CO ory

Buddhism and Ecology

 Harvard University
Center for the Study of World Religions
Publications
General Editor: Lawrence E. Sullivan
Senior Editor: Kathryn Dodgson

Religions of the World and Ecology

Series Editors:
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim

Cambridge, Massachusetts
 Buddhism and Ecology
The Interconnection
of Dharma and Deeds

edited by
Mary Evelyn Tucker
and

Duncan Rytken Williams

Distributed by Harvard University Press

for the
Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions
Copyright © 1997 The President and Fellows of Harvard College

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:

Rita M. Gross, “Buddhist Resources of Issues of Population, Consumption,
and the Environment,” in Population, Consumption, and the Environment:
Religious and Secular Responses, edited by Harold Coward. By permission
of the State University of New York Press. Copyright © 1995 by the State
University of New York Press.
Paul O. Ingram, “The Jeweled Net of Nature,” Process Studies 22, no. 3
(fall 1993).
John Daido Loori, “The Precepts and the Environment,” Mountain Record,
spring 1996.
Steve Odin, “The Japanese Concept of Nature in Relation to the
Environmental Ethics and Conservation of Aldo Leopold,” Environmental
Ethics 13 (winter 1991):345-60.
Alan Sponberg, “Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion,”
Western Buddhist Review 1 (December 1994):131-55.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Buddhism and ecology : the interconnection of dharma and deeds / edited
by Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Ryiken Williams.
p. cm.— (Religions of the world and ecology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-945454-13-9 (hard cover : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-945454-14-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Human ecology—Religious aspects—Buddhism. 2. Ecology—
Religious aspects—Buddhism. I. Tucker, Mary Evelyn. II. Williams,
Duncan Ryiken. III. Series.
BQ4570.E23B83 1997
294.3'378362—dc21 97-37528
CIP
 Acknowledgments

The series of conferences on religions of the world and ecology will

take place from 1996 through 1998, with supervision at the Harvard
University Center for the Study of World Religions by Don Kunkel and
Malgorzata Radziszewska-Hedderick and with the assistance of Janey
Bosch, Naomi Wilshire, and Lilli Leggio. Narges Moshiri, also at the
Center, was indispensable in helping to arrange the first two con-
ferences. A series of volumes developing the themes explored at the
conferences will be published by the Center and distributed by Harvard
University Press under the editorial direction of Kathryn Dodgson and
with the skilled assistance of Eric Edstam.
These efforts have been generously supported by major funding
from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. The conference organizers
appreciate also the support of the following institutions and individuals:
Association of Shinto Shrines, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Dharam
Hinduja Indic Research Center at Columbia University, Harvard
Buddhist Studies Forum, Harvard Divinity School Center for the Study
of Values in Public Life, Jain Academic Foundation of North America,
Laurance Rockefeller, Sacharuna Foundation, and Theological Educa-
tion to Meet the Environmental Challenge. The conferences were
originally made possible by the Center for Respect of Life and
Environment of the Humane Society of the United States, which
continues to be a principal cosponsor. Bucknell University, also a
cosponsor, has provided support in the form of leave time from teaching
for conference coordinators Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim as well
as the invaluable administrative assistance of Stephanie Snyder. Her
thoughtful attention to critical details is legendary. President William
Adams of Bucknell University and Vice-President for Academic Affairs
Daniel Little have also granted travel funds for faculty and students to
attend the conferences. Grateful acknowledgment is here made for the
advice from key area specialists in shaping each conference and in
editing the published volumes. Their generosity in time and talent has
been indispensable at every step of the project. Finally, throughout this
process, the support, advice, and encouragement from Martin S. Kaplan
has been invaluable.
 Contents

Preface
Lawrence E. Sullivan Xl

Series Foreword
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim XV

Introduction
Duncan Ryiken Williams XXXV

Overview: Framing the Issues

Buddhism and Ecology: Collective Cultural

Perceptions
Lewis Lancaster 3

Theravada Buddhism and Ecology: The Case of Thailand

The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology in
Contemporary Thailand: Buddhadasa and
Dhammapitaka
Donald K. Swearer 21

A Theoretical Analysis of the Potential

Contribution of the Monastic Community in
Promoting a Green Society in Thailand
Leslie E. Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel 45

Mahayana Buddhism and Ecology: The Case of Japan

The Jeweled Net of Nature

Paul O. Ingram 71
Vill Buddhism and Ecology

The Japanese Concept of Nature in Relation

to the Environmental Ethics and Conservation
Aesthetics of Aldo Leopold
Steve Odin 89
Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers: Kukai,
Dogen, and a Deeper Ecology
Graham Parkes 111

Buddhism and Animals: India and Japan

Animals and Environment in the Buddhist

Birth Stories
Christopher Key Chapple 131
Animal Liberation, Death, and the State:
Rites to Release Animals in Medieval Japan
Duncan Ryiiken Williams 149

Zen Buddhism: Problems and Prospects

Mountains and Rivers and the Great Earth:

Zen and Ecology
Ruben L. F. Habito 165
The Precepts and the Environment
John Daido Loori 177

American Buddhism: Creating Ecological Communities

Great Earth Sangha: Gary Snyder’s View

of Nature as Community
David Landis Barnhill 187
American Buddhist Response to the Land:
Ecological Practice at Two West Coast
Retreat Centers
Stephanie Kaza 219
The Greening of Zen Mountain Center:
A Case Study
Jeff Yamauchi 249
 Contents 1X

Applications of Buddhist Ecological Worldviews

Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism

Kenneth Kraft 269

Buddhist Resources for Issues of Population,

Consumption, and the Environment
Rita M. Gross 291

Buddhism, Global Ethics, and the Earth Charter

Steven C. Rockefeller 313

Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Buddhism

and Ecology

Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature?

Malcolm David Eckel 327

Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion

Alan Sponberg 35]

Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental

Concern: Some Methodological Problems Considered
Ian Harris 377

Bibliography on Buddhism and Ecology

Duncan Ryitken Williams 403

Notes on Contributors 427

Index 433
 Preface

Lawrence E. Sullivan

Religion distinguishes the human species from all others, just as

human presence on earth distinguishes the ecology of our planet
from other places in the known universe. Religious life and the
earth’s ecology are inextricably linked, organically related.
Human belief and practice mark the earth. One can hardly think
of a natural system that has not been considerably altered, for better
or worse, by human culture. “Nor is this the work of the industrial
centuries,” observes Simon Schama. “It is coeval with the entirety
of our social existence. And it is this irreversibly modified world,
from the polar caps to the equatorial forests, that is all the nature
we have” (Landscape and Memory [New York: Vintage Books,
1996], 7). In Schama’s examination even landscapes that appear to
be most free of human culture turn out, on closer inspection, to be
its product.
Human beliefs about the nature of ecology are the distinctive
contribution of our species to the ecology itself. Religious beliefs—
especially those concerning the nature of powers that create and
animate—become an effective part of ecological systems. They
attract the power of will and channel the forces of labor toward
purposive transformations. Religious rituals model relations with
material life and transmit habits of practice and attitudes of mind
to succeeding generations.
This is not simply to say that religious thoughts occasionally
touch the world and leave traces that accumulate over time. The
matter is the other way around. From the point of view of environ-
mental studies, religious worldviews propel communities into the
world with fundamental predispositions toward it because such
Xi Buddhism and Ecology

religious worldviews are primordial, all-encompassing, and unique.

They are primordial because they probe behind secondary ap-
pearances and stray thoughts to rivet human attention on realities
of the first order: life at its source, creativity in its fullest manifesta-
tion, death and destruction at their origin, renewal and salvation in
their germ. The revelation of first things is compelling and moves
communities to take creative action. Primordial ideas are prime
movers.
Religious worldviews are all-encompassing because they fully
absorb the natural world within them. They provide human beings
both a view of the whole and at the same time a penetrating image
of their own ironic position as the beings in the cosmos who possess
the capacity for symbolic thought: the part that contains the
whole—or at least a picture of the whole—within itself. As all-
encompassing, therefore, religious ideas do not just contend with
other ideas as equals; they frame the mind-set within which all sorts
of ideas commingle in a cosmology. For this reason, their role in
ecology must be better understood.
Religious worldviews are unique because they draw the world
of nature into a wholly other kind of universe, one that appears only
in the religious imagination. From the point of view of environ-
mental studies, the risk of such religious views, on the one hand, is
of disinterest in or disregard for the natural world. On the other
hand, only in the religious world can nature be compared and
contrasted to other kinds of being—the supernatural world or forms
of power not always fully manifest in nature. Only then can nature
be revealed as distinctive, set in a new light startlingly different from
its own. That is to say, only religious perspectives enable human
beings to evaluate the world of nature in terms distinct from all else.
In this same step toward intelligibility, the natural world is evaluated
in terms consonant with human beings’ own distinctive (religious
and imaginative) nature in the world, thus grounding a self-
conscious relationship and a role with limits and responsibilities.
In the struggle to sustain the earth’s environment as viable for
future generations, environmental studies has thus far left the role
of religion unprobed. This contrasts starkly with the emphasis given,
for example, the role of science and technology in threatening or
sustaining the ecology. Ignorance of religion prevents environmental
studies from achieving its goals, however, for though science and
 Preface Xill

technology share many important features of human culture with

religion, they leave unexplored essential wellsprings of human
motivation and concern that shape the world as we know it. No
understanding of the environment is adequate without a grasp of
the religious life that constitutes the human societies which saturate
the natural environment.
A great deal of what we know about the religions of the world
is new knowledge. As is the case for geology and astronomy, so
too for religious studies: many new discoveries about the nature and
function of religion are, in fact, clearer understandings of events
and processes that began to unfold long ago. Much of what we are
learning now about the religions of the world was previously not
known outside of a circle of adepts. From the ancient history of
traditions and from the ongoing creativity of the world’s contem-
porary religions we are opening a treasury of motives, disciplines,
and awarenesses.
A geology of the religious spirit of humankind can well serve
our need to relate fruitfully to the earth and its myriad life-forms.
Changing our habits of consumption and patterns of distribution,
reevaluating modes of production, and reestablishing a strong sense
of solidarity with the matrix of material life—these achievements
will arrive along with spiritual modulations that unveil attractive
new images of well-being and prosperity, respecting the limits of
life in a sustainable world while revering life at its sources.
Remarkable religious views are presented in this series—from the
nature mysticism of Basho in Japan or Saint Francis in Italy to the
ecstatic physiologies and embryologies of shamanic healers, Taoist
meditators, and Vedic practitioners; from indigenous people’s ritual
responses to projects funded by the World Bank, to religiously
grounded criticisms of hazardous waste sites, deforestation, and
environmental racism.
The power to modify the world is both frightening and fasci-
nating and has been subjected to reflection, particularly religious
reflection, from time immemorial to the present day. We will
understand ecology better when we understand the religions that
form the rich soil of memory and practice, belief and relationships
where life on earth is rooted. Knowledge of these views will help
us reappraise our ways and reorient ourselves toward the sources
and resources of life.
X1V Buddhism and Ecology

This volume is one in a series that addresses the critical gap in

our contemporary understanding of religion and ecology. The series
results from research conducted at the Harvard University Center
for the Study of World Religions over a three-year period. I wish
especially to acknowledge President Neil L. Rudenstine of Harvard
University for his leadership in instituting the environmental
initiative at Harvard and thank him for his warm encouragement and
characteristic support of our program. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John
Grim of Bucknell University coordinated the research, involving the
direct participation of some six hundred scholars, religious leaders,
and environmental specialists brought to Harvard from around the
world during the period of research and inquiry. Professors Tucker
and Grim have brought great vision and energy to this enormous
project, as has their team of conference convenors. The commitment
and advice of Martin S. Kaplan of Hale and Dorr have been of great
value. Our goals have been achieved for this research and publi-
cation program because of the extraordinary dedication and talents
of Center for the Study of World Religions staff members Don
Kunkel, Malgorzata Radziszewska-Hedderick, Kathryn Dodgson,
Janey Bosch, Naomi Wilshire, Lilli Leggio, and Eric Edstam and
with the unstinting help of Stephanie Snyder of Bucknell. To these
individuals, and to all the sponsors and participants whose efforts
made this series possible, go deepest thanks and appreciation.
 Series Foreword

Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim

The Nature of the Environmental Crisis

Ours is a period when the human community is in search of new

and sustaining relationships to the earth amidst an environmental
crisis that threatens the very existence of all life-forms on the planet.
While the particular causes and solutions of this crisis are being
debated by scientists, economists, and policymakers, the facts of
widespread destruction are causing alarm in many quarters. Indeed,
from some perspectives the future of human life itself appears
threatened. As Daniel Maguire has succinctly observed, “If current
trends continue, we will not”! Thomas Berry, the former director
of the Riverdale Center for Religious Research, has also raised the
stark question, “Is the human a viable species on an endangered
planet?”
From resource depletion and species extinction to pollution
overload and toxic surplus, the planet is struggling against unprece-
dented assaults. This is aggravated by population explosion,
industrial growth, technological manipulation, and military prolifer-
ation heretofore unknown by the human community. From many
accounts the basic elements which sustain life—sufficient water,
clean air, and arable land—are at risk. The challenges are formidable
and well documented. The solutions, however, are more elusive and
complex. Clearly, this crisis has economic, political, and social
dimensions which require more detailed analysis than we can
provide here. Suffice it to say, however, as did the Global 2000
Report: “. . .once such global environmental problems are in motion
they are difficult to reverse. In fact few if any of the problems
addressed in the Global 2000 Report are amenable to quick
XV1 Buddhism and Ecology

technological or policy fixes; rather, they are inextricably mixed

with the world’s most perplexing social and economic problems.”2
Peter Raven, the director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, wrote
in a paper titled “We Are Killing Our World” with a similar sense
of urgency regarding the magnitude of the environmental crisis:
“The world that provides our evolutionary and ecological context
iS in serious trouble, trouble of a kind that demands our urgent
attention. By formulating adequate plans for dealing with these
large-scale problems, we will be laying the foundation for peace and
prosperity in the future; by ignoring them, drifting passively while
attending to what may seem more urgent, personal priorities, we are
courting disaster.”

Rethinking Worldviews and Ethics

For many people an environmental crisis of this complexity and
scope is not only the result of certain economic, political, and social
factors. It is also a moral and spiritual crisis which, in order to be
addressed, will require broader philosophical and religious under—
standings of ourselves as creatures of nature, embedded in life cycles
and dependent on ecosystems. Religions, thus, need to be re-
examined in light of the current environmental crisis. This is because
religions help to shape our attitudes toward nature in both conscious
and unconscious ways. Religions provide basic interpretive stories
of who we are, what nature is, where we have come from, and where
we are going. This comprises a worldview of a society. Religions
also suggest how we should treat other humans and how we should
relate to nature. These values make up the ethical orientation of a
society. Religions thus generate worldviews and ethics which
underlie fundamental attitudes and values of different cultures and
societies. As the historian Lynn White observed, “What people do
about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves
in relation to things around them. Human ecology is deeply
conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny—that is, by
religion.’
In trying to reorient ourselves in relation to the earth, it has
become apparent that we have lost our appreciation for the intricate
nature of matter and materiality. Our feeling of alienation in the
modern period has extended beyond the human community and its
 Series Foreword XVil

patterns of material exchanges to our interaction with nature itself.

Especially in technologically sophisticated urban societies, we have
become removed from the recognition of our dependence on nature.
We no longer know who we are as earthlings; we no longer see the
earth as sacred.
Thomas Berry suggests that we have become autistic in our
interactions with the natural world. In other words, we are unable
to value the life and beauty of nature because we are locked in our
own egocentric perspectives and shortsighted needs. He suggests
that we need a new cosmology, cultural coding, and motivating
energy to overcome this deprivation.* He observes that the magni-
tude of destructive industrial processes is so great that we must
initiate a radical rethinking of the myth of progress and of human-
ity’s role in the evolutionary process. Indeed, he speaks of evolution
as a new story of the universe, namely, as a vast cosmological
perspective that will resituate human meaning and direction in the
context of four and a half billion years of earth history.°
For Berry and for many others an important component of the
current environmental crisis is spiritual and ethical. It is here that
the religions of the world may have a role to play in cooperation
with other individuals, institutions, and initiatives that have been
engaged with environmental issues for a considerable period of time.
Despite their lateness in addressing the crisis, religions are begin-
ning to respond in remarkably creative ways. They are not only
rethinking their theologies but are also reorienting their sustainable
practices and long-term environmental commitments. In so doing,
the very nature of religion and of ethics is being challenged and
changed. This is true because the reexamination of other worldviews
created by religious beliefs and practices may be critical to our
recovery of sufficiently comprehensive cosmologies, broad concep-
tual frameworks, and effective environmental ethics for the twenty-
first century.
While in the past none of the religions of the world have had to
face an environmental crisis such as we are now confronting, they
remain key instruments in shaping attitudes toward nature. The
unintended consequences of the modern industrial drive for un-
limited economic growth and resource development have led us to
an impasse regarding the survival of many life-forms and appro-
priate management of varied ecosystems. The religious traditions
XVI Buddhism and Ecology

may indeed be critical in helping to reimagine the viable conditions

and long-range strategies for fostering mutually enhancing human-
earth relations.© Indeed, as E. N. Anderson has documented with
impressive detail, “All traditional societies that have succeeded in
managing resources well, over time, have done it in part through
religious or ritual representation of resource management.”’
It is in this context that a series of conferences and publications
exploring the various religions of the world and their relation to
ecology was initiated by the Center for the Study of World Religions
at Harvard. Directed by Lawrence Sullivan and coordinated by Mary
Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, the conferences will involve some
six hundred scholars, graduate students, religious leaders, and
environmental activists over a period of three years. The col-
laborative nature of the project is intentional. Such collaboration will
maximize the opportunity for dialogical reflection on this issue of
enormous complexity and will accentuate the diversity of local
manifestations of ecologically sustainable alternatives.
The conferences and the volumes are intended to serve as initial
explorations of the emerging field of religion and ecology while
pointing toward areas for further research. We are not unaware of
the difficulties of engaging in such a task, yet we are encouraged
by the enthusiastic response to the conferences within the academic
community, by the larger interest they have generated beyond
academia, and by the probing examinations gathered in the volumes.
We trust that this series and these volumes will be useful not only
for scholars of religion but also for those shaping seminary
education and institutional religious practices, as well as for those
involved in public policy on environmental issues.
We see these conferences and publications as expanding the
growing dialogue regarding the role of the world’s religions as moral
forces in stemming the environmental crisis. While, clearly, there
are major methodological issues involved in utilizing traditional
philosophical and religious ideas for contemporary concerns, there
are also compelling reasons to support such efforts, however modest
they may be. The world’s religions in all their complexity and
variety remain one of the principal resources for symbolic ideas,
spiritual inspiration, and ethical principles. Indeed, despite their
limitations, historically they have provided comprehensive cos-
mologies for interpretive direction, moral foundations for social
 Series Foreword X1X

cohesion, spiritual guidance for cultural expression, and ritual

celebrations for meaningful life. In our search for more compre-
hensive ecological worldviews and more effective environmental
ethics, it is inevitable that we will draw from the symbolic and
conceptual resources of the religious traditions of the world. The
effort to do this is not without precedent or problems, some of which
will be signaled below. With this volume and with this series we
hope the field of reflection and discussion regarding religion and
ecology will begin to broaden, deepen, and complexify.

Qualifications and Goals

The Problems and Promise of Religions

These conferences and volumes, then, are built on the premise that
the religions of the world may be instrumental in addressing the
moral dilemmas created by the environmental crisis. At the same
time we recognize the limitations of such efforts on the part of
religions. We also acknowledge that the complexity of the problem
requires interlocking approaches from such fields as science,
economics, politics, health, and public policy. As the human
community struggles to formulate different attitudes toward nature
and to articulate broader conceptions of ethics embracing species
and ecosystems, religions may thus be a necessary, though only
contributing, part of this multidisciplinary approach.
It is becoming increasingly evident that abundant scientific
knowledge of the crisis is available and numerous political and
economic statements have been formulated. Yet we seem to lack the
political, economic, and scientific leadership to make necessary
changes. Moreover, what is still lacking is the religious commitment,
moral imagination, and ethical engagement to transform the
environmental crisis from an issue on paper to one of effective
policy, from rhetoric in print to realism in action. Why, nearly fifty
years after Fairfield Osborne’s warning regarding Our Plundered
Planet and more than thirty years since Rachel Carson’s Silent
Spring, are we still wondering, is it too late ?8
It is important to ask where the religions have been on these
issues and why they themselves have been so late in their involve-
ment. Have issues of personal salvation superseded all others? Have
XX Buddhism and Ecology

divine-human relations been primary? Have anthropocentric ethics

been all-consuming? Has the material world of nature been devalued
by religion? Does the search for otherworldly rewards override
commitment to this world? Did the religions simply surrender their
natural theologies and concerns with exploring purpose in nature
to positivistic scientific cosmologies? In beginning to address these
questions, we still have not exhausted all the reasons for religions’
lack of attention to the environmental crisis. The reasons may not
be readily apparent, but clearly they require further exploration and
explanation.
In discussing the involvement of religions in this issue, it is also
appropriate to acknowledge the dark side of religion in both its
institutional expressions and dogmatic forms. In addition to their
oversight with regard to the environment, religions have been the
source of enormous manipulation of power in fostering wars, in
ignoring racial and social injustice, and in promoting unequal gender
relations, to name only a few abuses. One does not want to
underplay this shadow side or to claim too much for religions’
potential for ethical persuasiveness. The problems are too vast and
complex for unqualified optimism. Yet there is a growing consensus
that religions may now have a significant role to play, just as in the
past they have sustained individuals and cultures in the face of
internal and external threats.
A final caveat is the inevitable gap that arises between theories
and practices in religions. As has been noted, even societies with
religious traditions which appear sympathetic to the environment
have in the past often misused resources. While it is clear that
religions may have some disjunction between the ideal and the real,
this should not lessen our endeavor to identify resources from within
the world’s religions for a more ecologically sound cosmology and
environmentally supportive ethics. This disjunction of theory and
practice is present within all philosophies and religions and is
frequently the source of disillusionment, skepticism, and cynicism.
A more realistic observation might be made, however, that this
disjunction should not automatically invalidate the complex world-
views and rich cosmologies embedded in traditional religions.
Rather, it is our task to explore these conceptual resources so as to
broaden and expand our own perspectives in challenging and
fruitful ways.
 Series Foreword XX1

In summary, we recognize that religions have elements which are

both prophetic and transformative as well as conservative and
constraining. These elements are continually in tension, a condition
which creates the great variety of thought and interpretation within
religious traditions. To recognize these various tensions and limits,
however, is not to lessen the urgency of the overall goals of this
project. Rather, it is to circumscribe our efforts with healthy
skepticism, cautious optimism, and modest ambitions. It is to
suggest that this is a beginning in a new field of study which will
affect both religion and ecology. On the one hand, this process of
reflection will inevitably change how religions conceive of their own
roles, missions, and identities, for such reflections demand a new
sense of the sacred as not divorced from the earth itself. On the other
hand, environmental studies can recognize that religions have helped
to shape attitudes toward nature. Thus, as religions themselves
evolve they may be indispensable in fostering a more expansive
appreciation for the complexity and beauty of the natural world. At
the same time as religions foster awe and reverence for nature, they
may provide the transforming energies for ethical practices to
protect endangered ecosystems, threatened species, and diminishing
resources.

Methodological Concerns

It is important to acknowledge that there are, inevitably, challenging

methodological issues involved in such a project as we are under-
taking in this emerging field of religion and ecology.? Some of the
key interpretive challenges we face in this project concern issues
of time, place, space, and positionality. With regard to time, it is
necessary to recognize the vast historical complexity of each
religious tradition, which cannot be easily condensed in these
conferences or volumes. With respect to place, we need to signal
the diverse cultural contexts in which these religions have devel-
oped. With regard to space, we recognize the varied frameworks of
institutions and traditions in which these religions unfold. Finally,
with respect to positionality, we acknowledge our own historical
situatedness at the end of the twentieth century with distinctive
contemporary concerns.
Not only is each religious tradition historically complex and
XXli Buddhism and Ecology

culturally diverse, but its beliefs, scriptures, and institutions have

themselves been subject to vast commentaries and revisions over
time. Thus, we recognize the radical diversity that exists within and
among religious traditions which cannot be encompassed in any
single volume. We acknowledge also that distortions may arise as
we examine earlier historical traditions in light of contemporary
issues.
Nonetheless, the environmental ethics philosopher J. Baird
Callicott has suggested that scholars and others “mine the conceptual
resources” of the religious traditions as a means of creating a more
inclusive global environmental ethics.!° As Callicott himself notes,
however, the notion of “mining” is problematic, for it conjures up
images of exploitation which may cause apprehension among certain
religious communities, especially those of indigenous peoples.
Moreover, we cannot simply expect to borrow or adopt ideas and
place them from one tradition directly into another. Even efforts to
formulate global environmental ethics need to be sensitive to cultural
particularity and diversity. We do not aim at creating a simple
bricolage or bland fusion of perspectives. Rather, these conferences
and volumes are an attempt to display before us a multiperspectival
cross section of the symbolic richness regarding attitudes toward
nature within the religions of the world. To do so will help to reveal
certain commonalities among traditions, as well as limitations within
traditions, as they begin to converge around this challenge presented
by the environmental crisis.
We need to identify our concerns, then, as embedded in the
constraints of our own perspectival limits at the same time as we
seek common ground. In describing various attitudes toward nature
historically, we are aiming at critical understanding of the com-
plexity, contexts, and frameworks in which these religions articulate
such views. In addition, we are striving for empathetic appreciation
for the traditions without idealizing their ecological potential or
ignoring their environmental oversights. Finally, we are aiming at
the creative revisioning of mutually enhancing human-earth rela-
tions. This revisioning may be assisted by highlighting the multi-
perspectival attitudes toward nature which these traditions disclose.
The prismatic effect of examining such attitudes and relationships
may provide some necessary clarification and symbolic resources
for reimagining our own situation and shared concerns at the end
 Series Foreword XXill

of the twentieth century. It will also be sharpened by identifying

the multilayered symbol systems in world religions which have
traditionally oriented humans in establishing relational resonances
between the microcosm of the self and the macrocosm of the social
and natural orders. In short, religious traditions may help to supply
both creative resources of symbols, rituals, and texts as well as
inspiring visions for reimagining ourselves as part of, not apart from,
the natural world.

Aims

The methodological issues outlined above are implied in the overall

goals of the conferences, which are described as follows:
1) To identify and evaluate the distinctive ecological attitudes,
values, and practices of diverse religious traditions, making clear
their links to intellectual, political, and other resources associated
with these distinctive traditions.
2) To describe and analyze the commonalities that exist within
and among religious traditions with respect to ecology.
3) To identify the minimum common ground on which to base
constructive understanding, motivating discussion, and concerted
action in diverse locations across the globe; and to highlight the
specific religious resources that comprise such fertile ecological
ground: within scripture, ritual, myth, symbol, cosmology, sacra-
ment, and so on.
4) To articulate in clear and moving terms a desirable mode of
human presence with the earth; in short, to highlight means of
respecting and valuing nature, to note what has already been
actualized, and to indicate how best to achieve what is desirable
beyond these examples.
5) To outline the most significant areas, with regard to religion
and ecology, in need of further study; to enumerate questions of
highest priority within those areas and propose possible approaches
to use in addressing them.
In these conferences and volumes, then, we are not intending to
obliterate difference or ignore diversity. The aim is to celebrate
plurality by raising to conscious awareness multiple perspectives
regarding nature and human-earth relations as articulated in the
religions of the world. The spectrum of cosmologies, myths,
XX1V Buddhism and Ecology

symbols, and rituals within the religious traditions will be instructive

in resituating us within the rhythms and limits of nature.
We are not looking for a unified worldview or a single global
ethic. We are, however, deeply sympathetic with the efforts toward
formulating a global ethic made by individuals, such as the
theologian, Hans Kung, or the environmental philosopher, J. Baird
Callicott, and groups, such as Global Education Associates and
United Religions. A minimum content of environmental ethics needs
to be seriously considered. We are, then, keenly interested in the
contribution this series might make to discussions of environmental
policy in national and international arenas. Important intersections
may be made with work in the field of development ethics.!! In
addition, the findings of the conferences have bearing on the ethical
formulation of the Earth Charter that will be presented to the United
Nations for adoption by the end of the century. Thus, we are seeking
both the grounds for common concern and the constructive
conceptual basis for rethinking our current situation of estrangement
from the earth. In so doing we will be able to reconceive a means
of creating the basis not just for sustainable development, but also
for sustainable life on the planet.
AS scientist Brian Swimme has suggested, we are currently
making macrophase changes to the life systems of the planet with
microphase wisdom. Clearly, we need to expand and deepen the
wisdom base for human intervention with nature and other humans.
This is particularly true as issues of genetic alteration of natural
processes are already available and in use. If religions have
traditionally concentrated on divine-human and human-human
relations, the challenge is that they now explore more fully divine-
human-earth relations. Without such further exploration, adequate
environmental ethics may not emerge in a comprehensive context.

Resources: Environmental Ethics Found in the

World’s Religions

For many people, when challenges such as the environmental crisis

are raised in relation to religion in the contemporary world, there
frequently arises a sense of loss or a nostalgia for earlier, seemingly
less complicated eras when the constant questioning of religious
beliefs and practices was not so apparent. This is, no doubt,
 Series Foreword XXV

something of a reified reading of history. There is, however, a

decidedly anxious tone to the questioning and soul-searching that
appears to haunt many contemporary religious groups as they seek
to find their particular role in the midst of rapid technological
change and dominant secular values.
One of the greatest challenges, however, to contemporary
religions remains how to respond to the environmental crisis, which
many believe has been perpetuated because of the enormous inroads
made by unrestrained materialism, secularization, and industriali-
zation in contemporary societies, especially those societies arising
in or influenced by the modern West. Indeed, some suggest that the
very division of religion from secular life may be a major cause of
the crisis.
Others, such as the medieval historian Lynn White, have cited
religion’s negative role in the crisis. White has suggested that the
emphasis in Judaism and Christianity on the transcendence of God
above nature and the dominion of humans over nature has led to a
devaluing of the natural world and a subsequent destruction of its
resources for utilitarian ends.!* While the particulars of this
argument have been vehemently debated, it is increasingly clear that
the environmental crisis and its perpetuation due to industrialization,
secularization, and ethical indifference present a serious challenge
to the world’s religions. This is especially true because many of
these religions have traditionally been concerned with the path of
personal salvation, which frequently emphasized otherworldly goals
and rejected this world as corrupting. Thus, as we have noted, how
to adapt religious teachings to this task of revaluing nature so as to
prevent its destruction marks a significant new phase in religious
thought. Indeed, as Thomas Berry has so aptly pointed out, what is
necessary is a comprehensive reevaluation of human-earth relations
if the human is to continue as a viable species on an increasingly
degraded planet. This will require, in addition to major economic
and political changes, examining worldviews and ethics among the
world’s religions that differ from those that have captured the
imagination of contemporary industrialized societies which regard
nature primarily as a commodity to be utilized. It should be noted
that when we are searching for effective resources for formulating
environmental ethics, each of the religious traditions have both
positive and negative features.
XXV1 Buddhism and Ecology

For the most part, the worldviews associated with the Western
Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have
created a dominantly human-focused morality. Because these
worldviews are largely anthropocentric, nature is viewed as being
of secondary importance. This is reinforced by a strong sense of
the transcendence of God above nature. On the other hand, there
are rich resources for rethinking views of nature in the covenantal
tradition of the Hebrew Bible, in sacramental theology, in incar-
national Christology, and in the vice-regency (khalifa Allah) concept
of the Qur’an. The covenantal tradition draws on the legal agree-
ments of biblical thought which are extended to all of creation.
Sacramental theology in Christianity underscores the sacred
dimension of material reality, especially for ritual purposes.!?
Incarnational Christology proposes that because God became flesh
in the person of Christ, the entire natural order can be viewed as
sacred. The concept of humans as vice-regents of Allah on earth
suggests that humans have particular privileges, responsibilities, and
obligations to creation.!4
In Hinduism, although there is a significant emphasis on per-
forming one’s dharma, or duty, in the world, there is also a strong
pull toward moksa, or liberation, from the world of suffering, or
samsara. To heal this kind of suffering and alienation through
spiritual discipline and meditation, one turns away from the world
(prakrti) to a timeless world of spirit (purusa). Yet at the same time
there are numerous traditions in Hinduism which affirm particular
rivers, mountains, or forests as sacred. Moreover, in the concept of
lila, the creative play of the gods, Hindu theology engages the world
as a creative manifestation of the divine. This same tension between
withdrawal from the world and affirmation of it is present in
Buddhism. Certain Theravada schools of Buddhism emphasize
withdrawing in meditation from the transient world of suffering
(samsara) to seek release in nirvana. On the other hand, later
Mahayana schools of Buddhism, such as Hua-yen, underscore the
remarkable interconnection of reality in such images as the jeweled
net of Indra, where each jewel reflects all the others in the universe.
Likewise, the Zen gardens in East Asia express the fullness of the
Buddha-nature (tathagatagarbha) in the natural world. In recent
years, socially engaged Buddhism has been active in protecting the
environment in both Asia and the United States.
 Series Foreword XXVIl

The East Asian traditions of Confucianism and Taoism remain,

in certain ways, some of the most life-affirming in the spectrum of
world religions.!> The seamless interconnection between the divine,
human, and natural worlds that characterizes these traditions has
been described as an anthropocosmic worldview.!® There is no
emphasis on radical transcendence as there is in the Western
traditions. Rather, there is a cosmology of a continuity of creation
stressing the dynamic movements of nature through the seasons and
the agricultural cycles. This organic cosmology is grounded in the
philosophy of ch’i (material force), which provides a basis for
appreciating the profound interconnection of matter and spirit. To
be in harmony with nature and with other humans while being
attentive to the movements of the Jao (Way) is the aim of personal
cultivation in both Confucianism and Taoism. It should be noted,
however, that this positive worldview has not prevented environ-
mental degradation (such as deforestation) in parts of East Asia in
both the premodern and modern period.
In a similar vein, indigenous peoples, while having ecological
cosmologies have, in some instances, caused damage to local
environments through such practices as slash-and-burn agriculture.
Nonetheless, most indigenous peoples have environmental ethics
embedded in their worldviews. This is evident in the complex
reciprocal obligations surrounding life-taking and resource-gathering
which mark a community’s relations with the local bioregion. The
religious views at the basis of indigenous lifeways involve respect
for the sources of food, clothing, and shelter that nature provides.
Gratitude to the creator and to the spiritual forces in creation is at
the heart of most indigenous traditions. The ritual calendars of many
indigenous peoples are carefully coordinated with seasonal events
such as the sound of returning birds, the blooming of certain plants,
the movements of the sun, and the changes of the moon.
The difficulty at present is that for the most part we have
developed in the world’s religions certain ethical prohibitions
regarding homicide and restraints concerning genocide and suicide,
but none for biocide or geocide. We are clearly in need of exploring
such comprehensive cosmological perspectives and communitarian
environmental ethics as the most compelling context for motivating
change regarding the destruction of the natural world.
XXVIll Buddhism and Ecology

Responses of Religions to the Environmental Crisis

How to chart possible paths toward mutually enhancing human-earth

relations remains, thus, one of the greatest challenges to the world’s
religions. It is with some encouragement, however, that we note the
growing calls for the world’s religions to participate in these efforts
toward a more sustainable planetary future. There have been various
appeals from environmental groups and from scientists and parlia-
mentarians for religious leaders to respond to the environmental
crisis. For example, in 1990 the Joint Appeal in Religion and
Science was released highlighting the urgency of collaboration
around the issue of the destruction of the environment. In 1992 the
Union of Concerned Scientists issued a statement of “Warning to
Humanity” signed by over 1,000 scientists from 70 countries,
including 105 Nobel laureates, regarding the gravity of the environ-
mental crisis. They specifically cited the need for a new ethic toward
the earth.
Numerous national and international conferences have also been
held on this subject and collaborative efforts have been established.
Environmental groups such as World Wildlife Fund have sponsored
interreligious meetings such as the one in Assisi in 1986. The Center
for Respect of Life and Environment of the Humane Society of the
United States has also held a series of conferences in Assisi on
Spirituality and Sustainability and has helped to organize one at the
World Bank. The United Nations Environmental Programme in
North America has established an Environmental Sabbath, each year
distributing thousands of packets of materials for use in congre-
gations throughout North America. Similarly, the National Religious
Partnership on the Environment at the Cathedral of St. John the
Divine in New York City has promoted dialogue, distributed
materials, and created a remarkable alliance of the various Jewish
and Christian denominations in the United States around the issue
of the environment. The Parliament of World Religions held in 1993
in Chicago and attended by some 8,000 people from all over the
globe issued a statement of Global Ethics of Cooperation of
Religions on Human and Environmental Issues. International
meetings on the environment have been organized. One example of
these, the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders held
in Oxford in 1988, Moscow in 1990, Rio in 1992, and Kyoto in
 Series Foreword XX1X

1993, included world religious leaders, such as the Dalai Lama, and
diplomats and heads of state, such as Mikhail Gorbachev. Indeed,
Gorbachev hosted the Moscow conference and attended the Kyoto
conference to set up a Green Cross International for environmental
emergencies.
Since the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (the Earth Summit) held in Rio in 1992, there have
been concerted efforts intended to lead toward the adoption of an
Earth Charter by the year 2000. This Earth Charter initiative is
under way with the leadership of the Earth Council and Green Cross
International, with support from the government of the Netherlands.
Maurice Strong, Mikhail Gorbachev, Steven Rockefeller, and other
members of the Earth Charter Project have been instrumental in this
process. At the March 1997 Rio+5 Conference a benchmark draft
of the Earth Charter was issued. The time is thus propitious for
further investigation of the potential contributions of particular
religions toward mitigating the environmental crisis, especially by
developing more comprehensive environmental ethics for the earth
community.

Expanding the Dialogue of Religion and Ecology

More than two decades ago Thomas Berry anticipated such an

exploration when he called for “creating a new consciousness of the
multiform religious traditions of humankind” as a means toward
renewal of the human spirit in addressing the urgent problems of
contemporary society.!’ Tu Weiming has written of the need to go
“Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality” in exploring the spiritual
resources of the global community to meet the challenge of the
ecological crisis.!8 While this exploration is also the intention of
these conferences and volumes, other significant efforts have
preceded our current endeavor.!? Our discussion here highlights only
the last decade.
In 1986 Eugene Hargrove edited a volume titled Religion and
Environmental Crisis.2° In 1991 Charlene Spretnak explored this
topic in her book States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the
Post-Modern Age.*! Her subtitle states her constructivist project
clearly: “Reclaiming the Core Teachings and Practices of the Great
XXX Buddhism and Ecology

Wisdom Traditions for the Well-Being of the Earth Community.”

In 1992 Steven Rockefeller and John Elder edited a book based on
a conference at Middlebury College titled Spirit and Nature: Why
the Environment Is a Religious Issue.** In the same year Peter
Marshall published Nature’s Web: Rethinking Our Place on Earth,?3
drawing on the resources of the world’s traditions. An edited volume
on Worldviews and Ecology, compiled in 1993, contains articles
reflecting on views of nature from the world’s religions and from
contemporary philosophies, such as process thought and deep
ecology.*4 In this same vein, in 1994 J. Baird Callicott published
Earth’s Insights which examines the intellectual resources of the
world’s religions for a more comprehensive global environmental
ethics.2° This expands on his 1989 volumes, Nature in Asian
Traditions of Thought and In Defense of the Land Ethic.*® In 1995
David Kinsley issued a book titled Ecology and Religion: Ecological
Spirituality in a Cross-Cultural Perspective’ which draws on
traditional religions and contemporary movements, such as deep
ecology and ecospirituality. Seyyed Hossein Nasr wrote a compre-
hensive study of Religion and the Order of Nature in 1996.28 Several
volumes of religious responses to a particular topic or theme have
also been published. For example, J. Ronald Engel and Joan Gibb
Engel compiled a monograph in 1990 on Ethics of Environment and
Development: Global Challenge, International Response2? and in
1995 Harold Coward edited a volume on Population, Consumption
and the Environment: Religious and Secular Responses.*° Roger
Gottlieb edited a useful source book, This Sacred Earth: Religion,
Nature, Environment.?' Single volumes on the world’s religions and
ecology were published by the Worldwide Fund for Nature.?2
The conferences and volumes in the series Religions of the World
and Ecology are thus intended to expand the discussion already
under way in certain circles and to invite further collaboration on a
topic of common concern—the fate of the earth as a religious
responsibility. To broaden and deepen the reflective basis for mutual
collaboration has been an underlying aim of the conferences
themselves. While some might see this as a diversion from pressing
scientific or policy issues, it is with a sense of humility and yet
conviction that we enter into the arena of reflection and debate on
this issue. In the field of the study of world religions, we see this
as a timely challenge for scholars of religion to respond as engaged
 Series Foreword XXXi

intellectuals with deepening creative reflection. We hope that these

conferences and volumes will be simply a beginning of further study
of conceptual and symbolic resources, methodological concerns, and
practical directions for meeting this environmental crisis.
XXXll Buddhism and Ecology

Notes

1. He goes on to say, “And that is qualitatively and epochally true. If religion

does not speak to [this], it is an obsolete distraction.” Daniel Maguire, The Moral
Core of Judaism and Christianity: Reclaiming the Revolution (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1993), 13.
2. Gerald Barney, Global 2000 Report to the President of the United States,
(Washington. D.C.: Supt. of Docs. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980-1981), 40.
3. Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155
(March 1967):1204.
4. Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books,
1988).
5. Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story (San Francisco:
Harper San Francisco, 1992).
6. At the same time we recognize the limits to such a project, especially
because ideas and action, theory and practice do not always occur in conjunction.
7. E. N. Anderson, Ecologies of the Heart: Emotion, Belief, and the Environ-
ment (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 166. He qualifies
this statement by saying, “The key point is not religion per se, but the use of
emotionally powerful symbols to sell particular moral codes and management
systems” (166). He notes, however, in various case studies how ecological wisdom
is embedded in myths, symbols, and cosmologies of traditional societies.
8. Is It Too Late? is also the title of a book by John Cobb, first published in
1972 by Bruce and reissued in 1995 by Environmental Ethics Books.
9. Because we cannot identify here all of the methodological issues that need
to be addressed, we invite further discussion by other engaged scholars.
10. See J. Baird Callicott, Earth’s Insights: A Survey of Ecological Ethics from
the Mediterranean Basin to the Australian Outback (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1994).
11. See, for example, The Quality of Life, ed. Martha C. Nussbaum and
Amartya Sen, WIDER Studies in Development Economics (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1993).
12. White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,’ 1203-7.
13. Process theology, creation-centered spirituality, and ecotheology have done
much to promote these kinds of holistic perspectives within Christianity.
14. These are resources already being explored by theologians and biblical
scholars.
15. While this is true theoretically, it should be noted that, like all ideologies,
these traditions have at times been used for purposes of political power and social
control. Moreover, they have not been able to prevent certain kinds of environ-
mental destruction, such as deforestation in China.
 Series Foreword | XXXill

16. The term “anthropocosmic” has been used by Tu Weiming in Commonality

and Centrality (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989).
17. Thomas Berry, “Religious Studies and the Global Human Community,”
unpublished manuscript.
18. Tu Weiming, “Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality,” in Worldviews and
Ecology, ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell
University Press, 1993; reissued, Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Press, 1994).
19. This history has been described more fully by Roderick Nash in his chapter
entitled “The Greening of Religion,” in The Rights of Nature: A History of
Environmental Ethics (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1989).
20. Religion and Environmental Crisis, ed. Eugene Hargrove (Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 1986).
21. Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Post-
Modern Age (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991).
22. Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue, ed. Steven
Rockefeller and John Elder (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992).
23. Peter Marshall, Nature’s Web: Rethinking Our Place on Earth (Armonk,
N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1992).
24. Worldviews and Ecology, ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim
(Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 1993; reissued, Maryknoll, N.Y.:
Orbis Books, 1994).
25. Callicott, Earth’s Insights.
26. Both are State University of New York Press publications.
27. David Kinsley, Ecology and Religion: Ecological Spirituality in a Cross-
Cultural Perspective (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995).
28. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Religion and the Order of Nature (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996).
29. Ethics of Environment and Development: Global Challenge, International
Response, ed. J. Ronald Engel and Joan Gibb Engel (Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1990).
30. Population, Consumption, and the Environment: Religious and Secular
Responses, ed. Harold Coward (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995).
31. This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, ed. Roger S. Gottlieb
(New York and London: Routledge, 1996).
32. These include volumes on Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam.
 Introduction

Duncan Ryitken Williams

Throughout the past several decades, Buddhist practitioners in both

Asia and the West have engaged in a wide variety of efforts to
protect the environment. A Buddhist priest led a recent campaign
to save an ancient urban forest in Tokyo from being turned into an
apartment complex; the priest erected a large sign near the grove
stating that the trees have “Buddha-nature.” Similar efforts in forest
conservation from a Buddhist perspective have occurred in Thailand,
where a number of environmentally minded monks have selectively
“ordained” trees in the forests. Traditionally, a Thai Buddhist novice
is ordained by the shaving of the monk’s hair and by his acceptance
of saffron robes. Thai monks have used this symbolic act of
initiation to “ordain” the trees in the rain forest as “members of a
Buddhist order” by tying strips of saffron cloth around them. This
rather unique tactic has actually prevented the logging of quite a
number of acres of forest. This creative adaptation of Buddhist
concepts and practices for environmental concerns has been taking
place since the early 1960s in three larger communities: the
academic, the Buddhist, and the environmental.
In the academic community, scholars from a variety of disciplines
have evaluated Buddhist perspectives on nature, ecological ethics,
and actions taken by Buddhists for environmental causes. While
Buddhologists have focused on Buddhist sitras and other textual
sources, as well as on individual Buddhist thinkers’ perspectives on
nature, environmental philosophers have turned to Buddhism as a
conceptual resource for a new ecological ethics. At the same time,
scholars in the fields of anthropology and sociology have studied
contemporary Buddhist movements and individuals who have been
involved as “engaged Buddhists” in environmental activism.
XXXVI Buddhism and Ecology

Members of the second group, both ordained and lay members

of the Buddhist community in Asia and the West, have been
speaking, writing, and organizing activities leading toward a more
active Buddhist role in addressing the environmental crisis. Well-
known ordained leaders, such as the Dalai Lama, Buddhadasa
Bhikkhu, and Thich Nhat Hanh, have recognized the need to address
such contemporary issues as ecology if Buddhism is to continue to
be relevant to many members of the Buddhist community. Insti-
tutionally, such organizations as the International Network of
Engaged Buddhists, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and Buddhists
Concerned for Animals have served as vehicles for expressing
particular Buddhist positions on ecological and peace concerns.
Furthermore, the efforts of local temples and lay Buddhists in
environmental education, activism, and conservation have been
noteworthy. In Japan, for example, even without institutional
backing, local temple priests have played key roles in protecting
marine life in the Himeiji region, protesting nuclear power and
waste in western Japan, and preserving the few ancient groves left
in Tokyo. Perhaps even more remarkable have been key lay
Buddhists in both Asia and the West, such as Sulak Sivaraksa,
Yanase GiryOd, Gary Snyder, and Joanna Macy, who, through their
writings and activism grounded in a Buddhist perspective, have
made a significant contribution to ecological awareness.
Finally, a number of environmentalists have found Buddhist
doctrines, such as Buddha-nature, and Buddhist practices, such as
meditation, to be extremely useful. Many environmentalists are
familiar with the deep ecology movement, inspired and influenced
in part by Buddhism, which espouses a nonanthropocentric world-
view. Moreover, many environmentalists are familiar with the
Council of All Beings, a ritual in which one places oneself in the
position of another species, which was designed by Buddhists
Joanna Macy and John Seed. Environmental activists who are drawn
to Buddhism, but who are not officially Buddhists, might be what
Thomas Tweed has called “Buddhist sympathizers,” or persons who
are positioned between adherents and nonadherents. Although
Buddhism has certainly been influenced by the environmental
movement, these last examples suggest ways in which Buddhism,
in its worldview and practice, has penetrated the environmentalist
community.
 Introduction XXXVI

This. volume was based on a three-day conference at the Harvard

University Center for the Study of World Religions that brought
together scholars of Buddhism and environmentally engaged
Buddhists. While it reflects some of the juxtapositions of those two
groups, the significance of this volume lies in the fact that it 1S
primarily a scholarly one. Previous publications in this area have
largely been written by practitioners and environmentalists.
Moreover, the two previous scholarly books of note, Lambert
Schmithausen’s Buddhism and Nature and the collection Nature in
Asian Traditions of Thought, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Roger
T. Ames, are limited in both their scope and treatment of the range
of Buddhist traditions. This volume, although scholarly in nature,
is intended for undergraduate and graduate students as well as for
an educated public with some basic knowledge of Buddhist teach-
ings. Rather than being exhaustive, it should serve as a modest
beginning so as to encourage further research on the topic of
Buddhism and ecology.
The volume begins with an essay by Lewis Lancaster, an
overview highlighting some of the key issues and complexities
inherent in a study of this topic. One of these involves the problem
of generalizing about the Buddhist tradition as a whole. Lancaster
signals the need to be aware of the cultural and geographical
diversity of Buddhism as well as of the historical contexts of
particular Buddhist teachings and practices. Moreover, methodo-
logical issues, such as utilizing ideas from the past to inform
contemporary issues, are also recognized as problematic in certain
respects. Yet, the spirit of this volume is one that, while acknowl-
edging these difficulties, also notes that traditions have always been
changing in relation to present circumstances. In addition, it accepts
the premise that views of nature are, to a large extent, conditioned
by religious and cultural worldviews. Hence, it is important to probe
these views historically so as to shed light not only on the past but
also on present circumstances. The issue may be described as the
coexistence of traditional ideas with modern conditions—or the
adaptation of the former to the latter. While this may be an uneasy
coexistence, it is not without historical precedent, given the manner
in which traditions have adapted themselves to particular times,
places, and situations.
 XXXVIIl Buddhism and Ecology

The first five sections of the volume reflect cultural, thematic,

and denominational approaches to the study of Buddhism in general
and to the study of Buddhism and ecology in particular. The cultural
areas represented in this volume include Southeast Asia, East Asia,
and North America, and specific examples are drawn from Thailand,
Japan, and the United States. The section on Thailand includes an
essay by Donald Swearer on two key figures in the Theravada
Buddhist world—Buddhadasa and Dhammapitaka—who have
figured prominently in contemporary discussions of Buddhist
ecological theories and practices in Thailand. The anthropological
essay of Leslie Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel com-
plements this with a discussion of how the Thai Buddhist monastic
community is involved in promoting environmental awareness and
action.
The following three chapters focus on particular Japanese
Buddhist thinkers’ views of nature as a starting point for a discussion
of what the Japanese tradition offers in terms of environmental
worldviews and ethics. Paul Ingram discusses the case of the
medieval Shingon monk Kikai and his mandala-like world of
interconnectedness that Ingram terms the “jeweled net of nature.”
Graham Parkes also begins with Kikai’s doctrine of this earth being
the manifestation of Buddha-nature. He then moves on to discuss
the similarly nonanthropocentric and nature-affirming worldview of
the medieval Zen monk Dogen. Parkes concludes with reflections
on the philosophical and practical problems in the undifferentiated
affirmation of all things “natural,” including tuberculosis or toxic
waste dumps. Steve Odin considers a wide range of sources to
highlight an aesthetic and salvific aspect to a specifically Japanese
concept of nature. He links this perspective to the environmental
ethics and conservation aesthetics of Aldo Leopold to propose what
he calls an “East-West Gaia theory of nature.”
The third geographical and cultural area taken up in the volume
is the United States where, despite its relatively brief history,
Buddhism has played an important role in the formation of a
Buddhist ecology and in the creation of environmentally friendly
Buddhist temples. David Barnhill analyzes the work of the Buddhist
poet and environmental activist Gary Snyder, who was one of the
first Westerners to recognize the rich potential of the interface
between Buddhism and ecology. In particular, Snyder articulates a
 Introduction XXX1X

Buddhist-inspired bioregionalism and a Buddhist form of deep

ecology. His concept of wildness and his shamanic/mythological
orientation is drawn, Barnhill suggests, from his feelings for the
dramatic landscape of the Pacific Northwest and his affinities with
Native American views of community and land. Stephanie Kaza’s
essay focuses on two environmentally sustainable rural communities
in Northern California, namely, Green Gulch Farm, a Zen meditation
center, and Spirit Rock, a vipassana meditation center. Kaza draws
on Gary Snyder’s ecological guidelines for reinhabitation of the land
to evaluate the environmental stewardship and educational practices
of these centers. Jeff Yamauchi’s essay complements this discussion
with another case study of the process of “greening” a Buddhist
retreat center, the Zen Mountain Center in Southern California. He
surveys efforts to protect the flora and fauna of the region and
discusses fire prevention and management of the forest.
This volume also includes a thematic section on the place of
animals in Buddhism, in which the particular cultural areas and
traditions of India and Japan are examined. Christopher Chapple’s
essay deals with various images of animals as found in the early
Indian Buddhist stories known as the Jataka tales. Chapple suggests
that the wise, compassionate, and foolish animals appearing in these
narratives illustrate that Buddhists had a keen awareness of animals
and their place in Buddhist cosmology. My essay takes up the
Buddhist ritual of releasing animals for merit that has been practiced
in both East and Southeast Asia. The study of this ritual in medieval
Japan reveals the ironic relationship between the effort at “animal
liberation” in the Buddhist tradition and the unintended consequence
to this ritual of the loss of animal life.
Another approach to the study of Buddhism in general is to
examine different traditions or denominations of Buddhism. In this
volume, Ruben Habito and John Daido Loori look to the possibilities
and limitations of what the Zen Buddhist tradition can offer to this
discussion of environmental issues. Habito points to the experiential
realization in Zen of nonseparation of oneself and the world as the
starting point for embracing an ecologically engaged way of life.
This affirms living in the present moment. However, Habito
acknowledges another impulse in Zen that may promote detachment
from this world and absorption in cultivating the inner life. Loori,
the head abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery, gives a Zen inter-
 x] Buddhism and Ecology

pretation of the Buddhist precepts as a map for an environmental

ethic. In his article, originally delivered as a Zen Dharma talk at
the monastery, he suggests interpreting the Buddhist precepts so as
to develop a way of life that is in harmony with the natural world.
The last two sections of the volume focus on practical/policy-
level contributions that Buddhism can make and on theoretical/
methodological issues that ought to be considered for future
research. The section on the practical application of Buddhism to
environmental problems begins with Kenneth Kraft’s chapter on the
issue of nuclear waste. Kraft documents the background of Buddhist
concern over this unresolved issue and reflects on the responsi-
bilities of the scholar and the engaged Buddhist in facing this
particular aspect of the environmental crisis. Rita Gross draws from
the wide-ranging spectrum of Buddhist thought to construct a
position that undercuts what she calls a pronatalist view toward
population. Gross suggests that particular Buddhist teachings on
desires and sexuality could help to moderate the more polemical
discussions of population and consumption. She thus points toward
a middle way between irresolvable extremes on these two issues.
In his essay, Steven Rockefeller outlines the core elements of a
Buddhist contribution to an emerging global ethics. He focuses
particularly on the Earth Charter, which is expected to be submitted
to the United Nations General Assembly by the year 2000. The
Charter is intended to function as a “soft law” document to
undergird efforts at sustainable development in the international
community. The practical problems and initiatives discussed by
these three authors provide models for future considerations of ways
in which Buddhist values can be applied to environmental issues.
The final section of the volume focuses on broader theoretical
and methodological questions regarding the interface between
Buddhism and ecology. David Eckel and Ian Harris both question
facile assumptions that Asian, and particularly Buddhist, worldviews
are inherently environmentally friendly. Indeed, they ask when and
why Buddhism came to be seen as ecofriendly. They both argue that
this conception is relatively recent and that the term “nature” is itself
a complex and somewhat problematic term in Buddhist history.
Eckel proposes a means of circumventing the complexity of
Buddhist views of nature, while Harris advocates continued
vigilance in translating Western environmental discourse into a
 Introduction xli

Buddhist setting. Alan Sponberg also observes that there are limits
to what he calls “Green Buddhism.” In particular, he questions the
view that Buddhism advocates a notion of interrelatedness between
all beings that is entirely egalitarian. Sponberg suggests, instead,
the need to assess traditional Buddhism more accurately, first, by
noting that Buddhism often advocated a hierarchical conception of
the human and natural world, and second, by recognizing the
usefulness of what he calls the “hierarchy of compassion” in
contributing to a specifically Buddhist approach to environmental
ethics.
The essays in this volume, then, span a wide range of possible
approaches to the study of Buddhism and ecology. The chapters
adopt various methodological perspectives, including anthropology,
sociology, textual analysis, historical studies, and philosophical or
theological approaches. The essays also share tensions between a
descriptive and a critical perspective on the one hand and a more
interpretive and engaged perspective on the other. In his response
at the conference, Charles Hallisey identified this tension as one
between the historical and the prophetic. This may be a fruitful
tension between an approach that descriptively historicizes certain
Buddhist views of nature, or particular examples of Buddhist
engagement with environmental issues, and an approach that
reinterprets and advocates, with a prophetic voice, Buddhist
involvement with particular issues. This volume represents the full
spectrum of these orientations and suggests that various approaches
are necessary for an adequate understanding of Buddhist views on
ecology.
There has never been any one Buddhist perspective on nature
or ecology that might be considered definitive. There have been
Indian, Tibetan, American, Thai, or Japanese Buddhist perspectives
on the natural world, and they differ considerably according to each
one’s place and time in history. There is no core “Buddhistic”
element to each cultural worldview but rather a diversity of
perspectives that might all legitimately be identified as Buddhist.
The essays in this volume may, however, begin to reveal some
general orientations that would elicit what might be a more Buddhist
than, say, a Christian approach to ecology. Or, as it is a religious
tradition, perhaps we can see a Buddhist perspective in contra-
distinction to a secular one. It is hoped that this volume might spark
xl Buddhism and Ecology

a continuing inquiry, both to further a more diverse understanding

of Buddhist views on ecology (for example, in underresearched
areas, such as Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism) as well to help
ascertain common Buddhist themes that might be offered as
resources for a new religious contribution to environmental
problems.
In conclusion, the editors would like to acknowledge the contri-
butions made by several scholars and engaged Buddhists who
participated in the conference upon which this volume is based.
These include Joe Franke, Larry Gross, Joan Halifax, Charles
Hallisey, Joanna Handlin-Smith, Jeffrey Hopkins, Leslie Kawamura,
William LaFleur, Susan Murcott, Marty Peale, Christopher Queen,
and David Shaner. The editors are particularly grateful for the
assistance of Donald Swearer and Kenneth Kraft in Shaping this
volume. They also wish to acknowledge the initiative of Masatoshi
Nagatomi in teaching a course on Buddhist views of nature at
Harvard University for several years before his retirement in 1996.
His opening address and his presence throughout the conference was
a source of inspiration for the participants.
 Overview:
Framing the Issues
 Buddhism and Ecology:
Collective Cultural Perceptions

Lewis Lancaster

This is a significant moment in the field of Buddhist studies, a time

of reappraisal of methods and sources, and the topic of Buddhism
and ecology requires thoughtful and considered dialogue. There is
a need for innovative ways of exploring the data, and there is a hope
that we can provide direction for future contributions of Buddhism
to the problems of our contemporary society.
We have an expression in our lore—“preaching to the choir.” It
is probable that the readers of a book such as this one are fully aware
of the ecological issues and need not be reminded of the dilemmas
and the dangers of our present situation. You are in that sense a
“choir,” already converted to a position of support for the preser-
vation of our ecosystem. Rather than recite a litany of the past and
current events that have created this crisis, I would like to reflect
on the challenge we face as researchers looking at the Buddhist
approach. |
By preparing a study on this topic, we have already assumed that
Buddhism is a tradition which can offer help to a world undergoing
rapid and sometimes destructive changes in its fragile ecosystem.
It is a great responsiblity to define that help and to bring to the
attention of all concerned the Buddhist solutions, as contrasted to
other possible systems. Let me be frank in stating that I am fearful
that in our publications we will fail in our attempt to give an
adequate definition of the “Buddhist solution.” It is not so easy to
make these determinations about the Buddhist traditions, and we
may run the risk of using the collective perceptions of our Western
heritage as a template for defining the principles that we attribute
 4 Buddhism and Ecology

to Buddhism. We may seek only to find expressions and practices

in Buddhism that can be interpreted as supportive of ethical norms
and values established in our modern and postmodern era.
I believe, however, that the range of essays in this volume is not
limited to a narrow definition of Buddhism and its practices. The
authors have not succumbed to the situation which Clifford Geertz
has called “scripturalism,” in which can be found only “a collection
of strained apologies.”! Nor do the essays indicate that we are
avoiding the difficult issues. There is, for example, little doubt that
population pressure is the most crucial aspect of ecological matters,
and I am pleased Rita Gross’s essay directly addresses this.
It is reasonable that the Buddhist tradition should be considered
when we discuss the problems facing us in the world. Buddhism is
one of the largest religions in terms of the number of participants.
The place of this institution in Asia is well established. Until recent
times, it was the only religious or social tradition to be found
throughout all the cultural spheres of Asia. Therefore, its impact on
the character of the history and the current state of cultural and
social development in Asia is enormous. Buddhism also offers us a
model for an era of international contacts between people of
different backgrounds and cultural histories. In this regard, we can
say that Buddhism was the first world religion; it was the first to
transcend boundaries of language, kinship patterns, political
structures, cultural areas, geography. In its history, Buddhism has
already proven that it can move from one culture to another without
a loss of power. It is this portable Buddhism, able to move from
the Ganges across the deserts of Inner Asia into the East Asian
kingdoms, that may hold within it some patterns which can be used
in our current global interchange. For some centuries, Buddhism had
become a fixed religion, tied to the various kingdoms and cultural
areas, and we study the history of Chinese, Korean, or Tibetan
Buddhism. But over the last century Buddhism has once again
become portable and, driven by the energies of contemporary Asian
societies, it is finding new homes in places as remote from one
another as Brazil, Western and Eastern Europe, Australia, and the
United States. The essays included in this volume are themselves
an indication of this portable Buddhism, and we read here of Thai,
Japanese, and American groups operating throughout the world.
 Buddhism and Ecology: Collective Cultural Perceptions 5

The main issue before us is the question of whether in Buddhism

we can find a unique way of dealing with ecological issues. What
approach might we take that will allow the Buddhist answers to be
made plain for all to see? How can we avoid the inclination to use
our own collective perceptions and cultural backgrounds as a guide
for scanning Buddhist practice and literature? Will our discoveries
be tainted by our method of search? I have used the expression
“collective cultural perceptions,” implying that we have ideas and
values that are held collectively. These collective perceptions are
pervasive and so widely accepted that they are not always seen as
perceptions but are considered as simply “the way things are.” Only
by looking over long periods of time can we begin to identify these
perceptions and some of the ways in which they influence our lives.
Unless we have a basic understanding of our collective perceptions,
we are apt to fall into the easy approach of extracting supportive
fragments from the Buddhist texts for our own existing views. The
full force of the uniqueness and power of the Buddhist tradition may
well be deflected if we are unaware of our perceptions and our
cultural history.
Let me give you an example of what I think to be a collective
perception of western European culture and, by extension, a part
of American life. This may seem a bit far removed from ecological
issues, but I will try to use my example to suggest the problems
which face us when we consider any issue and turn to Buddhism
for answers.
We in the West have a pervasive collective perception that people
who are good, moral, ethical, and worthy give help to the poor and
oppressed. Aid to the poor and oppressed constitutes a major
dimension of our cultural development, and we have ample proof
of it in our churches and synagogues, our confraternities and
consororities, such as Lions, Exchange, and Masons, our aid projects
abroad, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the aged, food banks,
public housing, shelters, and hospices. These are enterprises that
seek to meet the pressing needs of a society where there are
inequities in the resources necessary for existence itself. The poor—
especially the deserving poor, such as widows, orphans, and the
physically handicapped—and the oppressed must be helped. We
seldom stop to think that this type of activity has a history, that it
is susceptible to study.
 6 Buddhism and Ecology

Many of us do not realize that this strong focus on the poor and
oppressed, while present in the Hebrew Bible,? did not reach its high
point in Western European life until the time of the sale of indul-
gences. That is to say, helping the poor and oppressed reached a
new level of social importance when the church declared that one
did not have to seek the help of the transfer of merit from a monk
to secure passage of the dead from purgatory to heaven. In place of
the ascetic merit, an indulgence could be used to effect the move-
ment of the dead into paradise. For the indulgence to work, one had
to confess and then perform some act of charity toward the poor or
oppressed. Gradually confraternities arose for just this purpose?—
and we still have them operating at noon in most cities of the United
States, with groups of men and women performing acts of help for
the poor and oppressed. When carrying out these acts was tied to
moving the dead into paradise, the poor and oppressed became
important. There is nothing like tying a practice to the dead to bring
it into prominence.
Our perception of aid for the deserving poor and oppressed has
undergone cultural transformations which have shifted and changed
through the centuries. As wonderful as it is to have such help, there
is a dark side to it. Today, psychologists and social-welfare workers
report that programs based on the identification of people as poor
or oppressed create deep anger. In other words, giving to those
whom we call poor and oppressed can be patronizing: by the very
act of giving to an identified group, we are saying, “You are inferior
to me in resources, education, power, health.” The gift becomes one
which transfers not only merit but also shame. The call for
Buddhism to become more involved in giving aid to the poor and
oppressed is in one sense an attempt to have Buddhism mimic a
practice which has deep roots in our European heritage. I am
suggesting that in this case, where we have a collective agreement
on the importance of helping the poor, our perception has a potential
downside. If we attempt to project our practice onto another culture,
the problems as well as the benefits must be considered.
I have tried to look into this issue with Buddhist leaders and
teachers, to ask about the problems of the poor and oppressed and
to see what particular and unique solutions might be offered by the
Buddhist tradition as opposed to those being attempted in the West.
 Buddhism and Ecology: Collective Cultural Perceptions 7

The answers I have received are summarized in the following series

of statements:

The first Noble Truth is the recognition of the reality of suffer-

ing. ... Suffering is universal; we all suffer, there is no distinction
between the rich and the poor. . . . Help should be given to all. We
are all brother and sisters in suffering. . . . No one escapes
suffering. ... We who suffer greatly offer help to others because
we understand and identify with their suffering. . . . If we acknowl-
edge our own suffering, how much more is our compassion for
others who suffer.

These comments from the leaders of the tradition suggest that it is

possible to give support to others without there being a sense of
patronizing. Perhaps Buddhists can offer the world more by finding
solutions from within their own tradition than by being forced into
a model composed of approaches taken from the West.
I began to search for an example of Buddhist assistance for the
poor which might be a reflection of the responses I received when
talking to teachers and spiritual leaders. This search led me to
observe the work of the Taiwanese nun Jen-yen. She had built a
hospital in Hwalin, on the eastern side of Taiwan, an area that had
little in the way of hospital care. Her goal was to build one of the
finest medical facilities in Taiwan, complete with a medical college,
which, when it was constructed, would be open to everyone. Her
idea was that the hospital should be the best of its kind and hence
should serve the entire population. When it came to payment, each
patient was asked to pay voluntarily whatever he or she could afford.
Without forms or interviews, without shame, each paid according
to individual resources. Since then, this nun has sent out medical
staff to the Middle East, to Africa, and even to Los Angeles
following the recent riots there. In every area, the services are
available universally. While Jen-yen serves the poor, she also serves
others. Many middle-class Americans appreciated the portable
showers she erected after the earthquake in southern California cut
off the normal water supply and gas lines. Her approach of helping
even the affluent residents of Los Angeles is suggestive of a different
attitude toward “doing good.” She is perhaps the best example of a
way in which Buddhist service is expressed. Few charities have
8 Buddhism and Ecology

equaled the amount of money she raises through these voluntary

Services.
Following an academic conference I attended in Taiwan a few
years ago, we were taken on a tour and stopped to visit with the
nun Jen-yen. She so moved these hardhearted professors that the
group decided to donate all honoraria received for giving papers at
the conference. There is something appealing about this woman,
who made an elitist group of academics feel that they would be
served with as much compassion in that hospital as the poorest
beggar. It was powerful to experience that sensation. I do not say
that this approach would necessarily work within our environment,
but it is one worth considering.
There are possible negative results when we impose our cultural
perceptions onto others. The most current example of this has been
the critique of Western influence on Sri Lankan Buddhism.
Gananath Obeyesekere coined the term “Protestant Buddhism” to
define the events associated with the so-called revival of Buddhism
in Sri Lanka under the influence of Colonel Henry Steel Olcott and
the Theosophical Society.> When Olcott, operating from a Victorian
view of religion, rejected many of the practices of the Buddhist
population of Sri Lanka while accepting the tradition as he found
it in the Pali texts, he made a profound impact on the tradition. In
a recent article, Stephen Prothero tells us that the form of Buddhism
put forward by Olcott was characterized by the idea that the
normative and essential aspects of the religion are to be found in
the texts—and, by implication, not in the practices. Second, this
Protestant Buddhism is defined as an ethical system rather than as
a spiritual one.® Stanley Tambiah and Gananath Obeyesekere have
Stated that this was a betrayal of Buddhism; it was a rejection of
the rituals and practices dealing with matters such as health, fortune,
births, and deaths that had been at the heart of Sri Lankan
Buddhism. As Christopher Queen states in his excellent article in
the new volume Engaged Buddhism, Tambiah, Obeyesekere, and
Walpola Rahula describe “a tragic picture of the long descent of
Sinhala Buddhism first into passivity and finally into sectarian,
ethnic and political violence.”’ If these scholars are correct in their
assessment, then we should be wary of the rejection of popular
religious practices in the name of reaching for the pure essence of
the Buddhist tradition.
 Buddhism and Ecology: Collective Cultural Perceptions 9

These examples, I hope, offer some indication of what I mean

by collective cultural perceptions which control many of our actions
and modes of thinking. When we come to the matter of Buddhism
and ecology, we will need to try to identify some of these percep-
tions from both the Western and the Buddhist traditions and then
see how they can be of help. One of the important elements in
ecological discussions is the role of industry, transnational corpo-
rations, and commerce in all of its forms. It is impossible to discuss
the cutting of rain forests, the pollution of water, toxic emissions
into the atmosphere, and the expansion of agricultural land into the
natural habitat of animals without dealing with capital and mer-
cantile activity. Here, too, we run into a collective perception in the
West. From biblical sources onward, wealth—and its companion,
mercantile activity—has often been denigrated in the Western
sources. We see this reflected in Marxism, where the evils of
mercantile life become nearly demonic. The workings of trans-
national corporations and other mercantile activities then become,
by the very nature of our perception, an evil. When we begin to face
ecological problems, we are immediately able to summon up our
perception regarding bankers, money changers, merchants. They are
seen as greedy, uncaring, the source of much woe, the chargers of
usurious interest. Therefore, no small part of our ecological
discourse deals with an attack against the mercantile.
When I turn to Buddhist history and texts and current practice,
I find quite a different picture. Buddhism has been the religion of
merchants from its earliest days, and the spread of Buddhism has
been accomplished by the mercantile community. The Buddha
talked to kings and secured large donations from merchants who
were close to him. One of his most important supporters was the
money changer Anathapindika, who provided the Buddha and his
disciples with a grove of trees inside a walled area.® From his name,
we know that Anathapindika was “one who gave support to those
who were without protectors.” This indicates that we have a very
different perception regarding wealth and merchants in Buddhism
than we do in Western European cultural systems. Buddhists,
depending on the merchants and holding them in high esteem,
directed much of their teaching toward this lay group.? Even more
importantly, some merchants and kings came to have an under-
10 Buddhism and Ecology

standing of Buddhism that allowed them to teach and convert. We

have the report of a merchant converting a king to Buddhism; this
would be incomprehensible in the antimerchant environment of
ancient Palestine and the Greek Testament. Many of the supporters
of the Venerable Jen-yen—of whom I spoke earlier—are merchants
and corporate officials. The role of the merchant layman in
Buddhism today is as strong as it was in ancient India. If ecological
discourse assumes a rejection of this particular group, then one of
the pillars of the Buddhist community will be under strong attack.
Perhaps we can learn from Buddhism in this regard. We need to seek
out the merchants and the corporate leaders, include them in our
conferences, urge them to be active partners in the search for
answers to the ecological crisis. I would hope that in some future
conference on this topic, we could have lay Buddhists from banks
and business offices speaking and responding to the problem. After
all, many of the brightest and best of our society are involved in
corporate life; a rejection of this group may do a great disservice
to our search for solutions.
In the West, one of our views of nature is that of the Garden of
Eden, when nature was without pain. I believe there are forms of
Buddhism that would not subscribe to this view of nature. We find
in many places texts which speak of the terrible and frightening
forest, of the wilderness infested with robbers,!° vermin, beasts of
prey,!! and flesh-eating ghouls,!? of areas swarming with snakes,!3
where there is neither food nor water.'* A man emerging from a
huge wild forest and seeing indications of a town or some other
inhabited place will feel happier. And, in Buddhism, one way that
we know things are getting worse is when the realm of animal
rebirth becomes crowded, for the overpopulation of the animals
indicates just how many beings have sunk to a lower level of birth.
From the Prajhaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) literature we
find that the bodhisattva, exemplar of practice, living in the
wilderness and suffering from all the ills caused by insects, by lack
of food and water, will, on account of the horrors of the forest, have
compassion. This bodhisattva believes that by experiencing the
agonies of the jungle, one can fully have compassion for those who
are forced to live lives that face these dangers daily. The bodhisattva
takes a vow that, in the Buddha land that will be brought into
existence at the time of his elevation to Buddhahood, there will be
 Buddhism and Ecology: Collective Cultural Perceptions 11

no animals, the inhabitants will eat only divine food, there will be
plenty of water—it will be like a pleasure grove near a great city.!>
As we turn our attention to the Ja@takamdGla,'® or birth stories,
however, we find that one of the reasons to follow the Buddha is
the fact that for lifetime after lifetime he has expressed his
compassion for animals and other beings. This, then, is the challenge
before us: how do we adequately express the variety of teachings
and practices found in Buddhism? I can no more claim that the view
of the wilderness as horrible is the essence of Buddhism than can
one who selects the Jatakamdla as solely representational of the
tradition.
Western perceptions have also influenced our views of the life
of Sakyamuni—though our resources for reconstructing his activities
are slim. The popular idea of the Buddha as a young Luther, a
reformer, one who spoke out against the establishment of his time,
a rebel, an individualist, has great appeal to us. But there is little
evidence to support these claims. Noritoshi Aramaki of Kyoto has
worked diligently to try to determine the most ancient sayings of
the Buddha using the technique of finding passages from the ancient
Buddhist text, the Suttanipata, that are echoed in the oldest layers
of the Upanisads and Jain literature. He reasons that the collective
perceptions of those times can best be discerned from words that
are found in these three early texts of three religious streams of
India. What emerges from the sayings which Aramaki finds in the
Suttanipata and in the writings from the other two traditions is a
picture of a person in despair over the endless cycle of rebirth and
continual move from birth to death and back to birth. In his anxiety
to escape from this endless round, Sakyamuni turned to the ascetic
solution, leaving home and seeking an enlightened state in a
homeless unattached life. But this, Aramaki claims, was a perception
generally held by society throughout the Gangetic plain. Sakyamuni
chose the solution, but he did not do so as a reformer. As Richard
Gombrich has pointed out, the Buddha’s “concern was to reform
individuals and help them to leave society forever, not to reform
the world.”!’7 Sékyamuni was then a person of his time, and while
his tradition brought forth many innovations, the ascetic solution,
his chosen life-style, was not one of them.!®
We strive also to learn what the situation was for the region where
Sakyamuni lived and taught. Most scholars now agree it was a time
12 Buddhism and Ecology

when deforestation of the Ganges region was taking place, popu-

lation growth was sizable, urban centers were the important hubs—
urban islands in a sea of rain forests. This urbanization was
characterized by a growth of mercantile activity, long-range trading,
and travel between the population centers. Buddhism came into
existence not as a tradition that was limited to the wilderness but
as part of the growing urban movement; it found major supporters
among merchants, bankers, and kings, as well as among a population
where job specialization was rapidly growing, with increasing
numbers of barbers, carpenters, jewelers, grain merchants, ferryboat
operators, and even robbers who preyed on the trade system between
the urban centers. The Buddha was constantly in contact with all
these people, and many of his earliest sermons were directed at one
layman or another belonging to any one of a wide range of
occupations. In other words, we would do well to reconstruct
carefully the ancient history of Buddhism and to try to see it in its
complexity and within its social context. While Sakyamuni was a
wandering ascetic, he nonetheless taught and lived in the precincts
of the growing urban world of his time. His childhood was lived
within a city environment and I suspect his view of the forests was
very close to what I have described above—as a place of danger
and suffering.
Although I have suggested that the imposition of one culture’s
collective perception onto another may sometimes result in prob-
lems, let me give an example of how Buddhism moved from one
culture to another and promoted entirely opposite perceptions in the
two environments. In the Ganges Valley, Buddhism reported the
perception that the forest was a source of pain, danger, and struggle.
When it moved into the Han cultural area, a quite different per-
ception of nature was held by that society.
While India of the time of the Buddha was composed of urban
islands in the sea of the forest, by the time of the arrival of
Buddhism among the Chinese, nature was beginning to be seen to
consist of islands of mountains within a sea of cultivated fields. The
sages of China who sought nature as a way of renewing their
humanity left the cultivated areas and repaired to the remaining
islands of untamed nature in the mountains. When Buddhism came
from India with a perception of nature that was quite different from
that of the ancient sages of China, it still was able to provide the
 Buddhism and Ecology: Collective Cultural Perceptions 13

Chinese with an important approach to their physical environment.

John Jorgenson, in his groundbreaking dissertation from Australian
National University,'? points out that while the Chinese had long
held to the importance of contact with nature, and knew that this
contact was healing and supportive, they had no explanation for it.
They could only affirm that this was so. In Buddhism they found a
way of explaining this close connection between man and nature—
of this relationship which went deep into the very essence of the
human experience.
The great contribution of Buddhism to this collective perception
about nature in China was the concept of Buddha-nature. Teaching
that everything has Buddha-nature was a revolutionary development
in China. Every person has Buddha-nature, but what was of such
importance to the Chinese was the teaching that insentient objects
also have it. The rocks, trees, lotuses, streams, mountains—all have
Buddha-nature. Therefore, one’s mind, which has Buddha-nature as
its essence, shares a common aspect with every part of insentient
nature, which also possesses this same Buddha-nature. With this
introduction of the idea that the mind and the natural objects had
the same Buddha-nature, the Chinese at last had an explanation for
the power of nature. Buddhist poetry written by Ch’an meditation
monks was not limited to words of doctrine; it was about nature
and the references were to snow and falling leaves and water running
over rocks, for this was an expression of Buddha-nature. If the artist
painting a lotus or a rock could capture its essence, this was to depict
Buddha-nature and was a valid way of dealing with this important
essence of the religion. Here, suggests Jorgenson, was a happy
meeting of a Buddhist concept with the prevailing collective
perceptions of the Han people. As a result Chinese literature was
enriched and art found a firm place within the religious system. This
is echoed in the essays in this volume that discuss Zen Buddhism
and ecology.
This perception of everything having a Buddha-nature resonates
with us in North America and Europe. If we look to Buddhism to
support our views of the wonder of nature, it is probable that we
will rely more on East Asian than Indian forms of the tradition. This
tells us something about Buddhism: it was able to move into a
cultural sphere quite different from that of its origins and was able
to supply a doctrine of great value to the new region. Our challenge
14 Buddhism and Ecology

now, in looking at ecology, is to find what aspect of Buddhist

teaching can provide us with the greatest help.
Claude Lévi-Strauss has made an interesting study of cultures,
which he identifies according to the terms used by different
societies: raw—cooked, fresh—rotten.2° From this he infers that in
some cases there is a transformation of objects in ways that are not
found in nature. Cooked food is the most basic example of cultural
transformation. By comparison, fresh—-rotten implies cultural
patterns where food is gathered fresh, not transformed by heat, and
lasts only until it rots in the natural process. Our perceptions of
nature are involved in this distinction. We may wish to have “fresh—
rotten,” leaving nature to follow its own processes without inter-
vention. But such a course is nearly impossible, since the agriculture
methods, planting seeds, building permanent shelter—all of the ways
in which we live—are predominantly “raw—cooked.” And, in the
transformations, in the “cooking,” we create problems because this
is an intrusion into the natural process. We may long for “fresh—
rotten” but we are living in a “raw—cooked” society. We travel by
car and airplane, we eat food cooked in ovens and stoves, we shower
with water that is heated and pressurized. While there is a tendency
to glorify the “noble savage,” to seek to return to the Garden of
Eden, where everything would be “fresh—rotten,” it is unrealistic to
hope that the billions of people now living on this planet could
possibly achieve such a state. If Buddhism has something to offer
our ecological process, it must be within the “raw—cooked” sphere.
I have tried to indicate some of the difficulties, challenges, and
complexities, the hidden but powerful perceptions which exist as a
collective view, matters that impinge on our discussion of Buddhism
as a religious system. Perhaps Buddhists offer us aspects which we
did not expect. Buddhists sometimes have taught us to be fearful
of nature. They have suggested that the world is an endless net of
causality where every event sends ripples throughout the whole
fabric of the universe. This may be a healthy lesson, demonstrating
that we need to be more fearful of the consequences of what we do
with regard to nature. There are dangers to our very existence, just
as there were dangers for those who entered the ancient forests of
India. Perhaps it is better for us to have a respect for nature and its
power. We must not fall into the trap of seeing nature as the poor
and oppressed and ourselves as the powerful rescuer of the “victim.”
 Buddhism and Ecology: Collective Cultural Perceptions 1)

Nature, with its microbes, its fierce rays which pierce through
damaged ozone, is awesome. Any belief that we can conquer it or
defeat it or heal it is naive and arrogant. Our ploys are successful
only to the degree that they imitate nature. Buddhism teaches us
that all is in flux. Whatever is in flux will never exist in a permanent
state. We yearn for all of the germs and viruses to remain in an
unchanged state so that we might have the luxury of time to invent
instruments targeted to destroy them. In the Buddhist texts and
teachings we hear the hard truth that none of these perceived dangers
will remain unchanged or permanent, and we must learn how to
Survive in a natural state of constant change.
From China we see the other side of nature, the healing and
pleasant one. But we should remember that this view of nature grew
out of the period following the deforestation of the entire kingdom.
From views of the ancient and modern landscape, Chinese culture
appears to be anti-tree. That nature which the sages sought centuries
ago was even then the fragile remnants of the primeval wilderness
of ancient times. To say merely that the sages’ support for the natural
process and their love of nature is an accurate description of the
Chinese approach to nature misses the reality of a situation where
the real appreciation of that time was for the ploughed field.
Buddhism may also lead us to reevaluate the role of the business
community in this struggle. There have been far too many books
which depict Buddhism as otherworldly, and it sometimes comes
as a Shock to think of it as having a partnership with merchants.
Sakyamuni followed and advocated the ascetic solution. It is
possible that we need a “new asceticism” for our times, an asceti-
cism that involves using less of the resources and that most certainly
means control of population growth. Recently, at a lecture in
Berkeley, the Dalai Lama spoke about population. One solution, he
suggested, was for all the thousands gathered in the Greek Theatre
to become monks and nuns. With a twinkle in his eye, he mused
that probably most wouldn’t want to do that. He then said, “many
people consider abortion to be an act of violence, so for those who
do not wish to have violence, the practice of birth control must be
used.” Is it not the case that practices such as birth control, using
less, saving, recycling, changing our diet, forgoing convenience in
favor of conservation are all forms of a modern asceticism? Maybe
the ancient solution of Sakyamuni is still an important and viable
16 Buddhism and Ecology

one in the present world and we can construct a new asceticism.

This asceticism should be more than prescriptive; it should be
fulfilling and life-affirming, perhaps even playful. If it espouses the
dull drabness of a puritanical approach, it will fail to recruit
supporters.
What we discuss in this volume is of importance and it is urgent.
My plea is that we should let Buddhism in all its complex forms
be represented in our discussion and that we should seek to be aware
of our cultural perceptions with their potential to blind us to other
solutions. Buddhism may give some answers to our questions. These
answers may surprise us. However, if we look with care and
awareness at these varied and changing positions of Buddhism, we
will find ourselves open to the possibilities of discovering innovative
approaches to the problems facing our environment.
 Buddhism and Ecology: Collective Cultural Perceptions 17

Notes

1. See Christopher Queen’s introduction to Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist

Liberation Movements in Asia, ed. Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 115.
2. See Exod. 23:11 and Deut. 15:4.
3. Ruth Murphy, Saint Francois de Sales et la civilité chrétienne (Paris: Nizet,
1964), provides a suggestion of the way in which social codes have developed.
4. A description of the Canon Law regarding indulgences can be found in the
Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. Charles Harbermann et al. (New York: Gilmary, 1957),
783-88. See also Conrad Boerma, Rich Man, Poor Man—and the Bible, trans.
John Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1979).
5. Gananath Obeyesekere, “Religious Symbolism and Political Change in
Ceylon,” Modern Ceylon Studies 1 (1970):43-63.
6. Stephen Prothero, “Henry Steel Olcott and ‘Protestant Buddhism,’ ” Journal
of the American Academy of Religion 63, no. 2 (summer 1995):28 1-302.
7. Queen, introduction to Engaged Buddhism, 5.
8. The story appears in many places. See Manorathapirani, Anguttara
Commentary, 1:208; Dhammapadatthakatha, 1:128.
9. In former lives, the bodhisattva was a merchant (Jataka, 1:405) and a money
changer (Sdaratthappakasini, Samyutta Commentary, 1:240). Elders within the
monastic group were identified as the sons or daughters of money changers
(Theragatha Commentary, 1:312), merchants (Therigatha Commentary, 260), and
caravan leaders (Theragatha Commentary, 1:238). On the negative side some
merchants were described as misers and suffered accordingly (Ja@taka, 1:349).
10. Jataka, 1:332, Dhammapadatthakatha, 2:254, and Jataka, 2:335, give
stories about robbers and thieves.
11. We read of fierce Nagas (Manorathapirani, Anguttara Commentary,
1:165); enormous spiders (J@taka, 5:469-70); snakes (Udana Commentary, 60;
Jataka, 2:145); wild elephants (Apadana 1:198).
12. Ogres of both sexes are said to devour people (Sumangala Vilasini, 2:483;
Dhammapadatthakatha, 1:37).
13. Snakes and snake bites are popular themes (Udana Commentary, 60;
Jataka, 2:145).
14. Thirst is a common problem for those who travel (Petavatthu Commentary,
141; Petavatthu, 28).
15. Edward Conze, trans., Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita (Calcutta: Asiatic
Society, 1958), 139.
16. See H. Kern, ed., The Jatakamala, Harvard Oriental Series, vol. 1
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943). The famous tale of the
bodhisattva giving his life for the hungry tigress (Vy@ghrijataka) is found in the
Milasarvastivadavinaya and in the Avadanas (51 and 95). The English translation
18 Buddhism and Ecology

of The Jatakamala is by J. S. Speyer (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971; reprint

of Sacred Books of the Buddhists, vol. 1).
17. Richard Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient
Benares to Modern Colombo (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988), 30.
18. Richard Gombrich, “The Fundamental Truth of Buddhism: Pratitya-
samutpada—Conditioned Becoming and Conditionless Being,’ Machikaneyama
Ronso (Osaka) 22 (1988):28—29.
19. John Jorgenson, “Sensibility of the Insensible: The Genealogy of a Ch’an
Aesthetic and the Passionate Dream of Poetic Creation” (Ph.D. diss., Australia
National University, 1989).
20. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Le cru et le cuit (Paris: Plon, 1964).
Theravada Buddhism and Ecology:
The Case of Thailand
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology
in Contemporary Thailand:
Buddhadasa and Dhammapitaka!

Donald K. Swearer

The world’s environmental crisis has prompted religiously com-

mitted, socially concerned people throughout the world to search
their traditions for resources to address its root causes and its
symptoms. Buddhists are no exception. The compatibility between
the Buddhist worldview of interdependence and an “environmentally
friendly” way of living in the world, the values of compassion and
nonviolence, and the example of the Buddha’s life-style and the
early sangha are cited as important contributions to the dialogue
on ways to live in an increasingly threatened world. This essay seeks
to interject a particular insight into this discussion through an
examination of selected writings of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and Phra
Prayudh Payutto (current monastic title, Dhammapitaka), the Thai
sangha’s most highly regarded interpreters of the buddhadhamma.*
In particular, I propose to explore their distinctive ecological
hermeneutics, that is to say, the particular environmental lessons
each draws from the texts and traditions of Thai Buddhism. In
conclusion, I shall briefly assess the recent critical evaluation of
Buddhist environmentalism by Ian Harris? from the perspective of
my construction of the ecological hermeneutics of Buddhadasa
Bhikkhu and Phra Prayudh.
22 Buddhism and Ecology

Introduction

During the past half century, economic and social configurations

have changed dramatically throughout the world as a consequence
of population increases, urbanization, industrialization, and technical
achievement. These changes have, to a certain extent, created a
common economic culture determined by the necessities of the
modern nation-state and the business interests of multinational
corporations. This economic culture is primarily “materialistic” in
nature in the sense that human well-being tends to be defined in
terms of the production and consumption of goods. It is common-
place, for example, to measure the wealth of a nation in terms of
its GNP (gross national product).
The consequences of the development of an economically defined
modern culture are manifold. For example, it has led to a general
increase in life expectancy among most populations of the world
as a consequence of improved health services, more adequate
housing, and so forth. In short, in respect to material aspects of life
more people share in the benefits of the increased production and
use of various kinds of goods. Yet even from an economic perspec-
tive, the increase in the production and use of goods has been a
mixed blessing. In general, even though by GNP measurements the
world has seen a significant increase in the amount of material
wealth, critics are quick to point out the gross disparity between
the rich and the poor, not only in “developing” countries, such as
Thailand, but also in “developed” countries, such as the United
States. For instance, in Thailand conflicts that began in 1988 over
water use between the wealthier industrial/urban sector and the
poorer agricultural/rural sector have prompted numerous farmer
protests over low water supplies that came to a head in the drought
year 1993.4 Internationally, it can also be pointed out that despite
improvements in agricultural technology hunger has emerged as a
persistent and pervasive worldwide problem. The capital-intensive
green revolution, with its dependence on chemical fertilizers and
pesticides, has produced more systemic, long-range problems than
it has solved, and biotechnology may raise even more questions
about the consequences of genetic engineering.°
Developments in many different kinds of technologies have led
to dramatic breakthroughs in everything from space exploration to
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 23

microscopic laser surgery. At the same time, however, technological

advancement has contributed to the sense of hopelessness and
prevalent violence experienced by modern society, as evidenced by
the plague of drug addiction, increasing levels of armed violence,
or the seemingly insurmountable problem of waste disposal,
especially the threat of the widespread nuclear waste contamination
and the toxic contamination of water and food supplies.
Our modern economic culture has also had a generally dele-
terious effect on classical moral values and religious worldviews and
on traditional ways of understanding human existence and what
constitutes the good or happy life. In the face of a perceived threat
to traditional ways of being by modern economic culture, some seek
a return to the verities of a simpler era believed to be embodied in
an earlier historical age or represented by an idealized, mythic time
of primal beginnings. Religious fundamentalisms, whether Christian,
Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist, may be interpreted as a retreat
from the confusions and threats of the modern world to the truths
and values of an earlier age. But there are other, more creative and
constructive religious responses to modernity than today’s various
fundamentalisms. Thoughtful religious adherents throughout the
world are seeking to understand and interpret their traditions in ways
that preserve the lasting insights and values of their faith, while at
the same time engaging the realities of existence in today’s world
rather than retreating from them.
In the past several years the media in Thailand has devoted
considerable attention to the conflicts between the goals of national
and commercial development, the well-being of the majority of the
Thai people (especially the rural, farming populations), and the
health of the environment. In particular, the Seventh National
Development Plan has been criticized for following in the footsteps
of its predecessors by emphasizing material growth at the expense
of a more balanced development and an equitable distribution of
wealth. Dr. Ananda Kanchanapan of the Faculty of the Social
Sciences at Chiang Mai University observes that development in
Thailand has emphasized the GNP and in doing so has undermined
the moral and spiritual integration between the social and natural
environment.® An article in the Matichon newspaper representative
of this point of view charges that development in Thailand has
benefited the elites at the expense of the environment and proposes
24 Buddhism and Ecology

a reformist Buddhist perspective that would challenge selfishness

and greed and the excessive lifestyle that has resulted from “too
much wealth, too much power, too much to eat and drink, too many
cars and mistresses.”?

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu: Nature as Dhamma

Like Thomas Merton, the late American Trappist monk and peace
activist, Buddhadasa exemplifies the truth that thoughtful spiritual
engagement with the world requires a degree of contemplative
distance.’ In much the same way as Merton, BuddhadAsa spent most
of his active career living and teaching in a forest hermitage (Wat
Suan Mokkhabalarama [Thai, Mokh], Chaiya, south Thailand). Like
Merton, he was also extraordinarily responsive to the issues of his
time. Although known in Thailand primarily as a teacher or a “monk
of wisdom” (Thai, phra pafind), Buddhadasa used the doctrinal
tenets of non-attachment, dependent co-arising, and emptiness as
the bases for addressing an exceptionally broad range of issues,
problems, and concerns, from meditation, monastic discipline, and
ritual observances to work, politics, women in Buddhism, and the
environment.
The core of Buddhadasa’s ecological hermeneutic is found in his
identification of the dhamma with nature (Thai, thamachdat, Pali,
dhammajati). It was his sense of the liberating power of nature-as-
dhamma that inspired Buddhadasa in 1932 to found Wat Suan Mokh
as a center for both teaching and practice in a forest near the small
town of Chaiya in Surat Thani Province, rather than pursue a
monastic career in Bangkok. For Buddhadasa the natural sur-
roundings of his forest monastery were nothing less than a medium
for personal transformation.?

Trees, rocks, sand, even dirt and insects can speak. This doesn’t
mean, as some people believe, that they are spirits [Thai, phi] or
gods [Pali, devata]. Rather, if we reside in nature near trees and
rocks we’ll discover feelings and thoughts arising that are truly out
of the ordinary. At first we'll feel a sense of peace and quiet [Thai,
sangopyen=quiet-cool] which may eventually move beyond that
feeling to a transcendence of self. The deep sense of calm that nature
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 25

provides through separation [Pali, viveka] from the troubles and

anxieties that plague us in the day-to-day world functions to protect
heart and mind. Indeed, the lessons nature teaches us lead to a new
birth beyond the suffering [Pali, dukkha] that results from attach-
ment to self. Trees and rocks, then, can talk to us. They help us
understand what it means to cool down from the heat of our
confusion, despair, anxiety, and suffering.!°

Buddhadasa’s identification of nature and dhamma prompts him

to read nature as a text. Indeed, because experiencing nature involves
not just the mind but all of the bodily senses, to listen to the “shouts
of nature” is potentially more liberating (read nibbadna) than
studying the Pali scriptures. Buddhadasa, moreover, makes the
extraordinarily strong claim that nature is a much more appropriate
context or environment in which to pursue liberation than sitting at
a desk: “If we don’t spend time in places like this [Wat Suan Mokh],
it will be virtually impossible for us to experience peace and quiet.
It is only by being in nature that the trees, rocks, earth, sand,
animals, birds, and insects can teach us the lesson of self-
forgetting.”!! In Buddhadasa’s spiritual biocentric view, being
attuned to the lessons of nature is tantamount to at-one-ment with
the dhamma. By inference, the destruction of nature implies the
destruction of the dhamma.
Cynics could argue that Buddhadasa’s ecological hermeneutic
is self-serving. After all, his essay Shouts from Nature (Siang Takgn
Jak Thamachat) was a Visakha Puja sermon at Wat Suan Mokh, so
could not his teaching be interpreted as a clever strategy to promote
interest in and support of his forest ashram? Such an argument can
be summarily dismissed in the face of Buddhadasa’s exemplary
integrity over a monastic career of sixty-five years. Two additional,
more serious criticisms might be made, however: 1) while his
message is not gauged to promote Wat Suan Mokh, it might be
argued that it constructs Buddhist practice as a retreat to the forest
rather than engagement with the world; 2) from a deep ecology
perspective Buddhadasa appears to be more anthropocentric than
biocentric; that is to say, the forest is valued simply as a place for
spiritual practice rather than for its inherent value. Although both
criticisms are not without merit, I propose to challenge these
two views.
26 Buddhism and Ecology

Toward the end of his life the destruction of the natural environ-
ment became a matter of great concern for BuddhadAsa. One of his
informal talks at Wat Suan Mokh in 1990, three years before
his death, was titled “Buddhists and the Care of Nature”
(Buddhasasanik Kap Kan Anurak Thamachdat). This essay provides
insight into both the biocentric and ethical dimensions of
Buddhadasa’s ecological hermeneutic.!* Let us begin by exploring
the essay’s two central terms—“care” (Thai, anurak; Pali, anu-
rakkha) and “nature” (Thai, thamachdat; Pali, dhammajati).'
Within the context of the worldwide concern for environmental
destruction, the Thai term anurak is often translated into English
as “conservation.” In fact, the dozens of Thai monks involved in
efforts to stop the exploitation of forests in their districts and
provinces have been labeled phra kadnanurak pa, or “forest con-
servation monks.” Anurak, as embodied in the life and work of
Buddhadasa, however, conveys a richer, more nuanced meaning
closer to its Pali roots, namely, to be imbued with the quality of
protecting, sheltering, or caring for. By the term anurak, Buddhadasa
intends this deeper, dhammic sense of anurakkhd, an intrinsic, active
“caring for” that issues forth from the very nature of our being. In
this sense, to care for nature is linked with a pervasive feeling of
human empathy (Pali, anukampa)'* for all of our surroundings. If
you will, caring is the active expression of empathy.
One cares for the forest because one empathizes with the forest
just as one cares for people, including oneself, because one has
become empathetic. Anurak, the active expression of a state of
empathy, is fundamentally linked to non-attachment or liberation
from preoccupation with self, which is at the very core of
Buddhadasa’s thought. He develops this theme using various Thai
and Pali terms, including mai hen kae tua (not being selfish),!> cit
wang (non-attachment or having a liberated heart-mind), anatta
(not-self), sufinata (emptiness). In a talk to the Dhamma Study
Group at Sirirat Hospital in Bangkok in 1961, he stated unequivo-
cally the centrality of non-attachment to Buddhist spirituality: “This
is the heart of the Buddhist Teachings, of all Dhamma: nothing
whatsoever should be clung to.”!® It is just such non-attachment or
self-forgetting—the heart of the dhamma—that we learn from nature.
We truly care for our total environment, including our fellow
human beings, only when we have overcome selfishness and those
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 27

qualities which empower it: desire, greed, hatred. Buddhadasa’s

profound commitment to this truth can be seen in “Overcoming
Selfishness Is Essential to a Political System” (Khwam Mai Hen Kae
Tua Jampen Samrap Rabop Kanmuang Khong Lok [1989]); “Serving
Others Makes the World Peaceful” (Kan Rapchai Phiten Tham Hai
Lok Santi {1960]); “Working with a Liberated Heart and Mind for
the Good of Society” (Kan Tham Ngan Due Cit Wang Phii'a
Sangkhom [1975]). Note the persistent linkage between non-
attachment, selflessness, and the capacity to be truly other-regarding.
Caring in Buddhadasa’s dhammic sense, therefore, is the active
expression of our empathetic identification with all life-forms:
sentient and nonsentient, human beings and nature.
Caring in this deeper sense of the meaning of anurak goes
beyond the well-publicized strategies to protect and conserve the
forest, such as ordaining trees, implemented by the conservation
monks, as important as these strategies have become in Thailand.
This is where the second term, thamachdat, enters the picture. The
Thai term thamachat is usually translated as “nature.” Its Pali root,
however, denotes everything that is linked to dhamma or that is
dhamma originated (jati). That is to say, thamachat includes all
things in their true, natural state, a condition that Buddhadasa refers
to as “norm-al” or “norm-ative” (pakati), that is, the way things are
in the true, dhammic condition. To conserve (anurak) nature
(thamachat), therefore, translates as having at the core of one’s very
being the quality of empathetic caring for all things in the world in
their natural conditions; that is to say, to care for them as they really
are rather than as I might benefit from them or as I might like them
to be. Indeed, anurak thamachdat implies that the “I” is not over
against nature but interactively co-dependent with it. In other words,
the moral/spiritual quality of non-attachment or self-forgetfulness
necessarily implies the ontological realization of interdependent co-
arising.
From an ethical perspective this means that our care for nature
derives from an ingrained selfless, empathetic response. It is not
motivated by a need to satisfy our own pleasures as, say, in the
maintenance of a beautiful garden or even by the admirable goal of
conserving nature for our own physical and spiritual well-being or
for the benefit of future generations. To care for nature in these
pragmatic, functional terms has immense value, to be sure. I think
 28 Buddhism and Ecology

that Buddhadasa would not dispute this fact. A carefully tended

garden is both meaningful to the gardener and inspirational to the
viewer; furthermore, human survival may depend on whether or not
we are able to conserve our dwindling natural resources and solve
the problems of our increasingly polluted natural environment.
Laudable as these two senses of conserving nature are, they lack
the profound transformational or spiritual sense of what Buddhadasa
means by anurak thamachat. I propose that Buddhadasa’s iden-
tification of nature and dhamma makes his view inherently bio-
centric. That is, listening to nature and caring for nature are both
forms of dhammic self-forgetting, not merely instrumental to human
flourishing.
The concept of active caring for other human beings needs little
explication.!” The word itself evokes numerous examples from our
own experience: the parent who cares for a child, the mutual caring
among friends, the responsible caring of citizens for the well-being
of the state. But what does Buddhadasa mean by caring for nature,
thamachat? By thamachat Buddhadasa does not have in mind either
a metaphysical or a romantic concept of nature. Quite the contrary.
For Buddhadasa, things in their natural, true state are characterized
by their dynamic, interdependent nature (idappaccayata, paticca
samuppada). Everything is linked in a process of interdependent co-
arising, or as Buddhadasa often says, “We are mutual friends
inextricably bound together in the same process of birth, old age,
suffering, and death.”!8 In other words, the world is a conjoint,
interdynamic, cooperative whole (Thai, sahakorn: Pali, saha+karana),
not a collection of disparate, oppositional parts.!9 In the deepest
sense, therefore, to care for nature means participation in this state
of inter-becoming, not just human beings preserving nature for the
sake of human beings.
While human linkages are self-evident to us, as in our relation-
ships with family and friends, the interdependence of human beings
and nature has been less self-evident. Only in recent years has it
been commonly understood that the destruction of the Brazilian rain
forest or the ocean dumping of toxic waste affects the entire world
ecosystem; or, in more immediate and personal terms, that whether
I personally conserve water, electricity, gasoline, and so on affects
not only my utility bills but the health of the entire cosmos. To care
for (anurak) nature (thamachdat), therefore, stems from a realization
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 29

that I do not and cannot exist independently of my total environ-

ment. I am not “an island unto myself”; or, in Buddhadasa’s
terminology, I do not and cannot exist unto myself (Pali, atta; Thai,
tua kit khong kit) because to do so contravenes the very laws of
nature (dhammajati=idappaccayata ).
Buddhadasa’s sense of a cooperative society (sahakorn), there-
fore, extends to the broadest reaches of the cosmos.

The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the

stars live together as a cooperative. The same is true for humans

and animals, trees and the earth. Our bodily parts function as a
cooperative. When we realize that the world is a mutual, inter-
dependent, cooperative enterprise, that human beings are all mutual
friends in the process of birth, old age, suffering, and death, then
we can build a noble, even a heavenly environment. If our lives are
not based on this truth then we’ll all perish.?°

My own personal well-being is inextricably dependent on the

well-being of everything and everyone else, and vice versa. In
Buddhadasa’s view this is an incontrovertible, absolute truth
(saccadhamma). To go against this truth is to suffer the conse-
quences. Today, we are suffering the consequences. As Buddhadasa
expressed it in terms approaching an apocalyptic vision:

The greedy and selfish are destroying nature... . Our whole

environment has been poisoned—prisons everywhere, hospitals
filled with the physically ill, and we can’t build enough facilities
to take care of all the mentally ill. This is the consequence of utter
selfishness [Thai, khwam hen kae tua]. . . . And in the face of all
of this our greed and selfishness continues to increase. Is there no
end to this madness??!

In Buddhadasa’s view, caring for thamachdat necessarily means

not only that we care for other human beings and for nature, but
also that we care for ourselves. Outwardly, thamachat means
physical nature. But the inner truth of nature 1s dhammadhatu, the
essential or fundamental nature of dhamma, namely, the interdepen-
dent co-arising nature of things (paticca samuppdada, idappaccayata).
“When we realize this truth, the truth of dhammadhatu, when this
law of the very nature of things is firmly in our hearts and minds,
 30 Buddhism and Ecology

then we will overcome selfishness and greed. By caring for this

inner truth we are then able to truly care for nature.”22
Buddhadasa’s environmental philosophy can be characterized as
a spiritual biocentrism based on the identification of nature and
dhamma. The simplicity of his life-style amidst the natural sur-
roundings of Suan Mokh, furthermore, provides a compelling
testimony to the possibility of putting these teachings into practice.
By basing his ecological hermeneutic on the identification of nature
and dhamma, Buddhadasa challenges the criticisms that his environ-
mental philosophy is either too otherworldly or too anthropocentric.
Another kind of criticism, that Buddhadasa fails to take sufficient
account of Theravada historical traditions to justify his ecological
hermeneutic, brings us to a consideration of Phra Prayudh Payutto.

