Buddhist contribution to solving environmental problems

Author: Ven. Thich Gia Quang, Deputy Secretary General of Vietnam Buddhist University at Ha Noi

45qb8xcwyf

Contemporary Environmental Issues

Science and technology have made amazing advances in the recent history of mankind. Numerous scientific and technological developments being applied to manufacture consumer goods and controlling everyday life activities have helped us in realizing a dreamlike life. These developments and great discoveries in the fields of electronics, information technology, transportation and entertainment industry have helped in changing the world, and making it wealthier day by day.

However, all these technological achievements have also brought a number of negative aspects in their wake, which have become serious issues seeking our immediate "attention. Among the most prominent ones is the environmental pollution, which is threatening not only the advantages achieved by these technological developments, but also affecting millions of people's living conditions worldwide, causing havoc and becoming a global issue of concern.

Environmental pollution is no longer an isolated problem. It has come to affect both the natural environment as well as the social life. It is not just the air we breathe, but also the soil and water are being polluted. It is the cause of environmental imbalance leading to the unprecedented natural disasters in the history - such as the recent floods in Bangladesh, China, USA and Vietnam; droughts in the South Eastern regions of the USA; floods in Mexico and in The People's Democratic Republic of Korea; mud slides in Indonesia, stormy rains in South Asia, earthquakes in Peru, forest fires in Indonesia, Greece and so on. Climate change experts warn that billions of people will have to face shortage of food and water, while threats of floods would rise.

Several species of plants and animals will become extinct. Air and water pollution have become so serious in many parts of the world today we find the existence "'Cancer villages". A rise has been noted in a number of unexplainable diseases which were unheard before. Fish cannot live in rivers and the lands cannot be cultivated because they are seriously polluted. There are several reasons for environmental pollution, but we can easily pinpoint the rapid and mindless focus on economic growth as the main reason behind the increasing imbalance in nature leading to climate change. In different countries with their diverse standards of economic developments, the pollution of natural environment has peculiar causes, such as pollution due to the lack of balanced lifestyles. Overabundance of food and consumer goods also causes pollution. Twenty per cent of wealthy people of the world living in rich countries are using eighty per cent of natural resources and energies of the planet.

Industries and manufactures are prospering greatly, too, putting stress on natural resources. Various transportation activities also discharge poisonous substances to the environment. Several recent environment summits on environment have failed to persuade rich nations to share their capabilities with the poorer countries in order to solve environmental problems.

Poor Bear the Burden of Pollution

Although poor people constitute 80% of the world's total population, they consume merely 20% of natural resources and energies. To survive, people in poor countries are exploiting the natural resources like forests, soil, minerals so extensively, causing irreparable loss.

Asian - European co-operative Meeting on climate change in January 2002 in China considered poverty as the greatest challenge for environment preserving activities.

So, both the rich and the poor are creating conditions for polluting (ho environment in their efforts towards development. Manufacturing processes discharge a lot of waste, (chemical water, gases, concrete substances). The discharges contain poisonous substances which pollute and cause decay, or create other serious environmental problems.

Huge amount of hazardous waste is being generated in the environment due to the man's senseless consuming activities. These vaste materials pollute the environment, if not processed rightly. The question remains as to how we are going to harmoniously resolve the right balance between development and environment preservation. To develop stably, we cannot exploit the nature excessively, which results in destroying resources and environment. We must adhere to clean manufacturing practices. The environment treaties must go hand in hand with manufacturing developments. We also must preserve animals and plants, coring for the biological diversity and continue to increase our awareness and action for environment preservation simultaneously.

Buddhist Solution to Environmental Problems

Being Buddhists, we all know that the Buddha's teachings do not ooiiic down from Heaven, but were found for the benefit of human beings, Buddhism exists for the sake of mankind. Consequently Buddhism is the way to solve human issues, including environmental problems.

Of late, we have come to live in a world full of threats like regional conflicts among different civilizations and environmental pollution. Confronted with a world full of these problems, what must we do? We must find a way to save ourselves from all these dangerous conditions. Buddhism offers the path and solution—the way shown to us 2552 yours ago. This way is Buddhism.

Since economic benefits became the chief motivating force overlooking basic social values, human actions have become more rapid and more brutal in their interaction with communities and the world. Spiritual considerations as well as moral and human factors are uprooted. The younger generations growing up in such an environment, will eventually be physically over-fed but mentally disabled since they do not possess the true faith to protect and educate them.

This disability is pitiable. Buddhism wishes to communicate and share this concern with all societies.

It is not only recently that we have become aware of the pending environmental disaster which seriously threatens the stability of the world. We have been aware of this problem for a long time and now the issue has come to haunt us a serious crisis. The concern today should not be of finding faults, or criticizing by terming the issue as right or wrong, just or unjust. It is vital for us to seek its causes and find solutions to restore the environmental balance for the posterity's welfare.

It is imperative to predict the consequences in the absence of any serious intervention in this regard. Environmental pollution could happen everywhere, at any time. The lives of hundreds of millions of people will be terminated as this problem reaches its peak. Therefore, the importance of a clean and healthy environment for our living conditions cannot be ignored anymore and which currently appears a luxurious notion.

