Ground Sprouts Vanished - A Buddhist Depiction of the Climate Crisis and Civilization's Collapse

"Due to corruption and unskillful things among us, the earth's nectar vanished, ground-sprouts vanished, bursting pods vanished..."

Aggañña Sutta

Origin of the World

Painting a portrait eerily reminiscent of the current state of our world, the Aggañña Sutta records an early Buddhist origin story. In fact, the Pāli word "aggañña" itself means origin, from "agga" or the Sanskrit agra, first or foremost. Despite this emphasis on origination, the Aggañña Sutta's contents reflect what appears to be a process of decline, with implications for both the climate crisis and civilization's collapse through neglect of basic civil rights and universal civility.

The origin of the world is intimately tied into its mode of undoing. Much like the way in which the cycle of dependent origination begins with ignorance and culminates in suffering, any alteration to its conditions stands to unravel the process. As we discuss below, the Aggañña Sutta identifies greed as a primary cause for the origin of the world, which we interpret as a psychological basis for our present state of affairs. If our present world originates from greed, it will disintegrate via greed as well...

We thus take up the Aggañña Sutta's story on the origin of the world as a topic of inquiry, especially given the increasingly tumultuous state of the environment, economy, and epidemiology amidst various forms of suffering deriving from racial injustice and inter-generational trauma extending back through time immemorial.

Feasting on Nectar

The Aggañña Sutta begins with an idyllic image of beings unconstrained by coarse bodies, floating through the ether, rapturous and radiant. As if breathing, the cosmos contracts and expands as these beings flicker out and back into radiance, all the while feeding on rapture. During a stretch of cosmic expansion, sweet nectar forms on earth, piquing the curiosity of these beings. It solidifies on the earth's surface, tempting them down from the ether.

What happens next in some ways closely resembles the story from the Garden of Eden. Perhaps it functions as an archetypal literary device, as its basic themes traverse traditions.

Abandoning their rapture, one of these beings recklessly dips their finger into the nectar. Upon tasting its delectable sweetness, craving is born in them. From this moment forward, ruled by desire as if addicted, these previously radiant beings begin greedily feasting on nectar.

Ground Sprouts Vanished

As they feast, the nectar is said to break into chunks, becoming the celestial bodies, including sun, moon, and stars. Despite their beauty, these once glorious beings deplete this cherished resource from the earth.

In the absence of nectar, ground-sprouts appear, like mushrooms blooming from the earth. No longer sustained by rapture, no longer sustained by nectar, the beings whose bodies have by now become coarse and heavy feed off the ground-sprouts. Lo and behold, they deplete the ground-sprouts through their greed. In the absence of ground-sprouts, bursting pods appear, like fruiting trees. Those are soon depleted as well. In the absence of bursting pods, ripe untilled rice appears, for a while regenerating with each passing of the sun. What has by now become a self-perpetuating pattern, driven by greed, continues.

As these beings dig themselves deeper into greed, they think to themselves, "We'd better divide up the rice and set boundaries," hoping to preserve their resources. The plan backfires, given that "While guarding their own share, they took another's share without it being given and ate it," leading to widespread jealousy and theft.

Climate Crisis and Civilization's Collapse

Greed ultimately tips the dominoes in motion for a series of other unwholesome outcomes. "From that day on, stealing was found, and blaming and lying and the taking up of rods." In this chain reaction of events, an initial moment of greed eventually culminates in violence, characterizing the present climate crisis and civilization's collapse. When beings greedily covet resources and deprive others, then further harmful activities are sure to follow.

Greed → Depletion of Resources → Scarcity → Stealing → Blaming and Lying → Violence
What, then, can be done to reverse the cycle? If we treat this web of causality similar to that of dependent origination, there are multiple points at which the process can be re-routed. The Aggañña Sutta suggests a basic foundation in morality - refraining from killing, stealing, and so forth. Interestingly, in the Buddha's teaching that comes immediately before the Aggañña Sutta in the Pāli Canon, the Buddha goes a step further, crossing into the realm of politics. He advises rulers to distribute resources to the masses in order to ensure their basic needs are met. This, says the Buddha, will prevent the emergence of scarcity, poverty, stealing, and other such events.


So where does that leave us? We stand at one of the most complex crossroads, a momentous junction in the earth's history, on multiple intersecting levels. The complex web of causality is coalescing around events with huge potential to shift the state of affairs drastically in the years to come. What role do we play?

Let us collectively reflect: In our present situation, what steps can each of us take to overcome greed, to prevent the depletion of resources, to avoid scarcity and relieve others from poverty? Social justice requires our collective efforts.

What responsibility will you undertake, what responsibility will I undertake, in order to help co-create a world in which all may experience the greatest benefit and the least harm? Each thread in the web, no matter how small, stands to make a difference. To be continued.