations will make the economy grow, and he thinks that the government should cut budget programs for goods and services that people can purchase in the private markets. In the free market model, the government should produce security (think military) and enforce private property rights (think courts). Otherwise the private sector will provide what consumers want, and can pay for.

This is the approach taken by the right-wing Heritage Foundation in their suggested budget cuts. No more funds for public transportation, the arts, clean air and clean water, or public health care. The courts protect private property, but not human rights or voting rights.

Trump’s Administration has deep ties to the fossil fuel industry, and his agenda pushes to keep our economy running on dirty fossil fuels, which continues to be subsidized with tax breaks. Support for implementing clean energy goes away, along with our RIO21 commitment to transition to clean energy and stop global warming.

Trump ignores the fact that “trickle down” of income from the rich to the nonrich does not happen when the taxes at the top are cut. He still pushes to cut taxes of the rich. Although the Federal Reserve explains how our economy is near its capacity (full employment), Trump says he can “grow the economy”. Even if the U.S. economy can grow, so far the economic growth of the past four decades has benefitted mostly the top 5% as the bottom 60% have watched their earning shrink and incomes stagnate.

Economists agree that we have allowed the U.S. infrastructure to deteriorate, although free market economics pushes for investment subsidies to big business, which can pocket big profits from many projects that were already being planned. Trump’s plan is to “build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways”, so that our transportation system that runs on fossil fuel can continue to function.

Buddhist economics provides an alternative to help U.S. families and workers, to creat comfortable, meaningful lives for all people and a healthy planet. People want jobs that pay a living wage and provide them with a sense of accomplishment. People also want balanced lives that give them time for family and community.
Chasing after more and more income does not make us happy. Living in harmony and helping each other makes us happy. Enjoying nature and having clean air and water makes us happy. When we transfer income from the wealthy to those in need, our economies improve people’s well-being. The government invests in modern infrastructure for clean energy cities that no longer rely on fossil fuels. We use our military budgets in cooperation with other countries and the United Nations to support sustainable development globally.

Americans are naturally kind and generous people. We want to reduce global warming, relieve starvation and extreme poverty around the world, and cooperate with the United Nations to stop wars and conflict and ensure human rights for all people. We want to be secure. Buddhist economics provide a way to make the country truly great as we all come together to live mindfully.

Buddhist economics looks to the basic goodness in all of us, and reminds us that the suffering of one person causes suffering for everyone. Now is the time to reduce the painful anger of the Trump supporters, along with the pain of people around the world who are suffering from hunger and from climate change.

We must have the moral courage to act, to speak out, to mobilize with people around the world to stop harmful policies by the Trump Administration and to demand that our governments do the right thing.
We have no time to lose, and together we can move to a bright future for everyone!

This week I turn to Martin Luther King as I ponder living a moral life during the Trump administration. King explained how “the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism” are related, and urged us to combat these evils in our society in order for people to live together with peace and prosperity.

In today’s world, how do we recognize and combat evil both as a country and in our daily lives? Buddhist economics says that virtuous actions lead to benefit (good results) and evil actions lead to harm (bad results). When our beliefs are in contradiction to reality, they cause problems. Racism that treats one group of people as inferior to another causes great harm; economic exploitation where people consume fancy goods made by people living in poverty causes great harm; and militarism where a country bombs another country that kills mothers and children and destroys dwellings causes great harm. By these harmful results, we know these actions are evil. In Buddhist economics, people must not undertake actions that harm other people or beings or harm the planet. Instead people undertake virtuous actions that relieve suffering and bring benefit to all beings and earth. (Payutto, Buddhist Economics)

In the United States today, the Trump government is using a free market economic model that ignores evil and morality. Free market economics is based on the belief that people spend their money wisely and buy what is most pleasing to them. This outcome is viewed as optimal because we all know what is best for us. The free market model puts a high premium on individualism and self-centered freedom, and on consuming more and more. Any harm to others or to the planet that comes from our actions is ignored, and economic activities are not judged as either evil or virtuous.

Yet society can see the harm to the real world, and each of us can feel the harm by our uneasy sense of dissatisfaction and unhappiness caused by separation from our Buddha nature of love and compassion. To combat evil, and to create peace and prosperity, people around the world must care about and care for each other, and care for Mother Earth. Each of us has the moral responsibility to recognize and combat evil in our daily activities, and demand that our countries stop any actions or policies that cause harm to people or to earth.

As Ven. Payutto writes (Buddhist Economics, ch 1):

“Our ethics—and the behaviour that naturally flows from our ethics—contribute to the causes and conditions that determine who we are, the kind of society we live in and the condition of our environment.”

Our lives have ups and downs, and daily activities can cause us pain—but we can stop the pain with practice. One of my favorite Buddhist teaching, “Two Arrows Sutra”, shows us how to respond to pain in a mindful way that prevents needless suffering.

