Climate Change as a door to Awakening: A Buddhist Perspective

Program Details

How can we more mindfully and more fully feel our connection with our earth and with climate change? Using a Buddhist perspective, the aim of this day of mindfulness is to expand our awareness and embrace our hopes and fears using guided meditations, short videos, songs, poetry, mindful eating, and the sharing of our personal experiences.

The aspiration is to nourish our love for the earth and its creations, and move beyond despair and powerlessness to what Joanna Macy calls “active hope." Climate change then becomes a door to awakening, an opportunity to recognize our inextricable connection with all that is.

About the Leaders

John Bell

John Bell, a dharma teacher who has practiced with ThichNhat Hanh for more than 30 years. In addition to guiding the Mountain BellSangha, near Boston, and leading mindfulness retreats across the US, John was a founding staff member of Youth Build USA (www.youthbuild.org) in 1988 and, until his recent retirement, helped guide its development into an integrated program that offers education, construction training, and leadership development to low-income young people in 260 communities across the U.S., and in105 communities in 15 other countries.