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Thread: [EcoDharma] Living Earth

  1. #251
    Mateus,



    Doshin
    st

  2. #252
    As suggested I have initiated a Thread in our EcoDharma section. I titled it "Ideas for Living Sustainably". Please join the thread and share your ideas.

    Doshin
    st

  3. #253
    Quote Originally Posted by Doshin View Post
    As suggested I have initiated a Thread in our EcoDharma section. I titled it "Ideas for Living Sustainably". Please join the thread and share your ideas.

    Doshin
    st

    hobo kore dojo / 歩歩是道場 / step, step, there is my place of practice

    Aprāpti (अप्राप्ति) non-attainment

  4. #254

  5. #255
    I am living within a heat wave and our rains have not come. In the Southwest US we normally have rains starting in mid June and going through September. We call them Monsoons. Those afternoon thunderstorms are beautiful and critical for sustaining life. But things have been changing and this year we have had little moisture.

    I wrote the following tribute on Facebook but thought I would share it with the Sangha.

    Those of you not in the SW may not understand how much we worship the monsoon . We look for it everyday, we talk about it, we worry about it and we compare rain gauges. We measure it in tenths of an inch and lucky to get more than a few tenths with a storm.However some times we get multiple inches which is a lot for our desert landscape where vegetation is a little sparse. In past years I have been isolated at the ranch for a week while the low flow crossings ran water too deep to pass through (though that doesn’t stop some from trying unfortunately). Following the rains, ponds form and the toads burrow out of the ground and produce a deafening chorus of calls…a most beautiful sound. The grass begins to green up and wildflowers make their appearance. Wildlife moves about more, they too celebrate the rains. The desert sighs its relief. My favorite time of the year.

    Doshin
    St
    Last edited by Doshin; 08-15-2023 at 01:46 PM.

  6. #256
    Thank you for sharing Doshin

    There is no question that weather patterns are changing. I just said to my wife, in reference to the fires out in Hawaii, how it must be getting harder and harder to be a climate denier. The truth is that human memories are short. You and I share a few characteristics that may help make climate change more obvious to us.

    1. we are both on the other side of 50. I think one probably needs to have lived and experienced a little to see the climate change and remember how things were
    2. We both have a love of the outdoors, which means we are out in the change. Must be harder for those who are indoors or in their car all the time to appreciate what things are like
    3. We’ve live for quite a while in the same place. I literally live no more than 5 km away from any other place I’ve lived. This definitely gives me the perspective of change in this locale

    One thing I am noticing year after year is how many fewer bugs there are. Mosquitoes in particular are in an obvious decline here. Used to be you’d be eaten alive outside in the summer evenings Now there seems to be only a few. Also bugs on the car windshield. I can recall as a kid coming home from a trip with out windshield caked in bug guts. Now? Barely any.

    Sorry for my rambling but your post just happened to touch on a topic I’ve been thinking about recently


    Tairin
    Sat today and lah
    泰林 - Tai Rin - Peaceful Woods

  7. #257
    Yes Tairin we do share experiences over a period of time. I have the good fortune of having lived for 73 years so far and I have been in love with the wild places and wild things since my first memories.

    When I began my studies in ecology/wildlife over 50 years ago these changes were being discussed as they had been since the late 1800s. I thought we had plenty of time to change course but then here we are.

    Your remembrance of bugs on windshields echoed with my memories. In college I worked at a gas station when they were full service and cleaned windshields of bugs. That need seldom occurs for me anymore. It tells of change. Insects are critical for our survival. Also, as I have related before, during my career as a Wildlife Conservationist it is estimated we have reduced wildlife numbers throughout the world by 67% if my memory is correct. The world has changed much more and faster than I hoped.

    Doshin
    St

  8. #258
    IMG_0338.jpeg


    Did you know today is World Lizard Day?

    It has been less than a month since World Snake Day!!!

    Doshin
    St
    Last edited by Doshin; 08-14-2023 at 01:28 PM.

  9. #259
    Examples of interdependence surround us when we pause to look. Biodiversity is just that, the interconnections of life with the mosaic of landscape features that support it and drive the evolution of species over time.

    Wetlands are a special part of the landscape for me because I spent most of my life working and observing them so I want to share an observation with the Sangha.


    I have been observing this (in attached photo) wetland in SW New Mexico for around 25 years. Some years this wetland almost comes to where I am standing and taking the photo, some years it may only fill up halfway, other years it is dry. A couple of years it held water for a year and a half.

