Walking Meditation and Slow Marches: Buddhist Responses to Climate Change Protest
Rolf Scheuermann
University Library Heidelberg April 28, 2026 DOI: 10.11588/asien.2024.172/173.28778 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Qualitative study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Buddhist activists in Germany and the UK, specifically XR Buddhists Germany |
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation |
| Keywords | Performative utterance Climate change Environmentalism Anthropocene Doctrine Environmental ethics Aesthetics Contemplation Embodied cognition Desert philosophy Civil disobedience Wilderness |
| Key findings | Argues that Buddhist activists transform walking meditation into a performative protest technique, enabling embodied intervention and alternative ways of being in the Anthropocene. |
Abstract
The climate crisis is arguably one of today’s greatest challenges and the Buddhist doctrine offers a foundation for a comprehensive approach to environmental activism, grounded in core principles such as mindfulness, compassion, and dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda). Consequently, many Buddhists have turned to environmental activism, trying to find their own ways of expression. This study explores how Buddhist climate change activism manifests in protests in Germany and the UK, particularly through performative techniques. Building on the concept of climate activism as edgework in the Anthropocene (Hentschel 2023), it examines how XR Buddhists Germany have reimagined the traditional Buddhist mindfulness practice of walking meditation as a public, embodied intervention. During XR Germany’s Autumn Rebellion in Berlin (September 2022) and subsequent protest events, walking meditation was repurposed as a form of protest to raise public awareness and a means of cultivating alternative ways of being in the world. Based on textual analysis, online resources, interviews, and fieldwork, this paper analyses how Buddhist activists can participate in shaping new life worlds amid an ecological crisis by transforming a contemplative practice into a mode of secular civil disobedience.
Comparable studies
Other qualitative studies on buddhism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists Western Buddhist meditation practitioners and experts in Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan... | 2017 | Qualitative study with mixed-methods | |
| A phenomenology of meditation-induced light experiences: traditional buddhist and neurobiological perspectives American Buddhist practitioners | 2014 | Qualitative study | |
| Common Core Thesis and Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Mysticism in Chinese Buddhist Monks and Nuns Chinese Pure Land and Chan Buddhist monks and nuns | 2011 | Mixed-methods study | n = 139 |
| Anger regulation in traumatized Cambodian refugees: the perspectives of Buddhist monks. Buddhist Cambodian monks in Massachusetts | 2011 | Qualitative study | n = 6 |
| The Lived Experiences of Experienced Vipassana Mahasi Meditators: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Experienced Vipassana Mahasi meditators | 2018 | Qualitative study |