A Task for Mindfulness: Facing Climate Change

This article presents a Buddhist perspective on the challenge posed by climate change, with particular emphasis on the role of mindfulness. Based on translated excerpts from parallel versions of early Buddhist texts extant in Pāli, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan, three possible reactions to climate change are correlated to three root defilements recognized in early Buddhist psychology: greed, anger, and delusion. Their recognition requires mindful monitoring, which is in turn based on the compassionate intention for the absence of any harm. The noble eightfold path sets the context for the collaboration of such compassionate intention with the cultivation of mindfulness. According to a simile of two acrobats, such cultivation of mindfulness provides the foundation by establishing the balance within oneself that then enables helping others.