Will Buddhism change to face humanity’s impending peril? By Stephen Batchelor ‘Everything,” declaraed Gotama at the opening of the Fire Sermon in the 5th century BCE, “is burning.” On reading these words today I cannot but think of the steady warming of the delicate atmosphere that envelops this planet. Disquietingly prophetic, Gotama understood how the forces that drive most human endeavor are like consuming fires. “Burning with what?” he asked. “With the fire of greed, the fire of dislike, the fire of stupidity.” And he understood a world ablaze with these fires to be barren, arid, a wasteland where nothing grows or flourishes. Until the … Continue reading Embracing Extinction