Ecology

In recent decades the protection of the Earth's living environment has become an important issue and has drawn everyone's attention. Alongside the meteoric progress of science and technology, environmental pollution has also risen to alarming levels. Some big cities are so heavily choked with exhaust smoke that the song of birds can no longer be heard, as in Seoul. In Mexico, a bird can fall dead when it flies through a patch of poisoned air. The number of people with respiratory disease is rising fast. But it is not only the respiratory system: people's internal organs, nervous system, blood vessels and endocrine glands are all badly affected.

Electromagnetic waves blanket the whole globe and are suspected of causing stress and cancer. High-voltage power lines give off magnetic waves that are harmful to the living environment on both sides of the line.

Industrial chemicals such as Freon in refrigerators damage the ozone layer that protects the Earth. Forests felled indiscriminately upset the planet's temperature, humidity, water supply and air filtration, adding to the greenhouse effect.

Nuclear reactors always haunt everyone, in case of a leak or an explosion, of which the Chernobyl accident is a typical example.

Chemical pesticides poison living things in turn. Humans do not escape the disaster of their own making while trying to rid their crops of pests and disease.

Then the rubbish and waste that people themselves produce is flooding all around us and has also become a serious problem.

The fossil fuels needed for the engines of transport and for generating electricity all release enormous amounts of harmful smoke into the atmosphere, yet to this day they cannot be replaced by any other material. For several decades to come, humankind will still have to depend on oil, coal and gas.

Besides these difficulties of the ecological environment, people also face pollution by infectious viruses that cannot be controlled in any way, such as HIV (which causes AIDS) and hepatitis viruses A, B, C, D and E (which cause liver cancer). These viruses spread through blood, sexual contact and even saliva (the hepatitis viruses).

It seems that behind its civilised and progressive appearance, humankind is standing before the danger of extinction, and has to scramble to find ways to defend itself, in a very hard and bitter struggle. Scientists throw themselves quietly into this silent war to find effective ways of winning back a good living environment for people. Many famous figures and artists have stood up to urge people to be more aware of the ecological danger threatening our planet. No one has the right to turn their back on the ecological problem, because all human beings are culprits in polluting the environment. Everyone must use fuel to cook, to travel, to light their homes and for other conveniences. Anyone present on this planet has also "sinned" by contributing to polluting the common environment; they differ only in degree.

Those who clearly understand the law of karmic cause and effect will be highly conscious in protecting the Earth's ecology. For those who contribute to dirtying the environment will, in the future, be born in dirty places and have to work in occupations that are dark, dusty, smoky, toxic and foul-smelling, or, more seriously, fall into rebirth as animals living in stagnant ponds, in oxygen-poor regions, in scorching heat or freezing cold...

But we are very prone to being indifferent to this kind of karmic cause. Our vehicle spews thick smoke onto the street; never mind. We sweep rubbish, scattering fine dust into the neighbours' homes; never mind. Our cigarette smoke seeps into the lungs of those in the same room; never mind. A farmer burns his field to clear it, with the smoke rising into the atmosphere, not knowing that it increases the greenhouse effect. A stone-crushing factory does not spray water, so dust rises over the whole sky and affects the residents nearby. People crowd together burning incense until temples are thick with smoke on festival days, poisoning one another's lungs. I do not know whether the deities witness their sincerity, but first of all the worshippers must breathe their lungs full of smoke.

Noise is also a factor that fouls the living environment of living beings (plants included). We play music loudly and affect the neighbours' nerves and brains. Some kinds of music that do not suit a person's taste and constitution leave the listener's mind heavily pent up, and over time it gives rise to organic and endocrine diseases and functional nervous disorders.

Or there are people in occupations that require constant hammering and banging, which deafens everyone around. Over time, the karma they accumulate is very heavy. They will suffer karmic results of illness and be born into environments with much commotion that causes constant restlessness.

Through lack of understanding of ecology, and also lack of love for all beings, we create many karmic causes that pollute the Earth's surroundings, adding to one another's suffering. Under the fair and objective law of karma, the bad results we must bear are unavoidable. We have no right to lack scientific knowledge, so that we avoid error in how we live and help protect the Earth's ecology better and better.

