Feature by Leslie E. Sponsel on the Connection Between Ecology and Buddhism

Is Ecology Inherent in Buddhism?

Buddha

From birth to death the Buddha intimately interacted with nature, particularly trees. He was born beneath a Sal tree in a grove called Lumbini Park near Kapilavatsu (now Madeira) along the border between today’s India and Nepal. Around the age of 29 he started a vision quest lasting over six years with various spiritual masters. He experimented with asceticism, usually residing in groves or forests. Finally, in Bodhgaya he became the Buddha, enlightened under a large bodhi or pipal tree. Then he meditated for weeks beneath several different species of trees: Nigrodha or Indian fig, Mucalinda, and Rajayatana or Kingstead.

Next, he walked to the Royal Deer Park of Isipatana in Sarnath (now Dhamek), north of Benaras (now Varanasi) along the Ganges River in northeastern India. He knew that five spiritual seekers he previously associated with lived there. There he offered his first discourse or sermon called the Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dhamma. In it the Buddha explained the pivotal core principles of all Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.

During the remaining 45 years of his life the Buddha wandered over much of northern and eastern India as a spiritual teacher. He died at the age of 80 while reclining between two Sal trees in a grove outside the small town of Kushinagar in the company of many of his followers. For around four centuries after the Buddha died, he was symbolized by the Dhamma wheel, a footprint, and natural elements such as the lotus flower, Bodhi tree or leaf, deer, elephant, and lion, instead of any human image.

The Jatakas, a collection of 547 parables, confirm the connection between the Buddha and nature. They are accounts of the previous reincarnations of the Buddha, most as an animal that sacrifices its own life to save others. The Jatakas illustrate the core Buddhist virtues of wisdom, empathy, compassion, loving-kindness, nonviolence, and generosity. Furthermore, they imply that animals possess the capacity to make ethical decisions and behave accordingly. They also demonstrate the interconnectedness and interdependence among beings, a principle shared with Western biological ecology. Ultimately, in Buddhism this principle implies that, if we harm others, then we harm ourselves, and if we benefit others, then we benefit ourselves.

Because the Buddha closely interacted with nature throughout his life this implies that Buddhism is also closely connected with nature, surely one important basis for its relevance to ecology and environmentalism. Had the Buddha lived and taught only in temples or other places apart from nature, then presumably this would be quite different.

Buddhism

The spread of Buddhism was facilitated by the famous ancient philosopher king Ashoka (c. 304-232 BCE). He ruled from 268-232 BCE over a larger area of the Indian subcontinent than anyone before British colonial rule, a vast multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious Mauryan empire. He gradually awakened to the relevance and practice of Buddhism. Ashoka tried to unify his kingdom through applying the Buddha’s teachings in governance as a new moral philosophy for good conduct.

Previously, Buddhism was a minor philosophical and religious sect in India. However, under Ashoka’s patronage Buddhism became prominent. He established numerous monasteries and stupas throughout the kingdom. He issued edicts about righteous conduct inscribed on stone pillars throughout the empire, many representing the first Buddhist “texts.” Ashoka sent Buddhist missionaries to other regions and nations, encompassing those known today as Sri Lanka, Thailand, China, and Greece.

Ashoka became one of the earliest rulers to promote environmental ethics as nonviolence toward all beings to minimize harm to nature. He pursued vegetarianism. Some inscriptions on the edicts were for the protection of forests and animals. These inscriptions embraced animal welfare, including hunting restrictions, and wildlife sanctuaries. Ashoka apparently represents an early awareness of the need for harmony with nature, sustainability, and conservation. His views reflect the Buddhist principle of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings and things.

Buddhism gradually dispersed and diversified throughout most of Asia and then beyond to America, Europe, and elsewhere. Buddhism is dynamic, not static. As it spread worldwide, it was adapted to very different geographies, ecologies, histories, societies, cultures, languages, economies, and political systems. This diversification involved variations on common themes like the core principles.

Today the three main traditions of Buddhism are Theravada in Southeast Asia; Mahayana in East Asia; and Vajrayana in Tibet, although there is overlap in some countries. The most well-known scholar monks are Buddhadasa Bhikkhu (1906-1993) for Theravada in Thailand, Thích Nhất Hanh (1926-2022) for Zen Buddhism from Vietnam, and His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama of Tibet (1935-    ) for Vajrayana. Each of these three individuals authored numerous books.