Dhammapitaka: Nature and the Pursuit of

Enlightenment

Grant A. Olson’s introduction to Dhammapitaka’s (Phra Prayudh

Payutto) Buddhadhamma provides a sketch of his life. Phra Prayudh
was born in 1939, seven years after Buddhadasa founded Suan
Mokh. His monastic career has followed a very different trajectory
from that of Buddhadasa. He passed the ninth and highest level of
Pali studies in Thailand on the way to being acknowledged as the
finest Pali scholar in the Thai sangha. His scholarly work includes
two Pali dictionaries, editorial leadership in the newest edition of
the Thai Pali tipitaka and the Mahidol University CD-ROM Pali
canon, as well as his magnum opus of doctrinal interpretation,
Buddhadhamma: Natural Laws and Values for Life.?3 Although in
recent years Phra Prayudh has dedicated himself to scholarly work,
from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s he was actively involved in
institutional leadership roles as the abbot of Phra Phirain Monastery
in Bangkok and the deputy secretary-general of Mahachulalongkorn
University for Buddhist monks. He has also been awarded several
honorary doctorates and in 1994 received the UNESCO Prize for
Peace Education.
While Buddhadasa’s fame rests largely on his innovative, creative
interpretation of the dhamma, Phra Prayudh’s teachings are more
Systematic in nature and more consistently grounded in Pali texts
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 31

and Theravada historical traditions. These differences reflect, in part,

their distinctive career patterns. Whereas Buddhadasa built a
monastic life-style essentially outside the normal structures and
regimes of the Thai sarigha, Phra Prayudh has chosen to work within
them as educator and scholar. Perhaps even more importantly, he
wrote Buddhadhamma as an objective presentation of the teachings
of the Buddha free from subjective bias.24 Buddhadasa’s teachings,
in contrast, are grounded in certain fundamental themes—non-
attachment, not-self, interdependent co-arising—which he orches-
trates around various contextual issues with little concern for textual
or “objective” historical reference. Buddhadasa does not ignore the
Pali canon, especially the suttas; however, scriptural references are
not definitive for his philosophical musings.
Buddhadasa and Phra Prayudh use the resources of both Pali text
and tradition to address environmental problems, but they do so
employing distinctive hermeneutical techniques which reflect their
differing histories, backgrounds, and relationships to the Thai
sangha. In his recent monograph Khon Thai Kap Pa (Thais and the
forest), Phra Prayudh delineates several doctrinal principles relevant
to a Buddhist environmental ethic. Although these principles
resonate with Buddhadasa’s interpretation, Phra Prayudh’s herme-
neutical strategy differs from Buddhadasa’s in several ways, in
particular by extensive references to Pali texts, a topical use of Pali
terms rather than Thai, and a more systematic organization and
development. In other words, Phra Prayudh’s writings, including
those about the environment, reflect the concerns of a textual scholar
and a systematically organized writer. Buddhadasa, by contrast, is
primarily a philosopher oriented more to an oral rather than a written
medium.”
Phra Prayudh organizes Thais and the Forest around three
chronological perspectives: past, present, and future. In regard to
the present, he attributes environmental destruction to a Western
worldview flawed by three erroneous beliefs: that humankind is
separated from nature, that human beings are masters of nature, and
that happiness results from the acquisition of material goods.”° In
his essay prepared for the 1993 World Parliament of Religions, Phra
Prayudh develops the same position but from a more general, less
polemical perspective. He identifies the three erroneous beliefs as
wrong attitudes toward nature, fellow human beings, and personal
32 Buddhism and Ecology

life objective.*’ All three constitute a wrong view (micchaditthi) that

must be transformed if environmentally destructive attitudes and
actions are to be curbed. Phra Prayudh holds the conventional
Theravada position that right views lead to right action.28 In
agreement with Buddhadasa and other environmental philosophers,
he argues that until the right view prevails and human beings are
seen as part of nature, the worldwide trend toward environmental
devastation will continue unchecked.
In contrast to Buddhadasa’s dhammic biocentrism grounded in
the identification of nature and dhamma, Phra Prayudh stresses the
centrality of Buddhist ethical values for an environmental philos-
ophy. He emphasizes three Buddhist moral values that promote a
positive, beneficial attitude toward the environment, including
plants, animals, and fellow human beings: kata/inu (gratitude), metta
(loving-kindness), and sukha (happiness). His discussion of gratitude
begins with a passage from the Khuddaka Nikaya (Collection of
minor dialogues): “A person who sits or sleeps in the shade of a
tree should not cut off a tree branch. One who injures such a friend
is evil.”2? Phra Prayudh observes:

This maxim reminds us that the shade of a tree we enjoy is enjoyed

by others as well. A tree is like a friend which we have no reason
to injure. To injure a tree is like hurting a friend. Such a virtuous
inner attitude toward nature will prevent us from destructive
behavior, on the one hand, and will prompt helpful actions, on the
other.3°

Phra Prayudh links together the moral values of gratitude and

loving-kindness (mettd). The latter arises from the recognition that
according to the law of nature (Thai, kotthamachat) humans and all
other sentient beings are bound together in a universal process of
birth, old age, suffering, and death. This sense of mutuality, Phra
Prayudh argues, promotes cooperative and helpful feelings and
actions toward everything around us rather than competitive and
hostile ones.?! He suggests that the recognition of a common enemy,
the King of Death (maccurdja) or Mara, serves to engender metta.
From this recognition he draws the causally framed ecological
lesson that “Our use of plants and animals must be thought out
carefully and rationally and not carelessly without contemplating
the consequences of our actions,”*? the implication being that with
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 33

right understanding we will not willfully add to the balance of

suffering in the natural and human world. In contrast to Buddhadasa’s
more intuitive, ontologically oriented perspective, Phra Prayudh’s
approach to the environment is seen as rational and ethical. He
emphasizes the karmic side of the mutual interdependence of all life-
forms, noting that we need to weigh carefully the consequences of
our actions so that we do not willingly increase the suffering of
sentient and nonsentient beings.
For the third ecologically relevant moral value, Phra Prayudh
looks to the Buddhist teaching that human happiness (sukha) is
dependent on our natural surroundings in two ways: 1) simply living
within a natural setting engenders a greater sense of happiness and
well-being; and 2) nature serves as a teacher of both mind and spirit.
Nature trains us not only in moral virtue but also in mental
concentration and attentiveness. He argues that for this reason the
forest was the context in which Buddhism arose. Monks pursued
their vocation in the forest. The forest is the ideal location for
training the body and mind to overcome defilements (kilesa) that
hinder the attainment of mental freedom.**? Here again Phra
Prayudh’s approach to nature, that is, to the forest, contrasts with
Buddhadasa’s. Wild nature—the forest, mountains, caves—is the
best context in which to overcome the defilements that hinder the
attainment of nibbdna. This view is more anthropocentric and
instrumentalist than Buddhadasa’s view of the intrinsic dhammic
value of nature.
Phra Prayudh’s ecological hermeneutic focuses on the life of the
Buddha and the sangha as exemplifications of the Buddhist attitude
toward nature, in particular toward the forest: “The history of
Buddhism as found in various Pali texts clearly indicates that monks
saw the forest as a place to practice the dhamma and to achieve a
feeling of well-being, a happy state of mind, and eventually higher
states of mental consciousness.”34 Specifically in regard to the life
of the Buddha, Phra Prayudh, in concert with other Thai voices of
“sreen Buddhism,” such as Chatsumarn Kabilsingh,*» observes:
From the time the Buddha left his palace Buddhism has been
associated with forests. The Buddha’s quest for the truth
(saccadhamma) took place in the forest. It was in the forest that
for six years he sought to overcome suffering and it was under the
34 Buddhism and Ecology

Bodhi tree that he attained enlightenment. Throughout his life the

Lord Buddha was involved with forests, from his birth in the forest
garden of Lumbini under the shade of a Sal tree to his parinibbana
under the same kind of tree. Thus, Buddhism has been associated
with the forest from the time of the life of its founder.2®

Beyond general references to the example of the Buddha and the

early sangha, however, Phra Prayudh cites specific passages from
the Pali suttas to justify his views. For example, he notes that the
Buddha spoke of nature as the best environment in which to seek
enlightenment (bodhifidna): “O monks, in search of the good
(kusala), the best place is a rural area such as Uruvela. There you
will find a refreshing environment of trees and fields, a cool flowing
river, pleasant landings with homes to go for alms (gocaragama).
Such delightful surroundings are suitable for monks to pursue their
religious practice.”3’ Phra Prayudh also cites stories of forest-
dwelling disciples of the Buddha, such as Vanavaccha Thera, Citta
Thera, and Cila Thera, who praised mountains, birds, and insects
as well as forests. He also mentions the Venerable Mahakassapa,
who advised monks to dwell in caves and mountains situated in
beautiful natural surroundings with forests, animals, and birds.38
Phra Prayudh grounds his argument for the value of nature for
religious practice in stories of the Buddha and the early disciplines
found in Pali texts. Buddhadasa also links nature and religious
practice to spiritual realization but does so by using Suan Mokh as
his primary illustration rather than citing specific passages in canon
and commentary. Phra Prayudh, furthermore, makes a strong appeal
to reason. Unlike some Thai Buddhist environmentalists who
encourage such practices as ordaining trees or the promotion of a
tree deity cult to preserve a stand of trees, Phra Prayudh believes
that modern Buddhists need to go beyond appealing to Buddhist
values, such as gratitude and loving-kindness, and citing scripturally
grounded stories of the Buddha and the early sangha and should
utilize scientific evidence to address global problems, such as
pollution and environmental preservation.
Phra Prayudh’s response to the case of Phra Prajak Kuttajitto, a
much publicized activist monk from Buriram Province in northeast
Thailand, is instructive. Phra Prajak, who has returned to lay life,
was twice arrested in 1991 for his efforts in forest conservation, first,
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 35

for trespassing on National Forest Reserve land and establishing a

meditation center there and, second, for organizing villagers in Korat
Province. In both cases, he led a protest opposing the government’s
program to remove villagers from National Forest Reserves. Phra
Prajak questioned the legality of the removal of villagers from the
lands and also objected to the proposed replacement of natural,
diversified forests with trees, principally eucalyptus, grown for
commercial purposes.
In response to Phra Prajak’s controversial activities Phra Prayudh
delivered a talk on 2 October 1991, later printed under the title Phra
Kap Pa: Mi Panha Arai? (Monks and the forest: Is there a
problem?). He began his remarks with the comment that he did not
intend to speak to the Phra Prajak case per se, in particular whether
or not he had acted correctly or had broken the law. Rather, his
concern was for the possible detrimental impact on Thai Buddhism:

We need to look at the case from the Buddhist perspective. For

example, there’s a rumor that the government may enact a law
forbidding monks to enter forests. I don’t know if this is true or
false, but if such a law were to be enacted then we would need to
examine it carefully from the perspective of Buddhism, especially
the relationship between the sangha and the forest. If we understand
the principles of this relationship then we'll act appropriately.*°

Rather than taking sides on this politically sensitive issue, Phra

Prayudh advocates a rational approach grounded in the texts and
traditions of Theravada Buddhism.
After observing that the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death
all took place under trees, Phra Prayudh notes that many of the
major monasteries donated to the sangha were in forest groves:
Veluvana (donated by Bimbisara), Jetavana (donated by Lord
Jetam), Jivakamphavana (given by the physician Jivaka), and many
others, such as the Mahadvana monastery where the Buddha resided
when he visited Kapilavattu, the capital of the Sakyas. Although the
Buddha advised monks to dwell in forests—“O, Ananda, when a
bhikkhu enters the Order he should be encouraged to practice the
dhamma, to follow the patimokkha, to limit conversation, and to live
in a tranquil place, if possible a forest’#°—and extolled the forest
as a good environment to practice the dhamma, Phra Prayudh argues
 36 Buddhism and Ecology

against a naive, simplistic identification of Buddhism with nature.

The principle behind the Buddha’s advocacy of a forest as a
monastic retreat was its appropriateness as a place for the pursuit
of monastic training, not that forest dwelling was a necessary and
sufficient condition of the monastic life. On the contrary, because
a monk’s responsibility extends not only to the pursuit of enlighten-
ment but also to other members of the sangha and to lay society,
the Buddha stipulated that monasteries were to be located not too
far from or too near a town. This is the second principle that needs
to be kept in mind. The monastery “should be a quiet place,
appropriately isolated, not disorderly and noisy. Too close a
proximity to a town tends to make a monastery too busy and noisy
but being too far away may jeopardize the work of the monks.”4!
Monks have a responsibility toward one another. They are
required to assemble twice monthly for formal business meetings
(sanghakamma). Furthermore, monks are forbidden by vinaya rules
to support themselves. Because monks depend on the laity for food,
they cannot live in isolation from society. The first of these rules
joins monks or nuns together as a community; the second links them
to laypeople. Therefore, even though the Buddha praised forest
dwelling, this did not suggest following the withdrawn, isolated life
of an ascetic. Indeed, one finds in early Buddhism ambivalent
feelings toward forest-dwelling ascetics, as suggested by the
following fivefold classification of dhutanga monks: those who are
thickheaded and stupid, those who seek fame and praise, those who
are deranged, those who follow the praiseworthy example of the
Buddha, and those who seek solitude and quiet in order to practice
the dhamma.** Thus, although Phra Prayudh notes the importance
of the forest in the experience of the Buddha and the early sangha
as the best environment in which to pursue spiritual practice, he also
Suggests that early Buddhism considered the forest with some
misgivings. Furthermore, he suggests that wild nature at a far
remove from human habitation is problematic for monastic practice
because monks are dependent upon the laity for food and other
material necessities.
Phra Prayudh bases his ecological hermeneutic on a close reading
of the life of the Buddha and the early sangha in the Pali scriptures
and the primary intentionality of the dhamma to overcome suffering
and realize personal liberation. He finds within the Buddhist
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 37

worldview of mutual cooperation an alternative to Western dualism

and materialism, which he holds responsible for many forms of
global exploitation. Phra Prayudh, however, does not construct a
theory of Buddhist gaia or biocentric ecology, nor does he identify
nature and dhamma in the manner of Buddhadasa or paint a
romantic portrait of the Buddha and his disciples holding forth in
shaded glens. He warns:

The Buddha shouldn’t be revered because he lived near trees or

because he taught that one should eat only enough food to get by
for one day. Rather, he should be respected as one who realized the
dhamma and then taught it. The Buddha advocated a life of
simplicity and sufficiency not as an end in itself but as the context
for the development of knowledge of the cause and effect of all
actions. The Buddha praised monks who lived in the forest such as
Mahakassapa. . .[but he] said that whether or not one lived in the
forest was a matter of individual intent.*?

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and Phra Prayudh represent two distinctive,

complementary approaches to the environment within the context
of contemporary Thai Buddhism. Buddhadasa’s intuitive, on-
tologically oriented view of nature as dhamma and the ethic of
caring-for-nature (anurak thamachat) that flows from it finds a
greater commonality with what Ian Harris terms “ecoBuddhism”
than does the ethical approach of Phra Prayudh, which is grounded
primarily in reason, texts, and historical tradition. Buddhism—as
well as the other great world religions—is complex, variegated, and
dynamic and defies general, facile characterizations. As these two
examples from Thai Buddhism illustrate, even within a single
contemporary cultural tradition there is no univocal Buddhist
ecological hermeneutic.

Counterpoint:
Buddhist Environmentalism—Critics in the Forest

The effort of Buddhists and students of Buddhism to construct a

Buddhist environmental ethic has encountered several disclaimers.
Among the strongest critics of the ecoBuddhism project are Noriaki
Hakamaya, Lambert Schmithausen, and Ian Harris.** This brief
38 Buddhism and Ecology

postscript cannot examine these criticisms in depth; rather, it is

intended only to suggest the nature of this critical assessment in the
light of this study of Buddhadasa and Dhammapitaka.
In the view of Ian Harris, recent writings in the area of Buddhism
and environmental ethics can be divided into four broad categories:
1) a full endorsement of Buddhist environmental ethics by tradi-
tional guardians of doxic truth, for example, His Holiness, the Dalai
Lama; 2) a similar literature by Japanese and North American
scholar-activists that seeks to identify the doctrinal bases for an
environmental ethic, represented by Joanna Macy; 3) critical studies
which nonetheless argue for an authentic Buddhist response to
environmental problems, such as those by Lambert Schmithausen;
and 4) an outright rejection of the possibility of Buddhist environ-
mental ethics on the grounds of its otherworldliness, as put forth
by Noriaki Hakamaya.* Harris identifies himself with the fourth
position, although he admits that he is more sympathetic toward the
third. This makes him a particularly strong critic of what he terms
ecoBuddhism and also causes him to be suspicious of attempts to
ground Buddhist environmental ethics in classical doctrines such as
causality. Harris develops his critique in a series of articles published
in Religion and the new electronic Journal of Buddhist Ethics. It is
not my intent to give Harris’s analysis the attention it deserves but
rather to suggest the direction of his interpretation.
In his initial foray into this field, Harris established the critical
stance he has continued to develop in subsequent articles. In contrast
to the “ecospirituality,” “ecojustice,” and “ecotraditionalists” he
99 66

cites,*© Harris argues that the primacy of the spiritual quest in the
Buddhist tradition privileges humans over the realms of animals and
of nature. He points out, for example, that although the inter-
connected destinies of human beings and animals might suggest that
humans should feel some solidarity with animals, in fact animals
are regarded as particularly unfortunate. They cannot grow in the
dhamma and vinaya nor can they be ordained as monks.47 Fur-
thermore, while animals may appear to be beings destined for final
enlightenment, they have no intrinsic value in their animal form.
Indeed, claims Harris, “The texts leave one with the impression that
the animal kingdom was viewed. . .with a mixture of fear and
bewilderment.’48 The plant world does not fare much better in
Harris’s analysis. He summarizes the canonical view of nature as
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 39

being either something to be improved or cultivated or something

to be confronted in a therapeutic encounter.*”
In his study of ecoBuddhism as a contemporary American
attempt to articulate an authentically Buddhist response to present
environmental problems, he argues that this movement represents
a teleological transformation of traditional Buddhist cosmogony.°°
In an earlier article which surveys Pali, Sarvastivada, Sautrantika,
Madhyamika, and Yogacara positions, Harris focuses his critique
even more substantially on what he characterizes as the teleological
transformation of Buddhist causality. There he argues, first, that a
Buddhist action guide in regard to the natural world should be
“specifically authorized by the Buddha,” and, second, that the
dysteleological nature of Buddhist thought does not lend itself to
an environmental ethic in regard to such broadly contested issues
as global warming or biodiversity.>!
For the purposes of this essay, Harris’s view of the problematic
of a Buddhist environmental ethic serves primarily as a counterpoint
to the views of Buddhadasa and Phra Prayudh and to the general
tenor of the essays on Buddhism and ecology in this volume.
Although the ecological hermeneutics of Buddhadasa and Phra
Prayudh differ in some significant respects, both are at odds with
Harris’s critique of Buddhist eco-apologetics. Buddhadasa and Phra
Prayudh would, I believe, object to Harris’s view on at least three
general grounds: 1) His position is founded on too narrow a
construction of the Buddhist view of nature and animals based on
a selective reading of particular texts and traditions. Harris might
have nuanced his claims about the Buddhist attitude toward animals
had he included an analysis of selected Jataka narratives, for
example. 2) It is debatable whether or not a theory of causality
(or conditionality) must be teleological in order to be environ-
mentally viable. For instance, Buddhadasa’s biocentric ontology
can be interpreted deontologically, or, as Buddhadasa phrases it,
nature implies certain moral maxims or duties. 3) Although the
buddhavacanam is authoritative in the Theravada tradition, moral
action guides do not need to be authorized by the Buddha in a literal
sense.
Although Phra Prayudh seems to agree with Harris that the
primary positive view of nature in Buddhism is a context for
spiritual development, that is, primarily for its therapeutic value,
40 Buddhism and Ecology

Buddhadasa’s more biocentric perspective goes beyond such an

instrumental understanding of nature as the ideal context for the
pursuit of the ultimate goal of human flourishing. For Buddhadasa
nature has an inherent, dhammic value, not one merely instrumental
to the monastic pursuit of spiritual transformation. In reacting
against what he understands to be a well-intended but problematical
interpretation of Buddhist thought by eco-apologists, Harris’s
normative standard of Buddhist orthodoxy judges Buddhadasa’s
ecological hermeneutic to be inauthentically Buddhist or merely
“accorded authenticity” by virtue of the fact that Buddhadasa is a
“high profile Buddhist” associated with “reformist circles” in Thai
Buddhism.°?
Harris’s critical typology of Buddhist environmental ethics would
evaluate Phra Prayudh’s ecological hermeneutic more favorably than
Buddhadasa’s because Phra Prayudh adheres more closely to
Theravada doctrinal orthodoxy. Phra Prayudh’s position would
be closest to Harris’s type three, namely, an environmental ethic
based on a critical reading of the tradition by a Buddhist monk.
Buddhadasa, in Harris’s assessment, would be included in type one
as an ecoBuddhist apologist of doxic truth. Buddhadasa would
probably not object to being associated with the Dalai Lama as a
type one ecoBuddhist, although it is doubtful that he would consider
himself to be a guardian of doxic Theravada truth.
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 41

Notes

1. Dhammapitaka is the ecclesiastical title conferred in 1993 on Phra Prayudh

Payutto, whose previous titles were Sivisuddhimoli, Rajavaramuni, and Debvedi.
Published works by Phra Prayudh Payutto appear under all of these names. Here
I use Dhammapitaka in the article title but in the text I use Phra Prayudh, following
the convention established by Grant A. Olson in his translation of Buddhadhamma.
2. For introductions to the thought of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and Phra Prayudh
Payutto, see Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, Me and Mine: Selected Essays of Bhikkhu
Buddhadasa, ed. and with an introduction by Donald K. Swearer (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1989); and Phra Prayudh Payutto, Buddhadhamma:
Natural Laws and Values for Life, trans. and with an introduction by Grant A.
Olson (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). See also Grant A.
Olson, “From Buddhadasa Bhikkhu to Phra Debvedi: Two Monks of Wisdom,”
in Radical Conservatism: Buddhism in the Contemporary World (Bangkok:
Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation, 1990); and Santikaro Bhikkhu,
“Buddhadasa Bhikkhu: Life and Society through the Natural Eyes of Voidness,”
in Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, ed. Christopher S.
Queen and Sallie B. King (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
Essays in Thai consulted for this essay include Buddhadasa, Buddhasa@sanik Kap
Kan Anurak Thamachat (Buddhists and the care of nature) (Bangkok: Komol
Khimthong Foundation, 1990); Buddhadasa, Siang Takgn Jak Thamachat (Shouts
from nature) (Bangkok: Sublime Life Mission, 1971); Debvedi (Phra Prayudh
Payutto), Phra Kap Pa: Mi Panha Arai? (Monks and the forest: Is there a
problem?) (Bangkok: Vanaphidak Project, 1992); Dhammapitaka (Phra Prayudh
Payutto), Khon Thai Kap Pa (Thais and the forest) (Bangkok: Association for
Agriculture and Biology, 1994). For general essays in English on Thai culture
and the natural environment, see Culture and Environment in Thailand: A
Symposium of the Siam Society (Bangkok: Siam Society, 1989), Man and Nature:
A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, 1993).
Transliteration of Thai terms follows the Library of Congress with some
modifications, in particular “j” rather than “th.”
3. Ian Harris, “How Environmentalist Is Buddhism?” Religion 21 (April
1991):101—14; Harris, “Buddhist Environmental Ethics and Detraditionalization:
The Case of EcoBuddhism,” Religion 25, no. 3 (July 1995):199-211; Harris,
“Causation and ‘Telos’: The Problem of Buddhist Environmental Ethics,” Journal
of Buddhist Ethics 1 (1994):45-—57; Harris, “Getting to Grips with Buddhist
Environmentalism: A Provisional Typology,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 2
(1995):173—90; and Harris’s contribution in this volume.
4. “EGAT Warns of Low Water Level in Dams,” Bangkok Post, Monday,
13 November 1989, pp. 1 and 3.
42 Buddhism and Ecology

5. For example, see Francesca Bray, “Agriculture for Developing Nations,”

Scientific American, July 1994, 30-37; D. Pimentel et al., “Benefits and Risks of
Genetic Engineering in Agriculture,” Bioscience 39, no. 10 (1989):606-14.
6. Paraphrased from a lecture delivered at the McGilvary Theological Faculty
of Payap University on 27 October 1989, entitled “Quam Khawjai Kiewkap
Sangkhom Thai: Khabuankan Chai Amnat lae Kanyaek Chiwit Ok Pen Suan”
(Understanding Thai society: Violence and alienation).
7. It is interesting to observe that the first issue of Generation (October 1989),
an expensive, elitist magazine, contained a lead article, ““Namtatthakhot: Anicca
Buddhasasana nai Muang Thai” (The Buddha’s tears: The decline of Buddhism
in Thailand), 39-55. In the article some of the more important voices for reform
of the Thai sangha and Thai society are mentioned, including Buddhadasa
Bhikkhu and Sulak Sivaraksa.
8. Buddhadasa died 3 July 1993.
9. Buddhadasa, Siang Takgn Jak Thamachat. For essays on the relationship
between ecoBuddhism and deep ecology, see Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays
in Buddhism and Ecology, ed. Allan Hunt Badiner (Berkeley: Parallax Press,
1990).
10. Buddhadasa, Siang Taken Jak Thamachat, 5-7; translation mine.
11. Ibid., 7.
12. For an ethical critique of biocentrism, see Luc Ferry, The New Ecological
Order, trans. Carol Volk (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,
1995).
13. Selections of my discussion of Buddhasasanik Kap Kan Anurak Thamachat
appeared in “Buddhadasa on Caring for Nature,” Seeds of Peace 10, no. 2
(September-December 1994):36-38.
14. Western students of Buddhism often translate anukampd as “sympathy.”
In my view “empathy” is a more apt translation. I have in mind the image or
metaphor of a tuning fork that resonates empathetically with its environment. See
Harvey B. Aronson, Love and Sympathy in Theravada Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1980).
15. One of nine booklets published by the Dhamma Sapha, a group formed to
disseminate Buddhad4sa’s teaching, is Kan Tham Lai Khwam Hen Kae Tua
(Rooting out selfishness) (Bangkok: Dhamma Sapha, n.d.).
16. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, Heartwood from the Bo Tree (Bangkok: United
States Overseas Mission Foundation, 1985), 13. Those who criticize Buddhadasa
for being a modernist, eclectic thinker should keep in mind that he never
relinquished the centrality of the concept of non-attachment. While this notion is
certainly pan-Buddhist and figures prominently in the ethical emphasis of modern
Buddhist apologists, the concept of non-attachment is also fundamental to classical
Theravada sila-dhamma.
 The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology 43

17. For example, see Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics
and Moral Education (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
18. Buddhadasa frequently used this phrase in his talks. See, for example,
Buddhasasanik Kap KaGn Anurak Thamachat, 34.
19. Buddhadasa, Buddhasdsanik Kap Kan Anurak Thamachat, 34-35.
20. Ibid., 35; translation mine. The similarity between Buddhadasa’s vision
and comparable ecological visions in other religious traditions is striking. For
example, see Ernesto Cardenal, “To Live Is to Love,” in Silent Fire: An Invitation
to Western Mysticism, ed. Walter Holden Capps and Wendy M. Wright (New York:
Harper and Row, 1978).
21. Buddhadasa, Buddhasdsanik Kap Kan Anurak Thamachat, 15-16. I have
given a free rendering of the Thai in order to convey my understanding of
Buddhadasa’s meaning.
22. Ibid., 12-13.
23. Grant A. Olson translated the first edition (Phutatham: Kotthamachat le
Kham Samrup Chiwit [Buddhadhamma: Natural laws and values for life]
(Bangkok: Samnakphim Sukhaphap, 1971]). The second edition is being translated
in Thailand by Bruce G. Evans. Currently, Phra Prayudh’s English monographs
include a wide range of topics, e.g., Thai Buddhism in the Buddhist World
(Bangkok: Amarin, 1984); Looking to America to Solve Thailand’s Problems
(Bangkok: Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation, 1987); Toward a Sustainable
Science (Bangkok: Buddhadhamma Foundation, 1993); Good, Evil, and Beyond:
Kamma in the Buddha’s Teaching (Bangkok: Buddhadhamma Foundation, 1993);
A Buddhist Solution for the Twenty-First Century, 2nd ed. (Bangkok: Sahathammik,
1993); Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Market Place, 2nd ed.
(Bangkok: Buddhadhamma Foundation, 1994).
24. Olson, introduction to Phra Prayudh Payutto, Buddhadhamma, 26-27.
25. This distinction between written and oral/aural mediums should not be
drawn too sharply. Phra Prayudh gives many lectures; however, in contrast to
Buddhadasa, whose fame stems largely from his transcribed, published talks,
Prayudh continues to be more oriented to the written word and is steeped in Pali
canon and commentary.
26. Dhammapitaka (Phra Prayudh Payutto), Khon Thai Kap Pa, especially
43-68.
27. Phra Debvedi (Phra Prayudh Payutto), A Buddhist Solution for the Twenty-
First Century, 7.
28. See Phra Prayudh Payutto, Buddhadhamma, pt. 2. This claim does not
address the philosophical debate within Buddhism between those who argue for
“no view” over “right view.”
29. Dhammapitaka (Phra Prayudh Payutto), Khon Thai Kap Pa, 22; translation
mine.
44 Buddhism and Ecology

30. Ibid., 22-23.

31. Ibid., 24.
32. Ibid.; translation mine.
33. Ibid., 26.
34. Ibid., 27; translation mine.
35. For example, see Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, “Buddhist Monks and Forest
Conservation,” in Radical Conservatism: Buddhism in the Contemporary World
(Bangkok: Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation, 1990), 301-11.
36. Debvedi (Phra Prayudh Payutto), Phra Kap Pa, 4; translation mine.
37. Dhammapitaka (Phra Prayudh Payutto), Khon Thai Kap Pa, 28; translation
mine.
38. Ibid., 29-33.
39. Debvedi (Phra Prayudh Payutto), Phra Kap Pa, 3.
40. Ibid., 10; translation and italics mine.
41. Ibid., 11; translation mine.
42. Ibid., 15.
43. Ibid., 17.
44. Lambert Schmithausen, Buddhism and Nature, Studia Philologica
Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series 7 (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist
Studies, 1990); The Problem of the Sentience of Plants, Studia Philologica
Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series 8 (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist
Studies, 1991); and “The Early Buddhist Tradition and Ecological Ethics,” Journal
of Buddhist Ethics 4 (1997):1-42; and Noriaki Hakamaya, “Shizen-hihan to-shite
no Bukkyo” (Buddhism as a criticism of physis/natura), Komazawa Daigaku
Bukkhogakubu Ronshu (1990):380—403.
45. Harris, “Getting to Grips with Buddhist Environmentalism,” 177. I have
omitted Harris’s category of engaged Buddhist activists. Doctrinally, they can be
linked to his first type.
46. Ibid. In one sense Harris’s typology represents forms of what he labels
“eco-apologetics.”
47. Harris, “How Environmentalist Is Buddhism?” 105.
48. Ibid., 107.
49. Ibid., 108.
50. Harris, “Buddhist Environmental Ethics and Detraditionalization.” Harris
focuses his critique on the transformation of the theory of causality in “Causation
and ‘Telos.’”
51. Harris, “Causation and ‘Telos,’” 54.
52. Harris, “Getting to Grips with Buddhist Environmentalism,” 177.
 A Theoretical Analysis of the Potential
Contribution of the Monastic Community in
Promoting a Green Society in Thailand!

Leslie E. Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel

Multiple Interconnected Crises

In recent decades, Thailand has increasingly become an envi-
ronmental disaster, largely as a result of the nearly wholesale
acceptance of Westernization, including industrialism, urbanism,
materialism, and consumerism. As Dhira Phantumvanit and
Khunying Suthawan Sathirathai observe: “For several decades,
Thailand has indulged in the abundance of its natural resources
without considering their long-term sustainability. As a result there
are now ample signs of ecological stresses facing the nation.”? For
example, one symptom of the growing environmental crisis is
deforestation; prior to World War II up to 75 percent of Thailand
was still forested, whereas today less than 15 percent remains
forested—and the latter figure is even an optimistic estimate.*
In the benchmark 1989 Siam Society symposium volume Culture
and Environment in Thailand, a common underlying theme was the
connection between the environmental crisis and the decline of
adherence to Buddhism. In the concluding chapter, which summa-
rizes the symposium, anthropologist Peter Kunstadter> records that
the participants (most of whom were Thai) subscribed to a “theory
of a moral collapse” as the cause of the growing ecological
disequilibrium in Thailand (see figure 1).° In another context, Lily
de Silva even goes so far as to view the environmental crisis as
including the pollution, through Westernization, of mind and culture
as well as of the environment.’
46 Buddhism and Ecology

Buddhist Worldview

Ecocentrism (humans part of nature)

Nonviolence
Mental control
Need and being
Spiritual development
Ego extinction

(Extinction
line)

Biodiversity — — — — — = _——
— Biopoverty
(Life line)

Species extinction
Economic development (“growth mania”)
Greed and possessing (consumerism)
Technological control
Violence
Anthropocentrism (humans apart from nature)

Western Worldview

FIGURE 1
From Leslie E. Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, “The Relevance
of Buddhism for the Development of an Environmental Ethic for the
Conservation of Biodiversity,” in Ethics, Religion, and Biodiversity:
Relations between Conservation and Cultural Values, ed. Lawrence S.
Hamilton (Cambridge: White Horse Press, 1993), 87.
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 47

In previous publications we explored the relevance of the dharma

(teaching of the Buddha) for resolving the environmental crisis in
Thailand and developing a more ecologically appropriate (green)
society, especially in relation to forests and deforestation. We noted
that Buddhism is particularly relevant for coping with the environ-
mental crisis in Thailand for four principal reasons: 1) About 95
percent of Thai people are Theravada Buddhists, and Buddhism and
culture in Thailand are intimately interconnected. 2) Some of the
basic principles of Buddhism parallel those of ecology, although
they are not identical. 3) Some of the fundamental principles of
Buddhism can provide the basis for the construction of a green
environmental philosophy and ethics. 4) Buddhism has a long
history of mutualistic relationships with the forest, as illustrated by
the lives of the Buddha and forest monks. Forests are optimum
contexts for meditation, and they are needed by monks who choose
to go to them for a period of ascetic practice (dhutanga). Indeed,
deforestation, one of the most serious environmental problems in
Thailand, is sacrilegious for Buddhism.’ Furthermore, as Achan
Pongsak Techathamamoo, a Thai monk who is an environmental
activist (phra nak anurak pa), says:

Dharma, the Buddhist word for truth and the teachings, is also the
word for nature. That is because they are the same. Nature is the
manifestation of truth and of the teachings. When we destroy nature
we destroy the truth and the teachings. When we protect nature, we
protect the truth and the teachings.?

Bhikkhu Bodhi nicely summarizes the relevance of the dharma

for the development of an environmental ethic:

With its philosophic insight into the interconnectedness and

thoroughgoing interdependence of all conditioned things, with its
thesis that happiness is to be found through the restraint of desire,
with its goal of enlightenment through renunciation and contem-
plation and its ethic of non-injury and boundless loving-kindness
for all beings, Buddhism provides all the essential elements for a
relationship to the natural world characterized by respect, care and
compassion.!®
48 Buddhism and Ecology

As a specific illustration of an environmentally friendly aspect

of Buddhism,!! consider the original reason for the rainy season
retreat (pansa or vassa), a period when “nomadic” monks who
usually wander the forests and countryside are largely confined to
the temple (wat). The Buddha established this custom because the
rainy season is a period when new life, including young crops,
abounds. He wanted to minimize the destruction of life by the
trampling feet of wandering monks.!?
Within the context of the ecocrisis in Thailand and the ecological
wisdom of Buddhism in principle, we explore in theory the potential
of the local monastic community to contribute to the resolution or
reduction of environmental and related problems. Specifically, we
advance four propositions: 1) Ideally the monastic community
exhibits attributes which are similar, and in some instances even
identical, to many of the characteristics of a green society. 2) There
is a tremendous contrast between these ideal principles and the
behavior of lay communities and society as a whole in Thailand.
3) The monastic community has extraordinary status and power to
transform Thailand into a more ecologically appropriate society by
virtue of its antistructural and liminal social and moral roles. 4) By
drawing on the ecological wisdom of the dharma, the local monastic
communities have significant potential to contribute to the envi-
ronmental education of the populace and thereby to help create a
greener society.!>

The Monastic Community as a Green Society

It is remarkable that three disparate and independent sources—

political scientist Andrew Dobson, anthropologist John Bennett, and
philosopher Philip Drengson!4—nearly coincide in their pre-
scriptions for an ecologically appropriate society, which they label
respectively as green, equilibrium, and pernetarian. Our first
hypothesis is that the local monastic communities of Thailand have
the potential to serve as working models of a green society and that
some actually do so. Eight of the more important characteristics
which the ideal Buddhist monastic community in Thailand shares
with these other societies are listed, with a key word for each, in
table 1.!5 However, there is a tremendous contrast between these
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 49

TABLE 1: ECOLOGICALLY APPROPRIATE ATTRIBUTES

OF AN IDEAL MONASTIC COMMUNITY

. POPULATION: small and controlled population

. COMMUNALITY: egalitarian communal life based on mutual respect and
cooperation
. Resources: sufficiency and sustainability by limiting resource con-
sumption to satisfying basic needs and by self-restraint in wants and
desires
. Economy: cooperative rather than competitive economy based on
reciprocity and redistribution
. ENVIRONMENT: limit environmental impact and practice stewardship with
nature including the temple and vicinity as sacred space
. PHtLosopuy: holistic (systems), organic (ecology), and monistic (unity
of humans and nature) worldview based on enhancing quality of life
rather than accumulating quantity of material things (being rather than
having)
. VALUES: reverence (inherent worth), compassion or loving-kindness
(metta), and nonviolence (ahims@) toward all life to promote harmony
within society and between society and nature
. SELF: “deep self” including self-examination, self-realization, self-
fulfillment, and self-spirituality through meditation and eventually
extinction of self (anattda)

TABLE 2: LIMINAL ATTRIBUTES OF AN IDEAL MONASTIC COMMUNITY

° totality ¢ no distinctions of wealth

¢ homogeneity ¢ unselfishness
* communitas ° total obedience
¢ equality ¢ sacredness
¢ anonymity ¢ sacred instruction
e absence of property ¢ suspension of kinship rights
¢ uniform clothing and obligations
¢ sexual continence ¢ continuous reference to
¢ minimization of sexual mystical powers
distinction ¢ simplicity
e absence of rank e acceptance of pain and
¢ humility suffering
e disregard for personal
appearance
50 Buddhism and Ecology

ideal principles for an ecologically appropriate society and the usual

practices of the lay communities and society as a whole in Thailand.
From this point of view, the monastic community can be considered
antistructural; that is, it stands in opposition to the structure of the
larger society, a point to be developed shortly. However, it should
be noted that the sangha (Pali, sangha; monastic community as a
whole), like Buddhism in general in Thailand, is far from uniform;
thus some individuals and communities are much closer to a green
society than others.!©
We are not the first to make this observation; it is noteworthy
that the antistructural role of the monastic community has also been
recognized, albeit in other terms, by a Thai Buddhist monk, Phra
Phaisan Visalo:

The lives of forest monks and the pattern of relationships in the

Sangha convey to people in the larger society certain “messages,”
some of which deny or resist the prevailing values. Such messages
point to the true value of life, indicating that development of
inwardness is much more important than wealth and power, that the
life of tranquility and material simplicity is more rewarding and
fulfilling. Such messages provide both hints and warnings which
enable people to stop and reflect upon their lives, leading them to
seek themselves rather than material gain and glory. Such messages
are especially revolutionary for a society blindly obsessed by
impoverished values. To have forest monasteries amidst, or, to put
it more correctly, elevated above the laysociety, is to have com-
munities of resistance that, by their nature and very existence,
question the validity of popular values.
These were the values and functions of forest monasteries in
traditional Thai society. Nowadays these values and functions still
exist; indeed, they have become more important than ever, because
modern Thai society is increasingly influenced by degraded values
and obsessed with material growth [emphasis added].!”

The Monastic Community as Indefinite Liminality

We hypothesize that the monastic community has extraordinary

status and power to help transform Thailand into a more ecologically
appropriate society by virtue of its antistructural and liminal social
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 51

and moral roles. Here we must briefly digress to explain some

anthropological theory.
Arnold van Gennep!® recognized that as individuals enter a new
status in any human society they go through a rite of passage.
Furthermore, he observed that in every culture these rites have three
distinct stages: separation, marginality (liminality), and reincor-
poration. In other words, the individual who is undergoing a ritual
transition which formally changes his or her status is first separated
from the community, then exists in an extraordinary, ambiguous, and
even dangerous state, and then is reintegrated into the community
with a new status and role. In the new status the individual possesses
not only new rights but also new obligations, and he or she must
act according to new norms as well. This transition is a socially
significant event; indeed, frequently the liminal stage is even likened
to death.!?
Victor Turner elaborated on the ritual and symbolism of limin-
ality. He noted that liminality often involves characteristics which
stand in sharp contrast to society, even in opposition—something
he refers to as antistructure. Turner also identified the characteristics
of liminality in an elaborate list.7°
Obviously, when an individual enters (naga) or leaves the
monkhood he undergoes a rite of passage which includes a liminal
stage.2! However, Turner hinted that a monastic community may
possess attributes of liminality.27 Thus, we hypothesize that
monkhood itself is in essence an indefinite liminality, which
provides its primary source of power. This power in turn has great
potential for contributing to the reduction and resolution of some
of the environmental and other problems in Thailand. It helps
explain the significant influence which environmental-activist monks
are having on many people in Thailand.
The liminal attributes of the ideal monastic community are listed
in table 2.23 The monastic community is a totality in the sense that
it is a social system in which the members participate with a shared
sense and spirit of community (communitas). It is based on egali-
tarian principles with very limited distinctions by rank—the head
monk, senior and junior monks, and novices. The extinction of the
ego is a major objective; thus, members are anonymous in the sense
that individuality is unimportant, as exemplified by the uniform
clothing, disregard for personal appearance in the sense of distin-
52 Buddhism and Ecology

guishing oneself physically, and absence of the accumulation of

personal property and of distinctions of wealth. Sexual distinction
is minimized by the type of clothing worn and the shaving of the
hair on the head and eyebrows, while sexual continence is practiced.
There is supposed to be total obedience in the form of allegiance
to the Buddha, his teachings (dharma), and the monastic community
(sangha). The individual’s customary kinship rights and obligations
are suspended. The teachings, which are considered to be sacred,
emphasize humility, simplicity, unselfishness, nonviolence, com-
passion, and meditation. Pain and suffering are considered to be part
of existence but reducible, if unavoidable, by minimizing ignorance,
desires, selfishness, and greed. The comportment of monks in these
and other matters is guided by no less than 227 rules (vinaya or
patimokkha).*4
The spatial, sociocultural, religious, demographic, and ecological
significance of monastic communities in Thailand is also important
to consider here.*> The temple compound (wat) usually includes
buildings for worship by laypersons (vihara) and by monks (bot),
meetings (sala), and residence (dormitory and/or huts) (kuti), as well
as a cemetery with stupas (chedi), the bell-shaped stone monuments
containing the cremated remains of deceased persons. There may
also be a school for the lay community in or adjacent to the monastic
compound. Commonly there are also trees in the temple yard, and
typically these include species associated with the life of the
Buddha, such as the bodhi (Ficus religiosa), banyan (Ficus
bengalensis), and asoke (Saraca indica). Temples are often sur-
rounded by groves of trees or even forests, which are also usually
considered sacred places.”°
Most temples are within walking distance of a village since the
monks are usually dependent upon villagers for their daily food
(pindapata). Likewise, in traditional Thai society the temple and
monks were a pivotal component in the daily lives of most laypeople
in the neighboring communities. Traditionally, the focus of the lay
community is the local temple, where religious and sociocultural
functions are integrated in many ways.”’ Indeed, the temple has been
the most important institution beyond the family in the life of people
in rural Thailand.”* The rites of passage of lay individuals (including
birth, puberty, marriage, and death) are usually marked by some
community recognition through a ceremony at the temple. Rites of
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 53

intensification, such as the Buddhist new year and “lent,” are also
marked by community activities at the temple. Lay individuals gain
merit (bun, punna) by providing food for the bowls the monks
(bhikkhu, or almsperson) carry on their daily early-morning walk
through the community. Merit may also be gained by planting trees
and by performing other more mundane activities in the temple yard.
The temples have traditionally been the educational centers for
children. Thus, the Thai temple is not a monastery in a Western
sense of monks secluded from the larger community; rather, in
Thailand the monastic and lay communities are interdependent and
interact on a daily basis.?
In Thailand in 1992 there were about 63,358 villages, 29,002
temples, 288,637 monks, and 123,643 novices.*° During the
Buddhist rainy season retreat (pansa), it is customary for individuals
to become monks and novices for a temporary period of days,
weeks, or longer. Thus, in 1990, for example, approximately
106,500 monks and 26,800 novices were added to the temple
population for the rainy season retreat.*! It is important to realize
that the majority of Thai males become novices (between the ages
of eight and twenty years) or monks (twenty years and up) for up
to three months, usually during the rainy season.*4
Phra Phaisan Visalo of Sukato Forest Monastery in Chatyaphum
aptly describes the role of the forest monastery:

Here we can see something of the contribution the forest monastery

can render to society, since it is able to preserve the traditional
wisdom so badly needed by Thailand and the modern world. This
wisdom is not only found in the scriptures or expressed through
words. It is manifested in living communities existing in the context
of contemporary society, and is there to be perceived. Such wisdom
cannot be apprehended, however, unless we perceive the forest
monastery as a system of relationships between the individual,
society, and nature. The Sangha in the forest monastery is a society
aiming for human development amidst the natural environment. In
this system of relationships we can see the wisdom which stresses
the interrelatedness and interdependence of persons, society, and
nature [emphasis added].*?

We propose that by drawing on the environmental wisdom of the

dharma, by serving as a model of a green society, and through the
54 Buddhism and Ecology

power afforded by their liminal status, local monastic communities

have significant potential to contribute to the environmental
awareness, information, and ethics of the populace, including daily
visitors as well as participants in the rainy season retreat. This in
turn could contribute toward a greening of society in Thailand. After
all, environmental problems are one source of suffering (dukkha),
one of the central concerns of Buddhism.*4
Many examples could be cited of individual monks who are
effective environmental activists. However, one must suffice here.
Abbot Somneuk Natho resides at the forest monastery of Wat Plak
Mai Lai in Nakhom Pathom Province, about ninety minutes from
Bangkok. Within about ten years he restored one hundred rai (forty
acres) of empty grassland to forest. He allowed the land, through
its own resilience and natural processes of restoration, to return to
forest, although he helped by planting some saplings of forest trees.
He also maintains numerous medicinal plants. This successful
initiative is in sharp contrast to the Royal Forestry Department’s
usual style of reforestation by clear-cutting areas of natural forest
in order to establish monocrop commercial tree plantations, such
as eucalyptus. The forest monastery is surrounded by fields of sugar,
corn, and vegetable crops. It is noteworthy that Abbot Somneuk
Natho became a monk despite resistance from his family and the
fact that his father is a millionaire.>> Given Abbot Somneuk Natho’s
example, we can better appreciate the statement by naturalists Mark
Graham and Philip Round that monks are the “custodians of nature”
in Thailand.*°

Limitations of the Monastic Community

In Thailand, where more than 95 percent of the population is

Buddhist, it is natural to explore the contributions Buddhism might
make toward the reduction or resolution of environmental problems
and the creation of a greener society. Indeed, while environ-
mentalism may be originally a Western concept, in the Thai context
it cannot be understood apart from Buddhism and the sangha. There
are, of course, limitations as well as possibilities in the relevance
of Buddhism and the sangha to the ecocrisis in Thailand, and it is
appropriate to mention some of the limitations here, even though
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 55

this is not the place to provide any elaborate analysis of the case
against Buddhism.?’
Some of the tenets of Buddhism may contribute more to the
problem than to the solution. For instance, as Ruben Habito points
out in his essay in this volume, there are adherents who interpret
Buddhism as emphasizing individual self-examination and the
present moment (being rather than doing), thus discouraging
activism concerned with current social problems, which are viewed
as ephemeral according to the principle of impermanence (anicca).”*
Politics within the sangha can cause obstacles to the realization
of the potential of Buddhism. Just as with any social institution, both
the sangha and the state are subject to abuse and corruption. The
sangha as a whole is hierarchical, its upper levels are conservative,
and it has been closely allied with the state since the First Sangha
Act in 1903.39 For example, when the Council of Elders meets, its
agenda is set by the Department of Religious Affairs of the Ministry
of Education.*° The upper levels of the monastic hierarchy as well
as the state have opposed monks who have become environmental
activists. Some of these monks have been threatened and harassed
by the police, military, and others. Automatic weapons have even
been fired into a temple.*! On the other hand, such opposition to
activist monks (phra nak anurak pa) like Phra Prathak Kuttachitto
and Achan Pongsak Techathamamoo indicates that their efforts in
challenging forest destruction and addressing other environmental
concerns have met with some success. Yet there are conservative
monks who oppose such activism and even label activist monks as
renegade monks or spiritual outlaws. Thus, Santikaro, an American
who has long been a monk in Thailand, says:

Those of us who are thinkers in this network feel that the current
monastic sangha is more likely to fall apart than to solve its crisis.
I don’t think the sangha is capable of solving its problems and
reforming itself according to the current structure, a structure forced
on them by dictatorial governments.*2

In Thailand only a minority of monks are environmental activists,

although the number has been growing rapidly in recent years. Of
about 288,637 monks, only a few hundred may be environmental
activists. Nevertheless, they have had a significant impact on raising
56 Buddhism and Ecology

the environmental awareness and concern of many people through-

out the country. From another perspective, Mehden*? mentions that
in Asia Marxists have often viewed monks in general as something
like parasites on society, with their unproductive activities and
traditionalist views, and as undesirable as role models for the
advancement of society.
In Thailand another problem with Buddhism is the discrimination
against women. Only men may be ordained in Theravada Buddhism.
There is no genuine institution of the nun in Thailand, although
some women (mae chii) renounce the world, shave their heads, wear
white robes, and undertake the eight precepts.44 Yet one of the
concomitants of a green society is gender equity. Ecofeminists argue
that there is a direct connection between human domination and
violence against nature on the one hand and male domination and
violence against women on the other.*> This aspect of the sangha
and society in Thailand will have to change if a green society is to
be realized to any extent.

Discussion

While the aforementioned limitations are serious, in our opinion the

greatest obstacle Buddhism presents in its own contribution to the
reduction or resolution of environmental problems is the discrepancy
between the ideals of Buddhism and the practices of Buddhists.
Despite the great potential of Buddhism, and the Dharma and
Sangha in particular, in reality Thailand is no ecotopia; it is
increasingly becoming an environmental disaster. Many Thai and
others, including the present authors, relate the environmental,
social, and moral crises of contemporary Thailand to the increasing
acceptance of Western worldviews and a correlated decline in
adherence to Buddhist worldviews.“¢ In turn, this shift in worldview
results in the wide discrepancy between the theory and practice of
Buddhism in society—that is, between the ideals and actions of
Buddhists.*” However, it should be understood that this discrepancy
represents not a failure of Buddhism per se but a failure of individual
Buddhists, who are, after all, only human. (This should not be
Surprising, since, to some degree, there are internal discrep-
ancies and contradictions in any individual, society, or religion.)
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 57

Nevertheless, while television, movie theaters, shopping malls, and

other distractions have intruded into the daily lives of many Thai,
Buddhism, the temple, and monks still retain some significance for
most individuals. In particular, forest monasteries remain attractive
for retreats by laypersons because the “naturalness” and peace-
fulness of the forests render them optimal sites for meditation by
Buddhists.*8
These discrepancies between ideals and actions are found in
different forms and varying degrees, not only among laypersons but
also among monks. Some monks, like the public, are trapped by
materialism and consumerism, despite the professed allegiance to
Buddhism by laity and monks alike.* This reflects the tremendously
powerful social, economic, and political influences present in Thai
society and the global community, including other nations of Asia
as well as the West.°°
Despite these difficulties, there are clear indications surfacing
which demonstrate a growing disillusionment with the wholesale
pursuit of Westernization and its associated phenomena.°! For
instance, there are revitalization movements of various kinds,
including many environmental and sustainable-development non-
governmental organizations which seek to revive some of the
traditional religion, culture, and ecology in order to create a greater
degree of ecological and social equilibrium.°? (Revitalization
movements have occurred in diverse societies in response to the
stresses and dissatisfactions accompanying rapid and profound
cultural change.)°? Thus, Mehden writes:

The Thais have long viewed Buddhism as the core to their

personal and national identity. To the vast majority, to be Thai is to
be Buddhist. However, it was the recent Thai kings and postwar
military-political leaders who were to systematically foster the
ideology of king, Buddhism, and country as a means of reinforcing
national integration. In the process, missionary efforts have brought
formerly isolated peoples in the Kingdom into the fold in a planned
effort to make Buddhism a tool of national ideology. However, the
apparent growth of a sense of Thai-Buddhist identity in recent years
has also been a reflection of negative reactions to what are con-
sidered to be undesirable aspects of modernization. The very
58 Buddhism and Ecology

intrusion of material goods and values has activated a resurgence

of interest in traditional religious tenets as a means of retaining
national and personal identity.>4

Among other things, the environmental and other crises in

Thailand signal a dire need to increase substantially the information
and awareness about the potential of Buddhism to contribute to
solving problems. There is also a critical need to increase infor-
mation and awareness regarding maladaptation—the short-term and
long-term negative environmental (and economic) consequences of
the irreversible depletion of natural resources and the degradation
of the natural environment (including pollution).55 In other words,
paraphrasing Kenneth Kraft’s remarks in his essay included in this
volume, an important question Buddhist individuals must learn to
ask and answer is: What is my karmic responsibility for my
environmental legacy? As Donald Swearer observes: “In the final
analysis environmental problems are going to be solved when a
sufficient number of people understand the nature of the problem,
have the moral courage to do something about it, and offer an
alternative vision to challenge the status quo.”>®
Fortunately, there are extraordinary individuals, laypersons and
monks, such as Abbot Somneuk Natho, who provide role models
of people who are trying to restore a modicum of “ecosanity” in
Thailand. Many of these persons have been described in the superb
writings of Sanitsuda Ekachai.>’ Such exemplars deserve greater
recognition, consideration, and emulation if Thailand as a nation is
to cope successfully with the environmental and other crises it faces.
Nonviolent strategies of social change have proven remarkably
effective in numerous and diverse situations in recent history: the
rejection of British colonialism in India led by Mohandas K. Gandhi;
the advances against racism during the civil rights movement in the
United States led by Martin Luther King, Jr.; the movement to
overthrow the Marcos regime in the Philippines led by Benigno
Aquino; and the revolutionary changes in South Africa, resulting
in the abolition of the apartheid system, led by Nelson Mandela.
The political and economic struggles associated with the environ-
mental movements in Thailand must be nonviolent if they are to be
effective and succeed; and Buddhism, by its very nature, can help
promote nonviolent strategies and actions.>8
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 59

Future field research on the hypotheses, propositions, and other

ideas developed in this article is sorely needed, at the levels of both
broad national and regional surveys and intensive investigation at a
representative sample of specific sites and events, in the latter
applying the standard ethnographic methods of participant observa-
tion and interviews.°? There is also a need for comparative research
in other Theravada Buddhist countries, especially neighboring
Myanmar, Laos, and Kampuchea, since they are somewhat less
Westernized than Thailand. This analysis has been primarily etic—
that is, based on Western scientific analysis and interpretation—even
though one of the authors is Thai and we have cited statements by
Thai writers. More attention needs to be given to the emic side, with
insights from members of the local communities through intensive
interviews. From an ecological perspective, it would also be
interesting to analyze temple compounds and their surroundings as
ecosystems and in terms of biodiversity conservation.©

Conclusions

In recent decades Thailand has faced increasingly frequent environ-

mental, social, and moral crises which endanger the vitality, quality
of life, and future of the nation. While there are many resources
which may contribute toward the resolution of these crises—
education, science, technology, economics, politics, government,
nongovernmental organizations, and even business and industry—
we have argued that surely one of the most important resources 1s
Buddhism, essentially because Buddhism has the potential to
penetrate deeply to the very roots of the problems and to find lasting
solutions rather than merely treat superficial symptoms and single
issues. The history of Buddhism involves a mutualism between
monks and forests; latent in this philosophy and religion are parallels
to ecology and the basic principles for developing a green envi-
ronmental philosophy and ethics; and Buddhism and culture are
mutually reinforcing in Thailand, where the overwhelming majority
of people are Buddhists.
In this essay we have focused on the ideal attributes which the
local monastic community may have as an approximation of a green
society. We have argued that by virtue of its indefinite liminality
60 Buddhism and Ecology

the local monastic community may have special status and power
as a counter to maladaptive environmental and social trends. Of
course, some will be skeptical of such notions, but then, as Chai
Podhisita pointed out to us, there must even have been skeptics of
the validity and utility of the Buddha’s ideas during his time.
The fact that Buddhism has not prevented these crises from
developing in the first place points not to a failure of Buddhism per
se but to the discrepancies between the ideals of Buddhism and the
actions of individual Buddhists. At the same time, there may be
Some ways in which Buddhism has been part of the problem rather
than the solution. That thesis we have recognized in this paper, but
it needs to be systematically and critically analyzed, a task that must
be left to a subsequent publication.
In this essay we have focused on a theoretical analysis of the
potential contribution of some monastic communities in helping to
resolve the growing ecocrisis in Thailand. This ecocrisis is part
of a multitude of complex and difficult problems associated
with Westernization. Buddhism has survived, unlike the modern
industrial-materialist-consumer society, for more than twenty-five
hundred years because it has proven meaningful in numerous diverse
contexts. While the ecocrisis is an unprecedented challenge, we join
the scholars and activists who affirm the continuing relevance of
engaged Buddhism in coping with individual and social problems
in Thailand. As before, this relevance will depend on the adherents
of Buddhism interpreting its principles in ways which they find
meaningful, given the problems and challenges of their historical
and sociopolitical contexts—and without distorting those prin-
ciples—in the spirit of the radical conservativism of Buddhadasa.®!
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 61

Notes

1. We are most grateful to Duncan Williams and Mary Evelyn Tucker for the
invitation to participate in the Consultation on Buddhism and Ecology as well as
for the wonderful job they did in organizing and implementing the conference.
As in the case of the Consultation, we would appreciate any critical commentary
from other scholars and activists. We are most appreciative to Chai Podhisita
(Mahidol University) and Decha Tangseefa (University of Hawaii), who offered
comments on a draft of this paper based on their previous experiences in the
monkhood in Thailand. However, any errors or deficiencies in this paper are the
sole responsibility of the authors.
.. See Chalardchai Ramittanond, “Notes on the Role and Future of Thailand’s
Environmental Movement,” in Man and Nature: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
(Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, 1993), 91-117; Anthony Reid,
“Humans and Forests in Pre-colonial Southeast Asia,’ Environment and History
1 (1995):93-110; Jonathan Rigg, ed., Counting the Costs: Economic Growth and
Environmental Change in Thailand (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies, 1995); Santikaro Bhikkhu, “Planting Rice Together: Socially Engaged
Monks in Thailand,” Turning Wheel (summer 1996):16—20; Leslie E. Sponsel,
“The Historical Ecology of Thailand: Increasing Thresholds of Human Environ-
mental Impact from Prehistory to the Present,” in Advances in Historical Ecology,
ed. William Bale (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); and Phra Phaisan
Visalo, “The Forest Monastery and Its Relevance to Modern Thai Society,” in
Radical Conservatism: Buddhism in the Contemporary World, ed. Sulak Sivaraksa
et al. (Bangkok: Thai Inter-Religious Commission for Development and Inter-
national Network of Engaged Buddhists, 1990), 288-30. Buddhist environ-
mentalists are not the only activists who are critical of industrialism, materialism,
consumerism, and associated phenomena; such criticisms are central to radical

ecology (Andrew McLaughlin, Regarding Nature: Industrialism and Deep Ecology

(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993]; Carolyn Merchant, Radical
Ecology: The Search for a Livable World [New York: Routledge, 1992], and
Ecology [New York: Routledge, 1994]), social ecology (Murray Bookchin, The
Ecology of Freedom (Palo Alto, Calif.: Cheshire Books, 1982], and The Philosophy
of Social Ecology (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1990]), and the green movement
(Andrew Dobson, ed., The Green Reader [San Francisco: Mercury House, 1990],
and Green Political Thought [New York: Routledge, 1995)).
3. Dhira Phantumvanit and Khunying Suthawan Sathirathai, “Thailand:
Degradation and Development in a Resource-Rich Land,” Environment 30, no. 1
(1988):10-15.
4. Pinkaew Leungaramsri and Noel Rajesh, The Future of People and Forests
in Thailand after the Logging Ban (Bangkok: Project for Ecological Recovery,
1992).
 62 Buddhism and Ecology

5. Peter Kunstadter, “The End of the Frontier: Culture and Environment

Interactions in Thailand,” in Culture and Environment in Thailand, (Bangkok:
Siam Society, 1989), 548-50.
6. Man and Nature: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn
University Press, 1993); and Ann Danaiya Usher, “After the Forest: AIDS as
Ecological Collapse in Thailand,” Thai Development Newsletter 26 (1994):20-32.
7. Lily de Silva, “The Buddhist Attitude toward Nature,” in Buddhist
Perspectives on the Ecocrisis, ed. Klas Sandell (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist
Publication Society, 1987), 16.
8. Leslie E. Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, “Buddhism, Ecology,
and Forests in Thailand: Past, Present, and Future,” in Changing Tropical Forests:
Historical Perspectives on Today’s Challenges in Asia, Australasia, and Oceania,
ed. John Dargavel, Kay Dixon, and Noel Semple (Canberra, Australia: Centre for
Resource and Environmental Studies, 1988), 305-25; “Nonviolent Ecology: The
Possibilities of Buddhism,” in Buddhism and Nonviolent Global Problem-Solving,
ed. Glenn D. Paige and Sarah Gilliatt (Honolulu: Center for Global Nonviolence
and Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace, 1991), 139-50; “The Relevance of
Buddhism for the Development of an Environmental Ethic for the Conservation
of Biodiversity,” in Ethics, Religion, and Biodiversity: Relations between
Conservation and Cultural Values, ed. Lawrence S. Hamilton (Cambridge: White
Horse Press, 1993), 75-97; and “The Role of Buddhism for Creating a More
Sustainable Society in Thailand,” in Counting the Costs: Economic Growth and
Environmental Change in Thailand, ed. Jonathan Rigg (Singapore: Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies, 1995), 27-46.
9. Kerry Brown, “In the Water There Were Fish and the Fields Were Full of
Rice: Reawakening the Lost Harmony of Thailand,” in Buddhism and Ecology,
ed. Martine Batchelor and Kerry Brown (New York: Cassell Publishers, 1992),
87-99.
10. Bhikkhu Bodhi, foreword to Buddhist Perspectives on the Ecocrisis, ed.
Klas Sandell (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 1987), vii. Cf. Ian
Harris, “How Environmentalist Is Buddhism?” Religion 21 (April 1991):101-14;
Poul Pedersen, “The Study of Perceptions of Nature: Towards a Sociology of
Knowledge about Nature,” in Asian Perceptions of Nature, ed. Ole Bruun and Arne
Kalland, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Proceedings, no. 3 (Copenhagen: Nordic
Institute of Asian Studies, 1992), 148-58.
11. Shann Davies, Tree of Life: Buddhism and the Protection of Nature
(Bangkok: Buddhist Perception of Nature Project, 1987); Chatsumarn Kabilsingh,
A Cry from the Forest (Bangkok: Wildlife Fund Thailand, 1987).
12. Marie Beuzeville Byles, Footprints of Gautama the Buddha (Wheaton, IIl.:
Theosophical Publishing House, 1957), 116.
13. From the outset we should like to make clear that we do not consider
Buddhism to be the only resource for reducing or resolving environmental and
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 63

social problems in Thailand. Science, technology, education, government, business,

industry, nongovernmental organizations, and other resources are also important.
However, it would be unrealistic to ignore the potential contribution of Buddhism
in a country where more than 95 percent of the population is Buddhist.
Thai religion is synergistic, a dynamic and creative combination of elements
from Buddhism, Hinduism, and animism. Chinese Thai may also include elements
of Confucianism and Taoism. In the southernmost provinces of the peninsula,
where the majority of people are of Malay heritage, the predominant religion is
Islam (Charles F. Keyes, “Thai Religion,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed.
Mircea Eliade [New York: Free Press, 1987], vol. 14, 416-21). Ideally, all of these
religious influences should be considered, but space limitations and the theme of
this volume force us to focus exclusively on Buddhism.
There are pros and cons for the involvement of religion in environmental
problems and issues. Individuals committed to exclusively scientific and
technological approaches for the resolution of environmental problems may
dismiss religion as merely emotional, irrational, superstitious, and antiscientific
(see Fred R. von der Mehden, “The Impact of Modernization on Religion,” in his
Religion and Modernization in Southeast Asia (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse
University Press, 1986], 16-17). Organized religion and its adherents may be
criticized as hypocritical, given the discrepancies between ideals and actions.
Indeed, many evils have been perpetrated in the name of some religion. Religious
sects can be divisive and even lead to conflict and violence. Furthermore, some

writers have even viewed certain religions as the ultimate cause of environmental
problems (Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science
155 [March 1967]:1203-7; Eugene C. Hargrove, ed., Religion and Environmental
Crisis [Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986]).
On the other hand, religion is a cross-cultural universal; anthropologists have
not found a society without religion. Moreover, religion can be a powerful and
integrative force in individual behavior and in society. It is usually the ultimate
source of one’s worldview and values. Also, religion has been seen as a (or the)
source for the solution to the ecocrisis, especially for constructing a viable
environmental ethic. (For some exceptionally good studies of the relationship
between religion and environment, see Roger S. Gottlieb, This Sacred Earth:
Religion, Nature, Environment [New York: Routledge, 1996]; Lawrence S.
Hamilton, ed., Ethics, Religion, and Biodiversity: Relations between Conservation
and Cultural Values {Cambridge: White Horse Press, 1993]; Steven C. Rockefeller
and John C. Elder, eds., Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious
Issue [Boston: Beacon Press, 1992]; Rupert Sheldrake, The Rebirth of Nature:
The Greening of Science and God [Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press, 1991];
Henryk Skolimowski, A Sacred Place to Dwell: Living with Reverence upon the
Earth (Rockport, Mass.: Element, 1993]; and Mary Evelyn Tucker and John A. Grim,
eds., Worldviews and Ecology {Philadelphia: Bucknell University Press, 1993].)
64 Buddhism and Ecology

14. Dobson, The Green Reader; John W. Bennett, The Ecological Transition:
Cultural Anthropology and Human Adaptation (New York: Pergamon Press, 1976),
13; Alan R. Drengson, Beyond Environmental Crisis: From Technocrat to
Planetary Person (New York: Peter Lang, 1989).
15. Also see P. A. Payutto, Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Market
Place (Bangkok: Buddhadhamma Foundation, 1994).
16. Donald K. Swearer, The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1995).
17. Visalo, “The Forest Monastery,” 293-94. See Swearer, The Buddhist World
of Southeast Asia, 146.
18. Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1909).
19. Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (New York:
Aldine de Gruyter, 1969), 94-95.
20. Ibid., 106-7.
21. See Christopher Lamb, “Buddhism,” in Rites of Passage, ed. Jean Holm
and John Bowker (London: Pinter Publishers, 1994), 10-40.
22. Turner, The Ritual Process, 107.
23. Of course, the monastic community is composed of celibate males, and
they are dependent for their daily food on the surrounding lay community. The
sangha also has a bureaucratic hierarchy, which is connected with the state
government. However, there is less social stratification in local monastic
communities than in Thai society at large.
24. For parallels in other approaches to environmental ethics, see Duane Elgin
(Voluntary Simplicity [New York: William Morrow, 1981]) on simplicity; Warwick
Fox (Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for
Environmentalism {Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1990]) on self-realization;
Arne Naess (Ecology, Community, and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, trans.
David Rothenberg [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989]) on commu-
nity; and E. O. Wilson and Stephen Kellert, eds., The Biophilia Hypothesis
(Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993), on biophilia.
25. A very useful brief description of the temple and monkhood in Thailand
is provided by Gerald Roscoe, The Monastic Life: Pathway of the Buddhist Monk
(Bangkok: Asia Books, 1992). For more detailed studies of various aspects of these
and related themes, see Martin Boord, “Buddhism,” in Sacred Place, ed. Jean
Holm and John Bowker (London: Pinter Publishers, 1994), 8-32; Susan Marie
Darlington, Buddhism, Morality, and Change: The Local Response to Development
in Northern Thailand (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International,
1990); Carla Deicke Grady, “A Buddhist Response to Modernization in Thailand:
With Particular Reference to Conservationist Forest Monks” (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Hawaii, 1995); P. Jackson, Buddhadasa: A Buddhist Thinker for the
Modern World (Bangkok: Siam Society, 1988); Radical Conservatism: Buddhism
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 65

in the Contemporary World, ed. Sulak Sivaraksa et al. (Bangkok: Thai Inter-
Religious Commission for Development and International Network of Engaged
Buddhists, 1990); Donald K. Swearer, Wat Haripunjaya: A Study of the Royal
Temple of the Buddha’s Relic, Lamphun, Thailand (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars
Press, 1976); Stanley Jeyaraha Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer:
A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), and The Buddhist Saints of the Forest
and the Cult of Amulets (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984); J. L.
Taylor, Forest Monks and the Nation-State: An Anthropological and Historical
Study in Northeastern Thailand (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,
1993); Kamala Tiyavanich, Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-
Century Thailand (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997); and K. E. Wells,
Thai Buddhism: Its Rites and Activities (Bangkok: Suriyabun Publishers, 1975).
26. Elsewhere we argue that collectively as well as accumulatively over time
the temples may help promote both the ex situ and in situ conservation of
biodiversity in Thailand. There are a large number of temples (around 29,002)
distributed throughout Thailand, and many temples are ancient (some even
centuries old). The area surrounding temples is considered sacred space; temples
are often associated with trees, groves, and/or forests which also provide habitat
for animal species, and these ecological phenomena are considered sacred.
Temples often provide habitat islands in a sea of wet rice paddies and other
agroecosystems. During our fieldwork in southern Thailand during the summers
of 1994 and 1995, we found small but healthy forests associated with temples;
entire mountain forests protected by temples or shrines; sections of community
forests donated by villagers to the local temple to conserve them intentionally
for future generations; and areas of forest restoration associated with the initiatives
of Buddhist monks. Thus we hypothesize that a temple may serve one or more of
these conservation functions: forest reserves, botanical gardens, germ plasm banks,
medicinal plant collections, zoological gardens, wildlife sanctuaries, restoration
ecology, model of green society, environmental education, and environmental
action (Leslie E. Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, “The Role of Sacred
Places in the Conservation of Biodiversity,” in Ecology, Ethnicity, and Religion
in Thailand, ed. Sponsel and Natadecha-Sponsel, forthcoming; and Sponsel and
Natadecha-Sponsel, “The Role of Buddhism for Creating a More Sustainable
Society in Thailand”). For a pioneering ethnobotanical study of temple yards, see
Shengji Pei, “Managing for Biological Diversity in Temple Yards and Holy Hills:
The Traditional Practices of the Xishuangbanna Dai Community, Southwestern
China,” in Ethics, Religion, and Biodiversity: Relations Between Conservation and
Cultural Values, ed. Lawrence S. Hamilton (Cambridge: White Horse Press, 1993),
118-32.
27. See Mehden, “The Impact of Modernization on Religion,” 81-82; and
Swearer, The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia, 116-18.
66 Buddhism and Ecology

28. S. Suksamran, Political Buddhism in Southeast Asia (London: Hurst, 1977).

29. Roscoe, The Monastic Life, 13.
30. Department of Religious Affairs, Annual Report of Religious Activities for
1967-91 (Bangkok: Ministry of Education, Department of Religious Affairs, 1992).
31. Roscoe, The Monastic Life, 12.
32. Ibid., 14.
33. Visalo, “The Forest Monastery,” 297.
34. P. A. Payutto, A Buddhist Solution for the Twenty-First Century, 2nd ed.
(Bangkok: Sahathammik, 1993), 7; and Payutto, Buddhist Economics.
35. This account is based on Sanitsuda Ekachai, Seeds of Hope: Local
Initiatives in Thailand (Bangkok: Thai Development Support Committee, 1994),
124-29. See also 72-83 in her book.
36. Mark Graham and Philip Round, Thailand’s Vanishing Flora and Fauna
(Bangkok: Finance Once Public, 1994), 71. See also Darlington, Buddhism,
Morality, and Change; Susan Marie Darlington, “Monks and Environmental
Conservation: A Case Study in Nan Province,” Seeds of Peace 9, no. 1 (1993):7-10;
and Darlington, “The Ordination of a Tree: The Buddhist Ecology Movement in
Thailand,” in Ecology, Ethnicity, and Religion in Thailand, ed. Leslie E. Sponsel
and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, forthcoming; Joe Franke, “A Walk with the Monk
Who Ordained Trees,” Shambhala Sun, November 1995, 48-53; Grady, “A
Buddhist Response to Modernization in Thailand”; Steve Magagnini, “If a Tree
Falls. . .A Monk’s Blessing for Thailand’s Forest,’ Amicus Journal 16, no. 2
(summer 1994:12—14; and J. L. Taylor, “Social Activism and Resistance on the
Thai Frontier: The Case of Phra Prajak Khuttajitto,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian
Scholars 25, no. 2 (1993):3-16.
37. See, for example, Harris, “How Environmentalist Is Buddhism?”
38. See also Mehden, “The Impact of Modernization on Religion,” 99-104.
39. See Yoneo Ishii, Sangha, State, and Society: Thai Buddhism in History
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986); Mehden, “The Impact of Modern-
ization on Religion,” 76-79; and Swearer, The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia,
102-4.
40. Santikaro, “Planting Rice Together,” 17.
41. Franke, “A Walk with the Monk Who Ordained Trees,” 50.
42. Santikaro, “Planting Rice Together,” 20. See also Tim Ward, What the
Buddha Never Taught (Berkeley: Celestial Arts Publishing, 1993), 225.
43. Mehden, “The Impact of Modernization on Religion,” 83.
44. Roscoe, The Monastic Life, 27-29.
45. Irene Diamond and Gloria Feman Orenstein, eds., Reweaving the World:
The Emergence of Ecofeminism (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1990).
46. Sponsel and Natadecha-Sponsel, “The Relevance of Buddhism for the
Development of an Environmental Ethic,” 87; cf. Mehden, “The Impact of
Modernization on Religion,” 180-82, 186, 197-98, 205.
 The Monastic Community in Thailand 67

47. See J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames, “Epilogue: On the Relation of
Idea and Action,” in Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environ-
mental Philosophy, ed. Callicott and Ames (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1989), 279-89; Stephen R. Kellert, “Culture,” in his The Value of Life:
Biological Diversity and Human Society (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996),
131-52; Mehden, “The Impact of Modernization on Religion”; Swearer, The
Buddhist World of Southeast Asia, 5-7; and Tuan Yi-Fu, “Discrepancies between
Environmental Attitude and Behaviour: Examples from Europe and China,”
Canadian Geographer 12, no. 3 (1968):176—91.
48. Keyes, “Thai Religion”; Visalo, “The Forest Monastery.” See also Jack
Kornfield and Paul Breiter, eds., A Still Forest Pool: The Insight Meditation of
Achaan Chah (Wheaton, IIl.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1985).
49, See the critical accounts of the monkhood in Thailand by Santikaro,
“Planting Rice Together,” and Ward, What the Buddha Never Taught.
50. United Nations University, Asia’s New Initiatives in the 1990s: The Peace
Process, Economic Cooperation, Management of the Environment (Tokyo: United
Nations University Japan-ASEAN Forum, 1994).
51. For example, Visalo, “The Forest Monastery,” 295-96.
52. See Mehden, “The Impact of Modernization on Religion,” 106, 112-14,

154, 179-82, 195. See also Theodore Mayer, “Thailand’s New Buddhist Move-
ments in Historical and Political Context,” in Bryan Hunsaker, Theodore Mayer,
Barbara Griffiths, and Robert Dayley, Loggers, Monks, Students, and Entre-
preneurs: Four Essays on Thailand (DeKalb, Ill.: Center for Southeast Asian
Studies, Northern Illinois University, 1996), 33-66.
53. A. F. C. Wallace, “Revitalization Movements,” American Anthropologist
58 (1956):264-81.
54. Mehden, “The Impact of Modernization on Religion,” 184.
55. Leslie E. Sponsel, “Cultural Ecology and Environmental Education,”
Journal of Environmental Education 19, no. 1 (1987):31—42; Poranee Natadecha,
“Nature and Culture in Thailand: The Implementation of Cultural Ecology and
Environmental Education through the Application of Behavioral Sociology” (Ph.D.
diss., University of Hawaii, 1991).
56. Donald K. Swearer, “Francis of Assisi, Moral Exemplars, and Environ-

mental Ethics,” in Man and Culture: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Bangkok:

Chulalongkorn University Press, 1993), 196.
57. Sanitsuda Ekachai, Behind the Smile: Voices of Thailand (Bangkok: Thai
Development Support Committee, 1990), and Seeds of Hope.
58. See Christopher Key Chapple, Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in
Asian Traditions (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996); Kenneth

Kraft, Inner Peace, World Peace: Essays on Buddhism and Nonviolence (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1992); Glenn D. Paige and Sarah Gilliatt,

eds., Buddhism and Nonviolent Global Problem-Solving (Honolulu: Center for

68 Buddhism and Ecology

Global Nonviolence and Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace, 1991); and
Santikaro, “Planting Rice Together,” 20.
59. Darlington, Buddhism, Morality, and Change, “Monks and Environmental
Conservation,” and “The Ordination of a Tree.”
60. See note 7 above.
61. Santikaro Bhikkhu, “Buddhadasa Bhikkhu: Life and Society through the
Natural Eyes of Voidness,” in Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements
in Asia, ed. Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1996), 147-94; and Sivaraksa et al., Radical Conservatism:
Buddhism in the Contemporary World.
Mahayana Buddhism and Ecology:
The Case of Japan
 The Jeweled Net of Nature

Paul O. Ingram

Most significant and profound is the teaching of the

ultimate path of Mahayana. It teaches salvation of
oneself and others. It does not exclude even animals
or birds. The flowers in the spring fall beneath its
branches; Dew in autumn vanishes before the
withered grass.
—Sango shiki (Indications of the goals of the
three teachings)!

During my last visit to Japan I was invited by three Shingon

Buddhist lay scholars to a restaurant outside Osaka specializing in
the preparation and serving of a deadly toxic fish known as fugu.
Though it has a certain Russian-roulette quality, eating fugu is
considered by many Japanese to be a highly aesthetic experience.
Of course, I declined; my aesthetic tastes run in different
directions. Still, the experience of watching my friends eat fugu
made me wonder about the condition that we, in chauvinistic
shorthand, refer to as “human.” Beings who will one day vanish
from the earth in that ultimate subtraction of sensuality called death,
we spend so much of our lives courting it: fomenting wars,
watching, with sickening horror, movies in which maniacs slice and
dice their victims, or hurrying to our own deaths in fast cars, through
cigarette smoking, or by committing suicide. Death obsesses us, as
well it might, but our responses are so strange.
This is particularly true of our response to nature. All we have
to do is look in a mirror. The face that pins us with its double gaze
reveals a frightening secret: we look into a predator’s eyes. It’s rough
out there in nature, whether in the wilds of a rain forest or an urban
72 Buddhism and Ecology

jungle, partly because the earth is jammed with devout human

predators unlike all others: we not only kill for food, we kill each
other along with the natural forces that nourish life on this planet.
We stalk and kill nature even as we know what contemporary
ecological research makes plain: that we are enfolded in a living,
terrestrial environment in which all living and nonliving things are
so mutually implicated and interrelated that no distinct line separates
life from nonlife.? This conclusion is not only a biological claim;
it is also a claim about the nature of reality. Of necessity, ecological
research alters our understanding of ourselves, individually, and of
human nature, generally. Or at least it ought to. For not only do
“ecology and contemporary physics complement one another
conceptually and converge toward the same metaphysical notions,’’3
so also do contemporary process theology and Buddhist teachings
and practices. The question is, how can we, the most efficiently
aggressive predators in nature, train ourselves to act according to
what this research shows?
It is least of all a matter of technology and mostly a matter of
vision, that sense of reality—“the way things really are”—according
to which we most appropriately structure our relation to nature. For,
as Proverbs 29:18 warns, “Where there is no vision, the people
perish.” My thesis is this: Dialogical encounter with Buddhist
traditions—in this case illustrated by the esoteric teachings of the
Japanese Buddhist monk Kikai (774—835)—and Western ecological
models of reality, as seen emerging in the natural sciences and
Christian process theology, may energize an already evolving global
vision through which to refigure and resolve the current ecological
crisis. What is at stake is nothing less than the “liberation of life.’4
But first, some remarks on mainstream Christian teaching about
nature. In 1967, Lynn White, Jr.’s, controversial essay, “The
Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,”> started a debate that raged
through the 1970s among theologians, philosophers, and scientists.
One focal point of this debate was White’s recommendation for
reforming the Christian Way in order to lead humanity out of the
ecological shadow of death he thought “mainstream Christianity”
originally created. Specifically, he recommended that mainstream
Christianity endorse a “Franciscan worldview” and “panpsychism”
in order to reconstruct, deliberately, a contemporary Western
environmental ethic.®
 The Jeweled Net of Nature 73

Initial reaction to White’s essay focused on identifying the

Christian worldview. Surprisingly, there was little Christian bashing;
more surprising, most Christian discussion agreed with White’s
characterization of Christian tradition. But there was little agreement
about how to reconstruct a distinctively Christian view of nature,
or indeed, whether it could or should be reconstructed.
Recently, the structure of “mainstream” Christian tradition
roughly caricatured by White was formulated into a typology by
J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames:’ 1) God transcends nature;
2) nature is a creation, an artifact, of a divine craftsman-like male
creator; 3) human beings are exclusively created in God’s image and
therefore are essentially segregated from the rest of nature; 4) human
beings are given dominion by God over nature; 5) God commands
humanity to subdue nature and multiply the human species;
6) nature is viewed politically and hierarchically—God over human-
ity, humanity over nature, male over female—which establishes an
exploitive ethical-political pecking order and power structure; 7) the
image of God-in-humanity is the ground of humanity’s intrinsic
value, but nonhuman entities lack the divine image and are
religiously and ethically disenfranchised and possess merely
instrumental value for God and human beings; 8) the biblical view
of nature’s instrumental value is compounded in mainline Christian
theology by an Aristotelian-Thomistic teleology that represents
nature as a support system for rational human beings.
The upshot of this seems clear. The great monotheistic traditions
of the West are the major sources of Western moral and political
attitudes. Christianity doctrinally focuses on humanity’s uniqueness
as a species. Thus, if one wants theological license to increase
radioactivity without constraint, to consent to the bulldozer men-
tality of developers, or to encourage unbridled harvest of old-growth
forests, historically there has been no better scriptural source than
Genesis, chapters 1 and 2. The mythological injunctions to conquer
nature, the enemy of God and humanity, are here.
However, placing the full blame for the environmental crisis on
the altar of the Christian Way is far too simplistic. Historically, the
biblical creation story was read through the sensitivities of Greco-
Roman philosophy; in fact, the legacy of Greco-Roman contri-
butions to the ecological crisis may be more powerfully influential
than distinctively biblical contributions.
74 Buddhism and Ecology

Furthermore, Greek philosophical anthropology assumed an

atomistic worldview, paradigmatically expressed in Plato and given
its modern version by Descartes. Human nature is dualistic,
composed of body and soul. The body, especially in Descartes’s
version, is like any other natural entity, exhaustively describable in
atomistic-mechanistic language. But the human soul resides tempo-
rarily in the body—the ghost in the machine—and is otherworldly
in nature and destiny. Thus, human beings are both essentially and
morally segregated from God, nature, and each other. Accordingly,
the natural environment can and should be engineered to human
specifications, no matter what the environmental consequences,
without either human responsibility or penalty.
Here we have it in a nutshell. The contemporary ecological crisis
represents a failure of prevailing Western ideas and attitudes: a male-
oriented culture in which it is believed that reality exists only as
human beings perceive it (Berkeley); whose structure is a hierarchy
erected to support humanity at its apex (Aristotle, Aquinas,
Descartes); to whom God has given exclusive dominance over all
life-forms and inorganic entities (Genesis 1-2); in which God has
been transformed into humanity’s image by modern secularism
(Genesis inverted). It seems unlikely that mainstream Christian
tradition, married as it is in the West to the traditions of Greco-
Roman philosophy, is capable of resolving the ecological crisis that
Christian reading of Genesis 1-2 through Greco-Roman philosophy
created.
However, the traditional Western-Christian paradigm of nature
is being challenged by new ecological models and theoretical
explanations of the interconnectedness of humanity and nature that
are developing within the natural sciences. Recent Christian
theological discussion, most notably process theology, also focuses
on these same scientific models, recognizing the inadequacies of
traditional Christian and secular views of nature.? Of course, there
are a number of Western versions of this emerging ecological
paradigm; no two are exactly alike in their technical details or
explanatory categories. Even so, it is possible to abstract three
principles these paradigms share. !°
The first principle is holistic unity—nature is an “ecosystem”
whose constituent elements exist in constantly changing, inter-
dependent causal relationships. What an entity is, or becomes, is a
 The Jeweled Net of Nature TS

direct function of how it relates with every other entity in the

universe at every moment of space-time. Second is the principle of
interior life movements—all living entities possess a life force
intrinsic to their own natures that is not imposed from other things
or from God but is derived from life itself. That is, life is an
emerging field of force supporting networks of interrelationship and
interdependency ceaselessly occurring in all entities in the universe.
Or, to invert traditional Christian images of God, God does not
impose or give life; God is the chief exemplar of life. The third
principle—that of organic balance—means that all things and events
at every moment of space-time are interrelated bipolar processes that
proceed toward balance and harmony between opposites.
Similar organic principles have always been structural elements
of the Buddhist worldview. The Shingon (Chinese, chen-yen, or
“truth word”) “esoteric” (Japanese, mikkyd, or “secret teaching’’)
transmission established in Japan by Ktkai in the ninth century
particularly embraces these elements.!! Ktkai’s Buddhist environ-
mental paradigm is summarized in the first stanza of a two-stanza
poem he wrote in Chinese in Attaining Enlightenment in This Very
Existence (Sokushin jobutsu gi):
The Six Great Elements are interfused and are in a state of eternal
harmony;
The Four Mandalas are inseparably related to one another.
When the grace of the Three Mysteries is retained, (our inborn three
mysteries will) quickly be manifested.
Infinitely interrelated like the meshes of Indra’s net are those we
call existences.!2
The first line, “The Six Great Elements are interfused and are in a
state of eternal harmony,” presupposes two propositions upon which
Ktikai’s Buddhist understanding of nature rests: 1) the Buddha,
Dainichi Nyorai, or “Great Sun” (Sanskrit, Mahavairocana Tathagata),
and the Six Great Elements are interfused; and 2) Dainichi and the
universe coexist in a state of timeless nondual harmony.
Kiikai’s buddhology and subsequent Shingon doctrinal formu-
lation assumed standard Mahayana “three-body” theory (Sanskrit,
trikaya; Japanese, sanshin), but with a difference. Prior to Kikai’s
teacher, Hui-kuo, Dainichi was symbolized as one of a number of
sambhogakaya (“body of bliss”) forms of absolute reality called
76 Buddhism and Ecology

dharmakaya (Dharma or teaching body) that all Buddhas com-

prehend and manifest when they become “enlightened ones.” But
in Exoteric Buddhist teaching and Esoteric Buddhist tantra prior to
Hui-kuo and Kukai, the dharmakdaya is ultimate reality, beyond
names and forms, utterly beyond verbal capture by doctrines, while
yet the foundational source of all Buddhist thought and practice.
Thus, sambhogakaya forms of Buddhas are not “historical Buddhas”
(nirmanakaya), of whom the historical Sakyamuni is an example:
they exist in nonhistorical realms of being, forever enjoying their
enlightened bliss, as objects of human veneration and devotion.
Normally, bodhisattvas and nonhistorical Buddhas, including
Dainichi, were represented as sambhogakaya forms of the eternal
dharmakaya.
It was probably Hui-kuo who first identified Dainichi as the
dharmakaya Buddha and who taught that the Dainichi-kyd and the
Kongocho-kyd, which according to Shingon teaching embody the
fullest expression of truth, were as Dainichi preached, not the
historical Sakyamuni.!3 Kikai, following Hui-kuo, transformed
Dainichi into a personified, uncreated, imperishable, beginningless
and endless Ultimate Reality. He reasoned that as the sun is the
source of light and warmth, Dainichi is the “Great Luminous One”
at the source of enlightenment and unity underlying the diversity
of the phenomenal world. And, since Buddha-nature is within all
things and events in space-time—an idea Kikai also accepted—the
implication is that Dainichi is the ultimate reality “originally” within
all sentient beings and nonsentient natural phenomena. As Kikai
explained it:

Where is the Dharmakaya? It is not far away; it is in our own body.

The source of wisdom? In our mind; indeed, it is close to us!!4

As a Buddhist, Kukai also accepted the doctrine of dependent

co-origination (Sanskrit, pratitya-samutpada), but he interpreted this
teaching according to his notion that reality is constituted by the
Six Great Elements in ceaselessly interdependent and interpene-
trating interaction: earth, water, fire, wind, space, and consciousness
or “mind” (Sanskrit, citta; Japanese, shin). The adjective “great”
signifies the universality of each element. The first five elements
stand for all material realities, and the last, “consciousness,” for the
Body and Mind of Dainichi.
 The Jeweled Net of Nature T/

All Buddhas and unenlightened beings, all sentient and non-

sentient beings, all material “worlds” are “created” by the ceaseless
interaction of the Six Great Elements. This means that all phe-
nomena are identical in their constituent self-identity; all are in a
state of constant transformation; and there are no absolute differ-
ences between human nature and the natural order, body and mind,
male and female, enlightenment and ignorance. In short, reality—
the way things really are—is nondual. In Kikai’s words:

Differences exist between matter and mind, but in their essential

nature they remain the same. Matter is no other than mind; mind,
no other than matter. Without any obstruction, they are interrelated.
The subject is the object; the object, the subject. The seeing is the
seen, and the seen is the seeing. Nothing differentiates them.
Although we speak of the creating and the created, there is in reality
neither the creating nor the created.!°

The problem raised, then, is: how do we train ourselves to

experience this eternal cosmic harmony and attune ourselves to it
as it occurs? This “how” is expressed in the second line of the
stanza: “The Four Mandalas are inseparably related to one another.”
Involved here is the practice of meditation, which in Shingon
tradition is a skillful method (updaya) of integrating our body, speech,
and mind (the “three mysteries,” or sanmitsu) with the eternal
harmony of Dainichi’s Body, Speech, and Mind. In this sense,
Shingon meditation is a process of imitation of Dainichi’s enlight-
ened harmony with nature through ritual performance of mudras
(Body), mantras (Speech), and mandalas (Mind).
Shingon training involves a number of mandalas, but Kikai’s
poem refers to four. The “Maha-mandalas” or “Great Mandalas”
(Japanese, daimandara) are circular portrayals of Buddhas,
bodhisattvas, and deities in anthropomorphic form painted in the
five Buddhist colors—yellow, white, red, black, and blue or blue
green. These colors correspond to five of the Six Great Elements:
earth is yellow, water is white, fire is red, wind is black, space is
blue. Since consciousness is nonmaterial, it is colorless and cannot
be depicted in the mandala. But Kikai also taught that there is
perfect interpenetration of the Six Great Elements, so that conscious-
ness is present in the five colors and pervades the painting. Thus,
78 Buddhism and Ecology

Maha-mandalas symbolize the universe as the physical extension

of Dainichi.
The second mandala is the Samaya-mandala. Samaya is a
Sanskrit word meaning “a coming together and agreement.” So
Samaya-mandalas express the ontological unity underlying the
diversity of all things in space-time as forms of Dainichi’s Dharma
body. Accordingly, every thing and event in the universe is a samaya
or “a coming together and agreement” of this ontological unity—
all things and events are forms of Dainichi—experienced from the
perspective of Dainichi as well as of all Buddhas.!®
The third mandala, the Dharma-mandala, is the same circle as
the Maha-mandala and the Samaya-mandala, but “viewed” as the
sphere where “revelation” of absolute truth—the Dharma—takes
place. Thus Dharma-mandalas portray Dainichi Nyorai’s continual
communication of the Dharma throughout all moments of space-
time to all sentient and nonsentient beings. The universe is
Dainichi’s “sound-body.” Dharma-mandalas represent the totality of
the sound of the Dharma as Dainichi continually discloses or
“preaches” it throughout the universe as depicted in “seed syllables”
(Sanskrit, bija; Japanese, shuji) written in Sanskrit letters.
Finally, Karma-mandalas are the same circle viewed from the
perspective of Dainichi’s action in the realm of samsdra. Since, as
Kikai taught, all things and events, all transformations in the flux
of nature, interpenetrate the actions of Dainichi’s Dharma body,
every change in any form or entity is simultaneously an action of
Dainichi. Conversely, every action of Dainichi is simultaneously the
action of all things and events in the universe.!7
In summary, the Four Mandalas symbolize Dainichi Nyorai’s
“extension, intention, communication, and action.”!8 “Extension” is
Dainichi’s compassionate wisdom; “communication” is his intended
“self-revelation” as the “preaching of the dharmakaya” in all things
and events in space-time; and his “action” is all movement in the
universe.
The third line of the stanza, “When the grace of the Three
Mysteries is retained, (our inborn three mysteries will) quickly be
manifested,” summarizes Kitikai’s conception of Esoteric Buddhist
practice. In relation to Dainichi Nyorai, the Three Mysteries stand
for suprarational activities or macrocosmic functions of Dainichi’s
Body, Speech, and Mind at work in all things and events. Through
 The Jeweled Net of Nature 79

the Mystery of Body, Dainichi’s “suchness” is incarnate within the

patterns and forms of all natural phenomena; the Mystery of Speech
refers to Dainichi’s continual “preaching” or “revelation” of the
Dharma through every thing and event in space time; the Mystery
of Mind refers to Dainichi’s own enlightened experience of the
suchness of all natural phenomena as interdependent forms of the
dharmakaya.'? In this way, Kikai personified the Three Mysteries
as interrelated forms of Dainichi’s enlightened compassion toward
all sentient and nonsentient beings.
Finally, in the stanza’s fourth line, “Infinitely interrelated like the
meshes of Indra’s net are those we call existences,” Kikai employed
the well-known Buddhist metaphor of Indra’s net. As every jewel
of Indra’s net reflects all others, and as all jewels are reflected in a
single jewel, so existence is Dainichi Nyorai: seemingly discrete
entities are interdependent forms of Dainichi, the one ultimate
reality underlying the diversity of all natural phenomena. Or, in
Kitkai’s words:

Existence is my existence, the existences of the Buddhas, and the

existences of all sentient beings. .. . The Existence of the Buddha
[Mahavairocana] is the existences of the sentient beings and vice
versa. They are not identical but are nevertheless identical; they are
not different but are nevertheless different.2°

That Kikai’s Esoteric Buddhist teachings assert an ecological

conception of nature quite different from mainstream Christian
tradition is quite evident. First, Christian tradition understands and
explains the universe in terms of a divine plan with respect to its
creation and final end. Kikai’s universe is completely nonteleo-
logical. For him, the universe has neither beginning nor end, no
creator, and no purpose. The universe just is, to be taken as given,
a marvelous fact which can be understood only in terms of its own
inner dynamism.
Second, mainstream Christian teaching and our Greek philosoph-
ical heritage have taught the West that nature is a world of limited,
external, and special relationships. We have family relationships,
marital relationships, relationships with a limited number of animal
species, and occasional relationships with inanimate objects, most
of which are external. But it is hard for us to imagine how any one
80 Buddhism and Ecology

thing is internally related to everything. How, for example, are we

related to a star in Orion? How are Euro-Americans related to
Lakota Native Americans or Alaskan Inuit? How are plants and
animals related to us, other than externally as objects for exploita-
tion? In short, those trained in Western philosophical traditions
generally find it easier to think of isolated beings and insulated
minds, rather than of one reality ontologically interconnecting all
things and events. In contrast, Kikai’s universe is a universe of
nondual-identity-in-difference, in which there is total interdepen-
dence: what affects and effects one item in the cosmos affects and
effects every item, whether it is death, ignorance, enlightenment,
or sin.
Finally, the mainstream Christian view of existence is one of rigid
hierarchy, in which a male creator-god occupies the top link in the
chain of being, human beings follow, and nature—animals, plants,
rocks—are at the bottom. Kikai’s universe, however, posits no
hierarchy. Nor does it have a center—or if it does, it is everywhere.
In sum, Kutkai’s universe leaves no room for anthropocentric biases
endemic to Hebraic and Christian tradition, as well as those modern
movements of philosophy having roots in Cartesian affirmation of
human consciousness divorced from dead nature.
It is at this point that Kikai’s Esoteric Buddhist worldview makes
contact with the vision and work of earlier Western physicists such
as Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell, later physicists such
as Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, and process philosophy and
Christian process theology. Like Western new physics and process
thought, Kukai’s worldview also characterizes nature as an
“aesthetic order” that cognitively resonates with contemporary
Western ecological ideas.
According to Roger Ames,*! an “aesthetic order” is a paradigm
that 1) proposes plurality as prior to unity and disjunction to
conjunction, so that all particulars possess real and unique individu-
ality; 2) focuses on the unique perspective of concrete particulars
as the source of emergent harmony and unity in all interrela-
tionships; 3) entails movement away from any universal charac-
teristic to concrete particular detail; 4) apprehends movement and
change in the natural order as a processive act of “disclosure,” and
hence describable in qualitative language; 5) perceives that nothing
is predetermined by preassigned principles, so that creativity is
 The Jeweled Net of Nature 81

apprehended in the natural order in contrast to being determined by

God or chance; and 6) understands “rightness” to mean the degree
to which a thing or event expresses, in its emergence toward novelty
as this exists in tension with the unity of nature, an aesthetically
pleasing order.
In contrast to the aesthetic order implicit in Ktkai’s view of
nature and contemporary science and process thought, the “logical
order” of mainline Christianity characterized by Ames 1) assumes
preassigned patterns of relatedness, a “blueprint” wherein unity 1s
prior to plurality and plurality is a “fall” from unity; 2) values
concrete particularity only to the degree it mirrors this preassigned
pattern of relatedness; 3) reduces particulars to only those aspects
needed to illustrate the given pattern, which necessarily entails
moving away from concrete particulars toward the universal;
4) interprets nature as a closed system of predetermined speci-
fications and therefore reducible to quantitative description;
5) characterizes being as necessity, creativity as conformity, and
novelty as defect; and 6) views “rightness” as the degree of
conformity to preassigned patterns.?2
A number of examples of logical order come to mind: Plato’s
realm of Ideas, for instance, constitutes a preassigned pattern that
charts particular things and events as real or good only to the degree
they conform to these preexistent ideas. But aesthetic orders such
as Kukai’s or process philosophy’s are easily distinguishable from
a logical order. In both, there are no preassigned patterns in things
and events in nature. Creativity and order work themselves out
through the arrangements and relationships of the particular
constituents in the natural order. Nature is a “work of art” in which
“rightness” is defined by the comprehension of particular details that
constitute it as a work of art.
Of course, the technical details of the “aesthetic order” portrayed
by Kukai’s ecological paradigm, and, for example, those of Christian
process theology, are not identical. This much, however, should be
noted: in spite of important technical differences, two common
conceptualities are foundational in Kikai’s worldview and
Whiteheadian process theology. The first is that there is continuity
within nature. Kikai portrayed this continuity in his doctrines of
the Three Mysteries and the Six Great Elements. For both Kikai
and Whiteheadian thought, nature’s continuity extends internal
82 Buddhism and Ecology

relatedness—a metaphysical relatedness in which individuals and

societies are constituted by relationships of interdependence—to
organic and inorganic nature. The second shared teaching is that
human beings have a vital connection with nature, since all of nature
is interconnected. This corresponds to Kikai’s image of Indra’s
jeweled net, as well as to his doctrine of the Six Great Elements.
Alfred North Whitehead’s definition of “living body” gives some
precision to these similarities. The living body, he writes, is “a
region of nature which is itself the primary field of expression
issuing from each of its parts.”23 Those entities that are centers of
expression and feeling are alive, and Whitehead clearly applies this
description to both animal and vegetable bodies. Also, this same
definition of living body is an expansion of his definition of the
human and animal body; the distinction between animals and
vegetables is not a sharp one.**
Whitehead also contends that precise classification of the
differences between organic and inorganic nature is not possible;
although such classification might be pragmatically useful for
scientific investigation, it is dangerous for nature. Scientific
classifications often obscure the fact that “different modes of natural
existence often shade off into each other.’2> The same point was
made in Process and Reality, where Whitehead noted that there are
no distinct boundaries in the continuum of nature, and thus no
distinct boundaries between living organisms and inorganic entities;
whatever differences there are is a matter of degree. This does not
mean that differences are unimportant; even degrees of difference
affirm the continuity of all nature.?¢
This point is central to Whiteheadian biologist Charles Birch and
process theologian John Cobb’s definition of “life.” They raise the
issue of the boundaries between animate and inanimate in light of
the ambiguity of “life” on hypothetical boundaries.2’ Viruses are
particularly good examples of entities possessing the properties of
life and nonlife. Another example is cellular organelles, which
reproduce but are incapable of life independent of the cell that is
their environment.
The significance of these examples for the ecological model of
life Birch and Cobb propose is that every entity is internally related
to its environment. Human beings are not exceptions to the model,
nor, in Cobb’s opinion, is God, who is the chief example of what
 The Jeweled Net of Nature 83

constitutes life.28 Kiikai’s views are similar: every entity in nature

is internally related to its environment and to Dainichi. Although
Dainichi is not a reality Christians or Shingon Buddhists name as
God, like God, Dainichi is the chief example of what constitutes life.
As there is continuity between organic and inorganic in White-
headian process thought, so too there is continuity between human
and nonhuman. Whitehead underscored this continuity by including
“higher animals” in his definition of “living persons.” Both human
beings and animals are living persons characterized by a dominant
occasion of experience which coordinates and unifies the activities
of the plurality of occasions and enduring objects which ceaselessly
form persons. Personal order is linear, serial, object-to-subject
inheritance of the past in the present. Personal order in human
beings and in nature is one component of what Whitehead called
“the doctrine of the immanence of the past energizing the present.”2?
This linear, one-dimensional character of personal inheritance from
the past is called the “vector-structure” of nature. A similar picture
of nature evolves in Kitikai’s notions of the Six Great Elements and
the Three Mysteries.
The question could be asked: Why is it important for Western
organic environmental paradigms to encounter Asian versions of
organic views of nature such as Ktkai’s? The answer is: Because
what people do to the natural environment corresponds to what they
think and experience about themselves in relation to the things
around them.
Even at the level of empirical confirmation of scientific theory,
it seems evident that “the ruination of the natural world is directly
related to the psychological and spiritual health of the human race
since our practices follow our perceptions.”°° Culture and world-
view, faith and practice merge in language and indicate perceptions
in persons and in societies. By relating to nature as a “thing”
separate from ourselves or as separate from God, we not only have
engendered but also perpetuate the environmental nightmare through
which we are now living. The Christian term for this separation of
ourselves from nature is “original sin”; the Buddhist word is
“desire” (tanha@).
The environmental destructiveness of Western rationalism’s
hyper-yang view of its own culture and of nature has been to a large
extent delayed. But the ecological limits of the earth are now
84 Buddhism and Ecology

stretched and, in some cases, broken. Dialogue with Asian views

of nature such as Kikai’s can foster the process of Western self-
critical “consciousness raising” by providing alternative places from
which to imagine new possibilities. In so doing, we might discern
deeper organic strata within our own inherited cultural biases and
assumptions and apprehend that we neither stand against nor
dominate nature.
Like any particular dialogue, dialogue between Buddhists and
Christians about nature has an inner and an outer dimension.
Discussion of organic paradigms must not remain at the level of
verbal abstraction. Buddhists can understand and appreciate the
conceptions and technical language of Christian process views;
process theologians can understand and appreciate Buddhist
conceptions of nature. Both may be conceptually transformed. But
this is an outer dialogue. Important as such dialogue is, it is
incomplete if divorced from an inner dialogue about how Buddhists
and Christians can personally experience nonduality between
themselves and nature. For to the degree we experience the realities
to which Buddhist and process Christian concepts of nature point,
we are energized to live according to the organic structures of nature
that outer dialogue conceptually reveals.
It’s like the union of lyrics with music in a great chorale: the
“music” of inner dialogue “enfleshes” the abstract lyrics of outer
dialogue. What inner dialogue teaches is that we can live in what-
ever way we choose. In “Living Like Weasels” the poet and essayist
Annie Dillard says just that: “We can live any way we want. People
take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience—even of silence—
by choice.” People destroy the environment—by choice—because
they experience it only as a machine. Choosing to experience nature
organically “is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple
way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse.
This is yielding, not fighting”>!— yielding to nature, not dominating
nature.
From Kikai’s perspective transformed by encounter with
Christian process thought, outer and inner dialogue means to follow
our collective path with embodied detachment. As Annie Dillard has
written:

I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp
your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever
 The Jeweled Net of Nature 85

it takes you. Then even death, where you’re going no matter how
you live, cannot you part.?2

In so doing, we discover there was nothing to grasp all along,

because we are nature, looking at ourselves.
Or, from a Christian process theological perspective transformed
by inner and outer dialogue with Ktkai: God does not demand that
we give up our personal dignity, that we throw in our lot with
random people, that we lose ourselves and turn from all that is not
God. For God is the “life” of nature, intimior intimo meo, as
Augustine put it—“‘more intimate than I am to myself.” God, like
the stars, needs nothing, demands nothing. It is life with God that
demands these things. Of course, we do not have to stop abusing
the environment; not at all. We do not have to stop abusing nature—
unless we want to know God. It is like sitting outside on a cold,
clear winter’s night. We are not obligated to do so; it may be too
cold. If, however, we want to look at the stars, we will find that
darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.
86 Buddhism and Ecology

Notes

1. Kikai: Major Works, translated, with an account of his life and a study of
his thought, by Yoshito S. Hakeda (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972),
139. All citations from Kikai’s works in this essay are from Hakeda’s translation,
although I have checked them against the Chinese text in Yoshitake Inage, ed.,
Kobé daishi zenshii (The complete works of Kobo Daishi), 3rd ed. rev. (Tokyo:
Mikkyo Bunka Kenkyuisha, 1965), Although Hakeda’s volume does not translate
all of Kukai’s works, it remains the best English translation of Kikai’s most
influential writings in print. Since I cannot improve on Hakeda’s translations, I
have cited his with gratitude.
2. Charles Birch and John B. Cobb, Jr., The Liberation of Life (Denton, Tex.:
Environmental Ethics Books, 1990), chap. 3.
3. J. Baird Callicott, “The Metaphysical Implications of Ecology,” in Nature
in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, ed. J. Baird
Callicott and Roger T. Ames (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1989), 51.
4. See Birch and Cobb, The Liberation of Life, chaps. 1-2.
5. Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155
(1967):1203-7.
6. Ibid., 1206-7.
7. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames, “Introduction: The Asian Traditions
as a Conceptual Resource for Environmental Philosophy,” in Nature in Asian
Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, ed. J. Baird Callicott
and Roger T. Ames (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 3-4.
8. See E. A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Garden
City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1954). Also see Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept
of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971); two recent studies by
Kenneth Boulding, The World as a Total System (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage
Publications, 1985) and Ecodynamics (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications,
1981); and two works by Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics (Boulder, Colo.:
Shambhala Publications, 1975) and The Turning Point (New York: Bantam Books,
1982).
9. See Birch and Cobb, The Liberation of Life; Richard H. Oberman, Evolution
and the Christian Doctrine of Creation (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967);
and a series of wonderful essays edited by Ian Barbour, Earth Might Be Fair:
Reflections on Ethics, Religion, and Ecology (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice
Hall, 1972), especially Huston Smith’s essay, “Tao Now: An Ecological State-
ment,” 66-69.
10. Much of what follows is based on previous research published in my essay
“Nature’s Jeweled Net: Kukai’s Ecological Buddhism,” Pacific World 6 (1990):
50-64.
 The Jeweled Net of Nature 87

11. Kiikai (774-835), “Empty Sea,” is commonly known as Kobo daishi, an

honorific title posthumously awarded to him by the Heian Court. “KObo” means
“to widely transmit the Buddha’s teachings,” and “daishi” means “great teacher.”
Widely revered in his own time, Kikai remains a figure of profound reverence in
Japan today, both as a Buddhist master and a cultural hero. In 804, Kikai traveled
to China to study Buddhism, and while there he visited many eminent teachers,
among whom was the esoteric master Hui-kuo (746-805). He became Hui-kuo’s
favorite disciple. Presumably, Kikai’s understanding of Hui-kuo’s teachings was
so impressive that Hui-kuo declared Kikai his dharma heir before he died. Kukai’s
study in China lasted only thirty months, and he returned to Japan at the age of
thirty-three as the eighth patriarch of the Shingon School. See Hakeda, Kikai,
10-15.
12. Ibid., 227.
13. Ibid., 81-82. Also see Taiko Yamasaki, Shingon: Japanese Esoteric
Buddhism, trans. Richard Peterson and Cynthia Peterson, ed. Yasuyoshi Morimoto
and David Kidd (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1988), 62-64.
14. Hakeda, Kitkai, 82.
15. Sokushin jébutsu gi (Attaining enlightenment in this very existence), in
ibid., 229-30.
16. Samaya-mandalas portray each of the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and deities
in some samaya or “symbolic” form, such as a jewel, sword, or lotus, that
embodies the special quality of the individual Buddha, bodhisattva, or deity
portrayed.
17. Karma-mandalas portray the “actions of awe-inspiring deportment”
(rijigyo) of all Buddhas and bodhisattvas in three-dimensional figures representing
each particular Buddha and bodhisattva painted in the five colors of the Maha-
mandala.
18. Hakeda, Kikai, 91.
19. Adrian Snodgrass, “The Shingon Buddhist Doctrine of Interpenetration,”
Religious Traditions 9 (1986):66—68; and Yamasaki, Shingon, 106.
20. Sokushin jobutsu gi (Attaining enlightenment in this very existence), in
Hakeda, Kikai, 232.
21. Roger T. Ames, “Putting the Te Back into Taoism,” in Nature in Asian
Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, ed. J. Baird Callicott
and Roger T. Ames (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 117.
22. Ibid., 116.
23. Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought (New York: Macmillan,
1938), 31.
24. Ibid., 31-34.
25. Ibid., 25.
26. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Free Press,
1978), 109 and 179.
88 Buddhism and Ecology

27. Birch and Cobb, The Liberation of Life, 92.

28. Ibid., 176-78, 195-200.
29. Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Macmillan,
1933), 188.
30. Jay C. Rochelle, “Letting Go: Buddhism and Christian Models,” Eastern
Buddhist 9 (autumn 1989):45.
31. Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New
York: Harper and Row, 1982), 16.
32. Ibid.
 The Japanese Concept of Nature
in Relation to the Environmental Ethics and
Conservation Aesthetics of
Aldo Leopold

Steve Odin

Introduction

Taoism, with its metaphysics of nature as creative and aesthetic

transformation, and East Asian Buddhism, with its view of nature
as an aesthetic continuum of organismic interrelationships, have
been sources of inspiration for environmental philosophy, recently
consolidated in an anthology edited by J. Baird Callicott and
Roger T. Ames, entitled Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought:
Essays in Environmental Philosophy.' Here I focus especially on the
concept of nature in Japanese Buddhism as a valuable complement
to the environmental philosophy of Aldo Leopold. In this context I
clarify the hierarchy of normative values whereby a land ethic is
itself grounded in a land aesthetic in the ecological worldviews of
both Japanese Buddhism in the East and Aldo Leopold in the West.

