The Buddhism Ecology Summit: Touching the Earth

The 2024 Buddhism & Ecology Summit:  

Touching the Earth


At the moment of the Buddha’s enlightenment, he reached down and touched the earth. Ever since this legendary event, the natural world has inspired Buddhist practice and thought all around the world.

“Today we have largely lost our connection with nature,” David Loy has written in Tricycle. “But there is something special and precious about meditating outside and rediscovering our deep connection with the natural world. When we do, it becomes more evident to us that the world is not a collection of separate things but a confluence of natural processes that include us.”

For Earth Day 2024, Tricycle hosted the third annual Buddhism and Ecology Summit, a daylong series of conversations with Buddhist teachers, writers, and environmental activists offering dharma talks and practices for establishing a deeper connection with the earth. Speakers include Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche on the earth-touching mudra, Kaira Jewel Lingo on a mindfulness practice from Plum Village’s Earth Holder Community, Jack Kornfield on how to sit like a tree, and many others. The summit is sponsored by The BESS Family Foundation.


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Testimonials


"I felt so supported by the Earth when practicing this. Releasing grief to the Earth brought me relief and a feeling of peace. I so appreciate Kaira Jewel offering this practice. The Earth feels generous, forgiving, supporting of making good change."


"Such a powerful, strong yet accessible practice. Beautiful. Such wisdom."

"Thank you. So much in alignment with how I've been feeling and it helps to give me a loving language with which to frame it."

Speakers

Damchö Diana Finnegan

Damchö Diana Finnegan


Damchö Diana Finnegan is the main teacher of Comunidad Dharmadatta, one of the largest Spanish-speaking Buddhist practice communities. With a seven-year study program, online meditation halls, weekly teachings and hybrid retreats, Comunidad Dharmadatta has been offering the Dharma in Spanish free of charge since 2009. Damcho holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a thesis on gender and ethics in Sanskrit and Tibetan narratives about Buddha’s direct female disciples. She co-edited and translated Interconnected: Embracing Life in a Global Society and The Heart Is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out. After a career as a journalist based in New York and Hong Kong, Damcho was ordained as a Buddhist nun from 1999 through 2023. HHer ongoing series on Buddhism and Ecology can be seen on the “Dharmadatta Community” YouTube channel.

Susie Harrington

Susie Harrington


Susie Harrington teaches meditation nationwide and is the guiding teacher for Desert Dharma, which serves many communities in the Southwest near her home in Moab, Utah. She has trained in the Insight tradition since 1989, and in 2005 was invited into teaching by Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and Guy Armstrong. She has also received teachings from many others, including Tory Capron, Adyashanti, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. She often offers retreats outside, believing nature to be a profound teacher, and a gateway to our true self. Her teaching is deeply grounded in the body and often emphasizes the expression of mindfulness in speech and daily life. Susie brings the skills of inquiry, relational dharma, and the psychological/spiritual interface to her teaching, informed by her ongoing study of the Diamond Approach by A.H. Almaas and as a graduate of Hakomi Therapy (a somatic psychotherapy modality). She offers a two-year intensive program, Dharma in Daily Life, where she delights in mentoring the innate qualities of heart and wisdom in everyday practice. Her practice is rooted in periods of long retreat both indoors and outdoors, which offer nourishment and inspiration for her teaching. She was an outdoor professional for over 30 years, including years as a river guide, mountaineering guide, and backcountry ranger, and now finds her greatest delight in sharing her love of the dharma and the natural world.

John Huddleston

John Huddleston


John Huddleston is a photographer and received his B.A. in psychology from Yale University, completed his M.F.A. in photography at San Francisco State University, and received a degree in Spanish from the Centro Intercultural de Baja California in Ensenada, Mexico. He teaches visual art at Middlebury College. Huddleston has had one-person exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, Wave Hill in New York City, Stony Brook University Art Gallery, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum, the DeCordova Museum, the University of Michigan Art Museum at Ann Arbor, the Wichita Art Museum, the Lehigh University DuBois Gallery, the Triton Museum, the Laurentian University Museum and the University of California at Riverside Art Gallery, among others. He has participated in group shows across the country. His latest book is At Home in the Northern Forest.