    This is a Playa Wetland that many driving by would just consider a mud hole. Water from across the landscape drains here and then slowly enters the ground and much evaporates. But it is a wetland and an important wetland. I took the photo with my phone from a distance as not to disturb the birds. Though you have a limited view there are a couple hundred gulls, around a hundred Sandhill cranes and many ducks using it now during the winter

    This is a migratory stop over in the early fall and spring for shorebirds coming and going and waterfowl use it too. When the monsoons come in the summer spade foot toads dig their way up through the ground to breed here. Raptors hunt the birds. Pronghorn Antelope and mule deer water here as do so many other species like javelina, coyotes, badger, fox and maybe an occasional elk. A myriad of species use this area.

    This wetland is important but depending on rain it is not always wet and benefiting the species. However there are other playas and in some years the rain may find them...not every spot gets rain from a storm. Here in the desert you can watch a downpour miles away while standing under clear blue skies. The perspective to take is these playas are part of an interconnected landscape and species that are able use a playa when is has water and when it does not hopefully there is another many miles away that will be wet.

    Doshin
    St

    IMG_0347.jpeg
    Last edited by Doshin; 08-19-2023 at 11:04 AM.

  10. #260
    Thank you, Doshin.

    Naiko
    st

  11. #261
    Thank you Doshin


    Tairin
    Sat today and lah
    泰林 - Tai Rin - Peaceful Woods

  12. #262
    The following quote came up on my Face Book feed this morning. It stayed with me and I wanted to share with the Sangha

    “if religion was each other? If our practice was our life? If prayer was our words? What if the temple was the Earth? If forests were our church? If holy water - the rivers, lakes, and oceans? What if meditation was our relationships? If the Teacher was life? If wisdom was knowledge? If love was the center of our being.”
    ― Ganga White


    Doshin
    St

  13. #263
    Quote Originally Posted by Doshin View Post
    The following quote came up on my Face Book feed this morning. It stayed with me and I wanted to share with the Sangha

    “if religion was each other? If our practice was our life? If prayer was our words? What if the temple was the Earth? If forests were our church? If holy water - the rivers, lakes, and oceans? What if meditation was our relationships? If the Teacher was life? If wisdom was knowledge? If love was the center of our being.”
    ― Ganga White


    Doshin
    St


    Gassho,

    Jason

    Sat Today

  14. #264
    What a lovely quote. Thank you for sharing it, Doshin.

    Naiko
    st lah

  15. #265


    Tairin
    Sat today and lah
    泰林 - Tai Rin - Peaceful Woods

  16. #266
    This is a very brief news article about the 2022 State of Birds Report. The report addresses the issue in much greater detail and you can find quickly on the internet. However this recent articles talks about things an individual can do to help. Of course the real issues involve application at the landscape/continental scales but at least here we can contribute in a way.



    https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/03/world...pxydwfd1DgNkWY


    Doshin
    St

  17. #267
    Invasive species have major impacts on worlds biodiversity. https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/world...%20extinctions.

    Doshin
    St

  18. #268
    This week in the US Ken Burns’ Documentary The American Buffalo aired on PBS. The documentary is narrated by Peter Coyote (Zen Priest). This documents one of the great tragedies in America.

    Throughout the documentary the 3 poisons of Buddhism are so apparent. Difficult to watch if you have any sense of the interdependence of all sentient beings.

    Doshin
    St/lah

  19. #269
    This week in the US Ken Burns’ Documentary The American Buffalo aired on PBS. The documentary is narrated by Peter Coyote (Zen Priest). This documents one of the great tragedies in America.

    Throughout the documentary the 3 poisons of Buddhism are so apparent. Difficult to watch if you have any sense of the interdependence of all sentient beings.
    Thank you, Doshin. I will watch that when it becomes available over here. It sounds like a hard watch, though.

    Peter Coyote also reads the audio version of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

    Gassho
    Kokuu
    -sattoday/lah-

  20. #270
    Kokuu,

    It is in two parts (4 hours total) and is very well done. A significant part deals with the importance of Buffalos to the indigenous people who lived for thousands of years with this magnificent animal and how greed of the new Americans had an impact on them with the demise of the Buffalo. People from different tribes contributed to the narrative. I can think of no where else on earth a similar story of such magnitude can be told. I wonder how all but extinction of this species may have been an important catalyst for the conservation movement in the US. This became an indicator to many Americans that the once unlimited amount of the wildlife bounty of the Americas was not unlimited.

