This was recorded as part of the first Triratna Earth Sangha Conference, 2021:https://www.triratnaearthsangha.network
David Loy is a (retired) professor of comparative philosophy and religion, a writer, and a teacher in the Sanbo Zen tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism. His most recent book is Ecodharma: Buddhist teachings for the ecological crisis. He is also co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center in Colorado, USA. I was stunned by his wisdom and perspective and I want to share this with you and encourage you to listen to the talk. Three years on, it seems even more relevant. He asks what does Buddhism offer that can help us understand and respond appropriately to the unprecedented ecological challenges that face us now? The Buddha lived in a very different time, but Buddhist teachings have important social and ecological implications for our times. Perhaps the most important is the bodhisattva—or “ecosattva”—path. How shall we understand the bodhisattva path today? In what ways might it need to be updated, to be the most helpful for us today?
“Buddhism has to change. I think that we have to really acknowledge this an incredibly dangerous time….We have to look at institutionalised greed, institutionalised ill will and institutionalised delusion and karma and figure out ways to address that…..If we have the delusion that we’re going to be able to do it just by disconnecting and dissociating ourselves from the rest of the world and focussing on our meditation….it just isn’t going to work, especially in the kind of time frame that we find ourselves in now”
See: https://www.davidloy.org and https://rmerc.org In addition to teaching at the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center and working with a few private students, he offers workshops and retreats, online and in person, mostly on ecodharma and other aspects of socially engaged Buddhism.