John Worthington-Hill describes how Buddhism can encourage environmental awareness and sustainability. Embracing individuality is our disconnection from the natural world. In order to live in unity with the earth, we must find the 'middle way' (a buddhist morality based on self-discipline). "Self-centeredness is the great illness from which all imbalance, insensitivity and abuse ultimately stem – an illness directly linked to the Buddha’s ‘three poisons of greed, ill-will and delusion’. These poisonous mentalities seep into the collective consciousness and are instilled in the norms and structures of culture and society, helping to direct how politics and economics deal with the environment." "Environmental destruction is therefore an outer manifestation of an inner affliction. If our thoughts are polluted, then our actions will be polluted too, and so will their consequences."
