The 3rd Nepal - Japan Buddhist Symposium, held at KTM on 17th march 2009 and 19th march 2009 at Lumbini. | Nepal Buddhist Federation

The 3rd Nepal - Japan Buddhist Symposium, held at KTM on 17th march 2009 and 19th march 2009 at Lumbini.

The 3rd Nepal - Japan Buddhist Symposium, held at KTM on 17th march 2009 and 19th march 2009 at Lumbini. It was Joint program By Nepal Buddhist Federation & The Buddhist Economy Forum, Japan. On the topic of 'Buddhism and Environment - How can Buddhist contribute to global Environment issues?' The program was inaugurated by Chief guest CA Member and Chief advisor of NBF Jeep Tsering Lama. And Khenpo Gyurmay Tsultrim was the chair person of the program, and NBF central Executive Member of NBF Mr. Mukunda Bista & Ishwor Chandra Bidya Sagar was the paper presenter from Nepal side and Prof. Seigo Tsujii was the paper presenter from Japan side. Former ambassador to Japan Prof. Bishnu Hari Nepal, Former KTM Meyer Kesab Sythapith khenpo, lama, and many intellectual person was attended the program.

Buddhism vis-à-vis Environmental Crisis

- Ishwor Chandra Bidya Sagar.

Everyone who is more or less informed about the current affairs and global problems, is aware enough about the environmental crisis that the earth is going through. Almost every educated person on earth today is acquainted with the terms like green house effect, global warming, acid rain, radioactive fallout and so forth and their detrimental impact on our nature. Acknowledging the fact that our earth also needs some care, tenderly love, some fresh air to breath in, we started to celebrate the Earth days since last 38 years. Environmental activists and Big organizations like UN have organized big conferences and summits like: Global Warming summits, Kyoto Summit, Stockholm Conference, UN Earth Summit to name a few. We all know or at least are informed that we should protect our living environment, reduce the amount of garbage we produce, classify our refuse, and recycle as much as possible to protect the earth. Yet despite all these efforts our production and emission of chemicals and pollutants like CFCs, Carbon monoxide, Carbon dioxide, Sulfur dioxide, Nitrogen dioxide and so forth have not reduced, rather their excessive production has led to the rapid consumption of natural resources, the speedy deterioration of the natural environment, and the extinction of a variety of species. Day in and day out everyone still consumes even larger amounts of natural resources, produces more refuse to pollute the earth, the air, the rivers and the oceans. In May 2006 the appalling documentary released about global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth” presented by former United States Vice President, Al Gore, (which won him a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007) revealed to public the formidable fact that if we don’t stop the current emission rate of carbon dioxide (one of the major greenhouse gases), the atmospheric temperature of the earth would increase so rapidly in next few decades that it would be uninhabitable. If this situation is not placed in check and reversed, then human-kind will be extinct not in next thousands or hundreds of years but in next couple of decades. So where does the problem lies? Why it seems that the millions of dollars of funds spend in environmental researches and awareness campaigns are going in vein? Why are we not aware enough to play our role in protecting our environment? Why such horrifying facts and figures about the imminent catastrophe does not alarm the people over the world and motivate us to join hand in hand to bring about a revolution that would ensure a safe world for our future generation to live in? We all know that the solution of a problem owes much of its credit to a proper diagnosis. Therefore, with these questions in mind we will try to figure out whether there is any diagnosis that may be made of an environmental crisis from the perspective of teachings of the Buddha. If we find some kind of credible diagnosis, then we will again delve in a little bit into his teachings to figure out whether they have any specific remedy/ies to ameliorate this problem. The methodology of diagnosis Buddha gave to analyze any problem we come across in form of suffering is delineated in his fundamental teaching: the four noble truths. It is also a theoretical background to point out the basic nature of the world we are engaged in. He introduces us into the nature of phenomenal world constituting the three elements: suffering, impermanence and selflessness. The first noble truth urges us to acknowledge the existence of our suffering in first place. Here what we identify as suffering is the consequences that the upsurging environmental problem is positing or likely to posit in imminent future. So when we first acknowledge the problem and have an idea about its nature, then only we are supposed to take next step towards its solution: the quest to find a cause of the suffering. Reiterating the words of the Buddha, the great scholar Nāgārjuna states in his text Bodhicitta bhavana that: self-cherishing attitude is the cause of every suffering we come across and hence the cause of crisis-the second noble truth. This self-cherishing, as Buddha says, comes from its root cause ignorance. Buddha says that there is no independent self as such which exists isolated and unaffected from its coexisting environment. Hence, this self is just an idea which we project ignorantly upon the conditional aggregation of causes and condition in certain time and