One of the pressing issues today in protecting the Earth's ecology is protecting the primary forests and developing planted forests. Every green leaf and every cool shade tree helps protect the Earth's ecology. We hope that people of faith who understand the law of karmic cause and effect will join hands to plant vast, boundless forests. To do this is to do a great meritorious deed, for we leave future generations a supply of timber and a good living environment. Until now, followers have thought that only making offerings to the temple and feeding the monks is meritorious karma worth noting. In fact it is not so simple.

"Buddhism exists to bring benefit to the world, not so that the world may bring benefit to Buddhism."

A true disciple of the Buddha is one who has absorbed the Buddha's teaching and then returns to live among people, living for them with a heart of compassion free of self. The Dharma is a path for living, a light guiding everyone to live in accordance with truth. For that reason, people respect the Dharma. But let us not allow the Dharma, afterwards, to become an object of excessive offerings.

We respect the Dharma because it gives us a good way to live, a path of liberation from suffering and boundless love for everyone. But that respect should not lead us to set up a formal Dharma for offerings and worship to the point of forgetting the suffering of countless people around us.

The Buddha's disciples need to absorb the Buddha's wisdom, and what is that wisdom if not a clear understanding of karmic cause and effect, a clear understanding of the path beyond the cycle of birth, death and rebirth?

And on the level of karma, we must know everything that constitutes wrongdoing as well as everything that creates merit.

Protecting the Earth's ecology! That is a charitable work of great significance for everyone in general and for Buddhists in particular.

Besides the physical ecological pollution just described, we must also resist ecological pollution in the spiritual space.

Human thought always tends to spread into the minds of the people around. We can test this as follows. When we are near a few friends, let us choose some song that they know. Then we sing it silently and strongly in our heart. Before long we will see that friend softly begin to sing that very song!

That is a simple example. In daily life, people's good thoughts and evil thoughts spread in a jumble through the spiritual space between them. If good thoughts outnumber evil thoughts, we have a fine "spiritual ecology". If the opposite, we have to bear a bad "spiritual ecology". For passive people with no firm moral stance, the evil thoughts spreading through space easily influence them. At first they are not evil people, but living in an environment with too many evil thoughts, they gradually become wicked.

Only people with a firm moral stance are strong enough to "resist" the evil thoughts wandering in space. But in this life, those with a firm moral footing are very few. Most are easily infected by wicked, selfish, violent thoughts.

In Western countries we witness movements of restlessness, violence, debauchery, shows of force and collective incitement that occur regularly; they are due to the influence of thought. It begins with one person's incitement. After many people are incited, the power of thought resonates and is amplified, quickly spreading into everyone's mind at great intensity and making them strangely violent and restless. This is especially so with kinds of thought that strike hard at people's selfish instinct, such as glorifying a race (fascism), glorifying extreme nationalism, glorifying sexual freedom...

Most criminal prisons are furnaces that produce wicked people, because many wicked people are gathered there. Their thoughts keep infecting one another and keep reinforcing the wickedness of the inmates. Few people come out of prison to become honest. If the judicial system does not grasp this problem, it will have much more trouble keeping society secure and orderly. The judicial system needs to understand better this nature of "spiritual ecology", the invisible infection of thought between people.

By then, we will see that prisons, handcuffs and guns are not enough to transform people. A clean "spiritual ecology" is needed; many educators in the ethics of karmic cause and effect are needed; many hypnotists are needed to transform character; and specialists in "moral biochemistry" are needed, to use substances to temporarily change people's evil thoughts. Some substances can temporarily suppress the unwholesome tendencies in people. Many specialists in many fields must work together before people can be reformed for the better.

Thus the meaning of ecology must be understood broadly in both spheres, the physical and the spiritual, and in each sphere we need to contribute actively to turning the Earth's ecology for the better. For physical ecology, we avoid causing contamination, electromagnetic radiation, noise, deforestation... For spiritual ecology, we avoid sowing evil thoughts that wander through space and pollute the minds of passive people.