At DRBU, students and employees are engaged in sustainable practices in many different forms. Student Activities organized a trip on a crisp Saturday morning in September to the local Montgomery Woods, about 40 minutes outside of the Ukiah city limits. The group spent the morning hiking under towering redwood trees while immersed in nature.

Back on campus at DRBU, Yuen-Lin, Associate Dean of Campus Life, brought attention to the climate crisis at a meeting with faculty and staff. The following questions were raised:

• What are appropriate and skillful ways for us to respond to this crisis as individuals, as a community, and as an institution?
• How do the texts speak to this issue, including its causes and its resolution?
• How would a scholar-practitioner / self-cultivator respond?
• What does wisdom reveal and necessitate?

Initiatives taken by other classes at DRBU:

• In Buddhist Classics IV, although students reading the Avatamsaka Sutra didn’t know about the climate action going on over the weekend, they spent the second half of class outside, reciting verses and offering metta, gratitude, and repentance for the earth (Instructors Huali Yuan and Bhikshuni Heng Yin).
• In Natural Science III, the last module was on environmental science. We are reworking this module to focus on climate change and global warming; it is very interesting to look at both the science and political side of the situation (Instructor James Roberts).

On the wider campus, at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, there is an on-going effort to reduce plastic usage. The bhikshuni-Sangha members created a beautiful, illustrative poster for campus awareness (pictured below).