space. Here the conditional aggregation can be equated to what we call our “self” and the causes and condition (though they might connote many different things) to what we call the “environment” that provides us the opportunity to come into being and thrive in it. Buddhism views humanity as an integral part of this environment which we call nature. His physical and psychological well-being, his spiritual development and above all his ultimate happiness all are directly connected with the environment he lives in. The life of our teacher itself is the best example to show us how important the nature is for the wholesome growth of an individual. His birth, his enlightenment, the first turning of the wheel of dharma, the Mah¬āparinirvāṇa, all the important events in his life happened below a tree, in close proximity to the nature. This is not merely a coincidence, it is the implicit teaching he gave to us emphasizing the crucial role the environment plays in a person’s overall life. But he didn’t stopped at that point. Seemly, he has also acknowledged the role that men can play either in the preservation or in the annihilation of the nature. Their orientation towards one of these two role playing stances depends solely upon whether they understand or not a universal law that: “Everything in this world is inter-dependent”. The well-being of environment is dependent upon our conduct and we are dependent upon the environment for our survival. This law of inter-dependence is called “Pratitya-Samutpada”, translated as dependent co-origination, which is the heart of Buddhist understanding. It suggests that all things-object and beings-exist only interdependently, not independently. It is an easily understandable theory that: “this is like this, because that is like that”. When there is a balance and harmony in nature, then we people also benefit from this harmony. When nature is defiled the people living on it also ultimately suffer. Negative consequences arise when cultures alienate themselves from nature, when people feel separate from and become aggressive towards natural system. When we abuse nature, we abuse ourselves. Buddhist ethics follow from this basic understanding. This law of dependent co-origination in nature has been corroborated by an atmospheric scientist James Lovelock while observing the self-regulating, constantly changing atmosphere of the Earth. He, in his Gaia Theory, hypothesized that the earth is a homeostatic living organism that coordinates its vital systems to compensate for threatening environmental changes. The theory maintains that Earth is an interrelated system in which living things, together with Earth’s surface and atmosphere, evolve as a single entity. Further, Lovelock argues, this system functions to make the planet habitable for life. However, if we don’t acknowledge this fact of our existence in inter-dependence with the environment and ignorantly grasp at the egocentric view of ourselves in relation to the nature and do not be aware of our responsibility towards it, then nature, as stated by Lovelock, also has its own harsher way to balance the equilibrium too. Spending almost all of his life in close connection with the nature Buddha must have realize already this aspect of reality twenty-five centuries ago. Therefore, we find him delineating the rules for the monks, so that they might not only acknowledge the kindness that Mother Nature has showed upon them, but also abstain them from harming her environment. He was so very concerned about protecting the natural environment, that he considered damaging of a living plant as a breakage of a monk vow. The Pali term for living plants is bhūtagāma, which literally means the “home of a being”. And it seems that he really had considered plants as our home, our means of sustenance. Damaging here not only includes cutting, breaking, and cooking, as well as getting other people to perform these actions, but also includes actions like using herbicides to kill plants, uprooting a plant, engraving one's initials in a tree trunk, or even, picking flowers or leaves. This shows us explicitly how much foresighted Buddha was about these issues. Because of this foresightedness we find till the date, the forest monks as the best protectors of the jungles. Not only was he concerned about the possible damage that could be done to the plants but was also concerned about keeping the water bodies unpolluted as well. Therefore, he made two rules which prohibit a monk form defecating, urinating or spitting into water or onto green vegetation. All these ethical rules and vows would be meaningless in any spiritual path without compassion for our fellow sentient beings, let alone Buddhism, where compassion is the path which when united with wisdom, leads one towards supreme Enlightenment. Compassion is the state of mind, which can empathize with the suffering of others and then wish that they may be liberated from all kinds of suffering. In Mahāyāna the greatest practice of all is the practice of compassion. In Lankāvtāra sutra, a Mahāyānic sutra, for those Bodhisattvas who engages in the practice of compassion, Buddha strictly forbades meat eating, explaining that : “it is not easy to find a being who, in the endless age of samsara, has not been once our father or our mother, our brother or sister, or son or daughter, kinsmen, friend, or close companion. Our kith and kin in one existence have donned a different shape in later lives and thus have become animals….It is unfitting, it is wrong, for those engaged upon the Bodhisattva path to