Introduced by Shantigarbha, Dhivan Jones presents “Rewilding the Heart,” using ecological rewilding as a metaphor for Buddhist practice and the citta. He contrasts modernity’s “un-wilding” with ways of attending that reconnect us to deep time and a living world, referencing his own This Being, That Becomes: The Buddha’s Teaching on Conditionality, Jem Bendell’s Breaking Together, and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home. Dhivan shows images from a local rewilding project in Somerset—beavers returning to a former dairy farm—to illustrate how letting systems self-restore can inspire a shift in imagination and ethics, aligning with an animist reading of early Buddhist life.

The session closes with responses to questions, drawing out practical implications for practice: cultivate spacious, non-interfering attention, recover participation with more-than-human life, and let the heart “rewild” as conditions allow.

Introduced by Shantigarbha, Dharmachari Sanghasiha presents deep listening as Dharma practice, especially in urban life. He anchors the theme in the early Buddhist instruction “in the heard, only the heard” (from the Bāhiya Sutta), quotes Hazrat Inayat Khan on how everything speaks its nature, and notes the Sanskrit nāda as “vibration.” He outlines Pauline Oliveros’ approach to Deep Listening (including her “Tuning Meditation”) and the distinction between global and focal attention.

Sanghasiha then leads a listening exercise with Chris Watson’s field piece In St Cuthbert’s Time—an imagined 7th-century Lindisfarne soundscape—guiding attention between broad ambience (waves, wind, surf) and a single point (a lone seabird), and pointing to how time and place can dissolve in attentive hearing. The session closes with a short Hermann Hesse poem (“Sometimes”), inviting an ongoing, spacious awareness of the living soundscape.

This session orients to the four directions and the Earth, then poses the inquiry “Is everything alive?” as a way to engage a living universe. Teaching draws on Sangharakshita’s Living with Awareness (“a universe conceived as dead” cannot support enlightenment) and A Survey of Buddhism (kāma-loka, rūpa-loka, arūpa-loka), and grounds compassion with the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta (citing Dhivan’s translation). The thread links health and vitality with ecological interdependence—bees, water, climate—and reframes the precepts as training in empathy.

Practice includes a simple exercise to sense the “field” between the hands (from Zen Shiatsu/Taoist training), a short Shaolin monk clip illustrating qì awareness, and a brief excerpt from a London School of Economics talk on “the edge of sentience” warning against denying the feelings of newborns, injured patients, non-human animals—and even AI. Images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are invoked as living presences, and the session closes by inviting spacious, respectful attention to more-than-human life.

Introduced by Santacitta, Sanghajata leads a guided reflection on equanimity. She invites brief journaling (paper and pen) and frames the brahmavihārās: mettā bhāvanā as the foundation, becoming karuṇā when meeting suffering and muditā when meeting gladness, with upekkhā holding both. A short sequence of prompts explores motivation and response to current events, followed by a “visioning” exercise using Rupert Read’s The Climate Majority Project (the “Thrutopia” idea of sufficiency, agency, and connection).

Three scenarios then anchor practice, including recent events in the Netherlands and the UNESCO-protected Wadden Sea as an image of undisturbed natural process. The session closes with the Avalokiteshvara mantra (a 4-minute chant recorded by the Taraloka team), with the invitation to carry a steady, open equanimity into whatever comes next.

Introduced by Shantigarbha, Amarasingha presents Climate Change and Wild Animals: What Can We Do? She surveys current impacts—extreme heat in southern Mexico affecting howler monkeys, habitat fragmentation and forced migrations, shifts in birds and fish, plastics and fishing pressure—using a “10 effects” slide and the planetary-boundaries diagram to frame the scale of change.

The session turns to responses: when to involve trained wildlife-rescue professionals; practical choices (diet, plastic reduction); and the need for policy and legislative action to “buy time” and protect what remains. Amarasingha sketches ecological corridors and rewilding—minimising intervention so systems self-restore (e.g., Yosemite as a managed contrast)—and closes with Q&A on staying engaged without despair, noting the Council of All Beings as a supportive practice.

Hosted by Guhyasakhi, Narapa presents Radical Buddhism for Turbulent Times, using slides to ground the theme in place and experience: Lake Windermere’s pollution, Cumbria’s mountain-rescue scenes during Storm Desmond, and field memories from humanitarian work in hotter climates. He frames “transformative adaptation” through Buddhist ethics—naming consumer pressure and the roots of greed, hatred, and delusion—then turns to how core practices and values resource resilience amid nature degradation and rising flood risk.

Narapa outlines practical moves alongside systems change: protesting as effectively as lobbyists, shifting Buddhist centre finances to ethical banking (e.g., Triodos rather than Barclays), treating essential utilities as public goods, and supporting access-to-water efforts (e.g., WaterAid). The session closes by inviting participants to connect local planning with Dharma motivation so communities can prepare for impacts while cultivating steadiness and care.

Hosted by Christine, Margo van Greta introduces Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, setting the scene with slides on the “Three Stories” (Business as Usual, the Great Unraveling, the Great Turning) and the Great Turning’s four dimensions (holding actions, life-sustaining systems, shifts in consciousness, and nurturing life). She then guides the Spiral: beginning with gratitude, moving into honoring our pain for the world—including a short audio from Joanna Macy and a reading of Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese”—before seeing with new eyes through the “web of life” and interdependence, and finally going forth by naming small, medium, or larger next steps grounded in Dharma motivation and community care.

Introduced by Santacitta, Yogaratna explores “How might we practice in this political situation?” He opens with a line from Sangharakshita—“The only step worth taking… is to evolve into Buddhas. We are not here to be useful.”—to frame practice amid crisis. He reflects on careful use of charged terms like “fascism” through the lens of the speech precept, the legitimacy of keeping Dharma “under the radar” in authoritarian contexts, and what compassionate, nonviolent engagement looks like in liberal ones. Drawing on climate-activist experience (e.g., Extinction Rebellion Buddhists and arts actions challenging BP sponsorship), Yogaratna links low-carbon living with practical civic steps—letters and petitions to councils/MPs—while affirming traditional supports such as meditation, puja, and retreats to sustain steadiness and care. Q&A turns to local democracy, clean-energy/community initiatives, and balancing realism about risk with commitment to humane action.

In this inspiring session Aryaka shares his sources of inspiration for how Dharma practice and nature based practice can build resilience in the face of the ecological crises.

He also introduces an online course he has created called Mindfulness Based Ecological Resilience, building on his experience from the Buddhist tradition, secular mindfulness and ecopsychology,.

Read more at: www.mindfulecology.org

Guhyasakhi closes the conference by invoking the Dharma as an “inexhaustible lamp,” inviting participants to carry its light onward. The session turns to reflection using three prompts—what do I/we have to offer, what are the good possibilities for me/us, and what calls to my/our heart—and participants name concrete next steps in practice and community.

Shantigarbha then leads dedication verses—the Transference of Merit and Self-Surrender (drawing on Shantideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra)—including “May the merit gained in my acting thus… go to the alleviation of the suffering of all beings,” and “Just as the earth and other elements are serviceable to beings…” The session ends with collective gratitude and the aspiration “so long as all have not attained to peace.”