The Environmental Philosophy of Aldo Leopold

The Land Ethic

One can point to various sources for the newly emerging field of
“environmental ethics,” for instance, the romantic movement,
beginning with Rousseau and running through Goethe and the
romantic poets (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley), continuing
90 Buddhism and Ecology

in America through the transcendentalism of Whitman, Emerson,

and Thoreau, as well as later conservationists such as John Muir
and Gary Snyder. However, the locus classicus for environmental
ethics as a distinctive branch of philosophy is widely regarded by
those in the discipline as a volume by Aldo Leopold entitled A Sand
County Almanac, first published in 1949, and in particular the
capstone essay of this work, called “The Land Ethic.”? According
to Leopold’s threefold division of ethics, “The first ethics dealt with
the relation between individuals. . . . Later accretions dealt with the
relation between the individual and society.”? It is here that he makes
a significant leap by enlarging the field of ethics to include a third
element: namely, the relation of humans to the land. In Leopold’s
words:

There is yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the
animals and plants which grow upon it. . . . The land-relation is
still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations. The
extension of ethics to this third element in human environment is,
if I read the evidence correctly, an evolutionary possibility and an
ecological necessity.*

Leopold defines ethics in terms of his key notion of “community.”

An individual is always contextually located in a social environment,
or as Leopold puts it, in communities of interdependent parts that
evolve “modes of cooperation,” called symbioses by ecologists.
However, while in the past ethical discourse has been confined to
the human community so as to pertain solely to the relation between
individuals and society, environmental ethics extends this into the
realm of the “biotic community” of soil, plants, and animals so as
to include the symbiotic relation between humans and the land. He
writes:

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the
individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. . . .
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to
include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.>

Leopold goes on to argue that “a land ethic changes the role of

Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain
member and citizen of it.”© Further, his land ethic redefines
 The Japanese Concept of Nature and Aldo Leopold 91

conservation from maximizing the utility of natural resources to “a

state of harmony between men and land.”’ For Leopold, the
principles of a land ethic not only impose obligations in the legalistic
sense, but also entail the evolution of what he calls an “ecological
conscience,”® understood as an “extension of the social conscience
from people to land.”? According to Leopold, then, a land ethic
reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn
reflects an inner conviction of individual responsibility for the health
of the land.!°

The Conservation Aesthetic

In Aldo Leopold’s ecological worldview his “land ethic” is insep-

arable from what he calls a “land aesthetic.”!! As Leopold writes
in the original 1947 foreword to his work, “These essays deal with
the ethics and esthetics of land.”!2 It is significant that Leopold’s A
Sand County Almanac ends with an essay entitled “Conservation
Esthetic.”!3 For Leopold, it is the beauty or aesthetic value intrinsic
to nature that places a requirement upon us to enlarge ethics to
include the symbiotic relation between humans and land, to extend
the social conscience from the human community to the biotic
community, and thereby to establish an ecological harmony between
people and their natural environment of soil, plants, and animals.
The importance of this land aesthetic as the ground for a land ethic
is further indicated by Leopold in his 1948 foreword to A Sand
County Almanac, where he asserts that the essays contained in his
work “attempt to weld three concepts”: 1) “That land is a com-
munity. . .the basic concept of ecology”; 2) “that land is to be loved
and respected. . .an extension of ethics”; and 3) “that land yields a
cultural harvest” or, as he alternatively puts it, an “esthetic har-
vest.”!4 According to Leopold, the norm for behavior in relation to
land use is whether or not our conduct is aesthetically as well as
ethically right. The beauty of the land is, therefore, one of the
fundamental criteria for determining the rightness of our relationship
to it: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity,
stability, and beauty of the biotic community.”!> Hence, the architec-
tonic structure of A Sand County Almanac suggests a kind of
Peircean hierarchy of normative values whereby environmental
 92 Buddhism and Ecology

ethics is itself grounded in the axiology of a conservation aes-

thetics.'!© In other words, our moral love and respect for nature is
based on an aesthetic appreciation of the beauty and value of the
land. It should be noted that Eugene C. Hargrove has pursued a
similar line of reasoning, arguing that not only the land ethic but
the historical foundation of all broad Western environmental
sentiments is ultimately aesthetic.!7 Indeed, this aesthetic foundation
for a land ethic is one of the deepest insights into the human/nature
relation developed in the ecological worldviews both East and West.

Japanese Buddhism: An Asian Resource for

Environmental Ethics

The principles of environmental ethics articulated by Aldo Leopold

find a powerful source of support in the concept of living nature
formulated by traditional Japanese Buddhism. A profound current
of ecological thought runs throughout the Kegon, Tendai, Shingon,
Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren Buddhist traditions as well as modern
Japanese philosophy. In what follows I briefly present the J apanese
concept of nature as an aesthetic continuum of interdependent events
based on a field paradigm of reality. In this context I show how the
Japanese concept of nature entails an extension of ethics to include
the relation between humans and the land. Moreover, I argue that
the land ethic is itself grounded in a land aesthetic in the Japanese
Buddhist concept of nature as well as for Aldo Leopold. I further
seek to clarify the soteric concept of nature in Japanese Buddhism
wherein the natural environment becomes the ultimate locus of
salvation for all sentient beings. Finally, I argue that the Japanese
Buddhist concept of nature represents a fundamental shift from the
egocentric to an ecocentric position, that is, a non-anthropocentric
standpoint which is nature centered as opposed to human centered.

The Field Model of Nature in Ecology and

Japanese Buddhism

The environmental ethics of Aldo Leopold arises from a meta-

physical presupposition that things in nature are not Separate,
independent, or substantial objects, but relational fields existing in
 The Japanese Concept of Nature and Aldo Leopold 93

mutual dependence upon each other, thus constituting a synergistic

ecosystem of organisms interacting with their environment.
According to Leopold’s field concept of nature, the land is a single
living organism wherein each part affects every other part, and it is
this simple fact which imposes certain moral obligations upon us
in relation to our environment. As J. Baird Callicott argues in “The
Metaphysical Implications of Ecology,” at the metaphysical level
of discourse, ecology implies a paradigm shift from atomism to field
theory.!8 In this context he underscores various metaphysical
overtones in the “field theory of living nature adumbrated by
Leopold.”!® Callicott, following the insights of Leopold, argues that
“object-ontology is inappropriate to an ecological description of the
natural environment,” and adds, “Living natural objects should be
regarded as ontologically subordinate to ‘events’. . .or ‘field
patterns.’ ”2° According to Callicott, in the worldview of ecology,
as in the new physics, organisms in nature are a ‘local perturbation,
in an energy flux or ‘field’” so that the “subatomic microcosm” is
analogous to the “ecosystemic macrocosm,” “moments in [a]
network” or “knots in [a] web of life.”’2! He further points out that
for the Norwegian environmental philosopher Arne Naess, ecology
suggests “a relational total field image [in which] organisms [are]
knots in the biospherical net of intrinsic relations.”* It should be
noted that in the Western philosophical tradition, the field concept
of nature implied by ecology has received its fullest systematic
expression in the process metaphysics and philosophy of organism
developed by Alfred North Whitehead, which elaborates a pan-
psychic vision of nature as a creative and aesthetic continuum of
living field events arising through their causal relations to every
other event in the continuum.”?
The primacy accorded to “relational fields” over that of the
“substantial objects” implicit in the ecological worldview is also at
the very heart of the organismic paradigm of nature in East Asian
philosophy, especially Taoism and Buddhism. In his article “Putting
the Te Back into Taoism,” Roger T. Ames interprets the key ideas
of te and tao in the Taoist aesthetic view of nature as representing
a “focus/field” model of reality with clear implications for an
environmental ethic.24 Likewise, Izutsu Toshihiko in Toward a
Philosophy of Zen Buddhism has clearly explicated what he refers
to as “the field structure of Ultimate Reality” in traditional Japanese
 94 Buddhism and Ecology

Zen as well as Kegon (Chinese, Hua-yen) Buddhism, in which each

event in nature is understood as a concentrated focus point for the
whole field of emptiness (ki) or nothingness (mu), comprehended
in Buddhist philosophy as a dynamic network of causal relation-
ships, in other words, the process termed “dependent co-origination”’
(engi).*° Moreover, this traditional Zen and Kegon Buddhist field
model of reality has been reformulated in terms of the concept of
basho or “field” (locus, matrix, place) in the modern Japanese
syncretic philosophy of Nishida Kitard (1870-1945) and the Kyoto
School: namely, what Nishida calls mu no basho, the field of
nothingness.?© Nishida’s concept of basho or field was itself
profoundly influenced by Lask’s scientific Feldtheorie (field theory).
As Matao Noda has observed, “In this connection the modern
physical concept of field of force, taken by Einstein as a cosmic
field, seems to have suggested much to Nishida.”27
The primacy of basho or relational fields in modern Japanese
philosophy has been developed specifically with regard to the
human/nature relationship in the ethics of Watsuji Tetsurd (1889—
1960), Nishida’s younger colleague in the philosophy department
at Kyoto University. In his work Ethics as Anthropology (Ningen
no gaku toshite no rinrigaku), Watsuji calls his “ethics” (rinrigaku)
the science of the person, based upon the Japanese concept of human
nature as ningen, whose two kanji characters express the double
structure of selfhood as being both “individual” and “social.”28
Accordingly, the “person” as ningen means not simply the individual
(hito) but also the “relatedness” or “betweenness” (aidagara) in
which people are located. In his book entitled The Body, the
Japanese comparative philosopher Yuasa Yasuo clearly expresses the
relation of Watsuji’s concept of person (ningen) as the life-space
of “betweenness” in which people are situated to the general idea
of basho as a relational field or spatial locus. He writes: “But what
does it mean to exist in betweenness (aidagara)? . . . Our between-
ness implies that we exist in a definite, spatial basho (place, topos,
field).”*? However, Watsuji’s ethics based on the double structure
of personhood as ningen does not emphasize the spatial locus of
relationships between individual and individual or between the
individual and the social only; rather, he further extends his moral
considerations to the relationship between the individual and nature.
In Climate, an Anthropological Consideration (Fiido ningengakuteki
 The Japanese Concept of Nature and Aldo Leopold 95

kosatsu), Watsuji develops as his main philosophical theme the

embodied spatiality of human existence in various social envi-
ronments, so that the individual both influences and is influenced
by the family, the community, and ultimately the natural environ-
ment of a fiido or “climate.”3° As Yuasa puts it, “Watsuji wrote a
book called Climate in which he said that to live in nature as the
space of the life-world—in other words, to live in a ‘climate’—is
the most fundamental mode of being human.”?! Hence, Watsuji
clearly formulates an ethics in which the individual must be
conceived as being situated in a spatial field of relatedness or
betweenness not only to human society but also to a surrounding
climate (fiido) of living nature as the ultimate extension of embodied
subjective space in which man dwells. Watsuji’s ethical philosophy
is, therefore, one of the most suggestive Asian resources for
environmental ethics as outlined by Aldo Leopold, in which morality
is enlarged so as to include not simply individual/individual and
individual/social relations, but also the encompassing human/nature
relation as a major extension of practical ethics.

The Japanese Concept of Nature: A Unity of

Onozukara/Mizukara

The extension of ethics to include the human/nature relationship in

the philosophy of Watsuji Tetsuro itself reflects a traditional
Japanese concept of living nature as a unity of onozukara (nature)
and mizukara (self). The Japanese term for nature, shi-zen (also
pronounced ji-nen), originally derived from the Chinese word tsu-
jan, corresponds to the English word “nature,” which comes from
the Latin natura, which was used by the Romans to translate the
Greek term physis. As various scholars have pointed out, the
Japanese concept of shizen/jinen can be compared to the ancient
Greek concept of nature through Heidegger’s uncovering of the
original Greek understanding of physis as that which presences or
unfolds of itself into primordial appearance as openness, unhidden-
ness, and nonconcealment. In ancient Japanese, a common expres-
sion for shizen/jinen was onozukara, which like Greek physis
indicates “what-is-so-of-itself.” Onozukara, written with the first of
the two characters for shi-zen, also stands for another original
96 Buddhism and Ecology

Japanese term, mizukara or “self.” The implications of this con-

nection have been clarified by Hubertus Tellenbach and Kimura Bin
in their article “The Japanese Concept of Nature”:

As of itself Onozukara expresses an objective state... . Mizukara

as self expresses, on the other hand, a subjective state. . . . That the
Japanese believe they can express these seemingly autonomous
terms by means of a single character points towards a deeper insight
by which they apprehend Onozukara and Mizukara, nature and self,
as originating from the same common ground.?2

Consequently, in the Japanese concept of nature as a unity of

onozukara/mizukara, both self and nature are grounded in a common
field of reality as the subjective and objective aspects of a single
continuum or relational matrix.
One of the most interesting expressions of this traditional
Japanese view of nature as a unity of onozukara/mizukara is to be
found in the concept of eshd funi or “oneness of life and its
environment” formulated by Nichiren Daishonin (1222-1282) and
his followers in the Nichiren Shdshi sect of Buddhism. Nichiren is
most famous for his apocalyptic teaching that enlightenment can be
attained in the Latter Day of the Law (mappd) only by reciting the
daimoku or title of the Lotus Sutra, Myahd renge kyd, which he
inscribed in a mandala called the Daigohonzon for the purpose of
awakening Buddhahood in all sentient beings. In his eschatological
and apocalyptic teaching about mappd, Nichiren prophesied that not
only human social disasters, like civil wars and foreign invasions,
but also such natural catastrophes as floods, fires, earthquakes,
droughts, plagues, and other calamities would all result from a
failure of people to follow the Mystic Law of cause/effect, which
he called Myoho renge kyo. For Nichiren, Myoho renge kyo is the
Mystic Law of life itself which embodies the supreme principle of
Tendai (Chinese, T’ien-t’ai) Buddhism known as ichinen sanzen,
“three thousand worlds in one life-moment.” Moreover, as the
embodiment of ichinen sanzen, the Mystic Law of Mydhd renge kyo
contains the principle of eshd funi, the “oneness of life and its
environment.” In his text, “The True Entity of Life,” Nichiren writes:
“Where there is an environment, there is life within it. Miao-lo
states, “Both life (shohd) and its environment (ehd) always manifest
 The Japanese Concept of Nature and Aldo Leopold 97

Myoha renge kyo.’ ”33 By this view, both the subjective human being
and its objective environment are two aspects of a single reality, the
true entity of life, in other words, the Mystic Law of Myoho renge
kyo. In his exegesis of the above passage by Nichiren, Ikeda Daisaku
concludes: “People (shdhd) and their environments (ehd) are
inseparable. ... Both are aspects of the Law of Myohd renge kyo....
Thus we can see the powerful principle in Buddhism that a revolu-
tion within life (shohd) always leads to one in the environment
(eho).”34 From this insight it follows that at the level of practice,
the inseparability of life and its environment is discovered by fusing
with the Mystic Law, which in Nichiren Buddhism is caused by
reciting the mantric formula “Namu myoho renge kyo.” Furthermore,
chanting “Namu mydhd renge kyo” is thought to produce a “human
revolution,” that is to say, a transformation of subjective selfhood
which in turn effects a corresponding change in the objective
environment, thereby resulting in the metamorphosis of nature into
a Buddha land of peace and harmony. Hence, according to Nichiren
Buddhism, the principle of eshd funi constitutes the doctrinal
foundation for an ecological worldview based on the inseparability
of life and its environment.

The Kegon Infrastructure of Nature in Zen Buddhism

In the case of Nichiren Buddhism, the concept of nature as a cosmic

field in which life and its environment are integrated is explained
by invoking the master concept of Tendai Buddhism, namely,
ichinen sanzen, “three thousand worlds in one life-moment.”
However, in Zen Buddhism, this kind of field theory of nature is
elaborated in terms of an analogous Kegon (Hua-yen) Buddhist
doctrinal formula known as riji muge (Chinese, li-shih wu-ai), the
“interpenetration of part and whole.” Like the ichinen sanzen
principle of Tendai, the riji muge principle of Kegon articulates a
microcosmic/macrocosmic paradigm of reality which depicts nature
as a sacred matrix of interrelationships. This Kegon infrastructure
underlies not only traditional Zen Buddhist teachings but also the
modern Japanese philosophy of Nishida and the Kyoto School.°°
The profound ecological worldview implicit in the Kegon or Hua-
yen vision of organismic interrelatedness is discussed by Francis H.
98 Buddhism and Ecology

Cook in his essay “The Jewel Net of Indra.” At the outset he writes:

Only very recently has the word “ecology” begun to appear in our
discussion, reflecting the arising of a remarkable new consciousness
of how all things live in interdependence. . . . The ecological
approach. . . views existence as a vast web of interdependencies in
which if one strand is disturbed, the whole web is shaken.?©

Cook goes on to situate the ecological model of organismic

interdependence in a wider context by discussing the relationship
between humans and nature in the “cosmic ecology” of Hua-yen
Buddhism.?’ He presents the Chinese Hua-yen vision of nature in
terms of the microcosmic/macrocosmic paradigm expressed by the
famous metaphor of Indra’s net, which depicts a cosmic web of
dynamic causal interrelationships wherein at every intersection in
the latticework there is a glittering jewel reflecting all the other
jewels in the net, infinite in number.?8 In the pattern of inter-
connectivity depicted by Indra’s net, each and every event in nature
arises through an interfusion of the many and the one, thus being
likened to a shining jewel which both contains and pervades the
whole universe as a microcosm of the macrocosm. By this view,
all events arise through their functional relationships to all the other
events and to the whole so that each thing is interconnected to
everything else in the aesthetic continuum of nature. This relational
cosmology is codified by the famous doctrinal formulas of Kegon
Buddhism, named riji muge (Chinese, li-shih wu-ai) or ““interpene-
tration of part and whole” and jiji muge (Chinese, shih-shih wu-ai)
or “interpenetration of part and part.” In such a manner Hua-yen
Buddhism has established a compelling axiological cosmology,
according to which, given that everything functions as a causal
condition for everything else, there is nothing which is not of value
in the great harmony of nature. This view further entails a morality
of unconditional compassion and loving kindness for all sentient
beings in nature. Hence, it can be argued that Hua-yen Buddhism
has provided an explicit, comprehensive, and systematic relational
cosmology which fully supports the fundamental principles of
ecological ethics propounded by Aldo Leopold and other environ-
mental philosophers, whereby the atomistic paradigm of nature is
wholly abandoned in favor of a model of organismic interdependence.
 The Japanese Concept of Nature and Aldo Leopold 99

The Aesthetic Concept of Nature in

Japanese Buddhism

Scholars of Asian civilization have often pointed to the primacy of

aesthetic value as the distinguishing feature of traditional Japanese
Buddhist culture. During the medieval period of Japanese history
(ca. 950-1400), art and religion were fused to the extent that
spiritual and aesthetic values became virtually identified in what was
called geidd—the “tao (or Way) of art.” In the concept of nature
developing out of Japanese geidd, the natural environment is seen
as laden not only with aesthetic but also religious values so that it
becomes the ultimate ground and source of salvation itself. This
Japanese aesthetic concept of nature has long been articulated by a
lexicon of technical terms based on the canons of art and literature,
including aware, yiigen, wabi, sabi, and yojo. In Japanese Buddhism
nature is conceived not in eternalist or substantialist terms as static
being, but through process categories as a dynamic becoming, that
is, mujo or “impermanence.” Yet, as opposed to a nihilistic view of
becoming, Japanese Heian poetics affirms the positivity of nature
as a flux of impermanence with the aesthetic value notion of aware,
the sorrow-tinged appreciation of transitory beauty. In this way the
Japanese value-centric concept of nature as creative and aesthetic
process is a worldview based on the Middle Way between eternalism
on the one side and nihilism on the other. Moreover, in the waka
poetry of Fujiwara Teika, the sumie monochrome inkwash paintings
of Sesshi, and the Noh drama of Zeami, the beauty of yugen or
“mysterious depths” was evoked by visions of nonsubstantial
phenomena in nature fading into the background field of mu or
nothingness. In chanoyu, or the tea ceremony of Sen no Rikya,
nature is described in terms of wabi, the beauty of simplicity and
poverty, while the haiku poetry of Basho conjures the feeling of
sabi, the beauty of the solitude and tranquility of events in nature.
All of these aesthetic value categories are regarded as aspects of
yojo or “overtones of feeling,” reflecting a deeply emotional and
artistic sensitivity to the sublime beauty of nature as a continuum
of organismic relationships and dynamic processes.
In “Love of Nature,” the final chapter of his book Zen and
Japanese Culture, D. T. Suzuki underscores the Kegon or Hua-yen
 100 Buddhism and Ecology

(Sanskrit, Avatamsaka) infrastructure underlying the traditional

aesthetic concept of nature in Japanese Zen Buddhism. Suzuki
writes, “The balancing of unity and multiplicity or, better, the
merging of self with others in the philosophy of Avatamsaka
(Kegon) is absolutely necessary to the aesthetic understanding of
Nature.”°? According to the organismic paradigm of Zen and Kegon
Buddhism, nature is to be comprehended as an undivided aesthetic
continuum wherein each momentary and unsubstantial event arises
through the harmonic interfusion of oneness and multiplicity, unity
and plurality, or subjectivity and objectivity, thus emerging as a
cosmic field of relationships which both contains and pervades the
universe as a microcosm-qua-macrocosm. Because for Zen there is
a mutual containment or reciprocal penetration of subject and object,
there is said to be a continuity or interfusion between humans and
nature. In Suzuki’s words:

Zen proposes to respect Nature, to love Nature, to live its own life:
Zen recognizes that our Nature is one with objective Nature. . .in
the sense that Nature lives in us and we in Nature. For this reason,
Zen asceticism advocates simplicity, frugality, straightforwardness,
virility, making no attempt to utilize Nature for selfish purposes.4°

I would like to make two observations about this passage

concerning the relation of Zen to Aldo Leopold’s environmental
ethics. First, as Suzuki points out, the insight that humans and nature
are interdependent has led to Zen ideals of simplicity, frugality, and
poverty in relation to land use so that nature is not exploited out of
selfish motivations. Hence, in his famous work Small Is Beautiful:
Economics As If People Mattered, E. F. Schumacher synthesizes the
environmental ethics of Leopold with the Zen ecology of nature to
develop what he calls a “Buddhist economics” oriented toward
attaining given ends with minimal consumption.*! Second, the Zen
Buddhist love and respect for nature described by Suzuki in this
passage directly accords with a major theme in the environmental
philosophy of Leopold, namely, “that land is to be loved and
respected [a]s an extension of ethics.”42 This love and respect for
the natural world, viewed as an extension of ethics, is itself directly
related to the aesthetic and religious concept of nature. From a
comparative standpoint, these connections can be helpful in
 The Japanese Concept of Nature and Aldo Leopold 101

illuminating the axiological foundations underlying the ecological

worldview of Aldo Leopold, in which the land ethic is grounded in
a conservation aesthetic.

The Salvific Function of Nature in

Japanese Buddhism

The religio-aesthetic concept of nature as a continuum funded with

value and beauty is a correlate to what can be referred to as the
“salvific function” of nature in traditional Japanese Buddhism. A
paradigm of one who endeavors to find salvation through nature is
provided by a novel entitled Kusamakura (Grass pillow) by Soseki
Natsume.*? This novel describes the haiku journey of a twentieth-
century artist-poet from Tokyo who ventures into the solitude of a
mountain wilderness for the sole purpose of attaining Zen satori or
enlightenment through the tranquil beauty of nature. By exercising
aesthetic detachment the poet hero of Kusamakura attempts to
envision all things in the landscape as displaying the religio-
aesthetic value of yagen, “mystery and depth,” such that everything
in nature is transformed into a scene from a monochrome sumie
inkwash painting, a Noh drama, or a haiku poem. In this way, living
nature is prized not only for its beauty but also for its salvific
function as the ultimate locus for spiritual awakening.
Sodseki’s artist hero is a modern literary prototype for a long and
profound tradition of Japanese figures seeking salvation through
nature by means of the religio-aesthetic path of geidd or the “tao
of art,” including Teika, Saigyd, Basho, Sesshu, and Sen no Rikyt.
In his article “Probing the Japanese Experience of Nature,’ Omine
Akira traces this soteric concept of nature in the Japanese literary
tradition beginning with the earliest eighth-century anthology, called
the Man’yo-shu (Collection of myriad leaves), and running through
Saigyo (1118-1190), Ippen (1239-1289), and Basho (1644-1694)
as set in the context of the Japanese Buddhist worldview formulated
by Zen master Dogen (1200-1253) as well as the founder of True
Pure Land Buddhism (Jodo Shinshi), Shinran (1173-1263). Omine
emphasizes the religio-aesthetic concept of nature in this tradition as
having two aspects: “nature as companion and nature as Buddha.”**
When viewed as friend or companion, nature holds the significance
of the Buddhist terms “sentient being” or “living things” (shujo),
 102 Buddhism and Ecology

such that mountains and rivers, stones and trees, flowers and birds
all have the potential for enlightenment and tread the path to
Buddhahood together. The other aspect is nature, just as it is, as
sacred Buddha.* In this context, he quotes directly from Dégen’s
“Sutra of Mountains and Waters” (Sansui-kyd), the twenty-ninth
chapter of Shobdgenzo: “Mountains and rivers right now are the
emerging presence of the ancient Buddhas.”4¢ As implied by
Dogen’s theories of hosshin seppd, “the Dharmakaya expounds the
dharma,” and genjokdan, “presencing things as they are,” mountains,
rivers, and all phenomena in nature are presencing forth in their
suchness so as to disclose the Buddha-nature inherent in all things,
understood in Dogen’s Buddhist philosophy of uji or “being-time”
as mujO-busshd, “impermanence-Buddha-nature.” Omine further
makes reference to Shinran’s Pure Land theory of salvation by the
grace of “Other-power” (tariki), reformulated in later writings
through his famous doctrine jinen honi, “naturalness.” To be saved
by Buddha, to be born in the Pure Land, is simply a function of
jinen (shizen), “nature,” defined by Shinran as “from the very
beginning made to become so.”47 Omine concludes with his
assessment that Shinran’s Pure Land Buddhist notion of jinen honi
reflects an ancient Japanese concept of living nature as the ground
and source of human salvation.
The soteriological function of nature in the poetics of Saigyo and
the Japanese literary heritage as understood against the background
of traditional Buddhist philosophy has also been developed in a fine
scholarly essay by William R. LaFleur, “Saigyo and the Buddhist
Value of Nature.”*® LaFleur demonstrates that Saigyo must be
interpreted in the historical context of a Buddhist tradition including
both Saichd (767-822) and Kikai (774-835) which regards “nature
as a locus of soteriological value.”4° This tradition emphasizes the
capacity of nature to provide solace and some type of “salvation”
for individuals looking for a locus of value other than that provided
by city life.°° Buddhist philosophers in this tradition underscore the
potential Buddhahood of all things in nature so as to dissolve the
older distinction between sentient (yi#jd) and insentient (mujo)
beings.°! LaFleur argues that Buddhism in Japan developed argu-
ments on behalf of the Buddhahood potentialities of the natural
world, because it was compelled to accommodate itself to the
longstanding and pre-Buddhist (Shinto) attribution of high religious
 The Japanese Concept of Nature and Aldo Leopold 103

value to nature as the locus of salvation.>2 He summarizes the soteric

function of nature depicted in the poetry of Saigyo as follows:

The natural “images” in Saigy6’s poetry are not something which

must themselves be transcended. . . . For Kikai and for Saigyo, there
is no beyond. The concrete phenomenon. . .is both the symbol and
the symbolized. It is the absolute which theorists might call
“Emptiness,” but which is, in fact, nothing other than the phe-
nomenon itself.°>

Hence, as LaFleur emphasizes here, the understanding of the religio-

aesthetic function of poetic symbols in Saigy6 and the Japanese
tradition of nature poetry is derived from the Mikkyo (Tantric)
tradition of Saichd and Kikai wherein Buddhahood can be revealed
only through “expressive symbols” (monji). In accord with Japanese
Mikkyo Buddhism, the aesthetic and spiritual symbols of Saigyo’s
nature poetry do not point beyond themselves to a transcendent or
supra-sensible reality over and above the natural world, but fully
contain the reality which they symbolize.
In the final analysis, this traditional soteric concept of nature in
Japan is itself grounded in a Mahayana Buddhist metaphysic of
Emptiness (Japanese, ki#; Sanskrit, siinyata), wherein the mountains
and rivers of the natural world, just as they are here and now, are
the revelation of impermanence-Buddha-nature in the dynamic and
nonsubstantial flux of being-time. According to the Japanese
Buddhist doctrine of emptiness, there is nothing which is “more
real” beyond the interdependence of everything in nature. The
Buddhist metaphysics of emptiness, with its explicit identification
of samsara and nirvana, therefore results in the complete dialectical
interfusion of transcendence and immanence, absolute and relative,
or sacred and profane. In this way, Japanese Buddhism overturns
all models of transcendence and dualism so as to effect a radical
paradigm shift from ‘“‘otherworldliness” to “this-worldliness.” For
Japanese Buddhism, ultimate reality is to be found not ina
transcendent beyond as in the conventional Judeo-Christian para-
digm, but in fields of interrelationships which confer to each event
a boundless depth of aesthetic and religious value. It is in this
philosophical context that nature becomes the “locus of salvation”
in traditional Japanese Buddhism as reflected by poet-seers
following the religio-aesthetic path of geidd in Japan.
104 Buddhism and Ecology

Conclusion: An East-West Gaia Theory of Nature

In East Asia the delicate harmony between humans and nature has
long been maintained through geomancy, what is known in China
as feng shui. In his book Feng Shui: The Chinese Art of Designing
a Harmonious Environment, Derek Walters defines feng shui as
follows: “A complex blend of sound commonsense, fine aesthetics,
and mystical philosophy, Feng Shui is a traditional Chinese tech-
nique which aims to ensure that all things are in harmony with their
environment.”>4 Walters further explains that the geomantic philos-
ophy of feng shui came to permeate every aspect of traditional
Japanese culture, including city planning, temple construction,
inkwash painting, flower arranging, and gardening. He adds:
“Indeed, there are few areas of Japanese thought which are not in
some way affected by the influence of Feng Shui.’>> Long before
the discovery of the earth’s magnetic field and the modern physics
theory of lines of force, nature was conceived as an energy pattern
comprised of flowing ch’i (Japanese, ki) or vital-power, a grid
network of intersecting yin/yang forces, known as lung-mei or
“dragon and tiger” currents in the study of feng shui.°® As Tu
Weiming puts it in “The Continuity of Being: Chinese Visions of
Nature,” according to the Chinese “philosophy of ch’i,” which later
spread to Japan, the earth forms one body as a single living organism
created out of the interfusion and convergence of numerous streams
of vital force which together establish the wholeness and continuity
of nature.>’ |
Throughout A Sand County Almanac Aldo Leopold also describes
the land as “a single living organism,” understood as an “energy
circuit,” a “fountain of energy,” a “flow of energy,” and a “circuit
of life.’ He thus writes:

Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing

through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals. . . . This inter-
dependence between the complex structure of the land and its
smooth functioning as an energy unit is one of its basic attributes.58

In this way, the ecological worldview of Aldo Leopold, along with

the geomantic philosophy of East Asia based on Taoism and
Buddhism, can be seen as providing theoretical support for what is
 The Japanese Concept of Nature and Aldo Leopold 105

known in environmental philosophy as the Gaia theory. According

to Gaia theory, the earth is a single living organism forming a vast
biotic community in which a complex grid network of energy
currents or lines of force constitutes nature as a synergistic
ecosystem of symbiotic relationships in an interconnected web of
life.5° It is precisely such an East-West Gaia theory of living nature
which might point a way toward healing our plundered planet,
overcoming today’s environmental crisis, and establishing a har-
mony between man and the land.
 106 Buddhism and Ecology

Notes

I. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames, eds., Nature in Asian Traditions of

Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1989).
2. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from
Round River (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966). See especially “The Land
Ethic,” 237-64. All citations refer to this edition unless otherwise noted.
. Ibid., 238.
W

. Ibid., 238-39.
ONN FR

. Ibid., 239.
MN

. Ibid., 240.
. Ibid., 243.
. Ibid.
. Ibid., 246.
Oo

10. Ibid., 258.

11. For a careful scholarly analysis of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic in relation
to his land aesthetic as formulated in A Sand County Almanac, see J. Baird
Callicott, “The Land Aesthetic,” in Companion to A Sand County Almanac,
ed. Callicott (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), chap. 7, 157-71.
12. Aldo Leopold, foreword to Callicott, Companion to A Sand County
Almanac, 281. This statement is the opening sentence in Aldo Leopold’s original
foreword to “Great Possessions” (the author’s own title of what later became A
Sand County Almanac), dated 31 July 1947. However, the revised foreword dated
4 March 1948 is the one with which readers are now familiar.
13. “Conservation Esthetic” is the final essay in the enlarged edition of A Sand
County Almanac, subtitled With Essays on Conservation from Round River, edited
by Luna B. Leopold, the author’s son, and first published by Ballantine Books in
1966. “The Land Ethic” is the final essay in the original edition, subtitled And
Sketches Here and There, published posthumously by Oxford University Press in
1949. However, “Great Possessions,” Leopold’s manuscript of the book, con-
formed to the arrangement of the enlarged edition of 1966. According to Dennis
Ribbens, “possibly the most important change to the manuscript after Leopold’s
death was the decision to shift ‘The Land Ethic’ from its original first position in
Part III to its present final position” (Dennis Ribbens,“The Making of A Sand
County Almanac,” in Companion to A Sand County Almanac, 107). Confirming
Ribbens’s information, Curt Meine says that in the process of preparing Leopold’s
manuscript for publication, “ “The Land Ethic’ was moved to the end of Part III,
‘The Upshot’” (Curt Meine, Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work [Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1988], 524). Thus, it appears that the author himself
intended for “Conservation Esthetic” to be the final essay of the book that became
A Sand County Almanac.
 The Japanese Concept of Nature and Aldo Leopold 107

14. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, xix.

15. Ibid., 262.
16. In the context of developing his “architectonic” of theories, the American
process philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce suggested a “hierarchy of the
normative sciences” in which logic depends on ethics and ethics depends on
aesthetics. See Philosophical Writings of Peirce: Selected and Edited with an
Introduction by Justus Buchler (New York: Dover Publishing, 1955), 62.
17. Eugene C. Hargrove, Foundations of Environmental Ethics (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1989). See especially chap. 3, “Aesthetic and Scientific
Attitudes” (77-103), and the section entitled “The Aesthetics of Wildlife
Preservation” (122-23) in chap. 4, “Wildlife Protection Attitudes.”
18. J. Baird Callicott, “The Metaphysical Implications of Ecology,” in Callicott
and Ames, Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought, 51-64.
19. Ibid., 57.
20. Ibid., 58.
21. Ibid., 59.
22. Arne Naess, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement:
A Summary,” Inquiry 16 (1973):98.
23. For examples of Alfred North Whitehead’s concept of nature as aesthetic
and creative process in relation to this general philosophy of organism, see The
Concept of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971); “The
Romantic Reaction,” in Science and the Modern World (New York: Collier
Macmillan, 1925); “The Order of Nature” and “Organisms and Environment,” in
Process and Reality (New York: Free Press, 1978); and “Nature and Life,” in
Modes of Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1968).
24. Roger T. Ames, “Putting the Te Back into Taoism,” in Callicott and Ames,
Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought, 113-44.
25. Toshiko Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism (Boulder, Colo.:
Prajna Press, 1982), especially “The Field Structure of Ultimate Reality,” 45-49.
26. Nishida first developed his notion of basho, or field, as the fundamental
concept in his philosophy of nothingness in Hataraku mono kara miru mono e
(From the acting to the seeing), published in 1927, included in Nishida Kitaro
zenshit (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1947-53), 4:207-89.
27. Matao Noda, “East-West Synthesis in Kitaro Nishida,” Philosophy East
and West 4 (1955):350.
28. Watsuji Tetsuro, Ningen no gaku toshite no rinrigaku (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 1936).
29. Yuasa Yasuo, The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory, ed.
Thomas P. Kasulis, trans. Nagatomo Shigenori and Thomas P. Kasulis (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1987), 38.
30. Watsuji Tetsurd, Fido ningengakuteki kosatsu, 2d ed. (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 1951). For an English translation, see A Climate: A Philosophical Study,
 108 Buddhism and Ecology

trans. Geoffrey Bownas (Tokyo: Japanese National Commission for UNESCO,

1961), now reprinted as a volume in the new series, Classics of Modern Japanese
Thought and Culture (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989).
31. Yuasa Yasuo, The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory, 38.
32. Hubertus Tellenbach and Bin Kimura, “The Japanese Concept of Nature,”
in Callicott and Ames, Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought, 154-55.
33. Daisaku Ikeda, Selected Lectures on the Gosho (Tokyo: Nichiren Shoshi
International Center, 1979), 22.
34. Ibid., 23.
35. For an account of Hua-yen (Japanese, Kegon; Sanskrit, Avatamsaka)
Buddhism developed from the standpoint of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy
of organism, see Steve Odin, Process Metaphysics and Hua-yen Buddhism
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982).
36. Francis H. Cook, “The Jewel Net of Indra,” in Callicott and Ames, Nature
in Asian Traditions of Thought, 213.
37. Ibid., 214.
38. Ibid., 226.
39. D. T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1959), 354.
40. Ibid., 351-52.
41. E. F Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered
(New York: Harper and Row, 1973). See especially pt. 1, chap. 4, “Buddhist
Economics,” 53-62.
42. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, xix.
43. Soseki Natsume, Kusamakura (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1972). For an English
translation, see The Three-Cornered World, trans. Alan Turney (Tokyo: Charles
E. Tuttle, 1968).
44. Omine Akira, “Probing the Japanese Experience of Nature,” translated from
Nihon-teki Shizen no Keifu by Dennis Hirota, Chanoyu Quarterly: Tea and the
Arts of Japan 51 (1987).
45. Ibid., 7.
46. Ibid., 19.
47. Ibid., 28.
48. William R. LaFleur, “Saigy6 and the Buddhist Value of Nature,” in Callicott
and Ames, Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought, 183-209.
49. Ibid., 196.
50. Ibid.
51. 186-87.
Ibid.,
52. 195.
Ibid.,
53. 203.
Ibid.,
34. Derek
Walters, Feng Shui: The Chinese Art of Designing a Harmonious
Environment (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 8.
 The Japanese Concept of Nature and Aldo Leopold 109

55. Ibid., 14.

56. Ibid., 10.
57. Tu Wei-ming, “The Continuity of Being: Chinese Visions of Nature,” in
Callicott and Ames, Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought, 67-78; also published
in Tu Wei-ming, Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985).
58. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 253-54.
59. See J. E. Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1979).
 Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers:
Kukai, Dogen, and a Deeper Ecology*

Graham Parkes

Although environmental problems are now attaining global pro-

portions, discussion of them tends to be conducted in quite parochial
terms. Current debates for the most part presuppose a worldview
with its roots in Europe—one informed by the Platonic/Judeo-
Christian tradition as well as Cartesian philosophy and Newtonian
science. Even though contemporary physics and biology are giving
us a very different picture of the world from that envisaged by
Newton and Descartes, the fact that these two figures enabled the
development of modern technology has preserved the viability of
their worldview and extended it over most of the globe. Belief in
the natural superiority of human beings and justification for their
domination of a supposedly soulless world stem from this religious
and philosophical worldview, which continues to inform—even if
in less arrogant forms—current debates in the ethics of environ-
mental concern.
It may be a sign of progress when people begin to acknowledge
the “rights” of beings other than humans, but the language is still
too parochial. If the East Asian traditions, for example, contain
nothing that corresponds to our conception of rights—and they do
not—then talk of the rights of trees will have no more effect on
Japanese timber interests than talk of human rights has on Chinese
politicians. What is needed is a more radical revisioning of the
human relation to the natural world, a shift toward a less hubristic
attitude toward the environment upon which our existence depends.
It is fashionable in some ecologically correct circles to ascribe
blame for the devastation of the earth to the combination of
112 Buddhism and Ecology

Christianity and capitalism that made possible the enormous

material achievements of the industrialized nations of the West.
While such criticisms are often rather facile, it does seem reasonable
to suppose that where people’s lives are informed by ways of
thinking that denigrate the physical world in favor of a purely
spiritual realm (as with the Orphic strain in Platonism), or by
cosmogonies according to which the natural world was created for
the benefit of humans as the only beings made in the image of the
creator (as in the Genesis story), or by soteriologies where the soul
is alienated from the natural world and the crucial question concerns
the individual’s direct relation to God (as in Gnostic Christianity
and “the American religion”), they are going to have relatively few
qualms about exploiting the natural world for their own purposes.!
The corollary seems equally reasonable: that where worldviews
prevail in which nature is regarded as the locus of ultimate reality
or value, as a sacred source of wisdom, or as a direct manifestation
of the divine, one can expect that, other things being equal, people
will restrain themselves from inflicting gratuitous harm on the
environment. The nature of the connection between a religious or
philosophical worldview and actual behavior is difficult to determine
since, for the most part, other things are precisely not equal. An
individual’s desire for material well-being may occlude his or her
self-understanding vis-a-vis the cosmos, and the demands of
culture—and of contemporary consumerist culture especially—may
overwhelm one’s reverence for the natural world. But rather than
attempt to untangle that complex of difficult issues, let us simply
suppose that someone concerned about the fate of the earth were
to realize, experientially, the validity of a worldview in which nature
is seen as sacred and a source of wisdom. That person would then
naturally incline (by virtue of the meanings of such terms as
“ultimate value,” “wisdom,” and “the divine’’) to care for the natural
environment on an individual level; and the deeper the experiential
realization, the more one could expect that care to expand into the
collective sphere. And if one could then find a way of imparting
such a realization to a wider audience, considerable progress could
be made toward solving environmental problems.
A proposal for a revisioning of our relations to the natural world
comes with the program of “deep ecology,” but this movement,
insofar as it has been acknowledged at all, is often rejected for being
 Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers 113

too radical or else simply incoherent.2 While the hearts of the deep
ecologists are surely in the right places, their minds are not always
so clear—especially when they wander as far afield as East Asia.
This is regrettable because the East Asian philosophical world is
especially rich in resources for ecological thinking. In what follows,
I shall outline some features of the philosophies of two of the
foremost figures in Japanese Buddhism, Ktkai and Dogen, which
would appear to be eminently salutary for the natural environment.
There will be a need to respond to some doubts that may arise in
this context, and to protest briefly a tendency toward simpleminded
appropriation by some deep ecologists of Dogen’s ideas. A final
concern will be the extent to which these ideas might be practically
applied in the task of mitigating the environmental crisis.

Kikai

When Buddhism was transplanted from India to China during the

first century of the common era, some thinkers there began to ask—
perhaps under the influence of Taoist ideas—whether the Mahayana
Buddhist extension of the promise of Buddhahood to “all sentient
beings” did not go far enough. A long-running debate began in
China during the eighth century, in which thinkers in the T’ien-t’a1
school argued that the logic of Mahayana universalism required that
the distinction between sentient and nonsentient be abandoned and
that Buddha-nature be ascribed not only to plants, trees, and earth,
but even to particles of dust. (The contrast with the Christian
tradition is striking, where Aristotle’s musings on the vegetal soul
were largely ignored and arguments over the reaches of salvation
were restricted to the question of whether animals have souls.)
When Buddhist ideas from China began to arrive in Japan in the
seventh century, they entered an ethos conditioned by the indigenous
religion of Shinto, according to which the natural world and human
beings are equally offspring of the divine. In Shinto the whole world
is understood to be inhabited by shin (kami), or divine spirits. These
are spirits not only of the ancestors but also of any phenomena that
occasion awe or reverence: wind, thunder, lightning, rain, the sun,
mountains, rivers, trees, and rocks. Such an atmosphere was
naturally receptive to the idea that the earth and plants participate
114 Buddhism and Ecology

in Buddha-nature. Although the first Japanese thinker to use the

phrase mokuseki bussho (“Buddha-nature of trees and rocks’’) was
apparently Saicho (766-822), founder of the Tendai school, the first
one in Japan to elaborate the idea of the Buddhahood of all
phenomena and make it central to his thought was Ktkai (774-835).
In a passage of verse in his essay “On the Meanings of the Word
Him” (Unji gi), Kikai twice alludes to the awakened nature of
vegetation (sOmoku):
If trees and plants are to attain enlightenment,
Why not those who are endowed with feelings? ...
If plants and trees were devoid of Buddhahood,
Waves would then be without humidity.4
In a later work he argues for the Buddhahood of sémoku on the
grounds that it is included within the “Five Great Elements” (earth,
water, fire, wind, space) that comprise the dharmakdaya (hosshin),
or “reality embodiment” of the cosmic Buddha Dainichi Nyorai
(Mahavairocana).°> He qualifies this statement by adding that the
Buddha-nature of plants and trees is not apparent to normal vision,
but can be seen only by opening one’s “Buddha eye.”
In distinguishing his own Esoteric Buddhism from other schools,
Kikai makes a more comprehensive claim concerning natural
phenomena:

In Exoteric Buddhist teachings, the four great elements [earth, water,

fire, and wind] are considered to be nonsentient beings, but in
Esoteric Buddhist teaching they are regarded as the samaya-body
of the Tathagata.®

There seems to be an equivocation here, however, when Kikai calls

the natural elements the samaya-body of the Buddha, since this
connotes not simple identity with the dharmakaya but a relation of
symbolizing and participation at the same time. The ambiguity is
brought out in another passage, where Kikai writes:

The existence of the Buddha [Mahavairocana] is the existences of

the sentient beings and vice versa. They are not identical but are
nevertheless identical; they are not different but are nevertheless
different.’
 Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers 115

It is interesting to note a similar equivocation in the philosophy

of a close contemporary of Kikai’s in the West, John Scotus
Erigena. (Their lives overlap by twenty-five years.) Erigena’s major
treatise—the Periphusedn, or De Divisione Naturae, from the year
865—is on nature, and he argues there that the natural world is God
“as seen by Himself” (704c). His understanding of the relation
between God and the natural world is informed throughout by a
tension between his Catholic faith and his devotion to Greek
philosophy, as exemplified in the tension in Neoplatonic theology
generally between God’s emanation throughout creation (processio
Dei per omnia) and His remaining in Himself (mansius in se ipso).
Insofar as Erigena regards natural creatures as “theophany,” he
believes that they will ultimately be restored to their source in
God—even though this restoration takes place only via the resur-
rection of the human. Dainichi is, for Kikai, an “emanation
throughout creation”; but his non-identity with, or difference from,
sentient beings would not consist in his “remaining in himself.” To
the extent that he is the dharmakdya, which is “beginningless and
endless,” he would transcend the totality of all things that are
currently present—but he would not transcend the totality of all
things that have been, will be, and could be.
The practical (or practice-oriented) aspect of Kikai’s Esoteric
Buddhism involves entering into what he calls the “three mysteries,”
or “intimacies” (sanmitsu), of Dainichi Nyorai, which are body,
speech, and mind. Thus, by adopting certain postures (mudras), by
chanting certain syllables (mantras), and by allowing the mind to
abide in the state of samadhi, or concentration, the practitioner will
come to experience direct participation in the dharmakdaya. We can
be sure that those who successfully practice such a philosophy,
realizing their participation in the body of the cosmic Buddha
simultaneously with the divinity of natural phenomena, will treat
the natural world with the utmost reverence.
There is another feature of Kikai’s teaching which helps
illuminate the idea that natural phenomena possess Buddha-nature,
and that is his notion of hosshin sepp6é, the idea that “the
dharmakaya expounds the dharma,’ or, “the Buddha’s reality
embodiment expounds the true teachings.”® This idea emphasizes
the radically personal nature of Dainichi Nyorai in drawing attention
to the way he teaches the truth of Buddhism through all phenomena,
116 Buddhism and Ecology

and through speech as one of the three “intimacies.” The element

of intimacy, or mystery, comes in because Dainichi’s teaching is
strictly, as Kukai often emphasizes, “for his own enjoyment.” It is
only in a loose sense that the cosmos “speaks” to us—for, properly
speaking, Dainichi does not expound the teachings for our benefit.
(The other embodiments of the Buddha—the nirmdnakdya and the
sambhogakaya—perform that function.)
Just as visualization plays an important role in the meditation
practices of Kukai’s Shingon Buddhism, so the sacred nature of the
world is also accessible to the sense of sight. As well as hearing
the cosmos as a sermon, Kukai sees, or reads, the natural world as
scripture. As he writes in one of his poems:
Being painted by brushes of mountains, by ink of oceans,
Heaven and earth are the bindings of a sutra revealing the truth.?

In this respect there are remarkable parallels between Kikai and

the seventeenth-century German thinker Jakob B6hme. Not only is
the natural world of paramount soteriological importance for them
both, but their suggested ways of realizing this, by meditation on
images and sounds, are interestingly comparable. In reverting to the
root syllables of the Sanskrit in which the mystical aspects of early
Buddhism were embodied, Ktkai employs them as sounds as well
as visual images. BOhme is equally concerned with mystic syllables,
in his native German as well as in the Latin and Hebrew of the
alchemical and kabbalistic traditions. And just as for Ktikai nature
is Dainichi Nyorai expounding the teachings for his own enjoyment,
so for Bohme the natural world is the “corporeal being” of the
Godhead in its joyous self-revelation.!°

Dogen

The philosophy of Dogen (1200-1253) shares many roots with

Kukai’s thought, and his understanding of the natural world is
especially similar (no doubt owing to some influence). Parallel to
Kukai’s identification of the dharmakdya with the phenomenal
world is Dogen’s bold assertion of the nonduality of Buddha-nature
and the world of impermanence generally. He rereads the line from
the Nirvana Sitra “All sentient beings without exception have
Buddha-nature” as “All is sentient being, all beings are Buddha-
 Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers 117

nature.”!! Dogen thus argues that all beings are sentient being, and
as such are Buddha-nature—rather than “possessing” or “manifesting”
or “symbolizing” it. Again, however, the usual logical categories are
inadequate for expressing this relationship. Just as Ktkai equivo-
cates in identifying the dharmakdaya with all things, so Ddgen says
of all things and Buddha-nature: “Though not identical, they are not
different; though not different, they are not one; though not one,
they are not many.”! Again as in Kikai, while the natural world is
ultimately the body of the Buddha, it takes considerable effort to
be able to see this. Dogen regrets that most people “do not realize
that the universe is proclaiming the actual body of Buddha,” since
they can perceive only “the superficial aspects of sound and color”
and are unable to experience “Buddha’s shape, form, and voice in
landscape.”!3
Perhaps in order to avoid the absolutist connotations of the
traditional idea of the dharmakaya, Dogen substitutes for Ktkai’s
hosshin seppo the notion of mujd-seppd, which emphasizes that even
nonsentient beings expound the true teachings. They are capable of
this sort of expression since they, too, are what the Buddhists call
shin (“mind/heart”). And just as the speech of Dainichi Nyorai is
not immediately intelligible to us humans, so, for Dogen:

The way insentient beings expound the true teachings should not
be understood to be necessarily like the way sentient beings do. . . .
It is contrary to the Buddha-way to usurp the voices of the living
and conjecture about those of the non-living in terms of them.!4

Only from the anthropocentric perspective would one expect natural

phenomena to expound the true teachings in a human language.
While the practice followed in Dogen’s Soto Zen is less exotic
than in Ktkai’s Shingon, the aim of both is the integration of one’s
activity with the macrocosm. Whereas Ktkai’s practice grants access
to the intimacy of Dainichi’s conversing with himself for his own
enjoyment, Dogen tells his students:

When you endeavor in right practice, the voices and figures of

streams and the sounds and shapes of mountains, together with you,
bounteously deliver eighty-four-thousand gathas. Just as you are
unsparing in surrendering fame and wealth and the body-mind, so
are the brooks and mountains.!>
118 Buddhism and Ecology

If we devote our full attention to them, streams and mountains can,

simply by being themselves, teach us naturally about the nature of
existence in general. And yet for Dogen this process works only as
a cooperation between the worlds of the human and the nonhuman
and as “the twin activities of the Buddha-nature and emptiness.”!®
Kukai’s idea that heaven and earth are the bindings of a siitra
painted by brushes of mountains and ink of oceans is also echoed
by Dodgen, who counters an overemphasis on study of literal
scriptures in certain forms of Buddhism by maintaining that sitras
are not just texts containing written words and letters.

What we mean by the sutras is the entire cosmos itself. . .the words
and letters of beasts. . .or those of hundreds of grasses and
thousands of trees. . . . The sutras are the entire universe, mountains
and rivers and the great earth, plants and trees; they are the self and
others, taking meals and wearing clothes, confusion and dignity.!7

As in Kikai, natural phenomena are a source of wisdom and

illumination, as long as we learn how to “read” them. But just as
Kikai claims that all phenomena, as the dharmakaya, expound the
true teachings, so Ddgen says that it is not just natural phenomena
that are siitras but also “taking meals and wearing clothes, confusion
and dignity”—activities and attributes that distinguish humans from
other beings. So, while Western thinkers like Erigena and BOhme
talk of nature as “God’s corporeal being” and of the language and
voices of all created beings, both Dogen and Kikai would want to
go further and ascribe Buddha-nature to all beings and not just to
natural (as in God-created) beings.
I have been suggesting that where such a worldview as Kiikai’s
or Dogen’s—in which nature is regarded as sacred and a source of
wisdom—prevails, people will tend to treat the environment with
respect. But now the universalistic strain in their thinking might
appear to detract from the ecologically beneficial features, since it
would seem to entail that all human-made things—including such
environmentally noxious substances as radioactive waste—are
similarly sacred and worthy of reverence. This consideration leads
into a complex of issues, the complexity of which should be
acknowledged before a solution is suggested.
 Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers 119

Problematic Issues

It is hard to retain one’s composure in the face of talk about the

“love of nature” that is often said to inform Japanese culture, in view
of Japan’s dismal environmental record in recent decades. In a short
but pointed article Yuriko Saito examines three “conceptual bases
for the alleged Japanese love of nature” and finds them wanting in
their ability to “engender an ecologically desirable attitude” toward
the natural world.!® She argues that “the tradition of regarding nature
as friend and companion, which serves the individual as refuge and
restorative” is too anthropocentric to be able to value the natural
world for its own sake rather than for the benefits it can afford
human beings (3). Saito also shows how the mono no aware (“the
pathos of evanescence”) worldview that has conditioned so much
of Japanese culture is too fatalistic to promote salutary ecological
awareness, arguing that deforestation or pollution can, according to
this view, be “accepted as yet another instance of transience” (5).
The third conceptual basis Saito considers is Zen Buddhism—
with its idea of the harmony between human beings and nature—
which, “as respectful of and sensitive to nature’s aesthetic aspect
as [it] might be,” still “does not contain within it a force necessary
to condemn and fight the human abuse of nature” (8). “If everything
is Buddha nature because of impermanence,” she argues, “strip-
mined mountains and polluted rivers must be considered as mani-
festing Buddha nature as much as uncultivated mountains and
unspoiled rivers.” Similarly, the notion of “responsive rapport”
between all things, which she associates with Dogen, “makes it
impossible for any intervention in nature to be disharmonious with
it” (8).
These points about the anthropocentrism of nature-as-com-
panionable-refuge philosophy and the fatalism of the mono no aware
worldview are well taken, but not, I think, the criticism of Zen
Buddhism. This last seems plausible initially, because when
Mahayana distinguishes itself from early Buddhism in asserting that
nirvana is not different from samsdra, it appears to expose itself
eo ipso to charges of quietism (or at least “anactivism”’). For if this
apparently imperfect world is actually nirvana, then what is there
to be done? In that case there would hardly be any need for activity,
120 Buddhism and Ecology

let alone activism. Let me begin to respond to such criticisms with

reference to Kikai; although Saito doesn’t mention him, or Shingon
Buddhism, her point about strip-mined mountains and polluted
rivers “as manifesting Buddha nature” applies equally to such
phenomena as part of the dharmakaya.
It is easy to see why for Kikai certain kinds of things produced
by humans would constitute the dharmakdadya. Works of art, for
example, are especially effective expositors of the dharma: “Since
the esoteric Buddhist teachings are so profound as to defy expres-
sion in writing,” he writes—a remark struggling readers will find
consoling—“‘they are revealed through the medium of painting.”!9
But while there is surely an important sense in which what we call
“sick” buildings, for example, or toxic-waste dumps, are speaking
to us, it may be hard to imagine them as the body of the Buddha or
as expounding the true teachings. Since such insalubrious things are
nevertheless part of the totality of beings, Kikai would have to
regard them as part of the dharmakaya and hence also as expositing
the dharma. But the important question concerns his attitude toward
such things: if he would advocate reverence toward sick buildings
and toxic waste as part of the body of Dainichi, one might well
doubt the wisdom of introducing his ideas into current debates about
the environment.
Let us make the question more pointed by taking more extreme
examples: what is the appropriate attitude toward the tubercle
bacillus (a natural being) and toward radioactive waste (something
relatively unnatural, insofar as it has been produced only under very
recent and peculiar historical conditions and requires enormously
complex technology)? I choose a naturally occurring being for the
first example since it points up a problem with the appropriation of
Taoist and Buddhist ideas by recent deep ecology, with its “ultimate
norm” of “biocentric equality.’2° This seems a rather infelicitous
name for an ultimate norm—surely “biotic equality” would be more
appropriate—but it does point up the narrower focus of deep ecology
as compared with Taoism or Zen, where the inorganic realm of
mountains and streams is as important as the vegetal and animal
realms.
The principle, or “intuition,” of biocentric equality, as defined
by Devall and Sessions, is that “all things in the biosphere have an
equal right to live and blossom and to reach their own individual
 Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers 121

forms of unfolding and self-realization” (67), and deep ecology is

also said to advocate “biospecies equality” as the idea that “all
nature has intrinsic worth” (69). While the sentiment behind this
ideal is commendable, the formulation is flawed: to adopt this idea
as an ultimate norm would mean abandoning the work of human
culture—and perhaps the human race—altogether. Imagine if, on
discovering the tubercle bacillus, we had upheld its “equal right to
live and blossom and to reach its own individual form of unfolding
and self-realization”: tuberculosis would have decimated our best
poets, painters, and composers long ago. Nor would it take much
effort to ensure the flourishing of the Ebola virus and thus bring
the human race to a gruesome finish. The deep ecologists would
do well to take a few other leaves out of the Taoist/Zen book—those
emphasizing the importance of context and perspective and the
problems that arise when one tries to universalize.

Kikai and Dogen Defended

Let us begin with Kikai. Just because the tubercle bacillus is part
of the reality embodiment of the cosmic Sun Buddha does not mean
that Kikai would have us worship it and celebrate its equal right to
unimpeded flourishing. The image of embodiment is important here.
Things can go wrong in a human body which can be put right by
getting rid of the noxious element and taking steps to see that it
doesn’t recur (as in excising a cancerous tumor, for example).*!
Insofar as the blossoming of the tubercle bacillus would jeopardize
the flourishing of good Buddhist practice (among other things),
Ktkai would surely see it as a baneful element within the body of
Dainichi and approve appropriate surgery to get rid of it. The
important thing is to consider the body and to appraise its health,
holistically. He would similarly regard the tubercle bacillus as a part
of Dainichi’s exposition of the dharma for his own enjoyment. But
Buddhist deities generally have their wrathful as well as their
compassionate aspects, and there is no guarantee that their teachings
will always be pleasing to the human ear.
The fact that radioactive waste is produced by humans would
probably not be a factor in Kiikai’s readiness to recommend surgery
to remove it from the dharmakaya. But in view of the centrality of
122 Buddhism and Ecology

impermanence in Buddhist teachings, and since the half-life of

something like plutonium is measurable in kalpas, one can imagine
that the relative non-impermanence of radioactive waste would be
a reason for Kukai’s wanting to get rid of it. And if radioactive waste
is expounding the dharma in any way, it is probably by showing us
that the farther things get from being impermanent, the more lethal
they become.
What would Dogen say about these causes of fatal disease and
lethal pollution? Are deadly viruses and plutonium waste part of
Buddha-nature? The former surely are, along with the tubercle
bacillus, poisonous snakes, and other sentient beings that are deadly
to humans. Dogen naturally subscribes to the Buddhist view of the
sacredness of life and the precept of not killing, but he (and a
follower of his philosophy) would observe these precepts in the
context of other features of his worldview, such as the “Buddha-
nature of non-being” (mu busshd), the interfusion of life and death
(shoji), and the functional interdependence (eng?) of all things more
generally.*? And given the difference in the “dharma positions” (hdi)
occupied by humans and bacilli, Dogen would surely not condemn,
in most circumstances, attempts to eradicate the tubercle bacillus
as evil or as pernicious anthropocentrism. The “in most circum-
stances” is meant to suggest the importance, for Zen, of broadening
one’s perspective in order to see the total context. |
These considerations demand a slight modification of my earlier
formulation: a view of the world as the body of Dainichi or as
Buddha-nature would naturally lead to reverence for and respectful
treatment of the totality—but would not rule out destroying certain
parts of it under certain circumstances.
The status of radioactive waste with respect to Buddha-nature
would, I suspect, be somewhat problematic for Dogen. There is no
denying that his philosophy is distinguished by a radical expansion
of the traditional concept of Buddha-nature:

Since ancient times, foolish people have believed man’s divine

consciousness to be Buddha-nature—how ridiculous, how laugh-
able! Do not try to define Buddha-nature, this just confuses. Rather,
think of it as a wall, a tile, or a stone, or, better still, if you can,
just accept that Buddha-nature is inconceivable to the rational
mind.23
 Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers 123

Here is another instance of Digen’s superseding the distinction

between sentient and nonsentient beings: he conversely claims in
another passage that “walls and tiles, mountains, rivers, and the great
earth” are all “mind-only.”24 He is also apparently contradicting a
statement in the sitras to the effect that “fences, walls, tiles, stones,
and other nonsentient beings” do not have Buddha-nature.
Now, to ascribe Buddha-nature to stones is one thing, but to
include walls and tiles is another, far more provocative thing. One
reason for this is that the shd of busshd has important connotations
of “birth,” “life,” and “growth”—such that it would be counter-
intuitive to apply the term to something constructed or fabricated
by human beings.25 It is doubtful whether the technology used in
Dogen’s day to produce fences, walls, and roof tiles was environ-
mentally destructive, but one might reasonably wonder whether
Dogen would be comfortable saying that even fences or roof tiles
made of nonbiodegradable plastic are Buddha-nature. But again, as
in the case of Kitkai’s talk of the body of Dainichi, the important
feature of Buddha-nature for Dogen, exemplified in his identification
of it as “total-being” (shitsu-u), is that it constitutes an organized
totality. He would thus not be committed to celebrating the chemi-
cals polluting a river (which render the resident fish more imper-
manent than they would otherwise be) or the radioactive waste
stored all over the planet (which is capable of radicalizing the
impermanence of all life to the point of extinction) as venerable
manifestations of Buddha-nature.
Dogen was influenced, as was Kikai, by classical Taoist thinkers
(Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu), as evidenced by his frequent talk of the
“Buddha Way” (butsudd, or Buddha tao)—not to mention his name
(which means “source of the Way”). Throughout his writings Dogen
advocates paying close attention to the natural world, just as the
Taoists recommend following t’ien tao (the Way of Heaven). And,
just as the Taoist sage practices an enlightened “sorting” (dun) of
things on the basis of the broadest possible perspective on their
various te (powers, potencies), so Dogen exhorts his readers to “total
exertion” (gijjin) in attending to the different ways things “express
the Way” (ddtoku) and occupy their special “dharma positions” (hOi)
in the vast context of the cosmos.2® By contrast with the radical-
egalitarian deep-ecological picture of Taoism and Zen, whereby all
living beings are to be encouraged to blossom and flourish, both
 124 Buddhism and Ecology

Chuang-tzu and Dogen would want to take into account the effects
of propagating tubercle bacilli or radioactive waste on the flour-
ishing of human (and other) beings before deciding to let them
bloom.

Practical Postscript
The crucial question concerning these Japanese Buddhist ideas about
nature is to what extent they can contribute to the solution of our
current ecological problems. It would clearly be difficult to convince
most citizens in Western countries, or their political representatives,
that the solution lies in the ideas of a ninth-century thaumaturge
from Japan. But it is demonstrable that this Japanese Buddhist
understanding of the relations between human beings and the natural
world has close parallels in several (admittedly non-mainstream)
currents of Western thinking. (In the United States, the relevant
figures would range from the Native Americans to more intel-
lectually “respectable” characters, such as Emerson, Thoreau, Aldo
Leopold, and John Muir; in Germany, there would be Béhme,
Goethe, Schelling, and Nietzsche; in France, Rousseau; and so on.)
If one were to show the underlying harmony among these disparate
worldviews, and how these ideas conduce to a fulfilling way of
living that lets the natural environment flourish as well, there might
be a chance of some progress.
The problem is how to bring about an experiential realization of
the validity of such ideas on the part of the large numbers of
inhabitants of postindustrial societies whose lives are fairly well
insulated from nature. A few days away from watching television
in a more or less hermetically sealed space, and spent in an
unspoiled natural environment, would help immeasurably; but, since
some kind of guidance is desirable, this is a labor-intensive project
(already being undertaken at certain Zen centers, colleges, and
universities) that can reach only small numbers of people at a time.
There is justified doubt as to whether the task could be well
accomplished by publishing a book, since the people whose
perspectives need to be changed (the politicians and general
populace) do not read much anymore. But they do watch tele-
vision—and so an optimal medium for the dissemination of these
 Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers 125

ideas would be film, which can show as forcefully as it can tell,

and offers the alternatives of documentary (which can vividly
present the dire situation we are in) and drama (which can make
the problems and their potential solutions personal). A pioneer in
this field, in the area of the art film, is John Daido Loori, whose
Zen videography beautifully and forcefully conveys Dogen’s
understanding of the natural world as a source of wisdom.?’
With respect to film drama, it is by no means inconceivable, in
view of the number of Hollywood stars and rock musicians who
visibly promote environmental causes, that the right dramatic
script(s) could attract the talents of some world-famous actors and
actresses, with some well-known popular musicians for the sound-
track, and eventuate in a feature film with a salutary ecological
message. We might then look forward to seeing, in worldwide
distribution, the cosmic Buddha expounding the true teachings not
only through mountains, trees, and rivers but also by way of
celluloid and fiber-optic cable.
This little flourish of fantasy points up one of the more encour-
aging implications of the Japanese Buddhist outlook for our
contemporary situation—insofar as that kind of philosophy resolves
the tension between nature and culture. As the example of Dogen
(and of other figures in the Zen tradition) shows, there is no
necessary contradiction between a simple life lived lightly on the
earth and a life rich in refined culture. If Thoreau took his Homer
to Walden, we can probably in good ecological conscience have our
siatras on CD-ROM to complement the scriptures in mountains,
rivers, and trees.
 126 Buddhism and Ecology

Notes

* The writing of this paper was supported by a research grant from the Japan
Studies Endowment of the University of Hawaii, funded by a grant from the
Japanese government.
1. Harold Bloom has remarked on the pronounced Gnostic strain in contem-
porary American religion, thanks to which believers understand themselves as
being in essence separate from nature; see his The American Religion: The
Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992),
chaps. | and 2.
2. In the course of an attack on the “new fundamentalism” of deep ecology,
the French philosopher Luc Ferry refers to its non-anthropocentric worldview as
an “as yet unprecedented vision of the world” (The New Ecological Order
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995], 60-61). Ferry is apparently unaware
that similarly non-anthropocentric perspectives have informed sophisticated Taoist
and Buddhist philosophies for centuries.
3. For an illuminating account of this debate, see William R. LaFleur, “Saigyo
and the Buddhist Value of Nature,” in Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought:
Essays in Environmental Philosophy, ed. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 183-209. The author goes
on to show how these ideas were subsequently elaborated by several prominent
figures in the Japanese Tendai school, notably Rydgen in the tenth century and
Chiujin in the twelfth. In the same volume, see also David Edward Shaner, “The
Japanese Experience of Nature,” 163-82.
4. Kikai: Major Works, translated with an account of his life and a study of
his thought, by Yoshito S. Hakeda (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972)
(hereafter cited as Hakeda, Kiikai), 254-55.
5. Kikai, Hizd ki (Record of the secret treasury), in Kobo daishi zenshii (KDZ),
ed. Yoshitake Inage, 3rd ed. rev. (Tokyo: Mikky6 Bunka Kenkyusha, 1965), 2:37;
cited in LaFleur, “Saigyd and the Buddhist Value of Nature,” 186.
6. Kikai, Sokushin jobutsu gi (Attaining enlightenment in this very body), in
Hakeda, Kikai, 229.
7. Kikai, KDZ, 1:516; cited in Hakeda, Kikai, 93.
8. For a fine explication of this idea, see Thomas P. Kasulis, “Reality as
Embodiment: An Analysis of Kikai’s SokushinjObutsu and Hosshin Seppo,” in
Religious Reflections on the Human Body, ed. Jane Marie Law (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1995), 166-85. See also, by the same author, “Kikai
(774-835): Philosophizing in the Archaic,” in Myth and Philosophy, ed. Frank E.
Reynolds and David Tracy (Albany: State University of New York, 1990), 131-50.
9. Kikai, KDZ, 3:402; cited in Hakeda, Kitkai, 91.
10. “We show you the revelation of the Godhead through nature. .. . how the
Unground or Godhead reveals itself with this eternal generation, for God is
 Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers 127

spirit. . .and nature is his corporeal being, as eternal nature. . . . For God did not
give birth to creation in order thereby to become more perfect, but rather for his
own self-revelation and so for the greatest joy and magnificence” (Béhme, De
Signatura Rerum, 3.1, 3.7, 16.2).
11. Dogen, Shdbdgenzo, “Bussho” (Buddha-nature). Subsequent references to
Dogen will be made simply by the title of the relevant chapter/fascicle of his major
work, Shdbdgenzo (in vol. 1 of Dogen zenji zenshi, ed. Okubo Dosht [Tokyo,
1969-70]).
12. Dogen, “Zenki” (Total working); cited in Hee-Jin Kim, Dégen Kigen—
Mystical Realist (Tucson: University of Arizona Press for the Association for Asian
Studies, 1975), 164.
13. Dogen, “Keiseisanshoku” (Sounds of the valley, color of the mountains),
in Shdbdgenzo, trans. Kosen Nishiyama and John Stevens, 4 vols. (Sendai:
Daihokkaikaku, 1975-83), 1:92.
14. Dogen, “Mujo-seppo” (Nonsentient beings expound the dharma); cited in
Kim, Dogen Kigen, 253-54.
15. Dogen, “Keiseisanshoku”; cited in Kim, Ddgen Kigen, 256.
16. Hee-Jin Kim’s formulation (Dégen Kigen, 256). See his insightful account
of Dogen’s understanding of nature and the force of the nature imagery in his
texts, in the section entitled “Nature: The Mountains and Waters” (253-62).
17. Dogen, “Jishd zammai” (The samadhi of self-enlightenment); cited in Kim,
Dogen Kigen, 97.
18. Yuriko Saito, “The Japanese Love of Nature: A Paradox,” Landscape 31,
no. 2 (1992):1-8.
19. Kikai, KDZ 1:95; cited in Hakeda, Kikai, 80.
20. Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology: Living As If Nature
Mattered (Salt Lake City: G. M. Smith, 1985), 66, where the norm is said to have
been developed by Arne Naess. While there is no mention of Kukai in this book,
there are several references to Taoist ideas (which influenced Kikai as well as
Zen), as well as references to or quotations from Dogen on 11 (where he is invoked
as a representative of Taoism), 100-101, 112-13, and 232-34.
21. The analogy between the dharmakaya and a physical body or organism
breaks down with the consideration that there can be nothing outside the
dharmakaya, though this does not reduce the efficacy of the analogy in other
respects.
22. Dogen’s idea of Buddha-nature—including “total-being Buddha-nature”
(shitsu-u busshd), “non-being Buddha-nature” (mu busshod), and “emptiness
Buddha-nature” (ki bussho)—is incredibly complex. See Kim’s chapter “The
Buddha-nature” (136-227) in his Dégen Kigen, and Masao Abe, “Dogen on
Buddha-nature,” in A Study of Dogen: His Philosophy and Religion (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1992), 35-76.
128 Buddhism and Ecology

23. Dogen, “Bussho,” in Nishiyama and Stevens, Shabdgenzo, 4:140. It is

significant that the term garyaku in shoheki garyaku (“fences, walls, tiles, stones’)
also has the connotation of useless, insignificant things.
24. Dogen, “Sangai yuishin” (The three worlds are mind-only); cited in Kim,
Dogen Kigen, 157.
25. Similarly, hsing, the Chinese equivalent of shd, is derived from sheng,
meaning “birth, life, growth.” At the same time, interestingly, the radical in the
graph shd/hsing is the risshinben—denoting “mind.”
26. Hee-Jin Kim lays appropriate emphasis on the antiquietistic aspect of
Dogen’s philosophy: “In his view things, events, relations were not the given
(entities) but were possibilities, projects, and tasks that can be acted out, expressed,
and understood as self-expressions and self-activities of the Buddha-nature. This
did not imply a complacent acceptance of the given situation but required man’s
strenuous efforts to transform and transfigure it” (Dogen Kigen, 183).
27. See—or, rather, view—the VHS tapes Mountains and Rivers: An Audio-
visual Experience of Zen’s Mystical Realism (Mt. Tremper, N.Y.: Dharma
Communications, 1994) and Sacred Wildness: Zen Teachings of Rock and Water
(Mt. Tremper, N.Y.: Dharma Communications, 1996).
Buddhism and Animals:
India and Japan
 Animals and Environment
in the Buddhist Birth Stories

Christopher Key Chapple

Prologue: Animal Spirit

Thomas Berry, in his Dream of the Earth, lauds the importance of

species protection. He notes that the disappearance of each endan-
gered animal and plant from the planet results in the diminishment
of human consciousness. He states:

If we have powers of imagination these are activated by the

magic display of color and sound, of form and movement, such as
we observe in the clouds of the sky, the trees and bushes and
flowers, the waters and the wind, the singing birds, and the
movement of the great blue whale through the sea. If we have words
with which to speak and think and commune, words for the inner
experience of the divine, words for the intimacies of life, if we have
words for telling stories to our children, words with which we can
sing, it is again because of the impressions we have received from
the variety of beings about us.!

Animals as described by Berry hold the potential for enriching

human consciousness; by observing animals and the natural order
we learn not only about their behavior but also acquire insights and
metaphors that deepen our own experience as human beings.
Walt Whitman, a great observer of the natural and human world,
once wrote in regard to animals that:
I think I could turn and live with animals,
They are so placid and self-contained
 132 Buddhism and Ecology

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied,
Not one is demented with the mania of owning things.2

For Whitman, the very being of animals in their seeming simplicity

provided a moral example for humans to emulate.
Animals throughout the world’s folklore have been used as
metaphors and as inspiration, as prophetic and imaginative tools.
From the Anansi spider tales of the Yoruba to the coyote stories of
North America, from the Brer Rabbit tales of the American South
to Aesop’s Fables from ancient Greece, animal stories have provided
amusement, delight, and wisdom for millennia. From the dawn of
human history in the caves of Lascaux to the therioanthropic images
of Pharaonic Egypt and Shang dynasty China, as well as India’s
Indus Valley civilization depictions of rhinoceri and various forms
of cattle and cats, animals have been central to human self-
orientation and definition, with humans seeking in various ways to
capture the power of animals, to be safe from harm from animals,
to feed upon animals, and, through ritual, to revere animals.
Animals demonstrate a wide range of behaviors. Although
Aristotle and Descartes did not attribute cognition to animals, the
versatility and profundity of animal consciousness has received
positive attention from recent scientists, who now acknowledge
an awareness in animals that includes intentionality, emotion,
and, to a degree, logic. In addition to the pioneering scientific
work of Donald R. Griffin, Carolyn A. Ristau, Frans de Waal,
Dorothy Cheney,’ Irene Pepperberg,4 Donald Kroodsma,> and
others, research in animal cognition has been popularized in such
books as When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals.©
A high level of intelligence is now recognized in chimpanzees,
dolphins, and many other animals, and, in some ways, this paradigm
shift in science makes the Buddhist attitude toward animals as
exhibited in the Jataka stories more interesting, if not more credible.
 Animals and Environment in the Buddhist Birth Stories 133

Animal Awareness in Buddhism

In the cosmology of the early renouncer traditions of Buddhism and

Jainism, animals play a vital role. Not only do animals occupy their
own important niche in the categorization of realms that also house
humans, gods, hell beings, and ghosts, each animal can serve as host
to life-forms involved in an ever-changing game of cosmic musical
chairs. An animal in one birth might take the form of the same or a
different animal in the next lifetime, might advance to human or
godly status, or might descend to the hellish or ghostly realms.
Unlike the Rg Veda, which regards animals as tools for human
sustenance or sacrifice, the early literature of the Buddhist and Jaina
Sramanical treatment of animals accords to them an important place
in the hierarchy of life.
The status of animals in the early Buddhist tradition has been
the topic of three recent studies: a chapter entitled “Nonviolence,
Buddhism, and Animal Protection” in my Nonviolence to Animals,
Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions,’ which discusses the Buddhist
precept against taking life and surveys the Asokan materials;
James P. McDermott’s article “Animals and Humans in Early
Buddhism,” which examines materials in the Sutta and Vinaya texts
regarding the treatment of animals;? and Padmanabh S. Jaini’s
“Indian Perspectives on the Spirituality of Animals,” which cites a
wide range of animal stories from the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina
traditions that indicate belief in innate spiritual and ethical capacities
within animals.?
In Buddhist countries, a genre of text has arisen known as the
Jataka or birth stories. Each of these stories tells the past lives of
the Buddha and includes a moral lesson. This genre includes stories
embedded in canonical texts, collections that isolate and embellish
the birth tales, and regional stories in local languages.!° The most
comprehensive translation of Jataka tales is included in a six-volume
work titled The Jataka or Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births,
published in 1895. This work includes 550 stories which were
translated from Pali into English and spans over two thousand pages.
According to E. B. Cowell, the editor of this massive project, the
collection arose from Singhalese stories that were developed from
much shorter Pali verses. Buddhaghosa, the great fourth-century Sri
134 Buddhism and Ecology

Lankan Theravada redactor, translated the stories into Pali.!! In

addition to the original Pali verse (g@thd@), these tales include an
introductory context story, a longer version of the verse story, and
a brief mention of the identities of the animals and persons in the
tale, including who in the tale was later to be reborn as the Buddha.
Excerpts, anthologies, and children’s books based on this massive
work have appeared in English throughout the past century.!2
There are additional “apocryphal” Jataka tales,!3 as well as Arya
Stra’s Sanskrit retelling of 34 Jataka stories in the Jatakamala
(ca. 400 c.£.), which was recently newly translated by Peter
Khoroche.'* Other Jataka stories occur in later Mahayana texts,
particularly the Mahdaratnakita Sitra.'>
For the purposes of this study, I will focus on the 550 stories
traditionally accepted within the Theravada tradition. Of the 550
tales, a full half of them (225) mention animals, usually as the
central characters. Seventy different types of animals are mentioned
and 319 animals or groups of animals appear in the 225 stories.
Monkeys lead the pack, being represented in 27 different tales,
followed with elephants (24), jackals (20), lions (19), crows (17),
deer (15), birds (15), fish (12), and parrots (11). Of special interest
are 10 stories in which the Buddha and other beings take the form
of tree spirits (see the table found at the end of this chapter).
In most instances, animals represent prior life-forms of persons
living at the time of the Buddha. The actions of these animals in
the past help explain present-day human behavior. In some cases,
this animal behavior is auspicious and has laid the foundation for
later auspicious human action; in other cases, the behavior is
objectionable and helps account for heinous human behavior
committed by the Buddha’s contemporaries. Many stories of the
latter type relate to Devadatta, the cousin of the Buddha who plotted
his downfall and actually attempted to kill the Buddha by hurling
rocks at him and sending a raging elephant in his path.
This study will focus specifically on the portrayal of animals (and
plants) in select stories from the Pali collection of Jataka stories. I
have grouped these stories into examples that illustrate the wisdom
and/or compassion exhibited by animals; karmic moral fables
wherein animals are punished for their folly or cruelty; stories
 Animals and Environment in the Buddhist Birth Stories 135

pertaining to vegetarianism and meat-eating; stories designed to

discourage animal sacrifice; and tales that contain what seems to
be an inherently ecological message.

Compassionate and Wise Animals

The first representative sampling I have chosen under this category

tells the story of a time when the Buddha lived in a prior birth as a
woodpecker (the Javasakuna Jataka).'© One day he noticed that a
lion was in great discomfort, due to a bone being lodged in his
throat. After propping the lion’s jaws open with a stick, the
woodpecker enters the mouth of the lion and dislodges the stick,
enabling the lion once again to breathe and eat easily. At a later time,
the bird comes near the lion while the lion is devouring a wild
buffalo. To test the lion, the woodpecker flies near to him and asks
of him a favor. The lion haughtily replies that he had spared the
woodpecker’s life once, and that was enough of a favor. The bird
chastises the ungrateful lion and hastens on his way. After telling
this tale, the Buddha states that the rude lion was Devadatta in a
prior life and that he, the Buddha, was the helpful woodpecker.
In the Suvannamiga Jataka, a golden stag became trapped in a
snare.!7 Despite his strong efforts and the encouragement of his
wife, he could not free himself. His devoted wife then confronted
the hunter who had come to collect his catch. She offered her own
life in place of her husband’s life. Stunned, the hunter freed both
of them. In thankfulness for the hunter’s change of heart, the stag
later presented the hunter with a “jewel he had found in their feeding
ground” and implored the hunter to abstain from all killing, to
establish a household, and to become involved with good works.
Following the story, Buddha notes that he himself was the royal stag.
In both of these stories, animals exhibit meritorious behavior and
set an example for the humans listening to each tale. In the first
instance, the Buddha teaches the importance of generosity and
gratitude. In the second, he teaches the power of self-sacrifice and
devotion. This latter example also includes an animal advocating
for abstention from hunting, a reflection of the Buddhist precept of
non-injury to life.
136 Buddhism and Ecology

Foolish Animals

The Kokdalika Jataka tells that many years ago in Banaras, the king
had a bad habit of talking too much. A wise and valued minister
decided to teach the king a lesson. A cuckoo (like the North
American cowbird), rather than rearing her own young, had laid an
egg in a crow’s nest. The mother crow, thinking the egg to be one
of her own, watched over the egg until it hatched and then fed the
young infant bird. Unfortunately, one day, while not yet grown, the
small intruder uttered the distinct call of the cuckoo. The mother
crow grew alarmed, pecked the young cuckoo with her beak, and
tossed it from her nest. It landed at the feet of the king, who turned
to his minister. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked. The wise
minister (the future Buddha) replied that
They that with speech inopportune offend
Like the young cuckoo meet untimely end.
No deadly poison, nor sharp-whetted sword
Is half so fatal as ill-spoken word.

The king, having learned his lesson, tempered his speech, and
avoided a possible overthrow of his rule. In his commentary, the
Buddha notes that he was the wise minister and the talkative king
one of his garrulous monks, Kokdalika.!8
In the Latukika Jataka, the Buddha tells of two elephants, one
the regal leader of the herd, the other a rogue marauder.!? The head
elephant one day comes upon a mother quail whose youngsters had
just hatched. The quail implores the head elephant to protect her
children, and he arranges for all eighty thousand of his followers
to step carefully around the birds. He warns the mother quail of a
rogue elephant that might come by and advises her likewise to
implore him to spare her children. Despite her entreaties, the rogue
elephant nastily ignores the mother quail and crushes the young
quail with his left foot. The mother quail, angered by the cruel
murder of her brood, sets out in search of revenge. She meets with
a crow, a fly, and a frog, who agree to help her. The crow pecks
out the eyes of the elephant. The fly lays its eggs in the empty
sockets. After the fly eggs turn into maggots and cause a frenzy of
itchiness in the elephant’s head, he blindly seeks out water to give
him some relief. Under the guidance of the quail, the frog croaks
 Animals and Environment in the Buddhist Birth Stories 137

first at the top of the mountain, leading the elephant to a precipice.

He then jumps to the bottom of the cliff and croaks again. The
elephant, following the sound of the frog in search of water, plunges
into the chasm, and rolls to his death at the foot of the mountain.
After telling this story, the Buddha states, “Brethren, one ought not
to incur the hostility of anyone.” He then notes that he was the
friendly head elephant and that Devadatta was the rogue elephant.
The first story warns against taking on negative habits associated
with particular animals, in this case, excessive loquaciousness. The
second story, albeit its gruesome nature, warns that one must not
commit random acts of destruction.

The Question of Vegetarianism in the Jataka Tales

One issue that arises in the discussion of Theravada Buddhism is

the question of whether to eat flesh foods. As D. Seyfort Ruegg has
pointed out, this policy varies from country to country, according
to the customs of the host country.7° Although it has been somewhat
disputed whether the Buddha himself ate meat, it clearly has been
acceptable for monks in Southeast Asia to receive meat as part of
their alms, as long as meat dishes have not been prepared especially
for them. At variance with the dietary laws of Sramanic groups in
India, particularly the Jainas, we find the Buddha proclaiming that
it is acceptable to eat meat as long as one did not directly kill the
animal. This is also at variance with Vy4asa’s proclamation in his
commentary on the Yoga Sitras that not only is direct violence to
be avoided, but the practitioner of ahimsd must abstain from assent
to violence.2! The Buddha suggests that as long as one does not
become entangled in violence, it is acceptable to allow oneself to
be used for another’s evil purposes to avoid harm.
In the Telovada Jataka, the Buddha directly criticizes a Jaina
ascetic by the name of Nathaputta, who ridicules the Buddha for
accepting food with meat.** The Buddha tells the story of a time
when he was a Brahmin living in Banaras. In his old age he had
retired to the Himalayas to pursue a religious life. During a periodic
visit to the city to get salt and seasoning, a wealthy man inten-
tionally prepared for him a meal with fish and then ridiculed the
holy man for eating it. In reply, the Brahmin retorted, “If the holy
138 Buddhism and Ecology

eat, no sin is done,” affirming that aspect of the monastic code that
States “my priests have permission to eat whatever food is customary
to eat in any place or country, so that it be done without the
indulgence of the appetite, or evil desire.”’23 In closing, the Buddha
remarks that he had been the Brahmin, and that the Jaina monk
Nathaputta had been the wealthy man.
In yet another story based in Banaras, the Tittira Jataka (no. 319),
the Buddha tells of a time when he lived as a Brahmin ascetic of
great spiritual accomplishment. During this time, a fowler had
trained a partridge to serve as a decoy, attracting other partridges
into the fowler’s snare. At first the decoy partridge resisted his task,
but the fowler beat him on the head with bamboo until the partridge
learned to be submissive. In his conscience, the partridge suffered
greatly, wondering if he accrued great sin through his complicity.
One day, the fowler brought his partridge down to the river, near
the hut of the accomplished ascetic. While the fowler slept, the
partridge asked the ascetic if in fact his life as a decoy was in error.
The Brahmin replied:
If no evil in thy heart
Prompts to deed of villainy,
Shouldst thou play a passive part,
Guilt attaches not to thee.
If not sin lurks in the heart,
Innocent the deed will be.
He who plays a passive part
From all guilt is counted free.

Freed from remorse, the partridge is carried off again by the fowler.
After telling this tale, the Buddha announces that he was the ascetic
and his son, Rahila, the partridge.** Rather than using this tale as
an opportunity to denounce all forms of hunting, the Buddha
acknowledges that circumstance sometimes forces compromise.

Animal Sacrifice

In one birth long ago, as told in the Dummedha Jataka, the Buddha,
a prince of Banaras, was appalled by the sacrificial massacre of
sheep, goats, poultry, pigs, and other animals, in accordance with
Vedic ritual. Each year, until the death of his father, he performed
 Animals and Environment in the Buddhist Birth Stories 139

his own rituals—without killing animals—to the spirit of a special

banyan tree. After the death of his father, he ascended the throne
and revealed to his subjects the nature of his worship at the tree,
announcing that he had promised to offer to the tree the lives of
one thousand humans who violate the precept of nonviolence. Once
this proclamation had been made, all the townfolk forever renounced
the practice of animal sacrifice. Thus, “without harming a single
one of his subjects, the bodhisattva made them observe the
precepts.”*° This underscores the Buddhist commitment to giving up
the dummedha, or evil sacrifice, in order to spare the lives of
innocent animal victims.
The theme of campaigning against the bloody Brahmanical
sacrifice of animals to placate the gods continues in the Lohakumbi
Jataka. While the Buddha was dwelling at Jetavana, he told a story
about the king of Kosala. One evening the king heard four terrible
wails. He consulted with a group of Brahmins, who advised him
that the calls in the darkness indicated imminent destruction and that
to propitiate the gods the king must offer a fourfold sacrifice and
kill men, bulls, horses, elephants, quails, and other birds in sets of
four. The Brahmins happily set about building a fire pit and
collecting their sacrificial victims and became “highly excited at the
thought of the dainties they were to eat and the wealth they would
gain.”26 Queen Mallika, skeptical of the goings-on, urged the king
to consult the Buddha. The king traveled to Jetavana and told the
Buddha of his anxiety regarding the four screams in the night. The
Buddha assured him that this had happened long ago. In the tale
that follows, the Buddha repeats the story, but includes among the
Brahmins one priest who questions the need to kill so many beings.
The priest encounters an ascetic in the garden, who explains that
the king is mistaken about the true cause of the noises in the night.
The young priest escorts the ascetic to the king, where the ascetic
explains that the four cries were uttered by four men who long ago
committed adultery and, as a result of their sin, were condemned
to be reborn in the Four Iron Caldrons, where they dwelt for thirty
thousand years, periodically boiling to the top and uttering their
sickening moans. It was these moans that the king of long ago heard,
and these same moans that the king of Kosala heard as well. The
Buddha, both in his life long ago as an ascetic, and in Jetavana,
assured the respective kings that no harm would befall them due to
140 Buddhism and Ecology

the four cries. Consequently, both kings canceled the sacrifice and
released all the numerous victims. This story ridicules the Brah-
manical sacrificial process, carrying the message that misguided
notions and greed lie at the heart of such behavior. This story also
emphasizes the Buddhist teachings on the inevitability of karmic
punishment for wrongdoings and hence undermines the notion that
Brahmanical sacrifice can be expiatory. Both stories invoke the
Buddhist precept that the lives of animals must be protected.

Jataka Tales and Ecology

In the Rukkhadhamma Jataka, a quarrel had arisen regarding water

rights. In response, the Buddha told a tale of his past life as the spirit
of a sal tree in the Himalayas. During the reign of King Vessava,
the trees, shrubs, bushes, and plants were all invited to choose a new
abode. The future Buddha-tree advised all his kinsfolk to “shun trees
that stood alone in the open and to take up their abodes” in the
forest. The wise vegetative spirits followed his advice, but the proud
and foolish ones instead chose to dwell outside the villages and
towns, to reap the benefits offered by townspeople who worship
such trees. They left the forest and came to inhabit “giant trees
which grow in an open space.” One day a mighty storm swept over
the countryside. The solitary trees, despite their years of growth deep
into the rich farmland, suffered greatly: their branches snapped, their
trunks collapsed, and they were uprooted, “flung to the earth by the
tempest.” But when the storm hit the sal forest of interlacing trees
where the future Buddha dwelt, “its fury was in vain. . .not a tree
could it overthrow.” In a touching conclusion, the Buddha narrates
that the “forlorn fairies whose dwellings were destroyed took their
children in their arms and journeyed to the Himalayas.” The future
Buddha responded with the verse:
United, forest-like, should kinsfolk stand;
The storm o’erthrows the solitary tree.27
This was later repeated by the Buddha when he addressed the
villagers during a dispute over water, reminding them to work in
unity toward a common goal. This story could be interpreted as a
call to heed the lessons of the forest, to acknowledge the strength
of the interconnectedness of life.
 Animals and Environment in the Buddhist Birth Stories 14]

In the Kusanjali Jataka,?® the future Buddha dwelt as a clump

of kusa grass near a beautiful wishing tree (Mukkhaka) with a strong
trunk and spreading branches. The spirit of this tree had once been
a mighty queen. The grass was an intimate friend of this noble tree.
Nearby, the palace of King Brahmadatta in Banaras had only one
main pillar, which had become shaky. The king sent his carpenters
to find wood with which to replace the pillar, and they came upon
the wishing tree. They resisted cutting it down, and yet could find
no other suitable candidate for the job. When they told the king of
their troubles, he told them to cut the wishing tree to make his roof
secure. The carpenters went and made a sacrifice to the tree, asking
for its forgiveness and announcing that they would return the next
day to execute their deadly deed. The tree burst into tears, and the
various spirits of the forest came to console her, yet none could think
of a way to thwart the carpenters. Finally, the kusa grass Buddha
called up to her and assured her that he had a plan.
The next day, the kusa grass took on the personality of a
chameleon and worked his way up from the roots of the tree through
the branches, making the tree appear as if it were full of holes. When
the carpenters came, the leader exclaimed that the tree was rotten
and that they had not properly inspected it the day before. Conse-
quently, the tree was saved. The noble tree rejoiced and lauded the
lowly clump of grass for saving her life. She assembled the forest
spirits and announced that they “must make friends of the wise
whatever their station in life.”*? After telling this story, the Buddha
explains that Ananda, his loyal follower, was the tree sprite, and
that he, the Buddha, was the kusa sprite.
Although this story was used as a moral tale to encourage people
to support one another and accept one another regardless of social
rank, this also can be seen as an environmental fable wherein the
salvation of the tree stands for the preservation of both remarkable
trees and the larger ecosystem in which they thrive.
The last story I have chosen with an underlying ecological theme
is the Vyaddha Jataka, a tale reminiscent of Aldo Leopold’s concept
of “thinking like a mountain.”*° In this story, the Buddha dwelt in
a forest as a tree spirit. In this particular forest also lived a lion and
a tiger, who used to “kill and eat all manner of creatures,” leaving
behind their offal to fester and decay. Because of the ferociousness
of these predators, no humans dared to enter the forest, let alone
142 Buddhism and Ecology

cut down even a single tree. However, one of the tree spirits could
not stand the stench generated by the lion’s and tiger’s rotting
victims. One day, against the advice of the Buddha-tree, the spirit
assumed an awful shape and scared off the killers. The people of a
nearby village noticed that they no longer saw the tracks of either
the lion or the tiger and began to chop down part of the forest.
Despite the entreaties of the foolish tree spirit, the animals would
not return, and after a few days the men “cut down all the wood,
made fields, and brought them under cultivation,’! thus driving out
the spirits of the forest.
The moral given by the Buddha was that one should recognize
that one’s peace sometimes depends upon being able to stave off
the incursion of others, and that one should not disturb such a state
of affairs. From an environmental perspective, the presence of
predators maintained an acceptable balance within the ecosystem,
a balance that could not be restored after the predators were driven
off, opening the land for clear-cutting and agricultural use.
Each of these three stories exhibits a continuity of life-forms
illustrative of the integrated nature of Buddhist cosmology. Human
consciousness has been shaped and informed by the observation of
animals and trees. According to the Buddha, we can learn from
animals and trees because we were once animals and trees ourselves.
In the time of the Buddha, in a time when agriculture and the
building of cities and towns threatened nature, it was recognized
that trees were not readily able to advocate for themselves. By
telling the tale, in this third instance, of the foolish destruction of a
forest, the Buddha has provided a lasting fable that can likewise help
contemporary persons acknowledge the shortsightedness of such
actions and thus, hopefully, avoid future destruction of life systems.

Conclusion

The animals stories of the Jataka tales include simple moral tales
advising Buddha’s followers to avoid hurting people through
physical violence or slander, using examples of rogue or rascal
animals and their exploits as a didactic tool. In other fables, the
Buddha tells of meritorious actions performed by animals, including
remarkable acts of charity and compassion. He uses examples of
 Animals and Environment in the Buddhist Birth Stories 143

the suffering of animals to sermonize against the ritual use of

animals in sacrifice, and he speaks with high praise of animals who
have sacrificed their own lives to save others.
In the Jataka tales, animals can be seen to represent human
qualities. However, to the extent that the animals are personified, it
can also be argued that humans themselves more often than not
exhibit qualities easily recognizable in animals, whether manifested
as moral exemplars or as fools. The animal tales of Buddhism
illustrate and underscore the position that life from one form to the
next is continuous. The Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation supports
this theory in two ways. First, according to reincarnation theory,
present life will continue in some future form. Second, because lives
have endured so many incarnations, a familial link may be assumed.
The Lankavatara Sittra, a Mahayana Buddhist text, states:

In the long course of samsdra [reincarnation], there is not one

among living beings with form who has not been mother, father,
brother, sister, son, or daughter, or some other relative. Being
connected with the process of taking birth, one is kin to all wild
and domestic animals, birds, and beings born from the womb.

Repeated birth generates an interconnected web of life which, ac-

cording to the Buddhist precept of harmlessness, must be respected.
Animals in Buddhism, however, are not universally lauded, ro-
manticized, or idealized. The foibles of animals are often presented.
Animals are depicted as being cruel to other animals. Furthermore,
human treatment of animals is not always kind. The Buddha-to-be
kills a tortoise,>> and a recurring theme involves human destruction
of animal habitats.
It may be said that animals in the Jataka tales are seen not so
much as animals but as potential humans or as animals that can
teach humans a lesson. However, it should also be noted that the
Buddha was very familiar with animals. He lived during a time and
in a place where the boundaries between humans and animals were
far more fluid than in contemporary industrialized societies. In fact,
his descriptions of monkeys, elephants, quail, cuckoos, and the rest
are presented with remarkable detail and accuracy. His insights into
both animal and human behavior combine to make the Jataka stories
very effective didactic tools.
144 Buddhism and Ecology

Reflecting back upon the opening statements quoted from

Thomas Berry, the varied beings of the natural world shaped the
consciousness and imagination of the Buddha and early Buddhists
as they repeated and shared hundreds of animal fables. Through
direct observation of the natural world, a wisdom arose, com-
municated through a medium accessible to adults and children alike.
Likewise, when Walt Whitman proclaims that he looks at animals
“long and long,” he also takes from them an understanding of their
simplicity, their innate sense of purpose, and their self-dignity.
Without complaining, without speculating, without committing the
sin of possessiveness, animals move through their existence with
seeming grace and ease. Both Berry and Whitman suggest that
animals can provide a moral example for humans and also deepen
the threads of human experience. The Jataka tales affirm this
interpretation of animal worth.
Human consciousness can be shaped by its experiences of
animals. The depth and profundity of human experience can be
enriched and improved through contact with and observation of the
ways of animals. Contrary to Aristotelean and Cartesian attitudes
toward animals, animals possess cognition, will, emotion, and
reason. As noted by the Buddha, animals, like ourselves, make
choices that govern both this immediate life and future experiences.
 Animals and Environment in the Buddhist Birth Stories 145

NUMBER OF ANIMALS APPEARING IN THE JATAKA TALES

(THERAVADA TRADITION)

In ALPHABETICAL ORDER IN NUMERICAL ORDER

antelope monkey 27
bear NY
— elephant 24
beetle jackal 20
—

bird lion 19
pod
KAN

boar crow 17
buffalo bird 15
bull deer, stag, doe 15
Ph

cat fish 12
|

chameleon parrot 11
ND

chicken snake 10
WN

cow tree spirit

©
—
crab horse

C
WW

crane goose

HHwWWWwWh
crocodile tiger

HAAANAANA
DB

crow tortoise
—"

cuckoo boar
NW

deer, stag, doe goat

pod

dog quail
Hh

donkey bull
DO

duck crocodile
—=ie

eagle dog
HHA

elephant Ox
NO

elk partridge
falcon peacock
eee] ON ON

WWWWWWW

fish rat
fly vulture
fox cow
ee

frog crab
goat crane
goose cuckoo
grass spirit lizard
hawk pig
horse pigeon
hound serpent
© pet eet

iguana woodpecker
jackal antelope
ho

NN

jay chameleon
—
146 Buddhism and Ecology

NUMBER OF ANIMALS APPEARING IN THE JATAKA TALES

(THERAVADA TRADITION), CONTINUED

IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER IN NUMERICAL ORDER

lion 19 chicken 2
lizard 3 donkey 2
mongoose 1 falcon 2
monkey 27 osprey 2
mosquito ] owl 2
mouse 1 rabbit 2
osprey 2 rooster 2
otter 1 viper 2
owl 2 water spirit 2
Ox 4 bear ]
panther l beetle l
parrot 11 buffalo 1
partridge 4 cat 1
peacock 4 duck ]
pig 3 eagle 1
pigeon 3 elk 1
quail 5 fly 1
rabbit 2 fox 1
rat 4 frog ]
rooster 2 grass spirit ]
rhinoceros ] hawk ]
serpent 3 hound 1
shrew l iguana 1
snake 10 jay 1
tiger 7 mongoose l
tortoise 7 mosquito ]
tree spirit 10 mouse ]
viper 2 otter |
vulture 4 panter ]
water spirit 2 rhinoceros |
wolf ] shrew ]
woodpecker 3 wolf ]
 Animals and Environment in the Buddhist Birth Stories 147

Notes

1. Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books,
1988), 11.
2. As quoted in John Lockwood Kipling, Beast and Man in India: A Popular
Sketch of Indian Animals in Their Relations with the People (London: MacMillan,
1892), 1.
3. Donald R. Griffin, Animal Thinking (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1984), and Animal Minds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992);
Carolyn R. Ristau, ed., Cognitive Ethology: The Minds of Other Animals: Essays
in Honor of Donald R. Griffen (Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1991);
Frans de Waal, Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and
Other Animals (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996); Dorothy
Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth, How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind
of Another Species (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
4. See Michael Haederle, “Talking and Reasoning? It’s for the Birds,” Los
Angeles Times, 14 April 1996, p. El.
5. Donald E. Kroodsma, Acoustic Communication in Birds (New York:
Academic Press, 1982).
6. J. Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy, When Elephants Weep: The
Emotional Lives of Animals (New York: Delacorte Press, 1995).
7. Christopher Key Chapple, Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian
Traditions (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 21-48.
8. James P. McDermott, “Animals and Humans in Early Buddhism,” Indo-
Iranian Journal 32, no. 2 (1989).
9. Padmanabh S. Jaini, “Indian Perspectives on the Spirituality of Animals,”
in Buddhist Philosophy and Culture: Essays in Honour of N. A. Jayawickrema,
ed. David J. Kalupahana and W. G. Weeraratne (Columbo, Sri Lanka: N. A.
Jayawickrema Felicitation Volume Committee, 1987), 169-78.
10. Donald Swearer is currently working on the Jataka tales of Thailand.
11. E. B. Cowell, ed., The Jataka or Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births, 6
vols. (London: Pali Text Society, 1895-1907), x.
12. These include Ellen C. Babbit, Jataka Tales (New York: Century, 1912);
Noor Inayat Khan, Twenty Jataka Tales (The Hague: East West Publications,
1939); and many retellings by American Buddhist storyteller Rafe Martin and
numerous picture books published by Shambhala Press.
13. I. B. Horner and Padmanabh S. Jaini, Aprocryphal Birth-Stories (London:
Pali Text Society, 1985).
14. Peter Khoroche, Once the Buddha Was a Monkey: Arya Sura’s Jatakamala
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1989). This was earlier translated by
J. S. Speyer, The Jatakamala, or Garland of Birth Stories by Arya Sura (Oxford
University Press, 1895).
148 Buddhism and Ecology

15. Garma C. C. Chang, ed., A Treasury of Mahayana Siitras: Selections from

the Mahdaratnakita Sitra (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1983).
16. Cowell, The Jataka, story 308, 4:17-18.
17. Cowell, The Jataka, story 359, 5:120—23.
18. Cowell, The Jataka, story 331, 4:68-69.
19. Cowell, The Jataka, 5:115-17.
20. D. Seyfort Ruegg, “Ahimsa and Vegetarianism in the History of Buddhism,”
In Buddhist Studies in Honour of Walpola Rahula, ed. Somaratna Balasooriya et
al. (London: Gordon Fraser, 1980), 234-241.
21. Christopher Chapple and Yogi Anand Viraj (Eugene P. Kelly, Jr.), The Yoga
Sutras of Patanjali (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1990), 70-71.
22. Cowell, The Jataka, story 246, 2:182—83.
23. Hardy, Manual, 327, as cited in Cowell, The Jataka, story 246, 2:182.
24. Cowell, The Jataka, story 319, 4:43-44.
25. Cowell, The Jataka, story 50, 1:126—28,
26. Cowell, The Jataka, story 314, 4:29-32.
27. Cowell, The Jataka, story 74, 1:181-82.
28. Cowell, The Jataka, story 121, 1:267-69.
29. Ibid., 269.
30.
See Susan L. Flader, Thinking Like a Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the
Evolution of an Ecological Attitude toward Deer, Wolves, and Forests (Columbia:
University of Missouri Press, 1974).
31. Cowell, The Jataka, story 272, 3:244—46.
32. D. T. Suzuki, trans., The Lankavatara Sitra (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1932).
33. Cowell, The Jataka, story 178, 2:55—56.
 Animal Liberation, Death, and the State:
Rites to Release Animals in Medieval Japan

Duncan Ryutken Williams

Introduction

The prohibition on the taking of life must be observed

in the period just before the Iwashimizu hdj0-e.
—Shogunal order, 1280

This order was sent from both the shogunal and imperial govern-
ments to various provinces in Japan in the year 1280 c.£. (K6an 2).!
The provinces were to observe this rule on not taking life (that is,
not killing animals) during the two-week period which preceded the
hojo-e ceremony held annually on the fifteenth of the Eighth Month
at the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine in the city of Yawata in present-
day Kyoto Prefecture.
The hdjo-e,* a ceremony of releasing living beings (most usually
birds, fish, or other animals) into the wild, is a Buddhist ritual which
can be seen across a number of Buddhist countries, particularly in
East Asia. This study outlines how this ritual, based on the principle
of compassionate action toward animals and merit-making
therefrom, developed in Japan. There were two peculiarly Japanese
ways in which this ceremony was transformed. First, the direct
involvement of the medieval Japanese state in promoting and
supporting this Buddhist ritual and the concurrent enforcement of
a ban on the taking of life (sessho kindan) made this ritual into a
State rite as opposed to simply a Buddhist ritual. Second, the most
well known medieval site for the hdjd-e, the Iwashimizu Hachiman
Shrine, which will be taken up as a case study, was not a Buddhist
temple per se, but a “Shinto” —~99
shrine with a Buddhist component.
150 Buddhism and Ecology

Thus, rather than a purely Buddhist ritual, the hdjd-e in Japan can
be identified as a “Shinto-Buddhist” combinative ritual.
In addition to documenting these two developments of the hdjd-e
in Japan, the rite is used as a case study to reflect on critiques of
Buddhism as not necessarily environmentalist.* Although as an
ideal, the hdj0-e seems to represent a Buddhist view of animals that
is sympathetic, there are a number of ways in which the hdjd-e as
a ritual practice in medieval Japan is problematic if seen as having
only a positive assessment of animals.

