My Spiritual Journey by Dalai Lama (good books for 8th graders txt) 📕

Poland, and the former East Germany, many problems of pollution were caused by negligence. Factory production was increased with no care taken to avoid harming the environment. The same situation is being repeated in the People’s Republic of China. In the 1970s and 1980s, no one paid any attention to the pollution, but since then there has been a rise in consciousness. I think the previous situations arose from ignorance.

In Tibet it seems that, when it comes to the environment, Chinese officials are applying discriminatory measures: negligence seems to be occurring in regions inhabited by certain ethnic groups. A Tibetan who comes from the region of Dingri in the south of Tibet told me about a river from which villagers drew their drinking water. The Chinese in the People’s Liberation Army living in the area had been instructed not to drink it, but no one informed the Tibetans of the risks linked to its consumption. So they continue to drink it. This shows that Chinese disregard continues and is not due to a lack of information but to other reasons.

The lives of six million Tibetans are in grave danger because of pollution. Children are already suffering from diseases linked to air pollution. There is an immense amount of suffering and anguish that isn’t heard about abroad but is confined to the secrecy of humble homes. It is in the name of innocent people that I speak.15

A policy of systematic deforestation, done for China’s profit, has deprived Tibet of half its forests. The consequences, denounced by the Dalai Lama, are devastating and affect all of Asia. During the floods of the Yangtze thatcaused a national catastrophe in China in August 1998, the central government admitted that the tragedy was caused by the massive deforestation around the river’s sources in the Tibetan province of Kham. At present, quotas have been established to protect the forests, but they are rarely respected. In these conditions, the vegetation no longer regenerates, and the desertification of the Tibetan plateau continues, reducing the output of the main rivers by one-quarter. Four hundred large cities in China now suffer from a dearth of water, and in the countryside the harvests are affected by a lack of irrigation.

As the Dalai Lama reminds us, the subsoil of the high Tibetan plateau is rich in minerals, which are many and diverse. This abundance of mining resources was one of the main reasons for the Chinese invasion of 1949. The Chinese continue to exploit large deposits of uranium, chrome, gold, lithium, borax, iron, and silver. Oil and natural gas reserves in the region of Tsaidam constitute a prime energy supply for China’s accelerated industrialization.

Mining carried out with no concern for the environment has disastrous consequences for the soil and the phreatic layer, which today are polluted by the toxic waste used in extraction. Far from putting a stop to these practices, Chinese industrialists are trying to increase them by attracting foreign investors. The Tibetans who had the courage to protest the destruction of the environment were rewarded with torture and long prison sentences.

Reflections of a Buddhist monk on our ecological responsibility

OVER THE COURSE of my many journeys throughout the world, to rich and poor countries, to the East and the West, I have seen people who enjoy every form of pleasure and other people who are suffering. Advances in science and technology seem to end up only in a one-sided and quantitative improvement of development that ought to represent more than just a few additional houses in new cities. And ecological balance, the basis of our life on Earth, has been greatly affected.

In the past, the Tibetan people lived a happy life, in a nature preserved from all pollution. Today, everywhere in the world, including Tibet, ecological degradation is quickly catching up to us. I am completely convinced that if we don’t make a concentrated effort together, and if we fail to realize our universal responsibility, we will witness the gradual destruction of fragile ecosystems, the sources of our survival, which will lead to the irreversible and irrevocable degradation of Planet Earth.

I composed these verses to express my profound concern and to solicit the efforts of all people to heal our environment and put an end to its degradation.

O Lord Tathagata,

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born in the tree of the Ikshvaku lineage,

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O Unparalleled One who sees the all-pervasive interdependence Between environment and sentient beings,

Samsara and nirvana, animate and inanimate, O You who teach in this world from compassion, Confer on us Your loving-kindness!

O Savior, whom we invoke with the name Avalokiteshvara,

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Because You embody the compassion of all the Buddhas, We pray to You to make our minds ripen and bear fruit, So that we can observe reality without illusion. Stubborn self-centeredness, which has impregnated our minds Since beginningless time,

Contaminates, soils, and pollutes the environment Created by the shared karma of all sentient beings. Lakes and pools have lost their clarity and freshness. The atmosphere is poisoned.

The heavenly canopy of nature, rising into the burning firmament, Has shattered, and sentient beings Are suffering from diseases heretofore unknown. Mountains with eternal snows, resplendent with glory, Are bending and collapsing, reduced to water. The majestic oceans are overflowing their age-old limits And drowning islands.

Fire, water, and wind expose us to countless dangers. Oppressive heat is drying out our luxuriant forests, Lashing our world with unprecedented storms, While the oceans are yielding their salt to the elements. Although peoples do not lack wealth,

They cannot buy themselves the luxury of breathing pure air. Rain showers and streams no longer clean anything But become inert, powerless liquids.

Human beings and living organisms, countless in number,

Inhabiting the realms of water and earth,

Are tottering beneath the yoke of physical pain

Caused by malignant ailments.

Their minds are weakened by laziness, stupidity, and ignorance.

The joys of the body and mind have gone far, far away.

We are uselessly soiling

The beautiful bosom of our Mother Earth,

Destroying her trees to serve our short-term greed,

So that fertile soil becomes sterile desert.

The interdependent nature