A Study on Attitude Changing with Buddhist Teachings to Ensure the Security of Environment

Abstract

Protecting the environment is a global need indeed today. In the modern society, there is an over competitiveness among people and the desire to have higher progress of life with material gain have affected the existence of the environment. People with poor attitudes towards the environment tend to destroy the environment seeking money, lands or other advantages. Industrial development worldwide makes this issue a bigger one. Poisonous smokes, unrecyclable products, harmful excretions are some of the major treats produced by industries. Environmental pollution comes from various ways such as water misuse, energy wasting, air pollution, sound pollution, clearing forests etc.All those activities are being conducted by human beings unfortunately. As a result of those activities a lot of disasters happen frequently like floods, soil erosion and droughts. To overcome these environmental issues there should be an attitude change of people.Buddhist perspective on environment helps to protect all environmental segments of the earth like animals, trees, water, and air and so on.A lot of suttas in P̓ãli Canon like Kutadantasutta, Wanarõpanasutta, teachings in VinayaPitaka and some stanzas in Dhammapada emphasize the importance of protecting environment. Furthermore, concepts in Buddism like metta, karuna ensure the security of environment. Usually, on one hand, people do not care about the environment due to their lack of knowledge on environmental pollution. On the other hand people think to pass their responsibility on protection the environment to others. In addition, they do not have any familiarity with that. Therefore, to make a change upon thinking patterns of people, attitude changing with Buddhist teachings is very important. Educational institutes, industries, organizations, religious centers and other volunteers should be encouraged to have a sound knowledge about Buddhist teachings on environment and then they may take actions to change attitudes of people. Children based interventions are very useful here. Furthermore, political leaders should support that process taking immediate actions and facilitating. These steps should be implemented to change attitudes of people with Buddhist teachings on the environment as soon as possible to ensure the security of the environment and also the wellbeing of next generation.