Welcome to the the archive of the “Mindfulness and Climate Action” conversations. This series of five conversations was held October 5 through November 3, 2014. Here you can find resources and conversation recordings from the series.
These conversations were offered freely to the community in the interest of supporting a wise and compassionate response to climate change. Dana, or generosity, is considered an essential part of our practice. All of the teachers and support staff on these calls offered their gifts freely in this spirit of dana. We invite you to help us defray the direct costs associated with this offering as well as the continued work of One Earth Sangha by making a donation here. Any amount you offer is deeply appreciated.
Background Paper
As a community working on these issues in various venues, we’ve found it very helpful to provide a common scientific and policy basis from which to work. To that end, we are providing this primer by Kritee Kanko (zen teacher and senior scientist at Environmental Defense Fund) and Lou Leonard (One Earth Sangha co-founder, Insight practitioner and head of the Climate Program at World Wildlife Fund). If possible, we encourage you to read this short paper before joining the calls. This is in no way intended to be the final or full word on the reality of our ecological crisis and policy response, but a rather a way to ground our discussions. That said, these conversations are focused not so much on developing our understanding of these realities but on how the Dharma can inform and support a wise and compassionate response to our understanding of these realities (one response might be to follow a desire to develop further understanding!).
Conversations
- October 5 with Tara Brach. Ruth King and Jack Kornfield, (1 hour, 14 min; MP3)
Mindfulness and Climate Action I - October 12 with Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Ayya Anandabodhi Bhikkhuni and Susie Harrington (1 hour, 9 minutes; MP3) Mindfulness and Climate Action II In this conversation, Susie Harrington mentioned two sources: Kerry Nelson’s offering of online workshops at A Place for Peace as well as Vinit Allen’s Sustainable World Sourcebook. Both offer ways to engage individually but also at the community level. Rev angel Kyodo williams mentioned the site What Is Missing? from Maya Lin offering an interactive experience of all that has been and continues to be lost to which you can add your own accounting.
- October 19 with James Baraz, Catherine McGee and Chris Cullen (1 hour, 9 minutes; MP3) Mindfulness and Climate Action III
- October 26 with Bonnie Duran, Chas DiCapua and Vinny Ferraro (1 hour, 6 minutes; MP3) Mindfulness and Climate Action IV
- November 2 with David Loy, Ayya Santussika Bhikkhuni and Ayya Santacitta Bhikkhuni (1 hour, 9 minutes; MP3) Mindfulness and Climate Action V Unfortunately, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi was ill on the day of our call and was not able to join us. We wish him a speedy and thorough recovery. In this call, Ayya Santussika Bhikkhuni mentioned two resources: the international, interfaith effort Our Voices as well as the “Pledge to Mobilize” at the Climate Mobilization. She also invited those interested in taking action together as Buddhists on the national or local/regional level to email her at santussika at gmail.com. Finally, Dave Damm-Luhr mentioned the upcoming film from the same group that brought us “The Overview Effect.” This new film, “Planetary” (see the trailer here) maybe well-timed for action around the March deadline for targets into the UN climate talks that Lou mentioned. Send us an email here if you’re interested in helping to organize regional or local screenings.
Download: If you would like to download any of the MP3 recordings to play on your device, you can find the index of files here. Just right-click (or Control-click on a Mac) on one of the MP3 files, choose “Save As” and save to a location of your choice.