The Textual Basis of the Hojo-e in Japan

The Japanese hdjd-e can be traced to two Buddhist canonical

sources: the Bommyokyo (Sanskrit, Brahmajdla Siitra) and the
Kongomyodkyo (Sanskrit, Suvarnaprabhdasa Sitra). The Bommyodkyd
states:

As a [child] of the Buddha, one must with a compassionate heart

practice the work of liberating living beings. All men are our fathers.
All women are our mothers. All our existences have taken birth from
them. Therefore, all the living beings of the rokud6 [six realms] are
our parents, and if we kill them, we kill our parents and also our
former bodies; for all earth and water are our former bodies, and
all fire and wind are our original substance. Therefore, you must
always practice liberation of living beings (since to produce and
receive life is the eternal law), and cause others to do so; and if
one sees a worldly person kill animals, one must by proper means
save and protect them from misery and danger.*

This portion of the stra has been interpreted by such Buddhist

as meaning that sentient beings in the six realms were once one’s
parents and to kill sentient beings is tantamount to killing one’s
parents, which provided the rationale for releasing living beings
from suffering.
The other canonical source, the Kongomydkyd, includes a section
(the “Rtisui choja shiyin’”) which relates more directly to the practice
of releasing fish and other animals. The basic story involves the
Buddha in a previous life (as a rich man named Risui) coming
across ten thousand fish that were about to die because the pond in
 Animal Liberation, Death, and the State 151

which they were dwelling was about to dry up. Developing the mind
of compassion, he had elephants help carry enough water to the
pond for the fish to survive. Thereafter a banquet was hosted for
the fish, at which the future Buddha preached the Dharma (particu-
larly the doctrine of dependent origination). Unfortunately, soon
thereafter an earthquake hit the region and all the fish died. They
were reborn in Toriten (Thayashimsat heaven), and out of gratitude
to the man who saved them, the fish offered him precious jewels
and other treasures.> It is this siitra which is most often cited in
ritual documents—for example, in Kofukuji Temple’s Hdj0-e
hodsoku—as the source for the hdjo-e ritual.
Yamamoto Haruki has argued that the sitras are interpreted in
two different ways in relation to the Japanese performance of the
hojo-e. On the one hand, the Bommydkyo’s emphasis on other
sentient beings as one’s parents becomes related to the development
of ancestral worship (sosen kaiko) as part of the rite in Japan. On
the other hand, the KongoOmydkyo’s emphasis on the merit derived
from helping animals (“treasures bestowed” on helper) becomes
related to the notion of performing the hdjd-e for this-worldly
benefits (riyaku shinko).©
In terms of their respective views on animals, it is possible to
see, on the one hand, the Bommydkyé holding a position that the
boundary between the human and animal worlds is like a semi-
permeable membrane, as either oneself or one’s parent can be an
animal in a past or future life. This view might be understood as
parallel to the deep ecological worldview in which the natural world
or the animal world is seen as part of a “deeper ecological self.”’
On the other hand, while this view is not absent from the
Kongomyokyo, the emphasis there is rather on the altruistic act itself
that comes simply from seeing animals, as animals, suffering. This
view might be said to be more akin to animal rights perspectives
regarding the sentience of animals and their standing, or rights,
independent from human beings.®

The Nature of the Ritual

The ritual itself has both a broad and a narrow meaning. From the
shrine/temple’s point of view, the entire day of ritual observance
was termed the hdja-e. As such, the hdjd-e was a festival day,
 152 Buddhism and Ecology

dancing, music, horse riding, processing the shrine kami (Shinto

deity) out on a portable shrine (mikoshi), and wrestling per-
formances, among other activities.? But from a narrower point of
view, the hdjd-e can be considered a ritual activity centered on the
release of birds, fish, or other animals.
Because the rite was classified as an observance of the “non-
killing precept,” both the Buddhist monks who oversaw the ritual!°
and the Shinto priests were to observe abstinence from meat and
fish during the festival period.!! On the actual day of the rite, at
the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine, fish and clams were released in
the hdjd river (hdjOgawa), which was on the south side of the shrine
compound. While the fish were being released, the priest (ddshi)
chanted Buddhist scriptures, particularly the Kongomydkyo. He also
announced the performances of all the other hdjd-e ceremonies that
were held across Japan in the past year.'!2 At Kofukuji, the head-
quarters of the Hosso (Yogacara) school, hdjd-e was held on the
seventeenth of the Fourth Month at the temple’s Totokozen-in
Ichigonkannondo. After a dharma meeting at that building, the lay
members (sankeisha) would take carp to be released in a pond (hdjo-
ike/enketsuchi) specifically designated for the protection of animals
released for this rite. When the carp were released, the lay members
would also release pieces of paper upon which they had written
wishes, in the belief that the wishes would be granted because of
the merit accrued from releasing animals from captivity.!3

The Transformation of the Hdjd-e at Hachiman

Shrines in Japan

Every fifteenth of the Eighth Month, around the

country is the Hachiman hdjé-e.
—Genpei Seisuiki'4

One of the key characteristics of the Japanese tranformation of the

hojo-e was its performance at so-called Shinto shrines which had
the deity Hachiman as their cultic center.!5 The first account of the
hojo-e ritual in Japan is recorded in the Jiji enjishd as being held
in 710 (Yor 4) at the Usa Hachiman Shrine.!© Archaeological digs
at Iba Iseki and Chigasakishi Motomura have given us evidence of
 Animal Liberation, Death, and the State 153

early performances of the hdjd-e at Buddhist temples.!’ Yet, what

is most peculiar about the development of this ritual in Japan is the
concentration of the performance of this ceremony at Hachiman
shrines,!8 which are generally categorized as “ShintO” shrines, not
Buddhist temples. Because hdjd-e were primarily held at Hachiman
shrines, the rite, while officially classified as a Buddhist ritual, was
often understood as a “Shintd-Buddhist” or a “shrine-temple”
ritual.!9 Indeed, Nakano Hatayoshi has argued that the Usa hajo-e
is a mixture of an older “Shint6d” ritual of installing a bronze mirror
at the shrine and the 710 Buddhist ceremony.”° This Usa Shrine
ritual was then transmitted to other Hachiman shrines and Buddhist
temples during the Heian period (for example, in 859 by the
Buddhist monk Gydkyo from the temple Daianji to the ITwashimizu
Hachiman Shrine). By the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, the
Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine’s hdjd-e2! on the fifteenth of the
Eighth Month of each year became the best-known and most
elaborate example of this ritual.”

The Hdjd-e and the State: Especially the Case of

Iwashimizu Hachiman

By the late medieval period, the ritual life of the state consisted of
three important state rituals (sanchokusai): the Kamo Festival, the
Kasuga Festival, and the Iwashimizu hdjd-e.*° In the case of the
Iwashimizu hdjd-e, both the imperial court and the Kamakura and
Muromachi shogunates observed this state ritual by sending envoys
and monetary offerings** to Iwashimizu on the appointed day. Court
and shogunal representatives (jOkei/chokushi) observed a strict
abstention from any fish or meat (shdjin kessai) during the period
prior to their visit to the shrine.2? By the Muromachi period, the
importance of state attendance at this rite was so great that all four
Ashikaga shoguns (Yoshimitsu, Yoshimochi, Yoshinori, and
Yoshimasa) went to Iwashimizu in person as representatives (joke!)
of the state. Once at the shrine, the envoys made offerings and
attended the various stages of the ceremony, including the release
of fish and clams into the river.”®
While state support of a rite to release animals may seem at first
glance to be a positive development in terms of ecological activity,
154 Buddhism and Ecology

there were in fact a number of nonaltruistic factors in the state’s

interest in this rite. Particularly in the case of the Iwashimizu
Hachiman Shrine, there are three major reasons for the state’s
involvement with this ritual: 1) Hachiman was an ujigami (clan
deity) of the Minamoto clan and their descendants. To support the
most important rite (the hdjd-e) at the most significant Hachiman
shrine was, then, considered a familial obligation by the members
of the Kamakura and Ashikaga governments, many of whom were
connected to this clan.?’ 2) Iwashimizu had a huge military force
that rivaled the government’s forces,28 and thus the state needed to
appease the shrine and its quasi-military (shinjin) by providing the
funds for the hdjo-e. 3) Iwashimizu occupied a strategic geo-military
position, and any medieval political power had to negotiate and
curry favor with the shrine by supporting its rites.
Furthermore, as quoted at the beginning of this essay, both
shogunal and court governments sent out orders to the provinces to
observe the rule on not taking life (not killing animals) during the
two-week period between the first and fifteenth of the Eighth Month.
This has been termed by certain Japanese medieval historians as the
“ideology of nonkilling” (sessho kindan ideology).29 What ties the
hojo-e and “ideology of nonkilling” is, of course, the first of the
Buddhist precepts: “do not kill.” This “ideology” was a part of the
system of the twenty-two shrine-temple complexes in which the
Japanese state appropriated Shinto shrine and Buddhist temple rites
and doctrines during the medieval period.*° Iwashimizu Hachiman,
at the height of its political power, stood at the head of this system
of shrine-temple complexes. This kind of tie between the state and
the hdjd-e can be highlighted as a Japanese innovation to the
character of this ritual.

Problematic Issues of the Hdjd-e in Japan

and Challenges to the Image of Buddhism
as Environmentalist

The two characteristic features of the Japanese transformation of

the hdjd-e outlined above—namely, the “Shintd-Buddhist” nature
of the majority of the hdjd-e and the identification of the hdjd-e as
a state rite in the medieval period—allow us the opportunity to
 Animal Liberation, Death, and the State 155

examine several problematics associated with the ritual in terms of

the perspective on animals that the rite may reflect.
While it is tempting to suggest, as a number of scholars and
Buddhist practitioners have done recently,*! that the hojo-e demon-
strates a Buddhist view of animals which is sympathetic and
positive, this view needs to be qualified in a number of ways. First,
as we have shown in the case of “Shintd-Buddhist” complexes such
as the one at Iwashimizu Hachiman, the rite was a very elaborate
affair because of the importance attached to it by the state. Taira
Masayuki’s research has shown that in the medieval period, the
shrine was extremely concerned about having enough fish and clams
to release (usually in the range of one to three thousand). Thus, more
than triple the number were captured several weeks ahead of time
to ensure that enough animals were available by the time the state
envoy arrived. In other words, if three thousand fish were to be
released at the hdjd-e, a total of nine thousand would need to be
captured and purchased by the shrine with the understanding that
two-thirds of them might die before they could be released.*? The
display of power was more important than the lives of the animals
themselves. The release of animals, then, that occurred at these
major medieval shrines and temples was more often a matter of
displaying political power or appeasing various deities.*°
Another problem concerning the hdjd-e’s intimate connection
with the state was the use of the so-called ideology of not killing
promoted by the state to gain control of land. Ito Seiro has argued
persuasively that local lords of estates (shden) built smaller
Hachiman shrines on their lands. In doing so they made use of the
fact that sites where the hdjd-e rituals are performed were to be
deemed sacred, and thereby they controlled hunting, fishing, and
agricultural activities on the feudal estates. In other words, the ritual
and ideological basis of hdjd-e was also sometimes used to control
new lands won through war in medieval J apan.** On the one hand,
the ceremony of the release of animals was seen as a way to atone
for the blood spilled during warfare, but, on the other hand, the rite
was used to justify warfare and the continued control over the lands
won in war.
There is thus a paradox built into the medieval Japanese hojo-e.
The importance placed on this ritual and the notion of “nonkilling”
was precisely what caused shrines to go to great lengths (even
 156 Buddhism and Ecology

“sacrificing” two-thirds of the fish) to perform this rite as a grand

state ritual involving the release of thousands of fish. The idea that
sites where hdjd-e were held could be designated as places where
people could be prohibited from hunting and fishing and from
engaging in other agricultural activities was what made the ritual
So attractive to provincial lords who had, ironically, just taken the
land through force and bloodshed. The paradox is also inherent in
the broader practice of memorializing animals that one has killed.
For example, traditionally in fishing villages, memorial rites for fish
just captured were performed.*> Likewise in more contemporary
Japan, some Buddhist priests have joined conservative politicians
for “whale banquets” (eating illegally caught whales), explaining
their activity as being one of “memorializing” whales.

Conclusion

In 1017, Fujiwara no Sanesuke, one of the leading courtiers of the

day, sent the governmental envoy off to the Iwashimizu hdjo-e at
the Kamo River. As he was bidding the messenger farewell, he saw
two men fishing on the banks of the river. As it was the day of the
hdjo-e, he bought the fish the fishermen had caught and released
them.*° I end with this story as a counterpoint to the ways in which
I have shown the hdjd-e to be problematic, to be, indeed, other than
an environmentally friendly act. Just as the hdjd-e functioned in a
number of environmentally unfriendly ways, the story of Sanesuke
reveals a significant example of the way in which the hdjd-e and
the notion of nonkilling entered the world of medieval Japanese
society. There are most probably many more unrecorded private acts
of relieving the suffering of animals which were generated through
contact with the rite of hdjd-e or the idea of nonkilling.
At the same time, the need for careful reflection of idealized
notions of Buddhism as environmentalist is clear. When one reviews
the history of the interface of Buddhism and environmentalism,37
the overwhelming tendency has been to define the Buddhist
contribution to environmentalism in terms of the most idealized
notions of what Buddhism is. Though my tendency is to emphasize
the more practical dimensions of Buddhist contributions to ecology,
the principle of taking the best ideals of a tradition for constructive
 Animal Liberation, Death, and the State 157

theology or philosophy is, in itself, not a problem. What is troubling,

however, is the tendency to define Buddhist ecological worldviews
in contradistinction to other religious traditions, such that the worst
actual practices of Christianity and other traditions are contrasted
with the best, most ideal components of Buddhism.*® My hope is
that this paper has provided a useful survey of the Japanese
development of the hdja-e and a balanced, critical reflection on the
ways in which this Buddhist rite might be considered environ-
mentally friendly.
 158 Buddhism and Ecology

Notes

1. A shogunal order from the kansenji official was sent on the fifteenth of the
Twelfth Month, 1280 (Koan 2), to the five provinces closest to the capital (gokinai
shokoku). The same order went out as an imperial edict from Emperor Go-Uda
three days later to all provinces (kydi shokoku). This order is quoted in full and
discussed in detail in It6 Seird, “Iwashimizu hdjd-e no kokkateki ichi ni tsuite
no ikkOsatsu” (A consideration of the state-like aspect of the Iwashimizu Shrine’s
hojo-e), Nihonshi Kenkyu 188 (April 1978):36—-37.
2. The term literally means release, living (beings), meeting/ceremony.
3. For a very interesting critique of “ecoBuddhism,” see Ian Harris, “How
Environmentalist Is Buddhism?” Religion 21 (April 1991):101—14, and “Buddhist
Environmental Ethics and Detraditionalization: The Case of EcoBuddhism,”
Religion 25, no. 3 (July 1995):199-211.
4. This passage was originally translated by M. W. de Visser and later revised
by Jane Marie Law in “Violence, Ritual Reenactment, and Ideology: The Hdjd-e
(Rite for Release of Sentient Beings) of the Usa Hachiman Shrine in Japan,”
History of Religions 33, no. 4 (May 1994):325—26. The Bommyodkyéo section above
can be found in the Taisho edition of the Buddhist canon (T. 1484, 24:997A-—
1003A).
5. A more elaborated account of the story can be found in Law, “Violence,
Ritual Reenactment, and Ideology,” 326, in English; or in Haruki Yamamoto,
“HOjo-e ni tsuite” (On the hdja-e), Shukyd Kenkyii 56, no. 4 (1983):294, in
Japanese.
6. Yamamoto, “Hdjo-e ni tsuite,” 294-95.
7. For more on deep ecological views regarding the notion of an “ecological
self’ which includes animals, see Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology:
Living As If Nature Mattered (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1985); Bill
Devall, “Ecocentric Sangha,” in Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism
and Ecology, ed. Allan Hunt Badiner (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1990), 155-64;
and Joanna Macy’s works: “Our Life as Gaia,” in Thinking Like a Mountain:
Towards a Council of All Beings, ed. John Seed et al. (Philadelphia: New Society
Publishers, 1988), 59-65; “The Ecological Self: Postmodern Ground for Right
Action,” in Sacred Interconnectedness: Postmodern Spirituality, Political Economy,
and Art, ed. David Ray Griffin (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1990), 35-48; and “The Greening of the Self,” in Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of
Essays in Buddhism and Ecology, ed. Allan Hunt Badiner (Berkeley: Parallax
Press, 1990), 53-63.
8. Perhaps the deep ecology versus animal rights positions of the present day
have some precedent in medieval Japanese Buddhism.
9. For a detailed description of the shrine and temple activities, such as the
movement of the mikoshi, the procession of shrine-temple officials, horse racing,
 Animal Liberation, Death, and the State 159

and wrestling, see documents such as the Kashiwagashii or the Jiji enjisho
busshinji shidai, which can be found in Itd, “Iwashimizu hOjo-e no kokkateki ichi
ni tsuite no ikkOsatsu,” 33.
10. At Iwashimizu, although the institution was generally considered to be a
“Shinto” shrine, Buddhist monks at the nearby temple, Zenpoji, controlled much
of the administration of the shrine. For example, the monk Kenshi was appointed
by Takauji to fill the bakufu position of bugyd for Iwashimizu’s administration,
just as similiar posts were created by the shogunate to administer Ise, Mt. Hiei,
Toddaiji, and Kofukuji. See Ken’ichi Futaki, “Iwashimizu h6jo-e to Muromachi
bakufu: shogun jokei sankO o megut’te” (The Iwashimizu hdjd-e and the
Muromachi bakufu: The visit by the shogun as the jokei [envoy]), Kokugakuin
Nihonbunka Kenkyiijo Kiyo 30 (September 1972):101.
11. Ibid., 102.
12. Itd, “Iwashimizu h6jo-e no kokkateki ichi ni tsuite no ikkOsatsu,” 33.
13. Yamamoto, “H6jG6-e ni tsuite,” 294.
14. This can be found in the Yamaki yauchi goto section of the Genpei Seisuiki,
which is quoted in Ito, “Iwashimizu hdjo-e no kokkateki ichi ni tsuite no
ikkOsatsu,” 39.
15. One of the difficult aspects of studying the hdjd-e, because of its
“combinative” Shintd-Buddhist character, is the relative lack of documents on the
ritual at Hachiman shrines due to the destruction of these texts during the Meiji
period (1868-1912). That the Meiji government’s policy of haibutsu kishaku
(abolition of Buddhism and destruction of Sakyamuni) and shimbutsu bunri
(separation of Shinto and Buddhism) helped to destroy documents and practices
of Shintd-Buddhist combinative character has been well documented in English
by Martin Collcutt, “Buddhism: The Threat of Eradication,” in Japan in Transition:
From Tokugawa to Meiji, ed. Marius B. Jansen and Gilbert Rozman (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1986), 143-67; Allan G. Grapard, “Japan’s Ignored
Cultural Revolution: The Separation of Shinto and Buddhist Divinities in Meiji
(shimbutsu bunri) and a Case Study: Tonomine,” History of Religions 23, no. 3
(February 1984):240-65; and James Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji
Japan: Buddhism and Its Persecution (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1990). The destruction of hdjd-e documents in particular is taken up in Japanese
in Futaki, “Iwashimizu hdjo-e to Muromachi bakufu,” 99.
At the Iwashimizu Hachiman, the hdjd-e was canceled at the beginning of the
Meiji period but later restored under the name Iwashimizusai, which is now
performed on 15 September. The rite one would see today must be considered to
be quite different from the medieval hdjd-e, as all “Buddhist” elements were
purged in the Meiji period to make it conform to the state directive.
16. This date is cited in Ito, “Iwashimizu hdjd-e no kokkateki ichi ni tsuite
no ikkosatsu,” 32. Jane Marie Law, however, in the best article in English on the
hojo-e “Violence, Ritual Reenactment, and Ideology,” 326), gives 745 as the date
 160 Buddhism and Ecology

of the first occurrence of the rite. The Yord 4 (710) is a date that most scholars
of the hdj0-e cite (see Nakano Hatayoshi, Hachiman Shinkoshi no Kenkyii [Studies
on the cult of Hachiman] [Tokyo: Yizankaku, 1976], upon whom Law relies).
I'7. A minority view, held by Okada, indicates that the first hdjo-e were held
in 676 (Temmu 5), as recorded in the Nihonshoki and for which archaeological
digs provide evidence: see SOji Okada, “Iwashimizu hdjo-e no kdsaika” (The
development of the Iwashimizu hdjd-e as a state ritual), Kokugakuin Daigaku
Daigakuin Kiyo 24 (1992):3. For a study on the hdja-e at the three Buddhist
institutions of Kofukuji, Konbu-in, and Yoshidadera, see Yamamoto, “HOjo-e ni
tsuite.”
18. There are three major Hachiman shrines (Usa Hachiman, in Kyishi;
Iwashimizu Hachiman, in Kyoto; and Tsurugaoka Hachiman, in Kamakura), which
have numerous sub-shrines (massha). In addition, there are numerous Buddhist
temples which have Hachiman as part of the temple’s cultic life (for example,
Todaiji, Toji, and Yakushiji). See Christine Guth, Shinzo: Hachiman Imagery and
Its Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard
University, 1985), for more general information in English.
19. Okada Sdji goes so far as to argue that, especially in the case of the
Iwashimizu hdjo-e, the hdja-e rite itself is fundamentally a “Shinto” ritual with
Buddhist overlays (“Iwashimizu hdjo-e no kosaika,” 16).
20. There has been, in addition, a very popular theory that the Usa hajo-e began
as a “ceremony to appease spirits” (chinkonsai), “to appease the malevolent spirits
of the Hayato tribe defeated and slaughtered by forces of the centralized
government in a bloody battle in 720” (Law, “Violence, Ritual Reenactment, and
Ideology,” 327). This is clearly a possibility, though Nakano had seen this
explanation of the origins of the rite as a later addition (see in Itd, “Iwashimizu
hdjo-e no kokkateki ichi ni tsuite no ikkdsatsu,” 32).
21. Though Gydkyo brought the “deity-body” of the Hachiman from Usa to
Iwashimizu in 859, the most commonly held view is that the hdjd-e rite itself was
not held until 864 (Jokan 5); the minority views include the dates 861 (JOkan 3)
or 877 (JOkan 18) (see Okada, “Iwashimizu hdjo-e no kosaika,” 3).
22. By the Kamakura period, the hdjd-e ceremony was held on the fifteenth
of the Eighth Month at the following Hachiman shrines: Tsurugaoka, Usa, Usa
gosho bekkyt (Hakozaki, Senguri, Fujisaki, Nittagd, kuma kakugii), and
Sakuharagu. Only Nittagii’s hdjd-e had a different date (the fifteenth of the Ninth
Month). The Kamakura shogunate, however, naturally centered most of its
attention on the geographically closer Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine, which
became classified as a nenju gydji (an official annual observance of the state).
23. Futaki, “Iwashimizu hdjo-e to Muromachi bakufu,” 99; and Ito,
“Iwashimizu hojo-e no kokkateki ichi ni tsuite no ikkésatsu,” 33.
24. These monetary offerings were often in the form of large quantities of salt
or rice. The rice came from the Inayama estate in Yamashiro province, and the
 Animal Liberation, Death, and the State 161

salt came from the Bizen, Iyo, and Yamashiro estates. The sending of envoys was
also a major expenditure. It Seird has analyzed governmental budgets during the
Kamakura period in reference to the costs of state support of the Kasuga Festival,
the Kamo Festival, and the Iwashimizu hdjd-e and the orders sent from the court
or the shogunate to lands they controlled to provide for these supplies (Ito,
“Iwashimizu hdjo-e no kokkateki ichi ni tsuite no ikkOsatsu,” 35-36).
25. We should note here, though, that during the Kamakura period, it was the
imperial court which had the stronger connections to Iwashimizu, while the
Kamakura bakufu had close ties to the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine’s hdjo-e
ceremony. By the Muromachi period, the Ashikaga shogunate and the imperial
court turned their attention solely to the Iwashimizu hdjé-e, as the first Ashikaga
shogun, Yoshimitsu, shifted the political center back to Kyoto and had a personal
interest in the fusion of warrior (bushi) culture and aristocratic (kuge) culture
(Futaki, “Iwashimizu hdjo-e to Muromachi bakufu,” 103-12).
26. The exception to this was Yoshimitsu, who left before the release of the
fish and was seen to be somewhat irreligious for doing so. His successor,
Yoshimochi, on the other hand, stayed for the release of the animals and personally
observed extra days of abstention from fish or meat (shdjin kessai) before the day
of the ritual at the nearby lodgings (shukubd) belonging to the temple Zenpoji.
We should also note here how the changing state structures coincided with
changes in the performance of the hdjd-e. Changes in the order of one’s position
during the ceremony or in the parade, the wearing of swords by government
officials, and the various procedures in the appointment of Buddhist priests to
preside over the ceremony all reflected changes in the political structure from the
Heian to the Kamakura/Muromachi periods.
27. Futaki, “Iwashimizu h6jé-e to Muromachi bakufu,” 100.
28. During the medieval period, in addition to the government military forces,
there were three main nongovernmental military forces: 1) the private armies of
the shden (estates) of local lords; 2) the armed monks (sdhei) associated with
Buddhist temples, such as KOfukuji, Mt. Hiei, Mt. Koya, Negoroji, Daigoji,
Todaiji, and Enryakuji; and 3) the armed shrine affiliates (shinjin) of the
Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine and several other shrines.
29. Scholars such as Koyama Yasunori and Itd Seird have argued that the
“nonkilling ideology” was used by the medieval state to control the peasant class.
Particularly, so-called peasant activities such as hunting, fishing, forestry,
irrigation, and slash-and-burn agriculture were periodically prohibited by local
provincial governments, using the “nonkilling” order from the central government
as a pretext (for more on this particular argument, see Itd, “Iwashimizu hojo-e
no kokkateki ichi ni tsuite no ikkdsatsu,” 39-40). However, the evidence for this
is somewhat unconvincing given Itd’s usually meticulous documentation, although
I will return to the problem of the state appropriation of the hdjd-e and the
ideology of nonkilling below.
 162 Buddhism and Ecology

30. For more on the medieval state and the system of twenty-two shrine-temple
complexes, see Allan G. Grapard, “Institution, Ritual, and Ideology: The Twenty-
Two Shrine-Temple Multiplexes of Heian Japan,” History of Religions 27, no. 3
(February 1988):246-69.
31. This has been particularly often cited in the United States by Philip
Kapleau (To Cherish All Life: A Buddhist Case for Becoming Vegetarian [San
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982], among others) and the journal Buddhists
Concerned for Animals.
32. Masayuki Taira, “Debating the Buddhist Prohibitions against the Taking
of Life,” talk given in Japanese at “New Directions in the Study of Social History,
Status, Discrimination, Popular Culture in Premodern Japan” workshop, Princeton
University, 26-28 October 1995.
33. The custom of kessai (abstention) from meat, sexual activity, and such,
was a common short-term practice followed by political elites for accumulating
the favors of a particular deity or, in the case of emperors performing kessai, for
the protection of the nation.
34. This partly explains why Hachiman was one of the most popular deities
among the emerging warrior class and the provincial warlords of medieval Japan.
35. Eiki Hoshino, with Doshd Takeda, “Mizuko Kuyd and Abortion in
Contemporary Japan,” in Religion and Society in Modern Japan, ed. Mark Mullins
et al. (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1993), 171-90.
36. From the 1017 (Kan’in 1) entry in Fujiwara no Sanesuke’s diary, Shdyitki,
as found in Okada, “Iwashimizu hdjo-e no kosaika,” 6.
37. See Duncan Williams, “The Interface of Buddhism and Environmentalism
in North America” (B.A. thesis, Reed College, 1991).
38. This, of course, refers not only to Buddhism but also to the rhetoric of
Western exploitation of nature and Eastern harmony and oneness with nature. For
early versions of this view, see Masao Abe, “Man and Nature in Christianity and
Buddhism,” Japanese Religions 7, no. 1 (July 1971):1-10; Hwa Yol Jung,
“Ecology, Zen, and Western Religious Thought,” Christian Century, 15 November
1972, 1153-56; and Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic
Crisis,” Science 155 (March 1967). For more recent manifestations of this idea,
see Stephen R. Kellert, “Concepts of Nature East and West,” in Reinventing
Nature? Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction, ed. Michael E. Soulé and Gary
Lease (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995), 103-21; and Yuriko Saito, “The
Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature: Western and Japanese Perspectives and Their
Ethical Implications” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1983).
 Zen Buddhism:
Problems and Prospects
Mountains and Rivers and the Great Earth:
Zen and Ecology

Ruben L. F. Habito

The question I address in this essay is this: does Zen practice and
teaching support and foster an active engagement toward the earth’s
well-being and an ecologically viable way of life and vision? Rather
than writing of Zen in a generic and idealized way, here I refer
mainly, though not exclusively, to the Zen practice and teaching
offered in the Sanbd Kyddan community, a direct continuation of
what is known as the Harada-Yasutani lineage, which has had
considerable influence in North America and Europe in the last two
or three decades.! :
The first section will note attitudes that appear to serve as
obstacles to a commitment to our ecological well-being on the part
of those who practice Zen. The second section will describe three
fruits that manifest themselves in the life of the Zen practitioner,
which may enable one to overcome those attitudes discussed in the
first. The third section will then look at possible Zen contributions
to our ecological well-being, considering the connection between
Zen practice and ecologically oriented life and action.

Some Pitfalls in Zen Practice

To our central question of whether Zen practice and teaching support

and foster active engagement in the ecological well-being of the
earth community and an ecologically viable way of life and vision,
a first-impression answer would be, “it appears not” (videtur quod
non), on at least two counts. First, many Zen practitioners are on a
journey of self-discovery, having taken an “inward turn” that de-
166 Buddhism and Ecology

emphasizes their engagement with events in the “outside world.”

Second, the Zen dictum of “living in the present moment” can foster
an attitude of indifference toward the future—not only the individual
practitioner’s own future, but also the communal future of living
beings on earth.
On the first count, it is a fact that many individuals begin their
Zen practice as their entry into a journey within. This tradition,
which focuses on meditative practice, itself encourages the inward
turn that enables the individual to disengage him- or herself from
distracting and secondary “worldly” preoccupations and to focus on
“the one thing necessary”—the awakening to one’s true self,
understood to be the basis of true inner peace and fulfillment.
There are, of course, those who begin Zen practice out of mere
curiosity or out of a desire to partake in the benefits it offers to one’s
physical well-being, such as improved posture, the cure of certain
ailments, and so on. There are also those who are already engaged
in social and ecological issues when they begin their Zen practice
and turn to it precisely in order to derive nourishment and energy
for their tasks in that arena. It must be noted however that a good
number of those who turn to Zen do so spurred on by a felt inner
need to set their lives in order, to find their “ground” or “center”
amid the vicissitudes of life, to solve some fundamental questions
on the meaning of one’s presence on this earth, or just to find inner
peace and serenity, in a practice centered on the awareness of one’s
breath and seated meditation. The Zen journey undoubtedly is an
interior-oriented one that involves rigorous and continual practice.
It is a journey that takes up one’s full attention and energy over a
long period of time, perhaps one’s whole lifetime.
This inward turn of the Zen practitioner can militate against a
commitment toward an ecologically viable way of life in this way:
the emphasis on “listening within” may lead to a dichotomous view
of the “within” and the “without,” to the extent that the practitioner
disengages from the concerns of the rest of society, diminishing the
individual’s interest in and engagement with events in the world
“outside.”
Thus, the toxic wastes that are wreaking havoc on our natural
habitat are not considered as great a threat to one’s being as are the
three poisons of greed, anger, and selfish ignorance, which the
serious practitioner feels one must first battle with and attempt to
 Mountains and Rivers and the Great Earth 167

uproot from within, before being able to address the issue of the
toxic wastes “outside.” The “mountains and rivers” that appear in
Zen discourse are often merely idealized images in the practitioner’s
mind, with no connection at all to the actual mountains in many
parts of the world that are being denuded because of indiscriminate
logging practices or to the rivers reeking with chemical pollutants.
On the second count, the emphasis in Zen writings and teachings
on “living in the present moment” may give practitioners the
misguided impression that Zen practice discourages thinking about
or has nothing to do with one’s individual or the earth’s communal
future. It may even lead to an irresponsible attitude that constantly
seeks to “seize the day” (carpe diem) and forgets or ignores the
consequences of one’s actions, passions, Or omissions for one’s own
or others’ future. This attitude admittedly is an erroneous one based
on a misunderstanding of the Zen dictum, but it is one that must be
dealt with nevertheless. This type of one-sided emphasis on the
present moment thus would tend to diminish the concern that many
species on earth are becoming extinct and that, because of this, the
whole earth community is heading toward a bleak future.
In sum, these two points—the preoccupation with the “within”
that stands in opposition to or excludes the “without”; and the
preoccupation with the present that excludes the past and the
future—would incline us to give a negative response to the initial
question of whether Zen practice and teaching supports an eco-
logically viable way of life and vision.
However, an examination of the actual fruits of Zen practice in
the lives of practitioners may offer a perspective that can overcome
the aspects that militate against or diminish practitioners’ engage-
ment with the ecological well-being of the whole earth community.

Fruits of Zen Practice

The three fruits that are made manifest in the life of the Zen
practitioner as she or he deepens in zazen, or seated meditation, and
the cultivation of awareness in one’s daily life are as follows: 1) the
deepening of one’s mindfulness (joriki in Japanese; literally “the
power of samadhi”); 2) the experience of awakening to one’s true
self (kenshd-godo, or “the way of enlightenment through seeing
 168 Buddhism and Ecology

one’s true nature”); and 3) the realization and personalization of this

true self in one’s ordinary life (mujddd no taigen, literally “the
bodily manifestation of the peerless way”).2
First, with the deepening of one’s mindfulness, the Zen practi-
tioner is able to gather together the disparate elements of one’s life
and achieve ever greater integration. The practitioner comes to be
fully there at every moment, alive in the here and now. The practice
of just sitting (Japanese, shikan-taza), with one’s legs folded and
one’s back straight, with one’s whole being fully at attention in the
here and now, relishing the freshness of each breath as it comes and
goes, has this natural effect of bringing about a greater sense of
wholeness and at-homeness in ordinary life.
Just sitting in this way invites one to live at the core of one’s
being, to do nothing and to have nothing, but simply to be. Focused
on be-ing, rather than on doing or having, one is able to celebrate
and relish all things in the universe, just as they are.
This first fruit opens the way for the second, namely, the
experience of awakening to one’s true self. This experience involves
a revolution in one’s way of seeing and relating to everything in.
the universe. One way to describe the experience is the arrival at
what can be called a zero-point, wherein opposing concepts of being
and nonbeing, doing and nondoing, having and nonhaving, plus and
minus, and so on, converge and cancel each other out. At this zero-
point, the separation between subject and object, between the “I”
and the world, is overcome, and the practitioner is opened to an
entirely new way of seeing and way of being.3
The thirteenth-century Japanese Zen master Dogen gives expres-
sion to this experience of the disintegration of the boundary between
subject and object:

I came to realize clearly, that mind is no other than mountains and

rivers and the great earth.4

This second fruit of Zen practice, the experience of awakening

to one’s true nature, is seen as a pivotal point in an individual
person’s Zen journey, but it is still regarded only as the practitioner’s
entry-point into the Zen way of life. A person who has been
confirmed in this initial awakening experience is led deeper into the
life of Zen with the continued practice of selected koans, numbering
 Mountains and Rivers and the Great Earth 169

around five to six hundred in the Sanbd Kyodan lineage, under the
guidance of an authorized teacher.
The experience of Zen awakening enables a practitioner to
overcome the dichotomy in one’s consciousness between subject and
object and to bridge the gap between the “I” and the whole universe.
An initial experience of this sort, incidentally, is usually accom-
panied by a deep joy that may be manifested in bursts of laughter
and also in tears and convulsions. Arriving at a standpoint totally
different from ordinary consciousness (characterized by the subject-
object polarity), the practitioner experiences profound emotions of
exhilaration, inner peace, and gratitude.
The emotional impact can be like a “pink cloud” that lasts for
days, or even longer. But the emotions eventually subside, and the
practitioner comes back to the “ground” of ordinary life with its ups
and downs and with its concomitant tasks. The integration of the
vision of nonseparateness, glimpsed in the initial awakening
experience, with the rest of one’s life is the third, and most
significant, fruit of Zen. This is the fruit described as the “embodi-
ment of enlightenment in one’s daily life” and is a process which
takes a whole lifetime.
As one continues practice in this direction, one is enabled to live
in ever deeper awareness of the mystery of each present moment
as one goes about daily activities, from washing one’s face in the
morning to preparing for bed at night.
Koan practice becomes a powerful way of embodying the
enlightenment experience in one’s daily life. Each koan is a renewed
invitation to return to the primordial experience of awakening, with
a new and fresh angle offered by the particular koan in question.
An example of such a kdan given to a practitioner in this context
is the following, from the collection entitled The Book of Serenity:

Officer Lu Geng said to Nanquan,“Teaching Master Zhao was quite

extraordinary: he was able to say, ‘Heaven and earth have the same
root, myriad things are one body.’ ” Nanquan pointed to a peony in
the garden and said, “People today see this flower as in a dream.”

In this koan, the Zen practitioner is invited by Teaching Master

Zhao to experience this zero-point as the dynamic ground of all that
exists: “Heaven and earth have the same root, myriad things are one
170 Buddhism and Ecology

body.” In other words, this experience of zero-point is presupposed

in this expression, and the practitioner is enjoined to demonstrate
her understanding of it as coming from that experience, in the one-
to-one encounter with the Zen teacher.
The last line, then, is taken up to call our attention to how our
ordinary perceptions, which presuppose a subject-object duality, are
based on an illusion: “People today see this flower as in a dream.”
That is, they are not able to “see” the real flower as they remain
trapped in the ordinary consciousness that separates the “object”
(flower) from the “subject” (“I’ as seer).
The three fruits thus can be summed up as an ever-deepening
process of integration of one’s whole life, involving a constant return
to that primordial experience of awakening to one’s true self in the
ordinary events of life, such as looking at a flower or chopping wood
or Carrying water.
The question to be addressed, then, is this: how does the
realization of these three fruits of Zen practice enable one to
overcome the aspects that militate against active engagement in
issues involving our ecological well-being, as noted in the first
Section?
First, as one continues practice, enabling these three fruits to
mature in one’s daily life, one overcomes the dichotomy of the
“inward” versus the “outward.” In rediscovering that one’s true self
is not separate from “the mountains and rivers and the great earth”
and all sentient beings, there is no longer anything in the universe
that is outside of one’s concerns.
Such a perspective transforms one’s fundamental attitude toward
the natural world and all sentient beings. Mountains, rivers, and the
great earth are experienced as manifestations of one’s own true self;
they are no longer seen as “out there,” entities separate from oneself.
One is enabled to feel and see things from the perspective of the
mountains, the rivers, the great wide earth, of everything that lives
and breathes—pelicans and dolphins, dragonflies and ladybugs, and,
of course, other human persons.
Another passage from Dogen comes to mind here:

Delusion is seeing all things from the perspective of the self.

Enlightenment is seeing the self from the perspective of the myriad
things of the universe.’
 Mountains and Rivers and the Great Earth 171

To see everything “from the perspective of the myriad things of

the universe” is also to experience that each element in this universe
is interconnected with everything else. This vision of intercon-
nectedness is described with rich imagery in the Flower Garland
Sitra.8 One key image in this siitra is the jeweled net of Indra. This
is a wondrous net which stretches out infinitely in all directions,
and a single bright jewel is in each eye of the net. Each jewel, in
its marvelous transparency and uniqueness, reflects all the other
jewels in this infinite net. And conversely, each unique jewel is
likewise reflected on every other in this wondrous net.?
The experiential appropriation of this image grounds one in a
transformative process that encompasses one’s whole life. One
comes to deepen one’s awareness in daily life, enlightened by the
wisdom that sees all things “as they are,” that is, as not separate
from one’s true self. This wisdom flows out into a life of com-
passion, wherein one literally “feels in with” other beings, suffering
with them in their suffering, being joyful with them in their joy.
Thus, with the maturation of the three fruits of practice, the Zen
dictum of “living in the present moment” is understood no longer
as an exclusion of the past and the future, but precisely as a
recognition of one’s past and one’s future as contained in the
fullness of this present moment. In other words, the present moment
understood in the context of Zen practice is not a point in linear
time but a dimension of fullness that enables one to embrace one’s
past and all its consequences and to take responsibility for one’s
future as the natural unfolding of this present moment. With such
an understanding of living the present moment, one lives life and
makes decisions in the present in a way that is open to the future
and is thereby responsible for it.
In sum, the three fruits of Zen practice thus enable one to
overcome the dichotomies of the “inward” as against the “outward,”
the “present moment” as against past and future. In particular, the
maturation of the third fruit, which comes with the continuation of
zazen and kdan practice, deepens one’s awareness of intercon-
nectedness with all beings, and this awareness comes to ground
one’s every thought, word, and action in one’s daily life.
172 Buddhism and Ecology

Zen Practice and Ecological Action: Prospects

The person wherein the three fruits of Zen practice are in the process
of maturation sees oneself as not separate from mountains, rivers,
and the great wide earth. To see one’s true self as the mountains,
rivers, and forests, and as the birds, dolphins, and all the inhabitants
of the great wide earth, constitutes a solid basis for living an
ecologically sound way of life. This way of seeing everything as
one’s true self leads to actions that would not destroy but would
protect, revere, and celebrate the mountains and rivers and the great
wide earth as one’s own body. It is this living sense of oneness with
the mountains, rivers, the great wide earth lived and felt as one’s
own body which can provide us humans with a key to the way out
of our critical ecological situation.
From this vision, nonseparation, opened to the practitioner in the
initial awakening experience and cultivated in continued zazen and
koan practice, enables one to feel, as one’s very own, the pangs of
hunger of those who are deprived of the basic necessities of life,
the pain of the victims of violence and discrimination and injustice,
in their different forms.
Further, one is enabled to feel as one’s very own the pain of the
whole earth being destroyed by human selfishness and greed and
shortsightedness: the mountains being denuded, the rivers being
polluted, the species of life-forms being decimated. In all this, one
feels one’s own body racked in pain.
Such a sensitivity to the pain of the earth may thus become the
source of the energy that can lead to the transformation of the way
we live and relate to one another and to the earth.
The task, then, is one of translating this experiential realization
of oneness with mountains, rivers, and the great earth into a mode
of life and mode of action that addresses the concrete issues we face
in our contemporary world. This task invites one to a deeper
experiential appropriation of the wisdom of nondiscrimination, that
is, the vision of reality that has overcome the dualistic walls
separating subject and object, oneself and the natural world. But
further, it calls for the activation of skillful means (upaya) that will
enable one to respond, grounded in compassion, to different
situations, based on the needs of sentient beings. It is in this
activation of the various “skillful means” necessary to address our
 Mountains and Rivers and the Great Earth 173

contemporary ecological crisis that Zen practitioners may be able

to contribute to the common task of healing the earth’s wounds.
There are now many groups and communities bonded together
in the practice of Zen, spread out in different parts of the world.
These communities have the potential of becoming centers of
ecological awareness. In addition to promoting various ways of
living a more simple, sound ecological life on the individual and
family level—the natural outflow of their communal Zen practice
as described above—these communities could also be matrices of
support for socioecologically oriented action programs undertaken
in solidarity with other groups already engaged in various ecological
iSSUeS.
Concretely, participation by Zen practitioners in events or in
group action organized to call attention to specific local issues of
ecological import (such as sit-ins to protest logging practices in
certain areas, information campaigns against a certain company’s
waste disposal habits, or the denouncement of development projects
that would threaten the ecological well-being of a certain local area)
could be seen as the “activation of skillful means” called for in
particular situations. Such participation in concrete modes of action
would be seen as the natural outflow of the vision and the experience
that is nurtured and deepened by Zen practice.
Over and above the particular forms of action Zen practitioners
can engage in—needless to say, in solidarity with many groups
already engaged in various types of ecological concerns—the most
significant contribution Zen can make toward supporting and
fostering the earth’s well-being and promoting an ecologically viable
way of life is in offering a fundamental vision of reality that invites
human beings to an experiential oneness with mountains and rivers
and the great earth.
 174 Buddhism and Ecology

Notes

1. For a current lineage chart of the Harada-Yasutani lineage of Zen, which

includes the Sanbo Kyodan line transmitted to Yamada Koun (1907-1989), the
White Plum line of the late Maezumi Taizan (1931-1995), another dharma heir
of Yasutani Hakuun (1885-1973), as well as the Diamond Sangha established by
Robert Aitken (b. 1917), a dharma heir of Yamada Koun, see the World Wide Web
page prepared by Matthew Ciolek of the Australian National University (http://
coombs.anu.edu.au/W W W VLPages/-BuddhPages/Harada Yasutani.html).
2. Kapleau, Philip, ed., The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and
Enlightenment (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), 76-49; Ruben Habito, Healing
Breath: Zen Spirituality for a Wounded Earth (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books,
1993), 32-37. Kapleau describes the particular elements involved in the practice
and teaching of the Sanbod Kyddan Zen tradition, based in Kamakura, Japan. On
this, see also Robert Aitken, Taking the Path of Zen (San Francisco: North Point
Press, 1982) and Habito, Healing Breath.
3. Ruben Habito, Total Liberation: Zen Spirituality and the Social Dimension
(Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1989), 29-32.
4. Dogen Zenji, Sokushin Ze-Butsu, in Shobdgenzd, 3 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami
Bunko, 1939), 98. Incidentally, this noted passage has served as the trigger for
an enlightenment experience of a twentieth-century Japanese Zen master whose
authorized disciples now continue the lineage in Europe and North America:
Kapleau Three Pillars of Zen, 202-4. See also “In Memoriam: A Tribute to Yamada
Koun,” Buddhist Christian Studies 10 (1990):231-37, for an account of Yamada’s
life and Zen teaching and for a partial list of his dharma heirs now continuing
his teaching in different countries throughout the world. This account of Yamada’s
Zen enlightenment experience is also quoted in Ruben Habito, “The Ecological
Implications of Zen Buddhism,” in James Veitch, ed., Can Humanity Survive? The
World’s Religions and the Environment (Auckland, New Zealand: Awareness Book
Company, 1996), 137-38, a related article also addressing the ecological
implications of Zen Buddhism.
5. After a practitioner is confirmed in the initial experience, she or he is guided
through a set of twenty-two miscellaneous kdans, after which follow the kdan
collections entitled Wu-Men Kuan (Mumon Kan in Japanese pronunciation), or
“Gateless Gate,” the Pi-yen Lu (Hekigan Roku), or “Blue Cliff Records,” the
Tsung-jung Lu (Shdyd Roku), or “Book of Serenity,” and the Denkd-roku or
“Transmission of Light.” In addition to these collections, the practitioner goes
through The Five Ranks, The Three Treasures, The Threefold Pure Precepts, and
The Ten Grave Prohibitions.
6. Thomas Cleary, trans., The Book of Serenity (New York: Lindisfarne Press,
1990), 390.
 Mountains and Rivers and the Great Earth 175

7. Dogen, Genjo koan, in Shdbdgenzo, 77.

8. Francis Cook, Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra (University Park
and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1981).
9. Ibid., 1-19, 56-74.
 The Precepts and the Environment

John Daido Loori

Imagine, if you will, a universe in which all things have a mutual

identity. They all have a codependent origination: when one thing
arises, all things arise simultaneously. And everything has a mutual
causality: what happens to one thing happens to the entire universe.
Imagine a universe that is a self-creating, self-maintaining, and self-
defining organism—a universe in which all the parts and the totality
are a single entity, all of the pieces and the whole thing at once are
one thing.
This description of reality is not a holistic hypothesis or an all-
encompassing idealistic dream. It is your life and my life. The life
of the mountain and the life of the river. The life of a blade of grass,
a spiderweb, the Brooklyn Bridge. These things are not related to
each other. They are not part of the same thing. They are not similar.
Rather, they are identical to each other in every respect.
But the way we live our lives is as if this were not so. We live
our lives in a way that separates the pieces, alienates, and hurts. The
Buddhist Precepts are a teaching on how to live our lives in harmony
with the facts described above. When we look at the Precepts, we
normally think of them in terms of people. Indeed, most of the moral
and ethical teachings of the great religions address relationships
among people. But these Precepts do not exclusively pertain to the
human realm. They are talking about the whole universe, and we
need to see them from that perspective if we are to benefit from what
they have to offer, and if we are to begin healing the rift between
ourselves and the universe.
First among the sixteen Precepts are the Three Treasures. We take
refuge in the Three Treasures—the Buddha, the Dharma, and the
178 Buddhism and Ecology

Sangha. Understood from three different perspectives, the Three

Treasures present different virtues. The first perspective is called the
One-Bodied Three Treasures; the second is called the Realized
Three Treasures; and the third is called the Maintained Three
Treasures.
From the perspective of the One-Bodied Three Treasures,
anuttara-samyaksambodhi—supreme enlightenment—is the Buddha
Treasure. Master Dogen taught, “Being pure, genuine, apart from
the dust is the Dharma Treasure.” The reason it is apart from the
dust is that it is the dust. That is what the virtue of purity is about.
There is nothing outside of it. The merits of harmony are the Sangha
Treasure. Together, these are the One-Bodied Three Treasures.
To realize and actualize bodhi, or enlightenment, is the Buddha
Treasure of the Realized Three Treasures. The realization of Buddha
is the Dharma Treasure, and to penetrate into the Buddhadharma
is the Sangha Treasure. These are the Realized Three Treasures.
Among the Maintained Three Treasures, their manifestation in
the world, “guiding the heavens and guiding people, sometimes
appearing in vast emptiness, sometimes appearing in dust, is the
Buddha Treasure. Sometimes revolving sitras and sometimes
revolving the oceanic storehouse, guiding inanimate things and
guiding animate things, is the Dharma Treasure. And freed from
all suffering and liberated from the house of the Three Worlds is
the Sangha Treasure.” This is what we take refuge in. These Three
Treasures are the universe itself. They are the totality of the
environment and oneself.
Next are the Three Pure Precepts. The first of the Three Pure
Precepts is not creating evil. This is based on the assumption that
there is an inherent purity and goodness in the universe. Actually,
there is neither goodness nor badness, neither good nor evil. These
polarities do not exist until we create them. This precept is saying
that not creating evil is the abiding place of all Buddhas, the source
of all Buddhas.
The second of the Three Pure Precepts is practicing good. Not
to create evil means not to become involved in any activity that will
give rise to evil. Although from the absolute perspective, there is
neither good nor evil, every activity is going to create some
consequence in the world of phenomena. The minute there is action,
 The Precepts and the Environment 179

either good or evil appears. So, do not let evil appear but, rather,
practice good. This is the dharma of samyaksambodhi, the way of
all beings.
The third of the Three Pure Precepts is actualizing good for
others. This is to transcend the profane and go beyond the holy, to
liberate oneself and others.
The Three Pure Precepts are a definition of harmony in an
inherently perfect universe, a universe that is totally interpenetrated,
codependent, and mutually arising. But the question is, how do we
accomplish that perfection? The Ten Grave Precepts point that out.
Looking at the Ten Grave Precepts in terms of how we relate to our
environment is a step in the direction of appreciating the continuous,
subtle, and vital role we play in the well-being of this planet. It is
the beginning of taking responsibility for the whole catastrophe.
The First Grave Precept is affirm life—do not kill. What does it
mean to kill the environment? It is the worst kind of killing. We
are decimating many species. There is no way that these life-forms
can ever return to the earth. The vacuum their absence creates cannot
be filled in any other way, and such a vacuum affects everything
else in the ecosystem, no matter how infinitesimally small it is. We
are losing species by the thousands every year—the last of their kind
on the face of this great earth. And because someone in South
America is doing it, that does not mean we are not responsible. We
are as responsible as if we are the ones clubbing an infant seal or
burning a hectare of tropical forest. It is as if we were squeezing
the life out of ourselves: killing the lakes with acid rain; dumping
chemicals into the rivers so that they cannot support any life;
polluting our skies so our children choke on the air they breath. Life
is nonkilling. The seed of the Buddha grows continuously. Maintain
the wisdom life of Buddha and do not kill life.
The Second Grave Precept is be giving—do not steal. Do not steal
means not to rape the earth. To take away from the insentient is
stealing. The mountain suffers when you clear cut it. Clear cutting
is stealing the habitat of the animals that live on the mountain. When
we overcut, streams become congested with the sediments that wash
off the mountain slopes. This is stealing the life of the fish that live
in the river, of the birds that come to feed on the fish, of the
mammals that come to feed on the birds. Be giving, do not steal.
The mind and externals are just thus, the gate of liberation is open.
180 Buddhism and Ecology

The Third Grave Precept is honor the body—do not misuse

sexuality. Honor the body of nature. When we begin to interfere with
the natural order of things, when we begin to engineer the genetics
of viruses and bacteria, plants and animals, we throw off the whole
ecological balance. Our technological meddling affects the totality
of the universe and there are karmic consequences to that. The three
wheels—body, mind, and mouth, or, greed, anger, and ignorance—
are pure and clean. Nothing is desired. Go the same way as the
Buddha, do not misuse sexuality.
The Fourth Grave Precept is manifest truth—do not lie. One of
the very common kinds of lying that is currently popular is called
greenwashing. Greenwashing is like whitewashing: it pretends to
be ecologically sound and politically correct. Monsanto Chemical
Company tells us how wonderful they are and how sensitive they
are to the environment. Exxon tells us the same thing. The plastic
manufacturers tell us the same thing. Part of what they say is true:
without plastic there could be no special pump for failing hearts;
without plastic there could be no oxygen tent. But plastic cups and
plates that are not biodegradable and are filling up the dumps
continue to be made. Another kind of lying is the lying that we do
to ourselves about our own actions. We go into the woods and, rather
than take the pains to haul out the nonbiodegradable stuff that we
haul in, we hide it. We sink the beer cans, bury the cellophane
wrappings under a root. We know we have done it, but we act as
though we have behaved differently. Gain the essence and realize
the truth. Manifest the truth and do not lie.
The Fifth Grave Precept is proceed clearly—do not cloud the
mind. Do not cloud the mind with greed; do not cloud the mind with
denial. It is greed that is one of the major underlying causes of
pollution. We can solve all the problems; we have all the resources
to do so. We can deal with our garbage, we can deal with world
hunger, we can deal with the pollution that comes out of the
smokestacks. We have the technology, but the solutions will cost a
lot of money, which means that there will be less profit. If there is
less profit, people will have to make do with a little bit less. Our
greed prevents us from accepting this. Proceed clearly, do not cloud
the mind with greed.
The Sixth Grave Precept is see the perfection—do not speak of
others’ errors and faults. For years we have manicured nature
 The Precepts and the Environment 181

because in our opinion nature does not know how to do things. That
manicuring may continue, for example, in the way we view the
shifting shores of a river. We conclude that the river is wrong. It
erodes the banks and floods the lowlands. It needs to be controlled.
So, we take all the curves out of it, line the banks with stone, and
turn it into a pipeline. This effectively removes all the protective
space that the waterbirds use for nesting and the places where the
fish go to find shelter when the water rises. Then, the first time there
is a spring storm, the ducks’ eggs and the fish wash downstream
and the river is left barren. Or, we think there are too many deer,
so we perform controlled genocide. The wolves kill all the livestock,
so we kill the wolves. Each time we get rid of one species, we create
an incomprehensible impact and traumatize the whole environment.
The scenario changes and we come up with another solution. We
call this process wildlife management. What is this notion of wildlife
management? See the perfection, do not speak of nature’s errors and
faults.
The Seventh Grave Precept is realize self and other as one—do
not elevate the self and put down others. Do not elevate the self
and put down nature. We hold a human-centered notion of the nature
of the universe and the nature of the environment. We believe God
put us in charge, and we live out that belief. The Bible confirms
this for us. We live as though the universe were spinning around
us, with humans at the center of the whole picture. We are convinced
that the multitude of things are there to serve us, and so we take
without any sense of giving. This is elevating the self and putting
down nature. In this universe, where everything is interpenetrated,
codependent, and mutually arising, nothing stands out above
anything else. We are inextricably linked and nobody 1s in charge.
The universe is self-maintaining. Buddhas and ancestors realize the
absolute emptiness and realize the great earth. When the great body
is manifested, there is neither inside nor outside. When the Dharma
body is manifested there is not even a single square inch of earth
on which to stand. It swallows it. Realize self and other as one. Do
not elevate the self and put down nature.
The Eighth Grave Precept is give generously—do not be with-
holding. We should understand that giving and receiving are one.
If we really need something from nature, we should vow to return
something to nature. We are, without question, dependent on nature.
182 Buddhism and Ecology

There is a vast difference between recognizing dependency, and

entering it consciously and gratefully, and being greedy. Native
Americans lived amidst the plenty of nature for thousands of years.
They fed on the buffalo when they needed that type of sustenance.
We nearly brought that species to extinction in two short decades.
And it was not because we needed the food. Tens of thousands of
carcasses rotted while we took the skins. It is the same with our
relationship to elephants, seals, alligators, and countless others. Our
killing has nothing to do with survival. It has nothing to do with
need. It has to do with greed. Give generously, do not be with-
holding.
The Ninth Grave Precept is actualize harmony—do not be angry.
Assertive, pointed action can be free of anger. We can fence the deer
out of our garden and prevent them from eating our vegetables
without hating the deer. Also, by simply being patient and observing
the natural cycles we can avoid unnecessary headaches and emo-
tional outbreaks. Usually we will discover that the things we believe
to be in the way are really not. When the gypsy moths descended
in Swarms one year and ate all the leaves off the trees so that in the
middle of June the mountain looked like it was late fall, the local
community of Woodstock, New York, became hysterical. We made
an all-out attack. Planes came daily and sprayed the slopes with
chemicals. People put tar on the bases of trees to trap the cater-
pillars. The gypsy moths simply climbed up, got stuck in the tar
and piled up so others could crawl across the backs of the dead ones
and went up the trees to do what they needed to do. Amidst all of
these “disasters,” with the leaves gone and the shrubbery out of the
shade, the mountain laurel bloomed like it had never bloomed
before. I had no idea we had so much mountain laurel on this
mountain. It is true the gypsy moths damaged the trees. The weak
trees died. But by July, there were new leaves on the trees and the
mountain was green again. Yet, the anger and the hate we felt during
those spring months was debilitating and amazing. The air was filled
with it.
In another incident, the fellow who owned the house that is now
the monastery abbacy had beavers on his property. They were eating
up his trees so he decided to exterminate them. A neighbor told him
beavers were protected, so he called the Department of Envi-
ronmental Conservation. The rangers trapped and removed the
 The Precepts and the Environment 183

animals. When we moved into the house, however, a pair of beavers

showed up and immediately started taking down the trees again. In
fact, they toppled a beautiful weeping willow that my students had
presented to me as a gift. I was supposed to sit under it in my old
age, but now it was stuck in a beaver dam, blocking the stream. With
the stream dammed, the water rose, the pond grew and filled with
fish. With the abundance of fish, ducks arrived, followed by the fox
and the osprey. Suddenly the whole environment came alive because
of those two beavers. Of course, they didn’t stay too long because
we didn’t have that much wood, and after two seasons they moved
on. The dam disintegrated, the water leaked out, and the pond
shrank. It will remain that way until the trees grow back and the
next pair of beavers arrives. If we can just keep our fingers out of
it and let things unfold, nature knows how to maintain itself. It
creates itself and defines itself, as does the universe. And, by the
way, the weeping willow came back, sprouted again right from the
stump. It leans over the pond watching me go through my own
cycles.
The Tenth Grave Precept is experience the intimacy of things—
do not defile the Three Treasures. To defile is to separate. The Three
Treasures are this body and the body of the universe, and when we
separate ourselves from ourselves, and from the universe, we defile
the Three Treasures.
To practice the Precepts is to be in harmony with your life and
the universe. To practice the Precepts means to be conscious of what
they are about—not just on the surface but on many levels, plumbing
the depths of the Precepts. It means being deeply honest with
yourself. When you become aware that you have drifted away from
the Precepts, simply acknowledge that fact. Acknowledgment means
to take responsibility for your life; taking responsibility plays a key
role in our practice. If you do not practice taking responsibility, you
are not practicing. It is as simple as that. There is nobody checking
when you are doing zazen whether you are letting go of your
thoughts or sticking with them. It has to do with your own honesty
and integrity. Only you know what you are doing with your mind.
It is the same with the Precepts. Only you know when you have
actually violated a precept. And only you can be at one with that
violation, can atone. To be at one with it means to take responsi-
184 Buddhism and Ecology

bility. To take responsibility means to acknowledge yourself as the

master of your life.
To take responsibility empowers you to do something about
whatever is hindering you. As long as we blame, as long as we avoid
or deny, we are removed from the realm of possibility and power
to do something about our lives. We become totally dependent upon
the ups and downs that we create around us. There is no reason that
we should be subjected to anything when we have the power to see
that we create and we destroy all things. To acknowledge that simple
fact is to take possession of the Precepts. It is to make the Precepts
your own. It is to give life to the Buddha, to the environment and
all beings, and to the universe itself.
 American Buddhism:
Creating Ecological Communities
 Great Earth Sangha: Gary Snyder’s View
of Nature as Community

David Landis Barnhill

In the poem “O Waters” (TI 73),! Gary Snyder presents the

following image:
great
earth
sangha.

Sangha, of course, is the Buddhist term for religious community,

one of the “three jewels” along with dharma (truth or teachings)
and Buddha. Traditionally, sangha refers to the community of
monks, people who have devoted their lives to spiritual practice
separated from normal society. Snyder has clearly departed from that
notion here: the sangha is the ecosphere of the planet. In this one
image is suggested two fundamental characteristics of his thought:
a creative extension of both Buddhism and ecology by seeing each
in terms of the other, and an overriding concern with community.
The notion of community is one of the central ideas in both
ecological science and environmental philosophy, and its general
significance is worth reviewing. Seeing nature as community is a
“radical” perspective: it changes at the root level our view of nature.
We can see some implications of this perspective by considering
how it opposes the traditional view of nature as “Other.” The concept
of Other is complex, but for our purposes here we can focus on three
aspects: our relation to the Other, its value, and our obligations to
it. When we think of something as Other, we hold that there is a
profound split between “us” and “them.” Certainly, that is how
Western culture at least has tended to see our relationship to nature.
188 Buddhism and Ecology

But if nature is our community, then it is not separate from us but

rather is the fundamental existential context of our lives. Similarly,
when we think of something as Other, then we devalue it: any value
it may have is instrumental. But if nature is considered a community
we are part of, then its value is intrinsic: both the individual beings
and the system as a whole have their own integrity. And when we
treat something as Other, there is little if any sense of obligation to
it. But if nature is our community, then our obligation is to preserve
it. In Aldo Leopold’s famous words, “A thing is right when it tends
to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic com-
munity. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”2 But even more: if
nature is truly a community we belong to, then there is a responsi-
bility to participate in it as community.?
But while the idea of nature as community has these basic
implications, it can be developed in a number of different ways. We
need to pay close attention to its distinctive uses by each thinker,
refining our sense of the various meanings and functions it has in a
person’s ecological thought. Surely one of the most complex and
significant presentations of nature as community is by Gary Snyder.

The Ecological Community of Indra’s Net

One principal aspect of Snyder’s view of community involves the
basic cycles of nature, in particular the food web and the cycle of
production by plants, consumption by animals, and decomposition
by fungi and other organisms. Early in his writings Snyder asks the
question, “Just where am I in the food chain?” (EHH 32). For
Snyder that is a religious question, and the answer points to our
essential place—our niche—in the community of life.
For Snyder, the food web does not suggest that nature is “red in
tooth and claw” but is instead a community that consists of “a gift-
exchange, a potluck banquet, and there is no death that is not
somebody’s food, no life that is not somebody’s death. . . . The
shimmering food chain, food-web, is the scary, beautiful condition
of the biosphere” (G 1). The intimacy of this gift exchange leads
Snyder to speak in anthropomorphic terms. “Looking closer at this
world of oneness, we see all these beings as our flesh, as our
children, our lovers. We see ourselves too as an offering to the
 Great Earth Sangha 189

continuation of life” (G 1). This community of mutual gift exchange

leads him to exclaim “What a big potlatch we are all members of!”
(PofW 18-19).
This food-web community is sacramental: “To acknowledge that
each of us at the table will eventually be part of the meal is not
just being ‘realistic.’ It is allowing the sacred to enter and accepting
the sacramental aspect of our shaky temporary personal being”
(PofW 18-19). Involved, then, is a particular kind of community
consciousness, “the sacramental food-chain mutual-sharing con-
sciousness. . .” (PIS 95-96). Such a consciousness enables us to see
that the sacramental community is fundamentally one of love.
Turning the conventional attitude of survival of the fittest on its
head, Snyder can ask rhetorically: “if we eat each other, is it not a
giant act of love we live within?” (G 1). This love is clearly an
extended form: “What are we going to do with this planet? It’s a
problem of love; not the human love of the West—but a love that
extends to animals, rocks, dirt, all of it” (TRW 4). This love creates
communion, found in the “sacramental energy-exchange, evolution-
ary mutual-sharing aspect of life... . And that’s what communion
is” (TRW 89).
In articulating this sacred food-web community, Snyder refers
to the traditional Buddhist idea of interpenetration and specifically
refers to the image of Indra’s net found in the Avatamsaka school
of Buddhism (Hua-yen in Chinese and Kegon in Japanese). In this
image,

the universe is considered to be a vast web of many-sided and highly

polished jewels, each one acting as a multiple mirror. In one sense
each jewel is a single entity. But when we look at a jewel, we see
nothing but the reflections of other jewels, and so on in an endless
system of mirroring. Thus in each jewel is the image of the entire
net.4

For Snyder that mirroring is found in the interdependencies of

nature’s web. He has taken a Buddhist idea and applied it to
ecology—or we could say that he has applied ecology to Hua-yen
Buddhism. He has, in effect, “ecologized” the Buddhist notion of
interpenetration and the image of Indra’s net and “Buddhacized” the
notion of ecosystem. “The web of relationships in an ecosystem
 190 Buddhism and Ecology

makes one think of the Hua-yen Buddhist image of Indra’s net. . .”

(PIS 67). Snyder cites a Buddhist text to suggest the ecology of
Buddhist metaphysics: “If you can understand this blade of rice you
can understand the laws of interdependence and origination. . .[and]
you know the Buddha” (TRW 35).
One of the principal activities of any ecosystem, of course, is
eating. The implication is that the ecological net of Indra is made
not of jewels but of flesh: that of plants, animals, our own. This
seems at first to be at odds with the “ecstatic” quality that is
characteristic of traditional discussions of Indra’s net. But as we
have seen, the enfleshed Indra’s net of the “gift exchange” is
something viewed as positive, as well as something we must actively
participate in. “Everything that breathes is hungry. But not to flee
such a world! Join in Indra’s net!” (PIS 70).5
Snyder thus sees our relationship to nature as being a part of a
communion of beings which constitutes Indra’s net of the food web.
This view has important implications for the notion of the self as
well as the issue of the one and the many, the whole and parts.
Snyder’s view is not a monism in which differentiation is lost or
individuality is denied or devalued. As Snyder says, “all is one and
at the same time all is many” (OW 9). Speaking of both art and life,
Snyder has said “A poem, like a life, is. . .a uniqueness in the
oneness” (PIS 115). To emphasize his point, he has cited a Chinese
Buddhist saying: “Easy to reach nirvana, / Hard to enter difference”
(PIS 212). The Buddhist notion of interpenetration and the image
of Indra’s net makes clear that the ecological self is not indistin-
guishable from the whole. The self is both the individual and the
whole. Snyder presents the following image to suggest this point:
“We are many selves looking at each other, through the same eye”
(OW 62). He specifically cautions against a simplistic notion of
oneness that would deny individuality. “The work of art has always
been to demonstrate and celebrate the interconnectedness: not to
make everything ‘one’ but to make the ‘many’ authentic, to help
illuminate it all” (PIS 90). This retention of a nonmonist but
nondualistic sense of difference allows for a vital sense of a
community of beings.
It is important to realize that Snyder’s view of a sacred com-
munity of love is both descriptive and normative. It is not simply
that we are physically interrelated by the food web and we ought
 Great Earth Sangha 191

to embody it with a feeling of love. Snyder claims that, even though

we don’t realize it, we do exist in a web of love. To see the food
web as simply a necessity of survival is to fail to see that it is also
an interaction of love. Thus his statement cited above: “if we eat
each other, is it not a giant act of love we live within?” (G 1). A
Buddhist parallel here can be found in the notion of our original
Buddha-nature, especially as interpreted by Dogen. We already are
Buddhas, we simply don’t realize it. Similarly, nature’s ecological
relations, including the food web, are the functioning of love. This
is not to assert that pain and loss are unreal or that “everything turns
out for the best.” It is instead to extend the notion of love and to
make our vision more subtle. But, as with Dogen, it is not enough
to be descriptive. We need to realize, to make real, this already
existing condition: we need to recognize its true character and live
in a way that authentically embodies it. Thus, the normative 1s
implied in the descriptive. The “practice of the wild” is to realize
in practice the essential condition of the community of life. For
Snyder, as for Dégen, practice is itself the goal.

The Bioregional Community

As we have seen, Snyder “ecologizes” the Buddhist notion of Indra’s

net and “Buddhacizes” science’s view of the ecology of the food
web. What implications does such a view have on a broader
understanding of the interrelationship between human culture and
the rest of nature? For Snyder, bioregionalism has been the principal
framework for articulating a philosophy of culture and nature, and
it is central to his view of a new, extended form of Buddhist
community. The goal of bioregionalism can be put in simple terms:
the creation of a society in which “A people and a place become
one” (PIS 95). The focus here is not some abstract or generalized
oneness but a concrete unity with a particular place. It is not realized
in some aloof mystical state but in the very physical practice of
“reinhabitation,’ dwelling fully at home and in place. Reinhabitation
involves substantial bioregional education: where the water comes
from and where the waste goes, what species of birds and bugs are
part of our local community, what kind and quantity of food and
housing the bioregion naturally supports, the myths and practices
 192 Buddhism and Ecology

of the native peoples (they too are part of the community, even if
they are no longer here). And reinhabitation calls for long-term
commitment to live and work in the place, “to become people who
are learning to live and think ‘as if’ they were totally engaged with
their place for the long future” (PIS 247). To live this way develops
community. “To restore the land one must live and work in a place.
To work in a place is to work with others. People who work together
in a place become a community, and a community, in time, grows
a culture” (PIS 250).
For Snyder community is a spiritual path which centers on having
a deep sense of place.

Because by being in place, we get the largest sense of community.

We learn that community is of spiritual benefit and health for
everyone, that ongoing working relationships and shared concerns,
music, poetry, and stories all evolve into the shared practice of a
set of values, visions, and quests. That’s what the spiritual path
really is (TRW 141).

The bioregional community is “the largest sense of community” in

part because it includes all species.

Human beings who are planning on living together in the same place
will wish to include the non-human in their sense of community.
This also is new, to say our community does not end at the human
boundaries; we are in a community with certain trees, plants, birds,
animals. The conversation is with the whole thing. That’s com-
munity political life (TT 18).

In a Snyderesque statement of deep ecology’s® principle of ecocen-

tric egalitarianism, he says we must “take ourselves as no more and
no less than another being in the Big Watershed. We can accept each
other all as barefoot equals sleeping on the same ground” (PofW 24).
Bioregionalism has been accused of leading toward a provin-
cialism that ignores planetary issues such as global warming as well
as concern for peoples and bioregions remote from one’s local place.
Snyder’s particular development of bioregionalism answers this
criticism in a way that reflects his Hua-yen vision of the nonduality
of holism and individualism: the local bioregion interpenetrates with
 Great Earth Sangha 193

the planetary. This is seen in the title of his recent autobiographical

reflections on his life at Kitkitdizze, his name for his home in the
Sierra Nevada foothills. The title of these reflections, “Kitkitdizze:
A Node in the Net” (the concluding essay of PIS), suggests that his
local bioregion is one distinct part of the vast, single, whole of
Indra’s net. In promoting a balanced view that integrates the local
and the global (in addition to the individual and the whole), Snyder
is concerned with the predominance of an excessively global
perspective.

Continuing a dialogue between cosmopolitanism and the matter of

being deeply local is crucial. To be merely cosmopolitan, merely
international is not interesting. . . . So the check that is imposed
upon the tendency toward centralization is the actual diversity of
the world (7T 14).

Note, however, that the local does not exclude the global. We should
recognize that ultimately we live on one planet, while acknowl-
edging that such holism consists of diversity. “We should be dubious
of fantasies that would lead toward centralizing world political
power, but we do need to nourish interactive playful diversity on
this one-planet watershed” (PIS 212). As such, the whole can be
known through the parts.

I’m not saying that the continent as a whole, or even the planet as
a whole, cannot be, in some sense, grasped and understood, and
indeed it should be, but for the time, especially in North America,
we are extremely deficient in regional knowledge—what’s going on
within a given region at any given time of year. Rather than being
limiting, that gives you a lot of insight into understanding the whole
thing, the larger system (TRW 27).

Bioregionalism, then, “implies an engagement with community and

a search for the sustainable sophisticated mix of economic practices
that would enable people to live regionally and yet learn from and
contribute to a planetary society” (PIS 247). In fact, such an Indra’s
net version of bioregionalism suggests a new perspective on the
common phrase “think globally, act locally.” The split seems
unnecessary. Ultimately thinking globally and thinking locally go
hand in hand; to act locally is to act globally.’
194 Buddhism and Ecology

Indra’s net is not the only Buddhist image that applies to Snyder’s
view of the unity-in-diversity of bioregionalism and the intrinsic
value of every member of the community.

One of the models I use now is how an ecosystem resembles a

mandala. A big Tibetan mandala has many small figures as well as
central figures, and each of them has a key role in the picture:
they’re all essential. .. . Every creature, even the little worms and
insects, has value. Everything is valuable—that’s the measure of the
system (WM 23).

Snyder relates this mandala vision of nature with the view of the
Ainu of northern Japan. “Each type of ecological system is a
different mandala, a different imagination. Again the Ainu term
iworu, field-of-beings, comes to mind” (PofW 107). In discussing
the “field of beings,” Snyder seems to suggest another combination
of the descriptive and the normative: “. . . how totally and uniquely
at home each life-form must be in its own unique ‘buddha-field’ ”
(PofW 108). Perhaps we too are essentially at home, even though
we do not realize it and act contrary to it. If so, a deeper sense of
how all things are at home in this mandala of life will help us see
how we are as well.

The Mythological, Shamanistic Community

Snyder’s scientifically based but Buddhistically developed notion
of the ecological/bioregional community is complemented by a
different sense of community, arising principally from his study of
Native American cultures. We can call this the “mythological,
Shamanistic community,” in which plants, animals, and humans are
seen as part of an interactive social community. As Bert Almon has
said: “Many of Snyder’s ‘people’ are birds. . .even plants. . . . His
problem as a poet of the whole range of living beings is to create
poems in which animals and plants appear as autonomous
presences. .. . The aim is. . .to see all beings as co-citizens in a
community of life.’® The result is a “True Communionism” that
differs from the ideals of both capitalism and communism. As Hwa
Yol Jung and Petee Jung have written: “Communionism is first and
foremost the way of seeking a deep sense of communion with
 Great Earth Sangha 195

myriads of natural things on earth, who are also called ‘peoples’

without any facile dualism and unnecessary hierarchism of any
kind’? This ideal, as true of his essays and interviews as his poems,
is founded on the view of primal cultures that animals are people
who coexist with us as part of nature. “People of primitive cultures
appreciate animals as other people off on various trips” (EHH 121).
Snyder’s perception that animals are our fellow creatures is
extended in one of his “Little Songs for Gaia” in Axe Handles (50).
Once Snyder was sitting with fellow poet Lew Welch in the
mountains. Welch asked him whether he thought the rocks were
paying attention to the trees. Snyder said he didn’t know and
wondered what Welch was driving at. Welch replied: “The trees are
just passing through.”!° That idea inspired the following poem.
As the crickets’ soft autumn hum
is to us,
so are we to the trees

as are they

to the rocks and the hills.

Our fellow “creatures” include plants and even rocks. Note how this
poem brings time into his presentation of community. The com-
munity is not just now but is part of the entire geological process.
One might wonder if this sequential “equation” can be extended.
After all, the mountains too are just passing through, so perhaps it
is appropriate to add: “as the rocks and hills are to the ocean and
air.’ But then they too are just passing through.
For Snyder, plants and animals are not just our fellows, they are
our elders. Describing a time he was in an old growth forest, Snyder
has said, “For hours we were in the company of elders” (PofW 135).
As elders they bear nature’s information: “The old stands of hoary
trees. . .are the grandparents and information-holders of their
communities” (PofW 139). And these elders are our teachers: “I
suspect that I was to some extent instructed by the ghosts of those
ancient trees as they hovered near their stumps” (PofW 118).
Community involves some sense of communication or com-
munion, and part of Snyder’s view of the interactive character of
nature’s community concerns interspecies communication. Animals
 196 Buddhism and Ecology

can speak to us. One morning as he awoke in his sleeping bag on a

long trip by car through the West, a magpie came close to him and
gave him the following song (7/ 69).!!
MAGPIE’S SONG
Six A.M.,
Sat down on excavation gravel
by juniper and desert S.P. tracks
interstate 80 not far off
between trucks
Coyotes—maybe three
howling and yapping from a rise.
Magpie on a bough
Tipped his head and said,
“Here in the mind, brother
Turquoise blue.
I wouldn’t fool you.
Smell the breeze
[t came through all the trees
No need to fear
What’s ahead
Snow up on the hills west
Will be there every year
be at rest.
A feather on the ground—
The wind sound—

Here in the Mind, Brother,

Turquoise Blue”
Such interspecies communication also allows another kind of link
between humans and the rest of nature. We can speak for animals
and plants in the sense of political representation. Snyder sees this
as one of his roles, “an occasional voice for the nonhuman rising
within the human realm. . .” (TRW 159). Such a possibility, in fact,
becomes a moral imperative. Plants and animals are a part of our
political community and their voice needs to be heard in the
chambers of government as well as in the books of poetry (TI 106).
This mythic, anthropomorphic perspective is also part of Snyder’s
presentation of the food web as community. Snyder notes that in
traditional Native American belief, the animal offers itself to the
 Great Earth Sangha 197

worthy hunter, expecting gratitude and conscientiousness in return.!2

“The world is not only watching, it is listening too. . . . Other beings
(the instructors from the old ways tell us) do not mind being killed
and eaten as food, but they expect us to say please, and thank you,
and they hate to see themselves wasted” (PofW 20-21). Animals,
then, are our helpers, giving us sustenance.
Commenting on the poem “Soy Sauce” (AH 30-31), Woody
Rehanek has stated that Snyder presents himself as “identifying
with, representing, and finally becoming a totem animal. This
experience transcends intellectual rapport and becomes a total
affinity with the nonhuman. .. . A vital aspect of shamanism is this
ability to become one with the animal.”!3 But the term “oneness”
can refer to several kinds of states and relationships. Snyder is
concerned with the oneness of a community, not some monistic
unity achieved by a solitary mystic. There is, for instance, the
oneness of interspecies transformation which allows transhuman
community to occur.

We are all capable of extraordinary transformations. In myth and

story these changes are animal-to-human, human-to-animal, animal-
to-animal, or even farther leaps. The essential nature remains clear
and steady through these changes. So the animal icons of the
Inupiaq people (“Eskimos”) of the Bering Sea (here’s the reverse!)
have a tiny human face sewn into the fur, or under the feathers, or
carved on the back or breast or even inside the eye, peeping out
(PofW 20).
Such a view may at first seem very different from Buddhism, but
only if we rather artificially separate an “elite” Buddhism from the
broader context of popular religion. Such a separation has not been
characteristic of East Asian Buddhism, and there are some inter-
esting parallels between Snyder’s mythic/shamanistic views and
Japanese poets. As Snyder sees ancient trees as elders, the Japanese
Buddhist poet Saigyo (1118-1190) saw cherry trees and the moon
as companions and models in his spiritual journeys.'4 The Buddhist-
influenced poet Basho (1644-1694) suggested that he heard the
voice of his parents in the cry of a bird, and he spoke of the true
poet as someone who is able to enter into a bamboo and speak
its subtle feelings.!> In general, transformations between the human
and animal worlds is a common theme in Japanese Shinto and
198 Buddhism and Ecology

Shamanistic East Asian folk Buddhism. Snyder, in fact, gives Native

American stories of transformations a Buddhist interpretation, as he
continues the passage cited above.

This is the inua, which is often called “spirit” but could just as well
be termed the “essential nature” of that creature. It remains the same
face regardless of the playful temporary changes. . . . This is not
the same as an anthropocentrism or human arrogance. It is a way
of saying that each creature is a spirit with an intelligence as
brilliant as our own. The Buddhist iconographers hide a little animal
face in the hair of the human to remind us that we see with
archetypal wilderness eyes as well (PofW 20).

But what does all this mythic discourse amount to? Does Snyder
actually believe in interspecies transformation and the rest? I think
such a positivist question is the wrong one to ask. The fundamental
function of myth is not to state what is “objectively real,’ which
opens the door to arguments about what is “really true.” An animal
rights advocate, for instance, once complained to me after I
delivered a paper on Snyder’s view of hunting that “animals don’t
really give up themselves to the hunter, that’s just a rationalization.”
Snyder’s presentation of hunting as gift and communion certainly
could be used as a rationalization for needless killing, but we should
avoid rejecting out of hand the traditional views of Native American
hunters. I would prefer to begin with the hypothesis that there is
some important wisdom involved in such mythic thinking which
cannot be captured by our modern notions of objective reality. Myth,
after all, articulates what is psychologically and spiritually real, what
is essential in our relationships with the world. Snyder’s mytho-
logical community suggests the multidimensional intimacy of our
connection to and communion with the rest of nature, our funda-
mental similarity to all other beings, and our co-participation in the
community of nature. And it does so in a way that can promote a
fuller realization of our deep interrelationship with all of life. As
Murphy has noted concerning Snyder’s retelling of the Native
American story of “The Woman Who Married a Bear” (in PofW
155-74), “What is revealed here. . .is the power that myth can carry
in the present day and the ways by which it can help bridge the gap
between animal and human. .. .”!¢
 Great Earth Sangha 199

Snyder is well aware of—and critical of—the tendency in

Western Buddhism to reject the “popular” elements of Buddhist
belief and practice.

There’s a big tendency right now in Western Buddhism to psychol-

ogize it—to try and take the superstition, the magic, the irrationality
out of it and make it into a kind of therapy. You see that a lot. Let
me say that I’m grateful for the fact that I lived in Asia for so long
and hung out with Asian Buddhists. I appreciate that Buddhism is
a whole practice and isn’t just limited to the lecture side of it; that
it has stories and superstition and ritual and goofiness like that. I
love that aspect of it more and more (WM 25-26).

Part of Snyder’s Buddhistic totalism is to embrace the long-standing

tradition of merging sophisticated philosophy and advanced mystical
disciplines with “popular” beliefs and rituals. His admixture of
Buddhism and Native American culture is in line with blendings of
Buddhism and popular/shamanistic religions in China and Japan.!’
The obvious difference is that Snyder has not turned to the popular
religion of the majority of Americans (our “masses’’) but to the
minority tradition of Native Americans. He has done so in part
because the majority tradition of Protestantism has rejected “magic”
(including the Catholic Eucharist) and emphasized the “fallenness”
of the natural world and our separation from it. The shamanistic
aspects of popular religions in East Asia are largely absent from our
“popular” religion, while they are strong in the native but minority
traditions of America.

Shaman as Ecologist

Snyder has associated shamanism and ecology since his earliest

writings. Recently David Abram has discussed that association in a
way that clarifies Snyder’s view.

The traditional shaman, as I came to discern in the course of my

twelve months in Asia, is in many ways the “ecologist” of a tribal
society. He or she acts as intermediary between the human com-
munity and the larger ecological field. . . . By his or her constant
rituals, trances, ecstasies, and “journeys,” the shaman ensures that
200 Buddhism and Ecology

the relation between human society and the larger society of beings
is balanced and reciprocal.!8

We have failed to recognize this ecological role of the shaman,

Abram says, because of our assumptions about nature and the
Supernatural.

Countless anthropologists have managed to overlook the ecological

dimension of the shaman’s craft, while writing at length of the
shaman’s rapport with “supernatural” entities. We must attribute
much of this oversight to the modern assumption that nonhuman
nature is largely determinate and mechanical, and that that which
is regarded as mysterious, powerful, and beyond human ken must
therefore be of some other, nonphysical realm outside of nature—
“supernatural.”!9

Abram discovered that for the shaman/ecologist, the natural is the

supernatural, the supernatural is nature.
This general point, of course, is true of Mahayana Buddhism as
well: “form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” But philosophical/
mystical Mahayana tends to see the ultimate reality in terms of an
impersonal, single Mind, rather than a community of beings.
Shamanism, on the other hand, sees nature as characterized not by
Mind but by minds. As a result, Abram notes, human intelligence
is considered “simply one form of awareness among many others,”2°
a theme found throughout Snyder’s writings.

Magic, then, in its perhaps more primordial sense, is the experience

of living in a world made up of multiple intelligences, the intuition
that every natural form one perceives—from the swallow swooping
overhead to the fly on a blade of grass and indeed the blade of grass
itself—is an experiencing form, an entity with its own predilections
and sensations, albeit sensations that are very different from our
own.?!

Here the Buddhist parallel is with the karmic cosmology of the six
realms, which includes animals and four other kinds of supernatural
(or supranatural) beings: hell-dwellers, hungry ghosts, titans, and
heavenly beings. Both Abram and Snyder differ from this model by
locating all transhuman intelligence in the palpable, sensuous world
 Great Earth Sangha 201

of nature and also by including plants and (at least in Snyder’s

thought) ecosystems from watersheds to Gaia. Nature, and all of
nature, is the compass of community.
For both Abram and Snyder, the shaman is one who has devel-
oped special expertise in establishing a communion with transhuman
intelligences. “The shaman’s magic is precisely this heightened
receptivity to the meaningful solicitations—songs, cries, gestures—
of the larger, more-than-human field.”2* In such a view, nature is a
“sentient landscape,”2? and spiritual communion requires a sensuous
acuity to nature’s voices. As nature and the “supernatural” are
inextricably linked, so too our physical senses are intimately tied
to our awareness of the spiritual dimensions of life. As a result, the
cultivation of a sensuous communion with nature is critical for the
health of individuals and for a culture as a whole.

To shut ourselves off from these other voices, to continue by our

lifestyles to condemn these other sensibilities to the oblivion of
extinction, is to rob our own senses of their integrity, and to rob
our minds of their coherence. We are human only in contact and
conviviality with what is not human. Only in reciprocity with what
is Other will we begin to heal ourselves.**

This reciprocity leads Abram into a new kind of dialogue.

I found myself caught in a nonverbal conversation with this Other,

a gestural duet with which my reflective awareness had very little
to do. It was as if my body were suddenly being motivated by a
wisdom older than my thinking mind, as though it were held and
moved by a logos—deeper than words—spoken by the Other’s body,
the trees, the air, and the stony ground on which we stood.2>

There is a problem with Abram’s use of the terminology of the

Other. As we noted in the introduction, the notion of Other usually
implies separation, devaluing, and a lack of obligation, aspects of
imperialist and patriarchal views toward other beings. Abram clearly
is pointing to a different relation: interdependence and mutual
implication, a community. One of the characteristics of a true
community (as opposed to a social collectivity) is that other
members are part of the definition of who and what we are. In order
to clarify Abram’s comments and Snyder’s view of community, we
202 Buddhism and Ecology

need to be able to articulate the kind of relation with others that

affirms difference but avoids separation and alienation. Mikhail
Bakhtin’s thought is helpful in this task.

Anotherness and Dialogics: Bakhtin and Interspecies

Community

Mikhail Bakhtin, the Russian literary critic, has argued for an

alternative to an alienational and oppressive sense of Otherness.

Russian distinguishes between drugoi (another, other person) and

chuzhoi (alien; strange; also, the other). The English pair ‘I/other,’
with its intonations of alienation and opposition, has specifically
been avoided here. The another Bakhtin has in mind is not hostile
to the J but a necessary component of it, a friendly other, a living
factor in the attempts of the J toward self-definition.26

Patrick D. Murphy has made an important contribution to the study

of community and ecology by extending Bakhtin’s thought to
include nature as well as humans. Although the Western tradition
has traditionally conceived of both nature and foreign cultures as
Other, Murphy asks: “What if instead of alienation we posited
relation as the primary mode of human-human and human-nature
interaction without conflating difference, particularity and other
specificities? What if we worked from a concept of relational
difference and anotherness rather than Otherness?”2’ Clearly Abram
conceives of the natural world as “another” rather than an Other.
Murphy correctly sees the same vision of relation in Snyder, who
(at one time a Ph.D. student of anthropology) “argues for each of
us to turn from being ‘ethnologist’ to being ‘informant,’ to move
from objectifying detachment from the other to subjectivity-sharing
engagement with the other as another.”’28
Such a view of anotherness rejects a strict dichotomy of self and
other, as does Buddhism and ecological thought. As Murphy notes,
Bakhtin’s thought implies “recognizing the concepts of both self and
other as interdependent, mutually determinable, constructs. . . .”’29
It is appropriate here to recall Bert Almon’s account of Snyder’s
poetry “in which animals and plants appear as autonomous pres-
 Great Earth Sangha 203

ences.”39 By autonomous Almon is arguing that animals and plants

are not Others and not mere background or symbol. Yet in a
Bakhtinian view—and in Snyder’s ecological-shamanist-Buddhist
view—nothing is autonomous. It would be better to argue that for
Snyder animals and plants have their own integrity—not in being
autonomous but by being integrated in the interdependent web as
“anothers.”!
It is important to recognize that this view of self and Other as
interpenetrating functions both normatively and descriptively.°? It
articulates an ideal relationship to nature and argues for its possi-
bility: we are not necessarily relegated to an alienated relationship
with nature as Other. But it also implies a descriptive affirmation
of our essential condition: whether we realize it or not, we exist in
a web of interrelationships. Such a view entails a Hua-yen-like
perception of relation, “Conceptualizing self/other as interpene-
trating part/part and part/whole relationships rather than dichot-
omy... 223 Murphy comments on the works of Ursula Le Guin in
a way that applies to Snyder’s Hua-yen vision of community: “self
and other, and individual and community, are complementarities that
when unified produce a sense of wholeness, although not necessarily
completedness.”34
Community thus conceived is not simply interexistent but also
interactive, and Bakhtin’s theory of dialogics is useful in under-
standing the interactive quality of Snyder’s—and Abram’s—view of
community. Complex and ambiguous, Bakhtin’s notion of dialogue
has been interpreted in various ways, with conflicting schools of
thought claiming him as their own.*> But the central point relevant
to our discussion is that anotherness enables dialogical interchange.
To be another instead of an other is to be a speaking subject rather
than an analyzed or utilized object. Although Bakhtin was anthropo-
centric in his dialogical theory, Abram, Snyder, and Murphy all
emphasize that transhuman nature also can have such a voice. “Such
a perception of interconnectedness not only enables one to move
from the self/other as dichotomy to viewing both terms as mutually
constitutive forms of being another, but also enables one to listen
to others, whether human or not, as speaking subjects, sentient and
creative. . . .56 Since transhuman nature does not speak in a human
voice, there is a need for someone to render that voice: a shaman
204 Buddhism and Ecology

or a poet. In a statement that clearly applies to Snyder’s view of

the shaman poet, Murphy has said that “The implications of this
other as speaking subject need to be conceptualized as including
more than humans, and as potentially being constituted by a speaker/
author who is not the speaking subject but a renderer of the other
as speaking subject. . . .”37
A central issue raised by the notion of Other is the possibility
of true communication. Tim Dean, approaching the notion of Other
from a Lacanian viewpoint, states that “The paradox of the Other
is that it both enables relation and disables relation, rendering
communication always imperfect and effectively disharmonising
connection.”38 While it is true that communication is imperfect and
relation is never totally harmonious and transparent, to claim that
Otherness always and inevitably implies a disharmonizing con-
nection is to reject the possibility of anotherness. Such a view may
fit Lacan, but Snyder and shamanistic traditions (and Bakhtin)
clearly disagree: relationship with “another” may be imperfect but
it can become a true interrelationship in which the integrity of each
is maintained, true learning occurs, and communication can be
effectively (though not perfectly) harmonizing.
But, for the traditional shaman the ultimate goal is not one’s
personal communion with the transhuman. It is healing. In tradi-
tional shamanistic societies, personal illness is seen not simply as
a function of a body but in the person’s relationship with the larger
society of beings. “Disease, in most such cultures, is conceptualized
as a disequilibrium within the sick person, or as the intrusion of a
demonic or malevolent presence into his or her body. . . . Yet such
influences are commonly traceable to an imbalance between the
human community and the larger field of forces in which it is
embedded.”%? Abram’s view of “physical” illness is echoed in
Patricia Clark Smith’s view of social conflict among Native
American women. There is, she says, “a tendency to see conflict
between women as not totally a personal matter but, rather, as part
of a larger whole, as a sign that one of the pair has lost touch not
with just a single individual but with a complex web of relationship
and reciprocities.”4° The etymological root of the term “to heal,”
Snyder often notes, is “to make whole.” This is the shaman’s task—
to bring wholeness to society by bringing it in to wholeness
with nature.
 Great Earth Sangha 205

A Community of Practice
One of the reasons Snyder has been drawn to the notion of the
shaman is because a shaman is a religious practitioner. For all his
reputation as a “nature poet,” Snyder does not fit the conventional
mode of the contemplative. True to his Zen roots, Snyder empha-
sizes a path of practice. And, his focus is not on the shaman or monk
as individual practitioner but on the community as the context for
interdependent religious practice. Since the beginning of his poetic
career, participation in a community of religious practice has been
a central goal for Snyder. He was drawn early in life to Native
American spirituality but turned instead to Buddhism because he
found it a more accessible community. Snyder recalls that he “saw
that American Indian spiritual practice is very remote and extremely
difficult to enter, even though in one sense right next door, because
it is a practice one has to be born into. Its intent is not cosmopolitan.
Its content, perhaps, is universal, but you must be a Hopi to follow
the Hopi way” (TRW 94). He found in Japanese Zen a community
of practice that he could participate in, and he was attracted to its
discipline. “Its community life and discipline is rather like an
apprenticeship program in a traditional craft. The arts and crafts
have long admired Zen training as a model of hard, clean, worthy
schooling” (PofW 148).
By the time of his return from Japan in the 1960s, however, he
began to articulate his view of the limitations of the traditional
Buddhist sangha. In 1969 he stated that his ideal was an expanded
community of spiritual practice, one which would retain the
universality and intellectual sophistication of Buddhism but be a
broader, nonmonastic community like those found in tribal societies.

The Buddhist and Hindu traditions. . .lost something which the

primitives did have, and that was a total integrated life style. . . .
Certain primitive cultures that are functioning on a high level
actually amount to what would be considered a spiritual training
path in which everyone in the culture is involved and there are no
separations between the priest and layman or between the men who
become enlightened and those who can’t. What we need to do now
is to take the great intellectual achievement of the Mahayana Buddhists
and bring it back to a community style of life... (TRW 15-16).
206 Buddhism and Ecology

More recently (1990) he has repeated this ideal, emphasizing the

necessity of staying involved in the sometimes unpleasant aspects
of domestic and ecological relationships.

There are additional insights that come only from the nonmonastic
experience of work, family, loss, love, failure. And there are all the
ecological-economical connections of humans with other living
beings, which cannot be ignored for long, pushing us toward a
profound consideration of planting and harvesting, breeding and
slaughtering. All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher that the
religious institutions originally worked with: reality (PofW 152).

As a result, Snyder has emphasized the importance of family as a

context for spiritual practice. “To me, the natural unit of practice is
the family. The natural unit of the play of practice is the community.
A sangha should mean the community, just as the real Mahayana
includes all living beings” (TRW 136).
Such a view of the sangha as a family-based community departs
from the traditional monastic notions. In fact, it recalls instead basic
Confucian ideals. But Snyder’s impetus is clearly rooted in
Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana arose in part as a more inclusive
branch of Buddhism, loosening the strict separation of monk and
laity and opening spiritual aspiration and practice to those outside
the monastery walls. Mahayana philosophy, especially Hua-yen, has
consistently critiqued dualities and taken a totalistic view of a
comprehensive interrelated reality. For Snyder, the spiritual com-
munity and its practice must reflect such a totalistic view.
Snyder’s Buddhist notion of a totalistic community leads to a
view of social revolution that departs from traditional Buddhism.
If the sangha is all beings, and morality is the central aspect of the
path, then social morality is necessary and leads to political
radicalism.

The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the
East has been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need
both. They are both contained in the traditional three aspects of the
Dharma path: wisdom (prajfia), meditation (dhyana), and morality
(sila). . . . Morality is bringing it back out in the way you live,
through personal example and responsible action, ultimately toward
 Great Earth Sangha 207

the true community (sangha) of “all beings.” This last aspect means,
for me, supporting any cultural and economic revolution that moves
clearly toward a free, international, classless world. . . . Working
on one’s own responsibility, but willing to work with a group.
“Forming the new society within the shell of the old”—the I.W.W.
slogan of fifty years ago (EHH 92).

There is an ongoing—and creative—tension in Snyder’s ex-

panded view of the sangha. Social morality combined with a
totalistic metaphysic calls for an international and planetary political
radicalism. But his bioregional and tribal leanings point toward a
local focus; the practice of a bioregional community is the practice
of place.

Ultimately we can all lay claim to the term native and the songs
and dances, the beads and feathers, and the profound responsibilities
that go with it... . Part of that responsibility is to choose a place.
To restore the land one must live and work in a place. To work ina
place is to work with others. People who work together in a place
become a community, and a community, in time, grows a culture
(PIS 250).

Such practice may be local political work, “the tiresome but tangible
work of school boards, county supervisors, local foresters, local
politics. . 2’ (WM 23-24). It also includes the work of being a family.
“There’s a fatherly responsibility there, and a warm, cooperative
sense of interaction, of family as extended family, one that moves
imperceptibly toward community and a community-values sense”
(WM 24). Family leads into community (again, a very Confucian
idea), and neighborhood community ties to ecological community.
“Neighborhood values are ecosystem values, because they include
all the beings” (WM 24). While all of nature is included in the
sangha, it is the ecological neighborhood of the watershed that is
the place of practice.

The watershed is our only local Buddha mandala, one that gives us
all, human and non-human, a territory to interact in. That is the
beginning of dharma citizenship: not membership in a social or a
national sphere, but in a larger community citizenship. In other
208 Buddhism and Ecology

words, a sangha; a local dharma community. All of that is in there,

like Dogen when he says, “When you find your place, practice
begins” (WM 24).

In place, and in community, one can begin the real work of

Buddhist-ecological practice. This is what true revolution involves.

Conclusion: Building a Community

It is appropriate to conclude by examining a recent poem that

touches on a number of aspects of Snyder’s view of community,
some of which we have discussed and others that we can only note
briefly here. The poem, “Building” (NN 366-67), includes a
narrative account of the construction of buildings in his Sierra
Nevada community. It is worth quoting in full here.
We started our house midway through the Cultural Revolution,
The Vietnam war, Cambodia, in our ears,
tear gas in Berkeley,
Boys in overalls with frightened eyes, long matted hair, ran
from the police.
We peeled trees, drilled boulders, dug sumps, took sweat baths
together.
That house finished we went on
Built a schoolhouse, with a hundred wheelbarrows,
held seminars on California paleo-indians during lunch.
We brazed the Chou dynasty form of the character “Mu”
on the blacksmithed brackets of the ceiling of the lodge,
Buried a five-prong vajra between the schoolbuildings
while praying and offering tobacco.
Those buildings were destroyed by a fire, a pale copy rebuilt
by insurance.
Ten years later we gathered at the edge of a meadow.
The cultural revolution is over, hair is short,
the industry calls the shots in the Peoples Forests,
Single mothers go back to college to become lawyers.

Blowing the conch, shaking the staff-rings

we opened work on a Hall.
Forty people, women carpenters, child labor, pounding nails,
Screw down the corten roofing and shape the beams
with a planer,
 Great Earth Sangha 209

The building is done in three weeks.

We fill it with flowers and friends and open it up.
Now in the year of the Persian Gulf,
Of Lies and Crimes in the Government held up as Virtues,
this dance with Matter
Goes on: our buildings are solid, to live, to teach, to sit,
To sit, to know for sure the sound of a bell—
This is history. This is outside of history.
Buildings are built in the moment,
they are constantly wet from the pool
that renews all things
naked and gleaming.

The moon moves

Through her twenty-eight nights.
Wet years and dry years pass;
Sharp tools, good design.

The poem has strong allusions to the Hojoki (“An Account of

My Ten Foot Square Hut’), a famous prose piece by the Japanese
Buddhist writer Kamo no Chomei (1153-1216). Both works focus
on buildings, place the reflections in a historical and political context
of great disturbance and destruction, and are concerned about the
continuity of culture in an impermanent world. In both works the
failures of conventional society are assumed to be ongoing, though
Snyder presents more of a political critique of the cause of the
problem than Chidmei, who exemplifies the Buddhist belief that the
world had entered into an irreversible historical era of the “decline
of the Law” (mappod). Chomei reflects on the impermanence of
buildings and our relationship to them by stating near the end of
his work that “Only in a hut built for the moment can one live
without fears,’4! a phrase Snyder echoes in the second to last stanza.
But the differences between the works are striking. Chomei
begins the Hojoki with a poignant depiction of the essential
insubstantiality of life: “The flow of the river is ceaseless and its
water is never the same. The bubbles that float in the pools, now
vanishing, now forming, are not of long duration: so in the world
are man and his dwellings.”4* Snyder reveals instead a metaphysical
optimism: near the end of the poem he alludes to the Hajoki passage
but shifts the emphasis from the passing away of things to their
renewal: “constantly wet from the pool / that renews all things /
210 Buddhism and Ecology

naked and gleaming.” He also counters his political pessimism with

a social optimism that is totally foreign to Chomei. The Japanese
writer left the capital city after its destruction and built a solitary
hut in the foothills where he pursued the arts and Buddhist devo-
tions. Snyder, too, leaves the city for the foothills, but he goes there
to begin a new community. Unlike Chomei’s hut, Snyder’s buildings
are communal, built by and for the entire community: the school-
house was built “with a hundred wheelbarrows” while the Hall was
constructed by “Forty people, women carpenters, child labor,
pounding nails.”
This community is presented in opposition not only to Chomei’s
pessimistic reclusion but also to the violence and alienation of
American society. His community is revolutionary not in having the
intention of overthrowing the political establishment but in creating
an alternative community that can be the basis for a post-civilization
society, “forming the new society within the shell of the old.” An
essential characteristic of this vision of community is work.*? It is
physical and mundane rather than industrial or technologically
sophisticated: “screw down the corten roofing and shape the beams
with a planer.’ And work is a source of ritual that celebrates and
reinforces social solidarity as it symbolically represents ecological
interdependence with the use of natural materials: “Blowing the
conch, shaking the staff-rings / we opened work on a Hall”; “The
building is done in three weeks / We fill it with flowers and friends
and open it up.” The work of community is also religious, both in
communal rituals and the practice of meditation. The repetition of
“to sit” emphasizes the importance of this practice and suggests the
necessity of ongoing practice: practice ultimately is not the means
but the end. The result of such practice is the ability to participate
fully in this dance with Matter, including the sensual acuity and
decisive awareness to hear fully the sound of a bell.
Community is also the context and medium of cultural trans-
mission. Snyder has always been concerned with the handing down
of culture, though in earlier writings his view was more anthro-
pological and historical, arguing for the continuity of shamanistic
culture from the Paleolithic to the present. Especially with Axe
Handles (1983), Snyder’s writings discuss cultural transmission on
a more personal level,* seen in the concluding lines of the title poem
from that collection. He refers there to an ancient Chinese image
 Great Earth Sangha 211

of cultural continuity, an axe which functions both as a model for a

new axe handle and as a tool in its construction.
And I see: Pound was an axe,
Chen was an axe, I am an axe
And my son a handle, soon
To be shaping again, model
And tool, craft of culture,
How we go on (AH 6).*°
Similarly, “Buildings” concludes with the image of tools, objects
of the human cycle of cultural transmission located in the context
of nature’s cycles. The concern with tools helps us connect with
other cultures as well. In his early poem “Above Pate Valley” (RR 9),
Snyder reflects on his work building trails in the Sierra Nevada.
During a break from work he discovers thousands of arrowheads,
which are both tools and products of tools. He concludes with a
reference to his contemporary tools in the context of the sweep of
time.
.. .Picked up the cold-drill,
Pick, singlejack, and sack
Of dynamite.
Ten thousand years.

