Proper Zen practice....."we need to want less..."
http://zenhabits.net/steps-towards-a-more-sustainable-life-of-less/
Here are but a few ideas — I’m sure you could contribute some of your own:
* Can we walk to more places and drive less? We’d get fitter and use less fossil fuel. We’d have to loosen up our schedules to do this, but I think that’s a good change anyway.
* Can we start building more livable communities, where things are less spread out, so that we can walk more instead of driving everywhere? Where everything we need is a 10-20 minute walk away, or at least reachable by bike or public transportation? You might already live in a place like that, but not where I live, and not in lots of places. Even work should be close by. Again, this is a long-term change, but I think a good one.
* Can we start living in smaller houses, so that we need less heating and cooling and land and maintenance and cleaning? We can if we buy less stuff, which leads to …
* Can we start buying less stuff? We don’t need all the stuff we buy.
* Can we start celebrating things like birthdays and Christmas without spending sprees? We could do nice things for each other instead, or make things, or bake something.
* Can we start buying locally more? I know a lot of people already do this, but it would be great if this trend continued. It supports local farmers and drastically reduces the amount of resources needed to get food to our homes.
* Can we start packaging food less? Even non-food items (like toys) come with ridiculous amounts of packaging these days. I’d like to see a return to olden ways, when you scooped flour out of a huge bin into a container or something like that. Packaging we throw away (or even recycle) is so wasteful.
* Can we stop buying so much processed food? Real food is so much healthier, requires fewer chemicals and resources, and tastes better once you wean yourself from the addiction to processed foods.
* Can we eat slower, and enjoy the food more, instead of rushing through meals?
* Can we stop our addiction to mobile devices and being connected all the time, so that we can enjoy the pleasure of other people’s company without interruptions, or enjoy solitude or a nice quiet walk without being connected?
* Can we design cities and towns so that they aren’t based on the automobile, so that perhaps private vehicles parked at the outside of cities, and then people used public transportation or walked within the cities? We’d reclaim the streets for the pedestrian, make them alive once again with street markets, cafes, parks, children running around without fear of death, people exercising and doing tai chi and jogging and walking and enjoying a fume-free outdoors.
