Buddhist Approaches to Climate Change

On May 5, 2022, CUHF National Council member Lama Willa Blythe Baker challenged an audience at MIT to look beyond technology to solve the climate crises. Her talk Environment, Ethics and Embodiment: Buddhist Approaches to Climate Change was offered as part of the MIT’s annual T.T. and W.F. Chao Distinguished Buddhist Lecture Series.

In her talk, Lama Willa called for an “embodied revolution,” to create a world in which we realize we are connected and interdependent with each other and with our natural environment; envisioning a world in which we always ask of every question: “How will this affect our bodies, trees, plants, mosses, water, air around us?”

Read more about her talk on MIT News, or click below to watch the full video.

Lama Willa Blythe Baker  is the Founder and Spiritual Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship in Boston (MA) and its retreat center Wonderwell Mountain Refuge in Springfield (NH). She received her PhD in Religion from Harvard University in 2013, and was a Visiting Lecturer in Buddhist Ministry at Harvard Divinity School from 2013-2017. In the 1990s she completed two three-year retreats, after which she was authorized as a dharma teacher and lineage holder (lama) in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.

Her books include Essence of Ambrosia (2005), Everyday Dharma (2009), The Arts of Contemplative Care (2012) and The Wakeful Body (2021). Her articles have appeared in the Journal of International Buddhist Studies, Lion’s Roar, Buddhadharma, Tricycle Magazine, and other publications. She serves on the Advisory Board for One Earth Sangha, and has worked as Contemplative Faculty for the Mind and Life Institute.