Mindfulness as Sustainability: Lessons from the World's Religions

The inundation of terrifying environmental news in recent years has left many people exhausted and in despair about our planet's future. In Mindfulness as Sustainability, Maria Jaoudi addresses the need to take care of ourselves intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally during the current global climate crisis. Drawing on specific teachings, stories, and explorations of consciousness and reality from Buddhist, Christian, Daoist, Hindu, Indigenous, Islamic, and Jewish traditions, Jaoudi demonstrates that mindfulness is sustainability, and that mindfulness practice, applied both personally and politically, can help mitigate global climate change and rectify environmental injustice. Through illuminating discussions of primary scriptures, key spiritual figures, discoveries of modern science, and moments of social transformation, she offers practical ways to live our lives mindfully, ethically, and sustainably. Written for students and lay readers, the book makes the case that we can sustain our planet if we maintain our strength, increase our knowledge, and remain sensitive to the beauty and the sentience that is both within us and around us.