Almost daily the media tell us that this is a time of environmental crisis. In 2012 the northern polar ice cap melted more than ever before in human memory. Species are said to be disappearing faster than at any time since the last mass extinction, 70 million years ago. Extreme storms and floods are becoming more common events, and 2012 was one of the ten warmest globally since record-keeping began 160 years ago. It does indeed seem to be a time of crisis.

When we consider the fragile and fleeting biosphere that we live in, these changes we are seeing and experiencing all around us can easily lead us to fear: What is going to happen? Will my home be destroyed by flood or fire? Will the droughts lead to food shortages? Will all the birds and fishes die? Will our children and grandchildren – and we humans – survive? And is there anything I can do in response to this crisis that will truly make a difference?

One phenomenon that does not get a lot of attention is that things have a tendency to create their opposites: times of war can give rise to occasions of unparalleled kindness […]

The original source for this book is a series of talks given at Bodhinyanarama Monastery, Wellington, New Zealand. Various interested people in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, transcribed these talks, and I undertook the task of moulding them into a more coherent literal form. My wandering life-style did not lend itself well to doing serious writing, so the project has taken nearly two years to complete.

There are a number of themes that are very familiar to people who practise Buddhist meditation: ‘mindfulness of breathing’, where you focus on the rhythm of the breath; ‘walking meditation’, that revolves around the feeling of the footsteps as you walk up and down a path; the internal repetition of a mantra, such as ‘Bud-dho’ – these are all designed to help ground the attention in the presence of this very moment, this present reality.

Along with these more well-known methods there are many others that can serve a similar function. One of these is known as ‘inner listening’ or ‘meditation on the inner sound’ or, in Sanskrit, ‘nada yoga’. These terms all refer to attending to what has been called ‘the sound of silence’, or ‘the nada-sound’. ‘Nada’ is the Sanskrit word for ‘sound’ as well as being the Spanish word for ‘nothing’ – an interesting and accidentally meaningful coincidence.