Book Review - Green Dharma by:Georg and Brenda Feuerstein

Green Dharma - A Book to Challenge your Practice

 

 by: Georg and Brenda Feuerstein

 

 

 

Green Dharma was written by Georg and Brenda Feuerstein and published by Traditional Yoga Studies. This book has 11 chapters and is 215 pages.

 

Traditional Yoga Studies offers many online courses and are dedicated to promoting authentic yogic teachings.  Here is a link to the website:  http://www.traditionalyogastudies.com/

 

Brenda Feuerstein recently posted a free copy of Green Dharma so I wanted to make sure I read it right away.  Thank you Brenda!

 

I found a free link online so I am sharing the link to the book so you can read it too.

http://www.shabkar.org/download/pdf/Green_Dharma.pdf

 

Green Yoga was written before Green Dharma and the authors write in the preface that Green Dharma "grew our of the same environmental and social concerns that we raised in our other related work, Green Yoga." 

This book is written more from the point of view of the Dharma and that of the Buddha's teachings. 

 

 The book is written with stories from the Buddha, weaving in current ideas and statistics about the environment today. For example the first chapter is about noise pollution and the benefits of silence or healing sounds and vibrations. 

 

Each chapter is a story, which is very interesting to learn some history about the Buddha and the teachings as well as how we can relate to this even today.



 

Chapter 11 gives many suggestions on way we can all make small, yet considerable differences to helping sustain the environment that supports us. 

 

Here are a few very simple ones:

 

- Think twice before you purchase something.  This really is one of the first places we need to start.  Is it a need or a want? If a need, really how much do you need it?

I know I have purchased those impulse buys in my life, but they are getting less and less. 

Sometimes my best purchases have been things I have wanted, yet waited and worked hard for.

My husband tells me his mom used to get them to wait two weeks when really wanted something to see if they still wanted it as badly.  Most often they didn't or had forgotten all about the item.

 

 

-Buy products with as little packaging as you can.  This is a huge burden on our waste systems and the garbage materials making its way into the soil and water is enormous.  I just listened to The Current recently on CBC  in Saskatchewan on how the oceans are in a crisis from all the plastics and micro plastics in it.  The link is below if you want to listen too.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-october-31-2016-1.3826159/oceans-absolutely-choked-by-plastic-bottles-and-microplastic-fibres-1.3826476

-Go paperless.  In this day of technology going paperless is easier and easier.

-Wash in cold water and hang to dry as much as you can.


Those are just a few simple but helpful tips given.  The book has pages of websites to visit to get more ideas and information on how we can help save the planet as well as links to many online documents and documentaries.

I hope you enjoy your read and as Mahatma Ghandi is often quoted, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Namaste.
Pamela Nelson
www.plnyoga.blogspot.com
plnyogastudio@gmail.com