An arrow hits us and causes us physical or mental pain. The arrow can be a nasty remark, or not buying something on sale, or not getting an outcome we want. When we react by becoming distraught and worry about it, we are hit by a second arrow, one of mental pain. The second arrow has been created by our own negative reaction, which causes us unnecessary pain. If our response to the first arrow is to remain patient and calm, and let the negative thoughts pass along, there will be no second arrow.

The great teacher Shantideva wrote (The Way of the Bodhisattva, Shambala, 2008, p 16):

If there’s a remedy when trouble strikes,
What reason is there for dejection?
And if there is no help for it,
What use is there in being glum?
I’ll not fret about such things,
To do so only aggravates my trouble.

In Buddhist economics we gain nothing directly from suffering or from feeling guilty. Instead we can learn from our experiences and make amends if we have harmed someone, and then let the experience pass. We want to help others and relieve suffering whenever possible. This is the way to be happy.

We can apply the story of the two arrows to our national economy as well as to our daily lives. The first powerful arrow of maximizing profits in free markets is launched, and though it makes a few people rich, it harms many people and the environment. Then the second arrow hits people as they work hard to earn enough money to buy lots of stuff, only to find temporary happiness on a treadmill that won’t stop.

If we look closely at the first arrow, we can question the viability of an economy run by competition for profit without concerns for the environment or people’s well-being. We can stop shooting the second arrow by structuring markets that move us beyond the pursuit of income as our primary goal. Now the “pursuit of happiness” becomes creating meaningful comfortable lives for everyone within a healthy ecosystem. A Buddhist economy can improve the lives of all people, even the archers of the first arrows.

A New Year’s resolution to improve your well-being is to stamp out demons, which are mental habits that cause suffering. Stamping out demons is depicted in Buddhist art, and recently I enjoyed a sculpture of Buddha’s guardians stamping out demons (SF Asian Art Museum). Visualizing can help us stamp out our demons.

Kick them out of your heart.
Open your heart, and feel your Buddha nature of love and compassion.

Demons are mental poisons (called kleshas), such as desire (greed), delusion (ignorance), hatred (anger), pride (ego), and envy (jealousy). Kleshas are the source of our suffering.

Buddhist economics and free market economics view our mental states very differently. Free market economics assumes that people are greedy and care about maximizing their own income, without caring about the well-being of others. Happiness in free market economics depends on personal pleasure and the avoidance of pain. You are happy when buying things that make you feel good (at least in the moment). People chase after large wealth or great power or awesome sex or a major championship in the belief that they will bring lasting happiness. Reaching a goal gives us a momentary high that soon wears off, and we are off chasing the next high.

Buddhist economics shares the view of Aristotle—happiness comes from self-realization and living a worthy and moral life, with people developing their full potential and living a life in service to others and the community. In Buddhist economics, we are all interconnected, and so desire, or grasping after material possessions, causes us pain. The Dalai Lama teaches us that the feeling of not having enough and wanting more does not arise from the inherent desirability of the objects we are seeking, but from our own mental illusions. “Genuine happiness is characterized by inner peace and arises in the context of our relationships with others.” (The Art of Happiness, p 99)

In Buddhist economics, rather than maximizing their own income, people try not to cause pain and strive to reduce the suffering of others. In daily life, we do not want to ruin others’ experiences or even their expectations of happiness. For example, I cause harm when my words or actions anger others, or make them feel guilt or shame (or any klesha).

As a New Year’s resolution, I will continue to stamp out anger, which seems to be one of my hardest mental poisons to tame. When I become angry at my partner and make unkind comments, I hopefully remember to take a break. Visually, I stamp out the demon of anger, and then open my heart to be in touch with my love and compassion for him. After I apologize to my partner for my angry words, I let all memory of the event fade away.

Life will always have its ups and downs, and we will have negative emotions and pain. The key is not to grasp onto the bad feelings, but to let them float by. When we do grasp our mental poisons, hopefully we realize it and stamp our demons out before they harm us and others.

A Buddhist New Year’s prayer for you:
May the year be fulfilling,
May you stamp out your demons!

How we can make our lives richer and more meaningful? Forget about resolutions to “do better” and get down to what is truly important…

As we look forward to celebrating a New Year, how we can make our lives richer and more meaningful?
Forget about your endless resolutions to “do better”—lose weight, get more work done, organize your life and your closets. Let’s get down to what is truly important to us, and resolve to do something every day to make our lives more meaningful—actions that are possible, don’t take much time, and truly improve our well-being.

Buddhist economics says:
Stop.
Sit quietly, focus on your breath, and appreciate the wonders of the moment.

