Individual Liberation AND Social Transformation

     "As we start to wake up and realize that we are not separate from each other, nor from this wondrous earth, we also begin to realize that the ways we live together, and the ways we relate to the earth, need to be reconstructed as well. That means not only social engagement as service, but finding ways to address the problematic economic and political structures - the institutionalied forms of greed, ill will, and delusion - that are deeply implicated in the eco-crisis. Within such a notion of liberation, the path of personal transformation and the path of social transformation are not really separate from each other. We must reclaim the concept of awakening from an exclusively individualistic threrapeutic model and focus on how individual liberation also requires social transformation. Engagement in the world is how our personal awakening blossoms. 
     It just so happens that the Buddhist tradition provides a wonderful archetype that can help us to do that: the bodhisattva. We overcome deep-rooted self-centered habits by working compassionately for the healing of our societies and the healing of the earth. This is what's required for the Buddhist path to become truly liberative in the modern world."

       David Loy. "Awakening in the Age of Climate Change." Tricycle, Spring 2015.                               ww.tricycle.com