For those of us living in the “modern” world, it is so easy to feel disconnected as we sit in our separate cubicles, drive home in our separate cars and walk into our separate homes. But, as a provocative new film reminds us, we really have only one home, and we don’t live in it, but we are of it – we are planetary.
Next week, on Earth Day, the film Planetary will be screened world-wide at 75 theaters. It can also be streamed online, including here at One Earth Sangha. Invite your friends and, for USD $12.99, take in this amazing film. The filmmakers have even arranged for a small donation to One Earth Sangha for everyone who streams the film from our site.
Planetary is the work of friends from Brighton in the United Kingdom who were first dazzled by the truth of interconnectedness in their teenage years. Fifteen years later, after discovering the Dharma and studying Tibetan Buddhism at the School for Oriental and African studies in London, their dream of transmitting these ideas to a broader audience through film is about to be realized.
Planetary is a visual meditation on our Earth and her people with stunning images taking from the International Space Station and locations throughout the globe. The teachings interconnectedness are offered through some of the leading wisdom teachers of our time including Dharma teachers like Joanna Macy, David Loy, Rev angel Kyodo williams and Roshi Joan Halifax, as well as the first film appearance by HH the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa.
Although the teachings of the film should resonate strongly with mindfulness and Buddhist practitioners, it is also a wake-up call to our community. With the truth of our interconnectedness to each other and Earth so evident in science and the Dharma, are we as Buddhists appropriately and fully engaged in the transformation to a more life-sustaining approach to civilization? If not us, then who?
One Earth Sangha proudly co-sponsored the East Coast Premiere of Planetary on March 28th in Washington, DC. In the coming months, we will explore ways to use this film as a doorway to practice for our network. Stay tuned!
And consider further exploring your own appropriate response to the climate crisis and other ecological threats through One Earth Sangha’s upcoming EcoSattva Training. Come join us and let’s face this together!
