One Earth Sangha, an organization seeking to meld environmental activism and ecology with the Buddha-dharma, is offering an online course to train as an “EcoSattva.” According to the organization’s website, its mission is to “support awakening and responding to climate change and other threats to our shared home through education, sustainable living and advocacy,” and to “explore the teachings of the Buddhist path and how they can inform, support and motivate this work.” The course will consist of eight online meetings of two hours each to be held between 10 May and 19 July.
The Buddha making the earth-touching gesture. India, Bihar, Pala period (c. 8th-12th century). From pinterest.com
The online course will be hosted by One Earth Sangha through Maestro Conference. The teachers represent a variety of Buddhist traditions. Among them are well-known author, ecological activist, and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy; rev angel Kyodo williams, teaching from the Zen perspective; Thanissara Mary Weinberg, who has been leading retreats for 25 years in the tradition of the Forest School of Ajahn Chah; Dharmachari Guhyapati and Alex Swain, from the Eco-Dharma Centre in the Spanish Pyrenees; Lama Willa Miller, who draws from the perspective of the Shangpa, Kagyu, and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism; and Katie Loncke and Dawn Haney, co-directors of Buddhist Peace Fellowship.
The course will consist of three parts. The first, entitled “Resourcing Ourselves for the Journey,” covers Refuge in our own Buddha-nature and Refuge in the sangha. The second part, “Hindrances and Potential on the EcoSattva Path,” will examine hindrances to effective climate action, how to confront climate change with skillful engagement, and the potential for climate change to heal our delusions and set us in Right Relationship. The third section, “Walking Practice,” will cover mindful engagement on the climate crisis, connecting one’s practice with ecological healing, and committing to cause. The series will end with a dedication of merit for the entire online seminar.
The course builds on a series of online “Mindfulness and Climate Action” conversations that took place under One Earth Sangha’s guidance in the fall of 2014. Regarding the definition of the term “EcoSattva,” they state: “In the face of catastrophic climate change, we as a Buddhist/mindfulness community have the opportunity to creatively define for ourselves appropriate response: response that is wise, compassionate, transformative, resolute and equanimous. To realize this potential, the community needs leaders of all kinds at all levels. This is the path of the EcoSattva.” The term was first used in a 2011 article entitled “Why the Buddha Touched the Earth,” which was written for the Huffington Post by John Stanley and David Loy. In it, they put forward the argument that Buddhists have a responsibility to protect our earth through “sacred activism,” and that this was the work of an “ecosattva.”
It is the observation of the practitioners behind One Earth Sangha that the droughts, mega typhoons, floods, fires, and ongoing extreme weather patterns that are becoming yearly events are opportunities for Buddhists to become engaged as leaders in the activity of acknowledging climate change, and helping to find compassionate solutions to the ways in which it disrupts the human social fabric. The Buddhists’ orientation to the Eightfold Path and inclination to examine reality are vital keys for leadership during this human and ecosystem crisis. Perhaps we shall see the term EcoSattva growing in use, and recognized as having value not only in Buddhism, but also in society itself.