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Interbeing: Precepts and Practices of an Applied Ecology

by Joan Halifax and Marty Peale Thich Nhat Hanh and the Order of Interbeing 2 This Human Form of Being 7

The Language of Duality Frameworks of Segregation Behaviors of Alienation

Environmental Activism and the Precepts: An Applied Ecology 11

The Laying Down of Arms Reacquaintance 16 Contemplative Environmental Inquiry and the Precepts: An Applied Ecology 20

Truth is Found in Life Impermanence and the Present Moment Voluntary Simplicity Communion

Interbeing 23

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Interbeing: Precepts and Practices of an Applied Ecology

by Joan Halifax and Marty Peale

In 1966, in the wake of a violent war that had raged for a quarter century, a war that left 1,500,000 countrymen dead and forests defoliated across his tropical homeland, Vietnamese Buddhist monk and renowned peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh, founded a new Order. He called it the Tiep Hien Order, the Order of Interbeing. Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings reveal the depth of the suffering he had witnessed and felt throughout his adult life—and the depth of his compassion. The Order of Interbeing is dedicated to alleviating suffering, fostering peace, raising awareness of non-duality, and raising awareness of the interpenetration of all beings. These are exemplified in the Order’s emphasis on engagement in the world and social transformation. When we, as Americans, practice with Thich Nhat Hanh (Thây), we cannot help but remember the war in Vietnam and our contribution to the suffering of that nation. And yet, Thây’s teachings have been well received here, because they indicate what we can do in response to suffering, for ourselves and others. In the Spring of 1991, after Thich Nhat Hanh had dedicated another quarter of a century of his life to teaching and engaged Buddhism on behalf of peace and compassion throughout the world, the United States bombed Iran in yet another attempt to halt injustice with violence. Thich Nhat Hanh struggled then with a decision to follow through on a scheduled teaching tour in the United States. He saw us, the people of the United States, as directly responsible for the actions of our political leaders, our oil industries, our military strategists, our pilots and servicemen. The will to help us see, even as we aggravated strife in yet another foreign country, did not come easily. On that difficult tour, Thich Nhat Hanh conducted a retreat for 250 environmentalists. In doing so, he reached out into a community of activists like himself, many of whom perceived themselves to be engaged in a war in their own homelands, a war against those who exploit the Earth’s resources. We would like to take this time with you to consider how Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings, developed in the context of a socially and environmentally devastating war, can guide those who wish to live and work with compassion for the Earth. We would like to begin by tracing the Vietnamese Buddhist roots of engagement-in-the-world, as the practice of engaged Buddhism has been fundamental to Thich Nhat Hanh’s development and the practices of the Order of Interbeing. We will consider how the Fourteen Precepts, which Thich Nhat Hanh drafted as guidelines for members of the Order, can cultivate understanding and compassion both in our advocacy on behalf of the Earth and in our intimate interrelationships with Her other forms of Being.

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Thich Nhat Hanh and the Order of Interbeing Thich Nhat Hanh is one of many practitioners and teachers of engaged Buddhism throughout the world1. He is the founder of the Tiep Hien Order, the Order of Interbeing. He is in the 42nd generation of the Lam Te (Lin Chi) School of Zen and the eighth generation of the Lieu Quan School of Zen. Let us trace the roots of these schools. Missionaries traveling from India to China during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE2) brought Buddhism to Vietnam. In 580 CE, Bodhidharma’s companion, Vinitaruci, founded his Zen School. Nineteen generations later, in the 11th Century, the national teacher in the Vinitaruci School, Van Hanh (Ten Thousand Actions), practiced and taught non-violence. Van Hanh is an important spiritual forebear of Thich Nhat Hanh’s, as we shall see. A second Zen school was founded by the Master Vo Ngon Thong in the 9th Century. Like the Vinitaruci School, this school was actively engaged in the political and social life of the nation. For many generations, monks in this lineage became great national teachers, poets and historians. In the 13th Century, the Yen Tu School was founded by the monk Hien Quang of the Vo Ngon Thong School. This school combined the teachings of the two Zen schools mentioned above and a third (the short-lived Thao Duong School). In the third generation, the Yen Tu school received input from the teachings of Lin Chi. Not long after this, King Tran Nhan Tong abdicated the throne and became a monk in the school. He later established the powerful Bamboo Forest (Truc Lam) School, which was responsible for ordaining over 15,000 monks and nuns between 1300-1329 and for advancing a form of Buddhism that was socially and politically engaged. According to Thich Nhat Hanh, the Tran Dynasty is one of the important inspirations for engaged Buddhism in Vietnam. Thich Nhat Hanh is also in the lineage of the Lieu Quan School. Master Lieu Quan emphasized the inseparability of dharma and everyday life, the inseparability of wisdom and action. When Master Lieu Quan died in 1742, he had approximately 4,000 disciples. The Lieu Quan School became the most important school of Buddhism in southern Vietnam and flourished until 1975. In 1802, King Gia Long united Vietnam. After 100 years of independence, the country fell to the French army. In 1940, communists from the North mounted an armed resistance against the French. It was at this time that Vietnamese Buddhists found themselves caught in the conflict between communism and capitalism. This continued throughout the war in Vietnam, where 1,500,000 Vietnamese were killed, and 500,000 tons of napalm and great quantities of agent orange and other herbicides were dropped on the forests and villages of the small country. In the midst of Buddhist peace work during the 1960s stood Thich Nhat Hanh. Born in 1926 in South Vietnam, Thây was 17, he entered the Tu Hieu Monastery in Hue. In 1949, he was fully ordained. Early in his monastic studies, Thây showed himself to have a liberal and experimental approach to Buddhist learning and practice. During his early years of monastic practice, he participated in founding temples, schools, publishing endeavors, and service groups, as well as working as a high-school teacher and the editor of the magazine, Vietnamese Buddhism. It was in this publication that he began to express his ideas about engaged Buddhism.

