"Khoryug" is the Tibetan word for environment. It is also the name of a network that began with a simple conviction: that Buddhist practice and ecological responsibility are not two separate things, but one.
Founded in 2009 by His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Khoryug unites over 55 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries across the Himalayan region — in India, Nepal, and Bhutan — in a shared commitment to environmental protection. The Himalayas are among the most climate-vulnerable regions on Earth: glaciers are retreating, freshwater sources are drying up, and the communities that depend on them face an increasingly uncertain future. The monasteries of Khoryug sit at the heart of this crisis — and have chosen to meet it not with despair, but with practice.
The work is concrete: reforestation projects, solar energy installations, rainwater harvesting, waste reduction, wildlife protection. But the foundation is contemplative. As the Karmapa has written, “our actions must flow from our aspiration to benefit all sentient beings.” The annual Khoryug conferences bring together monks and nuns from across the region to share knowledge, build skills, and renew their collective commitment. The 8th conference, held at Tergar Monastery in Bodhgaya, focused on disaster preparedness — including a chapter on building inner resilience in the face of catastrophe.
Khoryug does not ask practitioners to add environmentalism to their spiritual lives. It asks them to discover that care for the Earth was always already part of the path.
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