Amazon Fire Burning Within - Introducing the Inner Science of Natural Disasters

Amazon Fire

Amazon Fire... This term used to mean something quite different than it does today. Previously a kindle product, this tablet brand is now tabloid worthy.

The Amazon is on fire.

Surprisingly relevant to the Amazon fire is a teaching attributed to the Buddha and recorded in a collection of Buddhist wisdom called the Pali Canon. Spoken some 2,500 years ago, this particular discourse was later named “The Fire Sermon,” the Buddha's third teaching after realizing enlightenment. Here, the Buddha spoke to the fires burning within, which are arguably a major contributor to fires burning without...

According to the records available to us today, this is what the Buddha had to share on the fires burning within.

“Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what, bhikkhus, is the all that is burning? The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, and whatever feeling arises with eye-contact as condition—whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant—that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of delusion; burning with birth, aging, and death; with sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair, I say.

“The ear is burning, ... The mind is burning ... and whatever feeling arises with mind-contact as condition—whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant—that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of delusion; burning with birth, aging, and death; with sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair, I say.” (Bhikkhu Bodhi, Saṃyutta Nikāya, 1143)

Although addressed to a group of monks (bhikkhus), we can just as readily imagine the Buddha speaking to our condition today. Importantly, the same refrain is repeated for each of the physical sense organs (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body) as well as the ordinary cognizing mind as sixth. When we perceive with the eye, we tend to develop either greed, anger, or delusion toward the object of sight. We may seek more of what pleases us and develop aversion toward the unappealing. Likewise with the other senses, including the mind. This is completely natural as humans. The issue is the tendency to spread these fires recklessly rather than keep them at bay.



These three fires (lobha, dosa, moha, sometimes translated as greed, anger, delusion) refer to inner causes of suffering. Such fires grow in size and spread across the inner landscape, releasing smoke and obscuring our capacity to see (and breathe) clearly. Given their capacity to wreak havoc from the inside out, these fires may qualify as their own sort of natural disaster.

Burning Within

Certainly this isn’t intended to downplay the severity of the fires that sweep across the earth, but rather, to draw attention to their potential source in the fires raging inside us. In some sense, there is an Amazon fire burning within. Perhaps by putting out this inner fire, we can also quell the fires in the Amazon and elsewhere.

The fires burning within don't just appear out of no where. Every fire begins with a spark. Every fire can eventually be extinguished.

According to "The Fire Sermon" (known in Pali as the “Ādittapariyāya Sutta”), these inner fires are cause for the cycle of birth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure and despair (saṃsāra). The fires burning within continue to burn precisely because we feed them the necessary fuel to perpetuate the cycle.

Introducing the Inner Science of Natural Disasters

Probing this cycle involves a study of the inner science of natural disasters. The pervasive dissatisfaction we tend to experience has its origins in unstable patterns within this very mind. While we may not be able to control the weather or natural disasters directly, we can create conditions that stabilize mental patterns through understanding the inner science of our own psyche. We may also take preventative measures to minimize damages, both within and without. This process requires plunging into the oceanic depths of our unconscious and bringing our findings to the surface where they may be scrutinized and challenged.



In Buddhist cosmology, the realm of saṃsāra is like a burning oceanic expanse of dissatisfaction, as reflected by the Amazon fire, or even visualized as molten lava. Imagine your entire inner world aflame, then having to pass through that blaze like those in the Amazon or near an erupting volcano seeking to escape. Interestingly, in Sanskrit, saṃsāra comes from the root saṃsṛ which means “going or wandering through, undergoing transmigration, course, passage, passing through a succession of states, and worldly illusion” (Monier-Williams). Passing through this cycle is excruciating. Yet on the flip side of saṃsāra is the liberating peace of nirvāṇa, which means to cool, extinguish, quench, or blow out.

As we continue to post about the Amazon fire and related topics, we intend to flesh out this inner science of natural disasters and offer tools for the transformation of the oceanic fires of saṃsāra into the cool peace of nirvāṇa. We hope these insights, which trace themselves to the historical Buddha and later Buddhist wisdom (as well as various other spiritual systems and even secular philosophies) will contribute to the dousing of all fires, both those that burn within and those raging without. Please join us on this journey.

Unity in Plurality