As Lionel Basney states, Snyder’s tools “join with the obsidian

flakes he has discovered earlier to form a bridge for sympathy, or
at least contact, across the intervening ten thousand years. . . . The
objects their work implies, both tools and implied products, such
as arrowheads, identify meaning with an immediate practical use,
and thus suggest a culture functioning in both pragmatic and
spiritual terms.”4© Tools (cultural artifacts) and their design (cultural
codes) are basic components of those fundamental cultural goals,
“to live, to teach. ... .” which is how, in fact, we go on. Snyder
begins the poem “What Have I Learned” (AH 85) with the lines:
What have I learned but
the proper use for several tools?

Charles Molesworth has discussed the importance of cultural

transmission in both Turtle Island and Axe Handles. Speaking of
the latter, he states that “the central tension here is the same that
animated Turtle Island (1974): how can we carry on the meaningful
212 Buddhism and Ecology

transmission of community and culture against the threatening

background of ecological perversity and vast geological and cosmic
processes.’4’ Murphy claims, however, that “it does not seem
entirely accurate to speak of ‘tension’ so much as of continuing
concern.”4® But the transmission of true community is very much
at tension with the ecological perversity of our times, not only
because the destruction of nature is a symptom of a deep illness of
society but because nature is our community. As the coyotes are
exterminated from his California hills, Snyder says, “My sons will
lose this / Music they have just started / To love” (77 21). The
coyotes are part of the community, and their music is part of the
cultural transmission. On the other hand, the transmission of
community and culture is not in tension with the geological and
cosmic processes, or, in Snyder’s terms, “the weathering land / The
wheeling sky” (RR 8). They are the context of culture, and a healthy
community is in harmony with those cycles. Thus the necessity to
teach the children about the cycles.
The life cycles. All the other cycles.
That’s what it’s all about, and it’s all forgot (AH 7).

As one would expect, the community of “Buildings” involves a

connection to archaic shamanistic cultures and to Asian religions.
During the building of the schoolhouse, they “Buried a five-prong
vajra between the schoolbuildings / while praying and offering
tobacco.” Years later, “Blowing the conch, shaking the staff-rings /
we opened work on a Hall.” The community thus draws from both
local/bioregional culture and global culture, the ancient California
and early China.
Snyder’s community exists within a more comprehensive and
subtle context: the ongoing “dance with Matter.” Ultimate reality
is material; it is this very world of form. This world consists not of
discrete and abiding substances but, rather, of things which, while
solid and distinct, exist in an ongoing process of harmonious
interaction such that all things are new each moment. This dance
with matter is nondualistic: buildings are “solid” yet “wet from the
pool / that renews all things. . . .” They, like all matter, are
differentiated yet integrated. Community, then, is a dance within the
dance of Matter. And, for Snyder, it is clearly a dance that matters
ultimately.
 Great Earth Sangha 213

This dance is both of history and beyond it. Snyder has spoken
elsewhere of two modes of time by combining the indigenous
Australian idea of “dreamtime” with Dogen’s notion of “being-
time.” One mode of time is “the eternal moment of creating, of
being, as contrasted with the mode of cause and effect in
time. . .where people mainly live. . .” (PofW 84-85). For Snyder,
we need to see our buildings, our community, and culture itself as
part of history, a response to a particular historical era, but we also
need to recognize that buildings, and community, “are built in the
moment,” the timeless moment of renewal.
“Building” exemplifies Snyder’s vision of an alternative com-
munity that is physically and metaphysically integrated into nature.
Sherman Paul has noted the importance of community in Snyder’s
life by responding to Jack Kerouac’s prophecy in Dharma Bums
about Japhy Ryder (the novel’s main character, based on Gary
Snyder): “I think he’ll end up like Han Shan living alone in the
mountains and writing poems on the walls of cliffs.” Paul corrects
the prophecy by observing that Snyder “lives now in the mountains,
but with his family, in community.”4? Paul is right to point to
Snyder’s combination of nature and community, but Snyder does
not really live in the mountains in the way the semi-legendary
recluse Han Shan did.°° He dwells neither in the lowlands of
American culture nor on the ascetic peaks of a cold mountain but
in the foothills. At this intersection, he can pursue “solitude and
community, vajra and garbha,” thus embodying the “tension
between the solitary eye and the nourishing kitchen [which] is at
the root of the strength and magic of the Old Ways.”>! He is neither
the Buddha achieving enlightenment on the mountain nor the
Buddha descending the mountain to preach to the people. He is a
re-inhabitant, dwelling in a bioregional community which combines
Buddhism with the Old Ways. From that place, in place, he is able
to cultivate his local community while staying interconnected with
both mountain and city. Such an emplacement is both physically
convenient and symbolically significant, for Snyder sees his
community as limited to neither mountain nor city. Kitkitdizze is
one node in the net of the great earth sangha.
214 Buddhism and Ecology

Notes

1. Quotations from Gary Snyder’s works are cited in the text with the
abbreviations listed below:
AH Axe Handles: Poems. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1983.
EHH — Earth House Hold: Technical Notes and Queries to Fellow Dharma
Revolutionaries. New York: New Directions Press, 1969.
G “Grace.” CoEvolution Quarterly 43 (fall 1984):1.
NN No Nature: New and Selected Poems. New York: Pantheon Books,
1992.
OW The Old Ways: Six Essays. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1977.
PIS A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds: New and
Selected Prose. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1995.
PofW_ The Practice of the Wild. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990.
RR Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems. San Francisco: Four Seasons
Foundation, 1965.
TRW_ The Real Work: Interviews and Talks 1964-1979. New York: New
Directions, 1980.
TI Turtle Island. New York: New Directions, 1974.
“This Is Our Body.” Audio tape from Watershed Tapes. 1989.
TT Turtle Talk: Voices for a Sustainable Future. Ed. Christopher Plant
and Judith Plant. The New Catalyst Bioregional Series. Philadelphia:
New Society Publishers, 1990.
WM “The Wild Mind of Gary Snyder.” Includes quotations from an
interview with Trevor Carolan. Shambhala Sun 4, no. 5 (May
1996):18-26.
2. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press,
1949), 224-25.
3. For a further application of the idea of Other in the context of Mikhail
Bakhtin’s thought, see below, pp. 202-4.
4. David Landis Barnhill, “Indra’s Net as Food Chain: Gary Snyder’s
Ecological Vision,” Ten Directions 11, no. 1 (1990):20; quoted by Snyder in PIS
67. For other discussions of Snyder’s Hua-yen vision with analyses of relevant
poems, see Shu-chun Huang,“A Hua-yen Buddhist Perspective of Gary Snyder,”
Tamkang Review 20, no. 2 (winter 1989):195—216; and Christopher Parr, “Living
Interdependence: Gary Snyder’s Kegon and Zen Views of Work, Hunting and
Place,” paper delivered at the Midwest meeting of the American Academy of
Religion, 23 March 1996.
5. For Snyder’s views of eating, see Barnhill, “Indra’s Net,” and Snyder’s
“Nets of Beads, Webs of Cells” in PIS, 65-73.
6. Deep ecology is a contemporary movement in environmental philosophy
first articulated by Arne Naess. Distinguishing itself from the “shallow ecology”
of resource conservation and reformism, it emphasizes a deep questioning of the
 Great Earth Sangha 215

philosophical and spiritual foundations of environmental issues. It draws on

wisdom traditions of Asia and indigenous cultures in emphasizing the intrinsic
value of the natural world and the absence of an ontological split between humans
and nature.
7. In an interview with James Kraus, Snyder spoke of the need to extend
knowledge of the local and its limits to the planetary scale. He also stated that
his poem “Mountains and Rivers” “points in that direction, it tries to leap from
the local to the planetary level and back again.” James W. Kraus, “Gary Snyder’s
Biopoetics: A Study of the Poet as Ecologist” (Ph.D. diss., University of Hawaii,
1986), 182.
8. Bert Almon, “Buddhism and Energy in the Recent Poetry of Gary Snyder,”
Mosaic 11 (1977):121.
9. Hwa Yol Jung and Petee Jung, “Gary Snyder’s Ecopiety,” Environmental
History Review 41, no. 3 (1990):84. Snyder speaks of True Communionism in
“Revolution in the Revolution in the Revolution” (RW 49). Julia Martin discusses
that idea, but focuses on Snyder’s adaption of Christian terminology (e.g.,
communion) rather than his vision of community. See Julia Martin, “True
Communionism: Gary Snyder’s Transvaluation of Some Christian Terminology,”
Journal for the Study of Religion 1, no. 1 (1988):71-73.
10. Snyder gives this narrative account on the audio tape “This Is Our Body.”
11. The narrative account of the origin of the poem is presented in “This Is
Our Body.” In performance, Snyder sings the section of the Magpie’s song (in
italics).
12. See Barnhill, “Indra’s Net.”
13. Woody Rehanek, “The Shaman Songs of Gary Snyder,” Okanogan Natural
News 19 (summer 1984):9; cited in Patrick D. Murphy, Understanding Gary
Snyder (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1992), 140.
14. William R. LaFleur, “Saigyd and the Buddhist Value of Nature,” parts |
and 2, History of Religions 13, no. 2 (November 1973):93-127; no. 3 (February
1974):227-47.
15. For a discussion of these aspects in Basho’s works, see David Landis
Barnhill, “Folk Religion and Shinto in the Ecosystem of Basho’s Religious World,”
paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion,
Chicago, Illinois, November 1994.
16. Patrick D. Murphy, Understanding Gary Snyder (Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press, 1992), 164.
17. For an extensive discussion of the relationship between Ch’an (Zen)
Buddhism and popular religions in China, see Bernard Faure, The Rhetoric of
Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1991.
18. David Abram, “The Ecology of Magic,” in Finding Home: Writing on
Nature and Culture from Orion Magazine, ed. Peter Sauer (Boston: Beacon Press,
1992), 178-79.
216 Buddhism and Ecology

19. Ibid., 180.

20. Ibid., 182.
21. Ibid., 183.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., 198.
24. Ibid., 201.
25. Ibid., 196-97.
26. Caryl Emerson, quoted in Patrick D. Murphy, Literature, Nature, and
Other: Ecofeminist Critiques (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995),
178, n. 4.
27. Murphy, Literature, Nature, and Other, 35.
28. Ibid., 115. For discussions of Snyder as ethnographic “informant,” see
David Robbins, “Gary Snyder: The Poet as Informant,” Dialectical Anthropology
11, no. 2-4 (1986):203-10; and Nathaniel Tarn, “From Anthropologist to
Informant: A Field Record of Gary Snyder,” Alcheringa: A Journal of Ethnopoetics
4 (autumn 1972).
29. Murphy, Literature, Nature, and Other, 5.
30. Almon, “Buddhism and Energy in the Recent Poetry of Gary Snyder,” 121.
31. See Roger T. Ames, “Putting the Je Back in Taoism,” in Nature in Asian
Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, ed. J. Baird Callicott
and Roger T. Ames (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 113-44,
for an important discussion of integrity as integration in Taoist thought.
32. Ken Hirschkop has discussed the ambiguity between the descriptive and
normative quality of Bakhtin’s thought. See his “Introduction: Bakhtin and
Cultural Theory,” in Bakhtin and Cultural Theory, ed. Ken Hirschkop and David
Shepherd (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1989), 1-38.
33. Murphy, Literature, Nature, and Other, 9.
34. Ibid., 118.
35. For a review of the diversity of interpretation of Bakhtin’s thought, see
Hirschkop, “Introduction: Bakhtin and Cultural Theory.”
36. Murphy, Literature, Nature, and Other, 114.
37. Ibid., 9.
38. Tim Dean, Gary Snyder and the American Unconscious: Inhabiting the
Ground (Houndmills, England: Macmillan, 1991), 151.
39. Abram, “The Ecology of Magic,” 179.
40. Murphy, Literature, Nature, and Other, 178, n. 3.
41. Donald Keene, trans., “An Account of My Hut,” in Anthology of Japanese
Literature from the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century, ed. Donald Keene
(New York: Grove Press, 1955), 209.
42. Ibid., 197.
43. On the importance of work in Snyder’s writings, see Lionel Basney,
“Having Your Meaning at Hand: Work in Snyder and Berry,” in World, Self, Poem:
 Great Earth Sangha 217

Essays on Contemporary Poetry from the “Jubilation of Poets,” ed. Leonard M.

Trawick (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1990); and Parr, “Living
Interdependence.”
44. This is not to say that the personal dimension was absent in earlier writings.
Earth House Hold concludes with an account of the wedding of Snyder and Masa:
“Standing on the edge of the crater, blowing the conch horn and chanting a mantra;
offering shochu to the gods of the volcano, the ocean, and the sky; then Masa
and I exchanged the traditional three sips. . .” (EHH 142). The image of the conch
ties this piece to “Buildings,” with the later poem suggesting a fuller realization
of community as the context for the transmission of a culture that brings together
primal/archaic and Buddhist elements.
45. Shih-hsiang Chen was Snyder’s teacher of classical Chinese. He translated
Lu Ji’s Wen fu (Essay on literature), which refers to the axe image.
46. Basney, “Having Your Meaning at Hand,” 135.
47. Charles Molesworth, “Getting a Handle on It,” American Book Review 6,
no. 5-6 (1984):15.
48. Murphy, Understanding Gary Snyder, 134.
49. Sherman Paul, In Search of the Primitive: Rereading David Antin, Jerome
Rothenberg, and Gary Snyder (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1986), 188.
50. The legendary Han Shan, living alone in the high mountains scribbling
poems on the wall of his cave, should not be confused with the historical poet
whose identity and biography is little known but more complex than the legend.
For the most comprehensive edition of his work, see Robert G. Henricks, The
Poetry of Han-shan: A Complete, Annotated Translation of Cold Mountain
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990).
51. From Snyder’s response to Paul in Paul, Jn Search of the Primitive,
298, 299.
 American Buddhist Response to the Land:
Ecological Practice at Two West Coast
Retreat Centers’

Stephanie Kaza

From a theoretical perspective, Buddhist philosophy appears to be

highly congruent with an ecological worldview. Respected Buddhist
teachers such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Vietnamese Zen
master Thich Nhat Hanh frequently point to the interdependence of
human life and the environment.2 American Buddhist scholars,
including many of those in this volume, show the bases in text and
principle for a Buddhist environmental philosophy.*? But how do
these links translate into actual practice? Do American Buddhists
“walk their talk’?
In this article I look at two American Buddhist centers to assess
the extent of ecological practice at an institutional level. Retreat
centers act as focal points for transmitting Buddhist values both to
committed Buddhist practitioners and to the visiting public. To the
extent that practice places reinforce ecological caretaking with
spiritual principles, they provide a foundation for moral commitment
to the environment. It is clear to many leading environmental
thinkers that science, technology, and economics alone will not solve
the environmental crisis.‘ Instead, they call for cultural transfor-
mation based on religious, moral, or spiritual values of deep care
of and concern for the earth. How do American Buddhist centers
contribute to this cultural shift? What in their efforts is distinctly
Buddhist and what reflects the existing culture or reaction to it?
Where are the points of tension around ecological practice in
Buddhist centers? And on what institutional elements do these
practices depend?
 220 Buddhism and Ecology

This article is a preliminary report of work in progress assessing

environmental practices at diverse American Buddhist centers in the
United States. The first two centers I have looked at are Green Gulch
Zen Center, north of San Francisco, and Spirit Rock Meditation
Center near San Rafael, in Marin County, California. Both are rural
centers responsible for sizable portions of land. Though each has
been established relatively recently, each has made some efforts
toward appropriate land stewardship practices. I provide a brief land
history of each center and a comparison of their similarities and
differences. Information is drawn from center newsletters and
journals, site visits, and interviews with staff members. I review the
centers’ current land practices in the context of Gary Snyder’s core
ethical guidelines for reinhabitation. I describe some points of
tension and arenas for further ethical exploration. Much of what is
reported here represents a dialogue unfolding. This paper itself may
prompt further discussion and commitment toward turning the
Dharma wheel another round.

Land Histories

Green Gulch Zen Center lies in a beautiful coastal valley in the

narrow flood plain of Green Gulch Creek, just north of San
Francisco. The land extends almost to the Pacific Ocean at Muir
Beach and is surrounded by the public open space of Golden Gate
National Recreation Area; nearby lands are protected by Mount
Tamalpais State Park and Marin County Water District. The valley
is flanked on the north and south by open, grass-covered ridges;
remnants of redwood forest understory line the side canyons. In the
next valley over lies Muir Woods National Monument, home to
some of the tallest coast redwoods in the San Francisco Bay area.
Green Gulch Farm was purchased in 1972 from owner and
rancher George Wheelwright ten years after San Francisco Zen
Center was formally incorporated. Bay area Zen students had begun
sitting with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1959 when he arrived at Sokoji
Temple on Bush Street in Japantown. By 1966 Zen Center had
become a stable practice community and Suzuki Roshi was inter-
ested in finding rural land for a retreat center. With exuberant
fundraising efforts (including generous rock and roll benefits), in
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 221

1967 Zen Center bought Tassajara Mountain Center, a former hot

springs resort in the Big Sur area. Soon after, Zen Center moved
from Sokoji to a new city facility on Page Street, which Suzuki
named Hoshinji, Beginners’ Mind Temple.> Zen Center gained
national publicity with the publication of Suzuki Roshi’s book, Zen
Mind, Beginners’ Mind, and, shortly after, Edward Espe Brown’s The
Tassajara Bread Book.®
Suzuki Roshi’s health began to deteriorate in 1971; before his
death he suggested the idea of a farm practice place. The following
year his dharma heir Richard Baker took the lead in orchestrating
Zen Center’s purchase of Green Gulch Farm, which became Green
Dragon Temple. George and Hope Wheelwright had owned the land
for thirty years, long before the coast highway was built, when Muir
Beach was a small village of Portuguese fishermen. George raised
cattle there, including award-winning prize bulls. To improve
pasturage for his cattle, he sprayed 2-4D herbicide on the hills to
limit shrub growth. The creek was channeled to produce a series of
reservoirs for water storage. The land still bears tracks of cattle
trails; the creek passes through a concrete ditch for much of the
stretch through the valley.’
Compared with the wooded side canyons of neighboring Franks
Valley, Green Gulch was heavily cut over after the San Francisco
1906 earthquake. Many redwoods and Douglas firs were transported
out of Big Lagoon dock at Muir Beach to help rebuild the city. To
reforest the lower valley, Wheelwright planted lines of non-native
eucalyptus along the entrance road. When Zen Center became the
Green Gulch land steward, students undertook significant efforts to
build a twenty-acre organic farm and a one-acre organic garden. To
protect and restore the land, they planted windbreaks of Monterey
cypress and Monterey pine between the agricultural fields. Since
1975 tree plantings have been carried out yearly and non-native
invasive plants (acacia, broom, ivy) have been culled back. Field
soils have been improved by large-scale compost-making and
legume cover crops. The farm grows and markets certified organic
lettuce, squash, pumpkins, potatoes, and kitchen greens. The garden
supports a variety of perennial dahlias, Siberian iris, and roses, along
with annuals such as sweet pea, anemone, larkspur, and Peruvian
lilies. In the greenhouses flowers, vegetables, and native plants are
propagated for community and private gardeners.®
 222 Buddhism and Ecology

Spirit Rock Meditation Center lies in San Geronimo Valley, a

connecting link between the urban corridor of San Rafael, north of
San Francisco, and the open space of Point Reyes National Seashore
and Samuel B. Taylor State Park. The valley is relatively sparsely
settled, remaining in rural ranchlands and dairy farms. Intensive
development pressure has been held at bay due to the fiercely
protective conservation and planning efforts of the San Geronimo
Valley Planning Group. The center is named for a prominent outcrop
of rock thought to be sacred to the local Miwok tribes. Rising up
behind Spirit Rock lie rolling grassy foothills graced by scattered
coast live oaks and bay laurels.
In the 1960s a number of Western students traveled to Southeast
Asia to study vipassand, or insight meditation practice. In the 1970s
they returned home and began teaching at various retreat centers,
including Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. On the East Coast,
in 1976 a group of senior students and teachers led by Jack Kornfeld
and Joseph Goldstein purchased a Catholic seminary in Barre,
Massachusetts, and established the Insight Meditation Society as a
permanent retreat center. On the West Coast, interest in vipassana
practice grew with the national publication of the Inquiring Mind
newsletter and an increasing number of retreats at various local
centers (including Green Gulch). In 1983 a small group of Califor-
nians began meeting regularly to consider establishing a retreat
center on the West Coast. Three years later, Jack Kornfeld found a
four hundred-acre parcel in San Geronimo Valley for sale by The
Nature Conservancy, which wanted to contribute the purchase
money to Amazon rain forest preservation. The land seemed ideally
suited to their purposes—classes, daylong retreats, staff housing.
After extended negotiations with the landowners as well as repre-
sentatives of the San Geronimo Valley Planning Group, the deal was
closed.?
This land, in contrast to Green Gulch Farm, was undeveloped,
with few previous buildings. Ongoing fundraising has generated
enough support to build the necessary infrastructure for hosting
regular retreats. Several temporary trailers were installed in 1990
to house a meditation hall and office. In 1995 a dining hall was built
so meals could be served on the premises. Future design plans
include four residence halls for eighty-four retreatants, a larger
meditation hall to seat two hundred, staff housing for twenty resident
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 223

staff, additional parking areas, a family program building, four

family apartments, teacher housing, a Council House with meeting
rooms, and an adjacent hermitage with eighteen private huts, a small
meditation hall, and two teacher rooms. In early 1996 the plan
received approval from Marin County Department of Public Works
and all other necessary official agencies. The next building phase
is expected to begin soon.!°
A brief comparison of these two rural Buddhist centers shows a
number of strong similarities and differences that are significant in
the evolution of ecological culture and values at each place. Both
sites are physically part of the larger landscape system surrounding
Mount Tamalpais, a prominent local peak extending to 2,571 feet.
The mountain is flanked by Douglas fir and redwood forest, coastal
scrub, serpentine outcrops, and luxuriant moss-lined creeks. Green
Gulch lies at the base of the southwest-facing slope; Spirit Rock
lies below the northeast-facing flank. The distance between the two
centers is a long day-hike of twenty-two miles over the edge of the
mountain. The centers draw their primary vertical reference point
from the mountain, a beloved landmark in northern San Francisco
matched by the taller Mount Diablo east of Oakland.
Both sites lie in affluent Marin County, an area with a strong
conservation history and a well-established plan to limit develop-
ment to the highway corridor along the San Francisco Bay. The
western two-thirds of the county has been protected as open space,
due to the tireless efforts of the Marin Conservation Association and
others over the last seventy years. This relatively pristine open space
is a magnet for hikers, joggers, mountain bikers, and sightseers from
not only the nine-county-wide Bay area but the entire United States
as well. The connecting national and state parks offer over two
hundred miles of hiking trails, mountain views, and majestic
stretches of open beach. Before either Buddhist center was estab-
lished, the land itself was a spiritual draw for thousands of people.
Visitors and students to Green Gulch and Spirit Rock frequently
express their appreciation for the beauty of the rural country settings
of these retreat centers. They come for the Buddhist teachings, but
they also spend time walking in the garden, on the beach, or across
the hills. The landscape itself is spiritually inspiring and is seen as
part of the meditative experience. Teaching in both centers takes
place outdoors as well as in the meditation hall—in particular,
224 Buddhism and Ecology

instruction in walking meditation. Through one or many visits to

Green Gulch or Spirit Rock, practitioners come to associate their
experience with the dharma as connected to these specific pieces
of land.
The differences between the two centers are also significant.
Though both are surrounded by large vistas of open space, almost
all of the Green Gulch landscape is held in public trust, whereas
neighboring land at Spirit Rock is private property. For Green Gulch,
good neighbor relations require ongoing cooperation and negotiation
with primarily public agencies; for Spirit Rock these are with private
landholders. Though both centers are located in Marin County, the
two microclimates are quite different. Green Gulch, on the coast,
has somewhat milder winters and much foggier summers. Spirit
Rock, in an inland valley, experiences more temperature extremes
and is more subject to fire hazard in the fall dry season.
Green Gulch inherited its main buildings from the Wheelwrights
and adapted them to retreat center use despite existing flaws. For
example, the meditation hall, formerly the cattle and horse barn, has
lovely high ceilings and a thick wood floor, but because it was built
over the original creekbed, it retains a certain dampness through the
winter. Spirit Rock has been able to design site-appropriate buildings
from the start, drawing on state-of-the-art environmental design
principles wherever possible. Green Gulch has committed twenty
acres to organic farming and gardening, with all the related
challenges of soil building, water management, marketing, and
integration with other Zen Center activities. Spirit Rock has no
organic farm or garden and no plans for anything on this scale other
than minor landscape plantings.
Perhaps most significant of all, Green Gulch has been a residen-
tial center from the start. Those who live there perceive it to be their
home; Sunday guests and retreatants are visitors with relatively little
influence. Decision-making power for the land is in the hands of
the staff, the board of directors, and, to some extent, the stewardship
committee. Almost all the members of the two governing bodies and
volunteer committee are or have been residents at one of the Zen
Center sites. In contrast, Spirit Rock has never been residential,
except for minimal caretaking, and will not be for several more
years. Fundraising for even the land purchase depended on extensive
lay involvement and volunteer activity beyond that of the very
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 225

limited staff.!! This difference in governance has shaped the way

land relations have evolved in each center, according to the number
and seniority of those responsible for land-management decisions.

Ethics of Ecological Living: Toward Reinhabitation

Frameworks for environmental ethics can be based on a number of

different principles.!* For example, Holmes Rolston III ennumerates
human ways of valuing nature (economic, scientific, recreational,
aesthetic, sacramental) in contrast to the intrinsic value of orga-
nisms, landforms, and so on—‘“for what it is in itself.”!> One could
evaluate religious centers according to which values they promote
and how these preferences are reflected in spiritual practices.
Ecofeminist Valerie Plumwood frames human relations with nature
in the context of social power relations and the perpetuation of
oppressive dualisms.'* One could evaluate religious centers as to
the degree they reproduce cultural hierarchical attitudes toward
nature. Conservation biologists Reed Noss and Edward Grumbine,
among others, set forth ethical principles based on protecting and
enhancing biodiversity.!> Ecophilosopher David Abram suggests
guidelines based in reciprocal sensory communication with the
“more than human” world.!© Each framework offers a radically
different lens through which to consider cultural practices.
For the purposes of this assessment, I am interested in the
transmission of ecological culture. I want to see how religous
institutions use spiritual principles to support ecologically sus-
tainable ways of life. In his classic essay, “The Land Ethic,” Aldo
Leopold, the wildlife biologist of the 1930s and 1940s, defines
ethics as “a kind of community instinct in the making.” For Leopold,
all ethics rest upon the premise that “the individual is a member of
a community of interdependent parts”:

The land ethic. . .enlarges the boundaries of the community to

include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the
land... . In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from
conqueror of the land community to plain member and citizen of it.!7

As people live on the land over time, they become part of the land,
the land comes to include them. They no longer live on the land
226 Buddhism and Ecology

but rather with the land and all its members. Here I explore the
proposal that institutional practices (as opposed to individual
isolated practices) reflect the evolution of a community instinct in
the making.
Gary Snyder suggests that a useful orientation for an ecological
community instinct would be “reinhabitation” as an ecosystem-
based culture. He refers to biogeographer Ray Dasmann’s distinction
between ecosystem cultures whose “life and economics are centered
in terms of natural regions and watershed” and biosphere cultures
that are directed from urban centers and oriented to global use and
plunder of natural resources.!8 Native and rural peoples are almost
entirely ecosystem-based cultures, generally having less impact on
the health of the surrounding system than biosphere cultures.
Reinhabitory peoples are those who are committed to a life based
in place, “making common cause” with the life-styles of the original
inhabitory peoples.!? This means a life identified with a specific
place, understanding the local community of plants and animals as
companions, neighbors, and supporters of human life. Over time,
this sense of place deepens with familiarity, and place-based
knowledge is passed on from generation to generation.
Snyder suggests three aspects that are the core of the practice of
a reinhabitory ecological ethic: “feeling gratitude to it all; taking
responsibility for your own acts; keeping contact with the sources
of the energy that flow into your own life (namely dirt, water,
flesh).”*° On the surface this seems to be deceptively simple, yet
the implications are very broad and particularly suited to a review
of religious centers. As Snyder puts it, “the actual demands of a life
committed to a place. . .are so physically and intellectually intense
that it is a moral and spiritual choice as well.”*! He suggests that
to survive as an ecosystem person, one must draw on moral and
spiritual resources. These are strengthened through knowledge of
place and, reciprocally, through knowledge of self as dependent on
place.
The first of these three aspects, “feeling gratitude,” generates
humility and a sense of awareness of the wider self. Mixed in are
awe, caution, fear, and common sense. Prayers of thanks are offered
for the gift of life, for freedom, for the moment, from the death-
dealing forces of nature. Reinhabitants remember that human lives
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 227

are dependent on other lives, that nothing lasts forever, that no food,
water, or shelter are ever guaranteed. The practice of gratitude in a
Buddhist context carries understandings of no-self, impermanence,
and interdependence.
The second aspect, “taking responsibility for your own acts,”
implies the exercise of restraint, recognizing the rippling effects of
each action in the jeweled net of Indra.** The practice of acting
responsibly means minimizing destructive human impact on the land
and allowing room for the flourishing of nonhuman others. Con-
tained in this practice are the Buddhist precepts for self-restraint,
including no killing and no abusive relationships.°
The third aspect, “keeping contact with the sources of energy...
flow,” may be the most subtle and easily overlooked. Snyder is
speaking of “wild mind,” the original source energy, and the need
always to be nourished directly by this primordial wisdom. This is
the energy shared with other life-forms, the force of weather, place,
and history commingled. An individual at a Buddhist center may
contact this energy through walking meditation, gardening work
practice, or mindful food preparation. But how does an institution
maintain contact with wild mind in its structures and organizational
culture? I suggest that in addressing this challenge Buddhist retreat
centers begin to approach reinhabitation, allowing the land to
influence local ecological practice significantly. The three elements
of Snyder’s ethic describe a method for transmission of ecological
culture on American soil. This look at two Buddhist centers can
provide a preliminary assessment of the degree to which these “new
settlers” may be headed toward long-term reinhabitation.

Evaluation of Two Buddhist Centers

Green Gulch Zen Center

Looking first at Green Gulch Zen Center, I will begin by examining

practices of gratitude to the land. These are usually mixed in with
gratitude for the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha (the Three Jewels)
to various degrees, but certain practices specifically highlight
relationship with and dependence on the land. On a daily basis,
students recite the Zen meal chant:
228 Buddhism and Ecology

Innumerable labors brought us this food

We should know how it comes to us
Receiving this offering let us consider whether our virtue or practice
deserve it
Desiring the natural order of mind, let us be free from greed, hate,
and delusion
We eat to support life and to practice the way of Buddha.24

For Zen students at Green Gulch, the innumerable labors are

obvious: moving irrigation pipes, cropping salad greens, propagating
greenhouse seedlings, turning compost. The meal chant is a regular
reminder to offer gratitude for the food upon which they depend.
Across the course of the seasonal year, dedication ekos are
offered at the four turning points of the year. At the spring equinox
Service outside on the east-facing side of the valley, gratitude is
offered on behalf of the community for the rising sun of the new
year. On the summer solstice, at mid-day, gratitude is offered for
the bountiful garden and the produce of the fields. The autumn
equinox dedication is offered at dusk, facing west, accepting the
teachings of impermanence and death. And the winter solstice is
marked at midnight under the dark sky, with gratitude for the vast
wild mind of no-self.25
In addition to these natural points of the sun’s shifting motion
across the ridges, Green Gulch Zen Center also marks the bounty
of the farm harvest at Thanksgiving. Zendo and dining-room altars
are decorated with offerings of beets, pumpkins, lettuce, chard,
herbs, and potatoes and the Heart Siitra is chanted with gratitude
for the riches of the land. On Buddha’s birthday in April, children
collect representative flowers of each of the wild species in the
watershed and add them to the elephant flower cart for bathing the
baby Buddha. The dedication chant at this ceremony lists all the
flowers (over one hundred!) in a long, entertaining drone, occa-
sionally marked by the further amusement of Latin names. In the
repetition is the transmission of gratitude for the wild hills and
diversity of flowers.26
The second aspect of Snyder’s ecological ethic, taking responsi-
bility for one’s acts, is a complicated undertaking at a rural center
such as Green Gulch. I will report on previous and current efforts,
but certainly much more can be done to act fully responsible on this
ecologically complex piece of land. I will describe institutional
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 229

efforts to take responsibility in four arenas: land stewardship,

community relations, ecological culture, and education.
Land stewardship activities focus primarily around two areas:
land restoration efforts and the organic farm. Some of the restoration
efforts take the form of doing nothing, allowing the wild mind of
the coastal habitats to surface again. The hills are no longer sprayed
with herbicides to control vegetation, and cattle no longer trample
the soil. Along the creek, a thicket of shrubs has been left to grow
into a healthy wildlife corridor, well populated by local songbirds.
Of the more proactive restoration efforts, annual tree plantings on
Arbor Day in February have been carried out since 1975. Wind-
breaks of Monterey cypress and Monterey pine are now easily fifty
feet tall and play a significant role in deflecting the powerful ocean
winds that ravage the coastal soils. Since 1991, in addition to
plantings of redwood and Douglas fir, coast live oak acorns gathered
from the neighboring valley have been planted on protected sites
to replace those grazed down by the cattle.2” Though somewhat
controversial, staff and volunteers have also made an effort to
remove non-native eucalyptus shoots, acacia, German ivy, and
broom where they are choking back native vegetation. A preliminary
landscape ecology report was drawn up in 1991 with detailed
recommendations for further tree work and land restoration.”°
Forward motion is restricted by the lack of a staff person designated
as Land Manager. Though positions exist for Head of Farm and
Head Gardener, as well as Head Maintenance, no one staff person
assumes responsibility for the overall health of the landscape
ecosystem.
The twenty-six-acre organic farm is a model of good farming
stewardship and is recognized throughout the state for its ecological
practices. It is a certified member of the California Organic Farming
Association, meeting the standards for soil free of pesticides and
chemical fertilizers. Heavy machine use is moderate, primarily for
plowing the fields and transplanting seedlings. Weeding and
cropping are done by hand as part of mindfulness work for Zen
students. The soil is built through careful application of compost
made from kitchen scraps, green waste, and horse manure; a cover
crop of fava beans is planted each winter and turned under as green
manure in spring. Insect pests and diseases are managed through
observation, crop rotation, and selected organic and mechanical pest
230 Buddhism and Ecology

controls.”? Because it is accountable to the standard-setting associ-

ation for organic produce as well as to the community of organic
farmers in the wider Bay area, the Zen community at Green Gulch
has an incentive to maintain a high degree of institutional responsi-
bility for its actions. Likewise, the one-and-a-half-acre perennial
garden is organic, with all cultivation in double-dug beds and all
cropping done by hand.
Community relations regarding the land require ongoing conver-
sations with Muir Beach residents and staff of the Golden Gate
National Recreation Area (GGNRA). With each, being a good
neighbor means cooperating to share land and water resources,
acknowledging the institutional impact of Zen Center. Green Gulch
Creek empties into Redwood Creek near its mouth to the ocean at
Muir Beach. In dry summers, the farm has drawn on these combined
water supplies to irrigate the lower fields. Because water in coastal
California is limited, rates of water use have been a source of
conflict with the local community, other ranchers, and Muir Woods
(a part of GGNRA). To maintain navigable levels of water for
salmon in Redwood Creek through Muir Woods, and to share the
remaining water with neighbors, Green Gulch has reduced tillage
areas in dry years.2°
Relations with the GGNRA are also an ongoing part of Green
Gulch institutional life. Staff have been asked to comment on plans
for bike routes through Green Gulch, control of escaped South
African capeweed, and restoration of Big Lagoon at Muir Beach.
Over the years a strong relationship has developed between the
garden staff at Green Gulch and the park rangers at Muir Woods,
as they have cooperated in plant propagation and volunteer planting
days together. GGNRA resource staff have been helpful in offering
advice for land-management decisions at Green Gulch which affect
the surrounding landscape.?!
The farm and garden encourage community interaction through
outreach projects with other farms and gardens. Seedlings and plant
starts are often donated to other fledgling farms, such as the Hunter’s
Point jail project and Schoolyard Garden in Berkeley. Volunteers
are encouraged to join farm staff for potato and pumpkin harvest
days. Farm and garden staff often consult with other farm projects
to offer advice on soil building, planting design, and propagation
techniques.
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 231

By ecological culture 1 mean everyday activities which promote

sound environmental habits. At Green Gulch three arenas reflect a
high degree of institutional responsibility: food practices, waste
recycling, and water use. As a Buddhist center, Green Gulch has
chosen a policy of not cooking or serving meat in the dining hall.
Though vegetarianism is often associated with Buddhism, it is not
strictly mandated by the teachings. However, since Zen Center is
committed to vegetarian practice, it does not support the often
inhumane institutional practices associated with factory animal
farming and animal slaughter. Further, by adhering to vegetarianism,
the institution is not contributing to the accelerated clearing of
global rain forests for cattle pasture and beef imports. Food served
at Green Gulch includes as much in-season produce as possible from
the organic farm. Other produce is purchased from local dairy and
vegetable farms to support neighboring farmers. Though these
aspects of Green Gulch food contribute to ecological responsibility
for the land and for the regional economy, some residents urge even
stronger ecological practices, such as serving only organic food.
Food waste goes into large compost piles adjacent to the farm
and garden. After several months of “cooking” with green clippings
and manure from the neighboring horse farm, the compost is ready
to spread on the fields. Green Gulch also recycles white paper,
magazines, glass and plastic bottles, cans, cardboard, motor oil, and
batteries. The farm reuses wood and cardboard produce crates from
regular customers by picking them up on produce runs; the garden
reuses gallon pots and seedling trays for propagation. Paper towels,
napkins, and toilet paper as well as most office paper purchases are
from recycled paper sources. Fallen trees become firewood; trash
lumber is used for kindling or is burned. Relatively little waste is
hauled away from Green Gulch besides the recyclables. These
efforts to simplify food and waste flows to and from the center are
motivated both by the high cost of trash removal and the Zen
aesthetic of tidiness.
Water conservation is mandatory at Green Gulch as water
supplies are limited to local springs and Green Gulch Creek. These
supply all the water needs year-round for the thirty to forty residents,
ten to fifteen guest students, two to three hundred Sunday visitors,
and additional conferences and retreats. Located in the highly
developed San Francisco Bay region, Green Gulch is unusual in
232 Buddhism and Ecology

being water self-sufficient. Its entire water system is self contained

and locally maintained, drawing on five reservoirs, three storage
tanks, and a well. The valley is not connected to the Marin County
Water District for backup supplies of additional water, so water use
is managed according to what is actually available. In summer and
early fall, rates of flow drop significantly, bringing added pressure
to conserve water. Low-flow toilets and showers are installed in the
guest and residence areas; drip irrigation is used in some of the
garden beds.** During meditation retreats, frugal use of water is
practiced in formal Japanese oryoki meals, where each person
washes his or her bowls with less than a cup of water per meal.
Water conservation depends on continual reminders to the ever-
changing population of guests and staff, particularly during dry
months.
Education for environmental awareness is an ongoing effort at
Green Gulch Zen Center, spearheaded almost entirely by the garden
staff. Farm and garden classes are offered year-round on com-
posting, perennials, vegetable gardening, and other topics.
Children’s classes and other groups receive tours of the farm and
garden, meditation hall, and residential buildings. For several years
Green Gulch has hosted a “Voice of the Watershed” series of walks
and guest lectures on topics of local natural history. Each year before
Arbor Day, senior staff lead a ridge circumambulation of the valley
to place the center in a larger landscape context. The 1992 summer
practice period focused specifically on “Environment and Medita-
tion,” drawing together texts, teachers, and daily practice engaging
environmental issues. One result was an educational pamphlet on
“Environmental Practice at Green Gulch,” a summary of institutional
efforts to be environmentally conscious and responsible.33 Although
various staff and students have carried these efforts forward,
environmental concerns are not yet considered a top priority by
those in leadership positions.
Through each of these four areas—land stewardship, community
relations, ecological culture, and education—Green Gulch has made
some effort to systematize an ecological ethic of taking institutional
responsibility for the center’s actions. This is no guarantee that each
individual who passes through Green Gulch receives the spark of
this ethic, but at least while they are visiting, they are expected to
follow the established environmental practices of the local culture.
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 233

The third aspect of Gary Snyder’s ecological ethic entails keeping

contact with the sources of energy that flow into one’s life, in this
case, the life of Zen Center. This is perhaps the least easy to
ennumerate of the three elements of the ethic, and yet it is most
crucial to the vitality of Snyder’s framework. Individual Zen
students report gaining access to this energy flow through working
in the garden, sitting among the redwoods, or walking by the ocean.
But these receptive activities are seldom undertaken by Zen Center
as a whole. Several practices at Green Gulch do, however, support
the possibility of increased contact with this energy flow of the wild.
The first of these derives directly from the traditional Zen
emphasis on work as practice. Many classic Zen stories find their
context in sweeping, cleaning, farming, or chopping wood.*4 In Soto
Zen, enlightenment often happens in the mundane activities of
everyday life. Guest students work two or three mornings in the farm
and/or garden, usually engaged in silent mindfulness practice. Staff,
other than farm and garden staff, join in solidarity with the summer
farm effort once a week before breakfast, planting, weeding, or
cropping in silence. These efforts are both practical, in terms of
getting the necessary work done, and spiritually unifying, for all
community members experience together the energy of soil, fresh
air, and landscape on a regular basis.
A second area, which I will call sacralizing the landscape,
involves institutional commitment to outdoor ceremonies, walks, and
commemorations which include the land. In a very traditional way,
Zen Center engages the landscape for weddings and memorial sites.
Ashes of Zen Center elders—Gregory Bateson, Alan Watts, and Alan
Chadwick, among others—are buried on the hillside above the
garden. Memorial trees or shrubs have been planted by the pond or
in the garden for several dozen people, including Zen teachers
Katagiri ROshi and Maureen Stuart Roshi. Silent ceremonial ridge
walks, as distinct from natural history strolls or recreational hikes,
are part of the Center’s annual calendar on Arbor Day and New
Year’s. These place the Center in the larger landscape, meeting the
nearby wild zone through the act of walking, receiving the land into
the feet. In a similar way, walking meditation sacralizes the garden,
bringing human attention to the cultivated space.
Green Gulch has also adopted specific ceremonies to acknowl-
edge nonhuman members of the land- (and mind-) scape. On Earth
234 Buddhism and Ecology

Day practice leaders offer ceremonies for animals and trees,

acknowledging their presence in the community. In December 1995
a beloved coast live oak crashed to the ground after a severe
windstorm; later, a Monterey pine near the meditation hall had to
be taken down because of bark beetles. On each occasion an altar
was set up near the tree, and people were encouraged to offer
incense and to include the dead or soon-to-be-dead tree in their
practice.*° I interpret this as an invitation to practice with the wild
energy flow of death and destruction.
Last, in considering this third element of Snyder’s ecological
ethic, I suggest that practices of simplifying the institutional schedule
and life-style promote contact with the energy flow that sustains life.
Many of the traditional Zen practice forms emphasize restraint and
moderation. Sensory impact from mechanical noise and bright lights
is minimized; zendo clothing is dark and unobtrusive. Guest students
are expected to maintain silence from early evening through
breakfast the next day. During one-day and seven-day retreats,
students remain silent the entire time, and the voices of great-horned
owls, ocean waves, and blowing wind define the soundscape. To
conserve energy and also darkness, Green Gulch has restricted night
lighting to what is necessary for minimal safety needs. This leaves
the hills dark and unmarked by human light sources, the night
animals undisturbed by human presence.
Taken together, these institutional practices in all three aspects
of Snyder’s ecological ethic generate tangible evidence of a
Buddhist practice response to the land at Green Gulch. Offerings
of gratitude, commitments of responsibility in several arenas, and
regular contact with the energy flow of the wild in the “valley of
the ancestors” load the odds for transmitting ecological culture and
moving toward reinhabitation. Graced by the rolling hills to the east
and west and by the wild ocean to the south, Green Gulch Zen
Center is in a strong position to promote an ecological land ethic
as an institution and emerging culture for those who come to visit.
These practices can be kept vital and evolving with support from
those in leadership positions and with ongoing community involve-
ment in environmental issues.
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 235

Spirit Rock Meditation Center

Though Spirit Rock Meditation Center does not have the same
length of history on the land as Green Gulch, its ecological practices
draw on well-established traditions of one of the oldest Buddhist
denominations of Southeast Asia. The relationship with the land at
Spirit Rock, in its very newness, is still in a honeymoon stage,
growing and flourishing as the center attracts more practitioners.
Much of the fundraising for the land purchase was motivated by a
spontaneous bonding with the land for those leading the effort.*°
With more and more students using the land for retreats, the “falling
in love” process seems to be multiplying and self-reinforcing.
Looking first at the element of “feeling gratitude to all,” two core
practices at Spirit Rock appear to support this element of Gary
Snyder’s ecological ethic. One-, seven-, ten-day and three-month
retreats emphasize attentiveness practice, as described in the
Satipatthana Sutta (the Four Foundations of Mindfulness), and
mindfulness of breathing (Anapanasati Sutta). Guided meditations
support practitioners in cultivating subtle awareness of mental and
emotional states as well as sensory alertness. Gratitude practice
naturally arises in relationship to food as attention to flavor,
preparation, and source are noted with each meal. Vietnamese Zen
teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has led several day-long meditation
retreats at Spirit Rock, each with an elaborate guided eating
meditation. Tangerines or apples are distributed to crowds of up to
one thousand who may take up to an hour to appreciate the many
causes and conditions arising in a single piece of fruit.3’
Another major practice at Spirit Rock is the loving kindness
meditation (Metta Sutta). At the close of each retreat day or class,
some form of loving kindness meditation is recited. Many of the
Spirit Rock teachers have extended the traditional meditation verses
to include the land, the animals and trees of the land, and the gifts
of sun and rain. Expression of gratitude takes the form of wishing
for the safety, physical and mental well-being, and peacefulness of
all members of the land community.
The second element of Snyder’s ethic, taking responsibility for
one’s actions, has been central to the land purchase from the start.
The Spirit Rock property had long been a prized piece of real estate
236 Buddhism and Ecology

in the valley; a number of other uses had been proposed for the
property earlier. However, the citizens’ San Geronimo Valley
Planning Group, in their watchdog role of protecting open space and
scenic landscapes, managed to prevent unsightly development along
the Sir Francis Drake corridor. Negotiations for the Spirit Rock sale
and planning design included important agreements about building
sites, scale of operation, and stewardship for the land.38 For the
center to be a welcomed member of the West Marin community,
Spirit Rock leaders needed to assure local residents of their
commitment to protecting the integrity of the land.
The first decisions involved traffic management, both to limit
congestion on the two-lane highway and to limit the amount of
paved parking on the land. Early on, parking on the dry grass caused
some spark-induced brushfires, alarming planners and reinforcing
the need for careful attention to car placement. A carpooling policy
was implemented by charging parking fees. Parking areas were laid
out in curving tree-lined patterns to slow visitors down as they
arrived. Center staff made consistent efforts to take responsibility
for the potential impact on neighbors from car noise, increased
traffic, and grassland fires.
Much of the land stewardship effort thus far has been directed
toward careful planning of building projects. The Spirit Rock Design
Committee and several architects meet regularly to discuss the scope
and scale of the development vision for the land. Factors under
consideration are relative invisibility of the buildings from the road,
Stream bank allowances, and impact on the stately coast live oaks
which shape the character of the land. Temporary buildings for the
office and meditation hall have been in place since 1990; a dining
hall, the first construction project, was completed in 1995 to serve
guests on retreat days. Future buildings will be added with additional
funds and ongoing monitoring of the cumulative impact on the land
and water systems.
Monthly work days are now part of the Spirit Rock tradition of
land stewardship. In the beginning, volunteers pulled invasive star
thistle and removed old fence posts and barbed wire from the
pasture. They cleared brush and cut fallen trees for firewood. As
part of one day’s meditation, the teacher asked forgiveness of the
plants, insects, birds, and animals for the disturbances to their
homes. Heavy-labor tasks included digging trenches and sand pits
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 237

for power, water, and phone lines as well as irrigation lines and a
septic system. Many native trees were planted in the parking area
and along the entrance road. Volunteers built bluebird boxes and
posted them around the land. In the summer of 1995 several small
ponds were excavated and dams built to retain the water. An altar
and ceremonial area in Oak Tree Canyon were completed and a trail
along the creek was marked out. The ponds are meant both for
human enjoyment and as a water source for frogs, birds, badgers,
raccoons, fox, deer, bobcats, perhaps even mountain lions.°?
In the arena of community relations, Spirit Rock caretakers have
continued to establish relationships with local neighbors and
members of the San Geronimo Valley Planning Group. Though
much of the land on the other side of the western ridge is publicly
protected open space (Mount Tamalpais State Park and Marin
County Water District), all the land adjacent to Spirit Rock is in
private hands. In other rural situations in the United States, Buddhist
and Hindu retreat centers have sometimes been resented as strange
outsiders, bringing a new and not necessarily welcomed culture to
the region. Spirit Rock teachers and staff have been consistent in
their efforts to fit in with the local community and be cordial
neighbors. This has been accomplished through community
meetings, public hearings, and regular local contact with residents
in the immediate area and nearby towns. Because center members
are not versed in land practices, this has meant making a special
effort to learn from those who know the territory, bringing in
caretakers who could help with the transition from ranch to retreat
center.
As part of taking responsibility for institutional actions, Spirit
Rock is in the process of developing an ecological culture on the
land. Though there are few residential staff at the moment (in
contrast with Green Gulch), the number of staff and residents will
increase as new buildings are added. Spirit Rock, like Green Gulch,
is commited to vegetarian meals, thereby limiting their contribution
to global environmental destruction caused by beef, chicken, and
hog production. Recycling and composting systems have been set
up to accommodate retreatants as well as residents and day guests.
Fire safety protection is an important drill during the dry summer
and fall months when fire danger is high.
238 Buddhism and Ecology

To increase awareness of the land and promote a culture of

ecological responsibility, Spirit Rock offers a number of education
programs for children and adults. Volunteer naturalists lead nature
walks across the diverse habitats of the four hundred acres, pointing
out wildflowers and birds. Monthly children’s programs explore the
dharma teachings of the creek and oak trees. For several years,
Spirit Rock has hosted an alternative “/nterdependence Day” on the
Fourth of July, a chance to appreciate quietly the web of life with
members of the spiritual community.
The Spirit Rock Center vision statement explains that the center
“is being created as a living mandala: a western dharma and retreat
center dedicated to discovering and establishing the dharma in our
lives.”4° Six Dharma paths are described: retreats, right relationship,
study, hermitage, integration in daily life, and service to the
community. A practitioner can develop concentration, understanding,
morality, and compassion through any or all of these paths.
Cultivating right relationship includes people and also the earth; the
service path is based on care and respect for all beings. This
statement provides an introductory education on the founding
principles of the center, which include respect for the land.
The third of Snyder’s guidelines, keeping contact with the sources
of energy that flow into one’s life, is attended to at Spirit Rock
primarily through walking meditation. Slow, careful walking
practice, noting each step and breath, is a predominant aspect of
vipassana practice. At Spirit Rock, long periods of group walking
meditation are practiced outdoors, offering opportunities for the feet
and mind to absorb the wild energy of the land. One community
member leads longer walking pilgrimages across Mount Tamalpais
from Spirit Rock to Green Gulch. He specifically seeks to encourage
the embodying of landscape knowledge through extended pilgrim-
age in local wild areas (as opposed to pilgrimages in Nepal or
India).*! Pilgrimage is also a way to bring members of the commu-
nity together to share the experience of making contact with
the land.
One of the six Dharma paths of the Spirit Rock vision is
hermitage, offering the opportunity “to experience the simplicity and
dedication of the renunciate life.’4* Though hermitage cabins have
not yet been built at Spirit Rock, teachers encourage students to
incorporate hermitage principles in everyday life through simpli-
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 239

fying consumer habits, spending more time in silence, and high-

lighting dharma study. The hermitage path is perhaps the path of
minimum impact and maximum exposure to the other plants and
animals inhabiting the land. With this as part of the master plan,
the center has built into its practice expectations the possibility that
deeper, longer-term connection with the land will develop through
hermitage retreats by senior students.
Taken together, these institutional practices, reflecting the three
aspects of Snyder’s ecological ethic, show evidence of an emerging
Buddhist ecological culture in response to the land. Offerings of
gratitude, commitments of responsibility to mindful stewardship and
community relations, and contact with the energy flow of the wild
are helping to establish this center as an environmental model for
Buddhist practice. Held by the forested ridges to the south and the
open grasslands to the north, Spirit Rock presents another strong
opportunity for deepening ecological relations in a practice setting.
With the efforts of both centers contributing to the culture of
northern California, it is possible that American Buddhism can have
a significant influence on environmental practice and reinhabitation
in this region. This process, however, is not without its points of
tension.

Points of Tension

Though both of these centers now include certain ecological

practices as part of their religious cultures, neither is specifically
committed to the goal of ecological sustainability or self-reliance.
This degree of reinhabitation would stretch the capacities of staff
and residents beyond their current loads. For both centers the top
priority is to transmit Buddhist teachings and provide a supportive
place to practice. It is simpler and more convenient to depend on
external sources for food, energy, supplies, and funding. The choice
to draw on diverse trade sources, however, often involves certain
advantages of class and cultural privilege. Can reinhabitation take
place if residents are primarily dependent on goods produced away
from the land?
If ecological sustainability were to become an institutional goal,
debates would arise over how to use the land: could the open space
areas remain protected given the need to grow more food? Much
240 Buddhism and Ecology

of the current attractiveness of both places depends on the sense of

spaciousness from undeveloped land. This provides a kind of literal
“breathing room” from the urban pressures of noise, pollution, and
population. However, this aesthetic use of the land might be
threatened by the choice to move further toward reinhabitation.
Buddhist centers in the United States and elsewhere have the
opportunity to apply Buddhist analysis and self-study to their own
institutions. Green Gulch and Spirit Rock have already done this
in examining governance and economic structures and student-
teacher relations. To do the same depth of work around ecological
matters would mean investigating institutional habits around the
relationship between nature and culture. To what extent do American
Buddhist centers reproduce the dominant cultural attitudes of culture
as superior, nature as inferior; culture as control, nature as chaos;
culture as male, nature as female?4> At Green Gulch this is manifest
in giving weight and value to zazen meditation over ecological work
practice. Farm and garden workers are seen by some as inferior to
those who spend more time in the zendo, even though this is not
supported by the teachings.
Another area of tension is around the need for community. In
indigenous cultures, inhabitation goes hand in hand with culture and
community. Generation after generation inhabits the same land,
passing on knowledge of place through culture and social inter-
action. Religious centers such as Green Gulch and Spirit Rock are
explicitly not permanent communities but rather learning or training
centers where people stay for different lengths of time. Can
ecological culture be transmitted by example, if not through
successive generations? There is a built-in conflict here: the more
a practitioner engages in environmental work or contact with the
land, the more he or she participates in a sense of community with
others sharing the same experience. This leads to the desire to
become a more permanent resident on the land—a move toward
reinhabitation. However, because of the land’s limited carrying
capacity, this can constrict others from having access to the place
at the same level of commitment. How can these religious centers
serve as transmitters of ecological culture and values without the
generational element of residential community?
Perhaps one of the most difficult questions lies in governance:
who carries the burden of landownership and ecological steward-
CSE TL ee—_e a SO RS _ 7 rr re

American Buddhist Response to the Land 241

ship? Legally, it is the board of directors and the staff they hire who
are responsible; spiritually, the leadership role falls to the abbot and
practice leaders. In contrast to the single head-of-household owner
who makes most decisions for an individual piece of private
property, the governing bodies of Green Gulch and Spirit Rock
handle land responsibilities in diffuse arenas with various people
carrying pieces of the land’s history, capability, and management
needs. Ecological monitoring is uneven and primarily related to
human needs (water, wood, garden spaces, farm produce). Long-
term planning for restoration of degraded habitats and expanded
human use has been discussed informally but not incorporated into
master plans for the sites.

Challenges for the Future

This evaluation documents ecological practices at two of the larger
Buddhist centers in the San Francisco Bay area. Though some steps
have been taken toward reinhabitation, many areas of ecological
stewardship still need attention. In the course of this study, I have
noted some of the immediate needs as well as future institutional
challenges which are unresolved at present.
Green Gulch Zen Center and Spirit Rock Meditation Center both
face issues of carrying capacity as they become increasingly
attractive to students of Buddhism. This will require a closer look
at pressures on parking spaces (always full on Sundays at Green
Gulch and on Monday evenings at Spirit Rock), considering whether
to limit attendance or pave more land to accommodate cars.
Pressures on sewage, water, and energy sources will also rise with
increasing numbers of visitors. Green Gulch, for example, may need
to hold fewer programs and conferences in the fall when water
supplies are at their scarcest.
Land-management issues already plaguing other parts of Marin
County may sooner or later become problems for these two proper-
ties. Among these are the spread of feral non-native pigs who gouge
the land and root up acorns and seedlings. On some nature preserves
they are systematically hunted to prevent encroachment. This
problem will likely affect Spirit Rock sooner than Green Gulch, but
with so much open space connecting the two, it may be only a
242 Buddhism and Ecology

matter of time before the pigs are on the coast as well. Fire
management is also an issue since coastal scrub, grassland, and
coastal forests have evolved with fire in the California landscape.
Fire suppression around human habitations often only postpones the
inevitable. Both centers, as environmental stewards, will need to
consider controlled burns or other fire-management methods to
reduce fuel load.
People at Green Gulch are already raising questions about
extensive stands of non-native trees on the property. The acacias in
particular are quite fire-prone and present some danger to the
adjacent dining area.** In earlier rounds of tree planting, Monterey
pines were chosen to hold the soil and generate fast-growing poles
and firewood. Locals have criticized these trees as non-native to the
northern coastal regions as well as subject to bark beetle infestation.
The prominent Australian eucalyptus, appreciated by many for its
hanging strips of bark, drips oils that poison the soil below, reducing
the biodiversity under these trees. Which of these trees should come
out? Which should remain? Taking responsibility in this case means
asking difficult ethical and ecological questions.
Both centers have small creeks on the land, though Green Gulch
Creek is the larger and more managed. Water quality and aquatic
habitats will need to be monitored, especially where dams impound
water and holding basins have become clogged with silt. Waterways
are natural corridors for songbirds and small mammals and can
easily be enhanced to serve their food and shelter needs by allowing
understory plants and aquatic insects to flourish. As for larger scale
challenges, some of these will require creative initiative from either
residents or guest/lay members to encourage a developing envi-
ronmental conscience. In her book, Campus Ecology, April Smith
outlines key areas for academic institutions to evaluate their
ecological practices.4> Many of these are applicable to religious
institutions such as Green Gulch Zen Center and Spirit Rock Center.
In the arenas of waste and hazard management, these two centers
can work toward reducing the volume of solid waste beyond what
is composted or recycled. This means attention to precycling, or
choosing products with little or no packaging. It also means
providing adequate disposal of potentially hazardous substances,
such as used batteries, old tools, paints and solvents, autoshop
chemicals, and concentrated organic pesticides.
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 243

More work can be done in the area of resource flow and

infrastructure. While water is closely monitored at Green Gulch,
energy use is dispersed and responsibility for energy conservation
is uneven. Electrical heaters are often left on when rooms are empty.
Food flows are managed closely at both centers to save money and
as part of a commitment to vegetarian meals. Although perhaps half
of the produce eaten at Green Gulch is organic, the center could in
the future commit to an entirely organic menu, supporting local
farmers as much as possible. As hazards from chemical agriculture
are documented, particularly as hormone disrupters and immune
system depressers,*© one of the greatest supports to practitioners at
both centers might be safe and healthy food.
Smith advocates institutional procurement policies to streamline
product use, especially for recycled paper products in restrooms and
offices. Both centers could make the choice to buy unbleached paper
where possible, to minimize chlorine and dioxin hazards to users.
Both centers currently have reusable dishware, eliminating the waste
of disposable cups and plates; residents at Green Gulch are debating
the option of cloth napkins and personal cups. For picnics and
outdoor celebrations, the centers could encourage people to bring
their own flatware and dishes, rather than using paper or plastic
products.
As each center grows, their budgets grow. Funds are banked in
institutions or held in stocks and bonds. The boards of these two
centers can promote and implement a policy of socially responsible
investing, to carry institutional weight into the arena of greening
financial management. Taking responsibility at these levels will
require more committee work and more volunteers helping the
institutional structures evolve in their ecological ethics. As this work
is engaged, it will be important for the centers to publicize their
efforts among their own members as well as visitors to generate
support and solidarity for this ecological work.

Buddhist Centers as Ecological Role Models

This first piece of comparative research on two Buddhist centers

raises many interesting questions which will require additional case
study work with diverse centers. Future research may include
244 Buddhism and Ecology

reviews of ecological practice at some of the following institutions:

Rochester Zen Center (New York), Mt. Tremper Zen Center (New
York), Karme Chéling Tibetan Center (Vermont), Manzanita Village
(California), Shambhala Center (Colorado), Mountains and Rivers
Temple (California), and others.*’ At this point it is unclear whether
ecological practices are primarily motivated by Buddhist tradition
or by American environmentalism. Will ecological culture become
a mark of American Buddhism? It is also unclear how ecological
practice relates to meditation practice and other aspects of Buddhist
training in the specific centers. In future work, I would like to find
out which aspects of Buddhism, as taught or practiced at individual
centers, actually discourage the evolution and adoption of ecological
culture.
If institutions such as Buddhist retreat centers are to become
more ecological in practice and concerns, upon what elements does
such an evolution depend? Some possible significant factors may
be: 1) the role of center leadership in establishing ecological
priorities; 2) the creativity and efforts of key staff people; 3) the
degree of teaching emphasis on the role of the environment;
4) methods for preserving and transmitting religious and cultural
traditions; 5) the practice place itself and its ecological history and
management needs; 6) outside development pressures. Some of
these may be operational for certain centers but not for others; each
center will have a distinct and complex story of environmental
involvement. By examining both rural and urban centers, centers
from diverse Buddhist traditions, and centers of different scale and
leadership patterns, I may then be able to discern some patterns of
ecological practice.
From this preliminary review of these two centers, it seems clear
that Green Gulch Zen Center and Spirit Rock Meditation Center are
beginning to demonstrate what is institutionally possible in living
an ecological ethic. Religious centers in the past have served as role
models for the wider community; perhaps these Buddhist centers
can show others in Marin County and the wider Bay area how
people can live more simply and environmentally. By offering
gratitude, taking care of the land effectively, and keeping access
open to the wild energy flow of the land, these centers support the
very foundations of dharma practice. Working together as Buddhist
neighbors and institutional kalyana mitta (spiritual friends), they can
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 245

encourage others to act in environmentally responsible ways for the

health of humans and nonhumans on the land. Over time, the
incorporation of ecological culture into the everyday life of these
centers may inspire visitors to transfer these practices to other
institutions and households. Thus, seeds of ecological culture based
in spiritual practice can support the beginnings of reinhabitation,
drawing on the energy flow that sustains all life.
246 Buddhism and Ecology

Notes

1. I am grateful to Kenneth Kraft and Wendy Johnson for their comments on

earlier drafts of this article.
2. Sidney Piburn, ed., The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Snow Lion Publications, 1990); see also, among Thich Nhat Hanh’s many books,
For a Future to Be Possible (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1993) and Being Peace
(Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1987).
3. For example, see Joanna Macy’s treatment of Buddhist philosophy in Mutual
Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural
Systems (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).
4. See, among others, Lester Brown, “Launching the Environmental Revolu-
tion,” State of the World 1992 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992), 174-90; and
Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., For the Common Good (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1989).
5. Michael Wenger, “History of Zen Center,’ Wind Bell 27, no. 1 (spring
1993):15-17.
6. Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (New York: Weatherhill, 1970);
Edward Espe Brown, The Tassajara Bread Book (Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala
Books, 1970).
7. Wendy Johnson and Stephanie Kaza, “Landscape Ecology and Management
Concerns at Green Gulch Zen Center: A Report to the Zen Center Board of
Directors,” 5 November 1991.
8. Interview and site visit with Wendy Johnson, Green Gulch garden staff,
June 1992.
9. Meredith Moraine and Jerry Steward, “The Story So Far,” Spirit Rock
Meditation Center Newsletter, September-January 1995, 5.
10. Spirit Rock Meditation Center Newsletter, February-August 1996, 4.
11. “Sangha of 1000 Buddhas,” Spirit Rock Meditation Center Newsletter,
February-August 1996, 10-11.
12. These have been catalogued in various taxonomies; see, for example,
Warwick Fox, Toward a Transpersonal Ecology (Boston: Shambhala Books, 1990);
and Steven C. Rockefeller, “Principles of Environmental Conservation and
Sustainable Development: Summary and Survey,” prepared for the Earth Charter
project, April 1996.
13. Holmes Rolston III, Philosophy Gone Wild (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus
Books, 1989), 111.
14. Valerie Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (New York:
Routledge, 1993).
15. Reed F. Noss and Allen Y. Cooperrider, Saving Nature’s Legacy: Protecting
and Restoring Biodiversity (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1994); and R. Edward
 American Buddhist Response to the Land 247

Grumbine, Ghost Bears: Exploring the Biodiversity Crisis (Washington, D.C.:

Island Press, 1992).
16. David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (New York: Pantheon Books,
1996).
17. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1949; reprint New York: Ballantine Press, 1970); all quotes here are from
the paragraph on pp. 239-40.
18. Described in Ray Dasmann’s paper, “National Parks, Nature Conservation,
and ‘Future Primitive,” presented at the South Pacific Conference on National
Parks, Wellington, New Zealand, February 1975.
19. Gary Snyder, “Reinhabitation,” in A Place in Space (Washington, D.C.:
Counterpoint Press, 1996); first published in The Old Ways (San Francisco: City
Lights Books, 1977), 191.
20. Ibid., 188.
21. Ibid., 190-91.
22. See Macy, Mutual Causality in Buddhism, chapters 2, 3, 10, and 11; also
Francis H. Cook, Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977).
23. See Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon, eds., Earth Prayers (San
Francisco: Harper, 1991), 120-21, for one environmentally based version of the
precepts prepared for Earth Day 1990 at Green Gulch Zen Center.
24. Daily service and meal chants provided by the office of the Eno (Head of
Zendo) at Green Gulch Zen Center.
25. Stephanie Kaza, “A Community of Attention,” Jn Context 29 (summer
1991):32-35.
26. Annual wildflower lists on file with and prepared by Wendy Johnson,
garden staff, Green Gulch Zen Center.
27. Annual records and documentation of Arbor Days provided by Wendy
Johnson.
28. Johnson and Kaza, “Landscape Ecology and Management Concerns at
Green Gulch Zen Center,” 3-5.
29. Site visit with Peter Rudnick, Head of Farm, June 1995S.
30. Ibid.
31. Some of the principal contacts in these consultations have been Mia
Munroe, Muir Woods National Monument park ranger; Yvonne Rand, Zen teacher;
and Wendy Johnson, Green Gulch garden staff.
32. Green Gulch site visit, June 1992.
33. Prepared by Stephanie Kaza in consultation with Green Gulch staff;
brochure available in Green Gulch office.
34. See collections such as The Mumonkan (various translations) and Book of
Serenity, trans. Thomas Cleary (Hudson, N.Y.: Lindisfarne Press, 1990).
248 Buddhism and Ecology

35. Wendy Johnson, “Sitting Together under a Dead Tree,” Wind Bell 30, no.
2 (summer 1996):34—36.
36. Meredith Moraine and Jerry Steward, “The Story So Far,” Spirit Rock
Meditation Center Newsletter, September-January 1995, 5.
37. Spirit Rock Meditation Center Newsletter, February-August 1996, 2.
38. Spirit Rock Meditation Center Newsletter, September-January 1995, 5.
39. Ibid., 3, 9.
40. Vision Statement for Spirit Rock Meditation Center, 1995, 1.
41. Dharma Aloka, “Pilgrimage Here and Now,” interview by Anna Douglas,
Spirit Rock Meditation Center Newsletter, February-August 1996, 12-13, 16.
Dharma Aloka describes the walking: “The ritual nature of formal pilgrimage sets
it apart from everyday life. It’s a kind of liturgical drama enacted in a sacred
landscape.”
42. Vision Statement for Spirit Rock Meditation Center, 1995, 3.
43. See Sherry Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” in Michelle
Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds., Woman, Culture and Society
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974), and many subsequent feminist
theory articles discussing her assertions.
44. Johnson and Kaza, “Landscape Ecology and Management Concerns at
Green Gulch Zen Center.”
45. April Smith and the Student Environmental Action Coalition, Campus
Ecology (Los Angeles: Living Planet Press, 1993).
46. See new evidence gathered in Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John
Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future (New York: Dutton, 1996).
47. Also see Jeff Yamauchi’s article on “The Greening of Zen Mountain Center:
A Case Study,” included in this volume.
 The Greening of Zen Mountain Center:
A Case Study

Jeff Yamauchi

Introduction

We have seen, during recent years, more American Zen centers

making efforts to incorporate an environmental ethic into their
communities. An environmental ethic appears, in theory, well suited
to Zen Buddhism, as Zen advocates a sensitivity toward all life and
encourages restraint, moderation, and simplicity. It is still worth-
while, however, to see how an American Zen center actually applies
its practice in relation to environmental concerns.
I have chosen Zen Mountain Center of Mountain Center, Califor-
nia, as the case study site for several reasons. I have resided at the
center and have served during the past two years as one of the
principal participants in the center’s environmental program. The
natural setting of Zen Mountain Center provides an ideal location
for promoting outdoor education and other related activities that
foster an appreciation for the environment. In developing an
environmental program, the center’s head administration is particu-
larly concerned with preserving the integrity of the property and is
willing to take steps to protect its native beauty. A general attitude
of low environmental impact has always been the approach taken
in on-going development of the center. A stewardship approach,
however, was, until very recently, more one of implication than one
of operational policy. Zen Mountain Center is on the verge of
implementing an environmental program that is, in my opinion, both
unique and wide-ranging in application. Thus, Zen Mountain Center
has the potential to become a significant advocate in developing and
250 Buddhism and Ecology

promoting an environmental ethic within American Zen. It is

perhaps the best example of an American Zen center that is
attempting to “green” its practice.
Zen Mountain Center also offers a fine representation of
American Zen in general. The center was founded in 1979 by one
of the early Japanese Zen masters (rdshi), Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi,
who taught for over thirty years, until his death in 1995. Maezumi
Roshi was one of the important pioneers who initiated and helped
to establish Zen in the United States, Europe, and Mexico. Zen
Buddhism has been a part of the American religious landscape for
a longer time and more extensively than other Buddhist traditions.
The history of the integration of Zen in America, therefore, may lead
to a better understanding of Buddhism’s impact on Western cultures.
As I hope to show in this case study, through its active role in
integrating Zen Buddhism and environmentalism, Zen Mountain
Center may serve as an indicator of a general trend in American
Zen.
The primary purpose of this essay, however, is to focus on Zen
Mountain Center itself, rather than to examine in depth any future
directions of American Zen that may occur. I hope, through an
environmental assessment of this particular Zen center and a
concluding proposal, to demonstrate the viability of American Zen
as one religious path that could be taken to address the envi-
ronmental crisis.

An Overview of Zen Mountain Center

Zen Mountain Center is located at the head of Apple Canyon in the

southwestern slopes of the San Jacinto Mountains of Southern
California, at an elevation range of 5,440 to 6,800 feet. Apple
Canyon is a tributary to the south fork of the San Jacinto River. The
beginning of the watershed is less than a mile upstream from Zen
Mountain Center at the Desert Divide, a prominent ridge which
divides the western and eastern slopes of the San Jacinto range.
Three general types of soils have been described in Apple
Canyon: “Wind River medium, sandy loam, 2—15%, well-drained
alluvial fan soils from granitic bedrock; Lithic xerothent, rock
outcrop complex, 50—100% slopes, depth to hard, unweather rock
is less than 20 inches; and rock outcrop, 30-100% slopes, contig-
 The Greening of Zen Mountain Center 251

uous bare bedrock with less than 15% inclusions of soil capable of
supporting plants.”! The sandy loam is associated with the canyon
bottom, while the less decomposed rocky soils are primarily on the
slopes of the canyon.
The property of Zen Mountain Center—160 acres (or a quarter
section)—contains a mosaic of habitats: riparian, rock outcrops,
meadows, montane chaparral, oak woodlands, and mixed conifer
forests. In addition, much of the property of the center is relatively
undisturbed. In fact, a substantial portion of the adjacent land is
federally designated wilderness. The variety and relatively intact
nature of the landscape in and around Zen Mountain Center supports
a rich diversity of flora and fauna. A detailed biological impact
report of the center lists as present in the area 216 species of plants,
63 species of birds, 24 species of mammals, and 16 species of
reptiles and amphibians.
Besides a few private residential homes, Zen Mountain Center
and Pine Springs Ranch (a large retreat and conference facility one
mile south of Zen Mountain Center, operated by the Seventh Day
Adventist Church) impose the most significant human impact in
Apple Canyon. Nearby communities of Mountain Center, Garner
Valley, Pine Cove, and Idyllwild comprise the majority of the
population in the general vicinity. The center is thus in a secluded
location, even though Los Angeles and San Diego are only about
one hundred miles east and south, respectively.
The relative isolation of Zen Mountain Center contributes, in part,
to the rich diversity of species. Moreover, a significant number of
rare, endangered, or sensitive species have been observed or are
known to be present on the center’s property (see table 1). Many
of the thirty rare species in the vicinity of Apple Canyon are
sensitive to human disturbances. A biological survey has identified
seven rare animals (the spotted bat, northern San Diego pocket
mouse, California spotted owl, mountain quail, northern goshawk,
southern sagebrush lizard, and the San Diego mountain kingsnake)
and two rare plants (Johnston’s rock cress and the California
penstemon) within the center’s property. Indicator species, such as
the California spotted owl, are typical and reflect the condition of
a mature conifer forest.
The biological impact report gives clear and substantial evidence
that the property of Zen Mountain Center is located in a rich habitat
 252 Buddhism and Ecology

TABLE 1: RARE, ENDANGERED, OR SENSITIVE SPECIES OBSERVED OR

EXPECTED TO OCCUR NEAR ZEN MOUNTAIN CENTER (ZMC)

SPECIES STaTus* | NEAREST KNown LOCATION

MAMMALS
Peninsular bighorn sheep C2,CE,NF <10 miles from ZMC
Ovis canadensis cremnobates
Spotted bat C2,NF observed at ZMC
Euderma maculatum
Pacific western big-eared bat C2 <5 miles from ZMC
Plecotus townsendii townsendii
San Bernardino northern C2 <10 miles from ZMC
flying squirrel
Galucomys sabrinus californicus
Northern San Diego pocket mouse C2 observed at ZMC
Perognathus fallax fallax

Birps
California spotted owl C2 observed at ZMC
Strix occidentalis
Southern bald eagle FE,CE <5 miles from ZMC
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
Northern goshawk C2,NF observed at ZMC
Accipiter gentilis
Mountain quail C2,NF observed at ZMC
Oreotyx pictus

REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS

San Diego horned lizard | C2 <5 miles from ZMC
Phrynosoma coronatum blainvillei
Coastal western whiptail C2 <5 miles from ZMC
Cnemidophours tigris umbratica
Southern sagebrush lizard C2 observed at ZMC
Sceloporus graciosus
vandenburgianus
San Diego mountain kingsnake C2,CR observed at ZMC
Lampropeltis zonata

* FE = Federally endangered; C1 = Federal candidate 1; C2 = Federal candidate 2;

CE = California endangered; CT = California threatened species; CR = California
rare; CNPS = California Native Plant Society list 1B; NF = National forest sensitive
species.
 The Greening of Zen Mountain Center 253

San Diego ringneck snake C2 <5 miles from ZMC

Diadophis punctatus similis
Southern rubber boa CT <5 miles from ZMC
Charina bottae umbratica

Large-blotched ensatina C2 <10 miles from ZMC

Ensatina eschscholtzii klauberi
Mountain yellow-legged frog C2,NF,CR <10 miles from ZMC
Rana muscosa

PLANTS
California bedstraw CNPS,NEF <10 miles from ZMC
Galium californicum ssp. prinum
California penstemon C1,CNPS,NF observed at ZMC
Penstemon californicus
Hall’s Monardella CNPS,NF <5 miles from ZMC
Monardella macrantha var. hallii

Hidden Lake Blue Curls C1,CR,CNPS <10 miles from ZMC

Trichostemma austalmonatum ssp.
compactum
Johnston’s rock cress C2,CNPS,NF observed at ZMC
Arabis johnstonii
Lemon lily C2,CNPS,NF <10 miles from ZMC
Lilium parryi var. parryi
Munz’s hedgehog C2,CNPS,NF <5 miles from ZMC
Echinocereus engelmannii
var. munzii
Parish’s chaenactis C2,CNPS <5 miles from ZMC
Chaenactis parishii
San Jacinto spiny phlox CNPS,NF <5 miles from ZMC
Leptodactylon jaegeri
Shaggy-horned alum root CNPS <5 miles from ZMC
Heuchera hirsutissima
Slender-horned spine flower FE,CE,NF <15 miles from ZMC
Dodechama leptoceras
Tahquitz ivesai CR,NF <5 miles from ZMC
Ivesia callida
Ziegler’s tidy tips C1,CNPS,NF <1 mile from ZMC
Layia ziegleri
Adapted from Michael Hamilton, Biological Impact Report of Zen Mountain
Center (Idyllwild, Calif.: Michael P. Hamilton and Associates, 1994), 40-43.
254 Buddhism and Ecology

with an abundance of species. Southern California is notorious for

losing, through urbanization and all manner of developmental
projects, a large percentage of its natural habitats. This loss alone
makes it even more imperative that the center at least consider the
fragile uniqueness of Apple Canyon.

History of Land Use at Apple Canyon

The Cahuilla Indians first occupied the San Jacinto Mountains and
surrounding areas about twenty-five hundred to three thousand years
ago.° Periodic visits into Apple Canyon by Cahuilla occurred
primarily during the months of October and November when the
acorns were ready to harvest. Cahuilla families would camp beside
groves of oaks, spending several weeks gathering the ripening
acorns—their most important food staple. The nutritional value of
acorns compares favorably with grains such as wheat and barley:
though acorns are somewhat lower in protein and carbohydrates,
they are higher in fat and calories. The oaks generally provided a
reliable yield of acorns—up to several hundred pounds from each
mature tree. A large boulder and several grinding mortars that the
Cahuilla used for grinding the acorns into meal are located just south
of the center’s property. A grove of mature California black oaks
(Quercus kelloggii) near the mortars offers further evidence that
Cahuilla came to Apple Canyon to collect and process acorns for
the winter months.
During the late nineteenth century, Apple Canyon was originally
part of Thomas, then Garner, Ranch, which at one time consisted
of ninety-five hundred acres.* From the 1800s to about the 1960s,
cattle grazing occurred on what would become the property of Zen
Mountain Center and adjacent areas. Although there was a sub-
stantial timber industry in the area at one time, only selected harvest
of trees occurred in the upper reaches of Apple Canyon due, in part,
to difficult access. There are now, within the property, scattered old-
growth stands of Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri), Jeffrey Pine
(P. Jeffreyi), and incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens). A core
sample taken from an exceptionally mature Jeffrey pine at Zen
Mountain Center indicates its age to be about five hundred years.
Since the purchase of the quarter section in Apple Canyon in
1979, Zen Mountain Center has gradually grown into an intensive
 The Greening of Zen Mountain Center 255

Zen training center. This process started in 1982 with the first three-
month-long meditation retreat (ango). The center has generally
concentrated its practice in the summer months; the rest of the year
remains relatively quiet, with only a small number of staff main-
taining the buildings and grounds. Little impact to the environment
has occurred during most of the tenure of Zen Mountain Center,
primarily due to the minimal development of the property. The early
buildings, for example, were only a bathhouse, kitchen, small
meditation hall, and several outhouses. A few small trailers were
added to house residents and guests. The earlier building complex
was confined to a small area. When time, money, and appropriate
personnel became available, buildings were constructed over the
next ten years. The facilities now include a larger meditation hall,
five cabins, the abbots’ quarters, a workshop, a small dormitory, and
a two-story bathhouse. With the exception of three small cabins, the
building complex is situated on only three acres at the southern end
of the property. The restricted location of human use has thus
significantly lessened the impact on Apple Canyon and directly
contributed to the continued vigor and health of the local envi-
ronment.
Although economic constraints have slowed the development of
Zen Mountain Center, an ecological sensitivity is a factor in
considering the appropriate way to approach building a Zen center
in the mountains. An article by an early resident of the center
reflects this environmental “awareness”:

The primary form of sacred space in the Buddhist tradition has been
the temple or monastery. Because it was built by man it could be
located in different places. Generally they were built either in the
city near the source of political power or in the mountains near
another source of sacred power. The combining of two forms of
sacred space, that of the temple and the natural one of the moun-
tains, made a powerful center for practice.>

Apple Canyon has been viewed as an extension of the center,

which has naturally fostered, with care and attention, both the
buildings and the grounds. Minimal disturbance to the environment
is the direct consequence of treating the canyon as a sacred place.
The biological impact study conducted has substantiated that there
has been minimal environmental impact to the center’s property:
256 Buddhism and Ecology

[D]isturbances apparently are minimal because of low noise levels,

limited lighting, no hunting or trapping, lifestyle characteristics
which favor biological diversity, and limited human visitations. . . .
As a result, the biological diversity of the property is unusually
rich.®

Even after seventeen years of occupation by the Zen Mountain

Center community, the habitat within the center’s property and its
rich diversity of species has been preserved. Although not explicitly
stated, a land ethic has certainly played a part in the development
of Zen Mountain Center during its early years.

Stewardship Practice at Zen Mountain Center

The Zen Mountain Center mission statement has recently been

revised, in part because of the need to devise a comprehensive
approach for managing the center’s property. The center’s goals, as
Stated, are:

To provide a supportive environment for teaching, training, and

practice in Zen Buddhism. To incorporate sound ecological prin-
ciples in the development and function of Zen Mountain Center. To
ensure continuation of the Buddha Dharma for future generations.

During the process of revising the mission statement, a general

consensus was reached by the center’s community and members,
then formally approved by the board of directors on 14 April 1996.
The revised mission statement set the stage for the development of
a stewardship practice that would preserve the natural integrity of
the property. The empirical data on the rich diversity of habitats and
species included in the 1994 biological impact report and biological
inventory provided the Zen Mountain Center administrators with a
base line from which to evaluate appropriate ways of managing the
center’s natural resource.
A registered forester was also recently hired to assist in devel-
oping an appropriate stewardship plan to sustain the health and
diversity of the biota residing on the center’s property. The center’s
overall goal was to leave over 90 percent of its property undisturbed.
A comprehensive plan submitted by the forester in 1995 gave
 The Greening of Zen Mountain Center 257

specific instructions for improving the vigor of the different habitats,

reducing the high-risk fire potential, and enhancing wildlife habitat
diversity.’ Carried out over a six-year period, the stewardship
program requires appropriate forest resource management practices
that include thinning excessive vegetation, removing diseased and
bug-infested trees, planting desirable conifers and oaks, and
retaining standing dead trees (snags) and downed decaying logs as
animal nesting sites. A grant of two thousand dollars has been
received through the Stewardship Incentive Program (SIP) for the
first stage of thinning accumulated vegetation that poses a serious
fire risk. Sponsored by state and federal agencies, the intention of
SIP is to encourage and assist private woodlot owners in actively
managing their land in a sustainable fashion for themselves and for
future generations.
The recommendation given first priority in the stewardship plan
is the reduction of dense undergrowth, especially near buildings. Fire
suppression has been the most significant human impact in Apple
Canyon and the rest of the San Jacinto Mountains. United States
Forest Service fire history maps reveal that no major fire has
occurred on the property of Zen Mountain Center for at least fifty
years. However, four fires have recently threatened Apple Canyon.
In 1982, a large fire that originated on the desert side of the San
Jacinto Mountains headed toward Apple Canyon from the north.
Only updraft winds prevented the fire from coming down the ridge.
Another fire in 1993 was caused by a careless hunter who left a
smoldering camp fire just outside the center property. It was quickly
extinguished by water dropped from a fire-attack helicopter. The
following year, lightning strike caused another fire near Lake Hemet,
about five miles south of Zen Mountain Center. A volunteer
evacuation was initiated for all residents of Apple Canyon and
adjacent May Valley. The Lake Hemet fire was contained in three
days. Finally, more than ten thousand acres south of Idyllwild and
Pine Cove were burned in early July 1996 during a fire that also
endangered the towns. No lives or homes were lost in that fire, but
it was serious enough to require an evacuation of both communities.
These episodes offer clear evidence of the real danger posed by fire.
In meeting the first stewardship goal, six acres around the
center’s building complex have been thinned to act as a fire break.
Scheduled clearing of dense undergrowth and deadwood will
258 Buddhism and Ecology

continue to be done around the facilities, going beyond the pre-

scribed thirty feet to at least twice that distance or longer whenever
appropriate. Controlled burns in selected areas—given the right
supervision and conditions—are also a possible way to lessen the
fire threat. Fire can occur too readily, either by natural causes or
through human actions, and spread too rapidly, given the hazards
of the narrow canyon which, acting as a wind tunnel, can contribute
to an incredible amount of destruction. The restoration of the Apple
Canyon forest and replacement of old-growth trees following a fire
would take centuries. Thus, a strong commitment to fire prevention
is the primary element in developing a stewardship management
program for the center’s property.
Another stewardship practice is to limit the growth of devel-
opment. Only a small percentage of the property is slated for
development, and this is largely confined to three acres. The vast
majority of the center’s land will be left undisturbed. Limited access
to the upper canyon (California spotted owl habitat) will remain
restricted, with no new trails added, in order to inhibit direct
disturbance to wildlife and plants.
The potential increase in the number of residents, students, and
guests will also have a significant impact and must be considered
when devising appropriate measures to limit adverse growth.
Currently, there are thirteen full-time residents at Zen Mountain
Center, with periodic visitations ranging from one to one hundred
individuals lasting from one day to three months. During the
summer months the numbers of visitors are highest, with an average
of about ten and, periodically, as many as twenty or slightly more.
The projected increase is up to thirty-six full-time residents, with
the range of numbers of visitors and length of stay probably
remaining the same. The average number of visitors, however, is
projected to climb. Adequate housing to accommodate the influx of
people will have to be considered in the overall complex design.
The full-time residents themselves will have the most impact and
will most significantly affect the development and functioning of
Zen Mountain Center. Most importantly, the center’s residents set
the tone for stewardship behavior and, to a large degree, dictate
environmental policy because they essentially implement it. A
resident, for instance, may wish to have a cat or dog which, if
allowed to roam free, will have an impact on the wildlife in the
 The Greening of Zen Mountain Center 259

general area. Though at this point in time there have been no real
deviations from an attitude of stewardship, guidelines may be
needed in the future to outline explicitly precautions necessary to
minimize the impact on the environment of the center’s property
and its inhabitants.
Zen Mountain Center can be viewed, in many respects, as a
nature preserve, with 98 percent of the property currently unde-
veloped and sustaining the biodiversity of the center’s property. The
center’s meditative activities readily lend themselves to a steward-
ship approach of property management, because only a small area
needs to be developed for Zen training and because of the overall
Zen perspective of causing as little harm as possible. In other words,
demands on the environment need only be minimal for the center
to function properly. The natural beauty of Apple Canyon actually
enhances Zen training of contemplation and meditation. It is
therefore in the center’s best interest to protect and properly manage
the habitats that support a rich and diverse biota.

A Proposal for an Environmental Program at

Zen Mountain Center

I am in the process of incorporating a nonprofit educational course,

to be known as “Earth Witness Foundation,” that will focus on the
development of an environmental program. The name, “Earth
Witness Foundation,” is derived from the moment when the Buddha
touched the earth as a sign of validating his enlightenment. The
comprehensive nature of the environmental program warrants an
organization that will pay particular attention to carrying out its
objectives effectively and appropriately. The primary purposes of
this public benefit corporation, as stated in the bylaws of Earth
Witness Foundation, shall be: 1) to provide environmental educa-
tional retreats and workshops that are contemplative in approach;
2) to provide indigenous educational workshops; 3) to sponsor
special events, such as presentations by guest speakers and sym-
posiums, that foster environmental awareness and ecological
consciousness; 4) to publish environmental information on a
quarterly basis and occasional texts; 5) to provide an open forum
on the integration of religion and ecology, particularly with
260 Buddhism and Ecology

Buddhism; and 6) to implement outreach programs that address

environmental issues.?
The purposes of the environmental program are deliberately
broad in scope to accommodate future objectives. The program is
currently in the planning stage, and most of the projects are still in
the process of being developed. Depending on the amount of
commitment among the Zen Mountain Center’s sangha, the actual
implementation of the environmental program may take as long as
two years.
The Earth Witness Foundation initiative, however, coincides with
new leadership at Zen Mountain Center; the time for beginning an
environmental program appears to be ideal. The center’s admini-
stration is particularly open to innovative ideas that extend the
function of the center beyond strictly formal Zen practice. The
current dynamic atmosphere at Zen Mountain Center makes the
environmental program more acceptable and potentially viable to
the community as a whole, especially considering the center has
already developed and implemented a stewardship plan.
The next step in the center’s stewardship plan, I believe, is to
develop a sustainable life-style at Zen Mountain Center that utilizes
sound ecological principles and minimizes material consumption.
When the community of Zen Mountain Center seriously tries to live
a more sustainable life-style, stewardship will become a more
engaging process for all. Although Zen Mountain Center cannot be
totally self-sufficient, producing or making everything on its own,
the community can promote positive changes toward sustainability
that limit the impact to the environment.
There are numerous ways of reducing both the impact and
demand of consumption. The following two examples are initial
steps toward sustainability at the center; they will serve to give some
indication of what Zen Mountain Center is doing to foster the so-
called greening of its Zen practice.
Using a more renewable form of energy is one way to reach the
environmental program’s objective of sustainability. The center
already has in place a photovoltaic (PV) system in tandem with a
six kilowatt propane generator that provides electricity during heavy
periods of use and the shorter winter days. Currently, the inadequate
number of solar panels prevents full-capacity use of the sun as the
source for electrical energy at the center. One of Zen Mountain
 The Greening of Zen Mountain Center 261

Center’s goals is to have a PV system that will utilize the sun as

virtually the only source of electricity. The key to success, in a PV
system, however, is conservation of electricity, such as using low
watt bulbs, turning off unnecessary lights, and restricting the use
of electric appliances.
A second way for the community of Zen Mountain Center to
become more sustainable is by organically growing some of its food.
Located on the southwest corner of the center’s property is a small
apple orchard (twenty trees) and a vegetable garden (thirty-three feet
in diameter). This is a modest beginning, but there is potentially an
acre at the center suitable for gardening. The garden’s produce
would only be a food supplement and would be limited to the
summer and early autumn months. Still, in order to raise a variety
of fruits and vegetables, knowledge of the general life cycles of
plants and familiarity with the local climate and growing conditions
are necessary. Gardening, in other words, could be considered a
successful method of educating residents and visitors about the
immediate environment.
Sustainability thus plays a key role in developing an envi-
ronmental program at Zen Mountain Center. The center’s conscious
efforts to reduce consumption and find some sustainable alternatives
provide an environmental awareness that underlies Zen practice. The
environmental program is also enhanced by the fact that Zen
Mountain Center takes an active role in actually living according
to its stewardship ideals.

Environmental Workshops at Zen Mountain Center

Only one workshop has been held as part of the recently proposed
Zen Mountain Center environmental program, but a few more have
been scheduled to take place in the near future. The main purpose
of the environmental workshops is to foster an appreciation for the
environment. Given the natural beauty of Apple Canyon and the
sensitive way in which the center manages its land, environmental
workshops seem the next logical step in promoting ecological
awareness.
Because the workshops are still in the initial stages of develop-
ment, a comprehensive and organized presentation of them is
262 Buddhism and Ecology

difficult to make. My intention in describing the workshops is to

indicate the general direction the center may take in developing
programs other than formal Zen training. Zen Mountain Center, I
believe, is moving beyond the traditional boundaries of what a Zen
center normally does. More environmentally oriented workshops can
provide the center with opportunities to explore other avenues of
education besides Zen training. The workshops described here only
hint at the possibilities that could be adapted for the Zen Mountain
Center environmental program.
Some of these workshops are on indigenous American arts.
Indigenous American traditional methods and symbols contain not
only native cultural elements but also express an affinity with their
local environments. The indigenous arts workshops fit into the
natural setting of the center: participants are able to share in
developing a better understanding of and relationship to their
environment while exploring their creativity and gaining a height-
ened awareness of the crafts and traditions of American indigenous
cultures.
In a recent pottery workshop, for instance, Juan Quezada spent
five days demonstrating and teaching to students his technique—
one which originates in the Casas Grandes ceramic tradition. The
pottery reflects his culture and represents the surrounding deserts
of his home in Mexico. Quezada is the founder of a thriving ceramic
industry in Mata Ortiz, Mexico. His work has been exhibited in the
Heard Museum, the Lowie Museum, and the Southwest Museum
in Los Angeles. Pottery workshops with Juan Quezada will become
a yearly event. Another indigenous arts workshop that has been
scheduled is on Cahuilla basketmaking, which demonstrates the craft
of this local native culture. Cahuilla basketmaking requires native
plants that are abundant at Zen Mountain Center. Identification of
the plants and knowledge of the techniques used to make Cahuilla
baskets will foster a greater appreciation of Cahuilla culture and the
local environment.
A wilderness retreat in the backcountry of the San Jacinto
Mountains is another upcoming environmental workshop. A three-
day backpacking trip will combine mindful hiking, morning and
evening meditation, and extended solo periods. The underlying
concept of the retreat is to facilitate nature as the “teacher,” while
a contemplative state of meditation and silence enhances the insights
 The Greening of Zen Mountain Center 263

gained during the time on the trail and in the forest. Four such
retreats are scheduled to coincide with the four seasons. The retreats
may take place at other locations besides the San Jacinto Mountains:
possibilities include the nearby Santa Rosa Mountains, the Anza-
Borrego Desert, and Joshua Tree National Park.
Environmental workshops may become another way to apply
mindful Zen practice while encouraging a better appreciation and
understanding of the natural world. These workshops will also
introduce Zen Mountain Center to people who might not otherwise
come. Scheduled Zen meditation instruction will continue to be
offered during the workshops, but it will generally be optional or
incorporated whenever appropriate. There has been enough interest
to support the further development of such environmental work-
shops. I believe there is a place for these kinds of workshops and
retreats in an on-going environmental program: not only will they
provide an appropriate means of financial support for the center, but
they will also contribute to diversifying Zen Mountain Center by
accommodating a broader educational perspective.

Summary and Conclusion

Since the purchase of the quarter section of property at Apple

Canyon, Zen Mountain Center has continued to evolve as a “green”
Zen center. The greening of the center implies the existence of a
stewardship management ethic. The biological impact report
conducted in 1994 offers substantial evidence that the center has
acknowledged, to a significant degree, the value of the biota of
Apple Canyon by consciously minimizing the center’s impact on
the surrounding environment. The report is also a scientific docu-
ment that reveals the richness of the habitats and species found on
the center’s property.
Zen Mountain Center’s environmental ethic, in turn, has been
developing, in a more coherent and organized fashion, into a vital
part of its general policy. The center’s revised mission statement,
which incorporates sound ecological principles, is a reflection of
the seriousness of its commitment to following appropriate envi-
ronmental guidelines. A six-year stewardship plan proposed by a
registered forester was implemented and is well past its first year.
264 Buddhism and Ecology

There is, overall, a higher degree of sophistication in the manage-

ment of the natural resources on the center property. Conscious
efforts toward a sustainable way of life are also being made as Zen
Mountain Center develops more fully into a Zen center that deeply
considers environmental consequences, both morally and spiritually.
A proposal for creating an environmental program at Zen
Mountain Center is the next step in the greening of the center.
Though still in its inception, the environmental program appears
promising. Although it is too early to make a general assessment
of the center’s environmental program, some conclusions can be
drawn. Zen Mountain Center has an opportunity to develop a unique
environmental program, given the natural setting of the center, its
progressive administration, and the environmental elements in Zen.
There are literally hundreds of American Buddhist centers that offer
a variety of meditative practices, but only a very few of them have
well-developed environmental programs—if they have such pro-
grams at all. Zen Mountain Center has the potential to be a Buddhist
center deeply involved in integrating environmental concerns with
its Buddhist practice.
Zen Mountain Center also has the potential to contribute sig-
nificantly in the exploration of the connections between religion,
nature, and the environment. Clearly, all the major religious
traditions must come to terms with the current situation of increasing
environmental degradation and destruction. The center already has
a good track record of preserving the natural integrity of the land,
and it is now beginning to find ways of fostering that attitude in
the larger community. By continuing its strong emphasis on
stewardship and environmental education, Zen Mountain Center can
serve as an example for other American Buddhist centers that hope
to begin greening their practice.
 The Greening of Zen Mountain Center 265

Notes

1. Michael Hamilton, Biological Impact Report of Zen Mountain Center

(Idyllwild, Calif.: Michael P. Hamilton and Associates, 1994), 11.
2. Ibid., 60-99.
3. John W. Robinson and Bruce D. Risher, The San Jacintos (Arcadia, Calif.:
Big Santa Anita Historical Society, 1993), 23.
4. Ibid., 64.
5. Carl Mugai Gibson, “Mountain Center: A Special Place to Practice,” Ten
Directions (Los Angeles: Zen Center Publications) 6, no. 1 (1985):5.
6. Hamilton, Biological Impact Report, 48.
7. James F. Bridges, Forest Stewardship Plan for Zen Mountain Center at Apple
Canyon, Riverside County, California (Redlands, Calif.: n.p., 1995), 48.
8. Ibid., 45.
9. Jeff Yamauchi, Bylaws of Earth Witness Foundation, A California Public
Benefit Corporation (Mountain Center, Calif.: Zen Mountain Center, 1996).
Applications of Buddhist Ecological
Worldviews
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism

Kenneth Kraft

This is an interesting time to be a Buddhist thinker or a thinking

Buddhist, inside or outside the academy. Wherever one looks within
the Buddhist tradition, one can find doctrinal tenets and forms of
practice ripe for reinterpretation. One stimulus of current inno-
vations in Buddhist thought and practice is the worldwide envi-
ronmental crisis. Scholars and practitioners alike are asking: Is it
possible to address contemporary ecological issues from a Buddhist
perspective? Is it possible to transform Buddhism authentically in
light of today’s ecological challenges? One way to approach such
questions is to take up a specific environmental problem. A
particular issue redirects one’s attention in unfamiliar ways because
one has to grapple with alien disciplines, immerse oneself in
concrete details, and cultivate new groups of colleagues. Yet that
very process can reflect light back toward Buddhism.
Nuclear waste is one such problem. Fifty-plus years into the
nuclear age, the disposition of nuclear waste has stymied industrial
societies scientifically, technically, socially, politically, and ethically.
Radioactive waste repels most people even as a subject for consid-
eration, in part because the present formulations of the problem are
Stale, blocking both insight and action. We lack a fresh conceptual
framework that incorporates the relevant resources and engages our
imaginations. So I have been experimenting lately with the concept
of nuclear ecology.' At first, nuclear ecology sounds like an
oxymoron: radioactive materials are so flagrantly unecological that
nuclear nonecology might be more plausible. Yet some apparent
contradictions eventually make sense (such as engaged Buddhism
or dependent origination, which still sound oxymoronic to the
270 Buddhism and Ecology

uninitiated). Putting the words nuclear and ecology side by side may
spur us to consider nuclear realities in a larger context that
incorporates present and future effects on the biosphere—in a word,
ecologically. Ideally, potential threats to beings and ecosystems
would be a first thought rather than an afterthought.
As a field, nuclear ecology might also serve to integrate the
disparate disciplines and individual roles required for the long-term
management of nuclear materials. Observers concede the inadequacy
of today’s overcompartmentalized approaches:

The issues involved require a greater understanding of physics,

engineering, medicine, epidemiology, geology, economics, systems
analysis, psychology, management techniques, and so on, than any
individual can muster. So, in a sense, there are no experts, no
individuals who have special insights into all the technical areas,
let alone the nontechnical ones.?

Under the ecology rubric alone there are several subfields that
pertain to nuclear materials but have never been consolidated in the
service of nuclear-waste management. These include radiation
ecology (also called radiobiology), applied ecology, industrial
ecology, restoration ecology, and deep ecology. In recognition of
the rights of future generations, a unified nuclear ecology should
embody some vision of stewardship or guardianship, derived from
secular or religious sources. Buddhism, with its “cosmic ecology”
and a range of other resources, may indeed have something to
contribute.

Buddhist Responses to Nuclear Issues

Buddhists have been sensitive to nuclear issues for several decades,

especially in North America. Concern about radioactive waste was
prefigured by varied expressions of opposition to nuclear weapons,
including marches across the United States, sit-ins at the United
Nations, demonstrations at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, individual
acts of civil disobedience, and participation in local watchdog
groups. In 1974, poet Gary Snyder wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-
winning book Turtle Island, “No more kidding the public about
nuclear waste disposal: it’s impossible to do it safely.”° Vietnamese
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism 271

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of nuclear waste as “the most
difficult kind of garbage” and a “bell of mindfulness.”® The Dalai
Lama’s five-point peace plan for Tibet, first announced in 1987, has
an explicit antinuclear plank: it calls for “the abandonment of
China’s use of Tibet for the production of nuclear weapons and
dumping of nuclear waste.’
The most influential Buddhist thinker-activist in this area is
Joanna Macy, author of the concept of nuclear guardianship. Macy’s
ideas and example have inspired many, including me. Rather than
shrink in dread from nuclear waste, she argues, we must take
responsibility for it. Macy cultivates an awareness of future beings,
imagining that one of their urgent questions to us might be: “What
have you done—or not done—to safeguard us from the toxic nuclear
wastes you bequeathed to us?” She proposes the creation of guardian
sites, former nuclear facilities where radioactive materials are
monitored in a manner that reflects a widely shared moral commit-
ment to the task. Such sites might also have religious dimensions,
Serving as places of pilgrimage, meditation, or rituals associated
with stewardship. The Nuclear Guardianship Project, a group led
by Macy, flourished from 1991 until 1994. In study groups and
public workshops, participants experimented with futuristic cere-
monies that expressed the vision of guardianship. Although the
Nuclear Guardianship Project has not developed organizationally,
some of its ideas have circulated as far as the Energy Department’s
Office of Environmental Management.®
Several American Buddhist communities have incorporated
concern about nuclear issues into their religious practice. In 1995,
the Green Gulch Zen Center, north of San Francisco—probably the
most active in this regard—staged an evocative multimedia
ceremony-and-performance to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary
of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Members of a small
Zen group in Oregon became so determined to do something about
the “poison fire” of nuclear waste that they added a fifth vow to
the traditional four vows of a bodhisattva:
Sentient beings are numberless; I’1l do the best I can to save them.
Desires are inexhaustible; I’ll do the best I can to put an end to them.
The Dharmas are boundless; I’ll do the best I can to master them.
The Poison Fire lasts forever; I’ll do the best I can to contain it.
The Buddha way is unsurpassable; Ill do the best I can to attain it.9
272 Buddhism and Ecology

The intersection of Buddhism and nuclear issues has sparked

varied works of art, often with an activist thrust. Mayumi Oda
creates colorful prints and banners of goddesses and bodhisattvas
protecting Earth from nuclear contamination. Kazuaki Tanahashi
leads participatory art performances .at government nuclear sites,
using colored cloths or huge calligraphy brushes to create circles
as large as a hundred feet in diameter. Tanahashi’s circles allude to
two disparate sources: the time-honored Zen circle (Japanese, ensd)
that symbolizes oneness, and recent Energy Department documents
that pledge to “close the circle” on the splitting of the atom.'° There
is also an expanding corpus of Buddhist-related poetry using nuclear
themes. One of the earliest of these poems is by Gary Snyder:
LMFBR
Death himself,
(Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor)
stands grinning, beckoning.
Plutonium tooth-glow.
Eyebrows buzzing.
Strip-mining scythe.
Kali dances on the dead stiff cock.