The three major traditions of Buddhism vary in their sects, lineages, texts, leaders, teachers, meditations, chants, rituals, symbols, and other ways. While there is much diversity within Buddhism and among Buddhists, there are common core principles, like non-harming; the law of interdependence and causation; belief in liberation from suffering through the Eightfold Noble Path; and in practices that strengthen commitment to the principles, such as mindfulness and compassion.

Principles

Mutual causality, the interconnectedness and interdependence of all conditioned things, is a core principle of Buddhism. That is, the origin of all phenomena is dependent on a web of causes and conditions. A major implication of this principle is the dynamics of relational thinking, instead of dualisms, dichotomies, oppositions, antitheses, and the like. The self is a construct that separates the individual from others and nature, thereby contributing to suffering and environmental problems. If a person realizes the principle of no-self, then their interconnections and interdependencies also may be realized which may benefit others and the environment.

No-self is the goal of enlightenment through detachment. In particular, ideally monks and nuns are supposed to forego the usual materialism of the daily world to faithfully pursue voluntary simplicity and poverty, satisfying only their essential needs of food, water, clothing, shelter, and medicine. In effect, this significantly reduces their ecological footprint (environmental impact) and consequent suffering of others and nature.

The Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path are the heart of the understanding and practice of the Buddha’s teaching. Suffering is the central theme in the Four Noble Truths discovered by the Buddha during his enlightenment. The second truth recognizes that the ultimate cause of suffering is mainly ignorance and desire. A correlate is that genuine happiness is achieved through restraining desire, pursuing voluntary simplicity, and faithfully honoring the core principles. Ideally voluntary simplicity is one of the virtues for environmentalists. 

The ethic of non-harming, non-injury, or nonviolence is the first of the five precepts. This means not only to avoid causing any harm, but also to practice empathy, compassion, loving-kindness, and nonviolence toward all beings.

The Noble Eightfold Path is the set of pragmatic measures that the Buddha taught his followers to pursue enlightenment and ultimately reach nirvana, the liberation from suffering with its endless birth and death cycles. Each of its ideals in the Eightfold Noble Path is relevant to nature to the degree that it is correlated with extending empathy, compassion, loving-kindness, and nonviolence to all beings. This is seen in the Discourse on Loving-Kindness wishing happiness for all beings, not only humans. Logically, if the teachings of the Buddha apply to the treatment of non-humans as well as humans, then ecological and environmental concerns are inherent in Buddhism.

To reduce suffering for oneself and others, and to pursue enlightenment it is necessary to pursue the Noble Eightfold Path. Furthermore, each of its eight principles is relevant to nature to the degree that it is correlated with extending them to all beings as revealed throughout the Jatakas.

As part of the Noble Eightfold Path, for instance, right livelihood ideally encompasses occupations and lifestyles that do not harm any beings. Yet it is impossible to live without causing some harm, even vegetarians harm plants when they are used as food. To be realistic and candid, life depends on death. Nevertheless, a Buddhist should strive to minimize harm.

The distinction between need and greed is pivotal. By pursuing the Middle Way an individual tries to satisfy as modestly as possible the four fundamental needs that the Buddha recognized: food, medicine, clothing, and shelter. Thereby an individual can minimize their ecological footprint, including the inevitable waste and pollution from resource consumption. This would reduce the suffering of other beings too.

Sangha

In the narrow sense, the Sangha is the monastic community of monks and nuns. Ideally, it is a sustainable, green, just, and nonviolent society. It is usually a small-scale community grounded in nonviolence, moderation, cooperation, and reciprocity in satisfying basic physical needs. Monks and nuns are supposed to prioritize spiritual development, instead of economic development with its accompanying materialism and consumerism. Consequently, with their vow of poverty and voluntary simplicity, among other attributes, monks and nuns present a mirror for society on a daily basis. This is particularly the case if the monks walk morning rounds to receive donations of food by followers seeking merit as in Thailand. They are highly respected and revered in Asian countries with extraordinary sociocultural status, prestige, and power. Thus, they have significant potential to contribute to far sounder environmental worldviews, attitudes, values, and practices of lay Buddhists through drawing on the ecological wisdom in the Buddha’s life and his teachings as well as serving as examples.

Many of the more than two hundred regulations for monks in the monastic code are ecologically relevant. The purpose of several of the rules is to prevent monks from knowingly harming any living being, including animals or even plants, as well as humans. It is a serious offense for a monk to purposefully cut, burn, or kill any living plant. Monks should strain, or at least check, the water that they consume for drinking and other purposes in order to try to avoid harming any visible organisms in it. Monks cannot pollute water. Consequently, with these and many other rules monks are supposed to respect and protect all kinds of beings.

