The ideas conveyed in these articles may not reflect those held by members of the collective responsible for the Eco Dharma centre, or even (given the nature of the creative and investigative mind) those of the authors themselves! Idea, thoughts, words… can help us stay rooted in the worlds that precede words, and they can help us to open up into worlds that surpass words – but only if we learn to hold ideas lightly. Methodologies of liberation – spiritual and social – evade ideology. What we believe can imprison us, while the world eludes us to become itself again. So: "With reverence for reality we offer ideas: ideas that today are fresh and sweetly blooming; ideas that tomorrow are faded and fallen."
In this short text from a talk given at the international convention of the Western Buddhist Order in 2007, Guhyapati champions a dharma rooted in the complexities of our present historical moment, challenging institutionalised greed and hatred; a dharma that stands in courageous and compassionate defence of the earth, standing in solidarity with life.
» Read article29 March 2008
Drawing upon points of intersection between the Buddhist Dharma and the Deep Ecology movement, Guhyapati questions the assumptions of the dominant western world view – its commitment to progress and economic growth. Calling for a dharmic approach that resists the dualistic traps separating the sacred and the everyday, the spiritual and the material, he suggests that we need to rediscover our embeddedness in nature, celebrate our rootedness in the mineral and organic, and shake off anthropocentrism.
» Read article29 March 2008