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In the early 1960s, Thich Nhat Hanh traveled to the United States, where he studied religion at Princeton and lectured at Columbia University. In 1963, he presented documents to the United Nations about human rights violations in South Vietnam. In the midst of this, a Vietnamese monk immolated himself. Shortly thereafter, a coup resulted in the downfall of the Diem regime (the “puppet” government of the French). The Diem regime had supported Catholicism and discouraged Buddhism during the seven years it was in control. After its fall, Buddhist organizations came together under the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. In 1964, the Saigon Institute of Higher Buddhist Studies was founded. At the same time, Thich Nhat Hanh returned to Vietnam at the request of Tri Quang, one of the leaders of the radical wing of the Buddhist Church in Vietnam. There he worked with other monks to establish, in 1966, Van Hanh University for higher Buddhist education. Van Hanh, we noted earlier, was known not only for his wisdom but also for his practice of nonviolence. The curriculum of Van Hanh Buddhist University reflected a broad and inclusive view both within and outside of Buddhism. Like the older Buddhist schools, both the Saigon Institute of Higher Buddhist Studies and Van Hanh Buddhist University were socially and politically engaged. During these years, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote prolifically about peace and reconciliation. In 1965, his commitment to peace and the practice of reconciliation led him to found the School of Youth for Social Service (SYSS) as a program of the Van Hanh Buddhist University. SYSS provided a context for lay Buddhists, monks and nuns to engage in social service, particularly in relation to the suffering engendered by the war. On February 5, 1966, Thich Nhat Hanh established the Tiep Hien Order and ordained its first six members. These three men and three women were board members of the SYSS, committed to peace and reconciliation. Poets, anti-war writers, composers and artists created works to inspire others in the direction of peace. There were protests against the government. Family altars were placed in the streets in front of approaching tanks. Draft resisters and deserters were helped. The Order and members of the SYSS helped to establish schools, care for orphans, aid victims of floods and victims of war. Thirty years later, Joan visited members of the SYSS and the Tiep Hien Order in Hue. She wrote,

their hair is now flecked with grey; their faces are older; they still work for human rights, the environment and the well being of others with a commitment that is fresh and visible.

The Tiep Hien Order stayed small for many years, until 1981 when the microbiologist Nguyen Anh Huong became the seventh member. Joan, herself, was invited to join the Order in 1986 and was ordained as a teacher in 1990. Today there are almost 200 sanghas around the world and hundreds of Order members.

∞ It is important to understand the name of the Tiep Hien Order, because it speaks to the rationale and realization of an engaged Buddhism. The word Tiep means “to be in touch with” and “continuation.” Hien means “realizing” and “making it here and now.” According to Thich

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Nhat Hanh, “to be in touch with” means to be in touch with reality, the reality of the world and of the mind. “Continuation” means to extend and continue the way of enlightenment. “Hien” or realization, means not to be caught by dogma or doctrine. “Making it here and now” means that love, compassion and understanding must be real in our lives. “Making it here and now” means that only the present moment is real. Thich Nhat Hanh has translated Tiep Hien as “Interbeing,” a word based on a Chinese term in the Avatamsaka Sutra. For Westerners, then, the Order is called “The Order of Interbeing.” Its name points to the the absence of a separate self identity and thus to the interconnectedness, interdependence, and interpenetration of all beings. The Charter of the Order states that “the aim of the Order is to actualize Buddhism by studying, experimenting with and applying Buddhism in modern life.” There are four principles that guide the Order:

• non-attachment to views, which Thich Nhat Hanh has called the most important teaching of Buddhism;

• direct experimentation or direct realization, through practice that brings about insight; • appropriateness, reflecting the needs of the people and the realities of society and the

world; and • skillful means, or ways in which people can practice that are appropriate to their particular

circumstances. The Charter says,

The spirit of non-attachment from views and the spirit of direct experimentation lead to open-mindedness and compassion, both in the realm of the perception of reality and in the realm of human relationships. The spirit of appropriateness and the spirit of skillful means lead to a capacity to be creative and to reconcile, both of which are necessary for the service of living beings.

Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to say that the most important element to preserve in the Order is “the spirit,” not the dogma or forms. As we mentioned above, one of the very important spiritual ancestors of the Tiep Hien Order is Master Lieu Quan. His great dharma poem, spoken shortly before his death, is at the heart of the Tiep Hien Order and is the basis for the dharma names given by the teachers in the Order. The poem reads,

The great Way of Reality is the pure ocean of the true nature. The source of Mind has penetrated everywhere. From the roots of virtue springs the tradition of compassion. Vinaya, samadhi, and prajna— the nature and function of all three is one.

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The fruit of transcendent wisdom can be realized by being wonderfully together. Maintain and transmit the wonderful principle in order to make known the true teaching! For the realization of true emptiness to be possible wisdom and action have to arise together.

According to Lieu Quan (and the Buddha), wisdom and action have to arise together. Virtue gives rise to compassion. Buddhism is concerned with the fostering of wisdom and compassion through virtuous action. This perspective points directly to the Buddhist precepts and their importance as part of the path that leads to freedom from suffering. The precepts bring us to the Noble Eight-fold Path, and the gift of the Buddha’s first teaching of the Four Noble Truths. Engaged Buddhism in general, and certainly the Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hanh, emphasizes the Four Noble Truths. The essence of the understanding of the Buddha can be found in the Four Noble Truths (in Sanskrit, arya-satya), the teachings he gave in Benares after his enlightenment. These “Truths” point to:

• the truth of the presence of suffering in conditioned existence (dukkha), • the truth of the origin of suffering (samudaya), • the truth that suffering can cease (nirodha), and • the path that leads one to the liberation from suffering (magga).

One of Thich Nhat Hanh’s most famous poems was written in 1978, while helping Vietnamese “boat people.” He composed “Please Call Me By My True Names” during a time of intense suffering. In this poem, he exemplifies the spirit of interbeing, making no moral distinction between human oppressor and the tormented, or creature or plant. Suffering is experienced by all. And we ourselves are not apart from the suffering of others. He says, “the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive.” The poem reads in part:

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving

Human suffering and the suffering of creatures and plants are not divided into greater or lesser categories. Victims of violence and hatred suffer. So also do the perpetrators of violence. Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that we are not separate from any being who suffers. Compassion is the door that opens when we recognize that we are the mayfly and the bird that eats the mayfly; we are the frog and the snake that eats the frog. We are the sea pirate; and we are the young girl being raped by the sea pirate.

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The Heart Sutra is a text that is also very important to Order members. The Four Noble Truths are in essence emptied in the teachings of the Heart Sutra in regard to the “Ultimate dimension.” It is clear, however, that from the perspective of the “historical or relative dimension,” the imperative is to eliminate suffering for ourselves as well as all beings. Thich Nhat Hanh, when he talks about “emptiness” refers to all things being empty of a separate self identity. Thus, they are full of everything. The suffering of one being, therefore, touches all beings. The Heart Sutra has another gift for the practitioner—that is freedom from attachment to the aggregates and their objects, freedom from views and all the teachings of the Buddha. The first precept of the Tiep Hien Order’s Fourteen Precepts states,

Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology, even Buddhist ones. Buddhist systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.

