{"id":1697,"date":"2009-03-29T22:17:53","date_gmt":"2009-03-29T14:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/?p=1697"},"modified":"2009-03-30T16:17:55","modified_gmt":"2009-03-30T08:17:55","slug":"do-you-owe-the-earth-an-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/2009\/03\/do-you-owe-the-earth-an-hour\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Owe the Earth An Hour?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1696\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/117.jpg?resize=300%2C294\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"294\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Sadhu to those all over the world who participated in Earth Hour. May all be mindful of the importance of caring for the Earth from hour to hour! During Earth Hour last night, I was teaching a class on the Amitabha Sutra at Kong Meng San. When the lesson began at 7pm, I flashed a Powerpoint slide with the logo above and said, &#8216;Earth Hour is from 8.30 &#8211; 9.30pm tonight. Now&#8230; what shall we do? (The class giggled a little.) I thought of switching off the power (lights and air-con), to teach by candlelight&#8230; but decided not to (because I use Powerpoint to illustrate many lesson pointers and many in the class take notes!) So, please remember &#8211; you owe the Earth one hour (of not consuming electricity) after you leave this class! (The class laughs.)&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Next, I reminded the class that even as we aspire to be reborn in a wonderful Pureland elsewhere, we should not shirk from our responsibilities of taking care of this world. We should still do what we can to make this world a Pureland, difficult as it may be. Karmically speaking, it is impossible to be reborn in a better world if one deliberately neglects or destroys this world. Also, as taught in the Amitabha Sutra, we require much merits to aid birth in Pureland. And taking care of this world (in terms of its environment) is one of the indispensable ways to create such merits! Amituofo!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sadhu to those all over the world who participated in Earth Hour. May all be mindful of the importance of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[255,41],"class_list":["post-1697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmentalism","tag-merits","tag-pure-land","wpcat-168-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}