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Buddhist response to the climate crisis
Bunks
Australia Veteran
For anybody interested, Ajahn Sujato and several other speakers will be conducting a zoom session on a Buddhist response to climate change next month
https://letnottheworldburn.github.io/
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Comments
Thank you Bunks. This will come quite handy!
I had a small chat regarding this with a friend, who openly seemed to be in favour of drastic measures, and even "armed preparation" against fascism.
He seemed to view the Buddhist as passive, as it does not support the "right measures" to deal with the crisis. I wonder what Ajahn Sujato would reply to this.
I sometimes feel that equanimity (Upekkha) can be mistakenly seen as "well, whatever happens, happens", though he did not take into account the rest of the eight fold path and 10 paramis, as well as the 4NT.
Equanimity does not stand on its own, high on the sky, as if it were a monk or scholar at the top of an ivory tower... it is built upon calming down, doing good and, sometimes, acknowledging what goes beyond anyone's control. This allows, sometimes, to avoid hurrying into poor decisions that end up causing even more suffering.
Where I live, the situation with rubbish has worsened. More tourists = more rubbish. Plus the locals have not changed their habits that much, meaning the piles are growing more than what I can clean. One of my neighbours openly deposits her rubbish by our street and the police said "they can't do anything about it".
In this case, I was thinking, is it against "equanimity" to start documenting this to let know the new mayor to please take this situation a bit more seriously than what her party has done in the last 14 years....
Hmmhm.... why this urge to change things? I guess for the well-being of all..
Maybe true equanimity would be to do a live zazen surrounded by heaps of rubbish?
Like in that song: "Though my mind is at peace, the world is out of the order."
PD: I just noticed the title is "Let Not The World Burn". Clearly not a very passive stance! Good!
Funnily enough I was just going to post something about “righteousness” in NB.
It’s a difficult balance. When to speak up vs when to stay silent.
I had a neighbour who left an abandoned car out front of his house for a couple of years. By law in my city this is not allowed. It was an inconvenience as through traffic would often need to stop to allow car’s coming the other way through.
After about a year of mulling it over I finally wrote to the council and, sure enough, a couple of weeks later the car was gone.
I still feel a little bit of guilt but I think it was for the greater good.
Perhaps you can look at it in a similar way?