Sow the seeds, transform yourself

Photo by Jean Li 

Editor's Note:

If the efforts we’re making won’t bear fruit within our lifetime, would you still be willing to continue?

The dilemma of climate action is not only a deadlock of systems and policies, but also an inner tension—reducing carbon emissions while living within a capitalist system; advocating for change while still participating in systems that harm the Earth.

On October 16, 2025, Venerable Chang Ji (常濟法師), together with climate activists from the United States, Bahrain, and the Dominican Republic, visited Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts to engage in a deeper dialogue: moving from the anxiety of “scaling up” back to the honesty of “how to live,” and from the urgency of changing the world to the patience of planting seeds.

The final Q&A session offered no definitive answers, but instead reminded us to remain whole amid contradictions, to keep moving forward through uncertainty, and to trust that time will bring resonance.

Q: We often act for our own comfort—for example, turning on the lights when it’s dark or the air conditioning when it’s hot—rarely reflecting on the impact behind these actions. Is it possible, through education or policy, to help people truly internalize values such as “a community of life” and “I am nature”?

Scale comes from connection, not from becoming bigger

Shephali: That’s such an important question. To be honest — I don’t know. But I’ve been living with that same question for years.

We talk a lot about scale — but maybe starting from scale means we’ve already failed. Because the world teaches us one model of scale: linear expansion. Bigger, faster, farther. But in nature, scale doesn’t work that way.

Look at fungi — mycelium in the forest. That’s scale. It grows in networks, not in straight lines. One organism can stretch thousands of miles underground. Every tree depends on the others through invisible webs of communication and nutrient exchange. That’s how scale works in nature — through connection, not size.

So, maybe instead of trying to “scale up,” we need to focus on how we live — because people are always watching. When I teach thirty students, if one student is touched, that one may inspire two more, and those two may reach others. I’ll never know where it goes — but it doesn’t matter. What matters is who we are as human beings — how we live our values.

If we start from there, we create alternative ways of being, and people will see that it’s possible to live differently. The system tells us “There Is No Alternative” — the TINA doctrine — but that’s not true. Even if the result is uncertain, what’s important is to live in alignment with our values.

I’ve been told I can’t even say “climate change” anymore in some official settings. But I continue anyway, because integrity matters more than permission. Others are watching — especially young people — and how we act teaches more than what we say. So, scale isn’t about size. It’s about the ripples of authenticity that move through connection.

Plant seeds－not to control when they grow

Reem: Maybe it’s not our job to change the world. Our job is to transform our inner world and the small world around us. That’s what we can control.

No single tree builds a forest — but together they form an ecosystem. And ecology isn’t just trees. It’s trees with birds, with soil, with everything. So it’s the same with humans: we have relationships with one another, with other communities, and with nature. That network is the ecology that creates change. Our role is to create ripples — not to measure how far they go.

Sometimes I take people diving or snorkeling to see marine life. Many of them don’t seem interested — they complain about mosquitoes, heat, swimming too far — but later, maybe ten years from now, something will awaken in them. A memory. A realization. Maybe that’s when the seed sprouts. That’s our work — to plant seeds, not to control when they grow.

So we do what we can, right now. Where I grew up (Editor’s note: the Middle East), conflict was normal — tear gas outside, and people kept eating in the restaurant. Life continues. So we just do what we can in this moment, and let go of the rest.

Embed compassion and conviction in time

Daniel: I’ve wrestled with this question for a long time, too. And I’ve realized there’s one dimension of scale we often forget: time.

''We tend to think of scale in terms of how fast we can spread ideas — “Can we change everyone’s mindset in two years?” But if we look at time from the perspective of the Earth — which has existed for four billion years — even a thousand years of transformation would be instant. I might not see the results in my lifetime. But that’s okay. We’re planting seeds that future generations — maybe even ourselves in another form — will tend.

