Global Recovery: - United Nations Day of Vesak 2013

Global Recovery :
through Buddhist Ecology
fire derives momentary pleasure, which ultimately worsens his wound and augments
his trouble all the more. While defining the creation of universe, Buddhism describes
the pattern of resource use that aims at meeting human needs and preserving
the environment. If it is not happening then there is deterioration in the standard of
living and a consequent decline of universe. The Aggañña Sutta of Dīgha Nikāya
says that the appearance of greed in the primordial being led to gradual loss of their
glow and their ability to sustain joy. The moral degradation had also affected their
external environment and had an adverse impact on nature. After it, the richness of
earth started diminishing. Buddha has predicted an intimate link between ecology
and culture. An attempt to control the ecological system externally could culminate
into disaster. Buddha’s messages helped to avoid such circumstances and give
understanding of functional relationship between the community and its environment.
This idea is systematized in his theory of five natural laws (Pancha niyamadhamma).
According to it in the cosmos five natural laws are functional namely; natural laws
(utuniyama) biological laws (binaniyama), psychological laws (cittaniyama), moral
laws (kammaniyama) and casual laws (dhammaniyama). It means the physical
environment of any region conditions the growth and development of its biological
components i.e. flora and fauna. In the Buddhism the citta acts in four directions.
These are:
i. Kamavacara - It is the mind desire having good (Kusala), bad (akusala),
indifferent (kriya) and ripe (vipaka) kinds, depending on the nature of our
mental propensities.
ii. Rupavacara - It is the status of mind having good ideas (Kusala), indifferent
(Kriya) and ripe regions.
iii. Arupavacara - It is the mind of trance also of three kinds as Rupavacara, but
possessed by still higher beings residing in nirakara (formless) regions.
iv. Lokottara - It is a mind of realization, having as its object the bliss of
Nirvana and having two kinds depending on the path and result.
All these classes are not purely psychological. Ethical, metaphysical and spiritual
evolutions are also implicated in four kinds of citta. These in turn influence
the thought pattern of the people interacting with them. The way of thinking
determines moral standards. The moral of human kind is not only the psychological
makeup of the people but the biological and physical environment of area as well.
The five laws demonstrate that human world and nature are joined together in
a reciprocal casual relationship with change in any one necessarily bringing about
change in other. The human world and its environment stands or falls with the type
of moral force at work. If immorality grips society humankind and nature declines.
If morality exists the quality of human life and nature improve. Buddha says that if
change is universal; neither man nor any other being, animate or inanimate are being
7