When asked why this was the first precept, Thich Nhat Hanh observed that harming and killing usually arise because of dogma and views. Engaged Buddhism and non-attachment to view are very much a part of the Tiep Hien Order today. Before we consider some of the ways that the Fourteen Precepts can begin to speak to environmental activists, let us look briefly at the dualism inherent in the language and concepts we use, and the behavior we exhibit, with regard to the natural world.

∞ This Human Form of Being The Language of Duality Environmentalism, by definition, sets up a division between a human being and the rest of the world. “Environment” means “that which surrounds.” While the word presents the world as an integrated context within which each being lives, it is highly problematic in that it splits organism from surrounding. While we undeniably perceive a distinction, any notion that the two are separate is dangerously misleading. Similarly, the phrase, “the natural world,” commonly refers to the non-human world. It refers to other than human beings, to places that are not yet significantly altered by human actions, and to forces and dynamics that are not subject to human control. For the purposes of this discussion, however, we propose that humans beings are a part of the natural world; we will use the phrase “the natural world” as a synonym for “the world” and “the cosmos.” To distinguish between humans and the rest of creation, we will refer to “human being” and “Being.” By “human being,” we suggest that there is a human perspective, a human lens, a human band of color in the rainbow, a human instrument in the orchestra, a human string with a note of its own through which the wind of existence blows. We suggest that we are not otherwise different or distinct from other beings or forms of energy. Because we are born and raised in the landscape of Being, our capacity to be self-conscious and articulate about it is

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limited. Inasmuch as our form is unique in the spectrum of Being, we have a valuable point of view and a voice, as do all creatures, forms and emptiness. The word “ecology,” considered by itself, means “the science of the relationships between organisms and their environments.” Literally, the word means “the study of home,” and the field of study actually includes humans along with other components of ecosystems. Unlike “environment,” the definition of ecology emphasizes relationships. It places an emphasis on the interchange but falls short of acknowledging the influences, the in-flowings, that blur the boundaries by which we rather arbitrarily distinguish things. Thich Nhat Nanh has coined the word “interbeing” to address the dynamic of interpenetration. The words “ecology” and “ecological” are often used, in not quite a strict sense, by those of us who wish to refer to the world, invoking patient attention to its details without invoking the dichotomy and the resulting emotional charge associated with “environment” and “environmental.” What do we mean when we speak of “an applied ecology”? “To apply” means “to make use of.” In the sciences, “applied” refers to research that is need-driven, research designed to generate results that will be applied to a current problem. Applied research is distinguished from “basic” research, in that the latter refers to studies undertaken for the sake of knowing, without any apparent or immediate application in mind. When we refer to “an applied ecology,” we invoke an investigation of beings, communities, landscapes, energies and systems of the cosmos. We call for an investigation characterized by attention to detail. We indicate that we wish to study natural systems, not as if they were “other than human,” but as they are “home of humans and many other beings.” We affirm that we are fully aware that such an investigation will inform our understanding of ourselves as intricately and intimately related to our world. We mean that such an investigation is need-driven and that we have a a clear intention to apply our observations in our day-to-day lives. We will suggest that there are two bodies of practice in an applied ecology. One is to heighten awareness. The other is to engage—to literally reincorporate—the insights of interconnectedness, as we move in the fabric of Being as a whole. The practice of engaged Buddhism, both contemplative and engaged, is proving to be instrumental in this work in the following two ways at least:

• Heightened awareness—mindfulness—lowers the stress that must be sustained by any system before an appropriate response becomes clear; it shortens the lag time between dis-ease and relief.

• Engagement actually weaves the human being back into the world, as one who listens, as one who responds personally to changing conditions, and as one who offers relief to other beings.

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Note here that we will not refer to “sustainability” in this exploration of applied ecology. Any notion of sustainability presumes that some thing or some dynamic can be held indefinitely in balance or in equilibrium. We are not prepared to make this assumption. Frameworks of Segregation Let us give an example of how our fundamental worldview of human as separate from the natural world constrains the way we frame questions and the way we see, even when we are dedicated to understanding the way the world works. Seven years ago, the National Science Foundation (NSF) launched a program to study the role of the Arctic in global climate change. NSF did so specifically because early models of global change indicated consistently that, with CO2 concentration increasing in the atmosphere, the Arctic would warm more rapidly than any other region of the globe. The Arctic System Science program is interdisciplinary. It reflects scientists’ awareness that we have a chance of understanding the dynamics of the global system only if we integrate the insights gained through many disciplines and, significantly, integrate the way we have come to frame questions in each discipline. The program began by integrating studies of the arctic atmosphere, oceans, land, and ice over time. Six years into the program, in November 1995, NSF brought together 40 researchers to draft a science plan incorporating “human dimensions” of the arctic system. This field encompasses questions such as “How will warming affect development of off-shore oil fields in the Beaufort Sea?” “How will thawing of arctic sea ice affect ocean temperature, salinity, circulation, and commercial fisheries in the North Atlantic?” “How do arctic communities make (and how have they made) social and economic decisions about when and how to respond to changes in resource availability?” And so on. The arctic researchers broke new ground in November, struggling with the difficulty of reconciling the differences between the disciplinary approaches, especially in this case, the differences between the anthropologists’ and archaeologists’ points of view and paradigms and those of the “natural systems” scientists. The model they generated to organize their collective research looks like this: There is a circle representing human dynamics. There is a circle representing the dynamics of the geo/biophysical world. Arrows run forth and back between the two circles, representing the interconnections between the two. The human-dimensions researchers have identified the zone of the arrows, the realm of inter-relationships, as their field of study. This may very well represent the cutting edge of institutional environmental studies in the United States as we near the close of the 20th Century. These researchers are concerned with dynamics. They are concerned with the dynamics of the global system as a whole. Most of them are already experienced in collaborative, cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research. They are unanimously agreed that the human system is intricately connected to the natural system. They

