September 3, 2025
Dear sangha,
Does the planet need saving?
I certainly used to think so. I felt sick with terror and heartbreak. I was desperate to figure out and fix our planetary crises.
My journey, in brief: Avid eco-doomscroller (IPCC reports, collapse narratives, 3am rabbit holes about Arctic ice sheet dynamics) turns to individual solutions (no flying, vegan, unsolicited sermons about the evils of cheeseburgers) and then activism (civil disobedience, occasional arrests, mom if you’re reading this the biggest danger was paper cuts from flyers). I read Thich Nhat Hanh’s Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet (an excellent book). I gave a talk called “How to Save a Planet” for Extinction Rebellion maybe six or seven times (mostly coherent; no tomatoes thrown).
In Case 87 from the Blue Cliff Record, Yunmen says: “Medicine and sickness mutually heal. The entire universe is medicine. Where is the self?”
I love this koan not just because it offers a useful reframing of pain—for example by saying that my ecological grief is medicine—but because it points to the kaleidoscopic, connected, and open nature of reality. There is sickness and there is medicine. And also, there is just medicine: the medicine of crisis and the medicine of heartbreak and the medicine of action.
The entire universe is medicine. Where is the self? Where is the self who saves the planet?
For me, this koan invites a softening. I am reminded that I have yet to receive my superpowers and spandex outfit. It doesn’t diminish the importance of action, but it suggests a spirit of humble collaboration, which is perhaps more loving and sustainable than heroic rescue.
Lately the news is beyond demoralizing. There are emergencies more acutely apocalyptic than climate, at least for vulnerable populations and maybe for everyone. But frankly this year I have been more focused on inner work than any kind of activism. Retreating into my shell. With my own mess. I’ve chewed on this change a lot, trying to discern its meaning and value. Is it sickness or is it medicine?
I am so grateful for Zen and for this sangha. Thank you for helping me to illuminate my limited views, welcome myself as I am, and trust that tending my life and tending the whole earth is the same work.
With warm bows and gratitude for your practice,
Kyle Butler