One Earth Sangha is leading a call for Buddhists everywhere to join in person or in spirit the People’s Climate March in New York on 21 September. The march is expected to be the largest climate march in history, and does not belong to any particular group or agenda. Thousands of organizations are involved.
Climate Buddha. From www.oneearthsangha.org
We are currently in what is called the Holocene Extinction, or the sixth great extinction event in the history of life on earth. While Shakyamuni Buddha’s first turning of the wheel was a direct instruction to do no harm, we as humans are entirely responsible for the ecological harms that are the cause of the Holocene Extinction. As Buddhists, do we have the responsibility to engage actively in the practice of not harming the environment or the other species that live within it, and even to become proactive in guiding humanity towards nurturing and preserving the ecosystem rather than destroying it for material gain?
According to One Earth Sangha, indeed we do. The organization asks the timely and pointed question, “What does it mean to live in accordance with Buddhist principles in the context of global climate change?” One Earth Sangha was founded specifically with the intention of engaging Buddhists in this dialogue. From their perspective, we have a responsibility to bring the consciousness and practice of Buddhism into debate and engaged activism, in order to foster healing responses to the brutal and real challenges that climate change is bringing to all species that live on earth.
Protest Buddha. From www.oneearthsangha.org
The People’s Climate March is being held in response to the Secretary General of the United Nations’s call for the heads of states of all nations to come together in New York on 21 September to discuss how to make meaningful movement toward a new international climate treaty, due to be signed in Paris in 2015. According to its organizers, the point of the march is to impress upon the leaders that humanity no longer wants mere talk on how to work with climate change, but rather meaningful action that will make a difference for all those that inhabit the earth.
On the One Earth Sangha website, Santussika Bhikkhuni posted the following: “. . . now we have this opportunity to act, to make a real difference, to lend our moral voice to this great movement. This is a movement that is for the benefit of all beings, like nothing that has ever happened on this planet before. We all, every living being on Earth, are in this together. We all face the same danger. As we act by participating in this event, we are taking up the care and protection of all future generations of all species on Earth. This is dharma in action.”
Under a bodhi star. From www.oneearthsangha.org
One Earth Sangha was co-founded by Lou Leonard and Kristin Barker, both of whom made their careers in ecology and environmentalism. They combine their backgrounds with their practice as Buddhists, and are guided by a group of Western Buddhist teachers from the United States, Great Britain, and South Africa. The emphasis of the Sangha is on stewardship of the environment as an aspect of engaged Buddhist practice. They point out that just as the causes of the interdependent problems that climate change pose are caused by humans, so are its solutions.