Education for the Ecological Crisis

No Wrong Way
Pay attention to the interruptions, the wrong turns, 
the plans gone awry. 
Bow to the rude waiter, the overdue bill, 
All of the ways this world disappoints you. 
This is the marrow of the practice, 
the heartwood: knowing how to love an imperfect life.
Still your mind, slow your breath. 
And witness the messy miracle of this moment 
revealing itself to you 
now

and now

     and now.

P O E M
Stephen Pradarelli, Deep Integration of the Source
(pronouns he/him), is the communications director for
the Thích Nhất Hạnh Foundation and an Order of Interbeing aspirant who loves communing with nature,
reading, flying, and writing haiku. Stephen, pictured
with his daughter, Emma, founded and co-facilitates
the Winding Path Sangha where he lives in Iowa City,
Iowa, US.

Education for the Ecological Crisis
A webinar excerpt with with Brother Pháp Dung, Bhante Bhikku
Buddharakkita, and (Genla) Lobsang Phuntsok, edited by Orlaith O’Sullivan
Over the last year, Wake Up Schools has collaborated with Buddhists Across Traditions and Jhamste
Gatsal Children’s Community to establish SHEE—
Sprouting Humane Education for the Ecological
Crisis.
SHEE is a global open-source community to
exchange ideas, inspire each other, and support
our aim to evolve education to meet our needs and
those of our planet.
On March 4, 2023, we held the webinar Education for the Ecological Crisis Using Buddhist
Ethics with speakers Brother Pháp Dung (joining
from Deer Park Monastery, United States), Bhante

Bhikku Buddharakkita (joining from Uganda), and
(Genla) Lobsang Phuntsok (joining from India).
These three teachers brought over six decades
of work in engaged action and cultivating the gardens of our hearts to awaken to our interconnectedness. This was an inspiring, joyous, international space.
With deep gratitude to our three luminaries
for shining a bright light on a path forward and to
our global participants and friends who joined us
in this vital, important conversation. We share an
excerpt of this rich discussion:
Webinar screenshot
of Brother Pháp Dung

Brother Pháp Dung
I went to COP21 in Paris. There was a lot of care
and critical thinking on how to solve things, but I
felt that there was some heart missing.
Education is not about producing more workers, employees, or good citizens. We are disconnected from Mother Earth, and so I always teach
young people to love nature. The wonder that
we feel—the connection and love—is actually the
medicine for our violence, for our loneliness. When
we have fallen in love with Mother Earth, we act
from that warmth, that sense of interbeing.
Lobsang Phuntsok
We need to first understand that there is an ecological crisis happening in every being. In our children’s community, we talk about the three essentials: educating the heart, mind, and body. What
we see in modern education is that the system is
so focused on human thinking, it has completely
ignored human feelings and human emotions.
Bhante Buddharakkita
At the COP in Marrakesh, they were talking about
reducing carbon emission by 30 percent by 2030.
The wonder that we feel—the connection and love—
is actually the medicine for our violence, for our loneliness.
Webinar screenshot
of Bhante Bhikku
Buddharakkita

I told them, “No, we need to really look at reducing greed emissions by 30 percent. Reduce hatred
emissions by 2030. Reduce delusion emissions!”
Greed, hatred, and delusion are all behind the
ecological crisis. Most people are disconnected,
and that’s why they’re unable to take care of the
environment. I tell them, “You see those trees?
They are your external lungs. You have internal
lungs, and you have external lungs. When you
breathe out, give the air to your external lungs.
Then your external lungs will give you air.”
Bhante Buddharakkita
In Africa, we practice ethics in connection between
ourselves and others. It is always relational.
We look at two principles. (1) What is the motivation for what you are doing? If the motivations
are greed, hatred, delusion, and fear, we try to
transform them to what is skillful. (2) What are the
consequences? Does what you are doing bring suffering, pain, and stress, or happiness and joy?
I teach the children to consider their actions in
terms of these two ethical criteria. They develop a
psychological framework to put actions into perspective: they do not do something just because
God said or because their parents said. They do it
because they sense the connection.
Children learn biology, but they can’t see interconnection until they meditate on it. In Uganda,
we have projects to plant trees, because we have a
lot of deforestation. Children now take care of the
physical environment. And they take care of the
physical environment through meditation. People are destroying this environment because they
don’t take care of their minds.
Brother Pháp Dung
What guides me in terms of what is right and wrong
is the basic teaching of The Four Noble Truths. The
guiding light for me is the question: Where is the
suffering?
I can share a beautiful story. At Teen Camp, we
have many teenagers who come. One child felt left
out and smashed one of the glass windows of our
meditation hall. All the boys wanted to punish him.
We gathered to discuss it. They all looked to me to
decide what was right and wrong, but I threw it
back to them and then we dug deeper into it.
Webinar screenshot
of Lobsang Phuntsok.

They said, “We were not letting him join us.”
They had shunned him, so he felt angry. Every
teenager shared their perspective, without getting
caught in right and wrong. It’s the same with the
environmental crisis—everyone’s trying to negotiate who to blame. When we look into it, we find
that right and wrong are very connected.
Back to the broken window: we needed to
decide what action to take. The boys agreed together that they would all be banned from the
monastery—all of them and their families—for two
months. When they told their parents, some reacted, “That’s not fair. My child had nothing to do
with it.” But their children had seen the interbeing,
that they were all co-responsible for what had happened: the broken glass, the bleeding hand. There
is so much wisdom when you remove the authority
and let people look at the suffering.
For me, it’s crucial in our evolution as humans
to teach young people and teachers to learn how
to take care of their suffering. We can help schools
and teachers to say, “It’s okay to suffer. It’s okay to
be sad. Let’s look into it. Let’s be with it.”
Lobsang Phuntsok
As a teacher in this community, I live here with the
children twenty-four seven and I struggle a lot with
the question of how to care for myself.
For me, the most important thing is to build
a relationship with the children. And I’m talking
about building an imperfect relationship. Teachers are burning out because there is an unrealistic expectation in our society. Teachers cannot be
wrong. Teachers have to be perfect. Teachers have
to have every right answer. Nobody can live up to
that and remain a teacher for very long.
The most important thing is building an imperfect relationship. Accepting that I am imperfect. You are imperfect. These imperfect teachers
have the biggest intention in the greatest service of
humanity. They are committed to their students: “I
will never let you go. I will never give up on you.”
I know the term compassion fatigue, and I dislike this term because it is not the fatigue we generate when we practice love and compassion. This
is the fatigue of unrealistic expectations. Compassion will never exhaust you; compassion will rejuvenate your energy. We all know this. When we
think of compassion, even for a moment, it lights
us up. It will never drain you.
But people are scared of asking, “Have you
ever heard of greed fatigue?” There is violence
fatigue. Nobody wants to talk about it, because
it’s dangerous for business. People don’t want to
discourage practicing greed and fear. There is fear
fatigue in the younger generation: “I’m behind.
I need to catch up. I need to do better. I need to
have a bigger car. I need to have more money in my
bank account.”
These are the diseases in our society. These
are what is actually draining everybody’s energy.
There’s no compassion fatigue. There’s no love
People are destroying this environment because they
don’t take care of their minds.
When we look into it, we find that right and wrong are
very connected.