The Greatest Gift: “For Our Long-lasting

Benefit and Happiness”

Buddhist Teachings on Environment and Human Welfare
by Tathālokā Therī
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The blessed
Buddha came into
our world, and
realizing
awakening, taught
for our longterm
benefit and
happiness—in the
Pāli-texts:
amhākaṃ
digharattaṃ hitāya
sukhāya. These
words of the
Buddha were not a
new idea, they are
an ancient quote.
But the depth of
understanding that
could lead to such
human experience
was new in his
time; or as he
himself put it, it
was ancient
buddha-
knowledge that
had been lost to
humanity, which
he rediscovered.
We are in need of
such a rediscovery now—to regain clarity about what is for our individual and
collective human welfare, as it is deeply interrelated with the welfare and wellbeing
of all of life. This is at the heart of the dispensation of the Buddha’s teaching, which
he directed his first awakened disciples to spread “for the welfare and benefit of the
many, for the happiness and bliss of the many”—bahujana hitāya, bahujana sukhāya.
As a young person growing up in the USA, I felt deep concern for what I
perceived then as a tendency to be, in “the rat race,” all running after something
both unattainable and also likely to run us over the cliff. The mad race of ever
increasing consumption, and with it, ever increasing waste, seemed dangerous and
destructive (as well illustrated in this video). Greed and exploitation seemed to be
being valorized, given increasing and ascending moral value.
!
With it came what felt like a degenerate idea of ourselves as human beings, with
our human value being expounded as being ideal “producers” and “consumers.”
!
But what was the ideal really was very unclear other than that it involved perpetual
striving after something which seemed illusory (like the rat running in a wheel),
and thus both creating and perpetuating perpetual seeking and dissatisfaction
involving a corrupt lust and thirst for consumer power and consumption. The
other thing that seemed clear was that this behavior and these dynamics were
destructive—toxic, to our environment and to us humans.
!
These concerns led me to seeking wisdom and understanding, and engendered a
keenly felt need to bring forth that wisdom again into our modern world.
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Insight Into Conditional Causation and Cessation
!
One of the key
elements of the
Buddha’s own
crucial insight and
one of the great
strengths of the
Buddha’s teaching,
lies at the heart of
the Dhamma. This
is the teaching on
conditional
causation.
!
Ye dhammā
hetuppabhavā,
tesaṃ hetuṃ
Tathāgato āha:
Tesañ ca yo nirodho -
evaṃvādī
Mahāsamaṇo.
!
“Whatever phenomena
arise from a cause,
These causes have been
taught by the
Tathāgatha;
These, and also their
cessation -
Thus taught the great
Sage.”
!
Through the lens of such insight, we can see causes and conditions as they develop
together over time and lead to effects, including the entirety of our current
experience.
!
The teaching on insight into conditional causation answers the big questions of
“Why?” Where did such obsessive, compulsive destructive behavior come from?
Have human beings always been like this, and if not, what happened to us? It also
has the potential to show us clearly what we can change and do differently that will
lead to a different relationship, a different experience and different effects. This is
Wise Action, leading to a different experiential reality; not only in our mind, but in
our environment, in our relationships and in our physical world.
!
Understanding the Relationship Between Gender Theologies and
Environmental Destruction
!
In the past several hundred years, powerful new technologies have combined with
underlying philosophies and religious teachings in unprecedented ways. The
technologies allowed for the enormous rapid expansion of cultures which were
motivated by, and have perpetuated, these underlying ideas of self, relationship,
and world.
!
Some of these religious teachings included the idea of humanity, “cast out from the
garden,” as being essentially sinful and broken. We were separated from the
garden, and ideas of redemption were separated from our human actions and
behavior, such that whatever we did we could still be saved, and that saving was
going to come from outside, from someone and somewhere else, from the heavens
above, from supernatural grace.
!
These ideas included a mandate translated and interpreted as masculine divine right
to subjugate the earth in a justified quest and imperative for dominion over the
planet and her creatures. The Earth, long known as Mother and the Mother
Goddess was related to woman and all of what was to be subjugated, while man
related to the sky god Father. Salvation meant to leave this Earthy base,
characterized as corrupt, depraved, base—the sky god thus toppling and gaining
ascendancy over, dominating and destroyed the Earth Goddess. In some
ideologies, the Earth even needed to be practically destroyed for there to be
ascendency of man to the state of the divine, ultimate salvation.
!
How powerful are these underlying stories and ideas of selfhood and destiny! Of
course, there are myriad variations to these myths, but also common threads.
When seen clearly in context, they can illuminate knowledge and understanding of
just how such destructive gender theologies—continually feeding back into such
ideas of selfhood with a mandate or “manifest destiny” to spread and dominate,
when combined with powerful technological developments—have led to enormous
environment destruction.
!
Such understanding is powerful. It begins to awaken us from our stupor to the
recognition of the harm that such ideas and behaviors do to us, to the earth, to the
ground of our life; to the waters, air and skies of our whole biosphere upon which
all of our lives have arisen and essentially depend.

