Buddhism and Green Civilization

Ven. Yuanli

Abstract:

Environmental and ecology problems have become the most serious challenge for our human beings, and have drawn global affection. The theory of "Pure Land" and "Give Happiness for Every Sentient Being" bear profound meanings in maintaining the ecological balance and advocating green civilization. In this paper, there relationship between Buddhism and Green Civilization from the following aspects is explained in details.

The relationship between nature and human comes to the first. According to the theory of "Conditioned Arising" in Buddhism, human beings are deeply related to all the things in the world. Human and all the beings are sharing the same world on the earth, and all the beings are indispensable parts in the nature. Since all lives depend on each other, no life can exist without the natural environment.

Second, the above statement can be extended to the harmony between different social groups, nations and industries. Buddhism draws some conclusions such as "Every being shares the same equality", "Buddhism bears equality nature", and "Every sentient being is born with nature mind of the Buddha". The equality in Buddhism means there is no difference between each other. If we accept the theory of "Every being shares the same equality", then we can find that there is no difference in this world and people will live in a democratic and peaceful society.

Last, we have to try to conquer the greedy manner and find out the natural mind.

To conquer the greedy manner, one should purify his thoughts, which requires abandoning the greed, bad temper and jealousy, while converting into benefaction, loving kindness compassion and tolerance, and changing hatred to respect.

As long as we have abandoned all those evil thoughts, we will have a peaceful life with the other people and all of us will live in harmony. The peaceful world we want to achieve is called as the "Pure Land".