Mindful Metaphysics
what it is and why it matters
Jay McDaniel
Talk delivered at 18th International Forum on Ecological Civilization
7th International Youth Forum on Ecological Civilization
June 5-7, 2025 | Pomona College, Claremont
The recipient of the John Cobb Common Good Award tonight, David Orr, is a good friend of mine and has profoundly influenced my thinking. It was David—and his friend Wendell Berry—who first introduced me to the idea of bioregionalism: the conviction that our lives, communities, and economies should be grounded in the ecological realities of the places we inhabit. David’s work on ecological literacy and sustainable design, alongside Wendell’s writings on land, community, and the moral significance of place, helped me see that true sustainability is not abstract or global in the first instance—it is rooted, relational, and local. They taught me that caring for the Earth begins with knowing where you are, listening to its rhythms, and living in harmony with its limits.
This essay, then, is indebted to David and his influence. In David's presentation earlier today, he spoke of the need for education to engage the head, hands, and heart. I want to explore a complementary idea—what I’ll call mindful metaphysics in daily life. My suggestion is that if we are to help repair the world—to respond to ecological collapse, social fragmentation, and spiritual disconnection—we will need to do three things:
- Head: Think in a new and more organic way—developing worldviews that reflect the deep interconnectedness, mutual becoming, and intrinsic value of all life.
- Hands: Make something happen where we are—in our neighborhoods, communities, watersheds, and places of belonging.
- Heart: Grow in emotional as well as intellectual wisdom—bringing our full selves into the work of transformation: our feelings, intuitions, relationships, and capacities for care.
Mindful metaphysics involves all three. It is not just about thinking differently. It is also about acting meaningfully and feeling deeply—living in ways that are responsive, compassionate, and grounded in the whole of who we are. The hope of the world is not simply that we think differently, but that we become the kinds of people who can help build and sustain just, compassionate, and joyful communities—communities that are the building blocks of ecological civilization.
You might think that the head—the ideas—come first, and that creative localization and growth in emotional and spiritual wisdom somehow “follow from” or are “derived from” those ideas. But that’s not the case. It is not about ideas alone. It is more holistic. It is metaphysics from the ground up. It can begin by growing a garden no less than by reading a book, by serving the poor no less than by hearing a lecture. Ideas matter, but so do relationships, practices, and place-based commitments. In mindful metaphysics, no single entry point has priority; what matters is that the whole self is engaged.
So where can "mindful metaphysics" be cultivated? David Orr and others (Sandra Lubarsky, Marcus Ford) emphasize, it is not clear that large universities can facilitate this kind of metaphysics, But “small, alternative education centers around the world” can places where this transformation can happen. It can also happen in families, neighborhoods, houses of faith, and local businesses. Education is lifelong and everywhere. I turn, then, to some of the capacities, the traits, that can be nourished in these settings.
Mindful Metaphysics Capacities
Prehensive Attunement
Mindful metaphysics begins with prehension—a felt sensitivity to the energies, emotions, and stories flowing into each moment. It is an openness to what is present: the cries of the vulnerable, the resilience of the Earth, the invitations of beauty, and the suffering of others. It is not abstract awareness, but embodied responsiveness—a willingness to be touched by the world in all its fullness. Another and more common name for prehensive attunement is love.
Radical Interconnectedness
At the heart of mindful metaphysics is the recognition that everything is connected—deeply, continuously, and creatively. No being exists in isolation. Our thoughts, actions, joys, and sorrows ripple outward into wider fields of relation. To live metaphysically is to live with an awareness that we are part of a vast web of becoming, in which each moment draws from and contributes to the whole.
Responsiveness to the Call of the Moment
Each moment arises from a field of relations, and from within those relations, something is asked of us. A child’s laugh, the veins of a leaf, the silence between two people, the hunger of a neighbor—these are not just passive facts, but living contexts that call for particular responses. Mindful metaphysics is the practice of listening for what the moment requires and responding with presence, compassion, and care.
Mutual Becoming
Reality is unfinished, and so are we. Mindful metaphysics affirms that the future is not determined and that our responses can help shape it. It encourages us to stay supple in spirit, open to surprise, willing to learn, and ready to adapt. This flexibility is not weakness, but creative strength.
Relational Care
In a world where everything is interconnected, ethics is relational. Mindful metaphysics teaches that care is not an add-on to existence; it is built into the very fabric of being. It calls us to live in ways that nourish others—people, creatures, communities, and ecosystems—through habits of respect, responsibility, and tenderness.
Care for the Vulnerable
Because all beings are interconnected—and because some are more exposed to harm—mindful metaphysics centers its attention on the vulnerable. It teaches that true metaphysical insight shows itself in compassion: toward children and elders, refugees and outcasts, endangered species and forgotten places. To care for the vulnerable is to honor the sacredness of relational life.
Community Spirit—Human and Ecological
We live in nested communities: families, neighborhoods, species, ecosystems, cultures, and watersheds. Mindful metaphysics invites us to recognize these communities as essential to who we are, not peripheral. It fosters belonging without possessiveness and calls us to participate in communities of mutual care—local and planetary, visible and hidden.
