Writings

Here you can find various articles by Bhante Sujato. These are reflections on different aspects of facing up to the climate crisis as it unfolds. Posts with the title “Harbingers” form a loosely-themed series by Bhante Sujato, which includes analytic articles as well as personal reflections and short stories.

Risky Business—secular materialism is the philosophy of the apocalypse
We thought we had mastered matter, and ended up its slaves.
is this our doom?
Let us follow it through. What happens when things get bad?
The Harbingers
A cli-fi novel of despair and enlightenment for the reasonably hopeless.
the bookkeeper and the bees
A little story that may afford some passing amusement.
For the changemakers
This is one for all those who want a better world, and wonder why it seems so hard.
Puddytat
Since the internet has devolved into essentially a delivery device for cute cat memes, I thought I’d add my own spin on the genre. Except it’s a tiger!
Harbingers—I’d rather be a Doomer than a Boomer
Young people, we are told, are increasingly falling into the fallacy of climate “doomerism”, a disaster supposedly as bad as denialism that threatens their mental health and undermines action. But a lack of supporting evidence raises the possibility that anti-doomerism is just a moralizing stance. Might rejecting the mainstream environmental advice that “we must have hope” be, rather, a prerequisite for moral realism? Empowerment is a modern invention that depends on the brittle assumption that we do, in fact, have power. Acceptance may prove a more resilient basis for a new morality.
Fairy castles
A fable by Bhante Sujato on living in a world of alternate realities.
Things as they are
A Buddhist monk’s view of the climate emergency
Harbingers—It’s Nice to Have a Choice
The climate crisis is slow-moving and dispersed. It seems abstract, as if action can always be delayed another day. But its impacts can be sudden and specific. Those who survive do so in a diminished world. It is hard enough to lose those who we love; it is harder still to have our capacity to do anything about it taken from us, bit by bit.
Harbingers—The Far Side of the Sky
I have always been suspicious of hierarchical moralities that, through a process of seemingly careful and fair-minded reasoning, somehow place the reasoner at the very pinnacle. Buddhists are as susceptible to this as anyone else. We are not what we pretend to be, nor are we who we think we are. But when all things come to an end, perhaps we shall reveal who we were all along.
Harbingers—The Marsh’s Edge
Even after all things are lost, it is in the small moments that redemption may be found.
Harbingers—The Other Chris
A man survives the end of the world alone, only to finally meet a friend. It is a short story about how views shape the world.
The serpent Gurrangatch and the hunter Mirragan
This essay was presented by Bhante Sujato at a plenary session of the Sakyadhita 2019 conference in Leura, NSW. Global warming is an unprecedented threat to the survival of our civilization and culture, indeed our very lives. The aboriginal myth of Gurrangatch and Mirragan tells of a time when the land of the Blue Mountains was shaped in the struggle for life, a struggle marked by both passion and restraint. While the future has never been more uncertain, our wisdom traditions offer us ways of talking about and responding to change as conscious individuals able to reflect on and choose our own responses.
Harbingers—A Fireside Chat
This short story was inspired by the resilience and wisdom I saw in women of a certain generation. “Sharon” is a prototypical Aussie woman’s name; “Leslie” is one of the strongest women I know; and “Katy” is named after a leading character in a story by Joanna Russ, the first line of which somehow stuck with me for four decades.
Harbingers—The Right Thing to Do
Hope is an inadequate virtue for the times in which we live. The real question we must ask ourselves is this—regardless of how things turn out, what kind of person do we want to be?
Harbingers—How to read about the end of the world
Media accounts of the climate crisis aim to present a balanced perspective—the crisis is urgent, but we still have hope. When examined closely, however, the crisis is described in terms of facts, while the hopes are described in terms of wishes and fantasies.
Harbingers—Gods & Monsters
A very short story about a very big story—how the world ended, and how we, who ended the world, will be seen by our children.
Harbingers—as the oceans heat up
While we dally and debate, the world is heating at an incredible rate. Most of the heat is absorbed by the oceans where we cannot directly feel it, but that does not make it any less dangerous.