Forms and Opportunities for Engaged Practice
There is a way to be a human being
that causes all life to thrive.
— Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe)
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.
While we won’t be “saving” this Earth, our opportunity is to meaningfully respond. We can action that is deeply rooted, skillful, strategic, unattached to specific outcomes. We can speak in ways that actually help.
Opportunities for Engaged Practice
Featured Calls to Action
Upcoming
- #StopLine3: A “Day of Action” is planned for May 7. Check out the Action Map to join actions happening near you, or organize and register your own!
- Oak Flat: US residents can ask their members of Congress to support and co-sponsor the Save Oak Flat Act.
- Sign the Multi-faith Climate Statement to be presented to world leaders at COP26 in November 2021.
Ongoing Opportunities
- Stop the Money Pipeline:
- Move your money and divest from fossil fuels
- If you are a college student, learn about and launch a reinvestment campaign
- Tell your government representatives and local financial institutions to put people and planet before polluters
Featured Campaigns
Protect Land, Air, and Water
The Line 3 pipeline endangers the land and waters in the North American Midwest and the communities and ecosystems downstream. Join the alliance of activists working to stop it.
A call to defend sacred land of the Western Apache
- Launched April 23, 2021
Mining companies are threatening to turn a sacred site into a copper pit. Many Apaches are working to defend their historic homeland, and you can help.
Domains and Defining Characteristics of the EcoSattva Path
- Kristin Barker
- February 7, 2021
Meaningful response to ecological crises doesn't look one way. Just as ecosystems invest in diverse, wild and creative forms of engagement, so can we.
Stories of Engaged Practice
Buddhist Monastics Practice Forest Protection
- March 19, 2021
- March 19, 2021
Moved by intimate awareness of dependent co-arising, monastics in Southeast Asia have become leaders in protecting their local environment.
- January 15, 2021
- January 15, 2021
Green Gulch Farm Zen Center has provided a vivid demonstration of engaged practice during the pandemic, sharing its vegetable harvests with communities in need throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
- December 10, 2020
- December 10, 2020
One of Cambodia's most prominent, socially-engaged Buddhist scholars leads efforts to provide not only spiritual but material relief to victims of flooding and the COVID pandemic.
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