CONGRATULATORY MESSAGE
For UN Vesak Day 2019
The New Zealand Buddhist Council (NZBC) applauds the efforts of the ICDV-UNDV to bring together Buddhist leaders from around the world to discuss sustainability and our responsibilities toward all sentient beings and inanimate things.
Our planet is on fire. It is burning because of human greed, aversion, and ignorance. We human beings need to wake up to this emergency, and change our harmful attitudes and behaviours, especially those of us who consume the most.
The NZBC supports the strongest possible stand, urging world leaders to immediately and fully acknowledge the climate emergency and other pressing environmental disasters, including ocean acidification, deforestation, habitat loss, soil erosion, water and air pollution which are causing mass extinctions now and which threaten human civilization itself.
May the celebrations go well, and may the virtues of reflection, realism, and renunciation prevail.

Amala Wrightson
Director Auckland Zen Centre