partake of meat of one’s own friends and close ones.” For the monks, especially in Vinaya, he has recommended to abstain from any type of killing. The LEAD study commissioned by UN and several major countries in 2006 already pointed out that the livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, higher than transport. The teaching of Buddha on abstention from meat-eating and killing seems so pertinent where being vegetarian not only plays a crucial role in ethical level, but also in making a world a better place to live in, both for us and the beings that are slaughtered. However, all these ethical rules cannot be applied abruptly without a basic framework of path in which we can practice them. Buddhism is known for the abundance of paths it can provide for different people, depending upon their mental proclivity and intellectual acuity. Nevertheless, in general the Buddha delineated the entire path (fourth noble truth) which leads us towards the cessation of suffering (third noble truth) in form of noble eight fold path. Having understood the inter-dependent nature phenomena and thus giving rise to the Bodhicitta, we can incorporate these eightfold path into our day to day life not only to attain the cessation of inner suffering, but to deal with the outer problems(and sufferings) as well. Here we will try to apply them in our attempt to deal with the environmental problems and try to see if it is workable or not. right view: here can be defined as the genuine acknowledgement of the problems we are facing in relation to the environment and the proper understanding of the cause of the problem and its possible solution. right intention: can be understood as the commitment taken towards ameliorating the circumstance and changing our habitual tendencies that are detrimental to the environment or the nature. right speech: may include every verbal, written and printed form of speech, that might help disseminate the information required to make the people more and more aware about the environmental issues and make them feel responsible. right action: can incorporate all those activities that we can engage in to bring about a positive change in the environment, irrespective of its magnitude and abstaining from those activities that may deteriorate it. right livelihood: is that which excludes any livelihood that is harmful to our fellow sentient beings as well as to our environment. right effort: can be defined as a constant effort that aims towards attaining the goal of world free of any environmental crisis. right mindfulness: is one of the most important aspect of the path. It will keep us mindful about our responsibilities, about what to engage in and what to avoid. So in general it will keep us reminding us about the path as a whole. right concentration: having brought about some change in one’s own activities when confidence and certainty develops in what one is engaging in is a right way. One now can concentrate to influence the broader mass of public to engage in the same activities. However, these teachings and doctrine would obviously not work for us like miracles until and unless we put them into practice. 14th Dalai Lama comments in one of his interviews: “Our ancestors viewed the earth as rich and bountiful, which it is. Many people in the past saw nature as inexhaustibly sustainable, which we now know is the case only if we care for it. It is not difficult to forgive destruction in the past which resulted from ignorance. Today, however, we have access to more information, and it is essential that we re-examine ethically what we have inherited, what we are responsible for and what we will pass on to coming generations. Clearly this is a pivotal generation.” So, if we remain oblivious about the fact that we have the pivotal role to play in preserving our earth’s environment, and do not act promptly to do something then, a time may come when we will not even be able to regret for what we ignored. Obviously, the challenges posed to us by the environmental problems today, is such a multi-faceted issue that spiritual means and ethics is only one area in a multi-disciplinary venture linked to solve it. But as spirituality and ethics is concerned with values, norms, beliefs and human psyche, they have the resources to play a major role as a catalyst in changing the attitude of people towards nature and our relation with it. If we succeed in doing this, it can deepen our relationship with nature through an understanding of inter-dependence, which would revert our present indifferent attitude towards it into a caring one. The dream of a heaven like world with abundance of greenery, bountiful of fresh water resources, food enough for everyone, and clean air to breath in, would then no longer remain a dream but would materialize into reality that we can perceive in a wakeful state too. Bibliography Padmasiri de Silva, Environmental philosophy and ethics in Buddhism. (Macmillan Press Ltd: 1998) Allan Hunt Badiner, ed. Dharma Gaia. (Parallax Press: 1990) Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangdrol, Food of Bodhisattavas (Shambhala: 2004) Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Buddhist Monastic Code vol. 1 and 2 (Access to Insight edition: 2007) Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia (electronic version: 2008) Nāgārjuna, Bodhicitta Bhāvanā (Central Institute Of Higher Tibetan Studies: 1995) Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Home Entertainment: November 21, 2006) Thich Nhat Hanh, For a Future To Be Possible (Parallax Press: 1993)

