[Buddha-l] Ecological Buddhism (Link)

[jkirk]

 Hi--if you want to read a good one by Aitken Roshi,
the link for him (andothers) is on left sidebar of this page:

<http://www.ecobuddhism.org/spiritual-wisdom.php?id=1>
He's 91 and looks great--(neat photo)--I had no idea he'd been
around us
so long.

Excerpt:
Joanna [Macy] finds that many people (especially those drawn to
Eastern paths) have developed notions about spirituality that
hinder them from realizing their power to effect change.  Among
the 'spiritual traps' that cut the nerve of compassionate action
are these:

1. That the phenomenal world of beings is not real.  With this
view the pain of others and the demands on us that are implicit
in that pain are less tangible than the pleasures or aloofness we
can find in transcending them. 

2. That any pain we may experience in beholding the world derives
from our own cravings and attachments.  With this view, the ideal
way to deal with suffering becomes nonattachment to the fate of
all beings, not just nonattachment to matters of the ego. 

3. That we are constantly creating our world unilaterally through
our subjective thoughts.  Confrontation is considered negative
thinking, acceptance is positive.  Therefore it is concluded that
when we confront the injustice and dangers of our world we are
simply creating more conflict and misunderstanding. 

4. And the corollary, that the world is already perfect when we
view it spiritually.  We feel so peaceful that the world itself
will become peaceful without our need to act. 

Shackles and traps drop away in such lucid exposition of Wrong
Views.  Our responsibilities stand forth clearly.
-------------------
Envisioning the Future
[The Morning Star 2003]

Great corporations, underwritten by equally great financial
institutions, flush away the human habitat and the habitat of
thousands of other species ruthlessly....International consortia
rule sovereign over all other political authority. Presidents and
parliaments and the United Nations itself are delegating
decision-making powers and oversight that enable faceless and
increasingly unaccountable corporations to plunder resources and
pillage economies.

Citizens of goodwill everywhere despair of the political process.
The old enthusiasm to turn out on election day has drastically
waned.  In the United States, fewer than 50% of those eligible
cast a ballot. It has become clear that political parties are
ineffectual-and that practical alternatives must be found.

We can begin our task of developing such alternatives by meeting
in informal groups within our larger Sanghas to examine politics
and economics from a Buddhist perspective. It will become
apparent that traditional teachings of interdependence bring into
direct question the rationale of accumulating wealth and of
governing by hierarchical authority. What, then, is to be done?

Something, certainly. Our practice of the Brahma
Viharas-kindness, compassion, goodwill and equanimity would be
meaningless if it excluded people, animals, and plants outside
our formal Sangha. Nothing in the teachings justifies us as a
cult that ignores the world. We are not survivalists. On the
contrary, it is clear that we're in it together with all beings.

The time has surely come when we must speak out as Buddhists,
with firm views of harmony as the Tao. I suggest that it is also
time for us to take ourselves in hand. We ourselves can engage in
the very policies and programs of social and ecological
protection and respect that we have heretofore so futilely
demanded from authorities. This would be engaged Buddhism where
the Sangha is not merely parallel to the forms of conventional
society and not merely metaphysical in its universality.This
greater Sangha is, moreover, not merely Buddhist. It is possible
to identify an eclectic religious revolution that is already
underway, one to which we can lend our energies.