Earth Dharma
In Buddhist philosophy, “Dharma” refers to “the way things are,” the laws of nature and also refers to the collection of Buddhist teachings. Our “Earth Dharma” collection will offer Buddhist teachings on our fundamental relationship to the earth and each other, the Dharma of climate change and new ways to tell our own, collective story.
We begin with the fundamental principle of unbiased loving-kindness, described here in the Metta Sutta:
May all beings be at ease. Whatever living beings there may be,
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none, the great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,those living near and far away, those born to-be-born–
May all beings be at ease! Let none deceive another, 0r despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world.
Buddhism and the Sacred Feminine: An Interview with Thanissara – Part 2
“The sacred feminine” is a convenient term, yet “all distinctions are transcended in our own minds and hearts.” We may draw on the “collaborative energy of the feminine,” to transform our current environmental crisis.
Go DeeperBuddhism and the Sacred Feminine: An Interview with Thanissara – Part 1
“A direct knowing of our inter-connection initiates us into the sacred feminine.” Thanissara explores how the sacred feminine is linked to the dharma and how, through body-focused practices, it can provide one channel for our earth-caring efforts to affect climate change.
Go DeeperBeing Content to Live With Less
“We need to recognize that what society presents as real is more like a lie and take another way” Earlier this summer, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa spoke frankly on renunciation, contentment and the climate crisis.
Go DeeperThe Buddha and the Sacred Earth
All views are poetic. All understandings of reality, including “Nature,” are interpretive. In this article, Gaia House teacher, Rob Burbea, explores how Western culture’s views of “Nature” contribute to ecological crises and our opportunity to move beyond those limitations.
Go DeeperVerses for Environmental Practice
In a pure blessing of practice, contemplation and science, the late Zen teacher Robert Aitken offers these daily practices to inform a deeply grounded being. Happy Earth Day.
Go DeeperLifting the Moral Voice for Climate Action
We invite you to join and share the call to governments from faith communities around the world for a decisive, wise and compassionate response.
Go DeeperContemplative Environmental Practice: Retreat for Academicians and Activists
One of the emerging voices in EcoDharm, Kritee Kanko, wants you to join her this summer in the high dessert for contemplation practice and an exploration of appropriate response.
Go DeeperAwakening to Our Nature, in Nature
What can an immersion in the wild reveal? David Loy and Johann Robbins offer their perspective on a powerful avenue for investigating the nature of mind.
Go DeeperSecular Activism and the Sacred: a Common Ground
Kritee (Kanko) and Lou Leonard explore what it means to be climate activist in secular civil society while walking the Buddhist wisdom path
Go DeeperA Crisis for Buddhism?
Watch or listen to our online webinar featuring David Loy on the challenge that the contemporary ecological crises present to Buddhism.
Go DeeperPracticing Appreciation
A historic agreement on climate has been signed. What does it mean for our practice?
Go DeeperClimate Change as a Moral Call to Social Transformation
In advance of the UN climate negotiations, the renowned Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi argues that climate change demands of us a re-imagining of social systems and a new paradigm of the good life.
Go DeeperSacred Activism – Basic Goodness in Action
According to Shambhala tradition “windhorse” is the self-existing energy of basic goodness in action. Acharya Marty Janowitz’s final article in this three-part series explores the practice and benefits of “raising windhorse,” the Path of engagement.
Go DeeperFreedom, Groundlessness, and Meditation in Action
Marty Janowitz continues his exploration of the Dharma of climate change. He suggests that we cannot substantively work to alter the societal paradigm if we are not simultaneously altering our own internal paradigm.
Go DeeperTransforming Reality – Climate Activism and Buddhist Practice
Acharya Marty Janowitz from the Shambhala tradition suggests that the ecological crises call for simultaneous practice in inner peace and consistent bravery.
Go DeeperThe Time to Act is Now
The Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change. On November 28th in Paris, this statement will be presented to UN climate negotiators with other faith statements around the world. Add your signature here.
Go DeeperTime to Stand Up
Dharma teacher and activist Thanissara urges us to move “beyond a personal introversion and quietism” and apply the Buddha’s radical teachings to the catastrophe of climate change and its underlying causes.
Go DeeperCalling All Eco-Sattvas: Buddhism and Climate Change
Vipassana Dharma Teacher James Baraz, co-founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California and one of the guiding teachers here at One Earth Sangha, invites us to engage in climate action as “joyful responsibility.”
Go DeeperTowards a Social Dharma – Caring for Our Common Home, Our True Body
Soto Zen priest Hozan Alan Senauke is calling for the development of a “Social Dharma” that would galvanize a global community response committed to maximizing justice and safety for all beings in the context of ecological crisis.
Go DeeperTipping Points – A View on Global Climate Policy
All around us, all the time, change happens. But some moments feel bigger than others. 2015 is shaping up to be filled with those kinds of moments. One Earth Sangha’s Lou Leonard offers an update on the big changes underway, as well as how the Dharma helps him stay balanced through it all.
Go DeeperEquanimity and Denial
One of the most useful contributions Buddhism can offer social action is the quality of equanimity. Yet indifference can masquerade as equanimity, providing a kind of “spiritual bypass” that whisks us away from the difficult encounter. How can we know true equanimity wherein we retain our connection to ourselves and the world?
Go DeeperAnswering the Call
Come, let’s face this together. Join One Earth Sangha, the amazing Joanna Macy, rev angel Kyodo williams and a powerful collection of other leaders for our online, interactive EcoSattva Training. This is our crisis and our opportunity for transformation.
Go Deeper“Praised Be!” – Affirming Pope Francis’ Message to the World
People of faith around the world are joining with Pope Francis in his message to all people of the world: the time to act swiftly and decisively on climate change is now.
Go DeeperA Call to the Moral Conscience
In support of Pope Francis’ letter to the Catholic church regarding the climate crisis, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi clarifies that the time for denial, skepticism, and delay is over.
Go DeeperThe Problem of Passivity
The path of liberation is a call to boldness, to purposeful discomfort. In this article, Alex Swain from the EcoDharma Centre explores the temptation to use meditation as escape.
Go DeeperHealing Ecology: Discovering Our Collective Place in the World
“We cannot return to nature because we have never left it. ” In this article, Buddhist scholar and Zen teacher David Loy explores the parallels in our individual and collective predicaments and the parallel paths that might heal.
Go DeeperWe Are Planetary
We are planetary. The truth of our interconnection to each other and Earth is beautifully explored in this new film by three Dharma practitioners featuring some of the leading wisdom teachers of our time. Make Planetary part of your Earth Day celebration!
Go DeeperBeyond Hope and Hopelessness
We face challenges of an unprecedented scale. To meet them we need a training that roots our engagement more deeply than we’ve known before. In this article, Guhyapati from the EcoDharma Centre clarifies how we can respond with energy and patience to what the mind frames as “do or die” situations.
Go DeeperMessages from Earth
“Things are getting worse and worse and better and better, faster and faster.” At no time has this climate koan felt more apt than now. One Earth Sangha’s Lou Leonard offers this update on climate science and policy. What a great invitation to be with uncertainty.
Go DeeperSeeing Pattern
What does climate change have to do with Ferguson? We invite you here to look with us at the shared roots, the common patterns and bring compassion to the racially-conditioned mind, even your own.
Go Deeper
