This week on The Buddhist Centre Online and the Dharma Toolkit we are marking Earth Day - all week long! Here's the first episode in our specially commissioned mini-series of podcasts to be released through the week: "Hair On Fire: Using the Threefold Way of Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom to Turn Toward Climate Change".

Episode 2 looks at Buddhist responses to climate change from the perspective of meditation.

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These podcasts were produced by our friend Mary Salome in San Francisco. She writes:

This series is not a debate about climate change. It's a reflection on practice in the context of climate change.

Unless you are isolated from world news, you are likely practicing in contexts where discourse around climate change is prevalent. Even those who do not believe in climate change, or don’t believe that human activity impacts climate, are in range of this discourse. This series offers reflections from sangha members who answered an appeal for interviews on how they engage with the topic in their practice. It is my hope that the framework of ethics, meditation and wisdom will provide something useful to people across a spectrum of beliefs.

As a kind of disclosure I will add that I do believe climate change is happening, that it is impacted by human activity, and that turning toward it is helpful on many levels. Every creative effort comes from a point of view, and that is mine. I am certain my beliefs have informed these pieces, as has everything else that has shaped my becoming.

I included the details presented in these interviews to provide context for how people understand the topic of climate and engage with it in their practice, rather than as fact. I encourage everyone to do their own research. I appreciate the work that many sangha members are doing to clarify their understanding and turn toward the issue (or not). I am deeply grateful to the people who allowed me to include their voices here.

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Intro module voices in order 

Eva Soncin reads David Whyte's poem ‘Enough’ from Where Many Rivers Meet Copyright © 1990 David Whyte.

With permission from David Whyte and Many Rivers Press.

Padmatara reads Naomi Shihab Nye's poem 'Shoulders' from Red Suitcase. Copyright © 1994 by Naomi Shihab Nye.

BOA Editions Ltd. Recorded with permission.

Music and sound effects 

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Check out our Dharma Toolkit space for details of all we have on offer to help you make it through the weirdness and stay inspired.

Come meditate with us any week day!

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