Engaged Buddhism: Meditation as Earthly Care in the Time of the Climate Crisis

By Zoe Zielke, DPhil in Anthropology, University of Oxford

Introduction

‘Care’ is an increasingly common point of discussion amongst anthropologists, feminists, and humanities scholars. For Joan Tronto and Berenice Fisher (1990, p. 40), care involves everything we do “to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’…That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment” which operates in “a complex, life-sustaining web”. In a time of rapid environmental decline, this acknowledgement of humanity’s connection to the Earth has become imbued with political significance. In The Care Manifesto (Hakim et al., 2020, p. 23), the authors’ self-described “care politics” entails “recogniz[ing] our mutual interdependencies and the intrinsic value of all living creatures”. Such understandings are embedded in moral sentiments on suffering often rooted in religious dialogue (e.g., Ticktin, 2014), leading one to wonder how religious forms of ‘care’ might inform and transform current engagements with the climate crisis? 

Buddhism has for centuries concerned itself with understanding and ending suffering while envisioning all beings as intimately linked.  Moreover, as a result of colonialism, globalization, and widespread social and environmental catastrophes, a religion described as focused on “other-worldly pursuits” (Kuah-Pearce, 2014, p. 27) has adapted to these growing complexities. “Engaged Buddhism” is a development in the Buddhist tradition referring to the application of Buddhist principles and practices to situations of collective suffering. One group espousing such principles is “Extinction Rebellion Buddhists” (XR Buddhists, XRB), a subgroup of “Extinction Rebellion” (XR), an eco-activist organization that has become the face of U.K. environmentalism. Using Buddhist principles and meditation, XRB cultivates an intimate care for the Earth which embodies an awareness of our mutual interdependencies.  

Legs, Feet, Body, Heart

On a sunny April morning in Bristol’s city center, two women sit on the College Green. They are deep in meditation and will continue to be for the next two hours. Legs crossed and eyes closed, they are unaware of stares from passers-by. Around their necks, placards read “Love and Grief for the Earth - XR Buddhists”. These moments of silent, seated meditation are done in public places by XRB to raise awareness of the ecological crisis and express care for the Earth. Sometimes meditations are done while blocking roads and public areas, whilst others take place in parks or green spaces. Some meditations last an hour, some overnight. Participation numbers can range from one to hundreds.

In the age of the Anthropocene, care illuminates the vulnerable attachments that provide means of survival for living beings (Allen, 2021), aiming to dissolve the “I-it” relationship between people and planet and reanimate our affective engagement with the world (Holbrook-Smith, 2017). Although in early Buddhist soteriology the Earth was not considered a “sentient being” (Schmithausen, 1991), postcolonial ecologies have humanized our landscapes (DeLoughrey and Handley, 2011). XRBs therefore commonly conceptualize the Earth as a unified, anthropomorphic being. Such beliefs resemble the “Gaia Hypothesis” (Lovelock and Margulis, 1974; Lovelock, 1979) which, although never explicitly mentioned by the authors, is thought to have taken inspiration from Buddhist principles (Goatly, 2021).

Buch (2015) argues that, in English-speaking regions, care connotes both affective concern (caring about) and practical action (caring for). For XRBs, feelings of care for the Earth are exemplified by the Buddhist principle of dependent origination (paticca samuppada), a key doctrine of Buddhist philosophy which states that all phenomena arise and depend on one another (Boisvert, 1995). Therefore, everything exists within the web of interrelationships that includes all living beings and the natural world. As such, XRBs purport that, because humans are inseparable from our environment, the state of the environment is our collective responsibility.  Environmental degradation is thus considered to be enabled and supported by humanity’s (specifically Western populations and their pervasive individualistic ideologies) ignorance to the interrelatedness of all things.

Key to XRB’s formulation of intimate care is embodied practice through meditation. Michael Pagis (2010) argues that, only through meditation are Buddhist principles experienced on the bodily level and thereby “realized” as truth.  Therefore, the Buddhist understanding of dependent origination transforms into caring action through the physical sensations received during meditation.  Similarly interested in the physicality of care, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa (2017) characterizes touch as an intimate care practice which turns caring feelings into action. Although the touch achieved in meditation is quite different from the touch Bellacasa explores with farmers’ handling of soil, it remains a crucial component of meditative practice.  Meditators touch the ground they sit upon, they touch themselves, they touch the Earth with their breath, and the Earth touches them via wind, rain, sunlight. These sensations affect the body and help formulate the practice of earthly care that XRBs exhibit.

