The Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy Training Program

Program & Host Organization

The Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy Training Program is offered by the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, a not-for-profit organization based in Redwood City, California. The program provides Buddhist-based training for environmental chaplains who support healthy, compassionate, and mutually supportive relationships between people and the natural world.

Location & Scope

The initiative is based in California, with online components delivered via Zoom and residential retreats held at nature-based retreat centers in California. Through its hybrid format, the program serves participants in the United States and other regions, operating at an international scale.

Who It Serves

The program serves the general public across adulthood, including young adults, adults, and older adults. Participants are often people seeking to integrate spiritual care, environmental concern, and climate justice in their communities. Over six years, the program has reached approximately 100 students, who in turn support many others through their eco-chaplaincy work.

Climate & Mental Health Focus

The initiative addresses climate disruption, social and environmental injustice, and their emotional and spiritual impacts, including grief, anxiety, and existential distress. It focuses on helping people respond to socio-environmental crises with wisdom, compassion, and a sense of interdependence, recognizing both the material and psychological dimensions of the climate crisis.

Activities & Format

The 18-month program combines ten one- or two-day online retreats with two seven-day residential retreats. Activities include teachings, meditation, contemplative practices, skills training in spiritual care, reflection, group dialogue, creative exercises, and nature-based practices. Participants also undertake readings, writings, experiential exercises between sessions, and design and implement a personal eco-chaplaincy project. The program runs with a fixed cohort model, with participants meeting approximately monthly in full-day or retreat formats.

Inclusion & Accessibility

The initiative commits to a student body that is at least one-third Black, Indigenous, and other People of Colour, and it ensures ADA accommodations for participants with disabilities. It also emphasizes climate justice and equity in its content and facilitation.

Outcomes & Evidence

The main goal is to train Buddhist environmental chaplains who can deepen their own connection with the natural world while supporting others to face ecological crises with resilience and compassion. Short-term outcomes include increased self-awareness, emotional resilience, eco-dharma knowledge, and a supportive learning community. Medium- and long-term outcomes include participants offering eco-chaplaincy in their communities, leading climate-related spiritual care, and contributing to broader community resilience and culturally grounded climate action. The program is evaluated through regular program evaluation forms. Its approach is informed by research on eco-anxiety and climate grief, evidence for mindfulness and nature-based practices in improving mental health, literature on peer support and ritual for resilience, emerging work in eco-chaplaincy, and alignment with Indigenous and earth-based wisdom traditions.

Guiding Principles

The initiative aligns with principles of accurate climate literacy, emotional openness to climate realities, realistic hope, strengthened social connection, deepened nature bonding, emotional resilience, climate justice, trauma-informed and culturally safe practice, and collective responsibility. These principles are reflected through climate-focused teachings, community-based learning, nature immersion, attention to inequitable climate impacts, and emphasis on shared responsibility for climate and mental wellness.

Resources & Sustainability

The program is supported by funding from the BESS Foundation, access to an online learning platform, and partnerships with retreat centers for residential components. Details on overall budget and longer-term financial sustainability were not provided.

Team & Partners

Activities are co-facilitated by a team of experienced Buddhist teachers, chaplains, and environmental educators. The team includes individuals with advanced training in Buddhist studies, environmental sociology, wilderness guiding, chaplaincy, and trauma-informed climate and social justice work. They bring experience in eco-chaplaincy, prison chaplaincy, environmental organizations, and international Dharma teaching. Additional partners include community groups and organizations where facilitators and graduates serve.

Challenges & Context

Key challenges include securing sufficient funding, recruiting and retaining BIPOC participants at desired levels, and managing scheduling constraints. The broader social and political context of climate awareness, climate denial, economic pressures, and climate-related disruptions can either support or hinder participants’ ability to apply their training. Community openness to spiritual and emotional dimensions of climate work is an important enabling factor.