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<\/a><\/p>\nPhoto : Paul Grogan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Tibetan Buddhist philosophy highlights the importance and significance of interconnections \u2013 not just among peoples but also between people and their environment. We are profoundly connected to, and dependent on, the animals, plants, microbes, as well as water, soil and rocks around us.\u00a0 Understanding and sustaining this complex web of interconnections and interdependencies is the basis for much ecological science research, but it is also one of the fundamental bases of Buddhist philosophy. Secondly, the central concept of impermanence in Buddhism is mirrored very closely in ecology.\u00a0 Genes change over evolutionary time, species evolve according to changes in habitats, and new biologically-driven and physical disturbance events are frequently occurring in all the world\u2019s ecosystems.\u00a0 Understanding and managing these changes and their impacts is at the heart of ecological sustainability.\u00a0 Thirdly, Buddhism is the most outwardly compassionate of the world\u2019s religions. We cannot live sustainably unless we are living in a way that is compassionate to each other (e.g. that promotes and respects human rights, individual dignity, and social justice), and that is compassionate to the other species in our environment. An additional perspective promoting environmentally sustainable living is that we cannot live sustainably unless we are compassionate to the future humans that will live on Earth.\u00a0 In other words, if we are mindful of the negative impacts that our current environmentally destructive activities will have on future ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/photo-by-Paul_tibet-nature-article03-300x169.jpg\")
generations, then we are likely to live in a more environmentally benign way.<\/p>\n
Western society has reached its current state of \u2018progress\u2019 by focussing primarily on the \u2018parts\u2019 rather than the \u2018whole\u2019.\u00a0 Extraordinary technological developments have been achieved, but they focus primarily on benefitting individuals rather than society as a whole.\u00a0 Consequently, we tend now to approach each environmental problem separately (e.g. developing the use of renewable solar and wind energy to replace fossil fuels).\u00a0 These individual initiatives are good, but they do not directly address the one fundamental issue that underlies all global environmental issues – human behaviour. How ought we to live in order to achieve an environmental and socially sustainable existence for our civilisation? The very common Buddhist mantra \u2018Om Mani Padme Hum\u2019 can be interpreted as \u2018May Compassion and Wisdom arise within me\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Compassionate and wise living \u2013 truly aware and mindful of the impacts of each and all of our activities on each other, on the biotic and abiotic environment, and on future generationswould result in much slower, gentler, and therefore more mature lifestyles.\u00a0 This is what the Earth needs, and we can rise to the task by suppressing our base genetically driven traits for competition, greed, and population growth. Tibetan Buddhist philosophy provides a distinctive and extremely valuable perspective on how to live that matches the principles of ecologically sustainable living.\u00a0 Therefore, Tibetan Buddhists should be very proud of this heritage. And the rest of the world needs to wake up to its enormous potential to help humanity acknowledge and address the fundamental root cause of the global environmental crisis.<\/p>\n
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By\u00a0Paul Grogan<\/em><\/p>\nPlant and Ecosystem Ecologist<\/em><\/p>\nDept. of Biology,<\/em><\/p>\nQueen’s University, Kingston, Canada.<\/em><\/p>\nReferences:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nBstan-\u2018dzin-ryga-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV. 2005. The Universe in a Single Atom \u2013 The convergence of science and spirituality.\u00a0 Harmony Books, New York.<\/em><\/p>\nGrogan, P. 2013. Our Anthropocene Future – What can biology tell us?\u00a0Free Inquiry. February\/March issue. Vol. 32 (2):16-19. Council for Secular Humanism. New York.\u00a0(PDF<\/a>)\u00a0http:\/\/www.secularhumanism.org\/index.php?section=library&page=index_33<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Earth is undoubtedly facing a global environmental crisis. Human activities are changing the climate, melting the glaciers,clearing the forest, exterminating many species, creating antibiotic resistance, polluting our water sources, and moving species into new…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-tibet-environment","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1871"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2191,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions\/2191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"photo-by-Paul_tibet-nature-article02-300x168\"](\"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/photo-by-Paul_tibet-nature-article02-300x168.png\")
The Earth is undoubtedly facing a global environmental crisis. Human activities are changing the climate, melting the glaciers,clearing the forest, exterminating many species, creating antibiotic resistance, polluting our water sources, and moving species into new locations where their success becomes a problem.\u00a0 Most people are concerned about this crisis but are struggling to find effective solutions, and are greatly overwhelmed by the sheer scale and complexity of the individual problems.\u00a0 As a research scientist studying ecology in Europe and North America over the past 30 years, I understand these problems more than most.\u00a0 But I have come to learn recently through reading and hearing teachings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama that Tibetan Buddhism in particular provides a very powerful over-arching framework to address this crisis and achieve more sustainable living for our society. Why do I believe this?<\/p>\n