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are integrating data from the past and present, with the intent of improving our capacity to develop effective social policy on the basis of sound predictions. Given all this, the most curious and perhaps most instructive feature of this model is... it begins with two separate circles. Not two overlapping circles with a shaded region of study. Not concentric circles. Not nested circles. But two separate circles. At the close of the 20th Century, we stand outside looking in. We see ourselves as observers. Thanks to the insights of modern physics, most of us now acknowledge that “the observer influences the experiment.” But what of the notion that we are an experiment, or that we are in this experiment? ...that we are entirely within the natural world? ...that even humans are a wholly natural phenomenon, albeit very possibly a natural disaster? The Behavior of Alienation Most of us have insulated ourselves to a significant degree from the world. We have, for instance, erected walls around ourselves; installed air conditioners; invested in polar fleece; purchased vegetables raised in irrigated, monocultural plots; paved roadways; taken on addictions; and filled prescriptions for antibiotics. Yes, of course, these are themselves responses to the world, but each act is designed to minimize our exposure and sensitivity to the variability inherent in wild systems. Each is designed to create “lag time,” to increase the time interval between any shift in the world and our awareness of that shift. Our technological and psychological responses to the world are designed specifically to postpone or eliminate the need for us to be personally responsive. We marshall the Earth’s resources to buffer ourselves from the natural condition of impermanence and the natural challenge to be individually responsive to the details of changing conditions. We could say, without going into great detail, that the biosphere has a serious problem which stems from the fact that humans have attempted to distance themselves from the world as a whole. But let us refrain for a moment from judging, from calling this “a problem.” Instead, let us simply observe that the fabric of the world has frayed and worn threadbare, in its support of this highly risky experiment in a human form of Being. Being itself is not endangered, but if we humans wish to continue to participate in the world and to honor it in any semblance of the form which has generated and nourished life thus far, then we must quite self-consciously revive our practice of interconnectedness and reweave, or otherwise support the reweaving of, the fabric which includes us. We must engage, we must enlist our bodies in the work which has always been done by the biosphere as a whole. We must lend a hand.

∞ Environmental Activism and the Precepts: an Applied Ecology Perhaps, because the word “environmental” sets up a duality between organism and its surroundings, it should come as no surprise that the language of environmental activism has

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grown divisive and combative. Marty was engaged in environmental work in Alaska and Washington, DC for over 15 years. She recounts,

We spoke all the time of “losing this battle against” logging on Kuiu Island or “winning that fight against” dumping mining effluent into Berners Bay. We congratulated ourselves for “outnumbering the opposition” at public hearings. We knew how many congressmen or legislators were “in our camp” and how many we needed to “win over to our side” on any given vote. Our strategic thinkers knew where “the weakest link” was in “the opposition’s” case or coached us to “go for the jugular.” We disparaged the oil company executives, as we listened to their rationale for drilling in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And we felt absolutely justified in our vilification of the Fish and Game Commissioner’s proposal to hunt whole wolf packs with AK-47s from helicopters. We were at war, and the “veterans” had their “war stories.”

In 1986, Marty was working for the Northern Alaska Environmental Center in Fairbanks. The organization was suing the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation for failure to enforce existing water quality regulations; at issue was chronic sediment and arsenic discharge from placer-mining operations upstream from an Athabascan village. The Environmental Center was not suing miners. It was not advocating enactment of more stringent regulations. It was simply insisting that the State enforce existing regulations. The Northern Center won the lawsuit. The following day, a woman came into the front room of the little house in which the Center operated. She had two children in tow. They came in and stood there between the shelves of tee-shirts and note cards and the old metal desk, and she said, “OK, then you feed them.” They were the children of a miner whose work was suspended because the Northern Center had won that lawsuit against the State of Alaska. The woman who brought them so that the environmentalists could see them was their mother. Marty remembers,

I had to stop and sit down. I knew I could bake bread for them every week—and I knew that wasn’t what she meant. They needed more than my generosity; they needed my understanding, and they needed a way to support themselves. I began to see that there was no value in winning the environmental battles, lawsuit-by-lawsuit and bill-by-bill, if hunger, bitterness and hatred flowed in the wake of “justice.” I began to have a sense of my own insensitivity to other people, and to see the despair and anger that had grown in the absence of personal contact. I began to see that the environmental community was losing ground even as we were winning in the courts.

During the Retreat for Environmentalists, Thây responded to a question about where fighting corporations and opposing clearcut logging fits into engaged Buddhism. He said,

If you do these things as a means of educating people, then they are helpful. That is, you do not oppose someone out of your hatred, but as a means to show what damage has been

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done to the environment. But if you think that you are fighting an enemy—the businessmen, the politicians, whoever may be the exploiters of the resources of the Earth—that attitude becomes a problem, because it can only promote hatred and division (Young, 1992 in The Mindfulness Bell).

When activism takes the form of educating people, raising awareness, about the relationships between their decisions and the signs of strain in the world, then activism can be constructive. When activism includes listening, it remains rooted in humility. When activism is conducted with respect for the perspective, the needs,and the fears of those who do not see the world the way we do, it can be compassionate. When activism includes a reassessment of the way we live our own lives, it can be community-building. Let us consider what shift can occur, when we apply the precepts of the Order of Interbeing, to environmental activism. The First Precept states,

1. Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.

This suggests that, even if we have studied the ecology of the boreal forest, we must not assume that we know what is best for the forest. It suggests that neither an environmentalist nor an industrial logger knows absolute truth. It reminds us that suffering is based in beliefs that are profoundly misguided. Our world view and the knowledge informing it is often an obstacle to our deeper understanding. The First Precept encourages us to develop a stance of absolute tolerance and complete openess and to expand the boundaries our understanding. It invites us into a vital process of inquiry, reminding us that narrowness produces conflict and suffering, and that our true mandate is the freedom from suffering for all beings.

2. Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others’ viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.

The Second Precept reminds us that knowledge is relative, and we are shown the door of compassion and interbeing as a way of deepening our understanding and opening to the viewpoints of other beings. This suggests that we should not enter into a discussion with hopes of changing the minds of people who do not share our views, unless we too are open to the possibility of changing our minds in light of what they may have to tell us. It points to the possibility that what we know now might now be true ten years from now or a hundred years from now. It invites us to be open-minded and aware of the inevitability of change and the interconnectedness of phenomena.

3. Do not force others, including children, by any means whatsoever, to adopt your views, whether by authority, threat, money, propaganda, or even education. However, through compassionate dialogue, help other renounce fanaticism and narrowness.

