Building a Climate Crisis Toolkit with Buddhist Wisdom

By Justin Whitaker | | Buddhistdoor Global

Today is the beginning of the Youth Climate Strike, which will feature events around the world over the next week and likely beyond. The idea now is simple enough: disrupt “business as usual” to make the people in power take the climate crisis seriously. For my own part, I will forego the usual article or interview and offer instead a “Climate Crisis Toolkit.” The toolkit comes, conveniently, from the wealth of Buddhist wisdom on the topic of climate change and global warming found here at Buddhistdoor Global (BDG). I have included the year of publication for these references, as one thing we can observe is an increasing urgency in the tone and content of these articles over time. Read, ponder, and meditate on the teachings that elucidate the Buddha’s wisdom and that of great masters. The more deeply we understand these truths in our flesh, the more likely we are to follow their guidance on a day-to-day basis. Then take action out in the world: consume less, organize more, protest, practice, strike, and sit; find and spread joy! These are tools that you can carry with you as you choose just how to be an agent of change for a more sustainable climate. In 2013, we published a 2008 article by Samanera Joyadip in which he writes of the ecological crisis and of individual responsibility. His first point is that humanity and nature cannot be seen as apart from one another: “Nature is the first teacher of man. We cannot divorce man from nature and its surrounding living creatures. Therefore, we need to see ourselves not as isolated skinned and capsulated egos but as part of the larger body of the Earth.”* Joyadip’s somber conclusion is that human forces, especially those arising since the dawn of the industrial revolution, have separated us from nature in ways that are leading to its destruction, and ultimately our own as well.

Buddhist teachings on cultivating ethical values such as loving-kindness toward all creatures, large and small, near and far, as well as the often-overlooked virtue of renunciation—living simply—can bring us back to a more sustainable relationship with the Earth. In a 2011 article, BDG’s Wong Weng Hon authored a similarly hopeful piece, focusing on the celebration of Earth Day and extending it into a practice to be honored year round. Like Joyadip, Wong begins with non-duality as a basis for care for the Earth. He wisely focuses on the “fulfilling harmony and wholeness” that comes from this understanding, and cautions us to avoid being driven merely by fears of global warming, floods, wildfires, and so on: “Environmental concerns should be spiritual or divine in order to make right effort to protect and sustain the balance of the eco-systems.”**

Turning toward progress rather than potential catastrophe brings joy to our efforts and invites others to join us. This need not be a movement just for Buddhists, or even just for religiously minded people; it can involve all. Also in 2011, BDG’s Senior Writer Raymond Lam gave us a more political perspective, writing of both the rising awareness of global warming and rising opposition on the part of climate skeptics “working to distort and misinterpret the data put forward by scientists to serve their own money-spinning, power-mongering interests.”*** Lam concludes that in this time of conflict, “Buddhists stand beside those who serve Gaia—be they environmentalists, conservationists, or faithful devotees who worship Mother Earth and the nature spirits of old.” It is necessary, indeed, to recognize the many forces at play in the conversation, the many then and now trying to spin or distort evidence, deny facts, and distract potential activists.