1000 arms

I purchased this website, 1000arms.org after visiting the Rubin museum for the first time in Spring 2011.  There I learned about Avalokiteshvara, an enlightened being in Buddhism.  Like any story, there are many different renditions, but I’m only going to share the one that inspired the purchase of this domain name.  Avalokiteshvara is supposed to be a personification of compassion that vowed to help all beings become liberated from suffering.  Specifically, this vow included that s/he break into 1000 pieces if s/he became cynical or failed in the efforts of liberating humanity.  But of course being that humanity is redundant in its pain,  one day thoroughly disheartened by failure to our well-being Avalokiteshvara broke into a 1000 pieces.  Now there are many endings to this story, and I’m taking great liberties in suggesting that this enlightened one is like an earthworm, broken in two — Avalokiteshvara was now 1000 hands to help eradicate the suffering in the world 1000 times faster.

This website, One Thousand Arms, is intended to recognize how individual action is both the cause and solution.  The cooperation of 1000 arms is exponential.  And that is how things get done.

Embodied within the global citizenry are perspectives, ideas, and solutions to global problems to redefine these status quo behaviors and inform sustainable solutions.   Energy is the most significant commodity and currency of work of our time.   It profoundly impacts our lives every minute in the most intimate of ways.  It is very difficult to know how to resolve the impending limits to economic growth, peak oil, the unstablizing impacts of climate change and the persistence of world population and consumption patterns.

It is in this way, I fall back on the exponential of our individual actions.  Every growth curve begins with one. jlw27aug11