Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh explains why mindfulness and a spiritual revolution rather than economics is needed to protect nature and limit climate change
Jo Confino for the Guardian Professional Network
guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 February 2012 06.53 EST

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has been practising meditation and mindfulness for 70 years and radiates an extraordinary sense of calm and peace. This is a man who on a fundamental level walks his talk, and whom Buddhists revere as a Bodhisattva; seeking the highest level of being in order to help others.

Ever since being caught up in the horrors of the Vietnam war, the 86-year-old monk has committed his life to reconciling conflict and in 1967 Martin Luther King nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying "his ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity."

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"We have created a society in which the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, and in which we are so caught up in our own immediate problems that we cannot afford to be aware of what is going on with the rest of the human family or our planet Earth.

"In my mind I see a group of chickens in a cage disputing over a few seeds of grain, unaware that in a few hours they will all be killed."

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/zen-thich-naht-hanh-buddhidm-business-values

Is there a problem with the environment? Yes, there is. And we will not pretend there is not. We will address it in a way that’s both sensitive to jobs and sensitive to the needs of Americans to live without a rising rate of asthma in the inner cities; the needs of Americans to have national park systems that work, and the needs of Americans to cooperate with other nations around the globe to reduce greenhouse gases -- which, in fact, are a real, scientific phenomenon.
Howard Dean, Take Back America Conference , Jun 2, 2005