Sustainable Environment and Emotions
By Kevin Shen | He/him/his | Grew up with Tzu-Chi, now in Southern California and with dear friends in Dharma Seal temple
In the fall of 2021, with the COP 26 Glasgow climate talks in the backdrop, I was helping YBE plan an EcoDharma workshop centered around Buddhism and environment. I had so many questions I wanted to ask. How does Buddhism support environmental concerns, and how long might such a tradition run? Could Buddhism help build widespread consensus on environmental action? But I think the question that I really wanted answered was, "What ought I to do, now?" (and with an anxious subtext: "what if it's not enough?")
For our event we watched two films showcasing how two different communities were tackling these questions. The first film, The Way Out, followed members of the Plum Village community. The second film, Environmental Buddhism, followed a Tibetan nunnery in northern India.
One of the main characters in The Way Out is an anti-fracking activist. He is passionate and we are swept up with the fervor of his cause. We watch in horror as tap water meant for drinking, contaminated by fracking activities, catches fire. We occupy lands with the activist and his community as they resisted the police trying to remove them. We feel his rage as he gets into ever more heated arguments with the police that culminates in a face-to-face shouting match.
Suddenly the camera cuts to a monk from Plum Village. He remarks that, when we are at the front lines, it is easy to see the enemy, to see the other. But the reality is that there is no enemy. When we are confronting the "evil" in others we are confronting the same hunger that is in all of us.
"Don't make a front", the monk entreats. "Make a circle... then there is no enemy. They are also us".
“+1's” popped up on our virtual discussion whiteboard in response to the monk's mic drop. Some previously posted notes took on extra resonance, notes highlighting how we are all caught up in a system, a human-created economic ecology that keeps each of us hungry even as it tries to sate our desires and demands. The camera moves back to the fracking activist. He is still occupying the lands. But he wonders if he was channeling his energy productively. How long could he keep up his occupation for? Constant fighting is exhausting, and he turns towards his Plum Village community for spiritual support.
The film Environmental Buddhism featuring a Tibetan nunnery offered a marked change of tone compared to the first film. We hear beautiful chanting and babbling brooks. The nuns smile as they tend to their organic plants, go out to the community and lead by example. "Compassion is feeling and action," the nuns say. Another resonant quote demonstrating the nun's steady approach to environmental action: "If I can take care of the river, I can take care of the world."
In the post-film discussion many participants remarked how they found the nuns energizing and inspiring. In many ways, it was an affirmation to stay the course, to work towards that sense of interdependent good that resonates in all of us. Participants volunteered many actions echoing this sentiment: little actions matter and add up. Don't wash your face for 3 minutes and leave the tap running (as another participant in the film The Way Out did). Vote. Take care of your own personal space like you would a temple, and then extend that care to the world around you. Doing the “little things,” like taking care of the river, can help us build the diligence and fortitude to do bigger things like taking care of the world.
Listening to the participants, it dawned on me that in all of my focus on the environmental unsustainability of the economic and social systems around me, I had sorely neglected my own emotional sustainability. I am not unlike the anti-fracking activist from The Way Out:while fear and anger might give me directions and causes to fight for, the fact that I feel burnt out suggests that maybe I am running out of fuel.
Maybe anger and fear, not unlike coal, are not sustainable energy sources of emotional energy for activism.
Emotional sustainability is critical in maintaining the fortitude to sustain positive action in the face of adversity. Seemingly small actions like taking care of a temple are as much about taking care of the external environment as they are about tending to our internal emotional “environment.”
There was much to be disappointed in the COP26 climate talks, and even the more recent COP27 talks. Goalposts were moved. Government commitments were sorely lacking. But I am always surprised that in interviews with people who have dedicated decades of their lives to fighting climate change, interviewees often strike a more hopeful tone than I feel internally. By no means are these naive optimists telling us that everything would be fixed. But they all effuse a positive energy and sentiment that things are moving in the right direction, and importantly change is accelerating in the right direction. Accounting for updated industrial and national commitments for reducing greenhouse gas levels, current projections for temperature increases are in the range of 1.8-2.4 °C (https://climateactiontracker.org). This is a far cry from the desired target of 1.5 °C, but it is still a big improvement from where we were in 2014: 3.7 °C.
I can't know for certain if we will be able to solve our climate change problems. I do know, however, that any progress we've made probably would not have been possible were it not for the dedication of countless climate advocates. I am grateful for their dedication, and I can’t shake the feeling that their durable dedication was a product of their ability to sustain their positivity. There’s a sense that, even if we can’t guarantee our success, it is still meaningful to try.
This hopeful energy is modeled by Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and “climate evangelist” in Texas who brings an irresistible positivity to her public outreach. In addition to her scientific work, she has a lot of experience in communicating climate science to skeptical audiences. In an interview with the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy (https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/dr-katharine-hayhoe-how-understand-and-talk-about-climate-change-0), she spoke of the importance of hopeful motivations for long-term action. Unfortunately, much of the mainstream discourse around climate and environment is fear-based. In the short term, fear can be a big motivator for immediate, "run from the bear" kind of responses, but fear doesn't prepare us for long term action. Instead, when we are in the grip of fear we often are led to maladaptive behaviors focused on alleviating fear, such as climate denial or even cynical withdrawal: if the problem is so big, why even try?
These maladaptive behaviors suggest another side of the concept of sustainability: it can be a useful analytical lens. Sustainability does not stand alone as a pure good, for we must ask: what are we sustaining? By what means, and to what end? If we are not careful, we will all too easily get caught in the trap of sustaining the samsaric cycle of suffering. In the context of emotional sustainability, one can understand climate denial as people trying to maintain a sense of a stable and functional world. Cynical withdrawal can arise when feelings of adequacy are challenged, and is behavior that attempts to restore “balance” by justifying inaction and avoiding confronting complex challenges. In short, climate denial and cynicism are often attempts to sustain an emotional peace that is divorced from the context and realities of climate change. Emotional sustainability should not be pursued as an end in and of itself. It should be pursued with compassion for both ourselves and in the service of others.
We should, however, also be wary of fueling our activism with hopes that can prove just as unsustainable. It is oftentimes the case that cynicism is a learned response to hopes and wishes that never materialized. While hope can lift us to transcendent highs, it makes the fall into cynicism that much more painful. Hope often hurts. In many ways, cynicism is a natural response of giving up on expectations altogether. However, Buddhism might argue that this kind of broad-strokes response to expectations is un-nuanced and akuśala, or “unskillful.” After all, Buddhism is no alien to lofty aspirations like enlightenment and the Boddhisattva ideal! Instead of cynicism, Buddhism offers a variety of practices for sustaining ourselves emotionally and spiritually as we embark on long paths.
It may be that Buddhist practices like cultivating diligence, effort, and confidence can serve as guides for how to nurture our emotions as we work towards our environmental goals.
On Earth Day, we’ll likely hear about how compassion and interdependence inspire in us intense care for environmental sustainability and more nurturing ways of interacting with nature. In parallel, we should remember to work on our own emotional sustainability. Are we feeding our emotional hungers sustainably? Can we develop the emotional fortitude to sustain our actions and advocacy? Our ability to walk the path towards a healthier environment likely depends on it.
