Forms and Opportunities for Engaged Practice
Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth. Environmental despair is a poison every bit as destructive as the methylated mercury in the bottom of Onondaga Lake. But how can we submit to despair while the land is saying "Help"?
— Robin Wall Kimmerer
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
- Check out: Taking Action with Zen Peacemakers
- Watch: Shared Responsibility: Climate Action at Every Level
- Join: Trust the People Autumn 2025 training
- Act: People in, polluters out with Global Witness at COP30
- Join: Climate Justice and Aviation training with Stay Grounded
- Join: World Beyond War’s Third Africa Regional Peace conference
United States
- Act: Protect Oak Flat with Apache Stronghold, read about the struggle to protect Oak Flat in Buddhistdoor Global
- Listen: Life After Cars on the Chris Hayes podcast
- Check-out: Meet the Climate Criminals most responsible for the climate crisis
- Read: Plastic-free Halloween tips from Beyond Plastics
- Sign: Tell Trader Joe’s to drop the toxic chemical in packaging and products
- Act: Join a Climate Hour of Action with Climate Reality Project
- Act: Find a local climate group taking action
Canada
- Act: Join WE-CAN’s Local Government Exchange program
- Read: Canada’s National Observer unveils a powerful tool for fighting disinformation
- Sign-on: Tell the Minister of Finance to stop the austerity cuts
- Act: Send a letter to Fisheries and Oceans Canada to protect the Southern Orcas
- Sign-on: Speak up to challenge Carney on climate with Seniors for Climate
- Read: The Grassrooting Guide to Organizing from Ecology Action Centre
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
