This heaven on earth

No element can live independently. Thus we cannot live separately from the environment. The perception that there is a division between us is completely wrong and leads us to adopt a violent, adversarial attitude toward nature. Only when we realise that all elements of existence depend on each other can we shun this attitude.

Becoming friends with the environment and taking care of it are not possible simply through the sort of do-good campaigns heard on radio and seen on television and in the print media. Promoting love of the environment through such publicity is meaningless in practice if the recipients of the message lack fundamental wisdom about nature. Only when we realise that all elements are linked in the same network, that we must show love and compassion toward the environment and use its bounty in a sustainable manner, can real change occur.

Many people come to love the environment out of sentiment, remorseful that it is disappearing, or out of awe because nature is turning abnormal and wreaking havoc. This is more compartmentalised thinking – it still perceives the environment as something separate from us. 

We should love the environment because it is a part of us. We are the environment and the environment is us. It exists within us and we exist in it. 

We should all take the time to seek within us the truth that we “come from all things that are not us”. This is called sabbe dharma anatta. The food we eat, which forms us, comes from the earth, the water and the forest – as minerals, marine life, grass, leaves, cattle, swine, deer, insects and the branches and twigs of plants.

The water we drink and with which we wash comes from the clouds, rain, the trees, brooks, mountain springs and from under the earth. The air we breathe comes from the forest, the greenery exposed to the sun and the moon. The Four Elements that compose all things – earth, water, fire and air – come from the environment. Without the environment, there would be no “us” at all.

Yet how many of us have a delicate enough spirit to recognise the sacrifice that the elements of the environment make? When we start to see ourselves in the environment and the environment within us, that’s the beginning of a sustainable love for nature. It’s the turning point on the path to coexistence.

Founded upon this corrected understanding, ecology campaigns are more substantial and all of us become partners in taking care of the environment with love, because conservation is love of ourselves. 

Only people who do not love themselves mistreat the environment. It is not our slave, existing merely to satiate our needs. We can make use of its resources, but not abuse them. The environment is our benefactor, our parents, our cousins, ourselves.

The fate of the environment is our own fate. When we use its resources, we must be aware of the sustainability of our use. We must consider the time required for the environment to heal itself, just as we give ourselves time to recover from an illness. We must think of our offspring in the future, and all the future generations that will follow. We must not consume resources as though we are the last humans on earth. 

Every meal we eat, every drop of water we drink, every garment we wear, every breath we take should be filled with thoughts of future generations, in line with the Lord Buddha’s admonition, “Eating alone is lack of happiness.” Only with such awareness and a sense of gratitude can our world retain its status as Heaven on Earth, with resources for us to harvest forever. 

 

>>> This was the second in a two-part essay on “Nature as religion”. Part 1 was published on August 4.

 

>>> This column by prominent Buddhist preacher Phramaha Vudhijaya Vajiramedhi, better known by his pen name V Vajiramedhi, appears on the first Sunday of every month.