Story and image from Yes Magazine
In Taiwan, more than a third of adults identify themselves as Buddhist, more than any other religion, making it a significant cultural force. Buddhist groups have been at the forefront of efforts to care for the environment. Included in their effort is Buddhist literature for children that reflects environmental concerns.
Picture books on this topic take two approaches: In one, bodhisattvas—wise and powerful supernatural beings that can appear in the world to help human beings—serve as models for children in the way that they protect the environment.
For example, in the book, Samantabhadra Bodhisattva’s Great Battle against the Trash Monster, published by the Buddhist organization Dharma Drum Mountain, the first page of the story introduces a bodhisattva who wants to transform the polluted world into one that is pure.
This bodhisattva meets a young boy who says he has nightmares about a monster made out of trash. As it turns out, the monster has been appearing because the boy’s room is a messy mountain of garbage. When he cleans it up, the bodhisattva prompts him to properly sort everything he throws away, reflecting real practices.
Then the little boy decides to become a “little pioneer of world environmentalism,” and accompanies the bodhisattva in cleaning up parks and beaches. In this story, the little boy’s concerns grow from his own room to the bigger world, with the bodhisattva modeling compassionate action.
Historically, bodhisattvas have been invoked to help people in times of extreme need (such as a storm at sea), and intervening for the good of the environment updates their role for contemporary times.
In this case Buddhism is central to the story, and cleaning polluted spaces becomes a metaphor for spiritual purification. The reader looks to a bodhisattva or Buddha as guide, and is inspired to take action.
Another book, Record of the Wanderings of a Plastic Bag presents novel perspectives to children.
A plastic bag starts out as plaything for a baby, then becomes a place for the cat to nap. The family’s grandfather claims it to collect tomatoes, and when he is finished, he washes the bag and hangs it to dry. A bit later, he uses it to carry worn-out shoes to be repaired, at which point the bag blows away.
It travels joyfully on the wind accompanied by a leaf and a candy wrapper, but is eventually swept up into a garbage bag. A dog rips open the garbage, and the bag blows away again, only to be picked up by a child with a stick who treats it as a toy. After it is abandoned by the child—very sadly for the bag—it is picked up, recycled, and transformed into shopping bag. This is a happy ending, reflected by the bag’s happy smile.
The author, Liu Rugui, writes that she used the bag as a character in the hope of stimulating children’s compassion, leading them to cherish the objects that they use. “Cherishing,” according to Liu, leads to a deeper understanding of environmentalism.
There is connection between being able to take the perspective of a plastic bag—entailing both intellectual and emotional responses—and valuing that object, which otherwise might be seen as a piece of trash.
Young readers are prompted to take the perspective of these nonhuman characters, changing how they think about the world and their own actions. This connects to the Buddhist teachings of karma and reincarnation, which mean that every intentional action has a consequence.
Equally important, although one couldn’t be reborn as a plastic bag, one could be reborn as an insect or endangered animal. On another level, taking the perspective of a plastic bag helps readers to understand how all elements of the universe are interconnected, a teaching that takes its most sophisticated philosophical form in Huayan Buddhism.
By showing children that they have responsibility in caring for the environment, these books work to produce what sociologist Bengt Larsson has called, in a 2012 paper, “ecological selves.”
Although studies on the long-term effects of children’s literature are limited, there’s some evidence that this approach helps foster concern and care for environmental issues.
Read a lot more about these books and the issues they are helping to address here!