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This precept points to freedom, freedom of thought and mind, and a call for us to respect the viewpoints of others. It also calls us to enter into "compassionate dialogue," which means truly understanding the viewpoints of others. This suggests that personal discussions based in compassion are the most effective means of informing and engaging any individual in change. Neither arguments for economic security nor new legislation are conducive to broadening understanding and building community.

4. Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering by all means, including personal contact and visits, images, sound. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world.

This Precept indicates that each of us would do well to become more aware of the suffering in our own lives and in the world in which we live, including those who do not agree with our way of thinking and living. It suggests that environmental advocates should look deeply into the lives of those who will be effected by their efforts and engage in constructive initiatives to address hunger, fear, economic insecurity, and other forms of suffering that lead to environmental damage. The placer miner’s wife could not have more clearly demonstrated the capacity for personal contact to transform the nature of conflict. It also calls us to look for the causes of suffering and to work with the internal and social forces that give rise to suffering. This Precepts is about stepping out of our protected corners and working for the well-being of others. It embodies the true spirit of the Mahayana, which is to help ourselves and others be free from ill-being. If we look deeply, we see that when one being suffers, all beings suffer.

5. Do not accumulate wealth while millions are hungry. Do not take as the aim of your life fame, profit, wealth, or sensual pleasure. Live simply and share time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need.

This Precept suggests that environmental activists live their own lives in a way that does not tax the Earth nor themselves. It invites us to examine the inevitable ramifications of our patterns of consumption as well as the stressful and driven lives that many of us lead. In the Sutra on the Eight Realizations of the Great Beings, it says that "The human mind is always searching for possessions and never feeling fulfilled. This causes impure actions ever to increase." A "pure action" is the sharing of time, energy and material resources with those who need them. This lays a foundation for voluntary simplicity and deep ecology, a life that sees and confirms the interconnnectedness of beings and actions, and their causal relationships.

6. Do not maintain anger or hatred. Learn to penetrate and transform them when they are still seeds in your consciousness. As soon as they arise, turn your attention to your breath in order to see and understand the nature of your anger and hatred and the nature of the persons who have caused your anger and hatred. The Sixth Precept tells us to recognize that the seeds of anger are within us whether or not we are angry. The practice of mindfulness has the potential for transforming these seeds before they sprout. If anger does arise, we can turn our awareness toward the anger in order to understand its

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roots. In the environmental movement, there is often a great deal of anger expressed. Environmentalists have been hung in effigy by loggers. Loggers have been vilified by environmentalists. Anger does not solve problems. It creates them. We need to be aware of blaming a person for his or her position or perspective. That person has been shaped by his experience as surely as we have been shaped by our own. We are asked to understand the roots of our anger and the roots of the anger expressed by those who confront us. This understanding can give rise to compassion. 7. Do not lose yourself in dispersion and in your surroundings. Practice mindful breathing to come back to what is happening in the present moment. Be in touch with what is wondrous, refreshing, and healing both inside and around you. Plant seeds of joy, peace, and understanding in yourself in order to facilitate the work of transformation in the depths of your consciousness. This Precept suggests that an environmental activist step out of the business, the urgency and the assumptions that direct her activity. Being in the present moment, looking deeply into reality, helps life become real and of value. It invites the practitioner to a more wholesome and kind way of living, strengthening the mind and heart. Thich Nhat Hanh has said that this is the heart of the Precepts, and points to our struggle with forgetfulness and lack of understanding.

8. Do not utter words that can create discord and cause the community to break. Make every effort to reconcile all conflicts, however small.

This suggests that advocacy that divides a community will cause more suffering than any suffering it aims to alleviate. It suggests that reconciliation is built of small initiatives, that peace is built of personal contacts. It suggests that I begin it.

9. Do not say untruthful things for the sake of personal interest or to impress people. Do not utter words that cause division or hatred. Do not spread news that you do not know to be certain. Do not criticize or condemn things that you are not sure of. Always speak truthfully and constructively. Have the courage to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing so may threaten your own safety.

This suggests that antagonistic, divisive language is not an effective tool for increasing understanding about our relationship to the Earth; we are impatient when we reason that our ends justify our means. We are each responsible for increasing awareness in our communities through honest, compassionate, reponsible and constructive speech. Raising awareness about the injustice which our overconsumption visits upon other species may call for all of us to simplify our lifestyles and relinquish illusions of security. This Precept also points to the value of silence.

10. Do not use the Buddhist community for personal gain or transform your community into a political party. A religious community, however, should take a clear stand against oppression and injustice, and should strive to change the situation without engaging in partisan conflicts.

Thich Nhat Hanh has said that "Although religious communties are not political powers, they can use their influence to change society. Speaking out is the first step, proposing and supporting

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appropriate measures for change is the next. Most important is to transcend all partisan conflicts. The voice of caring and understanding must be distinct from the voice of ambition." In many ways, for many activists, environmentalism is a religion. Our lives are dedicated to an entity, a whole realm of being, which is far greater than any one of us. We strive to live by a code of ethics. There are places we hold sacred, and we go to them for renewal. But like certain religious organizations, environmental groups can have more than a touch of partisan fanaticism. This Precept suggests that, while we work against injustice, we do so without generalizing, without a platform that does not take into account the wellbeing of our adversaries, and without an aim to govern others. 11. Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Do not invest in companies that deprive others of their chance to life. Select a vocation which helps realize your ideal of compassion.

This urges us to “walk our talk.” It directs us to live and work in a way that is not damaging to people or the natural world, even as we oppose injustice. This Precept is about Right Livelihood, which points to practicing a vocation that is based in compassion and engaging in that vocation in a mindful way. Again, we are asked to look at our patterns of consumption. Although we might be a dedicated environmental advocate, we could be supporting others in harmful vocations through our style of life and work.

12. Do not kill. Do not let others kill. Find whatever means possible to protect life and to prevent war.

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At the 1992 Retreat for Environmentalists, Thây taught that the twelfth precept, “do not kill,” refers to all life. When it is understood to refer to all beings, he explained, several stages of working with the precept unfold. The first step is to “take the precept,” to affirm that one will strive to abide by it. The second is to realize that one cannot always live up to this guideline, because the beets we eat, the organisms in the dry wood we burn, and the tiny creatures in the soil upon which we walk die in support of our lives. This realization leads the practitioner straight back to the first precept which advises us not to be bound to any doctrine, even Buddhist ones. There is no black and white; there is at best a very personal exploration of the landscape of Being. The third stage, Thây said, is to confer with members of our community about the difficulties we face and the insights we have, as we succeed and fail to abide by the guideline not to kill. It is this last practice, he taught, that builds community. This Precept is extremely important for environmental activists, because it reminds us that we cannot afford to be righteous. We, too, are responsible for taking life, consciously or otherwise. We cannot point the finger at offenders as if we were not also implicated in harming. The humility that this engenders, and the honest communication that Thây requests of us are antidotes for our tendency to alienate ourselves and polarize our communities.

