Thai Buddhist monks wrap orange clerical robes around trees to protect forests. "Ordaining" a tree is a provocative ritual that has become the symbol of a small but influential monastic movement aimed at reversing environmental degradation and the unsustainable economic development and consumerism that fuel it. This book examines the evolution of this movement from the late 1980s to the present, exploring the tree ordination and other rituals used to resist destructive national projects. Susan M. Darlington explores monks' motivations, showing how they interpret their lived religion as the basis of their actions, and provides an in-depth portrait of activist monk Phrakhru Pitak Nanthakhun. The obstacles monks face, including damage to their reputations, arrest, and even assassination, reveal the difficulty of enacting social justice. Even the tree ordination itself must now withstand its appropriation for state projects. Despite this, monks have gone from individual action to a loosely allied movement that now works with nongovernmental organizations. This is a fascinating, firsthand account of engaged Buddhism.

This textbook introduces and explores the ideas, practices and philosophy of engaged Buddhism. The movement holds that suffering is not just caused by the cravings of the mind, but also by political and social factors; therefore, engaged Buddhists 'engage' with social issues to achieve liberation. Paul Fuller outlines the movement's origins and principles. He then offers a comprehensive analysis of the central themes and issues of engaged Buddhism, offering new insights into the formation of modern Buddhism. The range of issues covered includes politics, gender, environmentalism, identity, blasphemy and violence. These are illustrated by case studies and examples from a range of locations where Buddhism is practised. Discussion points and suggested further reading are provided at the end of each chapter, which will further enrich undergraduates' grasp of the topic.

The environmental crisis is global in scope, yet contemporary environmental ethics is centered predominantly in Western philosophy and religion. Earth's Insights widens the scope of environmental ethics to include the ecological teachings embedded in non-Western worldviews. J. Baird Callicott ranges broadly, exploring the sacred texts of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen Buddhism, as well as the oral traditions of Polynesia, North and South America, and Australia. He also documents the attempts of various peoples to put their environmental ethics into practice. Finally, he wrestles with a question of vital importance to all people sharing the fate of this small planet: How can the world's many and diverse environmental philosophies be brought together in a complementary and consistent whole?

For students of mathematical biology, an introduction to taxonomic characters, measurement of similarity, analysis of principal components, multidimensional scaling, cluster analysis, identification and assignment techniques, and the construction of evolutionary trees.

Evolution of the Alabama Agroecosystem describes aspects of food and fiber production from prehistoric to modern times. Using information and perspectives from both the "hard" sciences (geology, biology) and the "soft" science (sociology, history, economics, politics), it traces agriculture's evolution from its appearance in the Old World to its establishment in the New World. It discusses how agricultural practices originating in Europe, Asia and Africa determined the path agriculture followed as it developed in the Americas. The book focuses on changes in US and Alabama agriculture since the early nineteenth century and the effects that increased government involvement have had on the country's agricultural development. Material presented explains why agriculture in Alabama and much of the South remains only marginally competitive compared to many other states, the role that limited agricultural competitiveness played in the slower rate of economic development in the South in general, and how those limiting factors ensure that agricultural development in Alabama and the South will continue to keep up but never catch up.

A fascinating collection of stories of the Thai forest monks that illuminates the Thai Forest tradition as a vibrant, compassionate, and highly appealing way of life. This work ingeniously intermingles real-life stories about nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Buddhist monks in old Siam (today’s Thailand) with experiences recorded by their Western contemporaries. Stories of giant snakes, bandits, boatmen, midwives, and guardian spirits collectively portray a Buddhist culture in all its imaginative and geographical brilliance. By juxtaposing these eyewitness accounts, Kamala Tiyavanich presents a new and vivid picture of Buddhism as it was lived and of the natural environments in which the Buddha’s teachings were practiced. This book was previously published under the title The Buddha in the Jungle.

This book examines, for the first time, those threads in Indian thought that present a prolife view of plants. Using texts from Vedic, Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions, the author argues that there is strong support in early materials that plants are thought to be alive, to be sentient (and have the one sense of touch), to feel pleasure and pain, to have an interior consciousness, and to be bearers of karma. Moreover, while plants are traditionally thought to be of tamasic quality with their immobility and dullness, they are sometimes described as sattvic, with their calmness, even mindedness, and service to others. In fact, the author argues, plants are frequently used to provide a model for the practiced ascetic-in that they bend but don't break with the wind, aren't distracted when buzzed by a mosquito, and flourish in their steadfastness. Given the theoretical discussion of plants within the range of sentient being, the book then focus on the intimate life humans have with plants. Texts devoted to botany, medicine, law, art, literature, and religion, for example, depict human conversation with trees, humans marrying trees, and humans delineating their responsibilities for the well being of plants in the greatest detail. Most difficult is the problem of eating, and in that ahimsa or non-violence towards plants would be the ideal in the extreme, vegetarianism shows up the compromise that is made once plants are brought into the sentient realm. Finally, the author explores the founding premises of several current environmental leaders and movements in India that focus on plants - e.g., tree protection, tree planting, seed saving, biodiversity - to examine whether contemporary plant-oriented ecological activism in India reflects older, traditional ideas about plants. Asking whether new Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist movements reflect respective older ideas, the author finds that contemporary Indian practices remain, on the whole, authentic reflections of their older roots.