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.
EcoDharma
EcoDharma
- Nikayla Jefferson
One Earth Sangha’s suggestions for how to get started on taking action.
Current Action Opportunities
International
- Read: Amsterdam bans ads for fossil fuels and meat by Adfree Cities
- Read: Extinction Rebellion’s XReadiness guide
- Read: A driving source of light pollution: How car headlights are reshaping the nighttime environment by DarkSky International
United States
- Act: Find your March 28th No King’s protest
- Act: Third Act outlines big and small actions for our democracy.
- Read: Mutual Aid Kept Minneapolis Alive When ICE Came for Its Neighbors
Canada
- Sign: Demand a public inquiry into Alberta’s oil and gas clean-up problem with Ecojustice
- Join: Where do we go next? A climate conversation with Steven Guilbeault, MP
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
EcoDharma
EcoDharma
- Nikayla Jefferson
One Earth Sangha’s suggestions for how to get started on taking action.
EcoDharma
EcoDharma
Buddhism, Social Change, and Skillful Means
- Melvin McLeod, David Loy, Mushim Patricia Ikeda and Joan Sutherland
How does our Dharma practice call us into politics and shape our engagement? While we no longer live in the moment of Occupy and the Tea Party movements, the words of David Loy, Mushim Patricia Ikeda, and Joan Suthlerland speak powerfully to this moment of 2024.
EcoDharma
EcoDharma
A Community Renounces Fossil Fuels
- Steve Seigan Miron
With its recent installation of an emissions-free heating system, Zen Mountain Monastery is one step closer to its goal of phasing out fossil fuel use by 2030.
