The Relevance of Vipassana for the Environmental Crisis

Environmental pollution is a great threat to the survival of humankind on this planet. If effective measures are not taken immediately, a catastrophe which is similar in destructive capacity to that caused by nuclear war is imminent as a result of environmental pollution and increased exposure to U.V. radiation through ozone depletion. The rate of pollution caused by human beings far exceeds nature’s ability to purify and rejuvenate its life-sustaining air and water. We understand the problem that we now face, hence the search for development with sustainability. But it is our contention that a radical solution has not yet been looked for, let alone found, and that man is only trying to grapple with this enormous global problem with patchwork technological remedies.

The Inner Ecology: Buddhist Ethics And Practice

By Ronald Epstein

AN ANALOGY: THE MIND AND ENVIRONMENTAL ECOLOGY
If ignorance, particularly ignorance of the illusory nature of the self, is the basic cause of our lack of enlightenment, why can’t we just do a little introspection and see clearly who we really are and become enlightened?

In theory we can, but when most of us do look within, we cannot fathom the depths of our own minds, because our minds are not clear and still. Instead we find them to be turbid and in constant flux; they are terribly polluted. It is our own mental pollution that keeps us from enlightenment. We try to plumb our minds, but it is more like trying to see to the bottom of a badly polluted pond used as a factory sewer than gazing to the bottom of a clean, clear, still mountain pool.

Buddhism & Environmental Protection

By Ven. Sheng-yen

Buddhism is a religion that places great emphasis on environmental protection. Sakyamuni Buddha was born at Lumbini Garden. He engaged in spiritual practice in the forest, attained Buddhahood under a tree, and first began preaching at Deer Park. The major monasteries where he taught his disciples were all gardens or woods, such as Jeta Grove, Bamboo Grove, Amravana Garden, and he passed into pari-nirvana between two Sal trees near Kusinagara. He exhorted his monastic disciples, when spending the night under a tree, to regard that place as his home and take loving care of it.

The Buddha told us in the sutras and precepts that we should take loving care of animals, and that we should not harm the grass and trees, but regard them as the home where sentient beings lead their lives. In the stories of the Buddha’s past lives, when he was following the Bodhisattva path, he was once reborn as a bird. During a forest fire, he tried fearlessly to put out the fire, disregarding his own safety by bringing water with his feathers. In the Avatamsaka Sutra it is said that mountains, waters, grass, and trees are all the manifestation of the great bodhisattvas. So, Buddhists believe that both sentient beings and non-sentient things are all the Dharma-body of the buddhas. Not only do the yellow flowers and green bamboo preach Buddhist teachings, but rocks can also understand Buddhist doctrines. Therefore, Buddhists regard our living environment as their own bodies. The Buddhists’ life of spiritual practice is by all means very simple, frugal, and pure.