Interdependence, nonviolence and contentment: A buddhist approach to better environmental ecology

- Mukunda Bista

Ah, World! It’s in your lap we do our lives and deaths—

It’s on you we play out our pleasures and pains.

You are such a very old home of ours;

We treasure and hold you dear forever.

----Gyalwang Karmapa XVII

As the 17th Karmapa puts it, the earth is indeed our home, a very old one. It has remained hospitable for life for billions of years. That’s why we called it “The Mother Earth”. It is not only the mother for the mankind but for the colossal number of beings who live on it. Like a kind mother, it provides us with everything we require to sustain our life. The natural environment of this earth sustains the life of all beings of the world. This earth is a sanctuary in which humanity and nature can live together in harmony. For our ancestors nature of earth was the mother earth, she was not something who is alien, nor was she mute or dead they considered her as a living entity, thus they cared for her and respected her as their own biological mother, or ever more. This was the basis which was able to bring about a balance between man and nature. They acknowledged that man is not different from nature but he is a part of nature.

As human started being more and more civilized and started considering himself much more higher that the other species living on earth, he initiated his journey of seeking happiness in more complicated from of materialistic as well as economic pleasure, and this he thought would come about by harnessing the resources of nature. He tried to extract as much material resources as possible from the nature and to cash them in. For him having became rather more sensible than his own well-being. This desire of having guided by a pseudo-scientific principle of limitless economic growth made him the “most dangerous species” on earth. He, not realizing that these factors are antipathetic to basic laws of nature, forgot the respect which his forefathers gave to nature. This lack of respect, which resulted from greed and ignorance about the broader picture of reality on the other hand, resulted to the destruction of nature and natural resources.

This is the harsh reality of what we human constitute of, in present situation. We imagine that our economic up growth and social environment is above and beyond the rest of the living world. We have become oblivious about the fact that we have to treasure and hold the mother earth dear forever(as Karmapa says), that the harmony in our life comes about not with this anthropo-centric attitude but rather through eco-centric approach, about which our forefathers were quite well aware of. Peace and survival of not only life on earth but the earth itself has been threatened by human activities which lack a commitment to humanitarian values.

Environmental breakdown is now vast and global in scale. Most scientists now agree to this fact that if this aggressive approach of man towards nature continues at its present rate, the result will be irreversible damage to the ecological cycles and balances in nature upon which all life depends. Imminent and anomalous environmental change is now a scientifically established fact. What we do today with our environment has consequences that might bring about quite a harsher picture of our mother earth, which might be so wrathful that we will not even be able to witness it. We have to make choices today that will not only affect our own lives now, but even more the lives of our children and grandchildren. We now know enough to recognize that there are large risks, potentially catastrophic ones, including the melting of ice-sheets on Greenland and the West Antarctic (which would place many countries under water) and changes in the course of the Gulf Stream that would bring about drastic climatic changes. Prudence and care about the future of our children and their children requires that we act now. Scientists warn that fundamental, and perhaps drastic, changes in human behavior will be required to avert an ecological crisis.

Buddhism has much to offer in the quest for answers to this imminent ecological crisis. If we seek for a conducive approach in Buddhism to ameliorate this formidable problem, then it probably would provide us with an approach which it suggests, to deal with all the problems we face in life in general. With this Buddhist approach we can reduce any vague problem into few objective challenges which could be tackled. This approach consists of tools which would allow us to diagnose the problem and then seek its possible solution within a logical framework.

Buddhism reduces the cause of every problem, related with the suffering, to ignorance. Whenever there is a problem resulting ultimately to suffering, it is due to the lack of understanding of the nature of the cause of suffering or the nature of problem so to speak. Buddhism from the very onset of its historical journey was aware about this imminent threat that human could cause to the nature by being ignorant about its working mechanism. So our teacher, the buddha being fully aware about the law that governs every phenomenon in existence, he incorporated it into his own teaching, and that teaching is called the law of Interdependent origination.

Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature. Not only myriad forms of life, but the most suitable level of material phenomenon is also governed by law of interdependence. All phenomenon, from the planet we inhabit to the oceans, clouds, forests and flowers that surround us, arise in dependence upon suitable patterns of energy. Without their proper interaction, they dissolve and decay. Scientists have corroborated this fact of interdependence by saying that we human being rely on the whole pyramid of biological life beneath it. Therefore, the destruction of whole ecosystems is suicidal for our species. Defiance of the interdependence has not only harmed the natural environment, but human society as well.

There is of course a natural desire for peace and happiness in every one of us. Peace and happiness could only be attained by means of the awareness about the law of interdependence. This is not something which came into existence only after Buddhism commenced. However, our teacher, the Buddha, was so very aware about this fact that he incorporated this law of interdependence as the very basis of his seminal doctrine.

In Buddhism we find that everything is connected and inter-related. Essentially there is nothing greater or smaller hierarchically than any other thing existent in phenomena. Buddhism rejects thus the hierarchical dominance of a human over another or humans over nature, and provides us with the basis of the ethic of empathetic compassion that respects biodiversity. Humans and animals, trees, and the earth everything works on a close yet subtle dependence of each other. Therefore, we cannot separate humanity and the environment as completely separate entities, 'man is environment and environment is man'.

Buddhist teachings speak of the container and the contained. The world is the container--our home--and we are the contained--the contents of the container the inhabitant of this home. From these simple facts we deduce a special relationship, because without the container, the contents cannot be contained. Without the contents, the container contains nothing, it's meaningless. So this metaphor also points out to the same fact that man and environment are interdependent. When we come to realize this fact that the world is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise, then we can easily build a noble, conducive environment, may it be ecological, social, spiritual, or even political. If our lives are not based on this truth, then we shall perish. To curtail such consequence buddhist teachings emphasizes a harmonious interaction between ourselves and nature, which would quite naturally lead us to a better ecological environment to live in. When we realize the urge to strike a balance to bring about this harmony then we should ponder upon our actions that we commit in relation to the environment.

The basic five precepts which every Buddhist should observe would work as a handy tool to deal with this problem. These five precepts can be epitomized under a single principle of non-violence which simply means abstaining from all those deeds which might interfere or harm the peace or happiness of other fellow beings. After all, we are also part of nature, and we need to maintain a healthy concern for our own welfare and that of fellow beings. However, with the awareness of the consequences of our actions, we have a great responsibility to use the resources provide to us by nature in as harm-free and useful a way as possible. Right use of nature is part of the spiritual life.

Our attitude towards the usage of the natural resources has a direct connection with the environment. Buddhism teaches us not to indiscriminately consume whatever we desire. The Buddhist attitude is one of contentment. It advices us to put a wise limit on our consumption of the resources. It admires simple living and our being aware about individual responsibility. It teaches us to considered ourselves as part of environment. Happiness is possible if we live full of contentment. Buddha himself has emphasized the importance of content state of mind. If the body is not comfortable and contented, we may just ignore it but not in case of mind. The mind resists and revolts on being ignored and needs mental peace. The peace of mind leads to contentment and it is the calm and serene atmosphere, which bestows mental peace. So once again we come to see a cyclic relation existent between us and nature. We care for the nature and the nature cares for us in return.

Eventually, with few of these simple advices that Buddhism provides us, if we begin to deepen our relationship with nature through an understanding of this interpenetration of interdependence, and live more in harmony with our environment using the principle of non- violence based on contentment then a growing awareness of nature may begin to feed into our spiritual practice. Our ability to develop as individuals closely bound up with the environment may start to be our human nature once again.

References:

The Buddha and his dhamma, Ambedkar, B.R. (1957)

Reconciling man with nature, Ashby, E, .(1977)

Encyclopaedia of Buddhism : A World Faith: Vol. IV: Buddhism and Environment, M.G. Chitkara (2000)

Buddhism and Environment, BAEA, (1999),

The Most Dangerous Animal, D. Livingstone Smith (2007)

Environmental Philosophy and Ethics in Buddhism, Padmasiri de Silva(1998)