Discover a way of living that can help you slow down, stay grounded, and deal with all that is flying at you—and at the same time can help you reduce your ecological impact and be more engaged in responding to the climate crisis.

It may often seem as though living ecologically and engaging in activism sacrifices our own enjoyment and happiness on the altar of doing the right thing. In this book, professor, hiker, and activist Christopher Ives offers an alternative: A way of living that can actually be more fulfilling than typical ways of living. Rather than deprivation, it can bring us richness.

In Living Buddhist Ethics, Chris outlines his environmental ethic in a series of concentric circles; we begin with ourselves and our core relationships, and move outward to the home, nature, local community, and broader arenas of activism, all the while focusing on spaciousness, mindfulness, generosity, and contentment.

- At the individual level, we deal with distraction, clutter, and ecological harm—Chris offers ways to help us pay attention, simplify our lives, and free up time and energy.

- In the next concentric circle, we explore how to envision our home as a “place of the Way,” with the Zen monastic life as a model for this (without having to be a monk!).

- Then, we realize our embeddedness in nature and emplace ourselves in community with others, including other animals.

- Finally, we build on this basis to engage in activism to create a world that is more supportive of ecological health and spiritual fulfillment.

In this way, we avoid the two extremes of apathy and burnout, and uncover a way of living that is spacious, simple, embedded in nature, connected to others in community, and supportive of collective action.

Christopher Ives is a professor of religious studies at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. In his teaching and writing, he focuses on ethics in Zen Buddhism and Buddhist approaches to nature and environmental issues. His publications include Zen on the Trail: Hiking as Pilgrimage; Meditations on the Trail: A Guidebook for Self-Discovery; Imperial-Way Zen: Ichikawa Hakugen’s Critique and Lingering Questions for Buddhist Ethics; Zen Awakening and Society; a translation (with Masao Abe) of Nishida Kitaro’s An Inquiry into the Good; a translation (with Gishin Tokiwa) of Shin’ichi Hisamatsu’s Critical Sermons of the Zen Tradition. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics.