Diversity Q & A
Does your religion or culture influence the way you think about the environment?
Sujato
Show transcript
Buddhism teaches us that we're not separate from nature. Everything that we do is a part of the environment. So every breath that we take, every sip of water that we have, every bite of food that we have is all part of the environment. So one of the things that I learnt when I started practicing Buddhism was to take very great care not to harm anything, anything that was around us. For example, when I was living at this monastery in Thailand, I noticed that on the driveway into the monastery there was a line of ants that would cross over every day. So the abbot in the monastery, he was a very kind man and very careful, would make bridges, little bridges that the cars could drive over so that they wouldn't squash the ants. Every day, every morning he would go out there and he'd move the bridge and make sure that the ants were protected. So when I saw this, this gave me a wonderful example to show just how much we really should care and look after every creature no matter how small.