Meditation enhances concentration and awareness (Keown and Prebish, 2010). Reflecting on past actions, informants constantly referenced sensations of touch they experienced, such as the feeling of touching the grass beneath them or the warmth of the sun touching their face, and how focusing on these encounters furthered their understanding of dependent origination. “I’m not visualizing anything”, said Peter, a journalist and Buddhist writer; “It’s more of a body awareness exercise”. When I probed him for more detail, he said:

“It’s feeling the contact between my feet and my legs and the ground…feeling that connection… and feeling the emotional tone in my body. So, starting with physical sensations…and then, what’s the emotional tone? Feeling that care in my heart. So basically, legs, feet, body, heart.”

 Touch also involves sensorial and affective inputs (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017). For example, during meditation retreats where participants maintain painful positions for long periods of time, the Buddhist principle of suffering (dukkha) becomes an embodied reality as one realizes how their body is attached to comfort and, consequently, how attachment is the root of all suffering (Pagis 2010).   

Touch is a key component of meditation which transforms XRBs’ feelings of care for the Earth into action. Touch blurs the “boundaries of self and other” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017, pp. 119-20). From an awareness of the physical sensations experienced, not only is the XR Buddhist touching the Earth, they are being touched by the Earth, which inspires a deep connectedness. Thinking touch-with-care emphasizes an “intra-active reversibility” and cultivates a deep sense of “immersion” (Paterson, 2006, p. 699). It is in this sense that XRBs embody their mutual interdependencies, making dependent origination a lived reality, and fostering an affective, intimate care for the Earth.

Temporal Groundings in Meditation

Amid the climate crisis, there is a growing interest in how humans actively care for our natural world, with an increasing call to acknowledge our “mutual interdependencies”.  From the Buddhist principle of dependent origination, XR Buddhists offer a particular ontological understanding of the world: that everything is connected and co-dependent (Gregory and Sabra, 2008, p. 55). This understanding is translated into an intimate exercise of care for the Earth through meditation. Touching the Earth and being touched by the Earth in meditation is how dependent origination becomes an embodied reality, as it blurs the lines between self and other, allowing one’s relationship with their environment to be a felt, lived experience. 

XRB’s meditation-as-care operates in realms of religion and activism, challenging the future-driven ideologies prevalent in both contexts. In the Buddhist eschatological tradition, an end to the cycle of rebirth is only achieved by attaining enlightenment (Apple, 2010). This futuristic aim is the sole focus of traditional Buddhism. By actively engaging in environmental suffering, XRB confronts Buddhism’s other-worldly, enlightenment-focused tendencies, emphasizing instead the need for our interconnected reality to find expression in present-day action.

In the context of environmentalism, Bellacasa (2017, p. 173) explores the “tensions in the temporal atmosphere”, where images of a gloomy environmental future compress the present time for action through its urgency. This constant state of crisis means that the present is “diminished, mortgaged to an always unsure tomorrow”. XRB is a subgroup of “Extinction Rebellion”, an eco-activist movement which sends an urgent message that we are in a climate emergency and need to act now (before we go extinct), implementing disruptive tactics (e.g., blocking roads) with the aim of initiating swift societal change. Even the group’s symbol, an encircled hourglass, conveys their “apocalyptic views” (Joyce, 2020, p. 1). 

 Intimate practices of care can disrupt and suspend the future (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017). Meditation is about awareness of the present, about “remembering” where you are (Cassaniti, 2018), which is critical in this time of panicked urgency as it challenges XR’s “restless futurity” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017, p. 175), making time for the experienced present which thereby extends the temporal landscape and time for action. Moreover, XRB’s meditation-as-care targets the underlying consciousness that continuously produces ecological issues. Mass-meditation results in the co-creation of awareness and thought (Nicol, 2015). Therefore, from the individual understanding of one’s connection to the Earth fostered in this practice, comes a collective one.  As such, XRB’s actions make time for affective engagement with the world, simultaneously contesting Buddhism and XR’s future-driven imaginaries while becoming a vital part of a more comprehensive strategy when dealing with the climate crisis and caring for the environment.

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