Environmental Philosophy of Buddhism

Abstract

When we look at Buddhism in the context of its origin, we encounter a philosophy and a way of life which emerged in India in the sixth century BC (over a gulf of more than 2,500 years). Though it was a time in which there was no crisis of the environment of the kind we see today, we must ask whether the teachings of the Buddha help us to understand the threats to the environment today Is there a diagnosis that may be made of an environmental crisis from the perspectives of the teachings of the Buddha? The ethical teachings and the general philosophy of the Buddha are basically related to the quest of young Siddhartha Gotama to find an answer to the tangle of human suffering and the riddles of life and death. It was after a prolonged, persistent, and almost an agonising attempt to seek an answer to these questions, that the prince attained enlightenment.