Buddhist Insight and Action in the Age of Climate Emergency

Instructor(s): Stephanie Kaza, William Edelglass

Course Description:

The world is on fire. 

What can we learn from Buddhist teachings about how to live in the age of climate emergency? How can practices of sangha-building lay a foundation for right speech and right action in a world of ecological unraveling?

In this program, we will build a community of support, understanding, and connection that can sustain our hearts and support our ability to act skillfully and effectively in today’s world. We will turn towards the complex issues of climate crisis, consumerism, and global wealth inequity and consider how to work with climate grief and climate anxiety. We will focus on dharma practice approaches and experiential engagement with social, psychological, and spiritual aspects of climate disruption and consumer impact and privilege. 

Drawing on traditional Buddhist and contemporary resources–including the work of Joanna Macy–we will consider systemic as well as personal and community actions relevant to support resilience and stability in these turbulent times. Our focus will be on climate change and climate justice as a practice field for awakening, investigating our roles as practitioners and leaders in building capacity for the challenges of living on a warming planet.

Our intention is to build a community of support and connection to sustain and steady our hearts in a destabilized world. Whether you are just beginning this work or have been in it for some time, all perspectives and voices are welcome to this gathering.

Noble Silence:

Noble silence will be observed following each evening session through breakfast the following morning.

Experience Level:

Suitable for beginning and experienced practitioners.

About the Instructor(s):
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  Stephanie Kaza

  Dr. Stephanie Kaza is the author of Green Buddhism: Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times; Hooked! Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume; and Conversations with Trees: An Intimate Ecology. She co-edited with Kenneth Kraft, Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism and recently edited the tribute volume: A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time. She is Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies, University of Vermont, where she taught classes on religion and ecology, environmental justice, ecofeminism, and unlearning consumerism. Kaza received a prestigious Religion and Science course award from the Templeton Foundation for her course on Buddhism and Ecology.

• 

  William Edelglass

  William Edelglass is Director of Studies at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.  He publishes broadly in Buddhist studies, environmental humanities, and philosophy.  William has practiced in several different Buddhist traditions and has taught widely in dharma centers, academia, as a wilderness guide, and at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, in Dharamsala, India.  William is chair of the board of directors of the International Association of Environmental Philosophy and co-editor of the journal, Environmental Philosophy. His most recent publication is The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy (2022).