Wisdom for Saving the Planet

 

04.21.2023 WISDOM FOR SAVING THE PLANET   This Saturday marks Earth Day, an annual event that raises awareness of the condition of the Earth’s environment and our responsibility to protect it.    The reality of the state of our planet is daunting — headlines of devastating natural disasters, rising temperatures, melting glaciers, and deforestation abound. Climate anxiety is rife amongst young people, many of whom feel like they’ve inherited a planet in a once-preventable crisis. It’s easy to feel powerless against the task at hand. On days like Earth Day, when I’m starkly reminded of both Earth’s beauty and the devastation it’s facing, the famed wisdom of one of my own beloved childhood figures, Mr. Rogers, comes to mind: “Look for the helpers.” In the face of climate change, it’s the “helpers” who’ve stood up to take action against our planet’s destruction that move me from a state of despair to inspiration. The wisdom shared by the three earth heroes featured below call us toward a a collective spiritual awakening for the sake of our planet, advocate for a renewed reverence for the earth, and highlight the meaningful actions — like the Zen priest planting trees in war-torn Ukraine — we can undertake to make a change, together.   As physicist and environmental activist, Dr. Vandana Shiva, says in her talk below: “We have to stop making war with the earth and start making peace with the earth… we are alive because the earth is alive.”   —Lilly Greenblatt, Digital Editor, Lion’s Roar

Watch: Dr. Vandana Shiva’s Wisdom for Our Environmental Crisis Physicist, environmental activist, and author, Dr. Vandana Shiva speaks passionately about the wisdom of interdependence and the environmental crisis, and how an understanding of interdependence can help us address the most pressing issues facing humanity today. Dr. Vandana Shiva: I have spent the last 40 years saving seeds, promoting an ecological agriculture that I now find is not just the practice of care for the earth, but is the answer to so many of the multiple crisis we face. The climate crisis, the biodiversity extinction, the hunger, the disease crisis, the new epidemics, the new infectious diseases, the new chronic diseases that are taking their toll. We are of the earth. We are earth beings. We are alive because the earth is alive. The earth gives us life and it’s through life. We are interconnected both through other beings as well as to our fellow humanity. We are part of nature. We are not separate from nature. We are not the masters of the earth. We are not her conquerors. Living in war with the earth is the reason we are in the predicament we face today.

Joanna Macy on the Great Awakening the Planet Needs Lion’s Roar editor-in-chief Melvin McLeod talks to renowned Buddhist thinker and environmental activist Joanna Macy about the global awakening the planet needs—while we still have time. At heart, it’s a spiritual revolution. Melvin McLeod: We’re up to almost eight billion people on this planet and time is short. Do you really have hope that this great awakening can take place on a sufficient scale to change the direction in which we’re heading?   Joanna Macy: I find that assuring people there’s hope, including myself, is not all that useful. In Buddhism, there is no word for hope. It would be viewed as a distraction from what’s at hand. It takes you out of the present moment and into conjecture.   I think all we can really affirm is where we want to put our attention. I have a choice: do I want to give up and surrender to the great unraveling, or do I want to join those who are working for a liveable future? Since the outcome is uncertain, we have to enjoy doing something exhilarating and useful without knowing for sure if it’s going to work out.   We need to and we can find adventure in uncertainty. That’s the best we can offer right now. Uncertainty rivets the attention. It’s like walking on a narrow trail with the land falling off on either side. It concentrates the mind wonderfully.

Zen During Wartime: Sergey Washin Tsarenko on Practice in Ukraine “Life may not be the same,” writes Zen priest Sergey Washin Tsarenko about day-to-day existence in Ukraine, “but it is always worth living it fully.” Sergey Washin Tsarenko: The “Green Coast” project, which is the group of volunteers I joined about four years ago, has been active since 2016. Up to date, we have planted and cared for over 1,600 trees. I see this activity as an important part of my practice as it is fundamentally connected to my role as a priest-in-training.   In our community we like to say that planting trees is our “response weapon” to all sorts of violence and aggression. And particularly today, when we live in a state of war, we try not to forget about beauty and that our trees are also sentient beings we must care for.   In the days after the war started, there were lots of doubts about whether we might be able to continue our work because of the threat of shelling from the sea, but we decided to not stop by all means while ensuring the maximum possible safety for people on the shore.

NEW SPECIAL ISSUE! ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY.