Meditation & Teachings

To access guided meditations on climate change while this website is being developed,

Visit Tonglen for Climate Change on YouTube

Why meditate? How does meditation help climate change?

Meditation develops our ability to be present in the face of challenges and not be overwhelmed with emotion, react in anger, or shut down in grief or fear. Meditation practice is like exercise—as we train regularly, we strengthen our mindfulness and tap into our inner resources of kindness, compassion, and wisdom. When we hear painful news or have a challenging conversation, we are able to respond skillfully and in a way that is most helpful to the situation.

Meditation practice is like setting out a glass of silty water—as the water sits, the silt settles to the bottom and the water becomes clear. As one practices, the mind slowly clarifies. From this clarity of mind, we can then see the problems around climate change and see ways in which we ourselves can be most useful with our particular skillset and life situation.

Two main challenges with activism are becoming heartbroken or numb with grief, or reacting out of anger which then turns others against the issue or clouds their judgement with self-defensiveness. With meditation practice, we strengthen our muscle of compassion and open-heartedness, which then allows us to face what is happening in the world with an open heart and gives us tools to work with the emotions that arise. We also gain the ability to notice our reactions when they arise and not be overtaken by them. Instead of speaking out of anger, that energy can fuel the clarity of our awareness and enable us to be more skillful and articulate. We then can say or take actions that help the situation rather than perpetuating hatred and divisiveness.