Love and care for
ourselves and each
other, and compassion
coupled with precepts
of non-harm (ahiṃsa),
lead us to a new
awareness of our
actions, a wish to turn
around and do better.
Such healthy
awakening of
awareness and
determination, in the
Pāli canon are well
named as “grounds of
the path” and
“guardians of the
world.”
!
At their root, Buddhist
karmic teachings are
empowering and
liberating.
Recognizing
conditional causation,
they highlight the
effective and
transformational
importance of our
actions. There is a clear understanding that conscious and intentional actions as
related to both self and others, as well as to the world at large, have effects; and
that we are experiencing those effects and will experience those effects, whether
for good or for ill.
!
Calling Out the Karma of Waste
In light of the environmental impact of our individual- and society-level actions, I
find it helpful to look carefully and directly at the karma of waste. What does it
mean, from a karmic perspective, to be engaging with our planet, with all its
species and peoples, as short term consumers creating enormous waste, largely
unconcerned or oblivious to its effects? In light of karma and the teachings on
conditional causation, what does it mean to become aware that we are taking
myriad pristine resources and forms of life and turning them into garbage? What is
the karma of this? And, what is the reverse?
!
For the reverse, the turning back of negative and destructive cycles, is the manifest
intention of the Buddhist teachings on conditional causation that lie at the heart of
the noble and ennobling teachings of the Four Noble Truths.

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Turning It Around: “As Clean As Or Cleaner”
To find the Buddha’s teachings related specifically to the topic of human waste, we
can go to the first collection of the three-fold Tipitaka, the Vinaya. The Buddha,
when teaching, commonly conjoined the words Dhamma and Vinaya; in this case
meaning the complete teaching and path of practice together. In the Vinaya
teachings, we find monastic discipline, and in the monastic disciple, we find very
earthy and practical teachings on human waste. Not to throw out our waste onto
the green, not to pollute the soil, not to pollute the waters so that beings living in
stream or downstream will come to harm or feel offended.
!
And then there is the teaching I’d like to focus on here. A teaching in which I find
a clear vision as to what we should be aiming for, in our hearts and minds. A most
proper Buddhist environmental paradigm for our times; the Vinaya teaching on
toileting.
!
In this teaching, the Buddhist monk of example goes to the toilet. (Did you know
that long ago, Buddhists were international groundbreakers in the spread of
hygienic toileting practices?) Going to the toilet, the monk of the story uses the
toilet and then departs. The one who enters the toilet afterwards is offended by the
state the toilet was left. Surely all of us can relate to this! Of course, that leaves a
bad impression. How could a mindful disciple of the Buddha behave so? So, the
Vinaya teaching arises with regards to applied mindfulness in engaging with our
human waste processes. How are disciples of the Buddha asked to leave the toilet?
!
As clean as or cleaner than when they arrived.
!
This teaching is then extended by the Vinaya-dhammā teachers to not only in-
monastery toilets, but also other outside toilets. And not only to in-monastery toilets,
but also those outside. And, furthermore, to other dwellings and facilities used by
disciples of the Buddha outside the monasteries. We can see here, in the Buddha’s
signature style, the flushing out of a principle. Through this example, when
brought to light with awakened wisdom shining on it, the much larger, salient
principle, pattern and way of being the Buddha is guiding his disciples toward is
illuminated.
!
We have learned that for dedicated practitioners who would put the wisdom of the
Buddha into practice at the level of the mind and heart, we should strive to end
each day with our mind and heart as clean as or cleaner than we began the day. Not
to mentally live our lives in the karmic pattern of the accumulation of unhealthy
unwholesome mental and emotional karmic waste, but to consciously turn back
and reverse that process. So that each day we at least do not add anew, and we
further clean and clear up the old remainder as much as we can. Here we see this
same basic pattern applied consciously and intentionally at the bodily, physical,
worldly level, for our own health and welfare, and also that of others.
!
Extending this teaching to the level of our minds and hearts, and also to the way
we as individuals and we as human beings and in human societies are physically
living on our planet (to the Dharma as Buddhist culture), what does the intention of
“as clean as or cleaner” look like in a human day? In a human year, or a human
decade? How much can we turn around our negative and unwise habit patterns at
the personal, social and global level towards what will be for our longterm benefit
and happiness. Such action would be a truly great gift to ourselves, to each other,
to humanity, and to all living beings.