Aluminum beer cans, plastic spoons,

plywood veneer, PVC pipe, vinyl seat covers,
don’t exactly burn, don’t quite rot,
flood over us,

robes and garbs

of the Kali-yiga
end of days.!!
In April 1994, about fifty American Buddhists commemorated
Buddha’s birthday at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. The outdoor
ceremony, created collaboratively the previous evening, included
offerings at an altar, recitation of s#tras, and circumambulation. One
by one, participants expressed their concerns and their aspirations.
A woman spoke tenderly of her stepfather, who as a young soldier
had been forced to witness aboveground atomic tests. A college
student stoutly declared, “I dedicate my life to working for the Earth
and all beings.” Others placed handwritten messages on the altar,
silently pinning scraps of paper under rocks. The possibility of
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism 273

nonviolent civil disobedience was an integral part of the event

because the walking meditation led right up to a boundary guarded
by men in uniform. Some of the walkers deliberately stepped over
the line and were arrested. The ceremony concluded with the
following invocation:

All merit and virtue that may have arisen through our efforts here,
we now respectfully turn over and dedicate to the healing of this
beautiful sacred land and to all beings who have been injured or
harmed by the weapons testing on this place, so that the children
of this world may live in peace free from these profane weapons,
and thus may have their chance to realize the Buddha’s Way.!2

Mindfulness in a Nuclear Age

If one were to select the term most often used to characterize

Buddhist practice in the West today, it would be mindfulness. This
is the case not only in Buddhist circles but also in the popular press.
A recent article in USA Today, cleverly entitled “Buddhism: Religion
of the Moment,” called mindfulness “the heart of Buddhist medi-
tation. . . . the ability to live completely in the present, deeply aware
and appreciative of life.”!3 Such definitions are unobjectionable.
However, in a nuclear or environmental context a practitioner may
be prompted to ask: What is the scope of my mindfulness?
If mindfulness is misinterpreted, it may actually move in a
direction away from environmental awareness. Misapplied, mind-
fulness can be used to shut out unwanted thoughts, feelings, or
perceptions. A practitioner who focuses too narrowly on “living
completely in the present, deeply aware” may unwittingly disregard
the larger impact of his actions or others’ actions. What would we
say, for example, of an atom-bomb designer at Los Alamos who
attentively follows his breath as he drives to work, or an official of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who is “mindful” in her daily
life but tolerates safety lapses at nuclear power plants?
At times mindfulness involves complexities and challenges that
cannot be reduced just to living in the present. Socially and
environmentally concerned Buddhists recognize that they must
attend to breadth as well as breath, and that their breath connects
them to their breadth.'* Authentic practice aims continuously to
274 Buddhism and Ecology

broaden and deepen the scope of mindfulness. In this spirit, Thich

Nhat Hanh attempts to connect mindfulness with nuclear waste:

The most difficult kind of garbage is nuclear waste. It doesn’t need

four hundred years to become a flower. It needs 250,000 years.
Because we may soon make this Earth into an impossible place for
our children to live, it is very important to become mindful in our
daily lives.
Nuclear waste is a bell of mindfulness. Every time a nuclear
bomb is made, nuclear waste is produced. There are vast amounts
of this material, and it is growing every day. Many federal agencies
and other governments are having great difficulty disposing of it.
The storage and clean-up expense has become a great debt we are
leaving to our children. More urgently, we are not informed about
the extent of the problem—where the waste sites are and how
dangerous it can be.!>

Thich Nhat Hanh does not explain at greater length how mindfulness
in daily life might apply to nuclear-waste problems. In this case,
being mindful could entail research on local sources of energy and
possible alternatives, efforts to alter one’s own life-style and the life-
styles of others, broader political activism, and so on. The society-
wide vigilance required to keep radioactive materials out of the
biosphere now and in the future can also be seen as a kind of
collective mindfulness. !®

Karma Isn’t What It Used To Be

The far-flung effects of modern technology, in space and time, go

beyond any previous human experience. In many cases we really
have no idea what the consequences of our actions will be. Tech-
nology dilutes, amplifies, or camouflages the effects of action in
such complicated ways that ethical evaluation of action becomes
commensurately complex. One way to assess nuclear waste from a
Buddhist perspective would be to analyze certain issues in karmic
terms. For example, what are the karmic implications of creating
long-lived radioactive materials that put perhaps thousands of
generations of descendants at risk? From a scholarly standpoint or
a religious one, traditional understandings of karma do not readily
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism 275

accommodate problems of this nature. Are we talking about the

karmic import for us, for our descendants, for the environment, or
for all of those? At the very least, previous thinking about karma
needs to be extended or adapted.
In Buddhism’s long history, understandings of karma have varied
considerably. A classic definition of karma equated it with intention
(Sanskrit, cetana); this emphasis on intention was an important
Buddhist departure from the mechanistic Hindu and Jain notions of
karma prevalent at the time. Although some Buddhists seem to have
believed that as long as their intentions were sound they were
karmically in the clear, others have acknowledged that intention is
complicated and at times problematic. A person may not really know
what his or her intentions are in a given situation. Most behavior
reflects multiple intentions. The intended effects of action and the
actual effects of action often differ. The very best intentions can be
thwarted or can cause harm. And sometimes people do the right
thing even when doing so goes against their deepest intentions. So
intention cannot be the whole story.
Among contemporary Buddhists in the West, karma principally
signifies the moral implications of action, with the sense that
Causation mysteriously operates in the realm of ethics as well as
the realm of physics. A basic tenet of engaged Buddhism is that—
whatever one’s intentions—it is not possible to follow a spiritual
path in a social or political or environmental vacuum. While
practicing mindfulness in daily life, even while meditating in a
meditation hall, one’s actions and nonactions continue to have wider
repercussions. Sometimes, to our dismay, we realize that we are
reinforcing large systems based on privilege and ecological blind-
ness.!’ There is no such thing as a karma-free zone.
It was not uncommon in Asia to use beliefs about karma to evade
responsibility (“It’s their karma to be poor—why should I try to help
them?”). However, according to other interpretations, karma enjoins
a radical degree of responsibility: even though we cannot possibly
know all the causes and conditions that have led us to be who we
are, we have to take responsibility for our past and our present
anyway. Karma can be seen positively as a recognition of the
interrelatedness of all beings and phenomena. The work of
bodhisattvas and aspiring bodhisattvas takes place in this realm of
relatedness.
276 Buddhism and Ecology

In all Buddhist cultures the primary arena of karmically sig-

nificant action has been the individual: one’s present situation is
supposed to be the fruit of one’s past actions, and one’s future will
be similarly conditioned by one’s current actions. Although
Buddhism holds that the laws of moral causation operate over vast
spans of time, in practice the significant effects of karma were
usually thought to extend over a few lifetimes at most. The operation
of karma was considered to be orderly and relatively compre-
hensible—otherwise, the karmic worldview would lose its per-
suasiveness. So bad things can happen to good people, and vice
versa, without necessarily destroying one’s faith in some kind of
cosmic system of justice.
Current nuclear and environmental problems challenge these
assumptions in several ways. Where Buddhism has focused on
individual karma, now we also need better ethical analysis of
collective behavior. How might notions of group karma be rendered
in modern terms? Our understanding of institutional discrimination
offers a parallel: even if individuals do not have the intention to
discriminate, the institution as a whole may function prejudicially.
In that sense, entire systems can have intentions. In the face of
systemic problems, engaged Buddhists seek ways to act effectively
in groups. Karma theory must also be able to account for the relation
between individual and collective responsibility. One analogy
compares the simultaneous presence of these two kinds of karma
to a doubly exposed photograph. Another analogy is a newspaper
photograph: a field of dots (individual dimension) reveals recog-
nizable patterns (collective dimension) from a proper distance.
Where Buddhism has focused on the immediate future, now we
also need ways to account for the effects of our actions over time
spans of geologic proportions. (Plutonium remains toxic for 250,000
years, or about 100,000 generations.) And where Buddhism has
focused on seemingly comprehensible laws of moral cause-and-
effect, now we also need to confront the increased opacity of moral
consequences in a nuclear, technological age.
For karma doctrine to demonstrate relevance in contemporary
contexts, it will have to survive some difficult leaps: from Asian
cultures to Western cultures, from premodern eras to modern and
postmodern eras, from religious milieus to secular and pluralistic
milieus, from low-tech societies to high-tech societies. Admittedly,
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism 277

that is a tall order. If new understandings of karma are in the offing,

will they involve changes in the application of long-standing
principles, or changes in basic principles themselves? If the latter,
it would not be the first time that cardinal tenets of karma doctrine
have shifted. The early Buddhist focus on intention, an innovation
at the time, has been noted. Another epochal revision, crucial to the
development of Mahayana Buddhism, was the notion that good
karma could be transferred to others, a striking abrogation of the
ancient Indian belief that karmic retribution was inescapable.

Eco-karma

To rethink karma it will probably be necessary to develop some new

concepts and terms. For example, the ethical implications of high-
tech actions may differ from the ethical implications of low-tech
or no-tech actions. Buddhist exegesis of high-tech ethics may call
for a new category like techno-karma. By the same token, to
illuminate the ethical dimensions of actions that affect the envi-
ronment, a concept such as eco-karma may prove useful.!® Today,
we have a growing appreciation of the ways in which our past
behavior has affected the biosphere, and of the ways in which our
present behavior will shape the environment of the future. If, for
example, we pondered global warming in light of eco-karma, we
might be better able to address the ethical dimensions of the
problem. Einstein may have (inadvertantly) enunciated a first law of
eco-karma when he said, “Humanity will get the fate it deserves.”!9
AS new terms are auditioned and defined, one of the tests will
be their compatibility with prior Buddhist tradition. Initially, an
expansion of karma in an ecological direction does not seem to
conform very closely to Buddhism’s past. Although Buddhists
valued nature highly at different points in various cultures, one
hesitates to call premodern Buddhism ecological in the present-day
sense of that word. Cardinal virtues such as nonviolence and
compassion were applied to individual animals but not to species
or ecosystems. At the same time, other features of Buddhism could
be cited to justify the invention of eco-karma. Animals, for instance,
have been regarded as subject to the laws of karma. In comparison
with Western religious and intellectual history, that belief alone is
278 Buddhism and Ecology

a significant step away from anthropocentrism (human-centered

thinking).
A concept such as eco-karma may facilitate reexamination of the
assumed boundaries between humans, animals, and plants. The
nature of plants has been debated within Buddhism for centuries.
Are plants sentient? Do they suffer? Can they attain buddhahood?
Buddhist scholar Lambert Schmithausen has noted:

The question arises why the Buddhists, unlike Jainas and most
Hindus, have not also included plants into the karmically-deter-
mined rebirth system. Provided that we do not already presuppose
the later view that plants are not sentient beings but rather the earlier
one that they are sentient and hence exposed to suffering through
being cut, mutilated, or the like, there is no reason why one should
not—as the Jainas and many Hindus actually do—regard them, too,
as owing their state to former karma, and hence as another possible
form of rebirth.2°

New concepts allow new questions: What is the eco-karma of a

plant? What is the eco-karma of an animal, or a species, or an
ecosystem? Is it helpful to think about the eco-karma of Earth as a
whole? What is my eco-karma? yours? ours?
When one attempts to bring some of these considerations to bear
on the specific problem of nuclear waste, the complexities intensify.
Assigning agency, for instance, is no easy matter. To say that “we”
are creating nuclear waste is accurate enough from a far-future
perspective—most of us take full advantage of the opportunity to
live a developed-world life-style, thereby exporting some of the true
costs of privilege to distant places or distant generations. We take
it for granted that we have abundant electricity twenty-four hours a
day. Yet “we” can also be used too loosely. Before one makes
blanket assertions about the karma of flicking a light switch, specific
Situations must sometimes be taken into account. Analysis of a
particular region may reveal, for example, that the energy sources
there are nearly or fully sustainable (wind power, solar power, and
so on). It may also be necessary, on ethical grounds, to draw a
distinction between an executive in the nuclear-power industry
and, say, a homemaker who uses electricity drawn partially from
nuclear sources.
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism 279

Even if we recognize that nuclear waste puts untold future

generations at risk, ethical scrutiny of that legacy depends on a host
of factors, including the scientific and social nature of the risks
themselves. As ethicist Kristen Shrader-Frechette notes, the magni-
tude of a risk is only one of the pertinent variables:

Numerous other factors, in addition to mere magnitude, determine

the acceptability of a risk: whether it is assumed voluntarily or
imposed involuntarily; whether the effects are immediate or delayed;
whether there are or are not alternatives to accepting the risk;
whether the degree of risk is known or uncertain; whether exposure
to it is essential to one’s well-being or merely a luxury; whether it
is encountered occupationally or nonoccupationally; whether it is
an ordinary hazard or (like cancer) a “dread” one; whether it affects
everyone or only sensitive people; whether the factor causing the
risk will be used as intended or is likely to be misused; and whether
the risk and its effects are reversible or irreversible.2!

In some cases we know that we are contributing to a problem, but

we are dependent on systems that offer no viable alternatives. For
a Los Angeles commuter, being able to drive to work is a necessity,
even though she may understand that hundreds of excess deaths and
thousands of excess illnesses are caused annually in Los Angeles
from the effects of too many cars. There is even a further compli-
cation here, one that is characteristic of technological societies: any
single driver does not make the smog perceptibly worse or increase
the number of its victims. In such situations assessing moral or
karmic accountability is difficult.
In applying a concept like karma to contemporary Western life,
at what point is its (re)definition constrained by Buddhist doctrine
and tradition? The degree to which karma can be decoupled from
literal interpretations of rebirth will be crucial in this regard.
Contemporary Buddhists will also have to determine the limits of
what to consider karmically. Do organ donation and organ reception
have meaningful karmic implications? Do investment strategies?
They may. However, over-karmacization—weighing the karmic
repercussions of sharpening a pencil—is likely to give rise to
conceptual absurdities and functional paralysis.
Precisely when we need to take more responsibility for bigger
and bigger things, our sense of responsibility is being eroded by
280 Buddhism and Ecology

powerful social forces. Public figures who try to broach the subject
of accountability in moral terms, using available Western principles
and language, are often accused of being too, well, moralistic. The
Buddhist tradition offers another way and another language. If
today’s engaged Buddhists manage to refine and enrich karma
doctrine to suit current conditions, karma won’t be what it used to
be, but it may serve constructive purposes in unforeseen arenas.

Challenges of Buddhist-Environmentalist Practice

Although Buddhist environmentalism is a recent development,

several practical challenges can already be identified. Some of these
are common to any environmental issue; others pertain especially
to nuclear waste. Let’s imagine a Generic American Buddhist
Environmentalist and call him Gabe for short. Assume that Gabe
has a deep-seated aspiration to come to enlightenment and an
equally deep-seated aspiration to protect Earth. Such a person is
likely to encounter a number of stumbling blocks on the Buddhist-
environmentalist path, among them the following: discontinuities
between traditional Buddhist teachings and contemporary realities;
the need to clarify the priority of Dharma work or environmental
work; difficulties that attend the creation of public-interest groups;
and doubts about the efficacy of symbolic actions in response to
ecological threats.
We have seen above that karma doctrine is one domain that
reveals potential gaps between past teachings and present circum-
stances. For someone interested in nuclear-waste issues, the topic
of waste offers another example of apparent discontinuity. In Zen,
monks and other serious practitioners are not supposed to waste any-
thing or treat anything as waste. The instructive stories are graphic:
a novice is scolded for discarding a single chopstick; a monk runs
alongside a mountain stream to retrieve a single piece of lettuce;
Zen master Dogen uses only half a dipper of water to wash his face.
“No waste” usually has two linked meanings in these contexts: “do
not waste” and “do not perceive anything as waste.” A contemporary
Zen master declared, “Roshi’s words that originally there is no
rubbish either in men or in things actually comprise the basic truth
of Buddhism.”22
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism 281

These doctrines and practices are exemplary, and they seem

applicable in a broad sense to nuclear waste. If we related to Earth
and all living beings with the respect and oneness exhibited by a
Dodgen, we would probably not produce any nuclear waste in the
first place. Or, if constructive purposes (for example, medical uses)
unavoidably generated a limited amount of radioactive waste, our
descendants would cheer if we were able to safeguard that waste
with the intensity of the monk who chased the lettuce leaf
downstream.
Yet these same examples also raise some questions. No pre-
modern forms of waste were toxic in the ways that nuclear waste
is. How might Zen teachings apply to toxic waste? Dealing with
the waste produced by a monastery is one thing; dealing with the
tens of thousands of tons of atomic waste generated by nuclear
reactors and weapon plants is a problem on a different scale. While
a monk may be able to retrieve a stray lettuce leaf before the rice
is cooked, plutonium cannot be handled safely until 250,000 years
have elapsed. We also notice a discrepancy between the focus on
individual action in the Zen examples and the highly complex
collective action required for the production and prospective
containment of nuclear waste. Attempting to reconcile such gaps,
engaged Buddhists seek new approaches that are transformative not
only for the toxic waste but also for those who deal with it.
There are only twenty-four hours in a day, and at times an
ecologically aware Buddhist must choose (however reluctantly)
between one activity and another. If an apparent conflict arises
between Dharma work and environmental work, what are the
priorities of a Buddhist environmentalist? Imagine that Gabe, on a
given day, has mindfully fulfilled family, job, and civic duties and
then realizes that he has some free time. “Ah,” he thinks to himself,
“should I use this hour for some uninterrupted meditation, or should
I use it to write my Congressman to oppose the makeshift plans for
a nuclear dump in our state?” You may alter the hypothetical
conditions and substitute any inner-directed practice for meditation,
but there will always be situations in which there is a choice between
one course and another. Thich Nhat Hanh and Thai Buddhist activist
Sulak Sivaraksa once contemplated a much weightier choice
between peace and the survival of Buddhism. This is Sivaraksa’s
recollection of their conversation:
282 Buddhism and Ecology

Before the end of the Vietnam War, I asked Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh
whether he would rather have peace under the communist regime,
which would mean the end of Buddhism, or rather the victory of
the democratic Vietnam with the possibility of Buddhist revival, and
his answer was to have peace at any price.”

Pressed to clarify his priorities, Thich Nhat Hanh placed peace over
the survival of Buddhism. Would he answer similarly if asked to
choose between, say, the survival of a globally significant ecosystem
and Buddhism’s survival?
If a practitioner 1s meditating peacefully in her room, and
suddenly outside the window she hears the screech of brakes, a loud
thump, and a frantic scream, the proper course of action is obvious.
At that moment, running to the scene is Buddhism. But when
problems are more protracted and complex—as most environmental
problems are—it is less clear when a situation calls for one to
remain on the mat and when to leave it. Joanna Macy, questioned
about the apparent discrepancy between Dharma practice and
nuclear-related activism, emphatically replied, “This nuclear work
is the Dharma. One of the aims of practice is to be able to transform
our own actions. For those who are involved in this work, the
‘poison fire’ is a Dharma teacher.”4
Some further distinctions are advisable here. If one were to
conceive of Dharma practice narrowly (nothing but meditation,
chanting, and prostrations) and then argue that by perfecting those
activities one is thereby working on behalf of the planet, we would
probably object that such a conflation is oversimplified. Similarly,
if one were to argue that engagement in environmental work is also
by its very nature Dharma work, we would have to say: “Wait a
moment. That might depend on some other factors, like the degree
of a person’s spiritual maturity, or the mindstate with which one
approaches the environmental task.’ The most common practical
pitfall for Gabe and his colleagues is that the dharmic dimension
of activism can evaporate all too quickly. There may not be a
satisfactory answer to the question of priority in its rigid either/or
form. The answer has to be lived, until one reaches a point where
most activity expresses Buddhist awareness and environmental
awareness, simultaneously.
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism 283

With regard to environmental problems in general and nuclear

issues in particular, Buddhists have experienced difficulty translating
the values and practices of Buddhism into meaningful public action,
concrete policies, and enduring organizations. Of course, Buddhist
environmentalists are not alone in this regard. Charlene Spretnak,
an ecofeminist and a practitioner of vipassana meditation, asks:

How can we induce people and institutions to think in terms of the

long-range future, and not just in terms of their short-range selfish
interest? How can we encourage people to develop their own visions
of the future and move more effectively toward them? How can we
judge whether new technologies are socially useful—and use those
judgments to shape our society?”

If Gabe wants to work publicly to motivate leaders and citizens to

do the right thing about nuclear waste, one of his first impulses may
be to credit Buddhism as a source of inspiration—after all, he is a
Buddhist environmentalist. But on second thought, he may decide
that if he wants to reach mainstream America, a Buddhist label
might be counterproductive, tending to confuse or alienate potential
supporters. Ironically, it may be most skillful in today’s public arena
to take the “Buddhism” out of Buddhist environmentalism.
The Buddha’s birthday ceremony at the Nevada Test Site, noted
above, exemplifies another challenge of Buddhist-environmentalist
practice. In the face of real environmental threats—in this case the
hazards posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear waste—what is the
significance of symbolic/ritual activities? And if rituals are among
the appropriate responses, what relevance do traditional ritual forms
have in contemporary contexts? Several of the participants in the
Test Site ceremony wondered aloud if their vows, prostrations, and
other gestures have any real impact on the terrible dangers they seek
to address. For some, the discrepancies of scale seemed unsur-
mountable. For others, rituals addressing nuclear concerns would
have a better claim to relevance in a society that handled nuclear
matters responsibly. A third group recognized the severity of our
nuclear plight yet reaffirmed the efficacy of ceremonial acts, even
if such behavior appears futile to skeptics.
As Buddhists and others struggle to come to terms with nuclear
waste, they find that their fears and hopes call out for vehicles of
284 Buddhism and Ecology

expression that go beyond what can be fashioned individually. The

leader of a citizen watchdog group in Amarillo, Texas, where
plutonium cores from former atom bombs are literally being stacked
in bunkers, recently told me of two strong emotions that she
experiences in tandem: joy that the stacked cores signify the end
of the Cold War and near despair at the prospect of safeguarding
all the plutonium that is accumulating in her community. We had
just left the office of a high-ranking Energy Department official, and
my friend was crying quietly as she spoke. Many of today’s
de facto nuclear guardians would be receptive to new rites of
remembrance, innovative rituals of forgiveness, and ceremonies that
connect present generations to future generations. Scholars of
contemporary environmentalism have suggested that radical environ-
mentalists are engaged in “a kind of ritualized guerrilla warfare over
sacred space in America,” a contest that pits the desire for conse-
cration against the danger of desecration.*© In that sense, the
Buddhist activists at the Nevada Test Site may have been taking the
initial steps in the creation of spiritually evocative nuclear rituals.

Ecology Koans

Members of the Zen group in Oregon expressed their sense of

accountability for nuclear waste by modifying the four bodhisattva
vows of Mahayana Buddhism, as cited above. A more literal
rendering of the first bodhisattva vow is: “All beings, without
number, I vow to liberate.” What does a vow to save all beings mean
in a nuclear age? In what ways does it include those who have
already been harmed by nuclear-weapon production and nuclear-
power production, from Japanese atom-bomb casualties to Navaho
uranium miners and Chernobyl! children? In what ways does it
include the countless future beings, human and nonhuman, who will
suffer the prolonged effects of current military and energy policies?
In eighth-century India the Buddhist monk and poet Santideva
proclaimed:
For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.2’
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism 285

When the current Dalai Lama alludes to Santideva’s stanza he says,

‘No matter how extensive space, or how extensive time, I will save
all beings.”28 This pledge was challenging enough—to comprehend
and to actualize—in a premodern age. Today, with an appreciation
shaped by science of the immensity of space and time, we also have
a newfound awareness of the extensiveness of beings and the
extensiveness of the threats to those beings. Thus, to affirm the
bodhisattva vow with nuclear realities in mind is to declare a
willingness to accept responsiblity for the fate of all the beings who
will be exposed in the next 250,000 years and beyond to the wastes
we have created in just the past fifty years. Contemporary Zen
teacher John Daido Loori, referring to the planetary ecological
crisis, maintains that one must begin to “take responsibility for the
whole catastrophe.” He writes:

And because someone in South America is doing it, that does not
mean we are not responsible. We are as responsible as if we are
the ones clubbing an infant seal or burning a hectare of tropical
forest.??

Such radical assertions of responsibility have well-established

antecedents in Buddhism. A ninth-century Ch’an (Zen) text, The
Platform Siitra of the Sixth Patriarch, taught: “When others are in
the wrong, I am partly responsible. When I am in the wrong, I alone
am to blame.”
Our rational minds tell us that saving all beings, or taking
responsibility “for the whole catastrophe,” is a preposterously
grandiose notion. Yet those who undertake to fulfill such an
aspiration assert that the very incomprehensibility of the task pushes
the mind to deeper and deeper levels, until it becomes possible to
transcend constraints of time and space, saving or not saving.
Anyone familiar with Zen kdans will recognize that bodhisattva
vows and comparable declarations have a koan-like quality. A koan,
strictly speaking, is a distinctive type of Zen practice:

A koan is a spiritual puzzle that cannot be solved by the intellect

alone. Though conundrums and paradoxes are found in the secular
and sacred literature of many cultures, only in Zen have such
formulations developed into an intensive method of religious
training. What gives most koans their bite, their intellect-baiting
hook, is some detail that defies conventional logic.?!
286 Buddhism and Ecology

For example: What is your original face before your parents’ birth?
A koan differs from a riddle in that the person attempting to solve
it becomes something in the process. In a similar way, a bodhisattva
vow consumes the devotee to the point where she realizes that she
is part of the vow.
The ecological crisis itself has koan-like aspects. Nuclear waste
is a good example: we have difficulty grasping the problem
conceptually, and we flounder when it comes to practical action.
There are no certifiably safe ways to contain radioactive materials,
yet we do not even have the sense to stop producing them. So
nuclear waste appears to be a problem without a solution. Several
other questions raised in this essay can also be treated as koans to
some degree. The aim is not to be inventive but to see if any of the
time-tested tools of Buddhist practice can be of service in dealing
with these new and pressing issues. There may be beneficial ways
to engage the following questions as ecology koans (or eco-koans,
if we can stand another neologism):
What is waste?
What is the scope of my mindfulness?

What is my/our responsibility for our environmental legacy? for our

nuclear legacy?

What is a spiritually motivated environmentalist’s first priority, spiritual

work or environmental work?
When do we know that we have done all that can be done?

These questions may lack an “intellect-baiting hook” in the style

of classic Zen koans, yet they can nonetheless be probed in the
sustained, penetrating way that one probes a koan. The questioning
itself is often more valuable than any “answers” that are produced.
We may achieve a dependable understanding of these and other
ecology koans only after we live with them, allow them to question
us, and restrain our impulse to accept merely conceptual solutions.
Some of the classic koans and related texts also invite fresh
interpretations in light of contemporary conditions. The ninth-
century Ch’an master Nan-ch’uan was once asked, “When one
realizes that there is, where should one go from there?” Nan-ch’uan
replied, “One should go down the hill to become a buffalo in the
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism 287

village below.”>? If asked today, maybe Nan-ch’uan would say, “One

should go to Nevada to become a nuclear guardian at Yucca
Mountain.” Here is another example:

The priest Hsiang-yen said, “It is as though you were up ina tree,
hanging from a branch with your teeth. Your hands and feet can’t
touch any branch. Someone appears beneath the tree and asks,
“What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?’ If
you do not answer, you evade your responsibility. If you do answer,
you lose your life. What do you do?”

The question “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from

the West?” has the thrust of “What is the essential truth of Zen?”
So the hapless protagonist must somehow demonstrate his Zen
insight without opening his mouth and falling to his death.
Humanity’s current predicament in relation to Earth resembles
the predicament of the person hanging from the branch: beyond a
certain point, action and nonaction are equally ineffective. Culture
historian Thomas Berry seems to be elucidating a planetary version
of Hsiang-yen’s koan when he writes:

By entering in to the control of the planet through our sciences and

our technologies in these past two centuries, we have assumed
responsibilities beyond anything that we are capable of carrying out
with any assured success. But now that we have inserted ourselves
so extensively into the functioning of the ecosystems of the Earth,
we cannot simply withdraw and leave the planet and all its life
systems to themselves in coping with the poisoning and the other
devastation that we have wrought.>4

If, in the spirit of a bodhisattva vow, we truly embrace the larger

responsibilities that we customarily push out of awareness, our lives
will change dramatically. Indeed, we will lose our (former) lives.
A man hanging from a tree by his teeth, humans inserted irrevocably
into Earth’s ecosystems. . . “If you do not answer, you evade your
responsibility. If you do answer, you lose your life.” What do you do?
288 Buddhism and Ecology

Notes

* T am grateful to SOgen Hori, Stephanie Kaza, and Alan Senauke for their
thoughtful comments on a draft of this essay.
1. [have not found any previous uses of “nuclear ecology” in Western-language
sources, but I have learned of an institute in Moscow called (in translation) the
Center for Nuclear Ecology and Energy Policy.
2. Any expression has its drawbacks. Nuclear ecology sounds too benign if it
iS misinterpreted as casting dangerous nuclear realities only in a positive light.
Admittedly, nuclear ecology would stretch the meaning(s) of ecology (i.e., nuclear
materials are not recyclable the way other materials are). For practical purposes,
limits must be defined; I would suggest, for example, that nuclear-disarmament
and nonproliferation issues fall outside the scope of nuclear ecology.
3. Douglas MacLean, “Understanding the Nuclear Power Controversy,” in
H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., and Arthur L. Caplan, eds., Scientific Controversies
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 578-79.
4. Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977), 2.
5. Gary Snyder, Turtle Island (New York: New Directions, 1974), 94.
6. Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Last Tree,” in Allan Hunt Badiner, ed., Dharma
Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology (Berkeley: Parallax Press,
1990), 220.
7. The Dalai Lama, “Five-Point Peace Plan for Tibet,” in Petra K. Kelly, Gert
Bastian, and Pat Aiello, eds., The Anguish of Tibet (Berkeley: Parallax Press,
1991), 288, 292. For connections between nuclear waste and Tibet’s threatened
Buddhist culture, see International Campaign for Tibet, Nuclear Tibet: Nuclear
Weapons and Nuclear Waste on the Tibetan Plateau (Washington, D.C.: Inter-
national Campaign for Tibet, 1993).
8. Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1991),
220-37 and passim. See also Kenneth Kraft, “The Greening of Buddhist Practice,”
in Roger S. Gottlieb, ed., This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment (New
York: Routledge, 1996), 492-94.
9. “Buddhist Vows for Guardianship,” in Nuclear Guardianship Project,
Nuclear Guardianship Forum | (spring 1992):2.
10. Office of Environmental Management, U.S. Department of Energy, Closing
the Circle on the Splitting of the Atom: The Environmental Legacy of Nuclear
Weapons Production in the United States and What the Department of Energy Is
Doing about It (Washington, D.C.: Department of Energy, 1995).
11. Snyder, Turtle Island, 67.
12. Tenshin Reb Anderson, “Dedication for Buddha’s Birthday at the Gate of
the Nevada Nuclear Test Site,” 10 April 1994.
 Nuclear Ecology and Engaged Buddhism 289

13. “Buddhism: Religion of the Moment,” USA Weekend, 15-17 September

1995.
14. For engaged Buddhists, some of the traditional injunctions of breath-
focused meditation practice still have meaning with the added “d,” as in “follow
your breadth,” or “become one with your breadth.”
15. Nhat Hanh, “The Last Tree,” 220.
16. A study of the “revenge effects” of technology calls for a kind of vigilance
that bears resemblance to Buddhist mindfulness; see Edward Tenner, Why Things
Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 277.
17. On average, one American consumes as much of the world’s limited
resources as fifty citizens of India. Even if a conscientious American Buddhist
cuts the average rate of consumption in half, there is still a significant disparity.
18. Here and elsewhere I am guilty of what Ian Harris has called “termi-
nological revisionism.” Yet Harris also suggests that redefinitions are “part of a
seamless reflexive process inherent to the Buddhist tradition itself” (Ian Harris,
“Buddhist Environmental Ethics and Detraditionalization: The Case of
EcoBuddhism,” Religion 25, no. 3 [July 1995]:201-2).
19. Quoted in Peter Weiss, “And Now, Abolition,” Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists 52, no. 5 (September/October 1996):43.
20. Lambert Schmithausen, The Problem of the Sentience of Plants in Earliest
Buddhism (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1991), 101.
21. K. S. Shrader-Frechette, “Ethics and Energy,” in Tom Regan, ed.,
Earthbound: New Introductory Essays in Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1984), 121.
22. Morinaga SOkO, “My Struggle to Become a Zen Monk,” in Kenneth Kraft,
ed., Zen: Tradition and Transition (New York: Grove Press, 1988), 17.
23. Sulak Sivaraksa, “Buddhism in a World of Change: Politics Must Be
Related to Religion,” in Fred Eppsteiner, ed., The Path of Compassion: Writings
on Socially Engaged Buddhism, rev. ed. (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1988), 16.
24. Personal conversation with Joanna Macy, 19 August 1992.
25. Charlene Spretnak, “Ten Key Values of the American Green Movement,”
in Roger S. Gottlieb, ed., This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment (New
York: Routledge, 1996), 536.
26. David Chidester and Edward T. Linenthal, eds., American Sacred Space
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 21.
27. Stephen Batchelor, trans., A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life
(Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1979), 193.
28. Martin Wassell, producer, Heart of Tibet: An Intimate Portrait of the Dalai
Lama (New York: Mystic Fire Video, 1991).
29. John Daido Loori, “The Precepts and the Environment,” included in this
volume (179) and also published in Mountain Record, spring 1996, 13.
290 Buddhism and Ecology

30. My translation, following the Tun-huang version of the text. See Philip
B. Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (New York: Columbia
University Press), 1967, 161, and p. 18 of the Chinese appendix.
31. Kenneth Kraft, Eloquent Zen: Daitd and Early Japanese Zen (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1992), 58.
32. John C. H. Wu, The Golden Age of Zen (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 96
(slightly edited).
33. Robert Aitken, trans., The Gateless Barrier (San Francisco: North Point
Press, 1990), 38.
34. Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story: From the Pri-
mordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco,
1992), 252.
 Buddhist Resources
for Issues of Population, Consumption,
and the Environment

Rita M. Gross

This chapter applying basic Buddhist teachings to questions

regarding fertility control and resource utilization is written by a
feminist academic scholar of religion, for whom Buddhism is the
long-standing religion of choice. Therefore, I bring to this chapter
the perspectives of both an insider trained in Buddhist thought and
an outsider with allegiance to the cross-cultural comparative study
of religion and broad knowledge of major religious traditions.
As is the case with all major traditions, conclusions relevant to
the current situation cannot be quoted from the classic texts; rather,
the values inherent in the tradition need to be applied to the current,
unprecedented crises of overpopulation and excessive consumption
that threaten to overwhelm the biosphere upon which we are
dependent. This task of applying the traditional values of Buddhism
to such issues in the contemporary context is not difficult, in my
view, since classic Buddhist values suggest highly relevant ways of
responding to the current situation. In this essay, I will work to some
extent as a Buddhist “constructive theologian,” interpreting the
tradition in ways that bring the inherited tradition into conversation
with contemporary issues and needs. Reflecting my own standpoint
both as a Buddhist and as a scholar, I will include materials not only
from early Buddhist thought, but also from the Mahayana and
Vajrayana perspectives within Buddhism. At the same time, I shall
try to be as nonsectarian as possible.
292 Buddhism and Ecology

Defining the Issues: Environment, Consumption, and

Population

When we try to bring traditional Buddhist values into conversation

with the current situation, it is important to have a clear under-
standing of that situation. The assignment of this chapter is to
address the interlocked issues of the environment, resource utiliza-
tion, and population growth, from a Buddhist point of view. Since
Buddhism always suggests that we need to deal with things as they
are, not with fantasies, it is appropriate to begin with some brief
consideration of how the ecosystem, consumption, and population
actually interact. When relating these three concerns to one another,
one can imagine three alternatives: a sufficiently small population
living well on a stabile, self-renewing resource base; an excessive
population living in degraded conditions on an insufficient resource
base; or the present pyramid of a few people living well and large
numbers of people barely surviving. Obviously, only the first option
contains merit. How people could value reproduction so much that
they could prefer the second option to the first is incomprehensible,
and the current pyramid of privilege is morally obscene. It should
also be clear that population is the only negotiable element in this
complex. In other words, when we look at the three factors under
discussion—the environment, population, and consumption—there
are two non-negotiables and one negotiable. Fundamentally, it is not
negotiable that the human species must live within the boundaries
and limits of the biosphere. However it is done, there is no other
choice, because there is no life apart from the biosphere. Morally,
it is not negotiable that there be an equitable (equitable, not equal)
distribution of resources among the world’s people. These two non-
negotiables mean that population size is the negotiable factor in the
equation. It is hard to question the proposition that a human
population small enough so that everyone can enjoy a decent
standard of living without ruining the environment is necessary and
desirable. We cannot increase the size of the earth and can increase
its productivity only to a limited extent, but we, as a species, can
control population. All that it requires is the realization that many
Other pursuits are at least equally as sacred and as satisfying as
reproduction.
 Population, Consumption, and the Environment 293

Religions commonly criticize excessive consumption but com-

monly encourage excessive reproduction. Therefore, though I will
note the Buddhist values that encourage moderate consumption, I
will emphasize the Buddhist values that encourage moderation and
responsibility regarding reproduction, which are considerable. I
emphasize these elements in Buddhism precisely because there has
been so little discussion of religious arguments that favor restraining
human fertility. The example of a major, long-standing world
religion whose adherents lead satisfying lives without an over-
whelming emphasis on individual procreation certainly is worth
investigating. Buddhism can in no way be construed or interpreted
as pronatalist in its basic values and orientations. The two religious
ideas that are commonly invoked by most religions to justify
pronatalist practices are not part of basic Buddhism. Buddhism does
not require its members to reproduce as a religious duty. Nor do
most forms of Buddhism regard sexuality negatively, as an evil to
be avoided unless linked with reproduction, though all forms of
Buddhism include an implicit standard of sexual ethics. Therefore,
fertility control through contraception as well as abstinence is
completely acceptable. The practices regarding fertility and repro-
duction that would flow from fundamental Buddhist values favor
reproduction as a mature and deliberate choice rather than as an
accident or a duty. Because of the unique ways in which Buddhism
values human life, only children who can be well cared for,
physically, emotionally, and spiritually, should be conceived. Few
Buddhists would disagree with the guideline that one should have
few children, so that all of them can be well cared for without
exhausting the emotional, material, and spiritual resources of their
parents, their community, and their planet.
By contrast, pronatalism as an ideology seems to be rampant on
the planet; those who mildly suggest that unlimited reproduction is
not an individual right and could well be destructive are derided.
Suggest that there is a causal relationship between excessive
reproduction and poverty and watch the fallout. Pronatalist ideology
includes at least three major ideas, all of which are subject to
question. Pronatalists always regard a birth as a positive occasion,
under any circumstances, even the most extreme. To suggest that
reproduction under many circumstances 1s irresponsible, and merits
censure rather than support, makes one unpopular with pronatalists.
294 Buddhism and Ecology

Furthermore, pronatalists claim that it is necessary to reproduce to

be an adequate human being; those who choose to remain childless
are scorned and suffer many social and economic liabilities. Finally,
pronatalists regard reproduction as a private right not subject to
public policy, even though they usually insist that the results of their
reproduction are a public, even a global, responsibility. The tragedy
of pronatalism is that although excessive populations could be cut
quite quickly by voluntary means, lacking those, they probably will
be cut by involuntary means involving great suffering—diseases,
violence, and starvation. Therefore, it is critical to counter the
mindless and rampant pronatalist religious doctrines, socialization,
peer pressure, tax policies, sentiments, and values, which senselessly
assault one at every turn.
Before beginning to discuss Buddhist teachings as a resource for
developing an ethic of moderation concerning both reproduction and
consumption, it is important to pause to acknowledge two con-
troversial issues. They cannot be debated in this context, even
though my conclusions regarding them will be apparent in my
discussion of Buddhist ethics, the environment, consumption, and
reproduction.
Because the Buddhist concept of all-pervasive interdependence
makes sense, I see no way that individual rights can extend to the
point that an individual exercising his or her supposed rights may
be allowed to threaten the supportive matrix of life—a point that
has been reached in both consumption and reproduction. Whatever
wealth or values a person may have that drive them to inappropriate
levels of consumption or reproduction, it is hard to argue that they
have individual rights to exercise those levels of consumption or
reproduction without regard to their impact on the biosphere. The
rhetoric of individual rights and freedoms certainly has cogency
against an overly communal and authoritarian social system. But
today, that rhetoric and stance threaten to overwhelm the need for
restraint and moderation to protect and preserve communities and
species.
Furthermore, especially in the need to counter pronatalist
ideologies and policies, we have reached a point beyond relativism.
In the human community, we have learned too late and too slowly
the virtues of relativism whenever it is feasible. We have been too
eager to condemn others for having a worldview different from our
 Population, Consumption, and the Environment 295

own. Relativism regarding worldview is virtuous because diversity

of worldviews is a valuable resource. On the other hand, relativism
regarding basic ethical standards leads to intolerable results. Are we
really willing to say of a culture in which women are treated like
property or children are exploited that “that’s just their culture”?
There would be no possibility of an international human rights
movement if people really believed that ethical standards are
completely relative and arbitrary. And both consumption and
reproduction are ethical issues of the highest order, since their
conduct gravely affects everyone’s life. We can no longer afford to
let individuals who believe that they should reproduce many children
do so, just as we no longer condone slavery, the exploitation of
children, or treating women as chattel. Certain long-standing and
deeply held cultural and religious values are at stake in the claim
that pronatalism is an intolerable and inappropriate ethical stance,
given current conditions. Some religions need to adjust their
recommendations regarding fertility to the realities brought about
by modern medicine, which has greatly reduced the death rate but
not the birth rate, resulting in a dangerous growth in populations,
all of whom want to consume at higher standards than have ever
been known previously.

Walking the Middle Path in an Interdependent World:

Basic Buddhist Resources for Moderation

One of the most basic teachings of Buddhism concerns inter-

dependence (pratitya-samutpdda in Sanskrit and paticca-samuppdda
in Pali), which is said to be one of the discoveries made by the
Buddha during his enlightenment experience. This teaching prepares
the ground for all further comments on consumption and repro-
duction, since interdependence is the bottom line which cannot be
defied. Rather than as isolated and independent entities, Buddhism
sees all beings as interconnected with one another in a great web
of interdependence. All-pervasive interdependence is part of the
Buddhist understanding of the law of cause and effect, which
governs all events in our world. Nothing happens apart from or
contrary to cause and effect according to Buddhism, which does not
allow for accidents or divine intervention into the operations of
cause and effect. Furthermore, since Buddhism understands cause
296 Buddhism and Ecology

and effect as interdependence, actions unleashed by one being have

effects and repercussions throughout the entire cosmos. Therefore,
decisions regarding fertility or consumption are not merely private
decisions irrelevant to the larger world. Any baby born anywhere
on the planet affects the entire interdependent world, as does any
consumption of resources. It cannot be argued that either private
wealth or low standards of material consumption negate this baby’s
impact on the universal web of interdependence. Nor can it be
argued that private desires for children outweigh the need to take
into account the impact of such children on the interdependent
cosmos, since the laws of cause and effect are not suspended in any
case. Similarly, utilization of resources anywhere has repercussions
throughout the entire planetary system. Often, consumption of
luxuries in one part of the world is directly related to poverty and
suffering in other parts of the world. Thus, the vision of universal
and all-pervasive interdependence, which is so basic to Buddhism,
requires moderation in all activities, especially reproduction and
consumption, because of their impact on the rest of the universe.
When the Buddhist understanding of interdependence is linked with
the scientific understanding of the planet as a finite lifeboat, it
becomes clear that Buddhism regards appropriate, humane, and fair
fertility control as a requirement. It is equally clear that Buddhism
would regard ecologically unsound practices regarding reproduction
or consumption as selfish, privately motivated disregard for the
finite, interdependent cosmos.
The vision of cosmic interdependence presents the big picture
regarding reproduction and consumption. This vision becomes more
detailed when we look more specifically at the human realm within
the interdependent cosmos. On the one hand, Buddhism values
tremendously the good fortune of human rebirth, and on the other
hand, Buddhism sees all sentient beings as fundamentally similar
in their basic urge to avoid pain and to experience well-being. Thus,
birth as a human is both highly valued and seen as birth into that
vast universal web of interdependence in which what relates beings
to each other is much more fundamental than what divides them into
species. So two phrases, “precious human body,” and “mother
sentient beings,” need always to be kept together when discussing
Buddhist views about the human place in the interdependent cosmos.
The preciousness of human birth is in no way due to human rights
 Population, Consumption, and the Environment 297

over other forms of life, for a human being was and could again be
other forms of life—though Buddhist practice is also thought to
promote continued rebirth in the human realm. On the other hand,
all beings are linked in the vast universal web of interdependence
and emptiness, from which nothing is exempt. This web is so
intimately a web of relationship and shared experience that the
traditional exuberant metaphor declares that all beings have at some
time been our mothers and we theirs. Therefore, rather than feeling
superior or feeling that we humans have rights over other forms of
life, it is said over and over that, because we know how much we do
not want to be harmed or to suffer, and since all beings are our rela-
tives, we should not harm them or cause them pain, as much as possible.
As is commonly known, traditional Buddhism does believe in
rebirth and claims that rebirth is not necessarily always as a human
being but depends upon merit and knowledge from previous lives.
Among possible rebirths the human rebirth is considered by far the
most fortunate and favorable, favored even over rebirth in the more
pleasurable divine realms. That belief alone might seem to encour-
age unlimited reproduction. But when one understands why human
birth is so highly regarded, it becomes clear that excessive human
reproduction destroys the very conditions that make human rebirth
so valued. Rebirth as a human being is valued because human
beings, more than any other sentient beings, have the capacity for
the spiritual development that eventually brings the fulfillment and
perfection of enlightenment. Though all beings have the inherent
innate potential for such realization, its achievement is fostered by
certain causes and conditions and impeded by others. Therefore, the
delight in human rebirth is due to the human capacity for cultural
and spiritual creativity leading to enlightenment, a capacity more
readily realized if sufficient resources are available. Mere birth in
a human body is not the cause for rejoicing over “precious human
birth,” since human birth is a necessary, but not a sufficient,
condition for the potential inherent in humanness to come to
fruition. It is very helpful, even necessary, for that body to be in
the proper environment, to have the proper nurturing, physically,
emotionally, and spiritually. This is the fundamental reason why a
situation of a few people well taken care of is preferable to many
people struggling to survive.
The conditions that make human life desirable and worthwhile
298 Buddhism and Ecology

are summed up in one of the core Buddhist values—that of the

Middle Way or the Middle Path. This Middle Path is also discussed
as right effort, not too much, not too little, not too tight, not too
loose. To make the most appropriate use of the opportunity repre-
sented by the “precious human birth,” a person needs to walk the
Middle Way, and to be able to walk the Middle Way. To avoid
extremes in all matters is one of the core values of Buddhism,
learned by the Buddha before his enlightenment experience and a
necessary precondition to it. First he learned that a life of luxury is
meaningless, but then he had to learn that a life of poverty also leads
nowhere. The Buddha concluded that, in order to become fully
human, one needs to live in moderation, avoiding the extremes of
too much indulgence and too much poverty or self-denial.
The guideline of the Middle Way emphasizes that too much
wealth or ease can be counterproductive spiritually, since it tends
to promote complacency, satisfaction, and grasping for further
wealth—all attitudes that are not helpful spiritually. Thus, the
concept of the Middle Way provides a cogent criticism and cor-
rective for the rampant consumerism and overconsumption that are
so linked with overpopulation. However, the concept of the Middle
Way also makes the fundamental point that there are minimum
material and psychological standards necessary for meaningful
human life. Buddhism has never idealized poverty and suffering, or
regarded them as spiritual advantages. Those in dire poverty or grave
danger and distress do not have the time or inclination to be able
to nurture themselves into enlightenment, into actually benefiting
fully from their human rebirth, which is quite unfortunate. Buddhism
celebrates moderation, but it does not celebrate poverty, because it
sees poverty as unlikely to motivate people to achieve enlighten-
ment—or even to allow them enough breathing time to do so.
Therefore, Buddhists have long recognized that before Buddhist
teachings can be effective, there must first be a foundation of
material well-being and psychological security. Buddhism has
always recognized that one cannot practice meditation or contem-
plation on an empty stomach, or create an uplifted and enlightening
environment in the midst of degradation, deprivation, or fear.
Buddhists have known for a long time that deep spiritual or
contemplative practice—which is seen as leading to the greatest joy
and fulfillment possible to humans—is usually taken up after rather
 Population, Consumption, and the Environment 299

than before achieving a certain basic level of Middle Way comfort.

Before that, people really do think that once they have enough
material things, they will not suffer. One has to reach a certain basic
level of satisfaction of basic desires before one begins to realize that
desire and its attendant sufferings are much more subtle. At a point
after basic needs have been met, when people begin to experience
that desire and suffering are not so easily quelled, the basic message
of Buddhism begins to make sense.
This point dovetails quite nicely with the point made by many
who advocate that curbing excessive population growth is much
more possible if people have an adequate standard of living. It is
by now a well-known generalization that one of the most effective
ways to cut population growth is to improve peoples’ economic
lives, that people who have some material wealth can see the
cogency of limiting their fertility, whereas people who are already
in deeply degraded circumstances do not. Buddhist thought con-
sistently advocates investigating cause and effect, since the entire
interdependent world is governed by cause and effect. Over-
population does not just happen; it is the result of causes, one of
which seems to be too much poverty, not being able to walk the
Middle Way between too much luxury and too much poverty.
However, it is equally clear that too much reproduction would
overwhelm all attempts to curb poverty, because a finite earth has
limited resources. Thus, we return to the need to recognize the
interdependence of excessive consumption, overpopulation, and
poverty. If one of these key elements is left out, as is done by
religious and cultural systems that have no guidelines limiting
human reproduction, then an interdependent cosmos will be severely
stressed. Again, it is important to point out that all religions and
most cultures do have ethical guidelines limiting consumption. They
are often not kept, but the guidelines do exist. Few religions,
however, advocate limiting human fertility. Most encourage or
require their members to reproduce, without providing any guidance
about limits and without any recognition that there could be too
many people. Therefore, examples of religious systems that can be
invoked to provide religious reasons to limit fertility are critically
important.
The vision of interdependence combined with the advice to walk
the Middle Way in all pursuits certainly provides such guidance.
300 Buddhism and Ecology

Taken together, these concepts of interdependence, of the value of

human birth into appropriate circumstances, and of the Middle Way
provide some sensible and obvious guidelines regarding fertility
control and consumption. Regarding consumption, it is critical to
see that the call for the Middle Path points in two directions. Clearly,
excessive consumption violates the Middle Path. But so does too
much denial. The advice to walk the Middle Path is not advice to
pull in our belts another notch and make room for more people
because reproductive rights are inviolable. It is advice to limit both
fertility and consumption, which are interdependent, so as to make
possible a life-style conducive to enlightenment for all beings.
Certainly, too much fertility for the earth to sustain its offspring,
and for communities to provide adequate physical and emotional
nurturing, would be a contradiction of the Middle Way. It is crucial
that human population not grow beyond the capacity of a family, a
community, or the earth to provide a life within the Middle Way to
all its members.
Simply providing sheer survival is not enough, and arguments
that the earth could support many more people are not cogent
because quality of life is far more significant than mere quantity of
bodies. In addition to minimally adequate nutrition, sufficient space
to avoid the overcrowding that leads to aggression and violence is
important. Availability of the technological, cultural, and spiritual
treasures that make life truly human is also basic. Therefore,
globally, communally, and individually, it is important to limit
fertility, so that all children actually born can have adequate material
and psychological care. Not to do so would be wanton disregard
for the spiritual well-being of those born into a human body. Neither
the poverty nor the emotional exhaustion that results from trying to
raise too many children is helpful to anyone—least of all to the
children resulting from unlimited or excessive fertility. In Buddhist
terms, this basic fact far outweighs private wishes for “as many
children as I want” or pronatalist societal and religious norms
and pressures.
These guidelines strike me as impeccable advice on how to
negotiate problems of population pressure and resource utilization,
though, clearly, reasonable and kind people could agree on the
guideline and disagree on its implementation. Obviously, that
Middle Way does not mean the mindless consumption of the first
 Population, Consumption, and the Environment 301

world, but neither does it mean the mindless pronatalism of much

of the rest of the world, including large segments of the first world.
And it does, in my view, include some technological basics that
really enhance the quality of life—flower gardens, pets, computers,
good stereo systems, international travel, electricity, refrigeration,
cultural diversity, and humanistic education—things that cannot be
provided to unlimited populations without extreme environmental
degradation. Since many things in life are more sacred and more
satisfying than reproduction, it would seem ludicrous to give up such
cultural treasures in order to have large populations that lack those
treasures.

Transmitting the “Enlightened Gene”:

The Mahayana Bodhisattva Path and
Motivations to Reproduce

Many religions, including major Asian traditions with which

Buddhism has coexisted, command perpetuation of one’s family
lineage as a religious obligation. For a Buddhist to have any children
at all is not a religious requirement. In the Buddhist vision, one does
not need to reproduce biologically to fulfill the acme of one’s
responsibilities to the interdependent web of mother sentient beings,
or to realize the most exalted possibilities of human life. In fact,
though the arguments, in their traditional form, elevate celibacy over
the householder life-style, rather than childlessness over biological
reproduction, a great deal of Buddhist tradition suggests that
biological reproduction may interfere with helping the world or
realizing one’s highest potential. Since Buddhists are like other
human beings, it is important and interesting to explore what
inspires them to embrace religious ideas that do not require
reproduction and also to investigate Buddhist discussions of
appropriate reproduction.
The command to perpetuate family lineage is quite strong in
some traditions and fuels pronatalist behaviors. Usually this
command coexists with a complex of ideas and practices, including
the judgment that one is unfilial and seriously remiss in one’s
religious obligations if one does not have a male heir, that everyone
must marry and reproduce, and that women have few or no options
302 Buddhism and Ecology

or vocations beyond maternity. Traditions that insist that one must

reproduce biologically to fulfill one’s obligations rarely, if ever, also
include the corollary command not to reproduce excessively, which
could bring the preferred behaviors back from an extreme into some
variant of the Middle Way. In fact, often such traditions discourage
any attempts to limit fertility and people who want to do so are made
to feel unworthy if they limit reproduction, even if they already have
produced an heir to the family lineage. Buddhism, which sees such
absolute concern with perpetuating the family lineage as merely an
extension of ego, of the self-centeredness that causes all suffering,
has never enjoined its adherents to do so. And Buddhism has come
in for major criticisms from Asian neighbors for not requiring
biological reproduction of its members.
The Asian criticism of Buddhists for being selfish in not requiring
reproduction strikes Buddhist sensibilities as very odd. The Buddhist
reply would be twofold. First, to contribute that which is most
valuable to the interdependent web of mother sentient beings is in
no way dependent on biological reproduction. Furthermore, bio-
logical reproduction is often driven by very self-centered and selfish
motivations. Let us examine both of these ideas closely, because I
think they are both important resources in countering the self-
righteous moralism of much pronatalist thinking.
These conclusions regarding reproduction are not negative limits
demanded of unwilling subjects. Rather, from the Buddhist point
of view, they are rooted in deep knowledge of what people ulti-
mately want, of what satisfies our deepest longings. Buddhists
would say that the simultaneous pursuit of wisdom and compassion,
to the point of enlightenment and even beyond, is what satisfies our
deepest longings because it speaks to our fundamental human
nature. Buddhists, contrary to much popular thinking, both Asian
and Western, do not live their preferred life-style of moderation,
meditation, and contemplation out of a self-centered motivation
seeking to avoid pain. Buddhists do not reject family lineage as an
ultimate value to seek individual fulfillment instead. Buddhists claim
that we can never find fulfillment through reproducing or, equally
important, through economic production and consumption, no matter
how popular these pursuits may be or how rigorously religious or
social traditions may demand them. Instead, we need to realize our
spiritual potential. Finding life’s purpose in either consumption or
 Population, Consumption, and the Environment 303

reproduction simply strengthens what Buddhists call “ego,” the

deeply rooted human tendency to be self-centered in ways that
ultimately cause all our suffering.
Rather, Buddhists see perpetuating family lineage as trivial
compared with cultivating and perpetuating our universal human
heritage and birthright—the tranquility and joy of enlightenment.
Rather than seek self-perpetuation through biological reproduction,
Buddhists are encouraged to arouse bodhicitta, the basic warmth and
compassion inherent to all beings. Then, to use a traditional
Buddhist metaphor, having recognized that we are pregnant with
Buddha-nature (tathagata-garbha), we vow to develop on the
bodhisattva’s path of compassion pursuing universal liberation.
Rather than regarding this choice as a personal loss, it is regarded
as joyfully finding one’s identity and purpose in a maze of purpose-
less wandering and self-perpetuation. “Today my life has become
worthwhile,” reads the liturgy for taking the bodhisattva vow, the
vow that is so central to Mahayana Buddhism. Upon taking this vow,
one is congratulated for having entered the family and lineage of
enlightenment.
Given that bodhicitta is regarded as the basic inheritance and
potential of all sentient beings, including all humans, rousing and
nurturing bodhicitta in oneself and encouraging its development in
sentient beings is fostering family lineage in its most profound
sense, beyond the narrow boundaries of genetic family, tribe, nation,
or even species. The way in which such values actually foster
perpetuation of our most valuable traits is pointed out by an
idiosyncratic modern translation of the term bodhicitta. Usually
translated “awakened heart-mind,” my teacher sometimes translated
bodhicitta as “enlightened gene,” a translation that emphasizes
bodhicitta both as one’s inherited most basic trait and as one’s
heritage to the mother sentient beings. Who could worry about
transmitting family genes when one can awaken, foster, and transmit
the gene of enlightenment?
By contrast, the motivations to biological reproduction are often
quite narrow and unenlightened. Many religious traditions have
criticized material consumption as spiritually counterproductive.
Few traditions have seen that biological reproduction can be equally
self-centered and ultimately unsatisfactory, or that excessive
reproduction stems from the same psychological and spiritual
304 Buddhism and Ecology

poverty as does excessive consumption. Buddhism, however, can

easily demonstrate that biological reproduction is often driven by
self-centered motivations, particularly by a desire for self-perpetu-
ation or for the expansion of one’s group. And self-centered desire
always results in suffering, according to the most basic teachings
of Buddhism. To expose the negative underbelly of emotionality and
greed motivating much reproduction, to name it accurately, and to
stop perpetuating false idealizations of the drive to biological
reproduction is more than overdue. Such idealization is part of the
pronatalist stance that drives many people, for whom parenthood
is not a viable vocation, into reproduction. Regarding all repro-
duction as beneficial was always illusory, even in times of stable
and ecologically viable population density; to continue to encourage
or require everyone to reproduce their family lineage under current
conditions is irresponsible.
Driven by a desire for self-perpetuation, parents often try to
produce carbon copies of themselves, rather than children who are
allowed to find their own unique lifeways in the world. The suffering
caused by such motivation to reproduction is frequently unnoticed
and perpetuates itself from generation to generation. As someone
reared by parents who wanted a child who would replace them and
reproduce their values and life-style, which I have not done, I am
quite well acquainted with the emotional violence done to children
who are conceived out of their parents’ attachment, to fulfill their
parents’ agendas. Buddhist literature is filled with such stories.
Frequently, personal neediness is the emotion fueling the desire to
reproduce. Certainly, the mental state of some people who want to
reproduce is far from the calmness and tranquility recommended by
Buddhism. I am deeply suspicious of people who need and long to
reproduce biologically, of their psychological balance, and of the
purity of their motives. In my experience, most of my yuppie friends
think population control is a vital issue—for some other segment
of the population—but that their drive to reproduce as much as they
want to is unassailable. The level of hostility and defensiveness that
wells up upon the suggestion that maybe they are motivated by
desire for self-perpetuation, rather than by bodhisattva practice,
convinces me that, indeed, my suspicions are correct. My suspicions
are deepened even further when such people endure extreme expense
and go to extreme measures to conceive their biological child,
 Population, Consumption, and the Environment 305

instead of adopting one of the many needy children already present

in the world. Finally, many people simply are overwhelmed by
religious, family, or tribal pressures to reproduce and do not even
make a personal decision regarding reproduction. Instead, they are
driven by collective ego, which is not essentially different from
individual ego. Like all forms of ego, collective ego also results in
suffering.
Implicit in this call to recognize the negative underbelly of
motivations to reproduction is the call to value and validate
alternative nonreproductive life-styles, including gay and lesbian
life-styles. One of the most powerful psychological weapons of
pronatalism is intolerance of diversity in life-style and denigration
of those who are unconventional. People who are childless should
be valued as people who can contribute immensely to the per-
petuation of the lineage of enlightenment, rather than ostracized and
criticized. AS a woman who always realized that, in order to
contribute my talents to the mother sentient beings, I would probably
need to remain childless, I am certainly familiar with the prejudice
against women who are childless by choice. It begins with badgering
from parents or in-laws about how much they want their family
lineages perpetuated and how cheated they feel. It continues with
continual feedback that one is self-indulgent to pursue one’s
vocation and will come to regret that supposed self-centeredness
eventually. Then there is the loneliness, the outcasting, that results
from friends who are too busy with their nuclear families to be
proper friends. And, finally, most especially, there are the self-
centered, self-indulgent middle-aged men whose goal in relation-
Ships, approved by many, is to have second families with young
women. Patriarchal pronatalism is deeply prone to such prejudices.
Needless to say, of course, reproduction can be an appropriate
agenda in Buddhist practice and much contemporary Buddhist
feminist thought is exploring the parameters of reproduction as a
Buddhist issue and practice. In my view, for reproduction to be a
valid Buddhist choice and alternative life-style, it must be motivated
by Buddhist principles of egolessness, detachment, compassion, and
bodhisattva practice, not by social and religious demands, con-
ventional norms and habits, compulsive desires, biological clocks,
or an ego-based desire to perpetuate oneself. I also believe that such
detached and compassionate motivations for parenthood are fully
306 Buddhism and Ecology

possible, though not anywhere nearly as common as is parenthood.

In my own work as a Buddhist feminist theologian, I have also
consistently stressed the need to limit both biological reproduction
and economic production, as well as to share those burdens and
responsibilities equitably between men and women so that meaning-
ful lay Buddhist practice can occur.
The life-style that promotes the attainment of detachment, the
Middle Way, wisdom, compassion, and the development of
bodhicitta is encouraged and valued by Buddhists. Therefore, in
many Buddhist countries, celibate monasticism is preferred over
reproductive life-styles. Though the Buddhist record is far from
perfect, in many, but not all, Buddhist societies this option is also
available to women, who are no more regarded as fulfilled through
childbearing than men are regarded as fulfilled through impreg-
nating. In much of the contemporary Buddhist world, lifelong
monasticism is less popular and less viable, but the movement
toward serious lay Buddhist meditation practice is growing dramati-
cally, not only among Western Buddhists but also in Asia, not only
among laymen but also among laywomen. Serious Buddhist medita-
tion practice is difficult and time-consuming. When laypeople
become engaged in such practices, they must limit both their
economic and their reproductive activities appropriately. Thus, both
excessive consumption and overpopulation, the twin destructive
agents rampant in the world, can be curbed at the same time by
coming to value the human potential for enlightened wisdom and
compassion and striving to realize them.
Enlightened wisdom sees the interdependence of all beings and
forgoes the fiction of private choices that do not impinge on the rest
of the matrix of life. Enlightened compassion cherishes all beings,
not merely one’s family, tribe, nation, or species, as worthy of one’s
care and concern. The great mass of suffering in the world would
be dramatically decreased if the detached pursuit of the Middle Way
more commonly guided the choices people make regarding both
consumption and reproduction. According to the Buddhist vision of
bodhicitta as inalienable enlightened gene, both inheritance from
and heritage to the mother sentient beings, that which makes life
fulfilling is developing compassion and being useful—not self-
perpetuation, whether through individual egotism or biological
perpetuation of family, tribe, or nation. In case it is not completely
 Population, Consumption, and the Environment 307

clear, this compassion is not regarded as something one has a duty

to develop but, rather, as one’s inheritance, the discovery of which
makes life worthwhile and joyful. Pronatalism as religious require-
ment or obligation can have nothing to do with this membership in
the lineage of enlightenment. Freed of pronatalist prejudice and
valued for their contributions to the lineage of enlightenment, not
their biological reproduction, human beings who have sufficient
talent and detachment to become parents could do so freely, out of
motivation more pure than compulsion, duty, or self-perpetuation—
and those who make other, equally important contributions to the
mother sentient beings would also be celebrated and valued equally.

Sexuality and Communication: A Few Comments on

Vajrayana Buddhism

A commandment to perpetuate the family lineage, combined with

criticism of people who limit or forgo biological reproduction, is
only one of the major religious sources of pronatalism. The other
is at least equally insidious. Antisexual religious rhetoric is quite
common in religion, including some layers of Buddhism. Frequently,
sexual activity is claimed to be somehow problematic, evil, or
detrimental to one’s spirituality. Such guilt, fear, or mistrust
surrounding sexual activity and sexual experience, grounded in
religious rhetoric or rules, leads to several equations or symbolic
linkages, all of which foster the agenda of pronatalism, among other
negative effects. Regarding sexual experience as forbidden fruit in
no way fosters mindful and responsible sexuality.
The first of the major equations that grows out of religious fear
of sexuality is the identity between sexuality and reproduction that
is SO strong in some religious traditions. Some religions espouse the
view that the major, if not the only valid, purpose of sexuality is
reproduction. Sexual activity not open to reproduction is said to
produce negative moral and spiritual consequences for people who
engage in them. Therefore, the potential link between sexual activity
and reproduction cannot and should not be questioned or blocked.
Nonreproductive sexual activities, such as masturbation, homoerotic
activity, or heterosexual practices that could not result in pregnancy,
are discouraged or condemned. The effect of such views, however,
308 Buddhism and Ecology

often aids the pronatalist agenda. Encouraging people to feel

negatively about their sexuality does not seem to curb sexual activity
significantly. But because people have been trained to link sexual
activity with reproduction, or because they have even been forbidden
to take steps to disassociate them, their sexual activity results in a
high rate of fertility, which, combined with the current lower death
rates, contributes greatly to excessive population growth.
Breaking the moral equation between sexual activity and repro-
duction is a most crucial task, for as long as nonreproductive
sexuality is discouraged or condemned, high birth rates are likely
to continue. That equation is easily broken by re-asking the
fundamental question of the function of sexuality in human society.
It seems quite clear, when we compare human patterns of sexual
behavior with those of most other animal species, that the primary
purpose of sexuality in human society is communication and
bonding. Unlike most other species, sexual activity between humans
can, and frequently does, occur when pregnancy could not result
because a woman, though sexually active, is not fertile. These
nonreproductive sexual experiences are actually crucial to bonding
and communication between human couples and thus to human
society. In addition, sexuality, properly understood and experienced,
is one of the most powerful methods of human communication.
Reproduction is, in fact, far less crucial and far less frequently the
outcome of sexual activity. Thus, it is quite inappropriate to rule
that sexual contact must be potentially open to pregnancy if sexual
activity is not to involve moral and spiritual defilement. Instead,
mindful sexuality, involving the use of birth control unless appro-
priate and responsible pregnancy is intended, should be the sexual
morality encouraged by all religions.
The view that sexuality should by inextricably linked with
reproduction is closely tied with several other equations that are
equally pronatalist in their implications. When sex cannot be
dissociated from fertility, and when females have no other valid and
valued identity or cultural role than motherhood, most women will
become mothers. Therefore, a symbolic and literal identity between
femaleness and motherhood is taken for granted. Not many years
ago, everyone assumed that a female deity would inevitably be a
‘““Mother-goddess.” I remember well that such platitudes were
commonplace when I began my graduate study in the history of
 Population, Consumption, and the Environment 309

religions. However, the assumption that even all divine females

would be mothers proves to be incredibly naive and culture-bound.
When mythology and symbolism of the divine feminine is investi-
gated free of prevailing cultural stereotypes about the purpose of
females, it is discovered that divine females are many things in
addition to, sometimes instead of, mothers. They are consorts,
protectors, teachers, bringers of culture, patrons of the arts, sponsors
of wealth. .. . Nor in mythology is their involvement in other
cultural activities dependent on their being nonsexual. In mythology,
one meets many divine females who are quite active sexually but
who are not mothers or whose fertility is not stressed. Clearly, such
religious symbolism and mythology of sexually active, but nonrepro-
ductive, females would not promote pronatalism. Therefore, a final
caution is necessary. Great care must be taken in symbolic recon-
structions of motherhood in contemporary feminist theology lest the
symbols again reinforce the stereotype that to be a woman is to be
a mother, literally.
The third equation links nurturing with motherhood, an exceed-
ingly popular stereotype in both traditional religion and popular
culture and psychology. The negative and limiting effects of this
equation are various, not the least of which is the way in which this
equation plays into the pronatalist agenda. If nurturing is so
narrowly defined, then those who want to nurture will see no other
option than to become parents. The equation between nurturing and
motherhood also fosters the prejudice against nonreproducers
already discussed, since it is easy to claim that they are selfish and
non-nurturing. However, the most serious implication of this
equation is its implicit limitation on the understanding of nurturing.
If nurturing is associated so closely with motherhood, then other
forms of caretaking are not recognized as nurturing and are not
greatly encouraged, especially in men. The assumption that nur-
turing is the specialization, even the monopoly, of mothers, and
therefore confined to women, is one of the most dangerous legacies
of patriarchal stereotyping. Because of the strength of this stereo-
type, it is often assumed that feminist women, who will not submit
to patriarchal stereotypes, would not be nurturing. But obviously,
the feminist critique is not a critique of nurturing; it is a critique of
the ways in which men are excused from nurturing and women are
restricted to, and then punished for, nurturing within the prison of
310 Buddhism and Ecology

patriarchal gender roles. Feminism is not about restricting nurturing

even further or discouraging it, but about recognizing the diversity
of its forms and expecting it of all members of society. Since
nurturing is valuable and essential to human survival, it 1s critical
that our ideas about what it means to nurture extend beyond the
image of physical motherhood to activities such as teaching, healing,
caring for the earth, engaging in social action. . . . It is equally
important that all humans, including all men, be defined as nurturers
and taught nurturing skills, rather than confining this activity to
physical mothers.
Because some of the grounds for fear, mistrust, and guilt
surrounding sexuality are in religion, a religious, rather than merely
secular or psychological alternative, view of sexuality would be
significant to this discussion of religious ethics, population,
consumption, and the environment. A religious evaluation of
sexuality as sacred symbol and experience, helpful rather than
detrimental to spiritual development, would certainly inject relevant
considerations into this forum. Vajrayana Buddhism—the last form
of Indian Buddhism to develop, which is today significant in Tibet
and becoming more significant in the West—includes just such a
resource. Needless to say, it is crucial that such discussions of
Vajrayana Buddhism be disassociated from the titillating accounts
of “tantric sex” that actually stem from fear and guilt about
sexuality.
Symbolism and practice of sacred sexuality, such as that found
in Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, is radically unfamiliar to many
religious traditions, including those most familiar to Western
audiences. In Vajrayana Buddhism, the familiar paired virtues,
wisdom and compassion, are personified as female and male. Not
only are they personified; they are painted and sculpted in sexual
embrace, usually called the “yab-yum” icon. This icon is then used
as the basis for contemplative and meditative practices, including
visualizing oneself as the pair joined in embrace. After many years
of working with this icon personally, I am quite intensely captivated
by the liberating power and joy of this symbol. Rather than being a
private and somewhat embarrassing, perhaps guiltridden indulgence,
sexuality is openly portrayed as a symbol of the most profound
religious truths and as contemplative exercise for developing one’s
innate enlightenment.
 Population, Consumption, and the Environment 311

One of the most profound implications of the yab-yum icon and

its centrality is the fact that the primary human relationship used
to symbolize reality is that of equal consorts, of male and female
as joyous, fully cooperative partners. This contrasts sharply with the
tendency to limit religious symbolism to parent-child relationships,
whether of Father and Son or of Madonna and Child, that are so
common in other traditions. It also contrasts strongly with the
abhorrence of divine sexuality that has been such a problem in those
same traditions. One cannot help but speculate that this open
celebration of sexuality as a sacred and profoundly communicative
and transformative experience between divine partners would
significantly defuse pronatalism based on a belief that sex without
the possiblity of procreation 1s wrong.
In the realm of human relations rather than religious symbols—
insofar as the two can be separated—this symbolism has led, in
Vajrayana Buddhism, to the possibility of spiritual and dharmic
consortship between women and men. (The question of whether
nonheterosexual relationships were also possible is more difficult
to answer.) Such relationships are not conventional domestic
arrangements or romantic projections and longings, but are about
collegiality and mutual support on the path of spiritual discipline.
Sexuality seems to be an element within, but not the basis of, such
relationships. Though relatively esoteric, such relationships were,
and still are, recognized and valued in late North Indian Vajrayana
Buddhism, as well as in Tibetan Buddhism. Western Buddhists are
just beginning to discover or recover this resource, this possibility
of consortship as collegial relationship between fellow seekers of
the way and as mode of understanding and communicating with the
profound “otherness” of the phenomenal world. To value, valorize,
and celebrate such relationships would profoundly undercut pro-
natalist biases regarding the place of sexuality in human life, as well
as contribute greatly to the creation of sane, caring, egalitarian
models of relationship between women and men.
 Buddhism, Global Ethics,
and the Earth Charter

Steven C. Rockefeller

As the peoples and nations of the world prepare to enter the twenty-
first century during a time of dramatic social change and increasing
global interdependence, considerable attention is being given to the
task of developing a new global ethics. An effort is now underway
to create an Earth Charter that will give concise expression to those
core ethical principles and practical guidelines necessary to ensure
that Earth remains a secure home for humanity and the larger
community of life. Those supporting this initiative hope that the
Earth Charter will eventually be adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly and that it will do for the protection and
restoration of the environment and the cause of sustainable living
what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has done for the
promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is the
purpose of this essay to ask what distinctive contributions the
Buddhist tradition might make to the development of the Earth
Charter.
The need for ethical values that are shared worldwide and for
what the Dalai Lama has called a sense of universal responsibility
is fundamental and urgent.! Economic and technological forces are
creating a new global community, and the process of globalization
cannot be stopped. In addition, the industrial and technological
revolutions sweeping the planet are causing severe worldwide
problems that can only be resolved with global solutions and
cooperation involving all sectors of society. Much can be done to
address these problems through the development of new tech-
nologies, regulatory systems, and market mechanisms, but a change
314 Buddhism and Ecology

in attitudes and values on the part of individuals is also essential.

It is the task of global ethics to chart the value changes needed and
to guide the forces shaping the emerging global community in
creative directions that promote planetary well-being.
If a new world ethics is to capture the minds and hearts of people
throughout the world, it must have roots in their diverse traditions
and emerge out of these many traditions. The new ethics will require
transformations in the way people think and act, but it should not
feel externally imposed. It should be constructed as the necessary
extension or further development of basic values and principles that
people respect and honor. In this regard, the contribution and
leadership of the world’s religions is of great importance.
Religions can help to further the growth of humanity’s ethical
consciousness in an age of global interdependence by applying the
wisdom contained in their different traditions to the major problems
of the time and by entering into interfaith dialogue in an endeavor
to identify common concerns and values. As Hans Kiing has put it:
No survival without a world ethic.
No world peace without religious peace.
No religious peace without religious dialogue.”

In their relations with each other, the world’s religions are called
to model the kind of community that the diverse peoples of the
world should be striving to realize. This means working out an
agreement on the ethics of living together in a multicultural world
that is interconnected ecologically, economically, and socially. The
Earth Charter Project provides a unique opportunity for interfaith
dialogue and for collaboration between religions and secular society
on the ethical visions that inspire people’s noblest undertakings.
International support for an Earth Charter has been slowly but
steadily building since 1987, when the United Nations World
Commission on Environment and Development called for the
creation of a new charter that would “prescribe new norms for state
and interstate behavior needed to maintain livelihood and life on
our shared planet.”? During the Rio Earth Summit, the 1992 United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED),
significant efforts were made to develop an Earth Charter, but the
time was not right. The Rio Declaration articulates a number of
fundamental principles, but it did not meet the criteria that were set
 Buddhism, Global Ethics, and the Earth Charter 315

for the Earth Charter. In 1994 Maurice Strong, the former Secretary
General of UNCED and the Chairman of the Earth Council, and
Mikhail Gorbachev, in his capacity as Chairman of Green Cross
International, together launched a new Earth Charter initiative. An
international Earth Charter workshop was held at the Peace Palace
in The Hague in the spring of 1995. The following year, a worldwide
Earth Charter consultation process was organized as part of the
Rio+5 independent review directed by the Earth Council in
coordination with the UN Rio+5 review that will culminate with a
special session of the UN General Assembly in June 1997. An
international Earth Charter Commission will oversee the drafting
of the Earth Charter in 1997.
The Earth Charter will be prepared as a relatively brief “soft law”
instrument written in clear, inspiring language.* It will build on
earlier international declarations, charters, and treaties, including
some that have been drafted by a variety of nongovernmental
organizations. Over the past twenty-five years, beginning with the
Stockholm Declaration generated by the UN Conference on the
Human Environment in 1972, substantial progress has been made
in developing international law regarding the environment and
sustainable development. A very significant international consensus
is emerging around forty or fifty principles relevant to the Earth
Charter.> These principles reflect a rational and pragmatic approach
to the world’s problems. They have been heavily influenced by the
findings of the new science of ecology and by certain fundamental
ethical concerns regarding human rights, social justice, economic
equity, future generations, respect for nature, and environmental
protection. The creation of an Earth Charter will involve further
refining and developing the principles that form the emerging
international consensus. This can be achieved through a global
dialogue that draws on the insights of science, the practical
experience of men and women who are living sustainably, and the
extensive world literature on the ethics of environment and develop-
ment as well as the wisdom of the world’s religions.
The remainder of this essay focuses specifically on how the
Buddhist tradition might respond and contribute to the development
of an Earth Charter. How can Buddhists help to create a document
that speaks to people in all cultures and all walks of life and that
provides a foundation of shared ethical wisdom for healing the
316 Buddhism and Ecology

planet and creating peace, justice, democratic participation, sustain-

able development, and ecological well-being? What principles from
a Buddhist perspective constitute the core of the emerging world
ethic? How should these principles be formulated? What language
should be used? Responses to these questions may, of course,
involve a variety of answers reflecting different Buddhist perspec-
tives. In addition, each different religion may want to formulate its
own version of global ethics using its own distinctive language and
worldview. However, the urgent question with regard to the Earth
Charter concerns how far humanity can go in formulating its global
ethics using a common language. Some further observations and
questions regarding global ethics and Buddhism may help to
stimulate some productive reflection on these issues.
First, at the recent centenary of the Parliament of the World’s
Religions held in Chicago in 1993, an interfaith committee headed
by Hans Kiing drafted a statement on global ethics that was adopted
by the whole parliament. This statement identified the Golden Rule
as the most fundamental moral principle shared by the world’s
religions.°In other words, the Golden Rule may be taken as the
simplest formulation of the general meaning of the moral imperative
to do good and to avoid evil. This is a position Buddhism can
support. A variation on the theme of the Golden Rule is found, for
example, in The Precious Garland (Ratnavali) by Nagarjuna:
Just as you love to think
What could be done to help yourself,
So should you love to think
What could be done to help others.”
Further, the Dalai Lama has stated that all the teachings of the
Buddha contained in both the Hinayana and Mahayana can be
summarized in two ethical imperatives: “You must help others. If
not, you should not harm others.”’ The imperative to help others and
to avoid harming others corresponds to the general meaning of the
positive and negative formulations of the Golden Rule. This
teaching, asserts the Dalai Lama, is “the basis of all ethics.” Here,
then, is a shared first principle upon which people from very
different cultures and religions can found their efforts to develop a
global ethics. Awakening to the moral ideal of helping and not
harming also, of course, introduces a person into the complexities
 Buddhism, Global Ethics, and the Earth Charter 317

and tragedy of the human situation, for we exist in a world where

we cannot live without causing some harm and where at times the
effort to help some beings inevitably involves harming others. This
dilemma by itself is sufficient to keep ethical philosophers in
business.
In a recent essay, “Toward the Possibility of a Global Com-
munity,” the Confucian philosopher Tu Weiming has stressed the
fundamental importance of the Golden Rule:

The first step in creating a new world order is to articulate a

universal intent for the formation of a global community. This
requires, at a minimum, the replacement of the principle of self-
interest, no matter how broadly defined, with a new golden rule:
“Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto
you.”?

Professor Tu then adds that this negative formulation of the Golden

Rule must also be augmented by a positive principle that reflects
the reality of ecological and social interdependence: “In order to
establish myself I must help others to establish themselves; in order
to enlarge myself, I have to help them to enlarge themselves.” This
proposal seems very much in line with the Dalai Lama’s succinct
summary of the teaching of the Buddha, even though a Buddhist
may not wish to use the language of establishing and enlarging the
self. Buddhism also insists, of course, that the principle of helping
and not harming should be extended to embrace the relations of
people to all sentient beings, not just to human beings.
This discussion raises the question of whether the principle of
the Golden Rule should be included in the Earth Charter as
humanity’s most fundamental shared ethical ideal, and, if so, how
it should be worded. It has already been cited in the report of
the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our
Common Future (1987), in a section dealing with proposed new
international law principles designed to prevent transboundary
environmental harm. The report recommends that states, in their
relations with other states, should adopt the principle, “Do not do
to others what you would not do to your own citizens.”!° In addition,
the most fundamental principle of environmental protection is
widely recognized today to be a variation on the theme of ahimsa,
318 Buddhism and Ecology

or no harming. For example, the Draft International Covenant on

Environment and Development prepared by the IUCN Commis-
sion on Environmental Law states in a section on “Fundamental
Principles”: “Protection of the environment is best achieved by
preventing environmental harm rather than by attempting to remedy
or compensate for such harm” (Article 6).!! This principle is viewed
as especially important in situations where there is the chance of
irreversible environmental harm, as would occur, for example, if an
endangered species were to be eliminated.
Second, contemporary international law is increasingly using the
worldview emerging from the new physics, evolutionary biology,
and ecology to justify many of the principles and guidelines being
developed regarding the environment and sustainable development.
Emphasis is put on the unity of the biosphere, the interdependence
of humanity and nature, the interconnectedness of all members of
the larger community of life, and the importance of biodiversity as
well as cultural diversity. Does Buddhism support this new ecolog-
ical worldview emerging from scientific inquiry? In recent years, a
number of scholars have pointed out that there seems to be a
significant convergence of Buddhist philosophy and contemporary
physics, ecology, and environmental ethics.
Third, perhaps the single most important contribution Buddhism
could make to the Earth Charter involves securing from the
international community through the Earth Charter a stated intent
to cooperate in providing all sentient beings with protection from
cruel human treatment and unnecessary suffering. The Four Noble
Truths focus attention on suffering as the fundamental problem from
which sentient beings seek liberation, and Buddhist ethics regards
compassion for the suffering of all sentient beings as the supreme
ethical virtue. The emerging world ethic as expressed in inter-
national law does address many causes of human suffering, such
as poverty, war, inequity, ignorance, and environmental degradation.
However, existing international law does not identify the suffering
of nonhuman beings as a moral issue. It is concerned with species
and the protection of biodiversity, but it is not concerned with
individual nonhuman sentient beings unless they are representatives
of an endangered species. If protection is mandated for a member
of a nonhuman species and its habitat, it is out of concern for the
preservation of species, not prevention of suffering. International
 Buddhism, Global Ethics, and the Earth Charter 319

law does help to reduce some suffering of nonhuman creatures by

calling for the protection of ecosystems, but the concern here is with
ecosystem health and the integrity of biotic communities in line with
Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, and not with the suffering of individual
creatures.
From a Buddhist point of view, a strong argument can be made
that the Earth Charter should identify as a moral issue the suffering
of nonhuman sentient beings caused by humans and it should
include a principle that addresses this problem. The national law in
many states does address the issue of cruelty to and abuse of
animals. The question is whether international law should enter this
field, joining the environmentalists’ concern regarding ecosystems
and species with compassion for all individual sentient beings. The
IUCN guideline on the treatment of nonhuman creatures set forth
in Caring for the Earth (1991) offers an example of what might be
included in the Earth Charter. It states: “People should treat all
creatures decently, and protect them from cruelty, avoidable
suffering, and unnecessary killing.”!* Given its ethical traditions,
Buddhism is in a unique position to influence the outcome of the
debate over this issue. If its voice is not heard on this subject, it
will be hard to win acceptance for such a principle. The animal
liberation movement is not strong enough to carry the day on this
matter without help from the world’s religions.!°
Fourth, there is a related issue which concerns the use of
language. Reflecting the discussion in much contemporary envi-
ronmental philosophy, international environmental law argues that
all life-forms, that is, species, warrant respect and protection,
because they are of intrinsic value quite apart from whatever value
they might have for human beings. This claim is made, for example,
in the World Charter for Nature (1982) and the Convention on
Biological Diversity (1992). Here again, the assertion is that species,
not individual creatures, are of intrinsic value. The importance of
the appearance in international legal documents of the assertion that
all species have intrinsic value cannot be overstated. It is a major
breakthrough—a move beyond the traditional anthropocentric
worldview that has dominated Western culture and much of the rest
of the world in recent centuries. It establishes a basis for extending
the community with which humans identify and for which they are
morally responsible to include all life-forms. It means that non-
320 Buddhism and Ecology

human species deserve respect and care regardless of their instru-

mental value to humans. They are to be treated, in Kantian language,
as ends-in-themselves and never as a means only. In other words,
nonhuman species are to be regarded as subjects with moral standing
and not merely as objects to be possessed and used.
However, even though Buddhism teaches compassion for all
sentient beings, some Buddhist philosophers have expressed
reservations about the notion of a being or species having intrinsic
value. The issue seems to be that the concept of intrinsic value
suggests the existence of some fixed essence or permanent self in
things, which is contrary to the Buddhist doctrines of dependent co-
arising, impermanence, emptiness, and no-self. In the light of these
concerns, the question arises as to whether Buddhist philosophy can
or should affirm the concept of the intrinsic value of all species and
sentient beings. In considering this question, it should be kept in
mind that if Buddhists were to reject the language of intrinsic value
employed in international law, it could result in a major setback for
the contemporary international effort to extend humanity’s moral
concern to include all sentient beings. |
In seeking a solution to this problem, it is important to emphasize
that Buddhist philosophy and ethics do not have a quarrel with the
practical meaning or bearing of the concept of intrinsic value. The
relevant point is that any being with intrinsic value is worthy of
respect and care. Could there, then, be a Buddhist definition of the
nature of intrinsic value consistent with the Buddhist doctrines of
dependent co-arising and impermanence? It is true that some
Western philosophers and theologians may try to explain the idea
of intrinsic value with reference to the existence of a soul, an eternal
self, or some permanent essential nature, but this is not the only
way to explain that other beings are subjects worthy of respect and
are not mere objects or means to be used and exploited. Could the
intrinsic value of all beings be explained, for example, with
reference to Buddha-nature?
Fifth, regarding a related question, some earth covenants and
charters of nongovernmental organizations employ the language of
the sacred.!* For example, they affirm the sacredness of life or of
all life-forms. This is another way of speaking about the intrinsic
value of other life-forms and creatures. Buddhism affirms a
reverence for life, especially sentient life. Would Buddhists support
 Buddhism, Global Ethics, and the Earth Charter 321

reference in the Earth Charter to the sacredness of life or to the

sacredness of the community of life or the intricate web of life?
Sixth, this discussion of the idea of intrinsic value and the
sacredness of life leads to questions about another important
concept—the idea of rights. In the course of the past three hundred
years, respect for human rights has come to be viewed as funda-
mental to the meaning of social justice. The Golden Rule has come
to mean first and foremost: respect the basic dignity and the rights
and fundamental freedoms of all persons. All people, it is agreed,
have equal rights, because they are beings who are of intrinsic value.
In the course of the last century, human rights law has been adopted
throughout the world by nations with very different political
orientations. Since World War II, the idea of human rights has been
extensively developed in international law, and three binding global
treaties on human rights have been adopted. Respect for human
rights is one of the major elements of the emerging new global
ethics. Many Buddhists strongly support human rights law. Should
rights language be used with regard to nonhuman species? From a
Buddhist perspective, people do have moral responsibilities in
relation to nonhuman beings. Should the Earth Charter speak about
the rights of nature or the rights of nonhuman sentient beings?
The use of rights language with reference to nature is very
controversial, and it has not yet been used in any international
document. It is not as fundamental an issue as establishing that
nonhuman species and beings possess intrinsic value. The idea of
intrinsic value establishes the essential foundation for affirming
humanity’s moral responsibility to respect and care for nature.
Whether one uses rights language or not in the Earth Charter to
clarify humanity’s responsibilities in relation to nonhuman species
is a secondary issue. In other words, the Charter could articulate a
very strong ethic of respect and care for the community of life
without employing rights language in relation to nonhuman species.
The advantage of rights language is that it has a widely understood,
clear moral and legal meaning, and its use would facilitate the legal
protection of nonhuman species.
Finally, are there fundamental attitudes toward life and the world
at large that from a Buddhist point of view might be given expres-
sion in the Earth Charter? In this regard, the leaders of the Earth
Charter project would like the Charter to have spiritual depth. It
322 Buddhism and Ecology

could, for example, mention such attitudes toward life and the world
as wonder, awe, reverence, humility, repentance, gratitude, com-
passion, and universal responsibility. This question recognizes the
possibility that we may be at a point in the evolution of human
consciousness and civilization where human beings from all cultures
can affirm the value of a number of basic attitudes toward life as
well as agree on a set of ethical principles that are consistent with
and give expression to these attitudes.
The Earth Charter consultation process will continue throughout
1997 and beyond. When the Earth Charter has been drafted in final
form, it will initially be circulated as a “peoples’ treaty” for
Signature by individuals and adoption by religious organizations,
nongovernmental organizations, and other groups throughout the
world. It is hoped that, with a strong show of popular support, the
Earth Charter will receive the approval of the United Nations by
the year 2000.
The Buddhist community can make an important contribution to
the ongoing Earth Charter consultation process. This essay has
identified only a few of the many issues that must be addressed in
drafting the Charter. Groups interested in a further introduction to
the issues and principles that must be considered regarding the
Charter may contact the Earth Council and take advantage of the
resources that have been prepared by the Earth Council in support
of the consultation process.!5
The larger significance of the Earth Charter project is that it
focuses the debate on global ethics in a very specific fashion and
sets the stage for a very productive interfaith, cross-cultural
dialogue. If it is carefully constructed, the Charter will provide
ethical and practical guidance to individuals, schools, businesses,
governments, religious congregations, nongovernmental organi-
zations, and international assemblies. It can serve as an inspiring
ethical compass for all humanity. It presents a challenge that is
worthy of the best efforts of religious communities and thoughtful
men and women everywhere.
 Buddhism, Global Ethics, and the Earth Charter 323

Notes

1. The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publica-
tions, 1990), 17-19. The Dalai Lama explains that each and every person must
assume responsibility for addressing the interrelated problems that face the larger
world today, taking such action as is appropriate for the individual involved.
2. Hans Kiing, Global Responsibility: In Search of a New Global Ethic (New
York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1991), 1, 71, 107, 138.
3. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 332-33.
4. “Soft law” documents in the field of international law are considered to be
statements that express the intention and aspirations of the states involved, but
they are not viewed as binding treaties. However, some soft law instruments—
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example—eventually become
hard law.
5. For clarification on these principles, see Steven C. Rockefeller, “Global
Ethics, International Law, and the Earth Charter,” in Earth Ethics 7, no. 3-4
(spring-summer 1996), and Steven C. Rockefeller, Principles of Environmental
Conservation and Sustainable Development: Summary and Survey (1996). The
latter document was prepared for the Earth Council in support of the Earth Charter
Project, and it provides a summary overview of international law principles
relevant to the Earth Charter. Copies may be ordered from Steven C. Rockefeller,
P.O. Box 648, Middlebury, Vermont 05753, U.S.A.
6. Hans Kiing and Karl-Josef Kuschel, eds., A Global Ethic: The Declaration
of the Parliament of the World’s Religions (New York: The Continuum Publishing
Company, 1993), 23-24.
7. Nagarjuna and the Seventh Dalai Lama, The Precious Garland and the Song
of the Four Mindfulnesses, trans. Jeffrey Hopkins and Lati Rimpoche with Anne
Klein (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1975), 55.
8. The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness, 88, 96.
9. Tu Weiming, “Toward the Possibility of a Global Community,” in Lawrence
S. Hamilton, ed., Ethics, Religion, and Biodiversity (Cambridge: White Horse
Press, 1993), 72.
10. The World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common
Future, 350.
11. IUCN is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources, also known as the World Conservation Union. Its headquarters are in
Gland, Switzerland, and its members include over eighty state governments and
over four hundred nongovernmental organizations.
12. World Conservation Union (IUCN), United Nations Environment Pro-
gramme (UNEP), and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Caring for the Earth
(Gland: Switzerland, 1991), 14.
324 Buddhism and Ecology

13. Professor Jay McDaniel of Hendrix College, Arkansas, has drafted “An
Open Letter to Authors of the Earth Charter” that addresses this issue and proposes
that the Earth Charter include an animal protection principle using language very
similar to that found in Caring for the Earth. The Open Letter substitutes the word
“animals” for “creatures.” One could also use “sentient beings.” The Open Letter
is being circulated by the Humane Society of the United States to other groups,
including religious organizations, in the hopes that they will endorse it.
14. See, for example, “The Earth Covenant,” which has been prepared and
circulated by Global Education Associates, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 1848, New
York, New York 10115, U.S.A., and “The Earth Charter,” designed and circulated
by the International Coordinating Committee on Religion and the Earth, P.O. Box
67, Greenwich, Connecticut 06831-0767, U.S.A. Both of these documents have
been reprinted in Joel Beversluis, ed., A SourceBook for Earth’s Community of
Religions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: CoNexus Press-SourceBook Project; New York:
Global Education Associates, 1995), 201, 214-15.
15. The Earth Council has established an Earth Charter page on its internet
website. Portions of the document, described above in note 5, on Principles of
Environmental Conservation and Sustainable Development: Summary and Survey
are included in this Earth Charter internet site. The Earth Council web page is
located at http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr. In addition, a special Earth Charter double
issue of the journal Earth Ethics 7, no. 3-4 (spring-summer 1996), has been
published by the Center for Respect of Life and Environment, 2100 L Street, NW,
Washington, D.C. 20037, U.S.A.
Theoretical and Methodological Issues
in Buddhism and Ecology
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature?*

Malcolm David Eckel

One of the most common and enduring stereotypes in environmental

literature is the idea that Eastern religions promote a sense of
harmony between human beings and nature. On the other side of
the stereotype stand the religions of the West, promoting the
separation of human beings and nature and encouraging acts of
domination, exploitation, and control. Roderick Nash gave classic
expression to this contrast when he said: “Ancient Eastern cultures
are the source of respect for and religious veneration of the natural
world” and “In the Far East the man-nature relationship was marked
by respect, bordering on love, absent in the West.”! Y. Murota drew
a similar contrast between Japanese attitudes toward nature and the
attitudes he felt are operative in the West: “the Japanese view of
nature is quite different from that of Westerners. . . . For the
Japanese nature is an all-pervasive force. . . . Nature is at once a
blessing and a friend to the Japanese people. . . . People in Western
cultures, on the other hand, view nature as an object and, often, as
an entity set in opposition to mankind.’
This contrast between the East and the West owes much of its
influence in recent environmental literature to the seminal article
by Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.”
White depicted the Judeo-Christian tradition as anthropocentric and
argued that Judeo-Christian anthropocentrism stripped nature of its
sacred status and exposed it to human exploitation and control.
While he did not comment at great length about the Eastern
traditions, he clearly understood them as the opposite of the
traditions of the West.

The beatniks and hippies, who are the basic revolutionaries of our
time, show a sound instinct in their affinity for Zen Buddhism and
328 Buddhism and Ecology

Hinduism, which conceive of the man-nature relationship as very

nearly the mirror image of the Christian view.

White’s image of the contrast between East and West was taken up
in the same journal seven years later by the Japanese historian
Masao Watanabe.* Watanabe associated the Japanese people with
“a refined appreciation of the beauty of nature” and said that “the
art of living in harmony with nature was considered their wisdom
of life.’ White’s image continues to be reflected by some of the best-
known contemporary writers in the environmental movement. In a
recent collection of essays, Gary Snyder, the venerable and respected
survivor of Lynn White’s generation of “‘beatniks and hippies,” drew
a series of graceful connections between Henry David Thoreau’s
concept of the “wild,” the Taoist concept of the Tao, and the
Buddhist concept of Dharma:
Most of the senses in this second set of definitions [of the wild]
come very close to being how the Chinese define the term Dao, the
way of Great Nature: eluding analysis, beyond categories, self-
organizing, self-informing, playful, surprising, impermanent,
insubstantial, independent, complete, orderly, unmediated, freely
manifesting, self-authenticating, self-willed, complex, quite simple.
Both empty and real at the same time. In some cases we might call
it sacred. It is not far from the Buddhist term Dharma with its
original sense of forming and firming.>

This image of an affirmative Eastern attitude toward nature must

have lurked in the minds of the environmental activists and friends
of the environment who gathered at Middlebury College in the fall
of 1990 to hear the fourteenth Dalai Lama speak on the topic of
“Spirit and Nature.” Tibet, like traditional Japan, has been the focus
of a certain Western yearning for the East as a place to discover
not only a unique sense of wisdom (what one observer called “an
intimate and creative relationship with the vast and profound secrets
of the human soul”) but a wisdom that can insure “the future
survival of Earth itself.”© There was a hush in the Middlebury field
house as the Dalai Lama seated himself on the stage and began to
speak.’ It must have been a surprise when he began by saying that
he had nothing to offer to those who came expecting to hear about
ecology or the environment, and even more surprising when he
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 329

interpreted the word “nature” as a reference to “the fundamental

nature of all reality” and entered into a discourse on the Buddhist
concept of Emptiness. To explain the connection between nature and
Emptiness, he said: “When talking about the fundamental nature of
reality, one could sum up the entire understanding of that nature in
a simple verse: ‘Form is emptiness and emptiness is form’ (The
Heart Siitra). This simple line sums up the Buddhist understanding
of the fundamental nature of reality.””"® And he went on to explain
how Tibetan philosophers use logical analysis to develop their view
of Emptiness and to pursue what he said was the “expressed aim
of Buddhism,” namely, the purification and development of the mind.
The Dalai Lama’s words were surprising not because he seemed
unfriendly toward the “natural” world in the prevailing sense of the
word (that is, toward ecosystems of plants, animals, the atmosphere,
the ocean, rivers, mountains, and so on), but because he so gently
and easily shifted attention away from the natural world toward the
development of human nature and the purification of the mind. The
sense of surprise only became more acute when he began to develop
the concept of Emptiness and indicated that it involved a denial of
the reality of what he took to be “nature” itself. To say that “Form
is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form,” in the language of Mahayana
philosophy, is to say that all things are “empty” of any inherent
“nature” or identity.? The purification of the mind, which the Dalai
Lama called the “expressed aim of Buddhism,’ comes from stripping
away false concepts of the “nature” of things and resting content
with their Emptiness. In other words, “nature” (in one possible
meaning of the word) may very well be a barrier to overcome in a
quest for human development.
What should we make of the gap between the Dalai Lama’s
words and the conventional image of the Buddhist attitude toward
nature? Does the Dalai Lama see something in the Buddhist tradition
that others do not? Is the image of Buddhism as an ecologically
friendly tradition simply an artifact of the Western imagination? Or
is it possible that the Buddhist tradition is a complex combination
of ideas and aspirations, some of which are positively disposed
toward the environment and some of which are not? If so, is it
possible to reconcile the Dalai Lama’s approach to the concept of
nature with the image of a tradition that seeks to establish harmony
between human beings and the natural world? The purpose of this
330 Buddhism and Ecology

essay is to explore the incongruity in the Dalai Lama’s words, to

ask where the incongruity comes from, and to ask whether it is
possible to identify a “Buddhist philosophy of nature,” a philosophy
that is genuinely affirmative of what we have come to think of as
the “natural” world and, at the same time, true to the complex
impulses that shape the Buddhist quest for the purification and
development of the mind.
To start with, where do we get the stereotype of Buddhist
reverence for the natural world? Masao Watanabe began his account
of the Japanese attitude toward nature by telling a story about the
nineteenth-century art historian Lafcadio Hearn and the genesis of
Western perceptions of Japan. Watanabe said that he read Lafcadio
Hearn’s account of his first visit to Japan to a group of American
students. (It was the trip that led to Hearn’s fascination with Japan
and to his decision to make Japan his permanent residence.)
Watanabe asked his students what they first noticed about Hearn’s
account of his visit. The answer was Hearn’s image of the Japanese
love of nature, symbolized in Hearn’s story of a Japanese warrior
who arranged vases of chrysanthemums to welcome his brother
home from a journey. The students’ answer then elicited Watanabe’s
own comments about the sense of natural beauty in Japanese land-
scape design, flower arrangement, the tea ceremony, poetry, and cuisine.
Watanabe is right to suggest that Western people first approach
Japanese views of nature through an aesthetic medium. When Japan
opened to the West in the early 1850s, Japanese art flooded into
Western markets and had a significant effect on the stylistic vision
of Western artists as different as James McNeill Whistler and
Vincent Van Gogh.!° There are few more powerful and suggestive
icons of the Japanese vision of nature than the gnarled rocks and
empty spaces of a Zen garden like the one at Ryoan-ji in Kyoto,
and few poets of the natural world can match the grace and intensity
that is so evident in the works of the Japanese poet Basho. It is
sometimes said that to grasp the significance of BashOd’s poem,
Old pond—
Frog jumps in-
Sound of water!

is to grasp the whole meaning of Buddhism.!! Certainly, the

“meaning” of this poem must have something to do with the
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 331

condensed appreciation of a single moment in the flow of the natural

world, a moment in which the minds of the poet and the reader
become absorbed in the natural event itself.
BashO’s poetic appreciation of nature has strong antecedents in
Chinese literature, as in the work of the shadowy T’ang dynasty poet
whose identity is known simply by the name Cold Mountain. In the
lines of the Cold Mountain poet, the Buddhist “way” takes on a
distinctly naturalistic flavor.
As for me, I delight in the everyday Way,
Among mist-wrapped vines and rocky caves.
Here in the wilderness I am completely free,
With my friends, the white clouds, idling forever.
There are roads, but they do not reach the world;
Since I am mindless, who can rouse my thoughts?
On a bed of stone I sit, alone in the night,
While the round moon climbs up Cold Mountain.!2

This verse displays a distinctive sensitivity to the rough, unhewn

aspects of nature, to mists, rocks, and trees—all the aspects of nature
that Gary Snyder associated with Henry David Thoreau’s concept
of the “wild.’!? But it also expresses important Buddhist values. The
lines reflect the traditional theme of the Middle Way, leading from
the experience of suffering and ignorance in the world of ordinary
people to the wisdom of a solitary and enlightened sage, and they
map the contrast between these two realms of experience in a series
of standard images. The ordinary world is one of entanglement,
obscurity, and darkness, with “mist-wrapped vines,” and “idling
clouds.” The world of enlightenment is one of detachment, coolness,
and clarity, where the round moon that symbolizes the Buddha’s
awareness climbs up Cold Mountain. “Cold Mountain” is not merely
the setting for the poems and a reference to the poet’s own identity;
it also expresses the path a sage has to tread to reach enlightenment
and symbolizes enlightenment itself. To combine all of these
meanings in a single, concrete image is to suggest that enlighten-
ment involves a sense of fusion between the self and the natural
world.
William R. LaFleur has shown that Basho’s poetry is the result
of a long process of doctrinal reflection in East Asia about the
religious significance of nature.!4 When one of Bashd’s prede-
cessors, the poet SaigyOd (twelfth century), for example, depicts
332 Buddhism and Ecology

movement along the road to enlightenment as involving “just a brief

stop” to linger in the shade of a willow, he raises a question about
the nature of the way itself. Is it better to walk the road like a
diligent pilgrim with your eyes fixed firmly on a distant goal or to
step off the road and allow your consciousness to merge with some
part of the natural world?
“Just a brief stop”
I said when stepping off the road
into a willow’s shade
Where a bubbling stream flows by. . .
As has time since my “brief stop” began.

Here it is the shade of the willow rather than the pilgrim’s road that
stops consciousness of the passage of time, and this “stopping”
reflects the “cessation” of the Buddha’s nirvana. But why associate
nirvana with a willow rather than some other element of the natural
world? LaFleur has shown that these lines reflect a complex
doctrinal discussion about whether plants in particular can have
“Buddha-nature,” in other words, whether they can embody the state
of enlightenment that the pilgrim is seeking. In China this question
was first raised as part of the general discussion of the relationship
between Emptiness and ordinary reality. The question then became
focused as a specific question about vegetation. Did plants have
Buddha-nature? Some Buddhist thinkers found an affirmative
answer to this question in the chapter on “Plants” in The Lotus Sitra,
where it is said that the rain of the Buddha’s teaching falls equally
on all forms of vegetation, and each plant grows up and is nourished
according to its own capacity.!> In Japan this view evolved into the
position represented by SaigyO’s “brief stop.” The natural world was
treated as having special significance as a setting for the experience
of enlightenment—enough significance to invite the poet to turn off
the path and disappear in the shade of the willow.
SaigyO was not the only one, and his was not the only way, to
explore the relationship between the natural world and the experi-
ence of enlightenment. Allan G. Grapard has shown that the concept
of enlightenment can be mapped onto the physical landscape in even
more complex ways.!© The volcano Futagoyama on the Kunisaki
peninsula, for example, was treated as a physical manifestation of
the text of The Lotus Sitra: its twenty-eight valleys were treated as
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 333

equivalent to the twenty-eight chapters of The Lotus Siitra; and its

paths were lined with more than sixty thousand statues representing
the total number of ideograms in the text. Here the landscape itself
is the text, and the text is the Dharma. To walk the paths on the
mountain and read its valleys as visual representations of the
Dharma is to experience the relationship between nature and text,
path and goal, and cessation and movement in a way that goes far
beyond the simplicity of Saigy6’s lines.
More examples could be cited of the relationship between
Buddhist values and Japanese appreciation of the natural world, but
these should be sufficient to show that Watanabe certainly had
reason to say that reverence for nature plays a special part in
Japanese culture, including its Buddhist dimension. There also are
good reasons to think, however, that this is not the whole picture.
In a remarkable article entitled “Concepts of Nature East and West,”
Stephen R. Kellert has given clear statistical shape to the suspicion
that Eastern cultures are just as capable of showing disrespect for
nature as their Western counterparts.'’ “In contrast,” Kellert says,
“to the foregoing descriptions of highly positive Eastern attitudes
toward nature, modern Japan and China have been cited for their
poor conservation record—including widespread temperate and
tropical deforestation, excessive exploitation of wildlife products,
indiscriminate and damaging fishing practices, and widespread
pollution.”!® Kellert prepared a questionnaire to investigate and
compare Japanese and American attitudes toward the natural world.
He found that the most common approach to wildlife in both
cultures, Japanese and American, was the one that Kellert called
“humanistic”: both cultures showed “primary interest and strong
affection for individual animals such as pets or large wild animals
with strong anthropomorphic associations.” The percentage of
people who held this opinion was 37 percent for Japan and 38
percent for the United States. The second most common attitude in
the United States was the “moralistic”: 27.5 percent of the American
respondents showed what Kellert called a “primary concern for the
right and wrong treatment of animals and strong opposition to
overexploitation and cruelty toward animals.” The second most
common attitude in Japan, with 31 percent, was the attitude that
Kellert called “negativistic”: a “primary orientation [toward] an
active avoidance of animals due to dislike or fear.” The third most
334 Buddhism and Ecology

common Japanese attitude was one that he called “dominionistic”

(28 percent): involving “primary interest in the mastery and control
of animals.” In other words, more than 50 percent of Kellert’s
Japanese respondents feared or disliked animals or were primarily
concerned with their mastery or control. Kellert’s findings received
Statistical confirmation from a 1989 survey by the United Nations
Environmental Program: the survey found that Japan rated “lowest
in environmental concern and awareness” of the fourteen countries
surveyed.
Kellert pursued his investigation with a series of detailed
interviews to elicit explanations of the Japanese attitudes. Many of
the people interviewed “indicated that the Japanese tend to place
greatest emphasis on the experience and enjoyment of nature in
highly structured circumstances.” The reasons for this emphasis
were diverse but quite revealing. One person referred to “a Japanese
love of ‘seminature,’ somewhat domesticated and tame.” Another
said that the Japanese “isolate favored environmental features and
‘freeze or put walls around them.’” For all of Kellert’s informants,
the stress fell on the cultural transformation of nature, in which
natural elements were refined and abstracted in such a way that they
could serve as symbols of harmony, order, and balance. The stress
on the cultural transformation of nature rather than nature in its pure,
unrefined state has also been noted by Donald Ritchie who has said
that “the Japanese attitude toward nature is essentially posses-
sive. ... Nature is not natural. . .until the hand of man. . .has
properly shaped it.”!9
How can we explain the contradiction between Kellert’s findings
and the stereotype of the nature-loving Buddhist? How can the
Japanese tradition appear to show such deep reverence for nature
and yet tolerate, perhaps even encourage, such pervasive attitudes
of cultural domination? One possible explanation is that the
Japanese have so thoroughly absorbed a Western preference for the
domination and exploitation of nature that the indigenous tradition
has simply been overwhelmed in a rush for Western-style economic
development. Kellert points out, however, that it is too simplistic
to attribute this contradiction merely to the influence of the West.
As W. Montgomery Watt noted in his account of alleged external
influences on the formation of early Islam, it is difficult for one
culture to “influence” another in a deep or significant way unless
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 335

there are already tendencies or predispositions in the receiving

culture that make such influence possible.2° Could there be pre-
dispositions within the Buddhist traditions of Japan that tend to favor
this “cultural transformation” of nature? Could Buddhism itself have
contributed to such an attitude? The way to explore these questions
at the most basic level is to move back to India, the homeland of
the Buddhist tradition, and interrogate the tradition in its original
setting.
How does the religious literature of India picture the natural
world? India is a complex civilization, of course, and it is as
complex in its approach to nature as any of the traditions of East
Asia or the West, but it does not seem an oversimplification to say
that there is a deep and abiding preoccupation in Indian civilization
with the distinction between the “human” and the “natural.” One
of the best sources to use in reflecting on this distinction is the text
of the Bhagavad Gitd, one of the best known and most beloved of
Hindu scriptural texts. The text consists of a dialogue between two
figures, the warrior Arjuna who is on the verge of a climactic battle,
and his charioteer Krsna, who reveals himself to be a manifestation
of God. At the beginning of the story, Arjuna shrinks in grief as he
contemplates the destruction to be wrought by the battle. Krsna
counsels him to pick himself up and do his duty as a warrior without
feeling fear or grief about the consequences of his actions. The
reasoning behind Krsna’s counsel reflects a fundamental feature of
Hindu attitudes toward nature. Krsna counsels Arjuna to distinguish
between his “soul” (purusa), which is eternal and cannot die, and
his “body,” which is mortal, changeable, and destined eventually to
be discarded as the soul makes its passage into another life.