    Doshin
    Stlah

  21. #271
    Aldo Leopold was an influential conservationist at the beginning of the last century in my country (US). I first knew of him when I read one of his best known books A Sand County Almanac. Many decades later I made several pilgrimages to the the shack featured in the collection of essays about the wild and human’s affects on those landscapes. He is considered the father of wildlife management and during my orals at the University of Arizona I was required to read his book on wildlife management and discuss the concepts within.

    Though Aldo died 75 years ago (just a few years before I was born) he has been an influence in my life and many others. I lived next to the Aldo Leopold Wilderness that was the first designated wilderness and he was instrumental in its establishment (it was known as being part of the Gila Wilderness area).

    One of his essays is well known and tells of his epiphany (enlightenment) about the importance of apex predators. At the time there had been a major attempt at eliminating wolves and grizzly bears in North America and they were overly successful. The title of that essay was Think Like a Mountain for me always coincided with the teaching of Sit Like a Mountain. It tells of a basic Buddhist teaching of Interdependence. I have practiced Zazen many times on the side of a mountain inspired by these teachings. I was moved to share the essay and hope the Sangha finds it beneficial.




    https://www.ecotoneinc.com/wp-conten...opold-tlam.pdf

    Doshin
    Stlah

    .
    Last edited by Doshin; 11-07-2023 at 07:30 PM.

  22. #272
    Thank you for sharing this, Doshin.
    Gassho,
    Naiko
    stlah

  23. #273
    That was a beautiful read. Thank you, Doshin.


  24. #274
    Member Myojin's Avatar
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    Thanks for that Doshin, I’d not read Aldo Leopold but I’m reminded of reading I did as an undergraduate on the interactions between wolves, white-tail dear and poplar stands in the US, something that shaped my interest in soil-plant-animal interactions.

    It brings me back to the precept of non-stealing, in the sense of knowing when you have enough, touching the world lightly, as humans we have the unusual ability to really reflect deeply on our actions, but with that ought to come a sense of the mutual interconnection between things, something that sorely needs to be taught in our schools.
    Sat/lah
    Dan

  25. #275
    compressed0.jpeg


    Fall comes to the Chihuahuan Desert.

    Looking at this scene I am overwhelmed with the Emptiness it represents. The interdependence and interconnections here would take many words just to highlight. And we are one with this as it is with us.

    Doshin
    Stlah

  26. #276
    Thank you Doshin. Beautiful view.


    Tairin
    Sat today and lah
    泰林 - Tai Rin - Peaceful Woods

  27. #277
    I started this Thread 5 years ago with a link to a summary of the State of Wildlife Report. I also linked to the 2022 report earlier this year. This link goes to the source where more information is provided. Some of you may find this of value. They point out the loss of wildlife is linked to climate change (not the only reason) and loss of wildlife (such as habitat) influences climate change. They are interdependent.

    What I am reminded of each time I look at these reports is how much has declined in my lifetime and even more impactful the steep decline since the First Earth Day I attended in 1970. This time coincides with my career in wildlife conservation as well so it feels even more personal from an emotion side. The world population has also doubled in that time frame as well. Humans compete for space and resources with biodiversity.


    https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-US...%20populations.


    Doshin
    Stlah

  28. #278
    I'm here because after 40 years of environmental activism I saw a chart that I felt showed me a certain amount of futility in how I had gone about it.


    The author (a personal friend) of the article(s) where I found it was driven into a depression by his own math, and he recommended to his readers they join a meditation tradition as a kind of hospice; I think his is TM. My own studies had repeatedly brought up Soto, so.

    gassho
    ds sat today and a bit of lah
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Visiting unsui: salt liberally.

  29. #279
    Quote Originally Posted by Shōnin Risa Bear View Post
    I'm here because after 40 years of environmental activism I saw a chart that I felt showed me a certain amount of futility in how I had gone about it.


    The author (a personal friend) of the article(s) where I found it was driven into a depression by his own math, and he recommended to his readers they join a meditation tradition as a kind of hospice; I think his is TM. My own studies had repeatedly brought up Soto, so.

    gassho
    ds sat today and a bit of lah



    Doshin
    Stlah

  30. #280
    Can we meet this moment of an environmental crises with enough resolve to minimize or reverse the changes that this planet faces?

