Forms and Opportunities for Engaged Practice
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there ‘is’ such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
No small part of our challenge is the pervasive poverty of agency. How often do we hear, including from ourselves, “but I’m just one person”? Yet both Dharma and sociology disagree. Our words and actions matter so much and indeed they are all we have.
Yet whether or not our actions make a big difference that we can actually see, feel, and touch is, in a way, none of our business. Our opportunity is to meaningfully respond. We can speak in ways that actually help. We can act in ways that are deeply rooted, skillful, strategic, and unattached to specific outcomes.
- Nikayla Jefferson
Current Action Opportunities
International
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Read: We Stay on the Ground’s guide to talking about the impact of aviation on climate change.
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Read: Break the silence on Gaza in Dharma spaces by Thanissara
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Read: The XReadiness guide to climate disaster readiness from Extinction Rebellion
Canada
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Sign-on: Tell the Prime Minister: Protect Canada’s anti-greenwashing rules
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Fill-out: The Canadian Heat Pump Survey from Clean Energy Canada
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Sign-on: Stand with Alberta Health Professionals Calling for an End to Coal Mining
United Kingdom
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Join: A campaign to call on the UK to host a televised national emergency briefing on climate change.
United States of America
- Check-out: Climate.us where the disappearing government climate data will continue to live
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Act: Read How to Stop Mom’s for Liberty From Taking Over Your School Board
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Sign-on: For Manatees to be reclassified as endangered under the Endangered Species Act
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Sign-on: To stop Congress from banning AI regulation nationwide
Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive creative relationship with the more-than-human world, meeting responsibilities that are simultaneously material and spiritual. It's not enough to grieve. It's not enough to just stop doing bad things.
— Robin Wall Kimmerer
Stories of Engagement
Buddhism, Social Change, and Skillful Means
- Melvin McLeod, David Loy, Mushim Patricia Ikeda and Joan Sutherland
A Community Renounces Fossil Fuels
- Steve Seigan Miron
Demand for Statehood and Ecological Protections in Northern India
- Justin Whitaker