Equanimity
Life is marked by impermanence, unpredictability, and loss. Mindful metaphysics nurtures spiritual poise: the inner strength to live amid flux with courage, trust, and grace. It does not offer control, but companionship with the changing world. It says: Be present. Be patient. Stay rooted. Keep moving.
Beauty
Beauty is not a luxury; it is a sign of the world’s creative depths. Mindful metaphysics finds beauty in faces, forests, friendships, and even in sorrow transfigured by love. It listens for the harmonies within difference and sees the aesthetic dimension of life not as secondary, but as central to what makes the universe worth participating in. Beauty is not escape; it is lure.
Loyalty to Life
Mindful metaphysics balances vision and place. It recognizes that we live in one interconnected world, shaped by systems that span continents and centuries. But it also affirms the dignity of the particular—this watershed, this culture, this neighbor. It calls for planetary awareness rooted in local commitment.
Fidelity to Ideals
Mindful metaphysics recognizes that certain ideals—truth, goodness, beauty, creativity, peace—are not merely projections of our preferences or products of our social location. They transcend personal experience, inviting us into deeper forms of reverence and commitment. These ideals call us beyond ourselves: to live in service of something more than ego or tribe, to respond to values that awaken the soul and stretch the imagination toward the common good.
Courage and Resolve
Mindful metaphysics does not pretend that change is easy or quick. It requires resolve: the quiet, enduring commitment to show up again and again—to tend what matters, to care for what’s been entrusted, to keep going when the path is difficult. It is not heroism, but faithfulness.
Humor
In the face of all that is heavy, mindful metaphysics leaves space for the light. Humor helps us stay human. Play awakens creativity. Laughter builds community and gives oxygen to the soul. Joy is not a distraction from justice; it is part of it. The cosmic process includes absurdity as well as beauty—and mindful metaphysics knows when to tell a good story, crack a joke, or dance in the kitchen.
Faith
Not blind belief, but trust in the availability of fresh possibilities for creative transformation. Mindful metaphysics affirms that even in the midst of uncertainty, sorrow, or failure, something new can emerge. Faith is the courage to keep walking, the confidence that beauty can be born again, and the quiet hope that what we do matters, even if we do not see the outcome.
Mindful Metaphysics and
Ecological Civilization
My suggestion is that these are among the qualities of heart and mind most needed in the world today. They are not merely personal virtues or abstract ideals; they are forms of wisdom essential to the repair of the world. In a time of ecological breakdown, social division, and spiritual confusion, we need more than cleverness—we need compassion, depth, flexibility, courage, and care. These qualities are not a checklist, but a compass. They do not demand perfection, but they do call for presence and participation. They invite us to become the kinds of people who, by how we live and relate, help bring tastes the very world we long for: just, joyful, beautiful, and alive.
Mindful metaphysics offers a way of being that brings the whole self—thinking, feeling, and acting—into relationship with the world’s deep interdependence. It invites us to live in rhythm with the becoming of life, to listen to the moment, to care for our communities, and to think with both rootedness and reach. Many have said that an ecological civilization requires people who live with respect and care for the community of life and for one another. In other words, it involves human-to-human interaction and also human interaction with the more-than-human world: the hills and rivers, trees and stars. In our age of the Anthropocene, it is evident to all that human life now exerts an inordinate influence on the more-than-human world—sometimes terribly destructive.
Yes, it may be “too late.” At least for the natural world we've come to love and learn from, and for ourselves as a species. This is possible. But even now, we can add our own pockets of hope and beauty to the world as it unfolds, however finite they may be. Process metaphysicians believe that these pockets of hope become part of a larger life—a living whole—sometimes named God, the very nature of which is love. In this sense, there is, as it were, an ecological civilization in heaven, even if it has not yet come to fullness on Earth. Perhaps knowing that our lives add something to this whole is itself a consolation, regardless of whether or not it is "too late."
Mindful metaphysics offers a way of being that brings the whole self—thinking, feeling, and acting—into relationship with the world’s deep interdependence. It invites us to live in rhythm with the becoming of life, to listen to the moment, to care for our communities, and to think with both rootedness and reach. Many have said that an ecological civilization requires people who live with respect and care for the community of life and for one another. In other words, it involves human-to-human interaction and also human interaction with the more-than-human world: the hills and rivers, trees and stars. In our age of the Anthropocene, it is evident to all that human life now exerts an inordinate influence on the more-than-human world—sometimes terribly destructive.
Yes, it may be “too late.” At least for the natural world we've come to love and learn from, and for ourselves as a species. This is possible. But even now, we can add our own pockets of hope and beauty to the world as it unfolds, however finite they may be. Process metaphysicians believe that these pockets of hope become part of a larger life—a living whole—sometimes named God, the very nature of which is love. In this sense, there is, as it were, an ecological civilization in heaven, even if it has not yet come to fullness on Earth. Perhaps knowing that our lives add something to this whole is itself a consolation, regardless of whether or not it is "too late."