    I ask this question to learn what other members of our Sangha think.

    From my perspective changes must be made at the individual, community, National and global levels. Is that possible?

    Gary Snyder, poet, essayist and Zen student is quoted as saying “The best thing you can do for the planet is to stay home.” What do you think he means by that?

    Doshin
    Stlah

  31. #281
    Quote Originally Posted by Doshin View Post
    Can we meet this moment of an environmental crises with enough resolve to minimize or reverse the changes that this planet faces?

    I ask this question to learn what other members of our Sangha think.

    From my perspective changes must be made at the individual, community, National and global levels. Is that possible?

    Gary Snyder, poet, essayist and Zen student is quoted as saying “The best thing you can do for the planet is to stay home.” What do you think he means by that?

    Doshin
    Stlah
    Honestly, I feel that, without radical changes to human nature, human excess, for billions and billions of people ... no. We can, perhaps, slow things down some, and help a little with our own personal efforts, or with our "movements" and the odd legal reform here and there, but nowhere near what is truly needed to stop the destruction ... So, no.

    That is why I wrote my book.

    www.futurebuddhabook.com

    Gassho, Jundo

    stlah
    Last edited by Jundo; 01-31-2024 at 12:24 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  32. #282
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    Honestly, I feel that, without radical changes to human nature, human excess, for billions and billions of people ... no. We can, perhaps, slow things down some, and help a little with our own personal efforts, or with our "movements" and the odd legal reform here and there, but nowhere near what is truly needed to stop the destruction ... So, no.

    That is why I wrote my book.

    www.futurebuddhabook.com

    Gassho, Jundo

    stlah

    I do know your thoughts. Your book arrives this week. Can I substitute it for one of my required readings

    I am exploring what others think to inform myself. I know what needs to be done for many issues but the political will and the willingness to make the needed individual sacrifices is not evident in many around me. In fact I have had conversations and it is always someone else that needs to consider their choices. For example a long time friend in his 80s travels multiple times a year to see biodiversity. I discussed with him his carbon footprint and how I have reconsidered such travels the last decade or two. He is an environmentalist but his response was that he and I earned those trips because we dedicated our lives and funds to those issues. My wife and I were asked about taking a nature cruise to see the glaciers before they were gone. Our reaction was that traveling to do so would contribute to those glaciers disappearing.

    Doshin
    St

  33. #283
    Quote Originally Posted by Doshin View Post
    I do know your thoughts. Your book arrives this week. Can I substitute it for one of my required readings
    No, but definitely put it near the top of the list. It is not required either, but I hope people will read it and consider it.

    Gassho, J

    stlah
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  34. #284
    Quote Originally Posted by Doshin View Post
    Can we meet this moment of an environmental crises with enough resolve to minimize or reverse the changes that this planet faces?

    I ask this question to learn what other members of our Sangha think.

    From my perspective changes must be made at the individual, community, National and global levels. Is that possible?

    Gary Snyder, poet, essayist and Zen student is quoted as saying “The best thing you can do for the planet is to stay home.” What do you think he means by that?

    Doshin
    Stlah
    I was wondering if "natural" disasters and pandemics like coronavirus are a calling from the environment that humans aren't the only beings affecting/affected. Such events can really shake humanity, maybe that's a hit from Gary Snyder?

    Gasshō

    stlah, Kaitan
    Kaitan - 界探 - Realm searcher
    Formerly known as "Bernal"

  35. #285
    Hi Doshin

    I remain hopeful that we humans can make the changes necessary to avert our many crisis.

    Collective actions such as our response to COVID gives me hope. The majority of people when given the opportunity did the right thing I.e. wear as mask, isolate, stay at home. Yes there will always be those who look out only for their self interest but I believe they are the minority.


    Articles like this also gives me hope. https://theconversation.com/how-a-tu...-planet-221838 For those outside of Canada, one of western provinces was recently hit with a streak of extreme cold. Rather than face rolling blackouts it seems enough people put aside their own self interests and did the right thing by cutting back on their own usage.

    I am optimistic that we will see more and more actions like this. Hopefully not too late.


    Tairin
    Sat today and lah
    泰林 - Tai Rin - Peaceful Woods

  36. #286
    I'm also optimistic and work by people like Hannah Ritchie give me hope that all is not lost, not that we are doing enough or things quickly enough: https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/

    Gassho,

    Heiso
    StLah

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