Living Lineages: Simplicity, Complexity and the Deepening Eco-Social-Spiritual Integration

By Adam Rubel

Communities around the planet are dealing with crises resulting from the complicated and complex web of problems that have emerged out of our modern society.  Whether viewed through the lens of climate change, wealth disparit, food security or any other inter-related issue, we have an opportunity to address the fundamental cause: the disconnect  etween our human designs and the wisdom of nature.  The scale, complexity, and global nature of these problems require a transformation at a proportionate level of depth, simplicity, and local-rootedness to create the conditions for appropriate solutions to emerge. Living Lineages are experienced in the translation and application of natural wisdom, providing an essential key so that we may reintegrate, individually and collectively, at ecological, social and spiritual levels.

Our human history is one of participation in highly complex environments and societies, guided by modes of simplicity, including mythologies, stories, dreams and rituals, in order to understand our role in that interaction.  In exploring the distinction between complexity and simplicity, we find a parallel in the relationship between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is short in view, pragmatic and comprehensible while wisdom is long in view, holistic and interfaces with the edge of mystery.  When our modes of simplicity are attuned to the emerging world around us, they give us the capacity to anchor our knowledge in wisdom.  To the extent that communities and societies have enabled knowledge to be led by wisdom, they have flourished.  When the connection with natural order, purpose and relationship has weakened, they have fallen.  This is the choice we now face.

The living lineages we must seek are comprised of cosmologies, ontologies and cultures that are oriented towards guiding a co-evolutionary path amongst man, nature and the cosmos.  Examples of living lineages include: Tibetan Buddhism (which took root in Tibet via India and has now moved well beyond the Himalayan Plateu), The living traditions of the Maya (which include sophisticated knowledge and application for development in alignment with various natural cycles) and a myriad of other diverse, lineages kept alive, often at great cost and sacrifice, by largely Indigenous communities.   These lineages grow and evolve, while maintaining a core integrity drawn from the roots of the tradition.

Living lineages hold the potential to awaken a shift at a fundamental level: from our modern reductive, mechanistic, lifeless world view which has enabled us to reach our pinnacle of technical achievement while creating the conditions for the extraction and degeneration of ecosystems and human/natural well-being, towards the recognition of a living world that we were born to be a part of in advancing a collective evolutionary purpose. Here are two brief examples:

·     Genetic engineering of food seed is born out of a reductive culture that addresses complicated problems without the wisdom of integral complexity, which ultimately diminishes the viability and diversity of life.

·     The origin of much of our global food diversity was born out of an Andean culture, which created the necessary emergent conditions through a world-view that encouraged the adopting of plants into families, in relationship to living soil, water and cosmos.

How can we learn from the wisdom of living lineages that have evolved to grow the viability and diversity of life?  A key lies in moving beyond our reductive lens, not seeking to mine from or contain living lineages within our existing
frameworks, and by experiencing a change in the way we see and relate to the world. We must be willing to move beyond our intellect, to engage our whole being – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.  We will be required to journey personally and collectively through the cycles of death, including the dying of world-views that no longer serve us, to again embrace the mystery and catalyze a renewal. This depth of transformation requires much more than an article, a book or searching the Internet.  It becomes possible through sustained, developmental engagement. Here lies the opportunity to break new ground in re-integrating the wisdom of the cosmos, as presented through living lineages, into our families, communities, institutions and systems.  The potential for what comes next will not be a return to the past nor more of the same, rather in the birth of something new that integrates past, present and future.

The subtle movement of these living lineages into our modern society can already be seen: the introduction of contemplative practice into education, eco-systemic approaches to make financial capital more regenerative in its impact, and in the utilization of agricultural practices that build biodiversity, both above and below the soil.

Simple doesn’t mean easy, but unlocking our individual and collective potential depends upon a fundamental shift in the way we see, relate and integrate with the world around us, and in the institutions and systems we develop to foster this path forward.  We have an opportunity to re-integrate more fully into our place by connecting with the living lineages that maintain a voice for it’s unique wisdom.  By appropriately connecting to living lineages, we can better realize our ecological, social and spiritual potential upon this planet, leveraging the power of simplicity to co-evolve with the
complex world around us.