13. Possess nothing that should belong to others. Respect the property of others, but prevent others from enriching themselves from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth.

This Precept means, do not steal. Like the one before it, we violate this guideline, daily, as we wear leather, eat honey and eggs, build with lumber from the mixed hardwood forest, and clear a corner of a field for a garden plot. Every thing that supports our life comes from another creature or another creature’s habitat. Even the sunlight we intercept with a solar panel would have otherwise provided energy for a plant or warmed a thrush’s nest. This Precept sheds light on the depth of suffering created by overconsumption and environmental degradation—and the significance of voluntary simplicity. The standard of living we maintain in “the First World” is supported by people and ecosystems around the world who grow our coffee and sell their rainforests for a song. It also points to social and economic injustice. How we define and legitimize theft must be called into question by any individual who strives to live by this Precept. And daily practice heightens appreciation of the lives that contribute their energy to our own.

14. Do not mistreat your body. Learn to handle it with respect. Do not look on your body as only an instrument. Preserve vital energies (sexual, breath, spirit) for the realization of the Way. Sexual expression should not happen without love and commitment. In sexual relationships, be aware of future suffering that may be caused. To preserve the happiness of others, respect the rights and commitments of others. Be fully aware of the responsibility of bringing new lives into the world. Meditate on the world into which you are bringing new beings.

This precept affirms that we must conduct our lives and our work in a way that does not lead to the collapse of systems that support life, including our own bodies. Living in a way that leads to mental or physical illness is disrespectful of the gift of life and is harmful to our communities. This precept also suggests that our lives serve to support our spiritual growth. It suggests that

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our physical, manual efforts are not our only means of working in the world. It suggests that we not become preoccupied with our bodies or other material aspects of the world, but keep a bearing on the Way, on love and commitment, and on the capacity and opportunity for new beings to flourish in the world and bodies they inherit. It also reminds us that overpopulation is causing immeasurable suffering of beings everywhere. We are admonished to consider the world our children will inherit. This precept speaks to activists who exhaust themselves as if their well being was not as essential for the Earth as Hers is for them. It speaks also to the activist who might otherwise fall into a habit of assuming that the state of a temperate rainforest or the Bering Sea cod fishery was more important than the calling for her to develop compassion. Marty says that it occurred to her after more than a decade of advocacy that perhaps all the ranks of douglas fir and wolves, fin whales and condors have stood up and will continue to stand up among humans, one after another, risking their lives to crossfire, to see if we have yet learned to put down our weapons, to see if we have yet learned to engage with compassion. The Laying Down of Arms With these 14 precepts in mind, we probably do not need to point out that there is significant resistance within the environmental community to engaging in the compassion and the reconciliation practice suggested throughout. There is resistance to the proposal that those who are advocates on behalf of the Earth stop “fighting,” that we can afford to be still. A cohort of Marty’s asked in exasperation, “why would I want to learn more about Buddhism, if it has led to losing your help?” Again, the splitting mindset is glaring. In what sense did the Alaskan environmental community lose Marty’s help? And since when has “activism” come to refer only to dogged political action? Politics is a human-to-human dialogue. No other form of being speaks for itself; at best, the human attempts to translate. But how well do we really listen? As “Defenders of Wildlife” on red alert, we stand with our backs to the beings we cherish. But what can happen if we can watch carefully for a moment’s chance to lay down our arms, and turn around, and check in with the wild world, with Being itself?

∞ Reacquaintance No human being is a complete stranger to Being. We are, after all, animals in the fullest, most miraculous and honorable, sense of that word. We have heartbeats. We give birth. Fiercely, we defend our young. We take life in order to support our own. We grow. Our wounds heal. We are subject to the vagaries of weather, and we die of “natural” causes, whether we live in cities or not. The laws of physics and the principles of ecology apply to us, as they apply to all creatures, minerals, compounds, and light waves.

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Some of us have, in fact, been able to express a wisdom of a common flesh, a common heart. Consider the compassion expressed in this Papago rain song collected by Ruth Underhill (Underhill 1965):

At the edge of the mountain A cloud hangs. And there my heart, my heart, my heart, Hangs with it. At the edge of the mountain The cloud trembles. And there my heart, my heart, my heart, Trembles with it.

For many tribal cultures, Earth has been seen as a whole and living organism. It has been described as mother, father, friend, lover and extended family. Earth with its life forms and systems, including mountain and river, salmon and cedar, is experienced as alive and sentient. In The Fruitful Darkness, (1993) Joan quotes the Inuit Richard Nerysoo (Berger 1990):

Being an Indian means being able to understand and live... with the land, with the animals, with the birds and fish as though they were your sisters and brothers. It means saying the land is an old friend and an old friend your father knew, your people have always known.... To the Indian people our land is really our life.

The 11th century Chinese administrative official Chang Tsai also expressed the experience of relatedness in the following words (Berry 1990):

Heaven is my father and earth is my mother and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in its midst. That which extends throughout the universe, I regard as my body and that which directs the universe, I regard as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters and all things are my companions.

Joan writes (Halifax 1993) of her contact with people who are so intimate with their environments that they seem one. She says,

When I sit with old Chato, a Cora friend who lives alone in the mountains of Baja California, I listen to him talk about the Juarez Mountains, and my sense is that what he is describing is himself, the part that is innocent and not self-conscious. He has climbed up these rocky ridges and down these rugged canyons until they are in his stride, in his voice. Walking behind Jorge K’in in the rainforests of Chiapas, Mexico, my self-centeredness recedes as I fall into his complete familiarity with this dark, wet terrain.

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Following Ogobara across the clifftops of Dogon country in central Africa, I sense that the strength of these cliffs and the openness of the desert below are no different than this joyful old man. In no time, we are somehow walking in the same feet as we make our way across the body of his life. [The Ute people say (Wood 1979)],

In our bones is the rock itself; in our blood is the river.

