By Johannes Cairns<\/p>\n\n
Much has been written about Buddhism and the environment at the doctrinal level. Many have proposed that Buddhism is good for the environment as it teaches virtues such as harmlessness and renunciation of material desires, and positions humans among rather than above other sentient beings. However, it is well known in behavioral research that human thoughts and beliefs do not necessarily lead to corresponding practical action. The ability of humanity to respond to climate change is perhaps the most pressing issue of our time. How then do the over five hundred million Buddhists in the world relate to the environment in practice?<\/p>\n\n
Unfortunately, Buddhists are not doing particularly well. They are underrepresented among religions in UN climate change meetings. There is no large-scale Buddhist anti climate change movement in Asia where the overwhelming majority of Buddhists reside. Traditional Buddhist culture relies heavily on lay people making material donations to monasteries to create spiritual merit. This includes building new structures and involves a lot of material throughput which contributes to climate warning. Buddhist monastics and lay people fly across the globe, often between Asia and the West, for teaching events, retreats, and pilgrimage, which has a high carbon footprint.<\/p>\n\n
Buddhists have responded to environmental issues, including climate change, just not at a sufficient scale. Buddhism has influenced deep ecology thinking, and many Buddhist-inspired ecophilosophies have been developed since the 1960s. Some Buddhist centers have also adopted environmental policies or integrated outdoors experiences as part of meditation retreats. Some Buddhists have even formed separate climate protest groups in North America, Europe, and Australia, occasionally within Extinction Rebellion. Many Buddhists in East Asia and the West are vegetarian or vegan which reduces the carbon footprint of humanity. Buddhist monastics tend to live materially modest lives and not have children, which have positive impacts on climate change.<\/p>\n\n
Why are Buddhists not responding to the challenge of climate change strongly enough? Anthropogenic climate change did not exist in the Buddha\u2019s time, and even if it had, the science to understand it would not have existed. Therefore, the Buddha did not offer any direct teachings about how to respond to such a situation. Any ecophilosophy has had to be created in the current era by drawing on particular Buddhist teachings. Moreover, for an ecophilosophy to have any impact, enough Buddhists would need to be convinced by it.<\/p>\n\n
Why then has it been difficult to convince Buddhists to adopt ecophilosophies requiring stronger action to mitigate climate change? One reason is that Buddhism has tended to adjust to the prevailing political and cultural milieu. Buddhists have tended to focus on spiritual cultivation rather than political activism. A public crisis awareness around climate change is a relatively new phenomenon, and largely limited to the younger generation in affluent Western countries. To put things simply, the public pressure to take action would have to outweigh the Buddhist tendency for focusing within.<\/p>\n\n
In some Asian Buddhist countries, many people are still focusing on survival and building decent lives for their families, and lack the education to understand the science of climate change and to follow news about current global events. Some of the countries also have oppressive regimes or ideologies of social order disincentivizing citizen movements. In such environments, Buddhists are more reliant on state-driven climate change mitigation policies to become involved themselves compared to the more individualistic West where protest movements are commonplace.<\/p>\n\n
Despite the grim current situation, the flexibility of Buddhism to the prevailing political milieu may hold the promise of a future greening of Buddhism. As state policies increasingly address climate change, Buddhists may have a high likelihood of adjusting by adopting ecophilosophies and environmental policies. Some signs of this are already evident. For instance, the Japanese S\u014dt\u014d Zen organization adopted its Green Plan already in the mid-1990s as a result of increased climate awareness following the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. More recently, the Taiwanese Buddhist Tsu Chi Foundation has adopted numerous environmental policies, including large-scale recycling, to mitigate climate change.<\/p>\n\n
The future of a green Buddhism looks good. Nevertheless, the question remains: Can the Earth afford to wait for the Buddhists to catch up to the game?<\/p>\n\n
The text is based on academic research by the author.<\/p>\n\n
Johannes Cairns Jh\u0101nasubho is a Buddhist monk who used to work as an academic researcher.<\/p>\n\n
This article first appeared in EBU Magazine #10 \u2013 Ecodharma<\/a> (Spring 2023). 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