Buddhist Practical Teachings on Environment: Solutions for Current Environmental Crisis in the World.

Abstract

By 21st century, humankind has tremendously reached at the acme of scientific and technological development by means of various paths. Living conditions of man have been threatened as a result of people-made social, economic and environmental crises at the dawn of the 21st century with the loss of respect for moral attitudes, values and ideals in society and environment. The environmental crisis is reckoned as one of them. It is a big challenge not only for tomorrow’s survival of man and his generation but also the whole environment. Although natural resources are limited, greedy man destroys everything in nature owing to his unlimited overwhelmingly growth of attitudes. The earth is the only place in which human beings and other beings can survive. The environmental catastrophe manifests itself a variety of ways such as global warming, over-population, deforestation, depletion of food sources, rising sealevel, damage to the Ozone Layer, pollution of the land, atmospheric pollution, melting ice-glaziers, aggravation of the Acid-rain level, rapid disappearance of forests, desertification, alarming rate of extinction of wild life, scarcity of resources, pollution by toxic chemicals, hazardous waste, rubbish cities and all sorts of radiation. Buddhism advocates non-greedy attitudes towards environment. Buddhism realizes the reciprocal causal relationship between man and nature in depth. The Buddha can be named as the peerless environmentalist who protected nature as a sacred treasure. It is expected to use the Buddhist discourses such as Aggañña, Kūṭadanta, Cakkavattisīhanāda, Copyright © ICSUSL-Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka 2017 726 Adhammika, Vanaropa, Dhammapada, Theragāthāpāli, Senāsanakkhandhaka, Vattakkhandhaka, KhuddhakaVattakkhandhaka, CammakkhandhakaPācittiyapāli and the Buddhist Jātaka stories. The prime focus of this study is to find the Buddhist practical solutions for current environmental crisis.