Lay Buddhists are not supposed to disturb plants, animals, and other natural phenomena in and around a temple complex. Although not all, many temple complexes are in effect sacred ecosystems with groves of bodhi, banyan, and other trees, and associated resident and transient animals. Possible ecological functions of temples may encompass forest reserves serving as wildlife sanctuaries, botanical gardens, medicinal plant collections, germplasm banks, restoration ecology projects, environmental educational centers, and/or environmental activism bases.

For example, Suan Mokkh, a monastery founded in 1932 by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu near Chaiya in southern Thailand, encompasses 120 acres of forest. In effect it became an island refuge of biological diversity. This forest monastery is surrounded by widespread rice paddies and rubber tree plantations. This pattern is found among some of the more than 30,000 temples in Thailand.

Following the Buddha’s example, many monks and nuns devote substantial time to solitary life and meditation in forests, caves, and along mountains. These secluded and peaceful sites in nature facilitate meditation and enlightenment. This is another demonstration of the mutual relevance of Buddhism and nature.

Some forest and village monks have become environmental activists. They view deforestation as sacrilegious plus a threat to the forest monk tradition because the forest is their sanctuary. In addition, out of compassion for the suffering that humans and other beings experience as a result of deforestation, many monks have implemented environmental education programs, sustainable economic development projects, and/or rituals to protect remaining forests and other aspects of the environment.

One specific tactic is to encourage people to plant trees as an act of merit simultaneously benefiting the environment. Another tactic is tree ordination whereby a monk ceremoniously wraps saffron colored cloth around a tree and performs a ceremony signaling its sacredness. In effect, the tree becomes a surrogate monk, and accordingly it is usually conserved along with surrounding trees. To kill a monk is the worst crime in Buddhism. This tree ordination ceremony is usually witnessed by local people. It is an example of skillful means in teaching and practicing the Buddha’s teachings.

For many decades, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet has been the most influential Asian Buddhist through his worldwide travels, discourses, and numerous books. His 1999 book Ethics for the New Millennium was on The New York Times Bestseller List. This and his other books often include discourse related to environmentalism. In his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, he proposed that Tibet become an international peace zone and ecological reserve.

Engaged

In a general sense, the Sangha is the larger community of Buddhists, laypersons in addition to monks and nuns. Socially engaged Buddhism emulates the example and teachings of the Buddha through the active application of empathy, compassion, loving-kindness, nonviolence, generosity, and other principles for the benefit of other beings. One way to reduce causing harm to other beings is to pursue a vegetarian diet, although that is optional for most Buddhists. Vegetarianism is also the most ecologically sound diet because it reduces the person’s ecological footprint. The lower a person eats on the food chain from animals to plants, the less energy is consumed, and accordingly, the less waste and pollution is produced.

Many Buddhist temples and centers pursue some combination of conserving energy and other resources, recycling, reducing waste and pollution, organic farming, vegetarianism, and voluntary simplicity. While these are also common secular approaches for many environmentalists, they are motivated and guided as ideal practices by Buddhism to reduce harm to others and nature.

Some Buddhists have critically examined the growth-mania associated with rampant and rapacious materialism and consumerism together with alternatives for reducing the ecological footprint of individuals and societies. An entire country, Buddhist Bhutan, turned away from increasing Gross National Product to instead increasing Gross National Happiness in which environmental concerns are a major component.  

Worldwide there is an enormous amount and diversity of activity in the arena of Buddhism including ecology and environmentalism. This is apparent from a search for the key words “Buddhism and ecology” in Google.com. On January 28, 2013, this search yielded 573,000 results, and 9,940,000 by November 30, 2024. This reveals an extraordinary growth of environmental concerns and actions by Buddhists. (Of course, results on Google.com vary in relevance and quality).

Recent Buddhist consideration of the environmental and climate crises can be found in the websites of the Forum on Religion and Ecology (FORE); International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) and its Interreligious Climate and Ecology Network (ICE); and in numerous Buddhist periodicals, such as the free online Journal of Buddhist Ethics.

Conclusions

Ultimately, to promote the survival and welfare of humanity, nature, and planet Earth profound transformations are needed toward more sustainable and greener lifestyles and societies. If this is not achieved voluntarily, then it may be imposed by nature, and at far higher economic expense, death, and suffering.