As you breathe quietly, feel your Buddha heart.
You can do this early in the morning when you first wake up. You can do this during your lunch break. You can do this when you go to bed.
Do this any time you want to pause, appreciate life, and feel refreshed. Sitting quietly can last from a minute to a half hour—whatever feels comfortable to you.

You can even practice this when you are in a stressful meeting that is causing anxiety and confusion. Focus on your breath, let your thoughts and judgements pass by, and feel your interconnection with the other people. Then let your thoughts return to the meeting, and feel your freedom to be at the meeting and participate in a more meaningful way.

You have freed yourself from the bad feelings and confusion of others, so what is important in life shines out. Freedom in Buddhist economics is stopping the constant chatter of thoughts flowing through your mind, so you can enjoy the moment and focus on what is important to you.
During the day, feel your interconnection with other people. Don’t confuse being hyperconnected on social media with being interconnected in human spirit.

Put your iPhone down.
Look for ways to connect with the people around you—family, colleagues, friends, strangers.
When all the demands on your life make you miserable, stop and help someone you know. In Buddhist economics, helping others makes everyone feel better.

In your New Year, think about what is important to you, what you really care about,
what makes life meaningful. Let the other things fall off your to-do list.

May you enjoy life, may you be free!

Everyone wants to be happy!

Today’s blog will focus on the question, “What makes people happy?”

This question takes us to the heart of the difference between free market economics and Buddhist economics, which have fundamentally difference assumptions about human nature. According to Buddhist economics, human nature is generous and altruistic, even as it also cares about itself. People’s suffering comes from their own mental states that cause them to desire more and more. The Dalai Lama tells us that our feelings of not having enough and wanting more do not arise from the inherent desirability of the objects we seek, but from our own mental illusions. In Buddhist economics, we end suffering by changing our states of mind—we become happy by caring for others and living a meaningful life.

Free market economics rests on the very different assumption that human nature is self-centered and people care only about themselves as they push ahead to maximize their incomes and fancy lifestyles. According to this approach, buying and consuming—new shoes or a new video game—make you happy. Yet soon you grow tired of the shoes, become disappointed with the game, and are shopping again. In this endless cycle of desire, we are left wanting more without ever finding lasting satisfaction. Free market economics is not showing us how to live meaningful lives in a sustainable world, nor is it offering solutions to our concerns about wars, inequality, and global warming.
Buddhist economics provides a path for being happy in our daily life. “Practice compassion” replaces “More is better,” as we move from a “Closetful” to a “Mindful” way of living. Buddhist economics also guides governments in how to restructure the global economy to create well-being for all in a healthy environment. “Everyone’s well-being is connected” replaces “Maximize your own position,” and “The welfare of humans and Nature is interdependent” replaces “Pollution is a social cost that can be ignored.”
British Professor Layard, who is a co-author of the important book The Origins of Happiness, writes, “The evidence shows that the things that matter most for our happiness and for our misery are our social relationships and our mental and physical health. This demands a new role for the state – not ‘wealth creation’ but ‘wellbeing creation’.”

The reality that having more money and buying more stuff is not the road to happiness has been studied for decades, and yet our society still keeps us on the treadmill (see http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/your-money/more-money-more-success-more-stuff-dont-count-on-more-happiness.html?ref=your-money).
Buddhist economics show us how together we can live balanced meaningful lives and heal the earth. There’s no time to lose!

“One interesting thing about greed is that although the underlying motive is to seek satisfaction, the irony is that even after obtaining the object of your desire, you are still not satisfied.” —Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness (p. 95)

To embrace and practice Buddhist economics, you need courage. Courage to change, courage to protect the environment, courage to promote justice, and courage to live with joy.

At the personal level, you need courage to quit the rat race of overworking to make more money, courage to live mindfully as you help others, and courage to enjoy life off the treadmill.

At the local and national level, you need courage to demand that your government provide the infrastructure needed for an economy that protects the environment and becomes carbon-free, and one that defines economic growth as improved well-being for all people rather than more income for the rich.
We join with others to amplify our energy and create change. Together we have the political will and courage to take action for ourselves on behalf of all species and future generations. We know the fossil fuel industry will fight back with vicious attacks on our demands to transition to a fossil-free economy and ensure a comfortable, dignified life for all people.

Together we can create meaningful, happy lives for ourselves and our communities. The guidelines are:

• live mindfully with love and compassion
• care for others and relieve suffering
• enjoy and rejuvenate the earth.

We reach out with empathy to those who voted for Trump, and find common ground in ensuring everyone has clean air and water. We look for the inner Buddha in each person. Trump supporters are confused people who need help as we uproot delusions. Buddhism views ignorance as the cause of greed, hatred, and delusions, which then cause conflict. People everywhere are frightened, and in pain.