Last week, I visited Göbekli Tepe in Turkey — the oldest known temple on Earth, twelve thousand years old. Whoever built it left messages carved in stone and then buried it deliberately, as if preserving it for the future. That made me think: they were leaving a message for us. They knew they wouldn’t see the result, yet they trusted the future. That’s the kind of long-term faith we need — doing work whose fruits we may never witness.

In Christian mysticism, there’s a similar story: early Christians believed that by touching stones, they could leave part of their consciousness inside — so that when they reincarnate, they could find those stones again and continue the work. Maybe that’s what we’re doing — leaving our consciousness, our effort, our compassion — embedded in time. Trusting that it will continue.
▲ Young climate leaders participated in Dharma Drum Mountain’s “Pure Mind-Net Zero” initiative, joining others in reading the declaration together. (Photo by Lee Fan 李東陽)

Honesty in the face of contradiction

Alex: I just want to nerd out for a second about time and anthropology!

"How do we change the world?” — two contradictory impulses come up for me.

One says: we need to be loud, take action, raise our voices, fight for what’s right. The other says: “who am I to convince anyone of anything? Half the time I barely know what I’m even doing” There’s a dance between those two — the outer and the inner work. And part of that inner work is living with contradictions.

We all live inside contradictions. For example, I spend my days working on environmental education and community farming — but my paycheck goes into a conventional bank account, and then that bank invests my money into fossil fuels, private prisons, weapons, industrial agriculture — all the things I’m fighting against!

So every hour I spend trying to change the world, my money reinforces the very systems I want to dismantle. That’s a contradiction I live with — and probably many of us do, because we live in capitalism.

I don’t have the answers, but I’m trying to change my relationship with money — moving it into local credit unions, learning how to align it with my values through social/environmental impact investing.

The point is: these contradictions are a part of being human in this time. Instead of hiding them, we can use them to build connection and humility.

There are times for loudness and courage, and times for quiet reflection and honesty about our own hypocrisy. Everything is an experiment. We try, we fail, we reflect, and we try again — hopefully making new mistakes instead of the same old ones.
That’s how transformation happens — through relationships, through learning together, through planting seeds for the future.

Change perception through experience

Daniel: Yes — and sometimes we can also make positive change by design, through experience.

For example, my father was a vegetarian in the Dominican Republic in the 1980s — which, back then, was like being an alien. Vegetarian food tasted awful!
Now, it’s different. People are becoming vegetarian because the food actually tastes better. Experience convinced them — not argument.

So in my work, I try to design experiences that are so joyful and meaningful that people naturally want to change. My dream is to create the best compost toilet in the world — so beautiful, fragrant, and artistic that once people use it, they’ll never want to go back to a normal one. That’s how transformation happens — through experience, not persuasion.

Ven. Chang Ji: I’d also like to touch on this idea of convincing. It’s such a polarizing word — because convincing implies that someone is wrong and I am right. That’s still a war mentality: “Team Good vs. Team Evil.”

If we try to fix people or fix the world, we end up fighting. Instead, how about helping things go right?

Albert Einstein once said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it.” So we need to shift the mindset.

Rather than a “death economy,” which exploits and consumes, we cultivate a life economy — one that protects and regenerates.
 
In a life economy:

• Our relationship with ourselves is based on wholeness — “I am enough because I am never alone.”
• Our relationship with others becomes inspiring, not convincing.
• Our relationship with nature becomes partnership, not dominance.

When we embody that — we stop fixing and start co-creating. That’s what I call protecting the spiritual environment — nurturing an ecosystem of compassion, wisdom, and interconnection. When we live this way, we don’t have to convince anyone. Our presence inspires them. We become earthlings among earthlings — thriving together in one shared life.



Related articles: 

Climate Change: A Turning Point for Awakening

Alex Epstein - Urban Gardener Planting ‘Relationships’

Reem AlMealla - Bahrain’s First Female Oceanographer

Daniel Abreu Mejía - An Educator Empowering Climate Youth

Gregory Scott Pettys - A Scholar Preserving Seeds

Shephali Patel - A Farmer Who Learns from the Forest

Sow the seeds, transform yourself



Resource: Issue 512 of Humanity Magazine, Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation