Robert Thurman joins Nina Rao for a conversation around strategies we can use to restore our balance with nature for the sake of our connection, Beauty, and global climate.
Robert Thurman is the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, President of the Tibet House U.S., a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Tibetan civilization, and President of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, a non-profit affiliated with the Center for Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and dedicated to the publication of translations of important artistic and scientific treatises from the Tibetan Tengyur. Keep up with Robert at bobthurman.com
Find events near you featuring dharma talks, meditations and chanting with Nina at ninaraochant.com. Register here for the Sacred Music for Sacred Forests Benefit Concert with Nina, Krishna Das and Friends, NYC May 30, 2020. You can learn more about ways you can preserve the natural habitat of India’s tigers at Nina Rao’s wilderness conservation non-profit charity: savingwildtigers.org
Nature with a Capital “N”
Nina and Robert discuss the responsibility that humankind has in maintaining a balance with the natural world. They reflect on ways that we have failed in upholding this responsibility and they also honor all the progress we have made across the world in restoring balance.
Preserving the Wealth of Nature (16:45)
What do we need to do in order to raise global awareness of the importance of preserving the natural world? Nina shares some of the work that she has been involved with inside India conserving the natural habitats of tigers. She and Robert talk about ways that this kind of work can preserve the wealth of nature – not just in India but all over the world – and how this relates to the global climate.
“It is interesting to see how nature is carried in art and tradition and culture. Every description of divine beings is accompanied by nature. In the Ramayana, they talk about how the Rishis would practice in the forest so much that even the leaves of the trees would echo back the sound of the mantras that they were chanting.” – Nina Rao
Drala: Opening to the Wisdom of Nature (44:00)
Nina shares a potent reminder of our connection to nature that is expressed in the principle of Drala, as taught to her by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
“When I go out in nature, I understand the beauty of it. I see it as a reflection of us and that we are of nature as well. The only way to know that is to be in it. To sit in nature.” – Nina Rao