We work with our Sangha and community groups to support each other. We must not fight among ourselves about petty differences, as we remember that we all want the same goals: clean air and water, a healthy earth, and happiness for all. Ignorance is the enemy, and we must vigorously oppose wrongdoing around the world that harms people and Mother Earth. Buddhist economics reminds us that everyone is interconnected, with each other and with nature. Harm to a person or harm to earth is harm to all people.

Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, writing in his Love Letter to the Earth, focuses on our interdependence with Mother Earth and on the need for us to appreciate and care for her. Earth gave birth to us, and we return to her when we die. Earth provides us with everything we need to live healthy, joyful lives. Thich Nhat Hanh asks us to express our gratitude at each meal, which represents the gifts, such as tea and bread that Nature has produced.
All economies must decouple fossil fuel energy use from economic growth. But Buddhist economics wants us to push further in creating sustainable lifestyles that reduce wasteful consumption and reduce overwork so people have time to enjoy life and help one another.

“Our collective compassion, mindfulness, and concentration nourishes us, but it also can help to reestablish the Earth’s equilibrium and restore balance. Together, we can bring about real transformation for ourselves and for the world.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, Love Letter to the Earth (p. 69)

Human interdependence with our environment is an integral part of Buddhist economics. All activities by companies, governments, and people can be undertaken in a way that protects rather than exploits nature and our natural capital.

Over Thanksgiving, my husband Richard and I, along with our greyhound Belvedere, traveled to Boulder Creek in the Santa Cruz mountains so we could commune with old growth redwood trees that are 1000 to 2000 years old. You can feel their energy as you ponder their ability to live through fires and drought along with massive clear cutting of forests. Yet some ancient redwoods remain for us to enjoy and to appreciate for their providing clean air, weather systems, and shelter for many species. As we walked through the redwood forests, the stark choice between destroying our planet with global warming or moving rapidly to a fossil free economy becomes clear. Buddhist economics shows us a path for transitioning to a low-carbon world, and we heal Mother Earth as we heal ourselves.

As Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “Caring about the environment is not an obligation, but a matter of personal and collective happiness and survival. We will survive and thrive together with our Mother Earth, or we will not survive at all.”

Love Letter to the Earth, p 82

“Ode to the Redwoods”

You care for each other and many creatures,

As humans gaze at your magnificent glory.

For centuries, you courageously stand tall through

storms, and fires, and drought.

You ask for nothing, until now.

You reach out to humans,

Beg them to stop their violence to Nature,

To go beyond the carbon economy, to stop war.

May we listen

And learn.

—Forest Nymph, August 2015

In a time of national turmoil, we can turn to Buddhist economics for guidance.

Trump’s free market economics will not provide a prosperous meaningful life to most people because it is based on three gravely erroneous policy approaches:

1. Humans dominate nature, which is used to increase consumption, and we don’t worry about destroying critical ecosystems.
2. National well-being is based on average income growth, and increasing the incomes of the very rich with reduced taxes and other perks is how we will increase average income.
3. The United States does not have to care about the well-being of people in other countries, and an individual ego-centered free market economy will automatically make the US great again.

Buddhist economics shows us the path for creating comfortable, meaningful lives for all people and a healthy planet:

• Humans are interdependent with nature, and our health depends on caring for all living creatures and healthy ecosystems. Violence and greed lead to misery.
• Chasing more and more income does not make us happy. Living in harmony with each other and with nature, as we live with loving kindness to help others, makes us happy. As we transfer income from the wealthy to those in need, both at home and abroad, everyone is better off and our economies perform better.
• The United States leadership in reducing global warming, in transferring income to relieve poverty and suffering globally, and in stopping wars and conflict, will make the country truly great as we all come together to live mindfully.

Buddhist economics reminds us that people are interconnected with each other and with Earth. Now is the time to connect with our sangha—our family and neighbors, our community—and mobilize to protest policies that can harm people and nature.

One mandate of Buddhist economics is to reduce suffering of all people. Now is the time to honor the Buddha Nature of all people, those who will join us in the fight to protect the rights and dignity of immigrants, LGBTs, Latinos, African-Americans, Muslims—everyone, and also those who felt isolated and left behind and supported Trump in their confusion.

Buddhist economics looks to the basic goodness in all of us, our Buddha Nature, and reminds us that the suffering of one person causes suffering for everyone. Now is the time to reduce the painful anger of the Trump supporters, along with the pain of people around the world who are suffering from hunger and from climate change.

As we care for each other and for Earth, our love and compassion for one another and for our planet grows. As peace and harmony pervade the world, as hunger and physical deprivation end, as everyone lives comfortable lives with dignity, and as Earth’s ecosystems are protected—then we are happy.

This takes moral courage to act, to speak out, to mobilize with people around the world. Mobilization to stop harmful policies by the Trump Administration and to demand that our governments at the local, state, and national levels do the right thing must be our top priority.

We have no time to lose, and together we can accomplish much!