These bodies are said to end, but the embodied self is eternal,
indestructible, and immeasurable; therefore, you should fight, O
Bharata. (2.18)

If Arjuna knows that his true identity is equated with the “soul” and
not the “body,” he does not need to be affected by grief or fear.
As the text develops the distinction between “soul” and “body,”
we find that the “body” is spoken of as prakrti, a concept that is
commonly translated as “nature.” The distinction between soul and
body is a reflection, in the microcosm of the personality, of the
distinction in the cosmos at large between the principle of “spirit”
336 Buddhism and Ecology

and the principle of “nature.” What does it mean to say that prakrti
is “nature”? The semantic range of the word prakrti might seem at
first to be considerably wider than the one that normally is mapped
by the English word “nature.” Prakrti includes not only the material
aspects of the cosmos but also the aspects of the personality called
“mind” (manas) and “intellect” (buddhi). The basic distinction is
not between body on one side and mind or spirit on the other but
is, rather, between the complex of changeable elements in the
personality (including body, mind, and intellect) and the eternal,
unchangeable soul. The distinction between purusa and prakrti
comes close, however, to the distinction marked by the title of the
symposium in which the Dalai Lama gave his Middlebury address:
purusa is “spirit” and prakrti “nature,” in the sense that purusa is
conscious, transcendent, and attainable through discipline (yoga) or
reason while prakrti merely reflects or obscures the consciousness
of purusa and is subject to change and decay. The challenge for
human beings in Arjuna’s position, caught in the web of confusion
spun by the strands of prakrti, is to recognize their true identities
as immortal souls and escape the bonds of nature.
In a technical sense, the distinction between purusa and prakrti
belongs to only two of the classic Hindu philosophical traditions,
the Samkhya and the Yoga, and these two traditions do not by any
means serve as the dominant framework for the interpretation of
reality in the Indian tradition. But the distinction has wide influence
in Indian culture. When visitors make a journey, for example, to the
great ruined temple of Elephanta in Bombay harbor, they travel
across the waters of the harbor to a small island, climb a long line
of stairs up to the rocky outcropping in the center of the island, then
enter a cave where the central shrine has been cut out of the living
rock. The journey across the water is a symbolic expression of a
journey through the changeable, distracting world of “nature,” and
entry into the darkness and quiet of the temple represents an
approach to the immovable center of “the soul.” The religious drama
of the journey depends on a basic cultural image of contrast between
the world of prakrti and the world of the soul. Even in nondualistic
traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta, where the goal is to dissolve
the distinction between self and world, the journey of enlightenment
is still based on an initial insistence on the “distinction” (viveka)
between the eternal self and all that is not-self.2! One can argue with
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 337

considerable force that the Hindu tradition is driven, even in its

nondualistic dimension, by a conviction that eternal things have
ultimate value and changeable things do not. “Nature” encompasses
the things that change and pass away.
Buddhists do not share the Hindu conviction about the per-
manence of the individual soul, but they also are suspicious of the
difficulties and dangers of the “natural” world. Lambert Schmit-
hausen has noted that, in classical Buddhist sources, Buddhist
peasants, townspeople, and even monks preferred the tamed and
civilized world of the village and city to the virgin forest or the
jungle.*? The jungle and forest were symbols of death and rebirth
(as was the ocean that the worshipper had to cross to reach the
temple at Elephanta), and nirvana, the cessation of death and rebirth,
was represented as a city.?? Images of Buddhist paradises, when they
appear in Indian sources, are generally landscapes in which the
“wild” aspects of nature have been thoroughly tamed. With trees
laid out in symmetrical grids, rectangular ponds, golden lines, and
shiny blue-black surface, the paradise of Sukhavati in the Indian
Sukhavativyuha is more reminiscent of a parking lot than it is of
an untamed wilderness.** Schmithausen notes quite correctly that
a significant number of Buddhist monks chose not to live in cities
or towns. In the “hermit strand” of monastic life, one visualized the
forest as useful for the practice of meditation. In the forest a monk
can avoid the distractions of society and contemplate the imperma-
nence of reality by observing the passage of the seasons. But even
here the focus is on the natural world as a locus and a guide for the
spiritual transformation of the monk himself, as it was in Grapard’s
account of the mapping of The Lotus Siitra onto the ridges and
valleys of Futagoyama.
It is important to be clear that this early strand in the Buddhist
tradition is not hostile to nature as such: one does not attempt to
dominate or destroy nature (in the form of either animals or plants)
in order to seek a human good. But neither is the wild and untamed
aspect of nature to be encouraged or cultivated. The natural world
functions as a locus and an example of the impermanence and
unsatisfactoriness of death and rebirth. The goal to be cultivated is
not wildness in its own right but a state of awareness in which a
practitioner can let go of the “natural”—of all that is impermanent
and unsatisfactory—and achieve the sense of peace and freedom that
338 Buddhism and Ecology

is represented by the state of nirvana. One might say that nature is

not to be dominated but to be relinquished in order to become free.
In this context the significance of the Dalai Lama’s approach to
the topic of “spirit and nature” becomes clearer. He was not hostile
to nature, but he had other important topics in mind, not the least
of which was the purification of the mind itself. When he took up
the question of nature in the philosophical style that was appropriate
to his own tradition (linking it to the concept of Emptiness), his first
step was not unlike Krsna’s first step in the Bhagavad Gita: he
distinguished between the realm of appearance or “nature” and the
realm of ultimate reality or Emptiness. He said: “When talking about
the fundamental nature of reality, one could sum up the entire
understanding of that nature in a simple verse: ‘Form is emptiness
and emptiness is form’ (The Heart Sitra).”?> The concept of
“fundamental nature” might seem to function differently than the
concept of prakrti in the Bhagavad Gita, and in a sense it does. It
refers to the imagined “essence” or “identity” that a person imposes
on reality (the reality of Emptiness) rather than to the distracting
and alluring play of “material nature,” but it performs the same
discriminative function when it comes to the purification of the
mind. In the Madhyamaka tradition, out of which the Dalai Lama
speaks, the idea of “fundamental nature” (whether it is understood
as the Tibetan ngo bo nyid and Sanskrit svabhava or as the Tibetan
rang bzhin and Sanskrit prakrti) has to be stripped away in order
to develop a purified awareness of Emptiness. The term “Emptiness”
itself can refer either to the absence of such a “fundamental nature”
in all things or to the purified awareness that perceives all things
as empty in this way. For the Dalai Lama, the concept of “nature”
elicits an image of Emptiness and suggests a practice of purification
in which the illusions of “nature” are left behind.
Against this intellectual background, it is not surprising to find
that Indian Buddhist literature contains very little of the reverence
for the wild and “natural” world that one associates with the
tradition of East Asia. Indian poetic accounts of insight or enlighten-
ment often reflect a rhetorical distinction in which the teaching of
the Buddha is “greater than” or “in contrast to” the possibilities of
the natural world, as in the philosopher Dharmakirti’s exploration
of the poetic relationship between the Buddha’s teaching and the
cooling rays of the moon.
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 339

Were not a drop from the Moon of Sages,

better than a flood of cooling moonlight,
mixed within the vessel of its thought,
how would this heart find happiness
and, though it stood within a cold Himalayan cave,
how would it endure the unendurable
fire of separation from its love?®
When one puts Dharmakirti’s image of the superiority of the “Moon
of Sages” (the Buddha) next to a comparable passage by the Chinese
Buddhist poet Li Po (701-—762)—
Moonlight in front of my bed—
I took it for frost on the ground!
I lift my eyes to watch the mountain moon,
lower them and dream of home.

—one clearly sees the aesthetic and ideological transformation that

took place when the wine of the Indian Buddhist tradition was
poured into its Chinese bottles. “Nature” in the Indian tradition was
a world to be transcended, while in East Asia it took on the capacity
to symbolize transcendence itself.
How then should we read the affirmative images of the natural
world in the poetry of Saigyd and Basho? Has the Japanese tradition
been so thoroughly infused by Chinese attitudes toward the natural
world that it has taken leave entirely from the Indian tradition?
Certainly there is a striking contrast between the two traditions, but
it is possible to see Indian Buddhism (including the Tibetan tradition
of the Dalai Lama) in a way that gives us new eyes for the Buddhist
dimension of the Japanese poetic tradition. Basho’s “Old pond / frog
jumps in / sound of water” can be read as an expression of
immersion in the flow of natural processes: a frog jumps into a pond,
and the mind fuses with the event in a moment of intense perception.
But the poem is not, strictly speaking, an expression of the frog or
the water in themselves; it is an expression of a moment of
perception. The force of the poem lies in the mind of the observer,
not to the exclusion of nature, but in the mind’s awareness of nature.
When Stephen R. Kellert probed the stereotype of Japanese
attitudes toward nature, he found what one of his informants called
an “emphasis on the experience and enjoyment of nature in highly
structured circumstances.” The stress fell less on nature in its raw
340 Buddhism and Ecology

form than on the cultural transformation of nature: natural elements

were refined and abstracted so that they could serve as symbols of
harmony, order, or balance. Allan G. Grapard captured the ambiguity
and complexity of the same point when he suggested that

what has been termed “the Japanese love of nature” is actually the
“Japanese love of cultural transformations and purification of a
world which, if left alone, simply decays.” So that the love of culture
takes in Japan the form of a love of nature.27

Nature may not need to be transformed in an overt, physical fashion

to be significant, although the design of a “natural” garden is
certainly a refined cultural act, but the significance of the natural
setting for the human observer lies principally in the act of
perception, and it may be appropriate or even necessary for nature
to be fashioned and controlled to make this “natural” mode of
perception clear.
Then is there a “Buddhist” philosophy of nature? If the intention
of the question is to identify a simple, unified vision of the sanctity
of the natural world, the answer must be no. If anything, there is
the opposite. Beneath the evident differences between the Indian and
East Asian traditions lies a commitment to the view that human
beings work out their fates through the development and purification
of their own minds. Riccardo Venturini had something like this in
mind, no doubt, when he said that the Buddhist tradition develops
its attitude toward nature in the context of an “ecology of the mind”
and aims at a “purified” world with man as its steward.28 Could it
be that the Buddhist tradition, which has seemed so promising as a
model to escape the destructive consequences of the Western
anthropocentric vision of nature, is as much compromised by the
flaws of anthropocentrism as its Western counterpart? The question
is crucial for understanding the possibility of a Buddhist response
to the ecological crisis, and much depends on the meaning of the
word “anthropocentrism.”
In the summer of 1981, the Dalai Lama gave a series of lectures
on Buddhist philosophy in Emerson Hall at Harvard University.?9
At the beginning of the lectures a member of the Harvard com-
munity welcomed the Dalai Lama to Emerson Hall by referring to
an inscription over the portal of the building: “What is man that thou
art mindful of him?” He gave a Tibetan translation of the inscription
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 341

that related it to one of the key issues of Buddhist philosophy

(“What are you referring to when you use the word ‘man’?’’) and
said that it seemed particularly appropriate to hear the Dalai Lama’s
words in a setting where the very issue of human identity had such
a rich and controversial history. “What is man that thou art mindful
of him?” In the Tibetan and Sanskrit traditions, the word “man”
recalls a long controversy about the status of the pudgala (com-
monly translated as “person,” but literally “man’”). An ancient Indian
Buddhist school known as the Personalists (pudgalavadin) took the
position that a person’s identity consisted in a pudgala that
continued from one moment to the next.3° This pudgala was related
ambiguously to the momentary psycho-physical constituents
(skandha) of the mind and body. The constituents changed at every
moment while the pudgala continued, and the pudgala was neither
identical to nor different from the constituents. It seems that the
pudgala was considered to be something like the “shape” or
“configuration” of the personality, so that one could say that a
person retained the same “shape” even when all the individual
constituents of the personality had changed, perhaps like a car in
which all the individual parts have been replaced but which still
retains the “shape” of the original car.
The Personalists have long since gone out of existence as an
identifiable school, and the controversy about the pudgala could be
relegated to the status of an obscure historical curiosity if it had not
become a symbol for Buddhists of the classic mistake to be avoided
when thinking about the nature of the self. One of the most basic
themes in Buddhist philosophy is the claim that there is no “self,”
and by “no-self” is meant at least that there is no continuous pudgala
that ties together the stream of the personality from one moment to
the next. The pudgalavada, the doctrine of the “man” or “person,”
is, aS it were, the fundamental Buddhist heresy from which the
tradition now chooses to distinguish itself. To ask, “What is man
that thou art mindful of him?” or “What are you referring to when
you use the word ‘man’?” is to probe the foundations of the
Buddhist view of the self at its most sensitive point: What is the
most basic error that has to be avoided if one is to make progress
toward the goal of enlightenment?
Herein lies the paradox of Buddhist “anthropocentrism.” The
tradition is genuinely concerned with the human achievement of
342 Buddhism and Ecology

human goals. At a deep historical and conceptual level, the tradition

defends an ideal of self-reliance, as in the oft-quoted verse from the
Dhammapada: “One is one’s own Lord (or God or Protector). What
other Lord can there be?” But the achievement of self-interest is
tied in an equally fundamental way to the decentering of the self.
On the intellectual level, the quest for nirvana is tied up with a quest
for an understanding of “no-self’ as both a doctrine and a mode of
awareness. On a more practical level, Buddhist discipline is built
up of choices, both large and small, that challenge the naive patterns
of self-centeredness from which the fabric of ordinary life is woven.
In traditional Buddhist societies in Southeast Asia, Buddhist monks
go out each morning to beg their food from laypeople, meditating
as they go on their “friendliness” or concern for all beings.
Laypeople prepare the food and enact a model in which their own
spiritual benefit is tied to a gesture of renunciation, of giving away
the food that sustains the life of a monk. Moral precepts, particularly
the prohibition against killing (which is extended not just to human
beings but, in theory, to all sentient beings), cultivate a fundamental
respect for life in all its forms. These ideals are realized with greater
and lesser degrees of consistency in the Buddhist communities of
Southeast Asia, but the theoretical connection between the self-
interested decentering of the self and respect for life lies deep in
the culture. One could paraphrase Grapard’s claim that in Japan the
love of culture takes the form of a love of nature by saying that in
Buddhist culture at large the cultivation of the self takes the form
of a decentering of the self and a concern for a wider network of life.
Steven C. Rockefeller has commented about the way anthropo-
centric and utilitarian approaches to environmental ethics take on a
more biocentric character when they are combined with a scientific
appreciation of ecological interdependence.?! This conceptual
development has its counterpart in the Buddhist tradition as well.
To say that one’s self-interest is served by realizing and enacting
an ideal of no-self is to say that one’s own self-interest is best
understood by realizing one’s location in a network of interdepen-
dence or “interdependent co-origination” (pratitya-samutpdda). The
formulas that express the understanding of no-self in different
versions of the Buddhist tradition often equate no-self (or its
Mahayana counterpart, the doctrine of Emptiness) with inter-
dependent co-origination. A famous verse in Nagarjuna’s root verses
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 343

of the Madhyamaka school says: “We call interdependent co-

origination Emptiness; this is a metaphorical designation, and it is
the Middle Path.” Other textual sources simply equate interdepen-
dent co-origination with the Dharma or with the. Buddha himself,
as in the common scriptural phrase, “He who sees interdependent
co-origination sees the Buddha.”
Whether one can interpret the concept of interdependent co-
origination as genuinely “biocentric,” however, is open to question.
If a biocentric approach means recognizing “the intrinsic value of
animals, plants, rivers, mountains, and ecosystems rather than
simply. . .their utilitarian value or benefit to humans,’’*2 then the
word “intrinsic” presents a barrier. It seems to suggest precisely the
substantial, permanent identity that the ideas of no-self and
interdependent co-origination are meant to undermine. But the
practical force of an “other-centered” position emerges quite clearly
in different kinds of Buddhist meditative traditions. When the Dalai
Lama teaches about Buddhist practice, he emphasizes the impor-
tance of compassion, as is customary in the tradition of the
Mahayana, and one of his favorite sources for a meditation on
compassion is the teaching about the “exchange of self and other”
in the eighth chapter of Santideva’s “Introduction to the Practice
of Enlightenment.” Imagine, Santideva says, that on one side of
a divide stands your own needy self and on the other side stand fifty
or a hundred needy beings. Whose advantage is best to seek? Should
you care just for yourself and cater just to your own limitations and
fears? Or should you seek the benefit of the larger group? And what
if the larger group is not just fifty or a hundred living beings but
all the livings beings in the cosmos? Santideva says that the answer
should be clear. The self’s greatest benefit comes from seeking the
widest possible benefit for the network of all living beings.
Santideva’s point can be construed as a practical centering of one’s
concern on others (on the network of bios or “life”’) in order to
decenter the self (in the self’s own interest).
Here lies another reason why the Dalai Lama was hesitant to
address directly the themes and expectations of the Middlebury
conference on “Spirit and Nature” and why he shifted attention so
gracefully away from the natural world toward the purification of
the mind. He was not insensitive to the claims of the natural world,
but he felt that there was more important conceptual work to be done
344 Buddhism and Ecology

before its claims could be made clear. He had to begin with his own
understanding of no-self (as expressed in the doctrine of Emptiness)
before he could sketch the outline of an ethical response to the
natural world, and the response continued to move in the orbit of
“interdependence” and “compassion.” One moves naturally, as it
were, in a series of ever-widening, concentric circles, beginning with
the impulse to purify the mind and cultivate one’s own sense of self,
through the sense of the self’s interdependence with a network of
all other beings, to a sense of affection and love for all existence.
As the circles widen, the center comes under pressure, and the
network of existence takes on the appearance of a circle whose
center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
Some of the most forceful and perspicacious Buddhist writing
about the environment explores the implication of this basic
Buddhist conceptual movement from no-self to interdependence to
compassion. In his reconsideration of E. F. Schumacher’s famous
concept of “Buddhist Economics,” Stephen Batchelor points out that
Buddhist economics has to start from a standpoint of nonduality and
Emptiness, and from this point of view the concept of an ethical
“center” comes increasingly into question. “In the West we are still
caught in a struggle between theocentric and anthropocentric
visions, which some Greens now seek to resolve through a notion
of biocentrism. Such thoughts are alien to the Buddhist experience
of reality, which, if anything, has tended to be ‘acentric.’”’3* Joanna
Macy has charted the same movement from the point of view of
the Theravada tradition, beginning with a sense of “the pathogenic
character of the reification of the self,’ moving on to the concept
of interdependence (paticca samuppdda), and then developing a
sense of what might best be called universal “self-interest,” in which
the world is visualized as one’s own body.?° With the words of Arne
Naess and the concept of “deep ecology” in mind, she turns the
ethical argument about altruistic motives from one of “duties”
rendered by the self to another into an argument about one’s own
“being.” One protects nature in order to protect one’s own self, and
the circle of self encompasses the totality of the natural order.
Certainly, the sense of interdependence that is such a crucial part
of Buddhist ethical theory gives good reason to be skeptical of any
form of “centrism,” whether it begins in the theos, the anthropos,
or even more benignly in the bios. But do images of the “center”
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 345

need to be entirely abandoned? Buddhist environmental literature

abounds with metaphors of interconnection, from the jeweled “Net
of Indra,” in which every individual jewel is pictured as reflecting
every other, to images of the “web” of existence. But there is
another, relatively unexplored body of metaphor that has to do with
a sense of “place” or “home.” Buddhist sources speak from a very
early period about a tradition of pilgrimage in which people visited
sites that had been important in the life of the Buddha, “saw” them,
and were moved by them. The sites of the Buddha’s birth, his
enlightenment, his first sermon, and his death were held in special
reverence, and traditional sources speak of the throne of the
Buddha’s enlightenment, under the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya, as
the center of the cosmos. Some Mahayana texts pass on a tradition
that every Buddha, of every era, is enlightened at exactly the same
site, and beneath the spot where the Buddhas are enlightened sits a
throne that is anchored at the center of the cosmos.*° If there were
a “center” in Buddhist ethical thinking about the environment,
perhaps this is where it should be located, at the site where Buddhas
attain their enlightenment.
But where is this site? Northern India is one possibility. The
tradition, however, has a distinct aversion to literal conceptions of
the Buddha. Embedded in Buddhist tradition is the idea that one
finds the Buddha not in his physical form but by understanding the
Dharma. (“What is there, O Vakkali, in seeing this vile body? He
who sees the Dharma sees the Buddha. He who sees the Buddha
sees the Dharma.”) Where, then, is the “throne of enlightenment,”
the place where one understands the Dharma? One possible answer
would be the mind itself. It is in the mind that one understands the
nature of Emptiness. But the mind is located in a particular body,
and the body is located in a particular place. While Emptiness, in a
sense, is everywhere, it is realized only in this moment, this place,
and this body. In a fine meditation on “Zen Practice and a Sense of
Place,” Doug Cochida quotes a reference by the Zen master Dogen
to the earth as the “true human body”:

The meaning of “true” in “the entire Earth is the true human body”
is the actual body. You should know that the entire Earth is not our
temporary appearance, but our genuine human body.?’
346 Buddhism and Ecology

The earth is not, as it were, a mere illusion. It is the body of an

enlightened sage, and it is as worthy of reverence as the throne of
the Buddha.
In his essays on “The Practice of the Wild,’ Gary Snyder said:
“In some cases we might call [nature] sacred.”38 To say only “in
some cases” shows an appropriate Buddhist reticence toward
attributing sacrality to nature in and of itself. But it is not completely
implausible to use the language of “holiness” in speaking of the
natural order. The natural world can function as a teacher when one
meditates about impermanence. In some strands of the Buddhist
tradition it can be thought of as possessing Buddha-nature. But most
importantly, it is the place made holy by the quest for enlightenment.
Enlightenment is made present in this body and this earth. To speak
of the earth as the throne of enlightenment is a metaphor, of course,
and it is not by any means a common metaphor in Buddhist writings.
But it is one that resonates deeply with the theistic language of
Erazim Kohak, the man to whom this essay is dedicated. Kohak’s
great meditation on the moral sense of nature, The Embers and the
Stars, is alive with a sense of the holy or, as Kohak himself says,
“the presence of God in the very fact of the world.”39 The Buddhist
tradition has problems with the language of classic theism, but a
sense of the presence of the holy is hardly unknown in Buddhist
experience or imagination. It does not come, however, from the
outside, nor is it ready-made. It has to be fashioned and developed
by the application of human discipline, imagination, compassion,
and awareness. This I take to be the force of the Dalai Lama’s
Middlebury address, as it is of the tradition more generally. Human
beings have to take responsibility themselves for the harmony, the
health, and the well-being of the setting in which the quest for
enlightenment takes place.
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 347

Notes

* This essay was first presented in “Philosophies of Nature,”

>
a Boston
University Symposium in Honor of Erazim Kohak, 13-17 November 1995.
1. Roderick Frazier Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1967), 20-21, 192-93.
2. Y. Murota, “Culture and Environment in Japan,” Environmental Management
9 (1986):105-12.
3. Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155
(1967):1203—7. Reprinted in Machina Ex Deo: Essays on the Dynamism of Western
Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1968), 75-94.
4. Masao Watanabe, “The Conception of Nature in Japanese Culture,” Science
183 (1974):279-82.
5. Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild (San Francisco: North Point Press,
1990), 10.
6. The words belong to Richard Gere, the Founding Chairman of Tibet House
in New York, and appear in Marylin M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman, eds.,
Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet (New York: Harry N. Abrams,
1991), 8. The image of Tibet as the “lifeboat of civilization” has been widely
remarked upon in Asian studies, notably by Peter Bishop in The Myth of Shangri-
La: Tibet, Travel Writing, and the Western Creation of the Sacred Landscape
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
7. The Dalai Lama’s speech appears in Steven C. Rockefeller and John C.
Elder, eds., Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1992).
8. Rockefeller and Elder, Spirit and Nature, 114.
9. This formula for the expression of Emptiness comes from the Madhyamaka
school of Mahayana philosophy, the school within which the Dalai Lama himself
speaks. For a more extensive account of this concept and for references to further
literature, see Malcolm David Eckel, To See the Buddha: A Philosopher’s Quest
for the Meaning of Emptiness (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992; reprint ed.,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
10. See, for example, Gabriel P. Weisberg et al., eds., Japonisme: Japanese
Influence on French Art, 1854-1910 (London: Robert G. Sawyers, 1975).
11. Robert S. Ellwood and Richard Pilgrim, Japanese Religion: A Cultural
Perspective (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), 55.
12. Burton Watson, trans., Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han-
shan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 67.
13. Gary Snyder has produced some of the most powerful translations of the
Cold Mountain poems. See his Rip Rap and Other Poems (San Francisco: Grey
Fox Press, 1982).
348 Buddhism and Ecology

14. William R. LaFleur, “Saigyd and the Buddhist Value of Nature,” in Nature
in Asian Traditions of Thought, ed. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1989), 183-209.
15. The Lotus Sutra, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1993), chapter 5.
16. Allan G. Grapard, “Nature and Culture in Japan,” in Deep Ecology, ed.
Michael Tobias (San Diego: Avant Books, 1985), 240-55.
17. Stephen R. Kellert, “Japanese Perceptions of Wildlife,’ Conservation
Biology 5 (1991):297-308; “Concepts of Nature East and West,” in Reinventing
Nature? Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction, ed. Michael E. Soulé and Gary
Lease (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995), 103-21. See also Yi-Fu Tuan,
“Discrepancies between Environmental Attitude and Behaviour: Examples from
Europe and China,” Canadian Geographer 12, no. 3 (1968):175—91.
18. Kellert, “Concepts of Nature East and West,” 107.
19. D. Ritchie, The Island Sea (Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1971), 13; quoted in
Kellert, “Concepts of Nature East and West,” 115.
20. W.
Montgomery Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1961).
21. “Distinction” (viveka) is one of the four “qualifications” for the knowledge
of Brahman. See Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1969), 105.
22. Lambert Schmithausen, “Buddhism and Nature,” in Studia Philologica
Buddhica: Occasional Paper Series, 7 (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist
Studies, 1991).
23. For sources see Schmithausen, “Buddhism and Nature,” 15. The references
to the “city of nirvana” come from texts that are somewhat late. An interesting
echo of the metaphor in an early source is a reference in Suttanipata 3.109 to
nirvana as a level piece of land (samo bhimibhdago).
24. Buddhist Mahayana Texts, trans. Max Miiller, Sacred Books of the East,
49 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894; reprint ed., New York: Dover Publications,
1969).
25. Rockefeller and Elder, Spirit and Nature, 114.
26. Daniel H. H. Ingalls, An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), 438.
27. Grapard, “Nature and Culture in Japan,” 243.
28. Riccardo Venturini, “A Buddhist View on Ecological Balance,’ Dharma
World 17 (March-April 1990):19-23; quoted in Schmithausen, “Buddhism and
Nature,” 17.
29. The lectures have been published in His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet,
Tenzin Gyatso, The Dalai Lama at Harvard, trans. and ed. Jeffrey Hopkins (Ithaca:
Snow Lion, 1988).
 Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature? 349

30. The classic account of the theory of pudgalavdda is found in the

Abhidharmakosa, trans. L. de La Vallée Poussin, Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques
16 (1971). A useful English translation of the section from the Abhidharmakosa
that deals with this theory can be found in Edward Conze, Buddhist Scriptures
(Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1959), 192-97.
31. Steven C. Rockefeller, “Faith and Community in an Ecological Age,” in
Rockefeller and Elder, Spirit and Nature, 139-71. For further commentary on the
issues of “anthropocentrism,” see J. Baird Callicott, “Non-Anthropocentric Value
Theory and Environmental Ethics,” American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984).
32. Rockefeller, “Faith and Community in an Ecological Age,” 143.
33. See chapters 8 and 9 of The Dalai Lama at Harvard. Santideva’s own text
is available in a number of translations, notably Stephen Batchelor, A Guide to
the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and
Archives, 1979).
34. Stephen Batchelor, “Buddhist Economics Reconsidered,” in Dharma Gata:
A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology, ed. Allan Hunt Badiner (Berkeley:
Parallax Press, 1990), 178-82.
35. Joanna Macy, “The Greening of the Self,” in Badiner Dharma Gaia, 53-63.
36. Etienne Lamotte summarizes Mahayana traditions about the throne of
enlightenment (bodhimanda) in The Teaching of Vimalakirti ( Virmalakirtinirdesa),
trans. Sara Boin (London: Pali Text Society, 1976), 94-99.
37. Doug Cochida, “Zen Practice and a Sense of Place,” in Badiner, Dharma
Gaia, 106-11.
38. Snyder, The Practice of the Wild, 10.
39. Erazim Kohak, The Embers and the Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into
the Moral Sense of Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 188.
 Green Buddhism
and the Hierarchy of Compassion

Alan Sponberg

Buddhist perspectives on nature and the environment have a long

and complex history, and it is thus not surprising that one finds
within this rich and varied tradition much that resonates with
contemporary concerns regarding nature and the place of humanity
within it.! While Buddhists of the past had little reason to formulate
an environmental ethic per se, there is much within traditional
Buddhist ethics that does indeed speak to the ethical aspects of the
environmental crisis confronting us today, a fact that has been well
noted and at least partially explored both by non-Buddhist envi-
ronmental ethicists and by a growing number of contemporary
Buddhists themselves, advocates of what is frequently referred to
as “Green Buddhism.”* My approach in the present article seeks to
bridge these two camps, and I| shall thus be writing here both as a
practicing Buddhist and as an environmental ethicist, one with
academic training in philosophy and in the history of Buddhism. I
shall undertake a critique of certain features of Green Buddhism in
this article, and it is important for the reader to realize that I do
so from within the circle of this vital movement of contempo-
rary Buddhism, seeking to identify the “near enemy” (@sanna-
paccathika) within, which, as Buddhaghosa commenied in the fifth
century, is often more dangerous than the “distant enemy” (dira-
paccathika) that remains more obviously (and safely) outside the
fold.
The “near enemy” I have in mind in this case is the view that
Green Buddhism is fundamentally incompatible with, and hence
necessarily opposed to, hierarchy in any and all forms. There are
352 Buddhism and Ecology

good reasons why such a view appears quite plausible and attractive
at first, though we must recognize that these reasons stem more from
our own cultural history than from anything within Buddhism itself.
While it is certainly true that Buddhism advocated, in its early forms
at least, a radically decentralized institutional structure, this should
not be misconstrued in the light of our current Western concerns to
mean that the spiritual ideal in Buddhism was seen as nonhierarchi-
cal and egalitarian. The Buddha was indeed radical in that he
recognized that all beings—not just human beings—have access to
the liberation he proclaimed, but this does not mean that he felt that
all beings were equal in the sense that there is no significant
difference between species or individuals. To the extent that we fail
to acknowledge this important sense in which Buddhism is non-
egalitarian, we not only seriously misrepresent the tradition, we also
risk disavowing an aspect of the Dharma that is sorely lacking in
contemporary Western thought. Thus, in this article I shall seek to
show, first, that the rejection of all forms of hierarchy is funda-
mentally un-Buddhist and, further, that such a view threatens,
however unintentionally, to obscure and even reject a fundamental
feature of Buddhism that may turn out to be crucial to the agenda
of Green Buddhism.
To understand my argument we must reflect on the history of
our current Western aversion to hierarchy in any form, and we must
also clarify what place hierarchical structures do have in traditional
Buddhism. If we find that hierarchy in some sense does have a place
in Buddhism, then we shall have to ask whether it is the same kind
of hierarchy that we are so anxious to banish from our own cultural
history. I realize that discussion of “hierarchy” in any form will
arouse very strong feelings among many Western Buddhists and
environmentalists, yet I have intentionally chosen to use this
provocative “h-word” for reasons that will become clear below. It
is to those who find this word inherently objectionable that this
article is respectfully dedicated. I truly share your concerns, and I
ask only that you hear me out, bracketing for the moment whatever
affront my thesis may initially elicit. Much of what Buddhism has
to offer the West may, I fear, be lost, if we fail to see the quite
specific sense in which Buddhism is, and must be, “hierarchical.”
By considering this apparently discordant assertion, we will, I
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 353

submit, learn something quite important about Buddhism and also

something about the cultural roots of a distinctly Western and
modern form of “aversion” ( pratigha).

The Two Dimensions of Basic Buddhism

Our first task, then, shall be to consider whether there is any aspect
of traditional Buddhism that might warrant being called “hierarchi-
cal.” While it is imperative that one remember the diversity within
the different cultural expressions and traditions of Buddhism, it is
nonetheless possible to identify a set of basic Buddhist teachings
that remains at the core of the later variations. I am thinking of the
basic doctrines of conditionality or dependent arising (pratitya-
samutpada), karma, the middle path, impermanence, and non-
substantiality (andtman), among others. One quite useful approach
I have found for gaining a more comprehensive understanding of
“Basic Buddhism” in this sense is to recognize, running throughout
Buddhist history, two fundamental aspects of the tradition: a
developmental dimension and a relational dimension. While we shall
see that each of these two dimensions is clearly distinct, we must
also recognize that each complements the other in a way that is
crucial to the integrity of the tradition.
Let us first consider these dimensions separately. When we speak
of the developmental dimension or aspect of Buddhism, we are
focusing on the transformational intent of the tradition, on the
Buddhadharma as a practical means of spiritual growth and develop-
ment. Buddhism, in all of its forms, sees the spiritual life as the
transformation of delusion and suffering into enlightenment and
liberation. Even the so-called nondual forms of Buddhism—Zen and
Dzogchen, for example—acknowledge an experiential distinction
between delusion and enlightenment, and certainly neither would
trivialize the existential reality of suffering.* The second crucial
aspect of basic Buddhism—what I have called the relational
dimension of the tradition—comes to the fore, by contrast, whenever
we note the distinctly Buddhist conception of the interrelatedness
of all things. And “things” here may be taken to encompass not just
all sentient beings but every aspect of the ecosystems in which they
participate—ultimately, the ecosphere in its totality.*
354 Buddhism and Ecology

Looking at Buddhism historically, we will quickly note that these

two dimensions are rarely given equal stress in any given expression
of the tradition. My argument here rests only on the assertion that
both will always be present to some degree—that indeed there is a
necessary complementarity between the two—even when one
appears more prominent than the other. The fact that one dimension
or the other will, within the context of a particular form of
Buddhism, frequently receive relatively more or less emphasis thus
raises no problem, since the basic complementarity is not thereby
negated. Indeed, by noting in different schools of Buddhism the
relative difference in emphasis given to the developmental or the
relational dimension, we have one useful way of charting the
complex and fascinating permutations that the basic Dharma
manifested as the tradition made its way through the various cultural
encounters of its twenty-five-hundred-year history.
To clarify the variable relationship between these two dimensions
of basic Buddhism, we might think of the two axes of a graph, with
the vertical axis indicating the developmental dimension of the
tradition and the horizontal axis indicating the relational dimension
(see figure 1). We have then a useful heuristic tool we can use to
explore the rich elaboration of different Buddhist schools and
teachings, plotting each in reference to the others by noting the
relative degree of emphasis given to the developmental and rela-
tional dimensions respectively. While this approach is helpful
in highlighting and under-
standing the diversity within
FIGURE 1
~~
s

Buddhism, the tool I am sug-

gesting here will also help us
Developmental Dimension

recognize how the differences

revealed indicate not so much
a fundamental divergence
among the forms of Buddhism
as differences in approach and
emphasis—expedient means
Relational Dimension
— (upaya) that reflect the ability
of the tradition to adapt to the
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 355

needs and dispositions of different historical and cultural settings.

One could, no doubt, even write a history of Buddhism by charting
the various permutations of emphasis revealed by this simple x-y
graph, but that would go well beyond the task at hand.
For our present purposes a few basic generalizations should
suffice, both to illustrate the basic distinction between “vertical” and
“horizontal” or “developmental” and “relational” within the tradition
and to demonstrate the usefulness of this interpretative approach.
Considering the two major divisions that arose within the history
of Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism (often called Hinayana), on the
one hand, and Mahayana (including the later developments of
Vajrayana, Zen, etc.), on the other, we could, for example, note that
the former places relatively more emphasis on the developmental
dimension, while in the latter the relational aspect often comes more
to the fore. Similarly, it would not be too rash to observe that, on
the whole, the South Asian Indo-Tibetan forms of Buddhism tend
to plot out higher on the developmental (the vertical axis), whereas
East Asian forms on the whole tend to move further out on the
horizontal or relational axis. As with all such generalizations, the
exceptions are often all the more significant and more interesting
than the instances that conform. And even more importantly, we
must remember that what we are noting here is simply a matter of
the relative degree of emphasis given each of these aspects, which
does not assume any mutual exclusion between the two. Instances
of a totally one-dimensional form of Buddhism would in fact be very
difficult to find in the historical record, so much so that we would
be justified in asking whether such a case was still legitimately
Buddhism even if it referred to itself as such.
Working at this level of generalization and abstraction is unlikely
to remain satisfying for very long, however. Now that we have the
basic distinction between the two dimensions of Buddhism in mind,
let us consider more specifically where we can locate these two
general aspects within actual Buddhist teachings. This will help us
to see just how deeply embedded in basic Buddhism these two
dimensions are, and it will also reveal more clearly their mutual
complementarity. The developmental dimension of Buddhism is
perhaps most readily evident in the very conception of the Dharma
as a path (marga), whether presented in the elaborate sequence of
steps the Buddha describes in the S@manfaphala Sutta of the Digha
356 Buddhism and Ecology

Nikaya or in the perhaps more familiar early doctrines of the

“threefold teaching” (morality-meditation-wisdom) and the “eight-
fold path.” Here we can see the spiritual life advocated by the
Buddha presented clearly in terms of a transformational soteriology,
one that begins in a problematic state which is ultimately overcome,
typically through the systematic cultivation of a variously detailed
progression of positive mental and spiritual states or attainments.
In this sense, Buddhism offers an interesting parallel to the “virtue
tradition” of early and medieval Western thought.
We could explore many other expressions of this same vertical
or developmental dimension of early Buddhism, looking for
examples at the four levels of meditative absorption (dhydna), the
five spiritual faculties (indriya), the seven limbs of enlightenment
(bodhyanga), the stages of arhat-hood, or the path of the twelve
“positive” causes and conditions (nidana) taught by the Buddha
in the Samyutta Nikaya.> But all of these are examples of the
developmental dimension seen in terms of different aspects of the
development of the individual practitioner. We will understand better
how deeply this vertical axis runs, however, if we recognize, in
addition, a more systemic level at which this dimension is also
evident. Basic Buddhist cosmology provides the best illustrations
of this second form of the developmental dimension. Consider, for
example, the vertical array of the “three world-levels” (triloka),
which is further elaborated into a hierarchical taxonomy of six (or
sometimes five) life-forms (gati): the gods, titans, humans, animals,
pretas (hungry ghosts), and hell-beings. Not only does the spiritual
life or path pursued by the individual have a crucial vertical
dimension, but this verticality is also built into the very structure
of the Buddhist conception of the cosmos itself.
Many of the instances of the developmental dimension of
Buddhism that I have cited so far originated in and are often given
more prominence in the early Buddhism of the Elders (Theras),
which is consistent with the generalization I noted above regarding
a relative difference of emphasis on the developmental and the
relational between the two main divisions of Buddhism. I have also
stressed, however, that these two dimensions are not mutually
exclusive, and this will become more clear if we look also at
instances of this verticality in the Mahayana tradition. First, we must
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 357

remember that all of the doctrines discussed so far retain their

place (if not necessarily the same degree of emphasis) within the
Mahayana. The vertical dimension is never simply discarded: even
when the Zen and Pure Land schools explore the dangers of taking
“developmental” language in any overly literalistic way, they still
maintain the crucial—and essentially vertical—distinction between
the experience of enlightenment and the perpetuation of suffering.
The Mahayana thus retains the verticality of the earlier tradition,
but its recognition of this dimension is hardly limited to a residual
carry-over of themes from the earlier tradition.
Many doctrines considered distinctly Mahayana reflect the same
vertical perspective of a developmental path. One sees this in the
bodhisattva ideal, which actually extends the older conception of
the path in a spiritually significant way by stressing the importance
of an altruistic motivation. The doctrines of the ten bodhisattva
stages (bhimi) and the six (or ten) bodhisattva virtues or perfections
(paramita) are central Mahayana themes, both of which figure
importantly in the Yogacara elaboration of the spiritual map into a
path of vision (darsana-marga) followed by a path of cultivation
or transformation (bh@vana-marga). For all of its exploration of the
relational axis, Mahayana thus remains just as fundamentally
developmental, and this is true even of Zen where “sudden enlight-
enment” is expected to require a period—often quite a long period—
of especially intensive practice.®
Turning next to the relational aspect, the horizontal axis of our
grid, it will no doubt be teachings associated with the Mahayana
that first come to mind. Ethically, this dimension is obvious in the
transpersonal and altruistic focus of the bodhisattva ideal and,
ontologically, in the notions of interrelatedness derived from the
emptiness doctrine (Siinyavada) richly elaborated in the Perfection
of Wisdom literature, the Avatamsaka, and other key Mahayana
siitras. One key feature of the Mahayana was its insistence that the
Buddha’s enlightenment was not so much a combination of wisdom
and compassion as the realization of a wisdom that must be
compassion, by virtue of its insight into the fundamental inter-
relatedness of all existence. The very nature of the Buddha’s
enlightenment was thus seen to be interrelational, something that
could only exist in the context of compassionate, altruistic activity.
358 Buddhism and Ecology

But again, we must be careful not to assume that recognition of this

relational dimension of the Buddha’s enlightenment was a purely
Mahayana innovation.
First of all, the roots of the bodhisattva ideal are well represented
in the earlier tradition of the elders. And the early teachings on
impermanence and andtman were already sufficient to establish a
basic insight into the ultimate nonsubstantiality of any putative
dichotomy of self-interest versus other-interest.’ Even more
revealing is the fact that the pre-Mahay4na roots of the relational
dimension are implicit in some of the very developmental teachings
we have already considered above. An indispensable relational
aspect is literally built right into even the most seemingly hierarchi-
cal doctrines of the early tradition. While the vertically arrayed
taxonomy of life-forms recognized by all schools of Buddhism
asserts an explicit hierarchy of levels of consciousness—adding still
a higher level reached with the attainment of Buddhahood—the
hierarchy here is nonetheless quite different from what we, as
products of Western culture, might expect or fear. In Buddhism the
point of these vertical distinctions is not to establish a hierarchy of
privilege and subjugation. Quite the contrary. The hierarchy here is
neither absolute nor does it justify the dominion or domination of
one class of beings over another. In fact, as we shall see more clearly
below, the vertical distinction here is a matter of compassion rather
than of control.
In the religions of Abraham (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam),
God is intrinsically superior to humankind, as is the creator to his
creation. Similarly, humankind, which alone was created in God’s
image, is intrinsically and (unalterably) superior to the animals and
all the rest of creation as well. The Buddhist taxonomy of life-forms
(including Buddhahood) presents a crucial contrast. It too is
thoroughly and incontrovertibly hierarchical in structure, yet in a
fundamentally different way. All of the levels in the Buddhist “chain
of being” are both dynamic and interpermeable. A given life-form
moves up, and often down, in this deadly serious cosmic game of
“chutes and ladders.” The different levels in the Buddhist cos-
mology, while indicating spiritually significant differences in
awareness and consciousness, do not entail the theocentric and
anthropocentric perspective and privilege so familiar in our own
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 359

cultural tradition. They represent, rather, the range of progressively

greater degrees of awareness and ethical sensibility available to all
life-forms. We might say that this is an ethically dynamic array of
possibilities rather than an ontologically static hierarchy of privilege
and status.
This is a crucial distinction, and one that is very easy for us to
overlook, especially those of us who are the most disenchanted with
and critical of the Western notions of ontological hierarchy. Indeed,
there is an objection that invariably arises at this point in the minds
of many contemporary Buddhists. How and why is the vertical,
developmental dimension so complementary—and thus so neces-
sary—if, as Buddhism asserts, all of existence is already by its very
nature inherently interrelated? If everything is already the way it
needs to be, what possible need is there for something to be done?
If we have the relational dimension of the Dharma, what need is
there for development, for doing?—especially since it is precisely
“human doing” that has brought about the environmental crisis we
now face. The anger and frustration that give rise to these questions,
expressed often with a palpable tone of indignation, are feelings we
have all no doubt shared at one time or another, and our tendency
to feel this impatience is understandable. Yet these questions reflect
a grave misunderstanding of the Buddhist teaching of inter-
relatedness and of enlightenment as a developmental process. We
should note, especially, the tone of righteous indignation in which
these questions are often expressed, moreover, for it betrays, I fear,
the ultimate despair of an ethical scepticism, even cynicism, that is
fundamentally at odds with the basically positive conception of
human potential that characterizes the Dharma. In the West we have
come to fear that the presence of any vertical, developmental
perspective is antithetical to our newly gained recognition of
horizontal relatedness. Thus we miss the point that for Buddhism
neither is possible without the other. The developmental and the
relational are not only complementary, they are inseparably inter-
related. This last point is central to the concerns I expressed above
that those of us most attracted to Green Buddhism may also be the
most prone to seriously misunderstand Buddhism in our very effort
to see it as part of the solution to the environmental question.
360 Buddhism and Ecology

Green Buddhism and the Loss of the

Vertical Dimension

I have argued that the developmental and the relational are inex-
tricably linked in Buddhist ethics. Yet I have also suggested that
contemporary Buddhists are strongly inclined to ignore or even deny
that this could be true. We need to consider more closely how this
peculiar circumstance has come about. What I wish to demonstrate
is that, for all its laudable articulation of the environmental ethical
themes within the Buddhist tradition, Green Buddhism at present
also shows a subtle tendency that threatens to distort significantly
the assimilation of the Dharma into the West, a tendency to reduce
Buddhism to a one-dimensional teaching of simple interrelatedness.
And the dangers of this tendency are all the more ironic and all the
more insidious, I would further argue, because it is a tendency that
arises out of our own cultural conditioning. It is a problem we are
bringing to Buddhism rather than one inherent in the tradition. As
such, it is a tendency that may well subvert the very potential
Buddhism does have to contribute to the more environmentally
ethical perspective we are currently struggling so hard to realize.
Hence my concern: we may, in our efforts to adopt Buddhism
as an alternative to the worst in our own culture, end up divesting
Buddhism of one of its most essential aspects. In doing so we may
coincidentally and quite unwittingly denude Western Buddhism of
the very aspect of Buddhism that we need to confront the magnitude
of the present environmental crisis. But why, we may well ask,
would contemporary Buddhism, especially Green Buddhism,
develop this tendency to disavow or even deny a crucial element of
traditional Buddhism? Part of the answer to this question lies, no
doubt, in the historical fact that the forms of Buddhism that initially
attracted the widest popularity in the West, and especially in North
America, were forms in which we see a relatively greater emphasis
on the horizontal, relational dimension of the tradition, forms in
which one might initially overlook the importance of the develop-
mental aspect. This is most obvious in the Western appropriation
of Zen, for example, especially in its most popularized forms, those
based on the writings of D. T. Suzuki and Alan Watts. It is, however,
no historical accident that it was these particular forms of Buddhism
that initially prevailed in much of the West; consequently, I see this
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 361

as simply another symptom of a deeper circumstance, which has

more to do with our own cultural history than with that of Asian
Buddhism. What I am suggesting is that the Western cultural
sensibility driving the critique of our own history of environmental
practice is also significantly shaping how we see Buddhism, even
influencing which forms of Buddhism strike us as the most attract-
ive. This same Western sensibility, moreover, is also driving us
toward a significantly distorted view of Buddhism, one which in its
fear of hierarchy leads us to imagine the solution of our problems
in a “Buddhism” free of any vertical or hierarchial structure.
The key to my argument lies in the degree to which many of us
within the circle of Green Buddhism are extremely uncomfortable,
even mortified, by any aspect of Buddhism that is in any sense
hierarchical, so much so that some of us feel the need to redefine
Buddhism, to purge it of anything that even vaguely resembles the
Western forms of environmentally callous elitism and privilege we
seek so desperately to flee. The motivation here is understandable
and, in part, even commendable, yet its excesses are nonetheless
deluded and the outcome may well be disastrous—for Western
Buddhism, certainly, and perhaps even for Western environmental
ethics more broadly. How has this come about? We have identified
in our own cultural history an unquestionable tendency toward
attitudes of exploitation and domination of nature, and we have
rightly associated those attitudes with cultural institutions of
hierarchy and privilege. The unwitting and often quite unconscious
mistake we make, however, comes when we assume that all forms
of hierarchy are the same. We assume that any and every manifesta-
tion of hierarchy leads inevitably to the dead end of domination and
exploitation, and so we have even banished that now dreaded “h-
word” from all forms of polite conversation. And, as Western
Buddhists, we reassure ourselves that any apparently hierarchical
element in our cherished Buddhism must be a mistake, perhaps the
later corruption of some monastic elitists. Or perhaps we see it
simply as a historical anomaly, one that can and indeed should be
quickly swept under the carpet. But is this unconsidered assumption
that all forms of hierarchy lead to attitudes of domination and
exploitation actually true? And, even if it appears to be true within
the (limited) context of our own cultural history, can we simply
assume that it is true in other cultural traditions as well? Is this not
362 Buddhism and Ecology

actually the height of cultural arrogance? And are we not over-

looking the very difference between Western and Buddhist traditions
that I noted when discussing the fundamental “permeability”
Buddhist hierarchial thinking has in the context of the six samsaric
life-forms? I would answer affirmatively to all of the above, and I
would submit that our fear of any vertical dimension to the spiritual
life has become so strong that we are literally terrified of being
confronted by the fact that Buddhism is integrally hierarchical.
Consider the following passage written by Gary Snyder, one of
the most influential and respected Green Buddhists and someone
who has influenced much of my own appreciation for the “Green”
implications of Buddhism. Feeling the need to distinguish a
Buddhist sense of spiritual “training” from what he sees as a more
artificial notion of spiritual cultivation, Snyder observes that:

The word cultivation, harking to etymologies of till and wheel

about, generally implies a movement away from natural process.
In agriculture it is a matter of “arresting succession, establishing
monoculture.” Applied on the spiritual plane this has meant
austerities, obedience to religious authority, long bookish scholar-
ship, or in some traditions a dualistic devotionalism (sharply
distinguishing “creature” and “creator’”) and an overriding image
of divinity being “centralized,” a distant and singular point of
perfection to aim at. The efforts entailed in such a spiritual practice
are sometimes a sort of war against nature—placing the human over
the animal and the spiritual over the human. The most sophisticated
modern variety of hierarchical spirituality is the work of Father
Teilhard de Chardin, who claims a special evolutionary spiritual
destiny for humanity under the name of higher consciousness. Some
of the most extreme of these Spiritual Darwinists would willingly
leave the rest of earthbound animal and plant life behind to enter
an off-the-planet realm transcending biology.’

While this may be an effective and appropriate critique of certain

Western religious attitudes, it is so heavy-handed in its blanket
condemnation of any notion of verticality, of any notion of the
development and evolution of consciousness, that it rejects, however
unintentionally, most of Buddhism as well. Snyder, in this passage
at least, implies that all notions of the evolution of consciousness
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 363

lead inevitably to the rejection of nature and the “natural” by an

oppressive hierarchy of “Spiritual Darwinists.” But what is the
developmental dimension of Buddhism if not a teaching of the
evolutionary transformation of consciousness? The very definition
of Buddhahood asserts the developmental realization of a higher
ethical sensibility expressed as compassion for all of existence.
I readily share Synder’s concern to avoid any world-denying
dualism that sets spirit off against nature. My concern is that his
solution is too drastic. His cure may be as harmful as the disease,
in that it compels the Western Buddhist to renounce not just the
worst of Western religion but also the best of Buddhism, even as
Snyder advocates the latter as one of the few established alternatives
to the former available to us. What is it that is being overlooked
here? I suggest that Western Buddhists can resolve this problem
within our own cultural history only to the extent that we openly
acknowledge and affirm the way in which the developmental aspect
of Buddhism is hierarchical, while simultaneously continuing to
criticize the specific hierarchical forms that have clearly misshaped
Western attitudes toward nature and the environment.
It is thus central to my argument to establish that there is, in fact,
a crucial difference that distinguishes the Buddhist conception of
verticality or hierarchy from those forms of hierarchy that have
dominated Western cultural history. Only once that difference is
clear will I be able to argue my central thesis that we need actively
to endorse this Buddhist notion of developmental verticality
precisely for the sake of better environmental ethics, just as we strive
to abandon the most familiar Western notions of hierarchy for the
very same reason. The difference is not immediately obvious,
however, and even the reader who is sufficiently sympathetic to
consider that there might be a difference is no doubt wondering why
I would choose, even insist, on contaminating whatever I have to
say by using this dreaded “h-word” when I could just as easily have
conformed to the prevailing cultural taboo and surreptitiously
slipped in some more innocuous synonym for “hierarchy” when
speaking of the vertical dimension of Buddhism. While it is true I
could thereby avoid the risk of being dismissed as hopelessly
atavistic even before I am able to make my case for the difference,
there is a reason why I have chosen not to do this, one which I hope
will soon become clear.
364 Buddhism and Ecology

The first task, however, is to distinguish the two fundamentally

different forms of hierarchy. Thinking, for the moment, not just
historically but more theoretically in terms of a Weberian “ideal
typology,” I am suggesting that there are two forms of human
practice that are sufficiently related one to the other to fall under
the same general designation of “hierarchy,” even though their
respective outcomes are nonetheless diametrically opposite.

The Hierarchy of Oppression

To illustrate the two types of hierarchy we can imagine each form
encompassing again both a developmental and a relational dimen-
sion of human experience, each of which we can plot on an x-y
graph similar to the one we considered above. It is important to note
the difference in what we are graphing now, however. Earlier, in
figure 1, we were noting the relative emphasis given to the develop-
mental versus the relational dimension of the Dharma in different
forms of Buddhism, whereas now we shall be using the same axes
to explore a rather different issue. In the next two figures we shall
be plotting the relative balance between the developmental and
relational dimensions of our existence in each of two different
models of hierarchy. In each of these two figures, the further away
from the center point we move horizontally (in either direction), the
greater is the degree of interrelatedness. And the further we move
up the vertical axis, the greater the degree of developmental
progress. We shall see, however, that what constitutes vertical
movement differs drastically in each of the two cases, and it is that
difference that makes all the difference.
The first type of hierarchy or hierarchical structure we can
designate a “hierarchy of oppression.” We can understand its
distinctive mechanisms by imagining superimposed on our x-y axes
a triangle or a cone rising from a wide base to a single point at the
apex (see figure 2). Imagine now that, as we move up the vertical
axis, each horizontal section of the cone corresponding to the
present vertical location represents a circle of interrelatedness. By
“interrelatedness” here I mean not just any sense of relationship but,
specifically, an understanding of the sense in which all beings share
a communality of interests. The nature of a “hierarchy of oppres-
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 365

sion” is such that as one advances vertically, one’s “circle of

interrelatedness” becomes increasingly smaller. This is so because
one advances in a hierarchy of oppression by exercising one’s
control over and domination of all those below. As a result of one’s
vertical progress, one necessarily becomes less and less aware of
one’s interrelatedness with them.
From the Buddhist perspective, of course, one’s actual inter-
relatedness remains constant and absolute. What in fact changes as
one moves upward in figure 2 is not how interrelated one actually
is but, rather, the extent to which one realizes and expresses that
interrelatedness in one’s actions. In other words, “progress” in a
hierarchy of oppression requires that one actively deny and suppress
any recognition of relatedness to those that one seeks to dominate.
As one claws one’s way to the top of the pyramid, submissively
accepting subjugation from those above in return for the privilege
and right to dominate those below, the extent of one’s expressed
interrelatedness, as plotted on the horizontal axis, becomes increas-
ingly more narrow and circumscribed. For one cannot successfully
dominate what is below except to the extent that one actively rejects
any fundamental communality of interest and needs.
In the hierarchy of oppression, one moves upward only by
gaining power over others, and to safeguard one’s power and

FIGURE 2:
A Hierarchy of Oppression
Degree of Oppression

a. ~,
—_ oo

Degree of Expressed Interrelatedness

366 Buddhism and Ecology

security one must seek ultimately to control all of existence,

however unrealistic and deluded that aspiration inevitably turns out
to be. One is able to sustain this aspiration, moreover, only to the
extent that one actively suppresses and denies any sense of meaning-
ful connection to all that is below. Reaching the apex of the cone
in figure 2 would thus represent, in the terms of this model, the
ultimate “success” to which one could aspire, but that ultimate
“success” would, of course, be a state of total alienation—alienation
not just from others but from oneself as well—because one can
“succeed” only by rejecting one’s actual nature of interrelatedness.
If the folly of this approach to life is not schematically clear from
the diagram, one need only reflect on the course of human history,
especially (though not exclusively!) the history of the modern West.

The Hierarchy of Compassion

Imagine now the same image turned upside down, stood literally
on its head as in figure 3. Here we find the apex point at the bottom,
and we see that the cone broadens as it rises. This is a model of
what I would call a “hierarchy of compassion.” Note the funda-
mental difference. As one ascends the vertical, developmental axis
in this case, something quite different happens, something that is
precisely the inverse of the previous case. As one moves upwards,
the circle of one’s interrelatedness (or rather of one’s expressed
interrelatedness) increases. In fact, the only way one can move up
is by actively realizing and acting on the fundamental inter-
relatedness of all existence. But the line of vertical ascent needs to
be plotted somewhat differently in this case, because vertical
movement now is not the simple, linear upward assertion of control
over gradually more and more of the rest of existence. In the
hierarchy of compassion, vertical progress is a matter of “reaching
out,” actively and consciously, to affirm an ever widening circle of
expressed interrelatedness. Such an ever broadening circle plotted
as a developmental line becomes the spiral path illustrated in
figure 3.
Unlike the previous case, moreover, progress along this spiral
path confers no increasing privilege over those who are below on
the path. Quite the contrary, it entails an ever increasing sense of
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 367

responsibility. This profoundly FIGURE 3:

ethical sense of responsibility A Hierarchy of Compassion
for an ever greater circle of real-
ized relatedness is what is ex-
pressed by the Buddhist term

————>
karuna—compassion or “wis-
dom in action.” Perhaps now it

Evolution of Consciousness
is beginning to become clear
why I am so concerned about
attempts to formulate Western
Buddhism in any way that does
not fully appreciate the vital
complementarity of both the
developmental and the relational < Degree of Expressed Interrelatedness>
dimensions of the tradition.
Buddhism does offer an ethic
that might be capable of transforming our current deluded envi-
ronmental practice, but the developmental dimension of the tradition
is crucial to that ethic, because the Buddhist virtue of compassion
is something one can cultivate only by progressing up the spiral path
of the hierarchy of compassion. Before looking at this last assertion
more closely, however, we must first consider a question I raised
in the introduction to this article.
The two models I have just presented each have a vertical
dimension, yet I have argued that there is a crucial difference. Why,
if these two forms of “progress” or individual development are so
different, do I feel so strongly that both models should be called
“hierarchies,” especially since that word sounds so objectionable to
many modern ears? My point is to stress the close, yet decisively
different, relation between the two, and that crucial point would be
missed if we were to suggest that these two ways of living one’s
life are completely unrelated. Relating to others and to the environ-
ment as a whole in accord with the hierarchy of compassion is not
just better than climbing the hierarchy of oppression: it is the very
antithesis. To the extent that we do one, the other is literally
impossible—and this is what is lost if we fail to stress the inherent
relationship between the two. Hence the importance given in
traditional Buddhism to the notion of “going forth.” One can
advance on the spiral path of compassion only to the extent that one
368 Buddhism and Ecology

has effectively gone forth away from pursuing the rewards of the
hierarchy of oppression. Unlike some “new age” thinking, Buddhism
does not suggest that we can have it all. On the contrary, it asserts
that progress up the hierarchy of compassion becomes possible only
to the extent that we “go forth” from the aspiration to have it all.
For “having” in this sense is an expression of control and is possible
only within the context of the hierarchy of oppression. Without
seeing how the two hierarchies are related, one might still imagine
that it might be possible to pursue simultaneously elements of both.
There is another reason to stress their relationship. Both the
forms of hierarchy share a crucial feature in that both are about
power. Or, perhaps we should say the one is about power and the
other is about empowerment, the transformative power of com-
passion.’ The first offers the power to control all, while the second
cultivates the empowerment to transform oneself in order truly to
benefit all life (including ourselves). It is this empowerment that
we cannot afford to jettison in our desperate efforts to flee from the
oppressive legacy of our past and present.

Reaffirming the Developmental Dimension of

Traditional Buddhism

If the theory and the structure of the Buddhist hierarchy of compas-

sion are now clear, one might well still wonder what this would look
like in actual practice. This is the point at which the danger of
overlooking the vertical, developmental aspect of Buddhism
becomes most evident, for it is in the context of its developmental
dimension that the tradition provides quite concrete suggestions as
to how to put the insight of interrelatedness into actual practice.
Without its developmental dimension, all that Buddhism has to offer
contemporary environmental ethics is the metaphysical assertion that
all things are interrelated. Lost is the fact that Buddhism offers also
a systematic and comprehensive set of techniques by which one can
actually realize that relatedness in practice.
I have already surveyed the doctrinal roots of the developmental
aspect of the tradition, but the question we are currently addressing
requires that we now focus on this aspect of the teaching as an actual
path of practice. Consistently favoring pragmatism over meta-
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 369

physical speculation, the Buddha would point out that the only way
we can realize what a hierarchy of compassion would look like in
practice is by actually doing the practice of Dharma, and this of
course involves much more than just being more environmentally
correct or sensitive, important as that may well be. Buddhism is
Saying, quite literally, that we cannot expect to act in an environ-
mentally more ethical manner until we cultivate a much broader
ability to act with compassion and wisdom. How we are to do that
is the subject of a vast body of traditional teachings and techniques,
but it is frequently summarized under the rubric of the “threefold
learning” (trisiks@): the systematic cultivation of morality, medi-
tation, and insight into the actual nature of existence. Each of these
three is widely explored by the various schools of Buddhism, and
a full exposition of what is entailed goes well beyond the space
available here. For our present purposes it will suffice to note simply
how these three elements of Buddhist practice are related to one
another and what implications this has for a contemporary envi-
ronmental ethics based on Buddhist principles.
This threefold formulation of the Buddhist path is presented as
clearly sequential, in that each step builds on the previous one. The
three phases of the path do overlap, however, so the point is not
that one cannot begin meditation before completing the practice of
morality, for example. The point rather is that one cannot expect to
make progress in one phase except on the basis of substantial
progress in the previous phase. In other words, effective insight into
the actual nature of existence requires real progress in the cultivation
of higher states of awareness through meditative practice. And that,
in turn, is possible only on the basis of a practice of the ethical
precepts and a cultivation of the primary virtues. This may seem a
simple point, but it has significant implications when we ask what
a Buddhist environmental ethic would be like.
Buddhism says that we can expect to act in accord with the basic
interrelatedness of all existence only once we have cultivated a
significantly different state of awareness. Simply attempting to
change specific environmentally detrimental behaviors will not
work. Efforts to change our environmental behavior may well be
part of the ethical practice that creates the necessary foundation for
experiencing states of higher meditative awareness and ultimately
for realizing transformative insight, but these efforts will be effective
370 Buddhism and Ecology

only to the extent that they are undertaken as part of the whole three-
step program. The Buddhist solution to the environmental crisis is
thus nothing short of the basic Buddhist goal of enlightenment. That
may seem like an unimaginably distant and lofty goal, and indeed
it does involve a fundamental and total transformation of what we
are—nothing less. At the same time Buddhists need not feel overly
daunted by the immensity of this undertaking, for enlightenment is,
in one sense at least, simply (if not easily) a matter of becoming
more fully human, in that this radical transformation is the potential
of all humans, indeed of all beings. The solution to the problem is
thus imminently possible, although that potential can only be
actualized on the basis of both a clear vision of the goal and a well-
defined path to reach it, coupled with a sustained effort to pursue
that path to its completion.
A Buddhist environmental ethic is hence a “virtue ethic,” one that
asks not just which specific actions are necessary to preserve the
environment but, more deeply, what are the virtues (that is, the
precepts and perfections) we must cultivate in order to be able to
act in such a way.!° The relational dimension of Buddhism is
necessary to secure an ecologically sound vision of the goal, but
the developmental dimension of the tradition is every bit as
necessary in that it provides the path that will enable us actually to
reach that goal. Is there, then, truly a danger that Western Buddhists
might overlook the central place of basic Buddhist ethics in
formulating a new, “green” Buddhism? Not consciously, I suspect,
but perhaps quite unintentionally as part of the effort to discard our
own cultural legacy of hierarchies of oppression.
Consider the following comment made by yet another prominent
and respected Green Buddhist. In “The Greening of the Self’ Joanna
Macy discusses the notion of “self-realization” that lies at the heart
of Arne Naess’s Buddhist-inspired sense of deep ecology, pro-
claiming it the foundation of what will become a new, environ-
mentally benign conception of the self.!! Citing his view that the
process of self-realization, properly understood, involves leaving
behind “notions of altruism and moral duty,” Macy succumbs to a
very dangerous, if seductive sentiment. Naess seeks to make a quite
specific, if nonetheless ambiguous, point when he argues that the
ethic of “self-realization” he envisions will not require that one act
for the sake of others out of a sense of self-abnegating “duty.” He
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 37]

takes “altruism” here very literally to mean something done “for

others” in contrast to one’s own self-interest. “Altruism” in this
sense will become unnecessary, he asserts, when one reaches the
point at which one’s “self-interest” and the interests of others
naturally converge. What he fails to clarify is that some form of
ethical (and Buddhists would add meditative) practice is still
necessary in order to reach that point, and the danger of this
ambiguity is borne out by Macy’s extension of his argument.
Naess’s basic point may be sound enough, as far as it goes. We
need an expanded sense of self, one in which acting on behalf of
others and the ecosphere is ultimately acting in terms of “enlight-
ened self-interest” and not out of some sense of moral obligation,
or duty, or even the rights of others perceived as separate from our
own interests.!2 Macy concurs but, falling prey to the implicit
ambiguity, she is led seriously astray. She insists that “virtue is not
required for the greening of the self or the emergence of the
ecological self” (her italics).!? In this formulation there is no
ambiguity, and we are surely on ethical quicksand. She is clearly
speaking not of the eventual goal but of the path itself, of the
practice by which she feels the ecological self will “emerge.”
Apparently, thinking that the rejection of an ethic of duty entails
rejecting all moral judgment and discernment—all effort to cultivate
virtue—she arrives at the conclusion that ethical discipline and
development have no place in the “new Buddhism” she envisions.
If one simply has “‘self-realization” as one’s goal, no further ethical
effort is required. No practice is necessary, only an opening to what
she concedes is something very close to the Christian concept of
“grace.” Let us hope that what she says, in this instance at least, is
not actually what she intends, for this would surely be a case of
throwing out one crucial aspect of Buddhism in the very act of
professing another.

Conclusion

We have explored how some Green Buddhists, uncomfortable with

any notion of hierarchy or developmental verticality, are moving,
intentionally or not, toward a kind of unidimensional Buddhism, one
in which the inverted cone of the hierarchy of compassion is simply
372 Buddhism and Ecology

collapsed into a single flat circle of relatedness. In doing this they

very aptly stress the relevance of the horizontal, relational dimension
of Buddhism to environmental ethics, but they overlook or even
deny the equally vital vertical dimension, that aspect of the Dharma
that sees enlightenment as a process involving the evolution of
consciousness. This development of consciousness in Buddhism is
expressed practically as an ever greater sense of responsibility to
act compassionately for the benefit of all forms of life; hence its
relevance to any discussion of Buddhist-inspired environmental
ethics. Failing to distinguish between the two types of hierarchy
outlined above, and obsessed with the need to dump out the dirty
bath-water of Western hierarchies of oppression, some Green
Buddhists fail to note that they are also discarding the “baby” of
all potential for development—of the potential for meaningful
growth toward a greater expressed sense of interrelatedness, toward
a greater sense of environmental ethics in the most profound sense
of the term.
There are thus two reasons why reaffirming the vertical dimen-
sion of Buddhism is so important: first, because it is central to the
integrity of the tradition; and, second, because it is precisely that
part of the tradition that has something useful to add to con-
temporary environmental ethics. This latter point may seem less than
clear, even if one is prepared to concede the former. Could we not
do as well or even better with just the circle of ultimate inter-
relatedness, even if it does seem a bit flat or one-dimensional? Is
the loss of the vertical dimension not a relatively small price to pay
at this particular moment in history, in order to secure thoroughly
the long-neglected horizontal axis of relationship? Why, after all,
should Buddhism need to assert, as it does, that we all too often
perfidious human beings are somehow a “higher form of conscious-
ness” than the loyal and faithful dog, for example, or even than a
banana slug for that matter? The slug, at least, is content to mind
his own business.
Given the dire situation of the environment, and given the human
role in bringing about that crisis, the position suggested by these
last few questions is indeed attractive, beguilingly so. Nonetheless
I do see this newly emerging, unidimensionally horizontal form of
Green Buddhism to be fundamentally flawed, flawed not just in that
it misrepresents the actual nature of the Buddhist tradition, but even
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 373

more seriously flawed in that it abdicates, however unwittingly and

unintentionally, both the ethical responsibility and the ethical
potential that might actually be just what we need to solve the
predicament in which we find ourselves. If we deny the vertical
dimension of the Dharma, we are denying the possibility of
developing precisely the higher ethical sensibility that we are
currently so manifestly lacking. And in denying that potential, we
consign ourselves to wait helplessly, watching as the forces of
human greed, hatred, and delusion proceed to destroy the ecosphere,
watching either in disempowered rage and despair or perhaps in
hope that some higher being will step in to save us from our sins.
Without an explicit recognition of the vertical challenge funda-
mental to Buddhist practice, the developmental quest for enlighten-
ment with its concomitant increase in ethical sensibility is lost in
favor of a view suggesting that there is really nothing we need do—
indeed, nothing we can do beyond trusting in providence. This is
not a Buddhist environmental ethic. What Buddhism offers is in fact
quite a different message. And it is not just a message that the
Dharma offers, it is a method. Herein lies the crucial difference. If
we adopt only the relational teaching of the Buddha, then insight
into the interrelatedness of all existence becomes simply an article
of faith, something in which one is ardently to believe. The implicit
message, one well embedded in our own cultural history, is that if
one just believes in the right revelation faithfully enough, then all
will turn out just fine—through the agency of some benign higher
power. Stripped of the old theocentric “God-talk,” this updated
gospel of grace may seem both comfortable and familiar, but this
must not obscure the fact that it is not the Buddhadharma. For
Buddhism, the relational dimension of existence is not an article
of faith; it is a reality to be experienced directly through the active
cultivation of higher states of consciousness. Simply to affirm the
interrelatedness of all things, whether as an article of faith or as an
intellectual inference, has in the Buddhist perspective no transforma-
tive power. It is only through undertaking the ethical and meditative
practice charted in the developmental dimension of the tradition that
one’s actual behavior begins to change to conform with the insight
of interrelatedness.
Western ecology has given us an adequate model for under-
standing the ethical implications of how all things are interrelated.
374 Buddhism and Ecology

It is nice that Buddhism confirms that insight, but we gain little from
Buddhism if that is all we see in the tradition. And we gain even
less if we feel that simply affirming this view of interrelatedness
will, of itself, be sufficient to bring about the necessary changes in
our ethical practice. Thus, the real value of Buddhism for us today
lies not so much in its clear articulation of interrelatedness as in its
other crucial dimension, in its conception of the ethical life as a path
of practice coupled with its practical techniques for actually
cultivating compassionate activity. The tendency in Green Buddhism
to focus exclusively on the horizontal circle of interrelatedness thus
endangers the very part of the tradition that we are most sorely
lacking. What Green Buddhism needs to explore more thoroughly
is the Buddhist principle that meaningful change in our envi-
ronmental practice can come about only as part of a more com-
prehensive program of developing higher states of meditative
awareness, along with the increased ethical sensibility which this
evolution of consciousness entails. Otherwise, it seems, we are
simply spinning our wheels.
 Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion 375

Notes

1. This chapter was originally published in Western Buddhist Review 1

(December 1994):131-—55. It was previously reprinted as a pamphlet in celebration
of Earth Day, 20 April 1996, by the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order,
Richland, Washington.
2. See, for example, Buddhism and Ecology, ed. Martine Batchelor and Kerry
Brown (London: Cassell, 1992); Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism
and Ecology, ed. Allan Hunt Badiner (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1990); Gary
Snyder, Practice of the Wild (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990); Nature in
Asian Traditions of Thought, ed. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1989); and Deane Curtin, “Dogen, Deep
Ecology, and the Ecological Self,’ Environmental Ethics 16, no. 2 (summer
1994):195-213.
3. Actually, to suggest that there are “nondual” forms of Buddhism in contrast
to “dualistic” forms is a misnomer. All forms of Buddhism are nondualistic in
that enlightenment is understood ultimately to transcend all ontological duality.
Similarly, all Buddhist schools unavoidably adopt, in some form or another, an
“operational dualism” reflected in the very distinction between delusion and
enlightenment. There is a significant difference of emphasis in the way different
schools speak of enlightenment and its relation to the state of suffering, but it is
likely that this reflects more a difference of practical approach than of substantial
ontological divergence. The difference between the gradualists and subitists within
the tradition is thus best seen, in my view, as largely rhetorical, though part of
the point, of course, is precisely that we often become trapped within the language
we use.
4. The history of Buddhist views on whether plants and non-animate things
have ethical standing is quite complex; see Lambert Schmithausen, The Problem
of Sentience of Plants in Earliest Buddhism (Tokyo: International Institute of
Buddhist Studies, 1991); and William R. LaFleur, “Saigy6 and the Buddhist Value
of Nature,” parts 1 and 2, History of Religions 13, no. 2 (November 1973):93-
128, and no. 3 (February 1974):227—-48.
5. Samyutta Nikaya, 12:3, §23.
6. This is true at least of historical Zen, even if not of some of the modern-
day versions of “Zen” promulgated in the West.
7. There is a logical and historical line linking the early doctrines of dependent
co-arising (pratitya-samutpada), impermanence (anitya), and the nonsubstantiality
of the self (anatman) with the later Mahayana notions of emptiness and inter-
relatedness, but tracing those links adequately would require more space than is
available here.
8. Snyder, Practice of the Wild, 91.
376 Buddhism and Ecology

9. My distinction between the hierarchy of oppression and the hierarchy of

compassion is inspired in part by a similar distinction between the “power mode”
and the “love mode” suggested by the Ven. Sangharakshita in “Mind—Reactive
and Creative,” Middle Way, August 1971. In Sangharakshita’s distinction, however,
the positive sense of empowerment (i.e., spiritual or ethical power) that I wish to
stress here is not as evident.
10. Cf. Geoffrey B. Frasz’s “Environmental Virtue Ethics: A New Direction
for Environmental Ethics,” Environmental Ethics 15, no. 3:259-74.
11. Joanna Macy, “The Greening of the Self,’ in Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of
Essays in Buddhism and Ecology, ed. Allan Hunt Badiner (Berkeley: Parallax
Press, 1990), 53-63.
12. Santideva provides a traditional Buddhist parallel to Naess’s notion of
“enlightened self-interest” (ibid.) when he points out that the hand helps the foot
(by removing a thorn) even though the pain of the foot is not a pain of the hand;
see the Bodhicaryavatara, 8:91-99.
13. Macy, “The Greening of the Self,” 62.
 Buddhism and the Discourse
of Environmental Concern:
Some Methodological Problems Considered

Ian Harris

Erosion of traditional cosmological thinking is a well-attested and

Significant strand in the recent history of religion in Europe and
America. Undoubtedly, all of the major traditions have retained
well-defined zones of resistance against the prevailing current of
modernity, Christian creationism being a good example in this
connection. However, as the current has grown in vigor, religious
modernists have, at times reluctantly though often with enthusiasm,
abandoned long-standing views on the place of the earth and the
position of humanity within the created order—some of the most
cherished beliefs of their tradition—and accepted, with few modifi-
cations, the modern scientific picture of the universe. Such capitula-
tions are now, by and large, accepted and consigned to the historical
past. However, the battle over humankind’s position in the natural
order, an order rendered incompatible with any conscious sense of
meaning or responsible agency by the inexorable logic of the
modern scientific method, has not yet been conceded by theologians.
Under such circumstances it is perhaps unsurprising that a discourse
of environmental concern, in part aimed at reintroducing meaning
and purpose back into the bleak vastnesses of the modern cosmos,
has taken such a prominent place in the pronouncements of leading
theologians the world over.
Of course, Christianity is not the only religious tradition engaged
in this rearguard action. Buddhism, too, has its eco-advocates.
Indeed, Buddhism is often invoked as a far more environmentally
beneficial set of beliefs and practices than Christianity could ever
378 Buddhism and Ecology

be, some writers going so far as to suggest that, of all the major
religious traditions, Buddhism is the best equipped to form the heart
of a new global environmentalist ethic. Now, positive environ-
mentally oriented discourse does not have its origins in any
specifically religious domain, although it is beyond the scope of this
essay to discuss the romantic movement’s repudiation of the
scientific project that so clearly contributed to its emergence.!
Nevertheless, the politization of this discourse has become a
significant theme, particularly in the latter part of the twentieth
century, and no world-historical religious movement would wish to
jeopardize its standing by failing to endorse such a “self-evident”
collection of truths about the world and our place within it. It is
clear that the benefits of taking such a stance will be considerable.
There is now much good evidence that a significant number
within Buddhism? itself, plus those who give intellectual assent to
selected elements of the Buddhist tradition as part of their armory
in the fight against the worst excesses of “technological society,”
have declared themselves favorably disposed to ecologically
motivated activity, whether it be of the shallow or deep variety.
Organized Buddhism undoubtedly embodies virtues that appear, at
least from the superficial perspective, in tune with the discourse of
environmental concern.’ The task of this essay will be to assess the
tradition as a whole, and the methodological presuppositions
underlying ecoBuddhism, and to confirm or deny the truth of these
impressions. My central contention will be that, with one or two
notable exceptions (Schmithausen* springs to mind here), supporters
of an authentic Buddhist environmental ethic have tended toward a
positive indifference to the history and complexity of the Buddhist
tradition. In their praiseworthy desire to embrace such a “high
profile” cause, or, to put it more negatively, in their inability to
check the influence of a significant element of modern globalized
discourse, Buddhist environmentalists may be guilty of a sacrificium
intellectus very much out of line with the critical spirit that has
played such a major role in Buddhism from the time of the Buddha
himself down to the modern period.
A fundamental problem confronting any serious examination of
the Buddhist tradition’s “attitude to nature”’ is philological. The most
obvious starting point ought to be the identification of a Buddhist
term or terms equivalent in range of meaning to our word “nature.”
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 379

However, this is more complex than it seems on the surface. In the

first place, there are many canonical languages to choose from. We
could simply choose to differentiate between Indic terms, on the one
hand, and those originating in the East Asian area, on the other, but
even if this was deemed a suitably sophisticated methodology, and
I am not sure myself that it would be, a further difficulty presents
itself. Each of these languages is bound to cultures that possess their
own specific modes of development. Indeed, the original attempts
to translate Sanskrit technical jargon into Chinese are known to have
encountered many intractable difficulties, not least because of the
existence of a sophisticated philosophical vocabulary in China prior
to the arrival of Buddhism. Moving to the contemporary setting, we
must not forget that the interpretation of textual material can never
be a culture-free exercise, whether it be done by contemporary
Buddhist themselves or by those who seek corroboration of their
own ideas from the Buddhist tradition. As Hans Georg Gadamer has
pointed out, we must be aware of the prejudgments we bring to the
understanding of a text and must acknowledge the distance in
historical terms between us and the text’s author. Without this we
are likely to deceive ourselves into thinking that we can uncritically
“stand in immediate relation with the past.” Also, let us not ignore
the fact that the languages of canonical Buddhism reflected the
concerns of a segment within the wider culture and, by and large,
are to be identified with the worldview of small but influential elites.
The question must arise as to how far the sacred writings and their
commentaries represent the understandings and practices of ordinary
people who, after all, will be the prime agents in the interaction of
Buddhism and the natural world, for monks, by virtue of their
disciplined existences, are practically restrained from most poten-
tially damaging activities, such as agriculture and the like. It is clear,
then, that all of these matters must be examined more rigorously
than has been done to date before we can confidently assert that
Buddhism, of whatever form, possesses the necessary philological,
cultural, and philosophical structures to accept the imposition of a
discourse of environmental concern without undue distortion.
Another element, this time relating to the range of meanings the
term “nature” has come to represent in the West, must also be
considered. Kate Soper® identifies three ways in which nature has
been conceptualized in modern environmentalist discussions, of
380 Buddhism and Ecology

which the first, or metaphysical, relates to that part of the world

which lies beyond the human or merely artificial. The nature/culture
dichotomy is clearly at the heart of this definition. The second
meaning is associated with “the structures, processes and causal
powers. . .operative within the physical world” and therefore
represents that sector of existence understood as the proper object
of study in the natural sciences. The final “lay” or “surface” concept
is concerned with the distinction between the “natural” as opposed
to urban or industrial landscapes and is intimately bound up with
aesthetic judgment. Soper accepts that the third meaning dominates
the discourse of the green movement, although it is clearly depen-
dent on and interrelated with the others.
The evolution of the modern ecological definition of “nature” and
“the natural” can only be fully understood against the background
of the history of Western thought itself. With this in mind, it would
be unwise to neglect two other crucial distinctions: the Aristotelian
tension between “nature” understood as the totality of all that exists
and “nature” as the essence or active principle of things; and the
medieval nature/supernature dichotomy. Although the term
supernaturalis only seems to have emerged fairly late in the history
of Christian thought, most notably in the work of Thomas Aquinas,
the modern manner of construing reality entails assent to, or at the
least criticism of, the notion that nature lacks many of the clues
necessary for a full understanding of things. The scientific world-
view, then, is clearly a rejection of the supernaturalist claims of
theism, but, intriguingly, environmentalism—particularly of the
ecospiritual type,’ a form that has had a sizable impact on contem-
porary ecoBuddhism—represents a reappropriation of prescientific
modes of thinking with its Spinozist insistence on natura naturans
as an almost pantheist power of nature.
Buddhist scholars and activists have, in recent times, offered a
range of Buddhist technical terms that they deem to correspond with
the English term “nature.” An obvious question in this context is,
what sense of this richly nuanced term are they thinking of and are
they all in agreement on the matter? I do not believe that this
question has even begun to be answered, and this essay may be seen
as a humble and highly provisional attempt to get such a debate off
the ground. A list of the most commonly mentioned Indic equiva-
lents of the term “nature” includes samsara, prakrti, svabhava,
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 381

pratitya-samutpada, dharmadhdatu, dharmata,’ and dhammajati.?

The range of significances covered by such terms is vast and
detailed analysis is beyond the scope of our present discussions,
although sustained work on the topic would undoubtedly do much
to advance our present understanding. One example will have to
suffice. Samsara in its usual sense denotes the totality of sentient
beings (sattvaloka) caught in the round of life after life, although
it may also encompass those parts of the cosmos that fall below the
level of sentience and, as such, act as the stage or receptacle
(bhajanaloka) on which the beginningless cycle of life on life
unfolds. However, even in this extended manner, samsdra can hardly
be regarded as natura naturata in any obviously Western sense for
it contains hell-beings, gods, and ghosts quite apart from its human
and animal residents. Indeed, above this region of physicality and
gross desire lie two other more subtle regions of reality, the whole
comprising the traditional Buddhist triple-decker universe. Built into
this model is the possibility of movement from one level to the other
through the activation of mental powers gained in meditation.
Samsara, then, incorporates elements which, from a Western
perspective, encompass both the natural and the supernatural.
Consideration of other terms offered by scholars as Buddhist
equivalents of “nature” tend to reveal similar mismatches.
Statements of the kind “Buddhism is. . .” are problematic in that
they very often fail to take account of the historical, doctrinal, and
cultural diversity of the tradition. For instance, a fundamental
distinction needs to be maintained between Buddhism in its Indic
forms (in this category I include the Theravada traditions of South
and Southeast Asian as well as the Mahaydanist Tibetan forms of
Buddhism) and the Chinese and East Asian transformations of the
Indic tradition. It also makes good sense to distinguish between the
historical phases in the development of Buddhist thought and
practice. Heinz Bechert, for instance, chooses to divide Buddhist
history into canonical, classical, and modern phases,!° while
Charles F. Keyes, in a manner possibly more conducive to our
investigation of Buddhism’s understanding of the “environment,”
distinguishes between a premodern cosmological Buddhism, on the
one hand, and modernist forms, influenced by aspects of Western
thought and social organization, on the other.!! Whatever classifi-
catory scheme we choose to use, the generalization of ideas or
382 Buddhism and Ecology

practices from one historical, geographical, or cultural phase of the

tradition, in an attempt to justify some monolithic Buddhist position,
will be largely illegitimate.
An example should give a good illustration of this point. Frank E.
Reynolds, in an important discussion of the three overlapping types
of cosmological thinking present in the traditional Buddhist
countries of Southeast Asia, points to the karma/samsara complex
of doctrines—his “samsaric cosmogony”!2—as the point from which
laypeople and monks orient themselves ethically one to another.
Such interactions generate a “total field”!3 system in which one’s
present existence is ethically enmeshed in a vast, causally
connected, and highly stratified cosmic order encompassing humans,
animals, gods, and so forth, arranged hierarchically from the realms
of the gods all the way down to the infernal regions. In the
Saddharmasmrtyupasthana Siitra (Sutra of the remembrance of the
good law),!* classified by Chinese tradition as a work of the
Hinayanist Abhidharma and mainly important because it provided
the basis for Genshin’s (942-1017) famous description of hell, the
Ojoyoshi,!> the eight levels of hell are further subdivided. Thus, a
subregion of the hell of repetition (samjiva) is called the “place of
excrement” because this is the place in which sinners who have
killed birds and deer without regret are punished by being forced
to eat dung that is crawling with flesh-eating worms. The “hell
where everything is cooked,” a sublevel of the burning hell (tapana),
is reserved for those who have deliberately destroyed forests by fire,
while the “bird hell” in the hell of no interval (avici) contains
malefactors who deliberately caused famines through the disruption
of water supplies.!° It may well be that the moral implications of
these doctrines did serve to inhibit environmentally destructive
behavior in the premodern period, but we should be aware of two
issues before we try to import them into a modern context. First,
one of the cardinal features of modernist Buddhism is precisely its
embarrassment about traditional (mythological or prescientific)
cosmologies. As such, it represents an erosion of tradition and an
accommodation to the prevailing current of scientific thinking.
Indeed, the majority of social activist, including environmentalist,!7
forms of Buddhism today can be seen to have arisen as a result of
these changes in emphasis. How paradoxical, then, that the claims
of modernist Buddhists to stand in good harmony with nature seem
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 383

to be premised on the scientism of the Enlightenment, a movement

in European history that did so much to liberate the individual from
the “thrall of nature”!8 and opened up the forces that have now led
to its potential destruction. Second, until evidence is offered to the
contrary, we shall have to remain skeptical of the inhibitory power
of the Buddhist conception of hell, at least from the environmentalist
perspective, in a premodern Asian world that was fundamentally
unaffected by the factors that may have rendered large-scale
ecological degradation a realistic possibility.
Reynolds terms the traditional Buddhist world system the
“ripic,”!? or devolutionary, cosmogony. However, any positive
interpretation of this hierarchically organized and interrelated vision
of the universe—one is tempted to employ the term “nature” in this
context—is rather undermined by the tradition’s own assessment of
the radically unstable nature of all conditioned things. The Indic,
and specifically early Upanisadic and hence pre-Buddhist, roots of
this way of thinking now become plain. For traditional Theravada
Buddhism, the universe is a vast unsupervised recycling plant in
which unstable entities circulate from one form of existence to the
next—a Joycean “commodius vicus of recirculation.” This seems an
ideal metaphor from the environmentalist perspective, for, if
Buddhists envisage the world process in this manner, there is some
justification in the conclusion that we should seek to replicate the
processes of which we are such an intrinsic part. Two objections
immediately arise, however. In the first place, environmentalists are
certainly committed to the principle of the recirculation of inanimate
materials, such as wood products and the like, but how far are they
prepared to go in the direction of the recycling of sentiency itself?
It seems to me that there are few intellectual resources in the
Western thought universe to support such a move! In the second
place, and from the perspective of the “ultimate evaluation of
existence,”2° the Buddhist universe lacks any genuine felos. It is
dysteleological.2! As we have already noted, Reynolds employs the
term “devolutionary” in his discussion of the rlpic cosmogony, a
term that implies a regular, though lengthy, degeneration of the
physical world, a process mirrored in the inevitable moral decline
of humans. The outworldly character of Theravada cosmology is
now apparent, although, to give a full account of this particular
interpretation of existence, we must introduce a final element into
384 Buddhism and Ecology

the equation, the moksa/nirvana complex. If we now return to the

environmentalist perspective, it becomes clear that recycling is
connected with samsara. This is the positive part of the message.
However, it is somewhat compromised by the fact that, ultimately,
the Buddha’s teachings point to a goal that represents the over-
coming of the restrictions entailed by samsdra.
Ecology, even in its so-called deep form, must be premised on
some distinction between nature and humanity, for without it our
activities become, by definition, “natural” and, under such circum-
stances we can be held no more responsible for the adverse effects
of our activities than can any other species. However, Martin
Heidegger, among others, has pointed to the difficulties inherent in
this fundamental distinction. For him, the problem of “construing
the humanity-nature relationship as a Subject-Object antithesis is
that it already presupposes a division between ‘subjects’ and
‘objects’ that is, strictly speaking, illegitimate.”22 Heidegger’s point
is that scientific modes of thinking, while “deeply counter-
intuitive”*? have accustomed us to regard the things of the world
as “objects,” with the result that we, as heirs to the Western
intellectual tradition, have become alienated from an earlier,
premodern “pre-understanding of the world.” This is interesting
because it seems to tie in with the Buddhist Yogacara/Vijfianavada
view that the imagination of the subject/object dichotomy (grahya-
grahakakalpana@) is a function of mental processes contaminated by
ignorance (avidyd). The attainment of nirvana as a return to this
primitive mental purity, then, represents the uprooting of samsaric
addiction. In Vasubandhu’s words:

From the non-perception of the duality [of subject/object] there

arises the perception of the dharmadhdatu. From the perception of
the dharmadhdtu there arises the perception of splendour.24

The term dharmadhatu represents the “realm of dharmas,” those

elements of existence that are held to comprise the totality of things,
including human knowledge, culture, artifice, and so on, that make
up the Buddhist universe, and we might, therefore, be tempted (as
indeed some contemporary Buddhists are) to translate dharmadhdatu
as the “natural realm.” The Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro
(1870-1945) seems to adopt a Yogac4rin line in his distinctive
development of a doctrine of pure nondual experience. He is careful
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 385

to note, however, that this experience will be “incompatible with

Western naturalism.”> I take this to mean that Nishida understands
Buddhism’s ultimate goal as a pure, nature-transcending subjectivity.
This certainly meets the criteria of Heidegger’s antitechnological
vision of reality, but it hardly qualifies as the kind of concept to
act as the basis for an authentically environmentalist ethic. Indeed,
the splendid perceptions of the enlightened saint are discussed at
some length in Yogacarin sources and they are not of the kind that
offer much comfort for the environmentalist. The Yogacara scholar
Sthiramati (ca. 510-570), for instance, tells us that for a Buddha
whose vision is purified in this way “the external world is perceived
as consisting not of clay, pebbles, thorny plants, abysses, etc. but
of gold, jewels, etc.”2° Of course, we may choose to interpret claims
like this in an entirely metaphoric light, but it is surprising how well
the purified vision of the Mahay4anist saint does correspond with
Reynolds’s third and final Theravadin “dhammic” cosmological
type.2’ There is undoubtedly some overlap here with the later Tantric
notion that, while the things of the world may appear to be
conventionally “natural,” from the ultimate perspective, they are
merely parts of the body of the cosmic Buddha (dharmakdaya) in
one of its many forms, for example, as Vairocana.2® Indeed, the
Tantric view of the world, with its origins deep within the Indic
tradition, contains much that appears to be rather inimical to the
environmentalist project, not least its emphasis on the subjugation
of—or, at any rate, the gaining of power over—nature.”? In this way
Tantricism, and perhaps the whole of the Buddhist dhammic
cosmology, focusing as it does on the otherworldly vision of the
completed saint, has something in common with the dominion
ideal3° that has been seen from the ecological perspective as such
an unhelpful strand within the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Just to add one further complication, let us now turn to Buddhism
in its East Asian forms. It is clear that the outworldly character of
the Indic karma/samsara complex of doctrines had some difficulty
in being accepted in China during the period of the initial diffusion
of Buddhism, not least because of its apparent conflict with
established Confucian social ethics. The “morbid nihilism” asso-
ciated with the new ideas in the minds of the Chinese intellectual
elite has led to a tendency within East Asian Buddhism to charac-
terize the “natural world” in a manner distinct from that found, for
386 Buddhism and Ecology

instance, in the Hinduized states of Theravadin Southeast Asia. Of

course, concern for the welfare of animals, for example, is attested
in the earliest Indic canonical sources, as it is in the edicts of Asoka,
and this attitude transplanted itself easily in the Chinese context,
no doubt because it harmonized with indigenous traditions. It also
seems to have counteracted the negativity of Indic otherworldliness.
Thus, the Liang emperor, Wu Ti (502-550), is said to have fed fish
held in a monastery pond as part of his Buddhist devotions, while,
in 759, the T’ang emperor is reported to have donated a substantial
sum toward the construction of eighty-one such ponds (fang sheng
ch'th) for the preservation of animal life. Johannes Prip-Megller,>!
in his classic account of Chinese Buddhist monasteries, reports that,
as late as the mid-1930s, the National Buddhist Association
broadcast radio lectures on the need for animal protection, particu-
larly around the period of “animal day,” a date that traditionally
coincided with the Buddha’s birthday festivities. Even today, after
the traumas of Buddhism’s recent past in China, ethno-botanical
evidence* exists to support the notion of monastery as nature
reserve. However, not all of the evidence points in the same
direction. We know, for instance, that during the high-water mark
of Chinese Buddhism in the T’ang period, monasteries “engaged
in multifarious commercial and financial activities’”3 that may very
well have had an adverse influence on the natural environment. So,
a monastery near Ningpo, having fallen on hard times around 836,
was able to recoup its losses by large-scale deforestation of
surrounding hillsides, while a few years later, in 841, another
monastery connived with commercial fuel-gatherers to exploit
timber and other forest resources for financial advantage.>4 It seems
that at least some of these environmentally damaging commercial
enterprises may have been associated with entrepreneurs already
engaged in environmentally dubious undertakings—we could call
them “monks of convenience,” who seem to have opted for the
monastic life as a kind of tax-avoidance strategy. Still, it would be
unwise to jump to general conclusions about the activities of the
monastic order on the evidence of a few bad apples.
There can be little doubt that the environmentalist discourse of
Westernized cultures forms part of a broad critique of negative
aspects of the capitalist/technological nexus and, in particular, of
the twin system of mass-production and consumption wholly
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 387

oriented toward the satisfaction of material desires that has emerged

most fully in recent times.?5 It is not unreasonable to suppose that
the genealogy of this critique will be located within the broad
pastures of European intellectual history. To illustrate this point we
need only look to a figure like Arne Naess,*© who, while nodding
sympathetically but rather uncritically in the Buddhist°’ direction,
has successfully erected his system of “deep ecology” on almost
purely Spinozan foundations. This is not surprising, for the classical
forms of Buddhism emerged as the result of social and economic
factors that were uniquely Asiatic. Of course, we shall have to admit
that Asia has lacked any overarching homogeneity in terms of its
means of production, and this should make us suspicious of terms,
such as “the Asiatic mode of production,” “semi-feudalism,”?® or,
indeed, “oriental despotism,”29 employed to describe the premodern
economies of India and China. Nevertheless, there is little hard
evidence to suggest the presence of indigenous economic systems
that depended on high levels of industrial production in premodern
Buddhist cultures, although the situation has been drastically
different since the advent of the modern period.
In this light, it would be unwise to claim, as do many exponents
of an environmentally engaged Buddhism, that Buddhism contains
the intellectual and practical resources necessary to counteract the
adverse effects of modernity. My response to such high levels of
confidence is to raise two further questions: Can the supporters of
Buddhism’s claim to represent an authentic environmental ethic be
certain that they have not fallen prey to “the myth of primitive
ecological wisdom’? that seems a common ingredient of some
recent critiques of industrialism? And, have they given sufficient
thought to the genealogy of modernist Buddhism, of which they are
generally a part? For, when this is done, it becomes clear that a
range of features alien to the abiding character of classical Bud-
dhism—features that tend to be connected with the arrival of
Westernized forms of religion and socioeconomic organization—is
deeply embedded in the contemporary Asian Buddhist heartlands.
Thus, if we turn to recent Thai Buddhist critiques*! of the negative
environmental consequences of multinational logging activities and
the like, we can observe that the arguments have no discernibly
Buddhist character. The rhetoric employed is actually a blend of the
sort of globalized environmental discourse we might meet with in
 388 Buddhism and Ecology

any part of today’s world—in effect a romantic “summons to. .

discover in ‘nature’ both inner and outer, the source of redemption
from the alienation and depredations of industrialism and the ‘cash
nexus’ deformation of human relations,”’42 leavened with a good
dose of nineteenth-century nationalism.
Japan provides a particularly apt illustration of the ways in which
Buddhism, nationalism, and environmental discourse can mesh
together. In a revealing passage, D. T. Suzuki, probably the greatest
of all modern Buddhist propagandists, contrasts the occidental and
oriental attitudes to mountains, concluding that Europeans have
characteristically sought to “conquer” them on climbing expeditions
and the like, while the Japanese treat mountains, indeed the whole
of the natural realm, in a far more respectful manner. He writes:

The idea of the so-called “conquest of nature” comes from

Hellenism. . .in which the earth is made to be man’s servant, and
the winds and the sea are to obey him. Hebraism concurs with this
view, too. In the East, however, this idea of subjecting Nature to
the commands or service of man according to his selfish desires has
never been cherished. For Nature to us has never been uncharitable,
it is not a kind of enemy to be brought under man’s power. We of
the Orient have never conceived Nature in the form of an opposing
power. On the contrary, Nature has been our constant friend and
companion, who is to be absolutely trusted in spite of the frequent
earthquakes assailing this land of ours. The idea of conquest is
abhorrent.*3

Let us note that Suzuki uncritically conflates a heterogeneous

collection of cultures, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, under the
heading of the “Orient,” a sort of reverse orientalism. However, we
Should not judge him too harshly, for such lack of precision is a
common foible and, in fact, Suzuki means something far more
specific by the term “Orient” than appears on the surface. For him,
the essence of the Orient is nothing other than the spirit of Zen.
Perhaps Zen, then, with its insistence on “naturalism,” particularly
in the arts, may hold the key to the development of an authentically
Buddhist ecological ethic.
In order to pursue this question in a more informed manner, it is
necessary to place Suzuki’s literary career as a Zen propagandist
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 389

in its sociohistorical context. In the early part of Suzuki’s life

Japanese Buddhists were still coming to terms with the trauma
induced by the Meiji (1868-1912) persecution of Buddhism. In
order to reassert itself in the face of official hostility, a modernist
and nationalistic New Buddhism (shin bukkyO) emerged that placed
great emphasis on the essential dissimilarities between “oriental”
and “occidental” ways of thinking. The fundamental uniqueness of
the Japanese character (nihonjinron) came to be stressed, particu-
larly by members of the influential Kyoto school of thought, such
as Nishida. In a recent discussion of these nihonjinron thinkers,
Robert Scharf observes that they:

would assert that the Japanese are racially and/or culturally inclined
to experience the world more directly than are the peoples of other
nations.“4
It is clear from our earlier quotation that Suzuki eagerly embraced
this style of thinking, and his significance, particularly for the
reception of Buddhist ideas in the West, is twofold. In the first place,
he was an active promoter of the notion that the Japanese uniquely
respond to nature along lines that now seem entirely compatible with
the aims and ideals of modern ecology. In the second, he identified
Zen as the prime factor in this attitude. Echoes of these ideas are
still found in the scholarly literature with social scientists and art
historians, for instance, regularly claiming that Japanese culture
promotes a “relative minimization of the importance of the subject
as against the environment. . . .”4° This is said to result in a
valorization of nature, or, as Augustin Berque observes:

Japanese culture. . .persistently placed nature and the natural at the

acme of culturalness. . .a sense of place (bashosei) is particularly
pronounced in cultures which, as in the Japanese case, do not
enhance the subject’s pre-eminence to the degree that European
culture has done.*®

This is an interesting corruption—“orientalization” is perhaps

a better term—of Nishida’s position as discussed above.*’
Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that the belief that all things,
including those associated with the “realm of nature,” possess the
capacity to gain nirvana is a distinctive feature of East Asian
390 Buddhism and Ecology

Buddhism. The idea that trees and grasses, indeed the land itself,
are destined for enlightenment is probably not found in Indic
sources, although a belief in the partial sentience of plants may have
been a feature of popular Buddhism from the earliest times.48 The
doctrine is variously claimed to have its source either in the
Mahayanist Mahaparinirvana Sitra or in the chapter entitled
“Medicinal Herbs” of the Lotus Sitra.49 The former text, concerned
primarily with the teaching that all beings are possessed of an
embryo of the Tathagata (tathagatagarbha), is claimed to have been
translated into Chinese in about 417 c.g. by Fa-hsien and Buddha-
bhadra. However, since no Sanskrit version is known, some scholars
believe that it may be a uniquely Chinese work without an Indian
counterpart. Now, while the idea of the “attainment of Buddhahood
by nonsentient beings” (Japanese, hijo jobutsu) may plausibly be
traced to the previously mentioned Mahayana Sitras, the first
explicit reference to the doctrine is found in disputations between
masters of the Sui period (581-617 c.£.), such as Hui-yuan and
Chih-i. These debates were further developed by Chan-jan, a T’ien-
t’ai writer of the T’ang (624-907 c.k.). Saichd (767-822) and Kikai
(774-835) seem to have been the first to have imported the doctrine
into Japan, although it is to Annen (841-915), a prominent Tendai
Esotericist, that we should look in order to find full systematization
and defense of the doctrine of the innate enlightenment (hongaku
shiso) of all things. His Private Notes on Discussions of Theories
on the Realization of Buddhahood by Grasses and Trees (Shinjo
sOmoku jobutsu shiki)°® provides the most detailed presentation of
the notion, with a defense undergirded by appeal to the esoteric
teaching that “this phenomenal world is nothing but the world of
Buddhas.”
In this connection, consideration of a painting entitled Yasai
Nehan (Vegetable Nirvana) by the Japanese artist Ito Jakuchi
(1716-1800) may be instructive (see figure 1). At present housed
in the collection of the Kyoto National Museum, this scroll once
belonged to the Seiganji, a Kyoto temple of the Nishi Honganji form
of the Pure Land or Jodo Shin sect. Clearly Buddhist in one obvious
sense, then, the painting shows a variety of vegetables arranged
around a central image which happens to be a large radish (daikon)
laying on a mat or bed of some sort. A partial clarification of the
meaning of the piece becomes apparent when we realize that
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 391

the composition is a coded reference to the Buddha’s death

(parinirvana) scene, which has customarily centered on a reclining
Sakyamuni surrounded by mourners, all within a vaguely sylvan
setting. A proper interpretation of the work is only possible once
we have factored in the previously mentioned doctrine of the
Buddhahood of plants (sOmoku jdbutsu).>! We may also wish to
know why it is that the artist has chosen to represent the Buddha
by the humble—at least from the occidental perspective—radish.
This makes sense when we understand more about the rise and
subsequent ubiquity of the radish motif in Japanese painting from
the early thirteenth century, a subject exhaustively discussed by
Yoshiaki Shimizu.°? The obvious conclusion is that the painting is
a visual exposition of East Asian belief in the essential capacity of
all things, including those within the vegetable realm, to reach the
enlightened state. However, there is more to the painting than meets
the eye. It is likely that the painting was donated to the Jodo Shin
temple in 1792 in commemoration of the death of the painter’s
eldest brother. The painting thus serves as a twin memorial to the
Buddha and to Jakuchi’s brother. The painter also happens to have
been a fourth-generation member of a family of greengrocers.>* The
work can also be read, then, as a celebration of the hereditary
occupation, an occupation with which Jakucht, as the new head of
the family, will have to become more fully involved.
Yoshiaki Shimizu concludes his memorable study of Jakuchii’s
work by noting that the complex metaphoric commemoration
alluded to above tends to be absent in other cultures and must be
regarded as “indigenously Japanese.”>* If this is so, the question
arises for us as to how such works may best be categorized. Should
they be considered mainly under the heading of “Buddhism” or are
they primarily manifestations of Japanese culture? The answer to
such a question has a bearing on how evidence from the East Asian
cultural domain may be legitimately employed to advance the cause
of an authentic Buddhist environmentalism. Indeed, this is precisely
the point made by Ienaga Saburo in his consideration of the general
question of the salvific role of nature in Japanese religious thought.
In a discussion of such motifs in the work of Saigy6, the twelfth-
century Shingon-oriented poet, Ienaga notes that the absolutization
of nature as a religious category among some Buddhists of the time
created a contradiction between the desire for union with a divinized
392 Buddhism and Ecology

FicurE |: Ito Jakucht (1716-1800),

Yasai Nehan (Vegetable Nirvana), ca. 1792
(courtesy of Kyoto National Museum)
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 393

nature, on the one hand, and a suspicion of “nature’s captivating

beauty,”°° on the other. Ienaga links the former desire very firmly
with indigenous factors within Japanese culture, while the latter is
the Buddhist ingredient in the mixture.
At this point it might be worth adducing a further piece of
evidence that, to some extent, compromises the superficial interpre-
tation of the sOmoku jobutsu doctrine. Dogen, the Sotd Zen author
of the Shdbdgenzo, though admittedly not an adherent of Tendai
(although he initially trained in the school), seems to allow the
doctrine only in a highly restricted sense. He argues that:

