There is a story of the Rainmaker, in ancient China, who was called to a province which hadn’t seen rain in months. He arrived and spent three days in the cottage they provided for him, unseen, and then it rained. When asked how he brought the rain, he replied that he was not responsible: “I come from another country where things are in order. Here they are out of order, they are not as they should be by the ordinance of heaven. Therefore the whole country is not in Tao, and I also am not in the natural order of things because I am in a disordered country. So I had to wait three days until I was back in Tao and then naturally the rain came.”
By bringing order to our own, personal landscape – matter conforms to us. We can see evidence of this in some very trivial activities. For instance, if it looks like rain, we carry an umbrella. It is a bother to carry around an umbrella all day – but if we do, often enough it doesn’t rain. Carrying around an umbrella, despite its inconvenience, is a sign of a well-ordered, inner landscape.
Something must be made clear, here. There are two types of well-ordered minds. One follows the landmarks and pathways which tradition lays out for them, and they, by and large do well in the human landscape. I think of the students I see who struggle with backpacks that weigh more than the students do.
The other type of well-ordered mind follows their own qualia, and it is reflective of forces and laws which the human landscape cannot control. Weather, for instance. Or time – like the trivial umbrella example, every cigarette smoker knows that lighting up will make the bus arrive before you are finished smoking.
These examples are not quite tongue in cheek. In fact, many addicts tend to have well-ordered inner landscapes. As long as they generally follow the landmarks and pathways which society expects of them, their relationship with their own, unique, addictive landscape is full of magical realism. Addicts value their qualiadelic illusions because they are acutely aware that they are, indeed, just a pack of neurons firing. It is no coincidence that the human landscape, powered by addiction, is so full of grand illusions.
But some grand illusions – spiritual enlightenment, equality, justice, peace – will manifest themselves in the material world if we re-order our inner landscapes around qualia and break free of the human super-organism. It is important that we re-order inner landscapes, not to carry umbrellas when it looks like rain, but to practice sustainable conscious ritualing when it looks like climate change.
Reorder your inner landscape to value and understand ecosystems. Reflect ecosystems and you will become a conduit for sustainable gifts such as joy.