Engaged Buddhist - Eva Wissenz

I listened to the discussion held today at the Faculty of Theology of the Univeristy of Helsinki about "Engaged Buddhist responses to the climate crisis - Negotiations among Western Buddhist climate activists". Since I am often considered an activist using impact entrepreneurship to reach my goal and since Buddhism has influenced my life to some extend, this work is of particular interest to me. Being in the parallel space of research, at the crossroad of religion, ecology, and psychology, was refreshing. Research used to be my space with literature 3 decades ago. I am happy it still exists… it’s so beautiful to be in such space protected from chaos and dedicated to thinking and understanding only. That being said, there were some disturbing things.

Indeed, when I started my journey there was Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama and Joanna Macy. 20 years later, the same ! Based on Mr Cairns’ study, the Engaged Buddhists responding to the climate crisis are very few and they are defining a kind of middle way between spiritual practice and public action. Most of the time, they are considered too spiritual for activists, and too political for spiritual people. But the Engaged Buddhists practice is a living example that climate change crisis should be addressed also from a spiritual point of view, and not only from economic, politics or innovative ones. With modesty, the author considers his work as "a starting point », which is great of course but also very sad because... 20 years have past ! I know that all combined efforts in the field of impact and innovation haven’t been enough yet to change the global warming trajectory very significantly. But it is something else to witness that this "not enough" is also present in the field of intellectual research. As an impact entrepreneur dealing with so many material obstacles, today I could see that even in spaces protected from "the world", somehow, it’s not enough.

We are not capable of overcoming old traditions to create new ones (and do we even have time for new traditions ?), and we still need lots of study, research and discussion to do our human magic and bring them to light, as if studying would reinforce them. So yes, this study can be a starting point for other in that field. But does this bring anything to Buddhism, spirituality, eco-activism or impact ? I doubt it but I’d very much like to think that it does and I’d love to learn how.

Thanks for the food for thought Panu Pihkala, Johannes Cairns and Stephanie Kaza.

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