When we chant the popular Buddhist
mettā chants:
!
Sabbe sattā, sukhitā hontu… sukha
jivino…sukhi attānaṃ pārihārāntu—
“May all living beings be happy… live
happily… and look after themselves
happily,” we should not keep these
blessed and bright wishes at the mental
and verbal levels alone; our beautiful
thoughts and words should be followed
by our beautiful, bright and wise
behaviors into the realm where moral
virtue and ethics connect with our
meditation through right and wise
action:
!
Sammā Kammanto, Sammā Ājivo, Sammā
Vāyāmo, Sammā Sāti—“Right & Wise
Action, Right & Wise Livelihood, with
Right & Wise Effort and Right & Wise
Mindfulness.”
!
Then we truly walk the Buddha’s Way,
we too awaken after the Awakened
One, setting the Dhamma wheel into
motion in body, speech, heart and mind
together in our world. There is no
better Buddha vāndana, no more
sublime Bodhi pūjā.



Imāya Dhammānudhamma pātipātiya Buddhaṃ pujema—By this practice in
accordance with the Dhamma we honor the Buddha. Idaṃ no puññaṃ Nibbāna
pāccayo hotu—May this merit and virtue of ours be condition for the realization of
Nibbāna.
!
—
About the Author

Ven. Tathālokā Therī (Ayya Tathaloka)
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Quotes from the canonical Pāli Dhamma and Vinaya texts (translations by author)
- “For our longterm benefit and happiness”—amhākaṃ digharattaṃ hitāya sukhāya
(Bodhirājakumāra Sutta, Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha)
- “For the welfare and benefit of the many, for the happiness and bliss of the
many”—bahujana hitāya, bahujana sukhāya (Sugatavinaya Sutta, Numerical
Discourses of the Buddha).
- Ye dhammā hetuppabhavā, tesaṃ hetuṃ Tathāgato āha.Tesañ ca yo nirodho - evaṃvādī
Mahāsamaṇo—“Whatever phenomena arise from a cause, these causes have been
taught by the Tathāgatha; these, and also their cessation - thus taught the great
Peaceful One.” (Upatissapasine, Vinaya Mahāvagga Khandhaka)
- Sammā Kammanto, Sammā Ājivo, Sammā Vāyāmo, Sammā Sāti—“Right & Wise
Action, Right & Wise Livelihood, with Right & Wise Effort and Right & Wise
Mindfulness.” (from the exposition of the Noble Eightfold Path in the
Dhammacakkappavatana Sutta—“Setting Into Motion the Wheel of the
Dhamma,” Connected Discourses of the Buddha.
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Related content from Ayya Tathaloka
“Saffron and Green in the Clear Forest Pool” (Green Monasticism book chapter)
“Earth Day Earth Witness” (article)
“Buddhism and Environmentalism” (audio)

“Awakening to the Impact of Theologies of Gender on Climate Change” (video)
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Images
1. “Mettā—Lovingkindness” by Ānandajoti Bhikkhu, Sumathipala, Photo Dharma
https://www.photodharma.net/Sri-Lanka/Sumathipala/Sumathipala.htm
2. “Kāruṇā—Compassion” “by Ānandajoti Bhikkhu as above”
3. “Muditā—Sympathetic Joy” “”
4. “Upekkhā—Equanimity” “”
5. “Surfaces” by the late Auriel Shearer, May 2010. From the private collection of
Li-ming Lee, Singapore
6: Walking Buddha with Bo Leaves by Benny Ong. From the private collection of
Li-ming Lee, Singapore
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Gratitude
To Buddhistdoor Global for featuring articles on this most important and timely
topic, and to Li-ming Lee and friends of Singapore for their kind support of the
time and space to write this article.
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Buddhistdoor Special Issue 2017
Planetary Healing: Buddhism and World Ecology