Such a familiar sound.Black bear digging for pine cones.The folding of the earth’s crust, no onewas there to show them how to tie a knot orsew a pelt. Under extreme pressure, the edgesof eons rubbed against each other, the touch ofan earthquake on the elbow and a volcano inbetween the toes. Deep trenches keeping us fromseeing each other. […]
environment
The Earth Which Preceded Us
From australianmuseum.net.au Insects are on your family tree. Ladybug ancestors and crustacean offspring.A family tree is years of hesitation. From microbes to plants. A chain ofinnumerable mutations. Flatworms andsponges following the design of turtle arms. We are part of a family tree that is more thana metaphor. The birds feed off our limbs. The Cycads and Conifers spread in every direction.Damp, […]
2019: A Year for Pastoral Caregiving to the World
Today we published a Buddhistdoor View advocating a “pastoral” perspective on the world. In the editorial we mean “pastoral” in its broadest, oldest possible sense: the act of listening and bearing witness, beyond even its common religious connotations, modern psychotherapeutic applications, or activist implications. This is the space of the shepherd: ever guiding yet ever open. […]
Are Vegetarian Diets Becoming a Global Trend?
Sun Ma It seems that the world is slowly but surely becoming vegetarian. According to some surveys, the percentage of vegetarian population (including ovo-lacto vegetarians) in various countries is rising. At the top of the list, at least according to some references listed on Wikipedia, is India, with 38% of Indians being vegetarians. Other countries […]
Tugging on Our Feelings about Climate Change?
Like many people following the news today, I find myself deeply worried about climate change. Scientists are offering more and more dire warnings about what to expect in just 10 to 20 years. And we’re actually experiencing weather events that have never or only extremely rarely before occurred: the massive Typhoon Mangkhut that slammed into […]
Moral laziness, vegetarianism, and government intervention
This month Thomas Wells, a philosophy professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, offered a plea for more active government intervention in our lives. He couches his request in the language of ethics: particularly his own moral laziness. He writes: Some years ago, for instance, I worked through the arguments around animal rights and decided […]
Squawking about climate change
When I was in Australia recently, a good friend—someone I know to be very well informed as well as very generous—accused me of “squawking” about climate change, and of being one of those people who go around trying to frighten people by talking about a coming apocalypse, while ignoring the fact that as much is […]
Plastic-free Friday
(Photo by Brett Stanley Photography) “Do we need anything from the shops?” I ring home from Waitrose, half way through my shopping. “Maybe some tomatoes and salad leaves. Remember it’s plastic-free Friday.” Today is the first Friday since we joined the campaign run by Friends of the Earth, highlighting the impact of plastic on the environment. Every […]
David Loy and Donald Trump
Graham Lock Having recently reviewed David Loy’s latest book, I wasn’t intending to talk about him again so soon. Nor was I intending to add my voice to the howls of anguish following the election of Donald Trump. However, Raymond Lam, Buddhistdoor’s senior writer, recently sent me the transcript of a talk called “The Bodhisattva […]
Food, Change, and Survival: What the Cockroach Teaches Us
Pixie In 1915, Franz Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis, a novel about a man who woke up one morning transformed into a verminous creature, probably a cockroach. His family is disgusted and repelled by his new form and the rest of the novel is about his struggle to adapt to the change. Why do cockroaches evoke […]