The reality of global climate change should be obvious, given the unprecedented increased frequency, intensity, and scale of extreme weather events throughout the world as reported in the media and elsewhere in recent years. The only questions are just how bad this will become, how rapidly, and what measures can be taken to most effectively reduce and cope with the human and environmental impacts.

If reason and morality follow upon adequate knowledge and understanding of the worsening environmental and climate crises from the local to the global levels, then this may lead to wisdom and action in improving the ways that people interact with and impact nature. The distinctive difference of Buddhism is that, instead of grounding environmentalism in the self-interest of the individual (egocentrism), society (sociocentrism), or human species (anthropocentrism) as most Western approaches variously advocate, ideally it is based on respect for all beings and things as interconnected and interdependent as well as possessing their own intrinsic value or even Buddha-nature (ecocentrism).

The Buddha repeatedly stated that he taught only about two matters, the cause and end of suffering. Inevitably, suffering will increase in the future because of the pressures of human population growth; failure to distinguish between needs and desires; and the fallacious assumption of industrial capitalism that unlimited material growth and economic development are possible despite a limited resource base. As a result, inequality, competition, conflicts, violence, and wars will only intensify in the future generating even more suffering. This is affirmed by the accelerating accumulation of scientific and other literature on the recent and future consequences of global climate change, as for example with displaced climate refugees. Therefore, Buddhism is likely to become even more relevant than ever with its central focus on suffering and its reduction. Buddhist principles of empathy, compassion, loving-kindness, and nonviolence will become increasingly vital as the climate crisis inevitably worsens. Because everything is interconnected and interdependent, Buddhists can be one significant force in climate mitigation and adaptation.

Like other religions, Buddhism can provide its followers with sacred texts, publications, leaders, teachers, organizations, facilities, resources, motivation, ethics, guidance, principles, priorities, choices, community, social networks, collaboration, rituals, and symbols to facilitate genuine environmentalism. Furthermore, the pivotal core principles of Buddhism can be engaged to generate more sustainable, greener, just, and nonviolent lifestyles and societies.

The principle of impermanence is pertinent here. Things are always changing. They can change for the better with appropriate mindfulness. Like any person, Buddhists need to be more aware of the environmental and climate consequences of their own actions. They need to be more mindful about their lifestyle and interrelations with beings and things in nature. The essential key to the relevance of Buddhism for ecology and environmentalism is to apply its principles to all beings, not only to humans.

Selections for further reading

Barash, D.P. 2014. Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom Meets Modern Western Science. Oxford University Press.

Bauer-Wu, S. 2024. A Future We Can Love: Effective Approaches to the Climate Crisis Begin with Us. Shambhala Publications.

Darlington, S.M. 2012. The Ordination of a Tree: The Thai Buddhist Environmental Movement. State University of New York Press.

Dunne, J., and D. Goleman, eds. 2018. Ecology, Ethics, and Interdependence: The Dalai Lama in Conversation with Thinkers on Climate Change. Wisdom Publications.

Elverskag, K. 2020. The Buddha’s Footprint: An Environmental History of Asia. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Fisher, C.S. 2013. Meditation in the Wild: Buddhism’s Origin in the Heart of Nature. Silkworm Books.

Ives, C. 2025. Zen Ecology: Green and Engaged Living in Response to Climate Crisis. Wisdom Publications.

Kabilsingh, C. 1998. Buddhism and Nature Conservation. Thammasat University Press.

Kaza, S. 2019. Green Buddhism: Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times. Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Kaza, S., and K. Kraft, eds. 2000. Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism. Shambhala Publications.

Loy, D.R. 2018. Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis. Wisdom Publications.

Macy, J., and C. Johnstone. 2022. Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience and Creative Power. New World Library.

Nhất Hanh, T. 2021. Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. HarperOne.

Ricard, M. 2014. A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion. Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Sivaraksa, S. 2009. The Wisdom of Sustainability: Buddhist Economics for the 21st Century. Koa Books.

Sivarksa, S. 2009. Rediscovering Spiritual Value: Alternative to Consumerism from a Siamese Buddhist Perspective. Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation.

Sponsel, L.E. 2024. Buddhist Ecology and Environmentalism: A Source Book. Kindle Direct Publishing.

Stanley, J., D.R. Loy, and G. Dorje. eds. 2009. A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency. Wisdom Publications.

Tucker, M.E. and D.R. Williams, eds. 1997. Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Harvard University Press.