Although we say that the mountains belong to the country,
actually they belong to those who love them.

– Master Dogen

The Zen Environmental Studies Institute is part of the Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism and is a not-for-profit religious corporation that exists to provide training, education and practice of Zen Buddhism and its relationship to the environment. It sponsors and conducts workshops, training and research on the environment and the teachings of the insentient. It provides space, facilities and opportunity for teachers, students and researchers in environmental work and ecology to interface and practice meditation, study nature and the teachings of the insentient in relationship to the teachings of Buddhism. The thrust of the Zen Environmental Studies Institute programs is based on trust of the inherent intelligence of wildness. For almost 4 billion years, our earth has been functioning as an intelligent self-organizing, self-maintaining organism that supports life-sustaining relationships. If left undisturbed, this web of life ultimately creates an ecological balance for life processes. It provides diversity and balance without producing non-degradable waste nor contemporary society’s abusiveness and exploitation of people and places.