Dear Earth, I made peanut butter cookies.

The recipe is saved on my computer as ‘yummy cookies’. They contain a high percentage of peanut butter, and so are short in a way that I miss as a vegan – crumbly and rich and delicious. And generously studded with chocolate chunks, of course.

After they came out of the oven and I tested three or four to make sure they’d come out okay, I thought, ‘I’d love to share the recipe with everyone’. When we are happy and we feel safe and we have something nice, the urge to share arises naturally.

I felt a moment’s smugness. What a nice person I am. And then I wondered how I’d feel if you started actually turning up at the temple. I’d be very happy to give away the first five or ten. But if a long queue developed at the door, then I’d begin to have some different feelings…

In some areas of my life I find generosity easy. In others I find it very difficult indeed. We are all different, and we all make use of people, places and things in various ways to support our impermanent egos. When these uses become threatened, our whole identity can wobble.

Dear Earth, when we consider making changes so we can live more lightly on you, we will all have very different feelings about different changes. Some people will find it easy to cut back on meat or flying. Others will have all sorts of security or comfort investments in pork pies, or Mediterranean family holidays. When I fall into judging others, it helps me to remember how hard it would be to give all my cookies away.

How can I become more generous? By letting you love me, darling Earth. And maybe I need to bake bigger batches of cookies…

Love, Satya <3