Although we humans have tried almost everything we could think of by now, we have not been able to achieve complete independence from natural forces. The “Human Dimensions of the Arctic” researchers find themselves having come full circle, intent upon articulating the interconnections that have never let go. In fact, many of our ways of comprehending our existence. (e.g., Indigenous Knowledge, Ecology, Animal Behavior, Thermodynamics, Quantum Physics, Chaos Theory, Complexity Theory, Psychology, Theology, religions themselves, Mythology) strive to articulate the dynamics of Being, the relationships, the “interconnectedness,” which has in some cases only begun to come back into focus. In 1949, Aldo Leopold called for us to revive our capacities “to think like a mountain.” Similarly, in 1969 (Shephard and McKinley), Paul Shepard observed,

Ecological thinking... requires a kind of vision across boundaries. The epidermis of the skin is ecologically like a pond surface or a forest soil, not a shell so much as delicate interpenetration. It reveals the self ennobled and extended... as part of the landscape and the ecosystem, because the beauty and complexity of nature are continuous with ourselves.... We must affirm that the world is a being, a part of our own body.

If we had forgotten what we once knew in our bones, our most basic sciences have brought us back to comprehending that we are intimately integrated within the body of the world. We are familiar, for instance, with the fact that our muscle cells depend upon oxygen delivered by our lungs and blood. We know, too, that our cells depend upon our blood and lungs to carry CO2 away. What then, is our relationship to the maple tree and cattails that deliver oxygen to us and absorb the CO2 we exhale? Where is the line rightly between us and the plants, if we depend upon the them as much as our muscle cells depend upon our lungs and blood? This is what we mean, when we say that the trees are our lungs, and that they are the lungs of the planet. We are called, on many fronts, to see ourselves in the context of systems, communities, or organisms that are more complex and capable than we are, just as we are more complex and capable than our cells or organs are. The hierarchies of cooperation and sentience reach inward and also far beyond each of us. Each “component,” each organ for instance, is undeniably finely designed for its role, and it is indispensable. Each organ has parts composed of vessels and cells. And each organ participates in a system of parts that are mutually interdependent, “interpenetrating”, as Thich Nhat Hanh might say. With the support of the liver, and supporting the liver, the human being and the junco have each somehow achieved a capacity to perceive, form search images, escape predators, preen themselves and reproduce. Is it not possible that we, by analogy at least, serve and are served by a system which is more sentient and capable than we are, just as we are more sentient and capable than our livers or biceps or small intestines alone?

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Here is another example where boundaries break down. Ecologists no longer gloss over the lines we have drawn between “species.” Most of us learned in biology or genetics that species lines are drawn between individuals and populations of animals whose offspring are not fertile. That is the biological definition of species. But most of us also take it for granted that a dog (Canis canis) and a wolf (Canis lupus) breed and have fertile offspring. Why, then, do we continue to consider them to be separate species? The study of complexity has also led us back to an understanding of existence as indivisible. For instance, researchers are asking challenging questions about the distinction between evolution and co-evolution. Geneticists have long known that, as an organism evolves, combinations of genes are necessary to generate a new form. For instance, genes for the long legs that characterize a giraffe have apparently been most advantageous when they are accompanied by genes for long necks, so that individuals adapted to escape predators can also graze as well as browse. (Suites of genes may be triggered or controlled by one gene, known as a homeotic gene, but the fact remains that more than one aspect of the organism shows mutually adaptive morphological changes.) Now, complexity researchers are asking, “if a frog evolves a sticky tongue as a fly evolves slippery feet, how shall we think of the line we’ve drawn between the (two sets of) genes?” And again: The HIV virus propagates efficiently in part because it exhibits an exceedingly high mutation rate that outmaneuvers a host’s immune system; there is so much variety in the population of HIV viruses within one person’s blood stream that his/her immune system cannot respond effectively to them all. Given this information, how do we classify the strains of the virus that are in one person and another? How do we classify the strains that are eliminated and those that survive? Are they species, or are they populations of one species? Could we say that variety is a strategy developed to advance some genetic core? If so, what is the core? And couldn’t we then propose that the variety exhibited in all forms of life is advancing some genetic core? In all these examples, we see that humans have noted distinctions between things and then, upon closer inspection, come to observe that the distinctions are, in fact, rather hazy. This is a critical development, as it is the perspective of one who has come around to seeing that s/he has never been other than integrated in the world. Let us look now at a practice that reintroduces contemporary humans to the teachings of the world at large. “Wilderness practice,” as this one is called, is not about stewardship. Rather, its about letting the the natural world (in the commonly understood sense of the phrase) move through us, while we move through it. In this way, it differs from most other forms of environmental activism.

∞

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Contemplative Environmental Inquiry and the Precepts: An Applied Ecology For over 20 years, Joan has supported wilderness practice. In such an experience, participants go out alone into a landscape that bears as little trace as possible of human presence. Practitioners go out to mark a transition in their lives and/or to seek direction. Wilderness practice derives from age-old ceremonies through which spiritual peoples have sought to cleanse, to approach life and death directly, to mark a passage, to seek vision—to receive direct transmission, so to speak, through the silence. In many significant ways, the traditional practices were distinct from the wilderness practice undertaken by non-Natives today. In other times, participants went with the familiarity of hunters and gatherers into a physical and spiritual landscape with which they were intimate. They went without residues of pesticides and heavy metals in their bodies. They went without down and nylon, pile and bic lighters, and sometimes they went without water. Despite the differences, both traditional and contemporary forms of wilderness practice are wordless studies of what supports our lives and of how permeable the boundary is between what is “within” us and what is “outside” of us. Wilderness practice is an exercise in not consuming, not taking life or resources from other beings to support our own lives. It is a discipline of simplifying—of oversimplifying—materially, which inevitably heightens our appreciation of how absolutely we depend upon the natural world for the sustenance, the forms of shelter, and the insights that support our lives. Wilderness practice, very significantly, is and has always been dedicated to the wisdom and welfare, not of our selves alone, but of all beings in the communities from which we have ventured, and to which we return with our insights. Let us make this very clear: when we dedicate our practice to “the communities from which we have ventured,” we refer both to our contemporary human-dominated world and to the whole of the natural world from which we have long since been alienating ourselves. Wilderness practice includes reincorporation of beings of the wilderness into our communities and reincorporation of wild wisdom into our lives. Since Joan founded Upaya in 1991, she has introduced or emphasized elements of her Buddhist practice into the wilderness practice. Her support of the practice has emphasized solitude in the wilderness, rather than fasting or vision questing specifically. She has emphasized simplicity. She has encouraged stillness and silence in lieu of chanting, drumming, rattling, and other invocations. She has emphasized mindfulness and the practice of direct observation, both within and without. She has emphasized noticing rather than overcoming as an approach to the solitude and the wilderness. She has discouraged the use of fire, because wood fiber and the creatures that feed on it are such valuable components of the arid ecosystem within which we are visitors. She has emphasized the fundamental importance of our communities of beings which support us even in silence and solitude. And she has kept alive the spirit of engagement-in-the-world, informed with the insight that comes through the practice. In all these ways, she has integrated guidelines offered by the 14 precepts of the Order of Interbeing. Let us consider three aspects in a little more detail.

