On the Nature of Shortages and the Needs of Others

Jennafer Duerden, October 6, 2021

Shortages are becoming a permanent fixture in our news these days. Having just arrived in my home country, the UK, to visit my family, I was shocked to be greeted by apocalyptic scenes of massive queues at petrol stations due to petrol shortages. Violence has broken out all over the country with people physically fighting each other at the pumps and the army has been called in to deal with the ‘crisis’. Whether there is an actual shortage of fuel in Britain is the subject of much debate. There is a current lack of lorry drivers in Britain, a knock-on effect of the UK’s Brexit departure from the EU; access to cheap labour from eastern Europe, visa issues and a lack of willing work-force at home has led to anticipated shortages in the future. However, the government has repeatedly assured us that there is no issue with petrol reserves in the country and that the Road Haulage Association is guilty of political manoeuvring in an attempt to spread fear among the nation. The truth behind the politics here is debatable but one thing is clear: the direct cause of the shortages is panic buying. Whether anyone actually needs the fuel they’re buying is not the point. The point is to get it before anyone else does.

Shortages were a recurring topic in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fears over lockdown measures preventing deliveries of essential goods led to supermarket shelves stripped bare. Despite governments repeatedly assuring us that there was no actual shortage and appealing to the public to stop panic buying, people rushed to stockpile more food than they possibly eat, later throwing it in the rubbish. I’ll never forget looking out of my window watching a neighbour who’d stolen a supermarket trolley in order to push hundreds of rolls of toilet paper to his home. Supermarket shelves were emptied and people sat at midnight fighting on their smartphones for a home delivery spot. Whether anyone actually needed the things they bought was not the point. The point was to get them before anyone else does.

Unusual weather patterns have led to depleted gas and coal reserves around the world. The UK is dealing with another crisis in the run-up to Christmas: CO2 shortages. Newspapers are warning us of the dire consequences of a lack of CO2 which is primarily used in the slaughter of factory farmed animals, packaging for meat and processed goods, carbonated drinks and pumping beer from pub taps. The government has spent millions of pounds procuring overpriced CO2 from the USA to prevent shortages of these ‘essential’ goods. Despite international climate talks and agreements on global warming, gas shortages are also causing countries to increase their consumption of coal. China, one of the world’s largest consumers of coal, is willing to pay any price to ensure supply continues, leaving other disadvantaged countries unable to afford it and inevitably causing more shortages in fuel supplies around the world. The consequences to the environment and the suffering that will inevitably be experienced by many this winter are beside the point. The point is to get it before anyone else does.

Many articles and academic papers have been published about the psychology of panic buying and stockpiling, often blaming a caveman like instinct for self-preservation, scaremongering by mass media or political manoeuvring. However, one concept stands out to me as a common theme: ‘self’ and individual interest. I wonder when we rush out to the supermarket or the petrol pumps how many of us stop to consider the consequences of our actions on other people? I wonder how many governments have stopped to ponder the far-reaching consequences of our mass consumption of CO2 and coal and the possibly devastating consequences to the communities of people that might not have enough fuel this winter? How would these crises differ if we stopped to think about the needs of others and put others’ interests before our own? What if we started to think about the interconnectedness of the people, animals and environment around us?

So what are the real consequences of our behaviour? I wonder how the people fighting at the petrol pumps considered what might happen when they need to call an ambulance for a loved one and it never arrives. The fuel shortages have taken a huge toll on emergency services who can no longer refill their tanks and reach those in need. I wonder if people booking up food delivery slots in the pandemic and stripping the shelves bare thought about the consequences to the elderly and vulnerable members of our society unable to leave their houses to get basic goods? In our desperation to procure CO2 at any cost, have we stopped to consider exactly why we’re using so much of it? Considering the obesity pandemic and rising rates of cancer, heart conditions and diabetes, have we stopped to think about the effects of mass meat and processed food consumption on the health of society and indeed of our fellow sentient beings in the animal kingdom? Perhaps the dwindling CO2 supply might be better used in fire extinguishers and life rafts than for stunning animals? In the desperation for our own well-being this winter by the cosy fireplace or with our under-floor heating blasting away, have we stopped to think about others less fortunate around the world and how they might fare? The answer might often be a resounding: not my problem!

Perhaps the solution to these crises isn’t about hiring cheap labour, rushing through visas for workers, using our economic power to outbid others, stockpiling as much as we can and being ‘better prepared’. Perhaps the solution is much simpler: to think about the consequences of our actions on others and not just ourselves and to consider ourselves as part of an interconnected society. In short: to develop our compassion. How can Buddhism guide us to behave in times of shortages, on those days when it feels like everyone is fighting for their own self-preservation? Here we can look to the ‘vows of Bodhisattva Samantabhadra Sutra’1 for guidance. The sutra advises us, “a Bodhisattva should benefit all beings with equal treatment and bestow his loving care on all beings alike.”1 How might the pandemic shortages have looked if we’d stopped to ask ourselves what our elderly neighbour needed and whether we really needed that extra delivery slot? How might the fuel shortages have been prevented if we’d stopped to think about the fuel that’s used in ambulances, police cars or hospital generators? Indeed, how might our planet change if we thought about whether we really need that huge turkey at Christmas that we can’t possibly eat?

I touched upon the interconnectedness of things and how this becomes apparent in a crisis. The Samantabhadra Sutra teaches us, “The Great Compassionate Heart is the essence of Buddhahood. For the sake of all beings, the Bodhisattva develops great compassion, and from the great compassion springs the Bodhi-heart, from the Bodhi-heart comes the enlightenment.”1 But why should we be striving to develop our ‘Bodhi heart’? Imagine a King Bodhi-tree, where “all beings are roots of the Bodhi-tree, the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas are its fruits and its flowers”1. Now imagine this “king of mighty trees growing in the wilderness and barren desert; if it gets no water, it wilts and dies, but if its roots be well watered, we shall see it flourishing with full foliage, blossoming in its full efflorescence and bearing plentiful fruit. If Bodhisattvas apply the nectar of great compassion to benefit all beings, they will attain the ‘Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodhi’ (the highest form of wisdom). Therefore the beings are essential to the Bodhi; for without them, there are no Bodhisattvas able to attain the supreme transcendental wisdom.”1 In this way we can see that when we develop our compassion, we benefit not just ourselves but those around us with our wisdom. How different might the world look if we consider ourselves part of this great Bodhi tree? How might the climate recover if governments thought about the devastating effects of coal consumption and the promised climate goals rather than the success of their own industries and economies? What would happen if we started to consider shortages as global issues that we need to resolve together? We should all strive to develop our Bodhi-heart to benefit our world and our future.

1 – The vows of Bodhisattva Samantabhadra Sutra, translated by Upasika Chihmann. http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/samantabhadra.pdf