Part of Nalanda Institute’s Offerings for Uncertain Times

On Friday, February 12th, Nalanda Institute hosted the 11th online Gathering in Uncertain Times, entitled Envisioning the Medicine Planet.

Our esteemed guest was internationally-known Elder teacher and climate activist of the Anishinaabe people of Manitoba, Elder Dr. Dave Courchene who shared his vision for the care of Mother Earth and all of her children, a vision resonant with the Tibetan Buddhist Kalachakra prophecy of the earth as a Medicine Planet.

All of our Offerings for Uncertain Times are offered freely. A donation of any kind is warmly welcomed.

We apologize for the quality of this video. Unfortunately, we experienced technical issues during our gathering.

We are living in an unprecedented time. As humanity, we continue to struggle in finding our true identity.

After much reflection in witnessing what is happening in our world, it has become quite clear that humanity is suffering from the mindset of domination that originated from the idea that we can control and dominate nature.

The land is the foundation of life and must be treated with absolute respect to do anything else we harm not only the earth but ourselves. The role of our dilemma, which has created symptoms, such as climate change, violence, mental illness, and racism, is a severing of our relationship with our source of life, the earth.

When we lose touch with the earth, we lose our connection to our true spiritual identity and a true understanding of our uniqueness, our purpose of humanity, our original instructions in our duties and responsibilities.

When we go to the root, our solutions lie in reestablishing our sacred connection and relationship with the earth.

Our health and well-being as human beings is directly connected to the health and well-being of Mother Earth.

We have made the land sick how we conduct ourselves in relationship to the land and to other members of creation directly affects the balance of life.

What we do to the land, we do to ourselves; the earth operates on the principle of balance, the natural living laws when we comply with these natural laws, we can restore the balance of our source of life.

— Elder Dr. Dave Courchene, “Envisioning the Medicine Planet”