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Truth is Found in Life The first four of the 14 precepts of the Order of Interbeing direct our attention to life and present moment as teacher and text. They advise that each individual has direct access to truth. No doctrine, no other person, no past observation offers more accurate insight than one’s own direct observation of self and world in the present moment. In interbeing, there are no intermediaries. In wilderness practice, the natural world is the text and the teacher. We take a bow to Her and serve, not as teachers or even guides, but as supporters of individuals who wish to approach—to confer directly with—the world. It is a living text. We choose this teacher, specifically because the natural world is the most free from human imprint, from any narrowness or bias that must be inherent in any human lens, and because the natural world is the most whole, inclusive, equitable, intricate, and responsive system/organism we can imagine. Zen Master Dogen said that not all beings speak with a human tongue (Cook 1978).

You should entreat trees and rocks to preach the Dharma, and you should ask rice fields and gardens for the truth. Ask pillars for the Dharma and learn from hedges and walls. Long ago the great god Indra honored a wild fox as his own master and sought the Dharma from him, calling him ‘Great Bodhisattva.’

Being in the natural world instead of the zendo allows one to let go of one’s cultural identity, one’s personal identity. Where did Buddha attainment his enlightenment? He was sitting on the Earth under a tree. Where did so many of the Tibetan yogis awaken? It was in the great vastness of the open spaces, in the depths of caves, in the crystalline light of very high mountain passes. From the Buddhist perspective, this community is alive, all of it, and practicing the Way together. We’re part of it. To destroy that world is to destroy elements of our own nature, qualities of our own mind realm that are fundamentally important to helping us move through and past the suffering of deep alienation. Impermanence and the Present Moment The second precept says “do not think that the knowledge you possess is changeless.” The natural world is a teaching in impermanence and the preciousness of the present moment. One who goes out takes off the clothing of society and opens to the slow life of stones, the flow of a river, the vastness of sky, the everchanging clouds, the movement of the planets and seasons, the endless circling of stars.

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The whole dance of impermanence that one experiences in the natural world is extraordinarily powerful in reifying the basic tenants and perspectives of Buddhist philosophy. Voluntary Simplicity The Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Precepts urge us to live simply. They urge us to concentrate, not so much on things, but on understanding and compassion, and to make the energy and resources we might otherwise have consumed available to others. Wilderness practice places an emphasis upon sharing with all beings. The methodology of the wilderness practice is to simplify as much as possible, to voluntarily whittle away at the perceived boundaries, the distractions, and the defenses we maintain between self and natural world (both within us and around us). We go out with as little equipment as we dare, inviting sun and storms, beetles and coyotes, shooting stars, stony ground, and frost come close into our experience. Most of us do not busy ourselves with food preparation and do not busy our bodies with digestion. With little food energy, we conserve activity. We move more slowly, more deliberately. With little food energy, we are less able to maintain defenses from information coming in from the world as well as information coming up from within. We are more penetrable, more permeable. We must emphasize that this exercise is not about merging with the natural world, not about relinquishing identity, not about sacrificing one’s health or safety. Rather the aim is to weave, to interact intimately, to interbe. The discipline is to minimize the separations while maintaining the capacity to perceive. The invitation is to enter into an exchange so intimate that the dialogue is barely a whisper—so intimate that the dialogue occurs in the guise of Lightning, Coyote, Fear, and Joy themselves. Communion The Eighth-Thirteenth Precepts urge us not possess what belongs to others, whether that be in the form of things, wealth, habitat, another being’s life, energy, the freedom to believe, or the freedom to choose. In wilderness practice, we take these guidelines to the community of all beings. We put ourselves in a position where we are in close interaction with them so that we can at least begin to see their lives and the effect our presence has on them. In the essay, “The Land Ethic”, Aldo Leopold noted that “we can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in (Leopold 1949).” To be in touch is essential.

∞

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Interbeing Thich Nhat Hanh developed the Fourteen Precepts of the Order of Interbeing while practicing in the crossfire of the Vietnam War. That conflict raged over the issue of “freedom.” Another related conflict rages on today in the United States and elsewhere over the issue of the integrity of the environment. Thich Nhat Hanh’s guidelines for fostering peace and alleviating suffering (the suffering that leads to war and the suffering that results from war) are also sound guidelines for an environmental activist who feels himself to be engaged in another devastating and inexcusable war. The precepts translate an awareness of “no separate self” into daily life. And they translate an awareness of contemplative and engaged practice as “no separate act” into daily life. These are aspects of an applied ecology. When we practice the precepts in our direct relationships with the “natural world,” as with the “human world,” we also enter into an applied ecology. When we can extend our cultivation of peace to include all of Being, we become engaged in an indescribably rich investigation of beings, communities, landscapes, energies and systems of the cosmos. We reacquaint ourselves with natural systems, not as if they were “other than human,” but as they are “home of humans and many other forms of Being.” What we see, then, informs our understanding of ourselves as intricately and intimately related in our world. What we do, then, actually weaves us more richly into the world as one who listens, one who responds personally and skillfully to changing conditions, and one who moves other forms of Being as s/he is moved.

∞ We’d like to acknowledge Harvard undergraduate Jory Waterman for her contributions regarding the history of the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh, and environmental writer and activist Glendon Brunk for his generous contribution as a reviewer. (footnotes page 3) 1. Engaged Buddhism has many important expressions in the contemporary world, including

the work of Sulak Sivaraksa of Siam; Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai movement of Japan; Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, leader of India'’s Untouchables; A.T. Ariyaratne and Sri Lanka’s Sarvodaya Shramadana movement; the Nobel Peace Prize winners the Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi; Sister Choung Khong of the Tiep Hien Order, and many others.

2. CE means “Common Era,” it is synonymous with AD. BCE means “Before the Common Era,” it is synonymous with BC.