When No Thing Works: A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, Shared Purpose, and Leadership in the Timeplace of Collapse

Spiritual and community lessons for embracing collective care, co-creating sustainable worlds, and responsibly meeting uncertain futures — a Zen and Indigenous take on building better, more balanced ways of being
 
For readers of Hospicing Modernity, When Things Fall Apart, and Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet
 
Talking story, weaving poetry, and offering wisdom at the intersections of strategy, politics, and spiritual activism, When No Thing Works is a visionary guide to co-creating new worlds from one in crisis. It asks into the ways we can live well and maintain our wholeness in an era of collective acceleration: the swiftly moving current, fed and shaped by human actions, that sweeps us toward ever uncertain futures. Grounded in Zen Buddhism, interconnection, and decades of community activism, When No Thing Works explores questions like:
 
As we stand at a threshold of collective change, what leaps must we make?
How can we push through discord and polarization and meet these critical changepoints collectively?
What practices, strategies, and spiritualities can align to vision a sustainable future for our communities and descendents?
How can we step out of urgency to tend to our crises with wisdom, intention, and care?

With wise and witty prose that wanders and turns, guides and reveals, Zen master and Indigenous Hawaiian leader Rōshi Norma Wong’s meditation holds our collective moment with gravity and tender care. She asks us to not only imagine but to live into a story beyond crisis and collapse — one that expands to meet our dreams of what (we hope) comes next, while facing with clarity and grace our here and now in the world we share today.

“When No Thing Works defies literary categorization. It is speculative nonfiction. It is historical current events. It is the math of science + spirit + imagination. It is humanities (as in humanity plural). Every page contains a focal point for future-casting. Whether you read the pages in order, or wander randomly through the chapters, the learning and wonder will remain constant. Collectively—as readers, students, and friends all—we can, indeed we must, animate the text. Life on Earth requires nothing less.” —Nan Stoops, former director and strategic advisor for the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence

“Having had the honor of learning from Norma Wong over the past several years as a student of her movement-building work, reading the book was like sitting in the room listening to her tell stories filled with wisdom and humor that always bring levity during a time that often feels so heavy. She has somehow captured the spirit of hope in this timeplace of collapse, and has encouraged us to go beyond the current frames of our worldview and enter into a worldview of emergence and interdependence. Norma has written us a book of brilliant strategy illustrated through beautiful stories told in a way only a Zen master could do. She has gifted us a treasure map on how to leap toward the horizon and cocreate the world we are reimagining for the descendants of our descendants. We are excited to integrate this book into our work at the Beloved Communities Network. As we work to embody the vision of transitioning to a world of love, resilience, and regeneration, this book unlocks the simple truth that it will require both consciousness action and the sharp discipline of choice.” —Leila McCabe, director of the Beloved Communities Network

"If you want to understand how things can come together, you have to honor and understand the ways and the why of how they are falling apart. When ‘nothing works,’ it can help us to pivot and return to deeper ancestral understandings of what ‘working’ truly is. Who are we and why are we here? What is the meaning of our existence, connection, and creativity? What are our sacred responsibilities to our ancestors, future generations, and all living beings? Kawelokū’s book invites us into the practice of these questions. And in living through these questions together, ‘a way forward’ emerges out of our collective practice of love and care. Out of many ways and from many people, Norma shines light on a way forward together that is only possible if each of us bring all of who we are, wholeheartedly, to each step, each breath, and each bold act of collective courage and action. Rōshi Norma is helping us to create the path by walking it together with us.” —Taj James, founder of the Movement Strategy Center and Full Spectrum Capital

Norma Wong, a life-long resident of Hawaiʻi, is a descendant of Native Hawaiians and Hakka Chinese immigrants. She has decades of experience in organizing, policy, strategy, and politics in Hawaiʻi, particularly in the area of Native Hawaiian issues, serving in the Hawaii State Legislature and as a policy lead and negotiator for Governor John Waiheʻe, Hawaiʻi’s first Native governor. Norma began her spiritual practice at the same time as her political life unfolded. These days, it is the intertwined application of Zen practice and an indigenous worldview that Norma brings to provoke practical inquiry and redirect work. She is a thought partner, a strategist, and a teacher.