Confronted with endless suffering, religions were founded bearing the characteristics of "The Saviors". Religions are not just mere ideas created for people to take refuge when they have difficulties, but they play a very important role in regulating human behaviors. Buddhist philosophy directs people to Truth-Goodness-Beauty; it directs the world to peace, impartiality, comfort, happiness and a healthy environment to live in. Buddhism guides human beings to do good deeds and lead a harmonious life with one's surroundings.

To conclude, during forty nine years of preaching, the Buddha clearly said that He had taught only two Truths: Suffering and the Cessation of Suffering.

Environmental pollution disturbs the ecological balance which becomes a cause of suffering. Taking action to save our environment from its current state of negligence and misuse, means ceasing sufferings in the long run. Our Buddha wanted to use his teachings to guide people to seek peace and happiness in healthy environments.

As we all know. Buddhism is not merely a faith for people to hope and to pray for a better future, but it is the religion of Wisdom which contains practical methods to help human beings to transform their difficulties and their sufferings for themselves, for their families and the society. Overcoming the current state of environmental pollution means n happy life for the mankind. Buddhism is the method of transformation, the method leading to the cessation of suffering, enlightenment and happiness. If we wish to find the way to cessation of suffering, enlightenment and happiness, we must actively take part in protecting the living environment. We must practice the "Eightfold Noble Path" as propagated by the Buddha. We must apply the Eightfold Noble Path teaching as a remedy for worldwide problems, including the environment issue. The Eightfold Noble Path teaching is one of the basic foundations of Buddhism and consists of:

1. Right View: to see and to know things as they are. To see the importance of living environment.

2. Right Thought: to think rightly. This means we have to think of things beneficial for the environment.

3. Right Speech: speaking rightly. This means we only speak useful words which are good tor transforming environmental conditions.

4. Right Action: activities which do not harm any man or animal, and bring happiness. Not doing bad deeds, nor polluting the environment.

5. Right Livelihood: making a livelihood rightly. We must lead a way
of life that does not harm any man or any animal, or destroys nature.

6. Right Effort: four diligences, which are four laborious actions to weaken the bad intentions, to strengthen good ones, to less harmful deeds for environment and to increase what is good for it.

7. Right Mindfulness: to contemplate justly, to keep what is good for environment in our mind.

8. Right Concentration: to meditate rightly.

If we make use of the light of Eightfold Noble Path to reflect upon the environmental problems then we practice in accordance with these eight right practices, and we would see the cause root of the sorry state of environmental pollution.

By seeing things as they are, and not being confused by mixing imagination, we could know the cause of origination and interconnectedness of all things. We would observe that all human activities have mutual influences and are regulated by the law of Cause and Effect. For instance, if we make use of natural resources rashly, we badly influence the public environment. But when we apply right view and right thought (wisdom), we regulate our activities, our way of thinking, our speech and our actions. This means we transform wrong action, wrong thought and wrong speech which are the causes of suffering. We must create joyfulness for everybody because we have the Right Speech and Right action (precepts). When we observe the precepts we obtain wisdom, this means we have right thought, for right thought is right concentration. Right thought is the key to open the door of transformation, is the fruit of practice. Having right thought means causing no environment pollution, causing no environmental imbalance; and this also means there is no impartiality in sharing natural resources among the different countries.

The Right Thought of the Eightfold Noble Path is an effective remedy for the contemporary environmental problems.

The Vietnam government is going to ratify the National target program for environment health care until 2015. The main target of this program is to combine environment preserving activities with activities for human health care, aiming at solving the current and urgent problems of environmental health care, in order to help realize the aims at human health care.

Environmental protection has been promoted by the Party and the State government during the past decades. The coverage of trees in Vietnam has been gradually restored after being in decline for и while. We are looking forward to grow 5 million acres of trees by the year 2010, which means the coverage of trees will reach 43l% of our land. It is because we recognize those trees help in the climate moderation and in disaster reduction. At the Bali (Indonesia) Meeting the Vietnamese delegation supported the plan for declination of UMHI gases which cause greenhouse effects by opposing Indonesian forest destruction. Forests are the lungs of our planet and are water ponds for absorbing CO gas.

At the climate conference in Indonesia in December 2007, the United Nations Secretary General, and Mr. Ban Ki-Moon approached the South Pole in order to attract the world attention to environment problems. He called upon the world to act more for preserving the future of the planet. During this conference, the United Nations also called upon the countries all over the world to co-operate in environment preservation.

Buddhism considers human thought to be of great importance in milking up one's mind preceding action. Buddhism advocates using the Buddha's teachings for human mind transformation and restraining their actions. The healthy living environment is essential for harmonious human existence, and everybody should be made aware of protecting and preserving it. To keep our environment clean and fresh, it is imperative to consider mind transformation as a primary condition.

The Buddha gave us a living pattern and a treasure of his teachings (Dharma) which are highly beneficial for all living beings. But it could only be used effectively if we are always conscious and practice the Buddha s teachings wholly. We must practice the Precept "not to kill" as taught by the Buddha — not killing animals, plants, trees, and even rocks. We must respect their existence and use our natural resources wisely.Consequently, our environment will not be threatened, a healthy living environment would exist and humanity would prosper.