Climate Change Adaptation and Agriculture

Every facet of economic growth is affected by climate change.  However, agriculture suffers the brunt year in and year out either with drought, flood, high temperatures or outbreak of pests and diseases.  The cumulate climate change effect on agriculture results in reduced agricultural production and labor productivity, and incidences of poverty and youth unemployment.

Failure to ensure sustained agricultural production has adverse social and political implication demanding unprecedented level of political commitment with increased investments at national and local levels. 

Farmers are trapped in a cycle of poverty and vulnerability not only due to diminishing resources but also due to the declining productivity of the resources.

Agriculture and climate change are naturally inter-linked and have negative correlation, and they cannot be separated.  Agriculture, the way it is, has been adversely affected by climate change but agriculture can and has the potential to be the solution to climate change. 

Intensification of food production through better access to improved seed of stress tolerant varieties, soil fertility management, efficient use of available water, diversification towards higher value crops, value adding (processing),and marketing and storage infrastructure have always been advocated.  But with the adverse impact of climate change setting in increasingly, the essence of advocacy is eminently shifting from prosperity to survival, and hence the adoption of technologies available for climate change adaptation can no longer be kept at bay.

Climate forecasting and provision of timely advice to all stakeholders, and weather-related crop and livestock insurance are now the strategies for survival and have become more critical than ever.

The array of adaptation options are available, ranging from purely technological measures to managerial adaptation and policy reform. However, recognizing the receding water resources, receding glaciers of Himalaya, and increasing demand of water by growing urban centers, industries and hydropower, water should be the starting point for climate change adaptation, and it should begin with capacity building. 

The imperative is to assess how technical, policy and institutional interventions enable farmers to adapt to climate change.  It is justified by the fact that greater impact of climate change is being felt first and most severely by the farmers.  Where agriculture is largely rain fed, the extreme rainfall events always have dire consequences.

It is impending that the predicted impacts of climate change is introduced into development planning and policy decisions supporting adoption of best practices, water use technologies, water resources management and conservation. 

Capital investment for water resource conservation at local level, small irrigation schemes for food crops and capital investment support for water harvesting and efficient use of available water using drip and other micro-irrigation technologies for horticultural crops should be the preferred policy direction. 

Immanence of Feminine Divinities in Mahayana

(Requesting comments to correct my deluded understanding)

Prajna Paramita

Prajna Paramita is the transcendent wisdom embodying Dharma –the teachings, the doctrines and virtues at their highest level.  Prajna means wisdom, the transcendental wisdom, the insight; and Paramita means virtue, the wellbeing of others.

Prajna Paramita is Buddha mind from which Buddhas are born.  Based on this mystic milieu Prajna Paramita has been personified as the mother of all Buddhas, the first sacred feminine character as first female Buddha, as Bodhisattva, and as Goddess. 

Prajna Paramita is personified in feminine form because it is the state that gives birth to enlightenment.  Truly, Prajna Paramita is the mother of all Buddhas, because without the experience of Prajna Paramita, the spiritual wisdom, one cannot and will not become enlightenment. 

Prajna Paramita, as it has been personified, is actually neither male nor female but a state before splitting into male and female forms. 

The first evidence of Prajna Paramita is found in inscriptions of around 400 AD.  But the statues and images of Prajna-Paramita could be traced only up to 800 AD. 

The Prajna Paramita Sutra was expounded by Nagarjuna (150-250 AD); in which Lord Buddha says, “It is the Prajna Paramita who gives birth to Buddhas, and she is their mother and instructress.

Let the Perfection of the Truth, of resolution, and of goodwill be the solid foundation of our wisdom.”

With the personification of Prajna Paramita, the cosmos of Goddesses unfolded in Buddhist traditions.  The deities were successively admitted to Buddhist Pantheons, particularly in Mahayana, as Bodhisattvas and Dharmapalas –defenders of the Dharma, and more.

As mother, Prajna Paramita is the embodiment of perfect wisdom, universal benefactress, and limitless jewels of all Buddha qualities.  She is the mother of infinite space from which everything emanates.  She is Sunyata, and she is absolute.  She alone symbolizes the supreme liberating wisdom.  She is the purity of our consciousness. 

Prajna Paramita is revered for being the mother of all Buddhas, ever flowing fountain of compassion, remover of the darkness of illusion and ignorance from the heart and mind of every conscious being. 

She endows us with discerning wisdom, compassion, loving kindness and generosity -Dana Paramita.  She enables us to renounce inordinate desires, and in cultivating selflessness and self-sacrifice for the sake of helping others.  She guides us to cultivate the virtue of forgiveness.

