“Let us adopt a lifestyle that emphasizes contentment, because the cost to the planet & humanity
of ever-increasing ‘standards of living’ is simply too great.”
It is difficult to fully comprehend great environmental changes like global warming. We know that carbon dioxide levels are rising dangerously in the atmosphere leading to unprecedented increases in the average temperature of the planet… Human activity everywhere is hastening to destroy key elements of the natural ecosystems all living beings depend on. These threatening developments are drastic & shocking. It is hard to imagine all this actually happening in our lifetime, and in the lives of our children. We must deal with the prospect of global suffering & environmental degradation unlike anything in human history.
If we can begin to act with genuine compassion for all, we still have a window of opportunity to protect each other & our natural environment. This will be far easier than having to adapt to the severe & unimaginable environmental conditions projected for a “hothouse” 
climate. On close examination, the human mind, the human heart & the human environment are inseparably linked together. We must recognize we have brought about a climate emergency in order to generate the understanding & higher purpose we need now. On this basis we can create a viable future – sustainable, lasting, peaceful co-existence.
Ignorance of interdependence has harmed not only the natural environment, but human society as well. We have misplaced much of our energy in self-centered material consumption, neglecting to foster the most basic human needs of love, kindness & cooperation. This is very sad. We have to consider what we human beings really are. We are not machine-made objects. It is a mistake to seek fulfillment solely in external “development.”
This blue planet of ours is a delightful habitat. Its life is our life; its future is our future. The Earth, indeed, acts like a mother to us all. Like children, we are dependent onher. In the face of such global problems as the climate emergency, individual organizations & single nations are 
helpless. Unless we all work together, no solution can be found. Our Mother Earth is now teaching us a critical evolutionary lesson – a lesson in universal responsibility. On it depends the survival of millions of species, even our own.
The destruction of nature & natural resources results from ignorance, greed & lack of respect for the Earth’s living things. Future human generations will inherit a vastly degraded planet if destruction of the natural environment continues at the present rate. Our ancestors viewed the Earth as rich & bountiful. They saw nature as inexhaustible. Now we know this is the case only if we care for it. It has become an urgent necessity to ethically re-examine what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will pass on to coming generations. We ourselves are the pivotal human generation… We must take the initiative to repair & protect this world,ensuring a safe-climate future for all people & all species. 
* You can view full article in a 2009 issue of the Shambala Sun. It originally appeared in the book “Climate Emergency” edited by John Stanley, David R. Loy & Gyurme Dorje.
* The Dalai Lama was the first to sign the Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change.
* View an hour-long video of His Holiness speaking about the impact of climate change at University of California San Diego conference.
ng them to be a different way than they are. Because we don’t know how to make sense of it all, the question might arise: Is it possible to be truly happy amidst the challenges of this mystery that we call life? It is often these unsatisfying or difficult times in life that bring us to the dharma in search of answers to this question.
see that we no longer need to be at their mercy – mindfulness helps us to not bite the hook!
“Monks, mindfulness of death — when developed & pursued — is of great fruit & great benefit. It gains a footing in the Deathless, has the Deathless as its final end. And how is mindfulness of death developed & pursued so that it is of great fruit & great benefit, gains a footing in the Deathless, and has the Deathless as its final end?
lities.
the day, then for that very reason he should dwell in joy & rapture, training himself day & night in skillful qualities.
We are engaging in the practice of contemplative awareness in relationship to a world that is fully alive. We’re no longer ignoring the beauty and intricacies of the multitude of simple things that constitute life…the convoluted network of the veins of a leaf and its wondrous undulations, the strength, intensity and delicacy of the branches that make a bush, the voluptuous curve of a red pepper, the unimaginable depth of form in a walnut or the unique lines, hills and valleys of the human foot.
longer a ‘thing’, no longer an object…no longer MY object and I am no longer the overbearing subject who objectifies things. Something else happens or has the potential to happen. The split is healed.
Stillness of mind is a refuge, a place of safety and simplicity. We dive beneath thoughts into a place we recognize as impersonal and in motion, where there is no central, fixed character, or a character at all. This is a great relief and a respite from addictive mental patterns that don’t benefit us or those around us. Mindful moving can allow us to abandon the mind’s attachment to self-dramas and enter the dynamic natural world of sensation being known. Meditating on the body is a powerful means to still the mind and to see more clearly, more deeply. Without thoughts mediating the experience of the body, we can experience the body directly feeling the hardness, softness, heaviness, lightness, coolness, warmth. We are observing and touching what the Buddha described as the underlying elemental nature that constitutes all things.
he body. The body reverberates with patterns of holding and releasing depending on the attitudes of mind. When we intentionally observe contraction with kindness and interest, we can see these forces as impersonal, like weathe
r patterns. We didn’t create them. We don’t need to control them. We just need to turn towards them and take interest. Letting go, mentally and physically, happens as we become aware of the underlying feeling tone, and the pain of clinging. What is let go of, quite naturally, is the effortful construction of a separate self –which is a house of cards that can be sl
owly recognized for what it is. There is great joy in the mind as it grows wide and drops the narrow and false perception of self – the “tiny mind” as Sayadaw U Pandita liked to refer to it.
Perhaps the most striking thing about doing writing practice – in other words, story-telling – in the context of a meditation retreat is the bearing it has on the understanding of ‘no-self’: the lack of a separate self, a central doctrine of Buddhism. The reason being that the ‘self’ as understood and experienced through meditation practice, is itself a story – one we tell ourselves over and over again until we believe it.
e-writing) is finally an enjoyable and liberating experience.
source of happiness and resilience is a sense of self-worth. When I share this with Dharma students, they often draw a blank: What does he mean by “self-worth”? Perhaps this notion is a bit mysterious. Self-worth is not linked to any accomplishments or special qualities a person may have. It has nothing to do with measuring ourselves against others. And it doesn’t come about through our own effort.
ordinary and overlooked can be the source of unassailable hope and optimism.
