In this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, and this post, I blogged and/or vlogged about the climate crisis. In my very small way, I am trying my best to follow examples set by some of our most inspiring Buddhist leaders in terms of addressing environmental concerns.
Take His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, for instance. In a list recently compiled by Grist, His Holiness was named one of the “15 Top Green Religious Leaders” in the world.
The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet has been talking up environmental protection since he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. He has said that he considers environmental issues to be among the key challenges facing humanity today–and as an exile whose homeland is under occupation, he’s a man who knows challenges. The U.K. Environment Agency named him one of the top 100 green campaigners of all time last year. This year, the Dalai Lama is offsetting emissions generated by his world tour, and at many of the stops he’s stressing the importance of kindness to the planet. He has been outspoken about protecting forests and wildlife and controlling the spread of nuclear power. He calls a clean environment a basic human right, and declares, “It is therefore part of our responsibility towards others to ensure that the world we pass on is as healthy, if not healthier, than we found it.”
In addition, the Venerable Thupten Ngodup, Chief Oracle of Tibet, has begun speaking publicly about global warming and personal responsibility.
[At a recent talk in Frederick, MD,] Ngodup said everyone should be concerned about global warming–not just dharma practitioners.
The scientific community acknowledges that humans have already negatively impacted the environment and quality of air, Ngodup said. For example, in areas of Tibet, yearly snowfalls have disappeared.
“The plateau that Tibet is on will cause changes and effect major parts of Asia, as well as other parts of the world,” he said through his translator, Eleanor McCain.
Ngodup proposed that developed and developing countries work together to slow down the process.
“I feel in a sense that we are all beings on this globe and that there is an interdependence with ourselves and the people across the globe,” which is why nations must create policies together to solve the issue, he said.
Many people fear it is too late, but “I myself don’t think it’s too late,” Ngodup said.
Thai Buddhists have also contributed greatly to the cause of environmentalism. Nobel Peace Prize-nominee Sulak Sivaraksa, for example, has spent much of his life promoting greater ecological consciousness and sustainable development. He has written the following about environmental activism as practice:
The concept of interdependent co-arising is at the crux of Buddhist understanding. Nothing is formed in isolation and like the jewel net of Indra, each individual reflects every other living being infinitely many times. An attachment to an atomized sense of self and the self-Other binary is the antithesis of interdependence and an obstacle to achieving the peace of enlightenment. A commitment to nature and a deep respect for all life can help foster a change from an individualized self to a self as interbeing. Thich Naht Hanh, the well-known Vietnamese monk, uses the term interbeing to describe a self made up entirely of non-self elements including conditions and relationships. To acknowledge these non-self elements is to realize how one’s survival and ability to flourish is entirely contingent upon the quality of engagement with other sentient beings.
The phra nak anuraksa, monastics who have ordained trees in protest of deforestation and environmental degradation, are an important presence in Thailand, as well. Writing about these “environmentalist monks” in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Susan M. Darlington explains:
Despite their small numbers and limited effectiveness, this group represents a case of people within a specific cultural setting who are implementing their own environmental concepts. They reinvent human relationships with nature in the face of what Arturo Escobar (1996) criticizes as the capitalization of nature worldwide. Their environmental seminars and their relations with local people illustrate the processes through which this small group of monks challenges the dominant trend of “ecological capital” (Escobar 1996). Despite a historical link between the Buddhist Sangha (the community of monks) and the Siamese state, these monks reject the state’s definition of development and how it is implemented.
In my own country, I am especially moved by the work and writing Zen Buddhist practitioner and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder. (If you have not read his Smokey the Bear Sutra, you absolutely must.) In an interview some years back for the Shambhala Sun, Snyder said:
Care for the environment is like noblesse oblige…You don’t do it because it has to be done. You do it because it’s beautiful. That’s the bodhisattva spirit. The bodhisattva is not anxious to do good, or feels obligation or anything like that. In Jodo-shin Buddhism, which my wife was raised in, the bodhisattva just says, ‘I picked up the tab for everybody. Goodnight folks…’
These are but a few prominent examples of the ways in which Buddhists have addressed environmental concerns. (For the interested reader, books like Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology, and Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds offer even more.)
There is a noble environmentalist lineage running through the different Buddhist religions, uniting them in service to the planet and all sentient beings. Let’s see that this lineage continues to grow strong. You can start here, here, here, and here.