Jack Kornfield

Jack Kornfield


Jack Kornfield has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. He graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Asian Studies in 1967 and studied as a monk under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah and the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. His books include A Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist PsychologyA Path with HeartAfter the Ecstasy, the LaundryTeachings of the BuddhaSeeking the Heart of Wisdom; and many others. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a father, husband and activist.

Kaira Jewel Lingo

Kaira Jewel Lingo


Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher and author based in New York. Having grown up in an ecumenical Christian community, she entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village tradition and spent fifteen years as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She received Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh and became a Zen teacher in 2007, and is also a teacher in the Vipassana Insight lineage through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Today she sees her work as a continuation of the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh as well as the work of her parents, inspired by their stories and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. on desegregating the South. She is the author of We Were Made for These Times: Skilfully Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption, and the editor of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children. She especially feels called to share the Dharma with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as activists, educators, youth, artists, and families.

Rose Marcario

Rose Marcario


Rose Marcario is former President and CEO of Patagonia. Under her leadership, Patagonia experienced unprecedented growth and global expansion, both in traditional business metrics and by deepening the company’s commitment to environmental activism and social responsibility. She was honored at the White House by President Barack Obama as a Champion of Change for her family friendly work policies. Fast Company named her one of the most creative and innovative CEO’s of 2016. She topped Fast Company’s inaugural Queer 50 list of the most influential LGBTQ women and nonbinary innovators in business and tech. She is the Founder of Time to Vote, a bipartisan initiative to give employees time off to vote; the Chair of Rivian’s Foundation for Nature; serves on the boards of environmental impact companies; and is a partner with ReGen Ventures, a global venture fund focused on restoring the planet.

Mick McEvoy

Mick McEvoy


Mick McEvoy, True Pure Earth (pronouns he/him), an Irish native, lives, works, and studies in the community of Plum Village, France. Mick brings over twenty years of experience working with people, plants, and mindfulness practice to his management of the Happy Farm and rewilding projects. The farm and rewilding project welcome hundreds of retreatants annually and combines mindfulness-based approaches with seasonal organic food production and land stewardship rooted in deep ecology.

Stephen Posner

Stephen Posner


Stephen Posner, PhD, has lived in Vermont since 2007. He works with the Garrison Institute, an organization that harnesses the power of contemplative wisdom and practice from across traditions to build a more compassionate and resilient world. Stephen is responsible for leading the Pathways to Planetary Health initiative. In this role, he develops partnerships and leads programs that align systems with nature – internal systems of care and thought, and outer systems like economies and ecosystems. He is currently part of a group of researchers, funders, and practitioners that seeks to understand and grow Earth-based meditation and mindfulness practices.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche


Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a world-renowned meditation teacher and master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. Born in Nepal in 1975, Mingyur Rinpoche began to study meditation as a young boy with his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, himself a well-respected Buddhist teacher. He has collaborated with neuroscientists and psychologists, including Richard Davidson and Antoine Lutz at the University of Wisconsin, on research projects that study the effects of meditation on the brain and the mind. His books include The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of HappinessJoyful Wisdom: Embracing Change and Finding FreedomTurning Confusion into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism, and In Love With the World: A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying. He oversees the Tergar Meditation Community, a global network of Buddhist meditation centers.

James Shaheen

James Shaheen


James Shaheen, Tricycle’s Editor-in-Chief, began his Buddhist practice in the mid-1990s, studying with teachers from a number of Buddhist traditions. He is particularly interested in Buddhism’s growth in the West and its applicability to Western politics, culture, and everyday life. He has been with Tricycle for nearly 25 years.


Helen Tworkov

Helen Tworkov


Helen Tworkov is Tricycle's founding editor and author of Zen in America: Profiles of Five Teachers (1989). She’s also the co-author of Turning Confusion Into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism (2014) and In Love With the World: A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying (2019), which she wrote with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.



Sam Mowe

Sam Mowe


Sam Mowe is the Publisher at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. With a background in both editorial and marketing, he wears multiple hats, from content creation to community-building. Former editor-in-chief at the Garrison Institute, Sam’s focus has been to bring a Buddhist perspective to the modern world and contemporary life.

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