A single virtue is a step towards enlightenment.  As we begin to cultivate virtue, the others will follow and the process multiplies.  Eventually it will become the jewel in the heart lotus of ours. 

Lord Buddha says; “Let the perfection of truth, of resolution, and of goodwill be the solid foundation of the house of the Mother."

Prajna Paramita is the inconceivable power of Buddhas.  As mother Goddess, she protects vulnerable conscious beings who cannot protect themselves by generating in them the confidence and fearlessness.  She embodies the transcendent wisdom of selflessness, the realization that liberates from all sufferings.

Prajna Paramita takes us in her womb of perfect wisdom and guides us through the mystery of life for our own awakening.  She constantly points out the path of wisdom.  The wisdom she imparts enables us to grasp the teachings of the Buddhas. 

The Prajna Pramita Sutra enables us to arouse fervent devotion to Mother Goddess with which we realize her essential virtues. 

Tara

Goddess Tara of Hindu pantheon, one of the ten wisdom Goddesses was admitted in Mahayana in 600 AD, with same essence as the embodiment of all protective qualities. 

In Hindu theology, Goddess Tara is the embodiment of all protective qualities, compassion and loving kindness.  Literarily Tara means to ferry across.  Goddess Tara is Tarini, the Samsar Tarini, one who ferries her devotees cross the ocean of physical and psychological world –the Samsara. 

Goddess Tara is the benevolent illuminator of our attitude and behaviour.  She is the Goddess of liberation, who removes ignorance that ties us to Samsara and obstacles that make us suffer.

Goddess Tara is the gentle saviouress whom we pray to overcome distress or when we are at crossroads where we require guidance.  She guides us like a star as we walk on creative path.  She protects her devotees from trio-miseries: (1) Daihieka –relating to body, (2) Daivieka –relating to destiny, and (3) Bhautieka –relating to worldly affairs. 

Goddess Tara out of her compassion constantly liberates the distressed souls wandering in different Yonis –life forms, passing through the cycle of birth and death. 

Goddess Tara is Brahma Sukhati Taran Kartri -the one who ferry all across and gives happiness.  Among her multiple manifestations, she is Ugra Tara -the one who saves humanity from Ugra –radical dangers and unforeseen miseries.  She is Nila Saraswati -the one who imparts Jnana -knowledge to her devotees and she is the presiding Goddess of speech.  She is Ek-Jati -the energy that unites the beings with absolute. 

Whoever takes refuge in Goddess Tara with positive attitude and worship her with full faith and devotion, she guides them in the path of righteousness, ensures their material well-being, fulfil their desires and grant them Siddhi -perfection.

In Mahayana, Tara embodies the qualities of a mother Goddess.  She is a tantric deity and a Bodhisattva. 

As Bodhisattva, Tara is the female aspect of Avalokiteshvara -the embodiment of Karuna -Compassion. 

Tara is not separate from the true nature of our mind, the enlightened mind.  To that enlightened mind, everything appears beyond the dual nature of subject and object, the perceiver and perceived.  It is how all Buddhas see.  As we are not yet Buddha, everything we see appears to exist in duality. 

As Goddess, Tara is the deity who hears the cries of beings experiencing misery in Samsara and seeks to save them.  She is the divine energy of spiritual transformation.  She exists in both, at relative and absolute levels, to help us according to our level of being.  At the relative level, she is the saviouress and helper in times of troubles.  At the absolute level, she is the wisdom mind that brings us to enlightenment. 

In Mahayana, the definite boundaries are not imposed on what a deity represents.  The essence of their qualities is boundless.  A deity has the power to manifest in different forms and gender.  From this perspective, Tara and Prajna Paramita are essentially one and same principles, as both are embodiment of perfect wisdom and compassionate loving kindness, and the mother of all Buddhas.

In Pure Land Buddhism, Quan Yin -she who listens to the cries of the world, is the compassionate saviouress, the female form of Avalokiteshvara.  Quan Yin shares the same divine qualities with Prajna Paramita and Tara. 

Quan Yin is seen in trinity with Amitabha Buddha along with Bodhisattva Mahasthamaprapta, as both of them are regarded as the reflex of Amitabha Buddha –the embodiment of Maha Karuna –great compassion, the quality which Amitabha Buddha himself embodies in the highest sense. 

All three, the Pajna Paramita, Tara and Quan Yin, are the embodiment of same principle, the motherly aspect of compassionate saviouress, and fountain of universal perfect wisdom epitomized by different schools.  Their difference is a matter of time and place of manifestations and details of qualities they represent.  As mother figure all three are close to the daily affairs of their devotees.  

Sadhu.............Sadhu.................Sadhu...............