Transcript for Joanna Macy – We Are Verbs

global oneness project We Are Verbs I grew up in a culture where there's who you are and then there's the action you undertake is something different. Joanna Macy - San Francisco, California - Eco-philosopher and Activist Or there's what you be and what you do. In the spiritual path that I follow and indeed as in contemporary science, human beings are seen as human doings; that we are really not nouns but verbs. You know who you are by what you do and how you act and how you breathe and how you smile and how you go to sleep and wake up. Life is verbing its way through you. So that's very helpful for the activist in The Great Turning because then you think it's not, "My responsibility is to assume a large, responsible task," "and I will lift it up and I will carry it on my shoulders." That's really a most unfortunate way of looking at it because actually, we are verbs. As Buckminster Fuller said--I remember--"I seem to be a verb," that every minute you are thinking, you are listening, feelings are arising, thoughts are arising. You're like a river. That's what the Buddha said. Stream of being; that's what you are. So I kind of think that that's the way of seeing that's going to characterize the life-sustaining society that is taking form through our efforts. www.globalonenessproject.org - Footage courtesy of the Pachamama Alliance