Since the plants and trees exist in [our] consciousness as reality,

they are part of the universal Buddha-nature.>®

The idealism inherent in this pronouncement is hardly of much use

in supporting any conventional environment ethic. Indeed, the
ubiquity of statements like this in the East Asian Buddhist context
seems to reinforce the antirealist Indic and Yogacara-derived picture
of a world radically transformed in the understanding of the purified
saint.>/
What is apparent from the discussion so far is that the vegetable
world, as it appears in Japanese literary sources, may be read as
the locus of shifting significances. Another example of this is the
banana plant (bashd) motif. Matsuo Basho (1644—1694) is Japan’s
most celebrated poet. His name, which may be literally rendered
as “Master Banana Plant,”°® derives from the fact that he lovingly
tended such a plant, a gift from a disciple, in the garden outside
his hut. For Basho the banana plant is tender, exotic, and rare. Not
native to Japan, it is easily damaged by autumn winds and rains:
The banana in the autumn blast—
the night I hear
rain [dripping] in a tub.°?
In a sense, then, the plant has been torn from its natural home in
warmer climes and must stand alone and defenseless in an envi-
ronment that renders it stunted and unable to set fruit. Tradition
informs us that the poet himself was constitutionally weak and prone
to various illnesses even though he conducted a life of rigorous
asceticism. In this way the banana plant speaks to BashO’s condition
and underlines the universal frailty of human existence. More
394 Buddhism and Ecology

generally, in Japanese literature basho is both a realistic manifes-

tation of vegetable existence and the metaphorical symbol of
insubstantiality. Thus, the No text Yokyoku talks of “the uncertainty
of human life, the way of this world of banana plants and foam,
yesterday’s flowers are today’s dream. . . .”©° The connection
between the plant and evanescence derives from the fact that the
plant has a hollow core. On stripping away the outer leaves, the
center is revealed as devoid of solidity, a literary allusion that seems
to have its origin in the Vimalakirtinirdesa Siitra®' and, hence, in
the Indic tradition.© Basho’s composition—
The garden
Of this temple is full
Of basha.®
—rather nicely illustrates the two primary meanings of this term.
One of the most striking differences between Indic and East
Asian forms of Buddhism involves their attitudes to the fine arts.
Both have customarily employed art for didactic purposes, and most
of us are familiar with scenes of the Buddha’s enlightenment and
death, celestial bodhisattvas, the realms of gods, yaksas, hell-beings,
and the like. However, it is significant that art depicting actual as
opposed to religious or imaginary subjects—that is, naturalist art—
is almost absent from Indian Buddhist sources, although one must
concede that naturalistic elements are sometimes employed to fill
in gaps between the main mythological elements of the work. On
the other hand, landscapes, perhaps the most celebrated of which
are associated with the Zen monk Sesshii (1421-1506), and related
forms of naturalistic art, like gardening, are almost a defining feature
of East Asian, and particularly Japanese, Buddhism.® We should
not neglect the fact that elements beyond the strictly Buddhist,
notably Taoism, may be an additional factor here. Nevertheless,
there is little doubt that Indian Buddhist artists were largely immune
to the beauty of the natural world. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy’s
insistence on the primacy of iconography in Indian religious art
confirms this point. For him, the “Indian icon fills the whole field
of vision at once. . .the eye is not led to range from one point to
another’ in the manner demanded by the naturalistic artist. Instead
the work acts as a geometrical representation of a transfigured,
divine, and ultimately antinaturalistic realm, good examples here
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 395

being depictions of ideal worlds, such as Sukhavati with its jewel

trees, artificial birds, and absence of women, or Shambhala, whose
landscape, at least in the Tibetan tradition, is subsumed into the
highly geometric mandala of Kalacakra.®°
It is interesting that, while a considerable body of material on
aesthetics is preserved in the East Asian Buddhist tradition, nothing
of the kind seems to have been produced by Indian Buddhists,
although Indic, and specifically Hindu, works focusing on technical
as opposed to aesthetic matters are common.°’ Of course, this must
be in part because of the early Buddhist teachings on the dangers
associated with sense desires. Consideration of the beautiful was
probably regarded as deeply suspect within a monastic tradition that
inclined toward moderate displays of asceticism and, in any case,
the world was seen as something to be abandoned rather than
aesthetically contemplated.®§ If we turn to the forms of aesthetics
that flourished in Hindu contexts during the Buddhist period, the
same general conclusions can be drawn. Thus, the author of the
fourth- to fifth-century N@tyasdastra, the earliest work extant on the
topic, and Abhinavagupta (late tenth century), the figure who did
most to bring the discipline of Indian aesthetics to its zenith, agree
that the perception of beauty is a function of the emotions (rasa).
Of the eight or nine rasas mentioned in the literature, none appear
to be induced by contemplation of the natural world.®
In conclusion, we have seen how influential segments of the
Buddhist world have responded to the challenge of modernity—in
particular the erosion of traditional cosmologies—by presenting a
positive ecological message for consumption both within and
without the tradition. This puts Buddhism in line with most other
major religions. While this is to be applauded in various ways, I
have sought here to suggest that uncritical endorsement of aspects
of a global environmentalist discourse rooted in the economic and
intellectual thought of European and American culture raises a
number of intriguing and difficult questions. The most important
of these is connected with the indifference, probably unconscious,
of ecoBuddhism to the historical, philosophical, and cultural
diversity of the Buddhist tradition itself. I have attempted to show
in this essay that a range of philosophical and philological issues
relating to the richness of meanings attributed to the term “nature”
inevitably emerge when the concept is translated into a Buddhist
396 Buddhism and Ecology

context. I have also pointed to the ambiguity of certain fundamental

Indic concepts, such as samsara or nirvana—not least the anti-
naturalistic flavor of the latter—when drawn into an environ-
mentalist context. Aesthetically, and in a number of ways related
to its history of doctrine formation, East Asian Buddhisms seem to
offer more promise in this regard. However, this should not blind
us to the equivocal nature of the East Asian historical record nor to
the ways in which a sort of “proto-environmentalist” Buddhism has
been employed in the service of Japanese and other Asian mani-
festations of nationalism.
Clearly there are difficulties involved in translating Western
environmentalist discourse into an authentically Buddhist setting or,
indeed, in calling on Buddhism to provide a rationale for ecological
activity. This does not mean that the task is hopeless. I, for one,
remain optimistic about the outcome. Nevertheless, it must be
admitted that the work, for scholars and scholarship, is only just
beginning.
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 397

Notes

1. On the way in which romanticism fed into New England transcendentalism

and subsequently on to American ecoBuddhism, see my “Buddhist Environmental
Ethics and Detraditionalization: The Case of EcoBuddhism,” Religion 25, no. 3
(July 1995):199-211.
2. Manifestations of this are many and varied. Indeed, the literature on the
topic is growing at a fairly rapid rate. Examples include the “tree ordination
movement” in Thailand, environmental awareness programs among Tibetan
refugee communities in India, and the work of socially engaged Western
Buddhists.
On Thailand, see Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, Buddhasdsanik Kap Kan Anurak
Thamachat (Buddhists and the conservation of nature) (Bangkok: Komol
Khimthong Foundation, 1990). See also J. L. Taylor, Forest Monks and the Nation-
State: An Anthropological and Historical Study in Northeastern Thailand
(Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993); Leslie E. Sponsel and
Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, “Buddhism, Ecology, and Forests in Thailand: Past,
Present, and Future,” in Changing Tropical Forests: Historical Perspectives on
Today’s Challenges in Asia, Australasia, and Oceania, ed. John Dargavel, Kay
Dixon, and Noel Semple (Canberra: Centre for Resource and Environmental
Studies, 1988), 305-25; Leslie E. Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, “The
Role of Buddhism in Creating a More Sustainable Society in Thailand,” in
Counting the Costs: Economic Growth and Environmental Change in Thailand,
ed. Jonathan Rigg (Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, 1995); Phra
Depvedi, Phra Kap Pa@ (Monks and the forest) (Bangkok: Vanaphidak Project,
1992); and Kasetsart University, Invitation to Tree Planting at Buddhamonton
(Bangkok: Public Relations Office, 1987).
Tibetan sources include: Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama, “A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective on Spirit in Nature,” in Spirit and Nature:
Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue, ed. Steven C. Rockefeller and John
C. Elder (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), 109-23; Bstan-dzin rgya-mtsho, Dalai
Lama XIV, On the Environment (Dharamsala: Department of Information and
International Relations, Central Tibetan Administration of His Holiness the
Fourteenth Dalai Lama, 1994).
The Buddhist Perception of Nature Project was initiated by its international
coordinator, Nancy Nash, in 1985 and is influential in both Tibetan and Thai
circles; see Tree of Life: Buddhism and the Protection of Nature, ed. Shann Davies
(Hong Kong: Buddhist Perception of Nature Project, 1987).
For essays representing ecoBuddhist and related matters, see Allan Hunt
Badiner, ed., Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology
(Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1990); and Inner Peace, World Peace: Essays on
Buddhism and Nonviolence, ed. Kenneth Kraft (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1992).
398 Buddhism and Ecology

3. The most detailed examination to date of the evidence for and against may
be found in Lambert Schmithausen, “The Early Buddhist Tradition and Ecological
Ethics,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 4 (1997):1-42.
4. Ibid.
5. John C. Maraldo, “Hermeneutics and Historicity in the Study of Buddhism,”
Eastern Buddhist 19 (1986):23.
6. Kate Soper, What Is Nature? Culture, Politics, and the Non-Human (Oxford
and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995), 155f.
7. See notes 17 and 36 below.
8. David J. Kalupahana claims that “Dependent arising [pratityasamutpdada|
is often referred to as dharmata which is the Buddhist term for nature”; David J.
Kalupahana, “Toward a Middle Path of Survival,” in Nature in Asian Traditions
of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, ed. J. Baird Callicott and
Roger T. Ames (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 252.
9. Donald K. Swearer, “The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology in Contem-
porary Thailand: Buddhadasa and Dhammapitaka,” included in this volume, 24.
10. Heinz Bechert, “Sangha, State, Society, and ‘Nation’: Persistence of
Traditions in ‘Post-Traditional’ Societies,” Daedalus 102, no. 1 (1973):85—95
(reprinted in Post-Traditional Societies, ed. S. N. Eisenstadt [New York: Norton,
1972)).
11. Charles F. Keyes, “Communist Revolution and the Buddhist Past in
Cambodia,” in Asian Visions of Authority: Religion and the Modern States of East
and Southeast Asia, ed. Charles F. Keyes, Laurel Kendall, and Helen Hardacre
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 43f.
12. Frank E. Reynolds, “Multiple Cosmogonies and Ethics: The Case of
Theravada Buddhism,” in Cosmogony and Ethical Order: New Studies in
Comparative Ethics, ed. Robin W. Lovin and Frank E. Reynolds (Chicago and
London: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 203-24. The three types mentioned
here are the samsaric, the ripic, or devolutionary, and the dhammic. There may
be some justification in regarding these as, respectively, psychological, mytho-
logical, and supramundane or purified visions of existence.
13. For a discussion of this phrase, see Charles F. Keyes, The Golden
Peninsula: Culture and Adaptation in Mainland Southeast Asia, SHAPS Library
of Asian Studies (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995), 88f.
14. Shob6nenjokyo in Taishd shinshu Daizokyé, ed. DaizdkyO Kankokai,
85 vols. (Tokyo: Taisho Issaikyo KankOokai, 1924-1932), 17, text 721 (hereafter
cited as T.).
15. T. 84, text 2682.
16. For a full discussion of the Buddhist hells, see Daigan Matsunaga and
Alicia Matsunaga, The Buddhist Concept of Hell (New York: Philosophical
Library, 1972), particularly 107-36.
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 399

17. l accept that not all Buddhist environmentalists are going to be modernist
in their approach. Elsewhere, I offer four types of contemporary Buddhist
environmentalism—ecospiritual, ecoconservative, eco-apologetic and ecojust—
in which only the latter is strictly modernist. See my “Getting to Grips with
Buddhist Environmentalism: A Provisional Typology,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics
2 (1995):173-90.
18. Soper, What Is Nature? 29
19. Reynolds, “Multiple Cosmogonies and Ethics,” 209f.
20. Schmithausen’s term, in Schmithausen, “The Early Buddhist Tradition and
Ecological Ethics,” 4.
21. On this term in the context of the Buddhist understanding of the world,
see Ian Harris, “Causation and ‘Telos’: The Problem of Buddhist Environmental
Ethics,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 1 (1994):45—56.
22. Soper, What Is Nature? 47
23. Erazim Kohak, The Embers and the Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into
the Moral Sense of Nature (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,
1984), 11.
24. Trisvabha@vanirdesa 37, discussed in Ian Harris, The Continuity of
Madhyamaka and Yogacara in Indian Buddhism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), 149.
25. Andrew Feenberg, “The Problem of Modernity in the Philosophy of
Nishida,” in Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, and the Question of
Nationalism, ed. James W. Heisig and John C. Maraldo (Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 1995), 156. Also Kitaro Nishida, An Inquiry into the Good (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990), 72. Intriguingly, Heidegger may
have borrowed some elements in his later thought from Nishida and other Kyoto
philosophers. On this important topic, see Graham Parkes, “Heidegger and
Japanese Thought: How Much Did He Know, and When Did He Know It?” in
Martin Heidegger: Critical Assessments, ed. Christopher E. Macann, (London and
New York: Routledge, 1992).
26. Sutralamkaravrttibhdsya (Peking Tanjur, Sems-tsam, vol. Mi), 210 b8f;
quoted in Lambert Schmithausen, “Buddhism and Ecological Responsibility,” in
The Stories They Tell: A Dialogue among Philosophers, Scientists, and Environ-
mentalists, ed. Lawrence Surendra, Klaus Schindler, and Prasanna Ramaswamy
(Madras: Earthworm Books, 1997), 71, n. 73.
This quotation seems to coincide with the deeply un-naturalistic decriptions
of Buddhist Pure Lands, such as SukhAavati, found in the early Mahayana Sitras.
27. Reynolds, “Multiple Cosmogonies and Ethics,” 213f.
28. Toni Huber, for instance, discusses the connection between the landscape
of a region of southern Tibet and the yidam Cakrasamvara in Toni Huber,
“Traditional Environmental Protectionism in Tibet Reconsidered,” Tibet Journal
16, no. 3 (1991):70f.
400 Buddhism and Ecology

29. Cf. David L. Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and

Their Tibetan Successors (London: Serindia, 1987), 235f; and Schmithausen,
“Buddhism and Ecological Responsibility,” 68.
30. Gen. 9.2, for example.
31. Johannes Prip-Mgller, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries: Their Plan and Its
Function as a Setting for Buddhist Monastic Life (Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gads
Forlag; and London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 161-63.
32. On the influence of Buddhist temples on the dispersal of certain plant
species, see Sheng-ji Pei, “Some Effects of the Dai People’s Cultural Beliefs and
Practices on the Plant Environment of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province,
Southwest China,” in Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast Asia, ed.
Karl L. Hutterer, A. T. Rambo, and G. Lovelace, Michigan Papers on Southeast
Asia, 24 (Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University
of Michigan, 1985), 321-39.
33. D. C. Twitchett, “Monastic Estates in T’ang China,” Asia Major, n.s., 5
(1956):123.
34. Ibid., 138; also D. C. Twitchett, ““The Monasteries and China’s Economy
in Medieval Times” (a review of Jacques Gernet’s Les aspects économiques du
bouddhisme dans la société chinoise du V¢ au X¢ siécle [Saigon: Ecole Francaise
d’Extréme Orient, 1956]), Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
19, no. 3 (1957):536—37, 541.
35. Jan Patocka uses the term “prehistoric” to characterize such a culture: Jan
Patocka, Essais hérétiques sur la philosophie de l’histoire, trans. Erika Adams
(La Grasse: Editions Verdier, 1981); quoted in Kohak, The Embers and the
Stars, 21.
36. See Arne Naess, “Through Spinoza to Mahayana Buddhism or Through
Mahayana Buddhism to Spinoza?” in Spinoza’s Philosophy of Man: Proceedings
of the Scandinavian Spinoza Symposium 1977, ed. J. Wetlesen (Oslo: University
of Oslo Press, 1978), 136-58; Naess, Spinoza and the Deep Ecology Movement
(Delft: Eburon, 1992); and Naess, “Spinoza and Ecology,” in Speculum
Spinozanum, 1677-1977, ed. Siegfried Hessig (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1977), 418-25.
37. This is discussed in my “The American Appropriation of Buddhism,” in
The Buddhist Forum Volume IV: Seminar Papers 1994-1996 (London: School of
Oriental and African Studies, 1996), 125-39, particularly 133-34.
38. Barry Hindess and Paul Q. Hirst, Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), 182.
39. Cf. Karl August Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of
Total Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963).
40. Kay Milton, Environmentalism and Cultural Theory: Exploring the Role
of Anthropology in Environmental Discourse (New York: Routledge, 1996), 109f.
 Buddhism and the Discourse of Environmental Concern 401

41. See, for example, Chaiwat Satha-Anand and Suwanna Wongwaisayawan,

“Buddhist Economics Revisited,” Asian Culture Quarterly 7, no. 4 (1979):37—
45. See also Sulak Sivaraksa, “Buddhism and Contemporary International Trends,”
in Inner Peace, World Peace: Essays on Buddhism and Nonviolence, ed. Kenneth
Kraft (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992).
42. Soper, What Is Nature? 27.
43. D. T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, 2d ed. (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1959), 334.
44. Robert H. Scharf, “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism,” in Curators of the
Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 124. See also his
“Whose Zen? Zen Nationalism Revisited,” in Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto
School, and the Question of Nationalism, ed. James W. Heisig and John C.
Maraldo (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995), 48. For a detailed analysis
of nihonjinron thought, cf. Peter N. Dale, The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness
(London: Routledge, 1986).
45. S. N. Eisenstadt, “The Japanese Attitude to Nature: A Framework of Basic
Ontological Conceptions,” in Asian Perceptions of Nature: A Critical Approach,
ed. Ole Bruun and Arne Kalland (London: Curzon Press, 1995), 190.
46. Augustin Berque, “The Sense of Nature and Its Relation to Space in Japan,”
in Interpreting Japanese Society: Anthropological Approaches, ed. Joy Hendry
and Jonathan Weber, JASO Occasional Papers, 5 (Oxford: JASO, 1986), 103.
47. See note 25 above.
48. On this important topic, see Lambert Schmithausen, The Problem of the
Sentience of Plants in Earliest Buddhism, Studia Philologica Buddhica, Occasional
Paper Series, 6 (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1991).
49. See Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma, translated from
the Chinese of Kumarajiva by Leon Hurvitz, Records of Civilization: Sources and
Studies, 94 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 101f.
50. Recently published for the first time in moveable type, together with
modern Japanese translation and notes, by Fumihiko Sueki, Heian shoki Bukkyo
shiso-shi no kenkyu (Shunjusha, 1995). Also see Fumihiko Sueki, “Annen: The
Philosopher Who Japanized Buddhism,” Acta Asiatica 66 (1994).
51. For a detailed discussion of s6moku jobutsu, see part 1 of William LaFleur,
“SaigyO and the Buddhist Value of Nature,” parts 1 and 2, History of Religions
13, no. 2 (November 1973):93-128; no. 3 (February 1974): 227-48. A condensed
and revised version of this article may be found in Nature in Asian Traditions of
Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, ed. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T.
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Japan, ed. James Sanford, William LaFleur, and Masatoshi Nagatomi (Princeton:
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53. Ibid., 229.
54. Ibid., 233.
55. Quoted by LaFleur, “Saigy6 and the Buddhist Value of Nature,” in Callicott
and Ames, Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought, 204.
56. T. 82:97c—98a, text 2582; quoted in Sanford, LaFleur, and Nagatomi,
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57. See note 24 above.
58. For consideration of the link between the poet and the plant, see Donald
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59. Basho nowaki shite | tarai ni ame o [| kiku yo kana; quoted in ibid., 152.
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61. William LaFleur, The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts
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62. There is no shortage of Indic references to the insubstantiality of the plant
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particularly 108f.
63. Kono tera wa | niwa ippai no | Bashé kana; quoted in R. H. Blyth, Haiku
(Tokyo) 4 (autumn-winter 1952):127.
64. Cf. note 43 and ensuing discussion above.
65. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, The Transformation of Nature in Art (New
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66. For more discussion on the depiction of the mythical kingdom of
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1996), 378-79, 482.
67. For information on works concerned with the technicalities of Indian art,
see P. Hardie, “Concept of Art,” in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, vol. 6
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Is Buddhism?” 107.
69. On the theory of rasas, see Raniero Gnoli, The Aesthetic Experience
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 Notes on Contributors

David Landis Barnhill received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in

religious studies, with a minor in Japanese literature. He is currently
associate professor of intercultural studies and chair of the Religious
Studies Department at Guilford College in North Carolina. He has
published articles on the Japanese poet Basho as well as other aspects of
Japanese religion and literature. He also is co-chair of the Religion and
Ecology Group of the American Academy of Religion.

Christopher Key Chapple is professor of theological studies and director

of Asian and Pacific studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los
Angeles. He is the author of Karma and Creativity (State University of
New York Press, 1986) and Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in
Asian Traditions (State University of New York Press, 1993); co-translator
of the Yoga Sutras (Sri Satguru Publications, 1990); and editor of several
books, including Ecological Prospects: Scientific, Religious, and Aesthetic
Perspectives (State University of New York Press, 1994).

Malcolm David Eckel is associate professor of religion in the Department

of Religion, College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University. He is the
author of Jo See the Buddha: A Philosopher’s Quest for the Meaning of
Emptiness (Harper San Francisco, 1992) and the Buddhism editor for The
HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion, general editor, Jonathan Z. Smith
(Harper San Francisco, 1995).

Rita M. Gross, professor of comparative studies in religion at the

University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, is the author of Buddhism after
Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism
(State University of New York Press, 1993) and Feminism and Religion—
An Introduction (Beacon Press, 1996).

Ruben L. F. Habito, professor of world religions and spirituality, Perkins

School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, and resident teacher,
428 Buddhism and Ecology

Maria Kannon Zen Center, Dallas, Texas, also taught at Sophia University,
Tokyo, from 1978 to 1989. A dharma heir of Yamada Koun Roshi of the
Sanbo Kyodan Zen tradition, he has written Healing Breath: Zen Spiritual-
ity for a Wounded Earth (Orbis Books, 1993) and other works in Japanese
and English.

Ian Harris is reader in religious studies at the University College of St.

Martin, Lancaster, England, author of The Continuity of Madhyamaka and
Yogacara in Early Mahayana Buddhism (E. J. Brill, 1991), and editor (with
S. Mews, P. Morris, and J. Shepherd) of Contemporary Religions: A World
Guide (Longman, 1992). He studied at the Universities of Cambridge and
Lancaster, receiving a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy from the latter,
and has written a number of articles on Buddhism and ecological ethics.
He is a founding member of the U.K. Buddhist Studies Association and
editor of the Bulletin of the British Association for the Study of Religions.
His current research is focused on Buddhism and politics in the twentieth
century.

Paul O. Ingram is professor of religion at Pacific Lutheran University and

is currently president of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. He is
the author of The Modern Buddhist-Christian Dialogue (E. Mellen Press,
1988) and co-editor (with Frederick J. Streng) of Buddhist-Christian
Dialogue: Essays in Mutual Transformation (University of Hawaii Press,
1986). His most recent book is Wrestling with the Ox: A Theology of
Religious Experience (Continuum Publications, 1997).

Stephanie Kaza is associate professor of environmental studies at the

University of Vermont, where she teaches religion and ecology, environ-
mental philosophy, and nature writing. She is a long-time Sotd Zen
practitioner affiliated with Green Gulch Zen Center. Her book, The
Attentive Heart: Conversations with Trees (Fawcett Columbine, 1993), is
a collection of meditative essays on West Coast trees.

Kenneth Kraft is currently chairman of the Religion Studies Department

at Lehigh University. He received his Ph.D. in East Asian studies from
Princeton University. He is the author of Eloquent Zen (University of
Hawaii Press, 1992) and the editor of Inner Peace, World Peace (State
University of New York Press, 1992) and Zen: Tradition and Transition
(Grove Press, 1988). His work on engaged Buddhism has led to an interest
in the ethical and cultural significance of nuclear waste.
 Notes on Contributors 429

Lewis Lancaster is professor of East Asian languages and Buddhist studies

at the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently in charge of the
Ph.D. program in the Group in Buddhist Studies on that campus. He has
recently written “The Sources for the Koryo Buddhist Canon: A Search
for Textual Witnesses” and “The History of the Study of Twentieth Century
Forgeries of Dunhuang Manuscripts” and is editor of Religion and Society
in Contemporary Korea (Institute of East Asian Studies, University of
California at Berkeley, 1997). He has been active in the world of
computers, organizing the Electronic Buddhist Text Initiative, a consortium
of more than forty groups around the world dealing with Buddhism and
the new technology. A CD-ROM containing Sanskrit Buddhist texts is
underway.

John Daido Loori is the resident teacher and spiritual leader of Zen
Mountain Monastery in upstate New York. He has completed formal
training in rigorous koéan Zen and in the subtle teachings of Master
Dodgen’s Zen. Drawing on his background as scientist, artist, naturalist,
parent, and Zen priest, Abbot Loori speaks to Western students from the
perspective of shared background. His books include The Eight Gates of
Zen (Dharma Communications, 1992), Two Arrows Meeting in Mid-Air:
The Zen Koan (Charles E. Tuttle, 1994), and The Heart of Being: Moral
and Ethical Teachings of Zen Buddhism (Charles E. Tuttle, 1996).

Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, M.A. in philosophy, Ohio University, Ed.D.

in educational foundations, University of Hawaii, is an adjunct professor
of philosophy and academic officer for the dean of graduate and pro-
fessional studies at Chaminade University of Honolulu, where she teaches
courses on philosophy, religion, and gender. She has taught in the Women’s
Studies Program at the University of Hawaii, and before that she taught
for many years in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Kasetsart
University in Bangkok. She has collaborated with Leslie E. Sponsel in field
research and resulting publications on various aspects of the relationship
between Buddhism and ecology. She has also conducted research on
linkages between women, economic development, and environment in
Thailand. She serves on the Executive Board of the Hawaii Association
of International Buddhists. She is co-editor with Leslie E. Sponsel of
Ecology, Ethnicity, and Religion in Thailand (under review).

Steve Odin received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York,
Stony Brook, and is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy
430 Buddhism and Ecology

at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he teaches Japanese

philosophy, comparative philosophy, and American philosophy. He is the
author of Process Metaphysics and Hua-yen Buddhism: A Critical Study
of Cumulative Penetration vs. Interpenetration (State University of New
York Press, 1982) and The Social Self in Zen and American Pragmatism
(State University of New York Press, 1996).

Graham Parkes is professor of philosophy at the University of Hawaii and

a former senior fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Study of
World Religions. He is the editor of Heidegger and Asian Thought
(University of Hawaii Press, 1987) and Nietzsche and Asian Thought
(University of Chicago Press, 1991), translator of Nishitani Keiji’s The
Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (State University of New York Press, 1990),
and author of Composing the Soul: Reaches of Nietzsche’s Psychology
(University of Chicago Press, 1994).

Steven C. Rockefeller is professor of religion at Middlebury College in

Vermont, where he formerly served as dean of the college. He received
his master of divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New
York City and his Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion from Columbia
University. He is the author of John Dewey: Religious Faith and Demo-
cratic Humanism (Columbia University Press, 1991) and the co-editor of
The Christ and the Bodhisattva (State University of New York Press, 1987)
and Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue (Beacon
Press, 1992).

Alan Sponberg taught Buddhist studies at Princeton and Stanford for

eleven years before moving to develop the Asian Humanities Program at
the University of Montana, where he is currently professor of Asian
philosophy and religion. His research interests focus on the cross-cultural
transformations of Buddhism, both historical and contemporary, and he
has published on the development of early Mahayana Buddhism as well
as on contemporary Buddhist revival movements in China, India, and the
West. He has practiced Buddhism for more than twenty years and is, as
Dh. Saramati, an ordained member of the Western Buddhism order.

Leslie E. Sponsel earned the B.A. in geology from Indiana University and
the M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology from Cornell University. He is a
professor at the University of Hawaii, where he directs the ecological
anthropology concentration and teaches courses on human ecology in
general and on tropical forest ecosystems in particular, spiritual ecology,
 Notes on Contributors 431

peace studies, and human rights. Since 1986 he has been visiting southern
Thailand almost yearly to collaborate with colleagues at Prince of
Songkhla University in exploring various aspects of the relationship
between religion and ecology. During the summers of 1994 and 1995, he
held a Fulbright grant and conducted research on the role of sacred trees
and sacred forests in the conservation of biodiversity in southern Thailand.
He edited Indigenous Peoples and the Future of Amazonia: An Ecological
Anthropology of an Endangered World (University of Arizona Press, 1996);
co-edited with Thomas Gregor The Anthropology of Peace and Non-
violence (Lynne Rienner Publisher, 1994); co-edited with Thomas
Headland and Robert Bailey Tropical Deforestation: The Human Dimen-
sion (Columbia University Press, 1996); and co-edited with Poranee
Natadecha-Sponsel Ecology, Ethnicity, and Religion in Thailand (under
review).

Donald K. Swearer is the Charles and Harriet Cox McDowell Professor

of Religion at Swarthmore College, where he teaches courses in Asian and
comparative religions. He was the Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist
Studies at the University of Hawaii in 1993 and a Guggenheim Fellow in
1994. His recent publications include The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia
(State University of New York Press, 1995) and The Legend of Queen
Cama (State University of New York Press, 1998).

Mary Evelyn Tucker is an associate professor of religion at Bucknell

University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where she offers courses in world
religions, Asian religions, and religion and ecology. She received her Ph.D.
from Columbia University in the history of religions, specializing in
Confucianism in Japan. She has published Moral and Spiritual Cultivation
in Japanese Neo-Confucianism (State University of New York Press, 1989)
and is co-editor with her husband, John Grim, of Worldviews and Ecology
(Bucknell University Press, 1993). She and John Grim are currently
directing a series of ten conferences on religions of the world and ecology
at the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions. They
are also editors for a series on ecology and justice from Orbis Press. She
is a committee member of the United National Environmental Programme
for the Environmental Sabbath and vice-president of the American Teilhard
Association.

Duncan Ryiken Williams is a Ph.D. candidate in religion at Harvard

University specializing in Japanese religious history. He has been a visiting
432 Buddhism and Ecology

lecturer at Brown University, Trinity College, and Sophia University,

Tokyo. He is the translator of Shinichi Inoue’s Putting Buddhism to Work
(Kodansha, 1997).

Jeff Yamauchi is the resident naturalist at Zen Mountain Center and

founder of Earth Witness Foundation, which is dedicated to integrating
Buddhism and environmentalism through education. He received his
master’s degree in environmental studies from Prescott College, Arizona,
in 1996. He is currently planning an extended solo trip along the John
Muir Trail in the California Sierra Nevada.
 Index

Abhidharma, visions of hell by, 382 Alms, 34

Abhinavagupta, 395 Almspersons, 53
Abortion, 15-16 Altruism, 357-358, 370-371
Abraham, religions of, 358 Amarillo, Texas, plutonium at, 284
Abram, David, 225 Ambiguity, of Buddhist religious
on Gary Snyder’s worldview, concepts, 396
199-202 American Buddhism, ecology and,
Absorption, meditative, 356 219-245
Abstention, from eating meat or American society
fish, 152, 153, 155, 162n consumption by, 289n
Abuse violence in and alienation of, 210
of nature, 180 American Zen Buddhism, at Zen
within sangha, 55 Mountain Center, 249-250
Accountability, for the environmen- Ames, Roger T.
tal crisis, 279-280 on aesthetic order, 80-81
Achan Pongsak Techathamamoo on Christianity, 73
activism of, 55 on environmental philosophy, 89,
on protection of nature, 47 93
Action, 78 Ananda, jataka about, 141
Activism Ananda Kanchanapan, 23
anti-nuclear, 270-273, 282-283 Anapanasati Sutta, 235
of Phra Prajak Kuttajitto, 34-35, Anathapindika, support of Bud-
55 dhists by, 9
responses to, 55-56 Anatman doctrine, 353, 358
Advaita Vedanta tradition, 336 Anatta, 49
Aesthetic order, 80-81 Ancestral worship, 151
Aggression, 300 Anger
Agreement, as a mandala, 78 precept against, 182
Ahimsa, 49 in Zen Buddhism, 166—167
environmental protection and, Animal consciousness, 132
317-318 “Animal day,” 386
violence and, 137 Animal liberation movement, 319
Aidagara, 94 Animals
Ainu, view of nature of, 194 cognition by, 132
Almon, Bert, on Gary Snyder, 194, communication with, 195-196
202-203 compassionate and wise, 135
434 Buddhism and Ecology

endangered, 252-—253t Ascetics, classification of, 36

foolish, 136-137 Ashikaga shogunate, hdj0-e
in Gary Snyder’s poetry, 195, 196 ceremony and, 153-154
at Green Gulch Zen Center, 221 Asia, Buddhism in, 4
in hierarchy of life-forms, 356 Asoka, edicts of, 386
human consciousness and, 131- Asoke tree (Saraca indica), 52
132 Assertive action, 182
Japanese rites to release, 149-157 Atta, 29
in jataka narratives, 131-144, Augustine, 85
145-146t Australia, Buddhism in, 4
karma of, 277 Autumn equinox, ekos at, 228
killing and eating of, 196-197 Avatamsaka, 357
protection of, 385-386 Avatamsaka Buddhism, 100
Animal sacrifice, in Buddhism, Indra’s net in, 189-190
138-140 Avici, 382
Animal stories, as metaphors, 132 Avidya, 384
Annen, 390 Awakening, in Zen Buddhism, 167—
Anthropocentrism 169
Buddhist, 340-342 Aware, in Japanese notions of
Judeo-Christian, 327-328 nature, 99
Antistructure, 51 Awareness
Anukampa, 26, 42n environmental, 255
Anurak, 26, 27. See also Care intelligence as one form of, 200
Anurakkha, 26. See also Care in reinhabitory ethic, 226-227
Anurak thamachat, 27-28, 37 Axiological cosmology, of Hua-yen
Anuttara-samyaksambodhi, 178 Buddhism, 98
Apocryphal jataka, 134
Apple Canyon Baker, Richard, 221
fire management in, 256—258 Bakhtin, Mikhail, on interspecies
land use at, 254—256 community, 202—204
Zen Mountain Center in, 250-251 Banana plant, 393-394
Aquino, Benigno, 58 Banyan tree (Ficus bengalensis), 52
Aramaki, Noritoshi, on the life of Basho, haiku poetry of, 99, 197,
Sakyamuni, 11—12 330—331, 339, 393-394
Arhat-hood, stages of, 356 Basho, 94
Aristotelian-Thomistic teleology, Bashosei, 389
Christianity as, 73 “Basic Buddhism,” 353-359
Arjuna, 335 Basketmaking workshop, at Zen
Art Mountain Center, 262
anti-nuclear activism in, 272 Basney, Lionel, on Gary Snyder,
Japanese, 390-393 211
Arya Sira, jataka retold by, 134 Batchelor, Stephen, 344
Asanna-paccathika, 351 Beatniks, 327-328
Asceticism, 47 Beauty, 395
need for modern, 15-16 Beavers, 182-183
 Index 435

Bechert, Heinz, on Buddhist history, in international law, 318

381 overpopulation and excessive
Beginners’ Mind Temple, 221 consumption and, 291
Being, 344 Biosphere cultures, 226
“Being-time,” 213 Birch, Charles, on life, 82-83
Benefit, 151 Bird hell, 382
of Zen practice, 166 Birth
Bennett, John, on ecologically Buddhist views of, 296—297
appropriate societies, 48-50 interdependence and, 296
Berque, Augustin, on Japanese necessity of, 294
culture, 389 as a positive occasion, 293
Berry, Thomas, 144 public policy toward, 294
on Hsiang-yen’s koan, 287 Birth control, 15-16
on species protection, 131 encouragement of, 308
Betweenness, 94 Blame, 184
Bhagavad Gita, concept of nature Bodhi, 178
in, 335-336, 338 Bodhi Bhikkhu, on the environ-
Bhajanaloka, in nature, 381 mental ethic, 47-48
Bhavana-marga, 357 Bodhicitta, “enlightened gene”’ as,
Bhuddabhadra, 390 301-307
Bhimi, 357 Bodhinana, 34
Bija, 78 Bodhisattva, 76, 358, 394
Biocentric equality, environmental activism against radioactive waste
problems with, 120-121 in, 271
Biocentrism jataka about, 138-139
Buddhadasa’s philosophy as, 30, nature and, 10-11
39-40 reproduction and, 301-307
interdependent co-origination and, Bodhisattva stages, 357
343 Bodhisattva vows, 271, 284
Phra Prayudh’s philosophy and, Bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa), 52
36-37 center of the cosmos under, 345
Biodegradable materials, 180 Bodhyanga, 356
Biodiversity, 65n Body
in international law, 318, 319-320 Hindu attitudes toward, 335-336
protection of, 318-319 honoring of, 180
Biological impact report, for Zen human, 345-346
Mountain Center, 251-254, living, 81-82
255-256, 263 as one of three mysteries, 77, 78-
Bioregional community 79, 115
practice of, 207-208 “Body of bliss,” 75-76
the world as, 191-194 Boéhme, Jakob, naturalist philosophy
Biosphere of, 116
ecology of, 188-191 Bohr, Niels, 80
impact of nuclear ecology on, Bommyokyd, as basis for hdjo-e
269-270 rites, 150-151
436 Buddhism and Ecology

Bonding, sexuality and, 308 on nature as dhamma, 24-30

Book of Serenity, The, 169-170 scholarship of, 41n, 42n
Books, dissemination of environ- Buddhadharma, 373
mentalist thought through, “Buddha eye,” 114
124-125 Buddhaghosa, 351
Bot, 52 jataka translations by, 133-134
Brahmadatta, King, jataka about, Buddhahood, 103, 358
141 for nonsentient beings, 117, 122-—
Brahmajala Sittra, as basis for 124
hojo-e rites, 150-151 for sentient beings, 113, 114,
Brahmin, fowler, and partridge, 296-297
jataka about, 138 Buddha-nature, 13-14, 346
Brahmin and Jaina monk in of all things, 118
Banaras, jataka about, 137-138 ecological problems with univer-
Brahmins, King of Kosala, and sality of, 121-122
animal sacrifice, jataka about, intrinsic value as, 320
139-140 of living things, 113-114, 116-
Brazil, Buddhism in, 4 117, 191
Breathing, 235 of non-being, 122
mindfulness and, 273 of plants, 332, 393
Brown, Edward Espe, 221 of radioactive waste, 122-123, 124
Buddha, the, 75 of tubercle bacillus, 122
attempt on the life of, 134 Buddha Treasure, 178
enlightenment of, 345 Buddhavacanam, 39
forests and, 33-34 “Buddha way,” 123
historical images of, 76 Buddhi, 336
hojo-e rite and, 150-151 Buddhism
in Indian fine art, 394 and aid to the poor and op-
in jataka narratives, 133-135, pressed, 6-8
135-144 animal awareness in, 133-135
life of, 11-12 anti-ecological aspects of, 55-56
mercantile support of, 9-10 asceticism of, 15-16
as one of the Three Treasures, celibacy and, 306
177-178 decline in Thai adherence to, 45
Phra Prayudh on, 37 developmental dimension of,
teachings of, 47-48 353-359, 360-364, 368-371
the world as, 385 ecological differences between
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, 21 Christian tradition and, 79-80
career of, 24 ecology and, 3, 5, 156-157, 162n,
criticisms of, 25 351, 387-388, 389-394
Dhammapitaka and, 30-33 ecology in contemporary Thailand
ecological hermeneutic of, 24—25, and, 21-40
36-37 environmental philosophy and,
Ian Harris on, 39—40 89, 351, 377-396
 Index 437

feminism and, 305-306 and, 281-282

fertility control and, 291-311 eco-karma in, 277—280
forests and, 33-34, 35-36 in teachings of Kutkai, 75-79
Gaia theory and, 104—105 in the United States, 219-245
global ethics and, 313-322 Buddhist Perception of Nature
hierarchical aspects of, 353, 366— Project, 397n
368, 368-371, 371-374 Buddhist Precepts, environmental
history of, 4, 381, 354—-358, 385- relevance of, 177-184
387 Buddhist tradition, 3-4, 72
hojo-e ceremony and, 156—157 animal sacrifice in, 138-140
intrinsic value in, 320 animals in, 133
on intrinsic value of species, 320 enlightenment in, 345-346
karma in, 275, 276 environmental crisis and, 269
mercantile activity and, 9-10, 12 hdjd-e in Japanese, 149-150
mindfulness in, 273-274 karma in, 275
nondual forms of, 353, 375n limitations of, 205-208
nuclear ecology and, 269-287 toward nature, 333-335
number of participants in, 4, 53 Buddhist worldview
Phra Prayudh on, 36—37 interdependence in, 295-301
and practices of Buddhists, 56—59 organic principles of, 75—79
Protestant, 8 Western worldview versus, 46,
relational dimension of, 353-359, 56-59, 59-60
360-364 Bun, 53
relationships among types of, Burning hell, 382
354-359 Business meetings, of monks, 36
reproduction and, 291-311 Butsudo, 123
reverence for life in, 320-321
samsaric cosmogony of, 382-383 Cahuilla Indians, at Zen Mountain
Sinhala, 8 Center, 254
spiritual quest of, 38 California, Jen-yen in, 7
transplantation from India to California Organic Farming
China and Japan, 113-114 Association, Green Gulch
views of nature in, 10-12, 13-14, center in, 229-230
14-15, 33-34, 327-346, 340 Callicott, J. Baird
wealth and, 9-10 on Christianity, 73
Western influence on, 8 on environmental philosophy, 89
Buddhist birth stories. See also on metaphysical implications of
Jataka narratives ecology, 93
animals and environment in, 131-144 Calocedrus decurrens, at Zen
animals in, 145-—146t Mountain Center, 254
“Buddhist Economics,” 100, 344 Care, for nature and the environ-
Buddhist environmentalism, 37—40 ment, 26—30
challenges for, 280-284 Carpooling, at Spirit Rock center,
conflicts between Dharma work 236
438 Buddhism and Ecology

Catholicism, Greek philosophy Christianity

versus, 115 Buddhist aesthetic order versus
Cause and effect logical order of, 80-82
Mystic Law of, 96-97 God in, 358
in overpopulation, 299 teachings about nature in, 72-73
Celibacy, Buddhism and, 306 Christian tradition. See also Judeo-
Cemeteries, 52 Christian tradition
Centrism, 344-345 ecological differences between
Ceramic industry, 262 Buddhism and, 79-80, 83-85
Cetand, 275 environmental destructiveness of,
Chai Podhisita, 60 83-84, 111-112
Chaiya, Thailand, Buddhadasa nature in, 380
Bhikkhu at, 24-25 original sin in, 83
Chan-jan, 390 Chuang-tzu, influence on Buddhism
Chanoyu ceremony, 99 of, 123-124
Chanting, in gratitude, 227-228 Church, the, on aiding the poor and
Charity, 6 oppressed, 6
Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, 33-34 Chuzhoi, 202
Chattel, women as, 295 Citta, 76
Chedi, 52 Citta Thera, 34
Chen-yen, 75 Cit wang, 26
Ch’i force, 104 Clarity, 180
Chigasakishi Motomura, early Climate, 94-95
hojo-e ceremony at, 152-153 Cobb, John B., Jr., on life, 82-83
Chih-i, 390 Cochida, Doug, on the human body,
Childlessness 345-346
Buddhism and, 301 Cognition, by animals, 132
prejudices against, 305 Cold Mountain poet, poetry of, 331
Children Collective cultural perceptions, 5
cultural relativism regarding, of aiding the poor and oppressed,
294-295 5-8 |
exploitation of, 295 of cooking, 14
interdependence and, 296 of mercantile activity, 9
as parental carbon-copies, 304 Colors, five Buddhist, 77-78
proper care for, 293, 300 Comfort, spiritual enlightenment
China and, 298-299
arrival of Buddhism in, 12-13, 113 Commerce, 9
dismal environmental record of, 333 Communication, 78
views of nature in, 15 sexuality and, 307-311
Chinese, Sanskrit and, 379 between species, 195-196
Chinkonsai ceremony, 160n Communionism, 194-195
Choice, 84 Community. See also Monastic
Chokushi, 153 community
Christian creationism, 377 bioregional, 191-194, 207-208
 Index 439

Gary Snyder on, 187-188 Creativity, 81

interspecies, 202—204 Cuckoo and king of Banaras, jataka
land as, 91 about, 136
nature and, 90, 187-188, 213 Citla Thera, 34
spirit of, 51-52, 208-213, 240 Cultivation, Gary Snyder on, 362
Community relations Cultural artifacts, 211
at Green Gulch center, 230 Cultural relativism, regarding
at Spirit Rock center, 237 women, 294-295
Compassion, 357-358 Cultural transmission, 210—213
hierarchy of, 366-368, 368-371,
376n Daigohonzon mandala, 96
Compost piles, at Green Gulch Daikon, 390
center, 231 Dainichi-kyo, 76
Concentration, 115 Dainichi Nyorai, 114, 115-116
Conscience, social, 91 the Buddha as, 75-76
Consciousness, 142 dharma of, 78-79
animals and, 144 as life force, 82-83
evolution of, 362—363, 367 self-enjoyment of, 117
as one of the Six Great Elements, Dalai Lama, 15, 38, 40, 219, 346
76-78 on Buddhist practice, 343
Conservation aesthetic, of Aldo on the Golden Rule, 316—317
Leopold, 91-92, 100-101 Harvard lectures by, 340-341
Conservationists, environmental on radioactive waste disposal,
philosophy and, 90-91 271
Consumption. See Material con- on spirit and nature, 328-330,
sumption 338, 343-344
Control, of nature, 181 Darsana-marga, 357
Convention on Biological Diversity, Dasmann, Ray, 226
on intrinsic value of species, 319 Dean, Tim, on the Other, 204
Cook, Francis H., on organismic Death
interrelatedness, 97—98 human responses to, 71
Cooked foods, 14 interfusion of life with, 122
Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., on and life in nature, 188-191
Indian religious art, 394—395 Dedication chants, at Green Gulch
Cooperation, among natural entities, center, 227-228
29-30 De Divisione Naturae (Erigena),
Corruption, within sangha, 55 115
Cosmic ecology, in Hua-yen “Deep ecology,” 112-113, 214—
Buddhism, 98 215n, 344
Cosmological thought, 377, 382 biocentric equality in, 120-121
Council of Elders, agenda of, 55 bioregionalism as, 192
Cowell, E. B., 133-134 “Deep self,” 49
Creation, God and, 115 Defilement, 33
Creationism, 377 precept against, 183
440 Buddhism and Ecology

Deforestation, Buddhism and, 47-48 Dharma, 48, 120, 333, 352, 354,
Degradation, and lack of spiritual 369, 372, 373
enlightenment, 298-299 adherence of monks to, 52
Deities, fertility of, 308-309 of Dainichi, 78-79, 115-116
Delusion, enlightenment versus, dimensions of, 359
170-171 environmental wisdom of, 53-54
Department of Environmental hdjo-e ceremony and, 152
Conservation, 182-183 of noxious bacteria and radio-
Dependent co-origination, 76 active waste, 121-122
Dependent origination doctrine, 151 as one of the Three Treasures,
Deprivation, lack of spiritual 177—178
enlightenment and, 298-299 at Spirit Rock center, 238-239
Descartes, René, 74 Tao and, 328
de Silva, Lily, 45 Thai ecocrisis and, 47-48
Desire, 83 understanding of, 345
spiritual enlightenment and, 298—- Western assimilation of, 360
299 Dharma Bums (Kerouac), 213
Devadatta, 134 Dharmadhatu, 381, 384—385
jataka about, 135, 136-137 Dharmakaya, 76, 114, 115-116,
Devall, Bill, 127n 116-117, 118, 127n, 385
on biocentric equality, 120-121 “sick” buildings, microbes, and
Development, limiting of, 258 toxic waste as part of, 120-121
Developmental dimension of Dharmakirti, poetry of, 338-339
Buddhism, 353-359, 360-364 Dharma-mandala, 78
reaffirmation of, 368-371 Dharmas, realm of, 384-385
Devolutionary cosmogony, 383 Dharmata, 381
Dhamma, nature as, 24-30, 33-34. Dharma Treasure, 178
See also Dharma Dharma work, anti-nuclear activism
Dhammadhatu, 29-30 as, 282-283
Dhammajati, 26, 381. See also Nature Dhira Phantumvanit, on Thailand’s
Dhammapada, 342 ecocrisis, 45
Dhammapitaka, 21 Dhutanga, 36, 47
Buddhadasa and, 30-33 Dhyana, 356
ecological hermeneutic of, 36-37 Dialogue, Mikhail Bakhtin on, 203
Ian Harris on, 39-40 Digha Nikaya, 355-356
on nature and the pursuit of Dillard, Annie
enlightenment, 30—37 on choice, 84
nature management advocated by, on necessity, 84-85
32-33 Disease, in shamanistic cultures, 204
Phra Prajak Kuttajitto and, 34—35 “Distant enemy,” 351
scholarship of, 30-31, 41n Diversity, 193, 194. See also
as title, 41n Biodiversity
Dhamma Sapha, booklets of, 42n Dobson, Andrew, on ecologically
Dhamma Study Group, 26 appropriate societies, 48-50
 Index 44]

Dogen, 101-102, 113, 119 ‘Earth Witness Foundation”

on delusion and enlightenment, program, at Zen Mountain
170-171 Center, 259-260
environmental reconciliation of East, dismal environmental record
teachings of, 121-124 of the, 333-334
philosophy of, 116-118 East Asian Buddhism, environ-
on plants as Buddha-nature, 393 mental philosophy and, 89
on the zero-point, 168 EcoBuddhism, 37-40, 378, 395-—
Domination, in hierarchies, 365-366 396, 397n
Dominionistic approach to nature, Ecofeminists, 56
333-334 Eco-karma, 277—280
Doshi, in hojd-e ceremony, 152 Eco-koans, 286—287
Déotoku, 123 Ecological community, 188-191
Draft International Covenant on Ecological conscience, 91
Environment and Development Ecological culture
environmental protection in, 318 at Green Gulch center, 231-232
“Dreamtime,” 213 at Spirit Rock center, 237-238
Drengson, Philip, on ecologically transmission of, 240
appropriate societies, 48-50 Ecological living, reinhabitation as,
Drugoi, 202 225-227
Dualism, 3757 Ecological monitoring, at Buddhist
Dukkha, 25 centers, 241
Dummedha Jataka, 138-139 Ecological role models, Buddhist
Diira-paccathika, 351 centers as, 243-245
Duty, 344 Ecological sensitivity, building Zen
acting out of, 370-371 centers with, 255
Dysteleological nature of the Ecological sustainability, 239-240
universe, 383-384 at Zen Mountain Center, 260-261
Dzogchen Buddhism, 353 Ecological worldview, relational
fields in, 92-95
Earth Ecology
as bioregional community, 191-194 American Buddhism and, 219-245
eco-karma of, 278 Buddhism and, 3, 5, 353, 387-
reality of, 345-346 388, 389-394
seeing from the perspective of, field model of nature in, 92-95
170-171 interrelatedness and, 373-374
sensitivity to the pain of, 172—173 jataka narratives and, 140-142
withdrawal of humans from, 287 koans concerning, 284—287
Earth Charter, 324n life in, 82-83
Buddhism and, 313-322 mercantile activities and, 9
popular approval of, 322 metaphysics of, 93
Earth Council, 322 nuclear, 269-287
Earth Day ceremonies, at Green shamanism and, 199-202
Gulch center, 233-234 subfields of, 270
442 Buddhism and Ecology

Thai Buddhism and, 21—40 Engi, of nature, 122

Zen Buddhism and, 165-173 “Enlightened gene,” transmission
Economic systems of, 301-307
Asian, 387 Enlightenment, 34, 297, 331, 332,
Western, 386-387 357-358
Ecosystem, Indra’s net as, 189-190 attainment of, 76, 345-346
Ecosystem cultures, 226 delusion versus, 170-171
Ecosystemic macrocosm, 93 fusion of self and natural world
Education in, 331
at Green Gulch center, 232 “gene” of, 301-307
at Spirit Rock center, 238 limiting reproduction and, 306—307
Egalitarianism, Buddhism and, 352 self and, 341-342
Ego seven limbs of, 356
collective, 305 sexuality and, 310-311
in reproduction and consumption, as solving the environmental
302-303 crisis, 370
“Eightfold path,” 356 in Zen Buddhism, 167-169, 178
Einstein, Albert, 80 Enlightenment, the, 383
Ekos, 228 Enso6, 272
Elders Environment
early prominence of, 356 consumption and population and,
trees as, 195 292
Electric power generation, at Zen designing a harmonious, 104
Mountain Center, 260-261 hojo-e ceremony and, 154-156
Elements, Six Great, 76-77 in jataka narratives, 131-144
Elephanta temple, 336, 337 killing of, 179
Elephants and quail, jataka about, Environmental crisis, 21
136-137 Buddhadasa Bhikkhu’s concern
“Elite” Buddhism, 197 about, 26
Emotional sensitivity, 99 Buddhism and, 269
Emotions, 395 Buddhist writings on, 37—40
Empathy, 26 causes of, 23-24, 327-328
Emptiness, 26, 94, 337, 345, 347n Christianity and, 72-73
Dalai Lama on, 329 determining accountability for,
form and, 329, 338 279-280
interdependent co-origination and, Earth Charter and, 313-322
342-343 enlightenment as solving, 370
metaphysic of, 103 as fostered by incorrect Western
Endangered species, at Zen Moun- worldview, 31-32
tain Center, 251-254, 252—253t Greco-Roman philosophy and,
Energy sources 73-74
at Green Gulch center, 233-234 Japan’s role in, 119
in reinhabitory ethic, 227 overpopulation and excessive
at Spirit Rock center, 238-239 consumption in, 291-311
 Index 443

problems of Buddhism and, 56- Evil

59, 359 Golden Rule and, 316
relevance of Zen precepts to, not creating, 178
177-184 Evolution of consciousness, 362-
religion and, 63n, 377-378 363, 367
in Thailand, 45-50, 59-60 Excrement, place of, 382
Western worldview and, 111-112 Existence
Zen Buddhism and, 165-167, of the Buddha and sentient
172-173, 250 beings, 114
Environmental ethics, 89-90, 112, Buddhist metaphor for, 79
370, 371-374 Dogen on, 117-118
Buddhism and, 377-396, 399n Experience, 83
nuclear industry in, 278-279 Expressive symbols, Buddhahood
reinhabitation and, 225-227 revealed through, 103
of Watsuji Tetsuro, 94—95 Extension, 78
at Zen Mountain Center, 249-264
Environmental philosophy, 89 Fa-hsien, 390
of Aldo Leopold, 89-92, 104—105 Family
of Buddhism, 377-396 importance of, 206, 207
Gaia concept in, 104-105 perpetuation of lineage of, 301-—
of Japanese Buddhism, 92-104 302, 306—307
Environmental programs, at Zen Fang sheng ch’ ih, 386
Mountain Center, 249-250, Faraday, Michael, 80
259-261, 263-264 Farming, at Green Gulch center,
Equilibrium society. See Green 229-230, 231-232
society Fatal disease, Buddhist attitudes
Equitable distribution of resources, toward, 122
292 Faults, seeing others’, 180-181
Erigena, John Scotus, philosophy Fear, and lack of spiritual enlighten-
of, 115 ment, 298—299
Errors, seeing others’, 180—181 Feminism
Esho funi principle, 96—97 Buddhism and, 305-306
“Eskimos,” animal icons of, 197 patriarchal stereotyping and, 309-
Esoteric Buddhist teachings, of 310
Kikai, 75-79, 79-80, 114 Feng shui, 104
Ethical norms, 3—4 Ferry, Luc, 126n
and the poor and oppressed, 5-8 Fertility, of mythological women,
Ethical principles, universal, 321—322 308-309
Ethics. See Environmental ethics; Fertility control
Global ethics; Golden Rule; Buddhism and, 291-311
Land ethic Ficus bengalensis, 52
Eucalyptus, poisons in, 242 Ficus religiosa, 52
Eucharist, 199 Field model of nature, 92—95
Europe, Buddhism in, 4 Ainu and, 194
444 Buddhism and Ecology

Film, dissemination of environ- Four Mandalas, in Shingon training,

mentalist thought through, 77-78
124-125 Fowler, Brahmin, and partridge,
Fine arts jataka about, 138
Buddhism and, 391-394 Franciscan worldview, 72
in India, 394—395 Freedom, mental, 33
Fire management Fresh-rotten food, 14
at Buddhist centers, 242 Friendliness, 342
at Zen Mountain Center, 256-258 Friendship, 244—245
Fish Fido, 94-95
eating of, 71, 152 Fugu fish, eating of, 71
in hdjo-e ceremony, 153, 155 Fujiwara no Sanesuke, 156
Fish ponds, 386 Fujiwara Teika, waka poetry of, 99
Five Great Elements, reality as ‘Fundamental nature,” 338
composed of, 114 Futagoyama, in The Lotus Siitra,
Five spiritual faculties, 356 332-333, 337
Flower Garland Sitra, 171
Food, of monks, 52 Gabe (Generic American Buddhist
Food practices Environmentalist), challenges
at Buddhist centers, 243 confronting, 280—284
at Green Gulch center, 231 Gadamer, Hans Georg, on inter-
at Zen Mountain Center, 261 preting texts, 379
Food-web community, 188-191 Gaia theory of nature, 103-104
Force field, 94 Gananath Obeyesekere, 8
Forest, restoration of, 54 Gandhi, Mohandas K., 58
Forests. See also Trees Gangetic plain, life on, 11-12
Buddhism and, 33—34, 35-36, 36, Gardening, at Zen Mountain Center,
47, 337 261
in Gary Snyder’s poetry, 195-196 Garden of Eden, nature as, 10, 14
at Green Gulch center, 223—224, 229 Gatha, 134
jataka about, 140 Gati, 356
mental freedom in, 33 Gay life-styles, validation of, 305
monasteries in, 53 Geertz, Clifford, 4
restoration of, 657 Geido, 99, 101, 103
at Spirit Rock center, 223-224 origins of, 99
at Zen Mountain Center, 256-257 Generosity, 181-182
Form Genjokoan, 102
Dalai Lama on, 329 Genshin, visions of hell by, 382
Emptiness and, 329, 338 Gere, Richard, 347n
Four Foundations of Mindfulness, Giving, 179, 181-182
235 Global community, Earth Charter
Four Iron Cauldrons, 139 and, 313-322
Four levels of meditative absorp- Global ethics, Buddhism and, 313-
tion, 356 322
 Index 445

Global interdependence Gratitude, 32

Golden Rule and, 317 jataka about, 135
growth of, 313-314 in reinhabitory ethic, 226-227
in international law, 318 Gratitude to the land
Global thinking, 193 at Green Gulch center, 227-228
Gocaragama, 34 at Spirit Rock center, 235
God “Great Luminous One,” Dainichi as,
in Christianity, 73 76
humanity and, 73 Great Mandalas, 77-78
individuals’ relationship with, 112 “Great Sun,” the Buddha as, 75
life and, 75 Greco-Roman philosophy
as life force, 82-83 Catholicism versus, 115
the natural world as, 115 ecological differences between
as nature, 85 Buddhism and, 79-80
in religions of Abraham, 358 environmental crisis and, 73-74
Godhead, 126—-127n Greed, 46
Gods, 356 Buddhist challenges to, 23-24
Golden Gate National Recreation destructiveness of, 29, 172-173
Area (GGNRA), Green Gulch mercantile activities and, 9
center relations with, 230 overcoming, 26—27
Golden Rule, 321 precept against, 181-182
as basis of all ethics, 316—317 in Zen Buddhism, 166—167
Golden stag, jataka about, 135 “Green Buddhism,” 33-34. See also
Goldstein, Joseph, founding of Environmental ethics
Spirit Rock Meditation Center critique of, 371-374
by, 222 hierarchy of compassion and,
Gombrich, Richard, 11 351-374
Good, 34 at Zen Mountain Center, 263-264
actualizing for others, 179 Green Cross International, 315
Golden Rule and, 316 Green Dragon Temple, 221
practicing, 178-179 Green Gulch Zen Center
Gorbachev, Mikhail, Earth Charter activism against radioactive waste
and, 315 at, 271
Go-Uda, Emperor, 158n as ecological role model, 243-245
Governance, at Buddhist centers, environmental practices of, 220
240-241 evaluation of, 227-234
Grace, 371, 373 future challenges at, 241-243
Grahyagrahakakalpana, 384 land history of, 220-221
Grapard, Allan G., 337 locality of, 223-225, 229-230
on enlightenment, 332 points of tension at, 239-241
on Japanese love of nature, 340 Green society, monastic community
Graphs, of Buddhist concepts, 354, as, 48-50, 53-54, 54-56
365, 367 Greenwashing, 180
Grass, jataka about, 141 Gross, Rita, 4
 446 Buddhism and Ecology

Gross national product (GNP), 22, 23 Hell of repetition, 382

Groves, sacred, 52 Hell where everything is cooked,
Grumbine, Edward, 225 382
Gijin, 123 Helping others, 316-317, 317-318
Gypsy moths, 182 Hermitage, at Spirit Rock center,
238-239
Habitats, at Zen Mountain Center, “Hermit strand,” 337
251 Hierarchy, 351-374
Habito, Ruben, criticism of Bud- in Buddhist philosophy, 351-353
dhism by, 55 in Christian worldview, 80
Hachiman, 152-153 of compassion, 366-368, 368-
Haibutsu kishaku policy, 159n 371, 376n
Haiku poetry, 99, 101, 330-331. See of oppression, 364-366, 376n
also Poetry Hijo jobutsu, 390
Hakamaya, Noriaki, 37 Hinayana Buddhism, 316
Hamilton, Michael P., 253n rise of, 355
Han cultural area, arrival of Hindu tradition
Buddhism in, 12-13 limitations of, 205
Han Shan, 213, 217n views of nature in, 335~—339
Happiness, 32, 33 Hippies, 327-328
Harada-Yasutani lineage, 165, 174n “Historical Buddhas,” 76
Hargrove, Eugene C., land ethic of, Hito, 94
92 Hoi, 123
Harming others, 316-317, 317-318 of humans and tubercle bacilli,
Harmony, 346 122
actualization of, 182 Hodjo-e ceremony, 149-157, 159n,
environmental, 104 160n
Three Pure Precepts and, 178-179 described, 149-150, 151-152
Harris, Ian, 21 earliest recorded, 152-153
criticisms of ecoBuddhism by, environmental issues concerning,
37-40 154-156, 156-157
Hazard management, at Buddhist environmentally deleterious
centers, 242-243 preparations for, 155-156
Hearn, Lafcadio, on Japanese love at Hachiman shrines, 152-153
of nature, 330 at [washimizu Hachiman Shrine,
Heart Sittra, The, 329 152, 153-154
on Emptiness and form, 338 origins of, 160n
at Green Gulch center, 228 textual basis of, 150-151
Hebrew Bible, the poor and Hojo-e hdsoku, source of hdjd-e
oppressed in, 6 ceremony in, 151
Heidegger, Martin, 384, 385 Hojogawa, release of fish and clams
Hell, Buddhist visions of, 382-383 into, 152
Hell-beings, 356 Hojo-ike/enketsuchi, release of carp
Hell of no interval, 382 into, 152
 Index 447

Holiness, of nature, 346 in hierarchy of life-forms, 356

Holism, 193 as predators, 71-72
in emerging Western ecological relationship of land to, 90-91
models, 74—75 relationship of nature to, 94-95,
Homoerotic activity, 307-308 191-194
Honesty, 183-184 Humility, in reinhabitory ethic,
Hopi, 205 226-227
Hoshinji, 221 Hunger, lack of spiritual enlighten-
Hospital care, for the poor and ment and, 298-299
oppressed, 7 Hungry ghosts, 356
Hosshin, 114 Hunter’s Point jail project, 230
Hosshin seppo theories, 102, 115- Hunting
116, 117 Gary Snyder on, 198
Hoss school, 152 jataka about, 135
Hostility, jataka about, 136-137 Hwalin, Jen-yen’s hospital in, 7
Housing, for Zen Mountain Center Hwa Yol Jung, on communionism,
visitors, 258-259 194-195
Hsiang-yen, 287
Hua-yen Buddhism Iba Iseki, early hojd-e ceremony at,
aesthetics of nature in, 99-100 152-153
cosmic ecology in, 98 Ichinen sanzen principle, 96—97
Indra’s net in, 189-190 Ienaga Saburo, on Japanese art,
Hui-kuo, 75-76, 87n 391-393
Hui-yuan, 390 Ignorance, 384
Him, 114 Ikeda Daisaku, on Nichiren Bud-
Human behavior, animal stories as dhism, 97
explaining, 134-135 Ill-spoken words, jataka about, 136
Humanistic approach to nature, 333 Impermanence, 353, 358
Humanity of nature, 99
Buddhist philosophy toward, Impermanence-Buddha-nature, 102
340-341 India, 13
God and, 73 concept of nature in, 335-339
nature and, 384—385 fine arts in, 394-395
Human nature, 94 rise of Buddhism in, 12-13, 385—
and excessive fertility and 386
consumption, 302-303 Vajrayana Buddhism from, 310—
Human rights 311
in international law, 321 Indian Buddhist literature, nature in,
reproduction and consumption as, 3sdaaaaa38—339
292-295 Individuality, 94
rights of other living things Indra’s net, 98, 171
versus, 111-112 bioregionalism and, 191-194
Humans. See also Population ecological community as, 188-191
animals and, 131-132 Indriya, 356
 448 Buddhism and Ecology

Indulgences, sale of, 6 Ito Jakuchii, 390-393

Industrialization, 112 Itd Seird, 155, 158n, 159, 160n
Inquiring Mind newsletter, 222 Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine, 149—
Insight meditation practice, 222 150, 158n, 159n, 160n, 161n
Insight Meditation Society, 222 hdjo-e ceremony at, 152, 153-154
Integrity, 183-184, 203 Iwashimizusai, 159n
Intellect, Hindu attitudes toward, Iworu, 194
336 Izutsu Toshihiko, on Zen Buddhism,
Intelligence, as one form of 93-94
awareness, 200
Intention, 78 Jaina monk and Brahmin in
karma and, 275, 277 Banaras, jataka about, 137-138
Interdependence. See also Field Jaini, Padmanabh S., 133
model of nature Jainism, animals in, 133
in Buddhist thought, 295-301 Japan, 71
of nature, 28-30, 74-75, 90, 97— animal-release rites in medieval,
98, 122, 198, 202-204, 149-157
344-345 arrival of Buddhism in, 113-114
“Interdependence Day,” at Spirit dismal environmental record of,
Rock center, 238 119, 333-334
Interdependent co-origination, 342— Kukai in, 87n
343 military forces in, 161n
Interior life movements, in emerging State rituals of, 153-154, 154-156
Western ecological models, 75 view of nature in, 327-328, 330
International law, environmental Japanese art and literature, termi-
protection in, 318 nology of, 99
“Interpenetration of part and part,” Japanese Buddhism
98 aesthetic concept of nature in,
“Interpenetration of part and 99-101
whole,” 97-98 concept of nature in, 89-105,
Interrelatedness 339-340
of all existence, 369-370 environmental ethics in, 92-103,
in Buddhism, 371-374 388-389
in hierarchies, 364—365, 366-368 field model of nature in, 92-95
Interspecies community, 202-204 nature and self in, 95—97
Intimacy of things, 183 nature in, 124-125, 197-198,
Intrinsic value 330-331
in Buddhism, 320 salvific function of nature in,
of people, 321 101-103
Inua, 198 Shintd and, 102—103
Inupiaq people, animal icons of, Japanese literary tradition, nature
197 in, 101-102
Irrationality, in Buddhism, 199 Jatakamala (Arya Stra), 134
Islam, 334-335 Jatakamald, nature and the, 11
God in, 358 Jataka narratives, 39
 Index 449

animals in, 133-135, 145—146r Karmic worldview, 276

apocryphal, 134 Karuna, 367
ecology and, 140-142 Kasuga Festival, 153
morals in, 142—144 Katanni, 32
vegetarianism in, 137-138 Kegon Buddhism
Javasakuna Jataka, 135 aesthetics of nature in, 99-100
Jen-yen ecological worldview of, 97-98
aid to the poor and oppressed by, field model of nature in, 94
7-8 Indra’s net in, 189-190
mercantile support of, 10 Keishu, 150
Jetavana, jataka about, 139-140 Kellert, Stephen R., on Eastern
Jiji muge doctrine, 98 environmentalism, 333-334,
Jinen, 95-96, 102 339-340
Jinen honi doctrine, 102 Kenshd-godo, benefits of, 167-169
Jokei, 153 Kerouac, Jack, 213
Jorgenson, John, 13 Kessai, 153, 162n. See also Absten-
Joriki, benefits of, 167—169 tion
Joy, sexuality and, 310-311 Keyes, Charles F., on Buddhist
Judaism, God in, 358 history, 381
Judeo-Christian tradition. See also Khoroche, Peter, 134
Christian tradition Khuddaka Nikaya, 32
anthropocentrism of, 327-328 Khunying Suthawan Sathirathai, on
Jiji enjishd, 152-153 Thailand’s ecocrisis, 45
Ki force, 104
Kalacakra, mandala of, 395 Kilesa, 33
Kalyana mitta, 244 Killing
Kamakura shogunate, hdj0-e of animals, 149-150
ceremony and, 153-154, 160- jataka about, 135
161n Kim, Hee-jin, 128n
Kami, 152 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 58
in Shinto, 113-114 King of Banaras and cuckoo, jataka
Kamo Festival, 153 about, 136
Kamo no Chomei, 209-210 King of Death, 32
Kampuchea, Buddhism in, 59 King of Kosala, Brahmins, and
Kansenji official, 158n animal sacrifice, jataka about,
Karma, 353 139-140
technology and the understanding Kitkitdizze, 213
of, 274-277 Gary Snyder on life at, 193
transference of, 277 Koans
waste and, 280-281 described, 285-286
Karma-mandala, 78 ecological, 284—287
Karme Chéling Tibetan Center, 244 in Zen Buddhism, 168-170, 171,
Karmic accountability, for the 172, 174n
environmental crisis, 279-280 Kohak, Erazim, on moral sense of
Karmic cosmology, 200-201 nature, 346
 450 Buddhism and Ecology

Kokalika Jataka, 136 at Zen Mountain Center, 256

Kongocho-kyo, 76 Land restoration, at Green Gulch
Kongomyokyo, 152 center, 229
as basis for hdjd-e rites, 150-151 Landscaping, at Green Gulch center,
Kornfeld, Jack, founding of Spirit 233-234
Rock Meditation Center by, Land stewardship
222 at Buddhist centers, 240-241,
Kotthamachat, 32 241-242
Kraft, Kenneth, 58 by Green Gulch center, 229-230
Kraus, James W., 215n by Spirit Rock center, 235-237
Krsna, 335, 338 by Zen Mountain Center, 256—
Ki, 94 259, 263-264
Kukai, 102-103, 390 Language
aesthetic order of, 81-82 Buddhist concepts of nature and,
Buddhist environmental paradigm 378-379
of, 75-79 in international legal documents,
Christianity versus teachings of, 319-320, 321
79-80, 83, 85 Lankavatara Sitra, on kinship of
environmental reconciliation of humans and animals, 143
teachings of, 121-124 Laos, Buddhism in, 59
teachings of, 72, 84, 113-116 Lao-tzu, influence on Buddhism of,
titles of, 87n 123-124
universalism of, 120-121 Latter Day of the Law, 96
Kiing, Hans Latukika Jataka, 136-137
on the Golden Rule, 316 Law, decline of, 209
on religion and global ethics, 314 Laypersons, 52
Kunstadter, Peter, 45 in Buddhist tradition, 342
Kusa grass, jataka about, 141 in hojd-e ceremony, 152
Kusala, 34 rites of intensification of, 52-53
Kusanjali Jataka, 141 Le Guin, Ursula, 203
Kuti, 52 Leopold, Aldo, 95, 98, 106n, 225-
Kyoto School, field model of nature 226, 319
of, 94 environmental philosophy of, 89—
92
LaFleur, William R., 126n, 332 field model of nature of, 92-95
on Basho’s poetry, 331 Gaia theory and, 104—105
on nature in Buddhism, 102-103 on rightness, 188
Lake Hemet fire, 257 Zen Buddhism and, 100-101
Land Lesbian life-styles, validation of,
gaining control of, 155-156 305
society’s relationship to, 89-91 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 14
Land aesthetic, 91 Lies
Land ethic, 92, 319 precept against, 180
of Aldo Leopold, 89-91, 100- Life
101, 225-226 affirmation of, 179
 Index 451

Buddhist attitude toward, 135 Love, in nature, 189, 190-191

cellular, 82-83 “Love mode,” 376n
conditions enhancing, 297-298 Loving-kindness, 32-33
and death in nature, 188-191 Loving kindness meditation, at
God and, 75 Spirit Rock center, 235
interfusion of death with, 122 Lun, 123
Nichiren Daishonin’s view of, Lung-mei currents, 104
96-97
quality of, 300-301 Maccurdja, 32
reverence for, 320-321 Macy, Joanna, 38, 344
stealing of, 179 on anti-nuclear activism, 282
in Zen Buddhism, 177 on radioactive waste disposal, 271
Life force, 75 on the self, 370—371
Life-forms Madhyamaka tradition
hierarchy of, 356 Emptiness in, 342-343
taxonomy of, 358-359 nature in, 338
Life-style diversity, intolerance of, Mae chii, 56
305 Maezumi Roshi, Hakuyu Taizan,
Liminality founding of Zen Mountain
of monastic community, 49, 50-54 Center by, 250
in rites of passage, 51 Magic
Lion and woodpecker, jataka about, in Buddhism, 199
135 in nature, 200-201
Lions and tigers, jataka about, 141— Mahakassapa, 34
142 Maha-mandala, 77-78
Li Po, poetry of, 339 Mahaparinirvana Sitra, 390
Li-shih wu-ai doctrine, 97 Maharatnakita Sitra, 134
Living body, 81-82 Mahavairocana Tathagata, 114
“Living in the present moment,” the Buddha as, 75, 79
Zen Buddhism and, 167, 171 Mahayana Buddhism, 103, 113,
Living things 316, 343
karma of, 277-278 Gary Snyder and, 205, 206
protection of, 318-319 hierarchy in, 356-358
seeing from the perspective of, magic and, 200
170-171 reproduction and, 301-307
Local thinking, 193 rise of, 355
Logic, kdans and, 285-286 Mahayana “three-body” theory, in
Logical order, 81 Kutkai’s buddhology, 75—76
Lohakumbi Jataka, 139-140 Mai hen kae tua, 26
Loori, John Daido Maintained Three Treasures, 178
on the environmental crisis, 285 Maio-lo, on life and environment,
Zen films of, 125 96-97
Lotus Sitra, The, 96-97, 337, 390 Male heirs, 301-302
on plants, 332 Mallika, Queen, jataka about, 139-140
on volcanos, 332-333 Manas, 336
 452 Buddhism and Ecology

Mandalas, 77-78 Medieval period of Japanese

ecosystems as, 194 history, 99
of Kalacakra, 395 Meditation, 222. See also Seated
Mandela, Nelson, 58 meditation
Mantras, 77, 115 at Spirit Rock center, 235
Manzanita Village, 244 Meditative absorption, 356
Mappo, 96, 209 Meetings, 52
Mara, 32 Mehden, Fred R. von der, 56
Marga, 355 on Thai Buddhism, 57-58
Marginality, in rites of passage, 51 Meiji government
Marin Conservation Association, 223 Buddhist persecution by, 389
Marin County hdjo-e ceremony and, 1597
Buddhist centers in, 220, 223 Memorial ceremonies, at Green
land-management issues in, 241— Gulch center, 233-234
242 Men, in Buddhist philosophy, 341
Marin County Water District, 237 Mental freedom, 33
Marxism, 9 Mercantile activities, greed in, 9
view of Buddhists under, 56 Mercantile activity
Masayuki Taira, 155, 162n Buddhism and, 9-10, 12
“Master Banana Plant,” 393 collective cultural perception of, 9
Masturbation, 307-308 Merchant laymen, in Buddhism, 10
Matao Noda, 94 Merit, 53
Material consumption Merton, Thomas, 24
countering excessive, 291, 299-301 Metaphors, animal stories as, 132
decreasing, 260 Metaphysics
environment and population and, of ecology, 93
292 nature in, 380
religious criticism of excessive, Metta, 32-33, 49
293, 303 Metta Sutta, 235
Materialism, 112 Micchaditthi, 32
among Buddhists, 57 Middlebury College, Dalai Lama at,
deleterious effects of, 22-24, 45, 46 328-330
Material well-being, spiritual Middle Way, 311
enlightenment and, 298-299 making life worthwhile through,
Maternity, women and, 301-302 297-301
Maxwell, James Clerk, 80 Mikkyo, 75
McDaniel, Jay, 324n Mikkyo Buddhism, 103
McDermott, James P., 133 Mikoshi, 152, 158-159n
Meat Minamoto clan, deities of, 154
eating of, 137-138, 152 Mind
in hdjd-e ceremony, 153 clouding of, 180
Media, the, on the environmental Hindu attitudes toward, 336
crisis in Thailand, 23~24 as one of the Six Great Elements,
“Medicinal Herbs,” 390 76-77
 Index 453

as one of three mysteries, 77, 78- Monks

79, 115 dwelling places for, 34—36, 37
purification of, 329 laypersons and, 342
in reinhabitory ethic, 227 responses to activism of, 55-56
Mindfulness responsibilities of, 36, 47-48
benefits of, 167-169 rules of conduct for, 51-52
in Buddhist practice, 273-274 “Monks of convenience,” 386
Mizukara, onozukara and, 95-97 Mono no aware worldview, environ-
Moderation mental problems with, 119-120
Buddhist resources for, 295-301 Moon, poetic images of, 338-339
at Green Gulch center, 234 Moralistic approach to nature, 333
in reproduction and consumption, Morality, 206—207
294, 302-303 ‘“‘Mother-goddesses,” female deities
Modern economic culture as, 308-309
benefits of, 22 Motherhood
origin and deleterious effects of, female sexuality and, 308-309
22-24 nurturing and, 309-310
Modes of cooperation, in nature, 90 Mountains
Moksa, 384 near Green Gulch and Spirit Rock
Mokuseki bussho, 114 centers, 223
Molesworth, Charles, on cultural seeing from the perspective of,
| transmission, 211—212 170-171
Monasteries, 35-36 in Zen Buddhism, 166-167
animal preserves at, 386 Mountains and Rivers Temple, 244
ecologically inappropriate deeds Mount Diablo, 223
of, 386 Mount Tamalpais, 223
forest, 53 Mount Tamalpais State Park, 237
Monastic community. See also Thai Mt. Tremper Zen Center, 244
sangha Mu, 94
celibacy in, 64n Mu busshd, 122
ecologically appropriate attributes Mudras, 77, 115
of, 49 Muir Beach, 220, 221
Gary Snyder on, 187-188 Muir Woods National Monument, 220
as a green society, 48-50 Mujo, of nature, 99
layout of, 52-53 Mujo beings, 102
liminal attributes of, 49, 50-54 Mujo-bussho, 102
limitations of, 54—56 Mujodo no taigen, benefits of, 168-
as a retreat, 57 | 169
social stratification in, 64n Mujo-seppo theory, 117
Monastic life, 337 Mu no basho, 94
Monji symbols, 103 Muromachi shogunate, hdjd-e
Monkhood, 64—65n ceremony and, 153
entering and leaving, 51 Murota, Y., on Japanese view of
Monk of wisdom, 24 nature, 327
454 Buddhism and Ecology

Murphy, Patrick D., 198 14-15, 33-34, 46, 327-346,

on community and ecology, 202- 337-338, 378-379, 382-384
204 caring for, 26—30
on cultural transmission, 212 Chinese views of, 12—13
Music, 84 Christian teachings about, 72-73
Myanmar, Buddhism in, 59 communion with, 194-195
Myoho renge kyo, 96-97 community and, 187-188, 213
“Mysterious depths,” 99 “conquest” of, 388-389
Mystic Law of cause/effect, 96—97 controlling, 181
Mythological and shamanistic Dalai Lama on, 328-330
community, Gary Snyder and, dhamma as, 24—30
194-204 ecological definitions of, 379-381
Mythological women, fertility of, elevating self relative to, 181
308-309 enlightenment and, 331
Mythology in environmental philosophy, 89
fertility in, 308-309 field model of, 92-95
nature and, 194-199 finding faults and errors in, 180—
power of, 198-199 181
Gaia theory of, 103-104
Naess, Arne, 127n, 344, 370-371 giving to and receiving from,
“deep ecology” of, 214—215n 181-182
ecological philosophy of, 93 God and, 73, 85, 115
Spinozan foundations of, 387 happiness and, 33
Nagarjuna, 316 Hindu attitudes toward, 335-336
on Emptiness, 342-343 honoring the body of, 180
Nakano Hatayoshi, on early hdjd-e human consciousness and, 142
ceremonies, 153 humanistic, moralistic, nega-
“Namu myoho renge kyo,” 97 tivistic, and dominionistic
Nan-ch’uan, 286—287 approaches to, 333-334
Nash, Roderick, on religion and human responses to, 71-72
nature, 327 Ian Harris on, 38-40
Nathaputta, jataka about, 137-138 incorrect Western worldview of,
National Buddhist Association, 31-32, 327
animal-protection radio Indian views of, 335-339
broadcasts by, 386 interdependence of, 28-30, 74—
Native American cultures. See also 75, 90, 97-98, 122, 198,
Shamans 202-204
Gary Snyder’s worldview and, in Japanese Buddhism, 95-97,
194-195, 196-197, 198, 199, 205 99-101, 124-125
social conflict in, 204 in Japanese literary tradition,
Nature 101-102
affirmation of, 179 Japanese views of, 89-105, 119-
beauty of, 91-92 120, 327-328, 330, 333-334,
Buddhist views of, 10-12, 13-14, 339-340
 Index 455

law of, 32 ambiguity of, 396

love in, 189, 190-191 quest for, 342
magic in, 200-201 representation of, 337-338
management of, 32-33 samsara and, 103, 119-120
mythology and, 194—199 stopping and, 332
order in, 81-82 Nirvana Sitra, on sentient beings,
perfection of, 180-181 116-117
philological issues of, 395—396 Nishida Kitaro
relationship of humans to, 94—95 field model of nature of, 94
revising human attitudes toward, on Subject/Object antithesis, 384—
111-112 385
salvific function of, 101-103 Noble Truths, first, 7
as sentient being, 101-102 Noh drama, 99, 101
soteriological function of, 102— Non-attachment, 42n
103 Nondual forms of Buddhism, 353,
stealing of, 179 375n
terminological meanings of, 379- Non-egalitarianism, of Buddhism,
380 352
Western culture and, 74-75 ‘“Non-killing precept,” 152, 154,
wild aspects of, 337 161n.
Nature Conservancy, The, 222 Fujiwara no Sanesuke and, 156
Nature preserve, Zen Mountain Nonreproductive life-styles,
Center as, 259 validation of, 305
Natyasastra, 395 Nonreproductive sexuality, dis-
“Near enemy,” 351 couragement of, 307-308
Necessity, 84-85 Nonsentient beings
Negativistic approach to nature, 333 Buddhahood of all, 117, 122-124,
Neighborhood values, 207—208 390
Neoplatonic theology, 115 protection of, 318-319
Nevada Nuclear Test Site, anti- Nonseparateness. See also Separa-
nuclear activism at, 272-273, tion
283-284 in Zen Buddhism, 169-170
New Buddhism, 389 Non-substantiality, 353
Nibbana, 33 Nonviolence, 52
Nichiren Buddhism, 97 social change through, 58
Nichiren Daishonin, on oneness of No-self, ideal of, 342, 344
life and its environment, 96—97 Noss, Reed, 225
Nichiren Shosht sect, 96 Nothingness, 94
Nidana, 356 Novices, 53
Nihilism, 385-386 Nuclear ecology, 288n
Nihonjinron thinkers, 389 Buddhism and, 269-287
Ningen, human nature as, 94 described, 269-270
Nirmadnakaya, 76, 116 koans for, 284—287
Nirvana, 384, 384, 389-390 mindfulness and, 273-274
456 Buddhism and Ecology

Nuclear Guardianship Project, 271 Overcrowding, 300-301

Nuclear waste. See Radioactive Overpopulation
waste environmental crisis and, 291,
Nuns, Buddhist, 56 292
Nurturing, motherhood and, 309— lack of spiritual enlightenment
310 and, 298-299
Nutrition, importance of, 300-301
Pakati state, 27
Oak Tree Canyon, at Spirit Rock Pali scriptures, 25
center, 237 Pali suttas, 34
Obedience, 52 Pali texts and traditions
Obligation, 188 Dhammapitaka’s use of, 30-31
to reproduce, 301-302 jataka as, 133-134
Oda, Mayumi, anti-nuclear activist Panpsychism, 72
art of, 272 Pansa, 48
Ojoyoshi, 382 Paradise, in Hindu tradition, 337
Okada Soji, 1607 Paramita, 357
Olcott, Henry Steel, on Sri Lanka, 8 Parenthood
Olson, Grant A., 30 Buddhism and, 305-306
Omine Akira, on nature in Japanese nurturing and, 309-310
literary tradition, 101-102 in religious symbolism, 311
One-Bodied Three Treasures, 178 Parinirvana scene, 391
Oneness, 197 Parking
of nature, 188-191 placing limits on, 241
Onozukara, mizukara and, 95-97 at Spirit Rock center, 236
Oppressed, the Parliament of the World’s Religions,
aid to, 5-8 316
nature as, 14-15 Participation, 188
Oppression, hierarchy of, 364—366, Partridge, fowler, and Brahmin,
376n jataka about, 138
Order, in nature, 81-82 “Passing through,” 195
Organic balance, in emerging Paticca-samuppdda, 295, 344
Western ecological models, 75 Patimokkha, 52
Oriental despotism, 387 Patriarchal stereotyping, 309-310
Original sin, 83 Patronizing attitude, in aid to the
Oryoki meals, at Green Gulch poor and oppressed, 6
center, 232 Paul, Sherman, on community, 213
Other, the Peace, Buddhism versus, 28 1—282
David Abram on, 201-202 Peace and quiet, nature as fostering,
Mikhail Bakhtin on, 202-204 24-25
nature as, 187-188 People. See Humans
“Other-power,” 102 Perfection, 180-181
“Outside world,” in Zen practice, Perfection of Wisdom literature, 357
165-167 Periphuseon (Erigena), 115
 Index 457

Pernetarian society. See Green Plutonium, 272

society at Amarillo, Texas, 284
Personalists, 341 toxicity of, 276
Petee Jung, on communionism, Poetry. See also Basho; Haiku
194-195 poetry
Phenomena, Buddhist interpretation of Cold Mountain, 331
of, 76-77, 113-114, 115-116, of Dharmakirti, 338-339
117-118 of Gary Snyder, 190, 194-199,
Photovoltaic (PV) system, at Zen 208-209, 211-212
Mountain Center, 260-261 of India, 338-339
Phra panna, 24 of Li Po, 339
Phra Phaisan Visalo of Saigy6d, 102-103, 197, 331-332
on forest monasteries, 53 of Santideva, 284-285, 343
on the monastic community, 50 Politics
Phra Prajak Kuttajitto, activism of, within sangha, 55
34—35, 55 the voice of nature in, 196
Phra Prayudh Payutto. See Pollution, Buddhist attitudes
Dhammapitaka toward, 122
Physics Poor, the
Buddhism and, 80 aid to, 5-8
in international law, 318 nature as, 14-15
nuclear ecology and, 270 Population, environmental crisis
Physis, 95-96 and, 291-311
Pilgrimage, 238 Pottery workshop, at Zen Mountain
Pindapata, 52 Center, 262
Pine Springs Ranch, 251 Poverty, overpopulation and, 298-299
“Pink cloud,” awakening as, 169 “Power mode,” 376n
Pinus coulteri, at Zen Mountain Powers and potencies, 123
Center, 254 in hierarchies, 365-366, 366-368
Pinus Jeffreyi, at Zen Mountain Practice. See also Food practice;
Center, 254 Insight meditation practice;
Place of excrement, 382 Sot6 Zen practices; Work as
Plants practice; Zen practice
Buddha-nature of, 332, 390-391 community of, 205-208
in dedication chants, 228 Prajfiaparamita literature, views of
endangered, 253¢ nature in, 10-11
in Gary Snyder’s poetry, 195, 196 Prakrti, 335-336, 380-381
at Green Gulch Zen Center, 221 Pratitya-samutpada, 76, 295, 342,
karma of, 278 353, 381
Platform Sitra of the Sixth Patri- Precious Garland, The (Nagarjuna),
arch, The, 285 on the Golden Rule, 316
Plato, 74 Predators
realm of Ideas of, 81 humans as, 71-72
Plumwood, Valerie, 225 jataka about, 141-142
458 Buddhism and Ecology

Pretas, 356 Realm of Ideas, 81

Prip-Mogller, Johannes, on Chinese Rebirth, Buddhism and, 296-297
Buddhist monasteries, 386 Recycling, 383
Pronatalism, religion and, 292-295 Reforestation, 54, 65n
Protestant Buddhism, 8 Rehanek, Woody, on Gary Snyder’s
Protestantism, 199 poetry, 197
Prothero, Stephen, 8 Reincarnation, 143
Pudgala, 341 Reincorporation, in rites of passage, 51
Pudgalavdadin, 341 Reinhabitation, 191-192, 239
Pure Land theory, 102 as ethical ecological living, 225-—
Purification, of the mind, 329 227
Purusa, 335, 336 Reinhabitory peoples, 226
Relational dimension of Buddhism,
Quail and elephants, jataka about, 353-359, 360-364
136-137 Relational fields, in ecological
Queen, Christopher, 8 worldview, 92-95
Quercus kelloggii, at Zen Mountain Relationships
Center, 254 differences between Christian and
Quezada, Juan, on pottery tech- Buddhist concepts of, 79-80
nique, 262 sexuality as leading to spiritual
and dharmic, 311
Radiation ecology, 270 Relativism, regarding women, 294—
Radioactive waste 295
Buddha-nature of, 120—121, 121-— Religion
122, 122-123, 124 Buddhism as first world, 4
disposal of, 270-271 cosmological thinking in, 377
impermanence of, 121-122 in environmental issues, 63n
karmic implications of, 274-277 excessive consumption and, 293,
koans concerning, 286-287 299-301
mindfulness and, 273-274 global interdependence and, 314
in nuclear ecology, 269 reproduction and, 293, 301-307
Zen Buddhism and, 281-284 sexuality and, 307, 310-311
Radiobiology, 270 Religion journal, 38
Radish motif, 390-391 Religious fundamentalism, 23
Rahila, jataka about, 138 Reproduction. See also Sexuality
Rainy season retreat, 48, 57 Buddhism and, 291-311
Rasas, 395, 402n emotionality and greed in, 304
Raw-—cooked food, 14 environmental crisis and, 292
Reality. See also Universe motivations for, 301-307
Buddhist view of, 76 pressures toward, 304-305
in Western culture, 74 religion and, 292~295
in Zen Buddhism, 93-94, 177 as religious duty, 293
Reality embodiment, 114 selfishness and, 302-303
Realized Three Treasures, 178 sexuality and, 307-311
 Index 459

Resources Rites of intensification, of lay

equitable distribution of, 292 individuals, 52-53
interdependence and consumption Rites of passage, 51
of, 296 Rivers
reproduction and consumption of, seeing from the perspective of,
296 170-171
Responsibility, 183-184, 287, 346 in Zen Buddhism, 166—167
for being wrong, 285 Riyaku shinko, 151
for the environmental crisis, 279- Rochester Zen Center, 244
280, 285 Rockefeller, Steven C., on environ-
at Green Gulch center, 228-232 mental ethics, 342
karma and evasion of, 275 Romantic movement, as source of
in reinhabitory ethic, 227 land ethic, 89-90
at Spirit Rock center, 235-237 Round, Graham, 54
Responsive rapport, between all Round, Philip, 54
things, 119 Ruegg, D. Seyfort, on eating meat,
Restraint, at Green Gulch center, 137
234 Rukkhadhamma Jataka, 140
Retreat centers, ecological concerns Ruipic cosmogony, 383
about, 244 “Rusui choja shiyin,” 150-151
Retreats, 48, 57 Ryder, Japhy, 213
at Green Gulch center, 234 Ryoan-ji, Zen garden at, 330
at Zen Mountain Center, 254—
255, 262-263 Saccadhamma, interdependence of
Revelation, as a mandala, 78 nature as, 29
Revitalization movements, 57-58 Sacralizing the landscape, at Green
Reynolds, Frank E., on Buddhist Gulch center, 233-234
cosmological thinking, 382 Sacredness, in earth covenants and
Rg Veda, animals in, 133 charters, 320-321
Rice, offerings of, 160—161n Saddharmasmrtyupasthana Sitra
Rightness (Abhidharma)
Aldo Leopold on, 188 Buddhist visions of hell in, 382
in nature and aesthetics, 91-92 Sahakorn, the world as, 28
Rights of living things, human Saicho, 102-103, 114, 390
rights versus, 111-112 Saigyo, 391-393 poetry of, 102-
Riji muge doctrine, 97—98 103, 197, 331-332, 333, 339
Rio Declaration, 314-315 Saito, Yuriko, on Japanese environ-
Rio Earth Summit, Earth Charter mentalism, 119-120
and, 314-315 Sakyamuni
Rio + 5 review, 315 asceticism of, 15-16
Risk, ethics of, 279 as “historical Buddha,” 76
Risshinben, 128n life of, 11-12
Ritchie, Donald, on Japanese Sala, 52
attitude toward nature, 334 Salt, offerings of, 160-161n
460 Buddhism and Ecology

Salvation, 102-103 Santikaro, on activism, 55

Salvific function of nature, 101—103 Saraca indica, 52
Samadhi, 115 Satipatthana Sutta, 235
power of, 167 Satori, in Zen Buddhism, 101
Samannaphala Sutta, 355-356 Sattvaloka, in nature, 381
Samaya-body of the Buddha, Scharf, Robert, on nihonjinron
natural elements as, 114 thinkers, 389
Samaya-mandala, 78 Schmithausen, Lambert, 37
Sambhogakaya, 75-76, 116 on jungle and forest, 337
Samjiva, 382 on plant karma, 278
Samkhya tradition, 336 Schoolyard Garden, 230
SamsGra, 78, 380-381, 384 Schumacher, E. F., 100, 344
ambiguity of, 396 Science, Buddhism and, 80-81
nirvana and, 103, 119-120 Scripturalism, 4
Samsaric cosmogony, of Buddhism, Seated meditation, benefits of, 167—
382-383 169
Samyaksambodhi, 178—179 “Secret teaching,” 75
Samyutta Nikdya, Buddha’s Seed syllables, 78
teachings in, 356 Seiganji temple, 390
Sanb6d Kyddan community, Zen Self, 29
Buddhism of, 165 awakening to one’s true, 167-169
Sanbod Kyodan lineage, kdans in, elevation of, 181
168-169 enlightenment and, 331, 341-342
Sanchokusai, 153 in ethics, 94-95, 370-371
San Geronimo Valley Planning extinction of, 49
Group, 222 in Hindu traditions, 336-337
Spirit Rock center and, 236, 237 in Japanese Buddhism, 95-97
Sangha, 33-34 in reinhabitory ethic, 226-227
Gary Snyder on, 187-188 seeing from the perspective of,
limitations of, 205—208 170-171
as one of the Three Treasures, in Zen Buddhism, 167-171, 172
177-178 Self-discovery, of Zen practitioners,
at Zen Mountain Center, 260 165-166
Sanghakamma, 36 Selfish ignorance, in Zen Buddhism,
Sangha Treasure, 178 166-167
Sangopyen, 24 Selfishness
Sanitsuda Ekachai, 58 destructiveness of, 29, 172-173
San Jacinto Mountains, 254 overcoming, 26—27
Sankeisha, 152 reproduction and, 302-303
Sanmitsu, 77, 115 Selflessness, and caring for nature,
Sanshin, in Kukai’s buddhology, 26-30
75-76 Self-perpetuation, reproduction as,
Sanskrit, Chinese and, 379 304-305
Santideva, poetry of, 284-285, 343 Self-realization, 370-371
 Index 461

Self-reliance, 342 Shambhala Center, 244

Self-sufficiency, at Zen Mountain Shame, and aid to the poor and
Center, 260-261 oppressed, 6
Semi-feudalism, 387 Shih-shih wu-ai doctrine, 98
Seminature, Japanese love of, 334 Shimbutsu bunri policy, 159n
Sen no Rikyu, 99 Shimizu, Yoshiaki, on Ito Jakucht’s
Sentient beings, 101-102 art, 391
Buddhahood for all, 113, 114, Shin, 76
296-297 of nonsentient beings, 117
human rights and, 320-321 in Shinto, 113-114
in nature, 381 Shin bukkyo, 389
Nirvana Sitra on, 116-117 Shingon doctrine
protection of, 318-319 meditation practices of, 116
“Sentient landscape,” nature as, 201 worldview of, 75-79
Separation, 25. See also Non- Shinjin, 154
separateness Shinran, Pure Land theory of, 102
in rites of passage, 51 Shinto
Zen Buddhism and, 177 Buddhism in Japan and, 102-103,
Sessho kindan ideology, 149, 154 113-114
Sessht, 99, 394-395 hdjo-e ceremony and, 149-150,
Sessions, George, 127n 152-153
on intuition of biocentric equality, nature in, 197-198
120-121 Shitsu-u, 123
Seven limbs of enlightenment, 356 Shizen, 95-96, 102
Seventh Day Adventists, in Apple Shdbdgenzo (Dogen), 102, 393
Canyon, 251 Shden, hdjd-e ceremony and, 155-—
Seventh National Development 156
Plan, in Thailand, 23-24 Shoji, 122
Sexuality, 180. See also Repro- Shdjin kessai, 153, 162n
duction Shrader-Frechette, Kristen, on risk,
bonding and, 308 279
Buddhism and, 293 Shrine deity, 152
communication and, 307-311 Shuji, 78
negative feelings toward, 307- Shujo, 101-102
308 Silence, at Green Gulch center, 234
religion and, 310-311 Simplification, at Green Gulch
reproduction and, 307-311 center, 234
sacredness of, 310-311 Sinhala Buddhism, 8
Shamanism, ecology and, 199-202 Six bodhisattva virtues, 357
Shamanistic and mythological Six Great Elements, 83
community, Gary Snyder and, reality as composed of, 76-78
194-204 Six realms, of karmic cosmology,
Shamans, 199-202 200-201
as religious practitioners, 205 Skandha, 341
462 Buddhism and Ecology

Skillful means, countering ecolog- Sorting of things, 123

ical problems with, 172-173 Soseki Natsume, 101
Slavery, 295 Sosen kaiko, 151
Smith, April, 242 Soteriological function of nature,
Smith, Patricia Clark, on social 102-103
conflict among Native Ameri- Sots Zen practices, 117-118, 233
can women, 204 Soul
Snyder, Gary, 187-213, 220, 235 Hindu attitudes toward, 335-336
on bioregional community, 191-194 of a living thing, 113
on community spirit, 208-213 Species, intrinsic value of, 319-320,
on food webs, 188-191 320-321
on “Green Buddhism,” 362-363 Species protection, 131
Mikhail Bakhtin and Patrick Speech, as one of three mysteries,
Murphy on, 202-204 77, 78-79, 115, 116
on mythological community, 194— Spirit, 198
204 Dalai Lama on, 328-330
on nature as community, 187-188 Hindu attitudes toward, 335-336
as “nature poet,” 205 Spirit Rock Design Committee, 236
poetry of, 190, 194-199, 208- Spirit Rock Meditation Center
209, 210-212, 214n, 215n, 272 as ecological role model, 243-245
on radioactive waste disposal, environmental practices of, 220
270-271 evaluation of, 235-239
on reinhabitory ethic, 226—227 future challenges at, 241-243
on sanctity of nature, 346 land history of, 222-223
on shamanistic community, 194— locality of, 222-225
204 points of tension at, 239-241
on spiritual practice, 205—208 Spiritual Darwinism, 362-363
on Tao and Dharma, 328 Spiritual training, 362
Social conscience, 91 Spiritual quest, of Buddhism, 38
Society, as aiding the poor and Spretnak, Charlene, on long-term
oppressed, 5-8 thinking, 283
Soils, at Zen Mountain Center, 250— Spring equinox, ekos at, 228
251 Sramanic dietary laws, animals in,
Sokoji Temple, 220 133, 137
Sokushin Ze-Butso (Dogen Zenji), Sri Lanka, Buddhist revival on, 8
174n State rituals of Japan, 153-154,
Solar power, at Zen Mountain 154-156
Center, 260-261 Stealing, precept against, 179
Somneuk Natho, 54, 58 Sthiramati, on the external world,
SOmoku, in teachings of Kikai, 114 385
SOmoku jobutsu doctrine, 391, 393 Stockholm Declaration, 315
Soper, Kate, on nature in envi- Stopping, 331-332
ronmentalist discussions, Strong, Maurice, Earth Charter and,
379-380 315
 Index 463

Stupas, 52 Taiwan, Jen-yen’s hospital in, 7, 8

Subatomic microcosm, 93 Tambiah, Stanley, 8
Subject-Object antithesis Tanahashi, Kazuaki, anti-nuclear
humanity-nature relationship as, 384 activist art of, 272
in Zen Buddhism, 168-171 T’ang period, Buddhism during, 386
Substantial objects, in ecological Tanha, 83
worldview, 93 “Tantric sex,” 310
““Suchness,” 79 Tantric worldview, 385
Suffering, 7, 25, 32-33, 52 Tao, Dharma and the, 328
Earth Charter and, 318 Taoism
self-centered desire and, 304 biocentric equality in, 120-121
spiritual enlightenment and, 298-— environmental philosophy and, 89, 93
299 Gaia theory and, 104—105
Sukha, 32, 33 Taoist thinkers, influence on
Sukhavati, 337 Buddhism of, 123-124
Sukhavatiyitha, 337 Tao of art, 99
Sulak Sivaraksa, on peace at any Tapana, 382
price, 281-282 Tariki, 102
Sumie paintings, 99, 101 Tassajara Mountain Center, 221
Summer solstice, ekos at, 228 Tathagata embryo, 390
Surnata, 26 Tathdgatagarbha, 303, 390
Siinyavada doctrine, 357 Tax-avoidance, through monkhood,
Supernatural, the. See also Magic 386
Thomas Aquinas and, 380 Te, 123
Superstition, in Buddhism, 199 Techno-karma, 277
Sustainability. See Ecological Technology
sustainability benefits of, 22-23
Sittras, 357 excesses of, 378
in Buddhist teachings, 118 global community and, 313-314
Suvannamiga Jataka, 135 and the understanding of karma,
Suvarnaprabhasa Sitra, as basis for 274-277
hojo-e rites, 150-151 vision versus, 72
Suzuki, D. T. Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, 362
on aesthetics of nature, 99-100 Television, dissemination of
on “conquest of nature,” 388-389 environmentalist thought
on Zen Buddhism, 360 through, 124—125
Suzuki Roshi, Shunryu, founding of Telovada Jataka, 137-138
Green Gulch Zen Center by, Temples
220-221 biodiversity around, 657”
Svabhava, 380-381 in monastic communities, 52—53
Swearer, Donald, on environmental retreats to, 48
problems, 58 Ten bodhisattva stages, 357
Symbioses, 90 Tendai Buddhism, 114
Sympathy, 26, 42n concept of life in, 96—97
464 Buddhism and Ecology

Thai Buddhism, 21, 59-60 Tibet, 328, 347n, 397n

Thailand as radioactive waste disposal site,
Buddhism in contemporary, 21, 271
23-24, 47, 397n Vajrayana Buddhism in, 311
environmental crisis in, 45-50, T’ien tao, 123
59-60 T’ien-t’ai school, 113
monastic communities in, 50-54 Tigers and lions, jataka about, 141-
number of villages, temples, 142
monks, and novices in, 53 Titans, 356
Thai Pali tipitaka, 30 Tittira Jataka, 138
Thai sangha, 21, 50. See also Tools, 211
Monastic community Toriten, 151
Dhammapitaka at, 30-31 *“Total-being,” 123
as green society, 54—56 Totem animals, 197
Thamachdat, 26, 27, 27-28. See also TOtokOzen-in Ichigonkannondo, 152
Nature Toxic waste, Zen Buddhism and, 281
Thayashimsat heaven, 151 Traffic management, at Spirit Rock
Theophany, natural creatures as, 115 center, 236
Theosophical Society, Sri Lankan, 8 Transhuman nature, 203—204
Theras, early prominence of, 356 Trash removal, at Green Gulch
Theravada Buddhism, 40 center, 231
jataka in, 134 Trees. See also Forests
rise of, 355 in Gary Snyder’s poetry, 195
in Thailand, 47 jataka about, 140, 141-142
Theravada cosmology, 383-384 memorialized at Green Gulch
Thich Nhat Hanh, 219, 235 center, 234
on nuclear waste, 274 non-native, 242
on peace at any price, 281-282 at Zen Mountain Center, 254
on radioactive waste disposal, 271 Trikaya, in Kikai’s buddhology,
Thomas Aquinas, the supernatural 75-76
and, 380 Triloka, 356
Thoreau, Henry David, 311 Trisiksa, 369
Thought, 83 Truth
“Three-body” theory, in Kiikai’s manifesting, 180
buddhology, 75-76 of Zen Buddhism, 287
“Threefold learning,” 369 “Truth word,” 75
“Threefold teaching,” 356 Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine, 160n
Three Jewels. See Three Treasures, Tubercle bacillus
the Buddha-nature of, 122
Three Mysteries, 77, 78-79, 83, 115 Taoist/Zen Buddhist role of, 120—
Three Pure Precepts, 178-179 121
Three Treasures, the, 177-178 Turner, Victor, on liminality, 51
gratitude for, 227-228 Tu Weiming, 104
“Three world-levels,” 356 on the Golden Rule, 317
 Index 465

Twelve positive causes and condi- Vairocana, 385

tions, 356 Vajrayana Buddhism, 307-311
rise of, 355
Ujigami, 154 Vanavaccha Thera, 34
Uji philosophy, 102 van Gennep, Arnold, on rites of
Undeveloped land, at Buddhist passage, 51
centers, 239-240 Van Gogh, Vincent, 330
Union, jataka about, 140 Vassa, 48
United Nations, Earth Charter and, Vasubandhu, on Subject/Object
313 antithesis, 384
United Nations Conference on Vegetable Nirvana (Ito Jakuchi),
Environment and Development 390-393, 392illus.
(UNCED), Earth Charter and, Vegetables, Buddhahood of, 390—
314-315 391
UN Conference on the Human Vegetarianism, 243
Environment, 315 at Green Gulch center, 231
United Nations World Commission in jataka narratives, 137-138
on Environment and Develop- at Spirit Rock center, 237
ment, Earth Charter and, Vegetation, in teachings of Ktkai,
314-315 114
United States Venturini, Riccardo, on Buddhist
aid to the poor and oppressed in, 6 traditions, 340
Buddhism in, 4 Verticality. See Hierarchy
Jen-yen in, 7 Vessava, King, jataka about, 140
views of nature in, 333-334 Vihara, 52
Universal Declaration of Human Vijhanavada school, on Subject/
Rights, Earth Charter and, 313 Object antithesis, 384
Universalism, in Buddhist thought, 118 Vimalakirtinirdesa Sitra, 394
Universe. See also Cosmological Vinaya, 52
thought; Reality Vinaya rules, 36
Buddhist conception of, 383, Violence, 137
384-385 from overcrowding, 300
differences between Christian and Vipassana, 222, 238
Buddhist concepts of, 79-80 “Virtue ethic,” 370
as Indra’s net, 189-190 Virtues, 357
seeing from the perspective of, of Three Treasures, 177-178
170-171 Visakha Puja sermon, 25
self-maintenance of, 181 Vision, technology versus, 72
in Zen Buddhism, 177, 178 Visualization, 116
Unyji gi, 114 Vital power, 104
Upaya, 77, 172, 354 Viveka, 25, 336
Uruvela, 34 “Voice of the Watershed” walks, at
Usa Hachiman Shrine, first hojd-e Green Gulch center, 232
ceremony at, 152-153, 160n Voluntary services, 7-8
466 Buddhism and Ecology

Vyaddha Jataka, 141-142 incorrect worldview of, 31-32

Vyasa, on violence, 137 influence on Buddhism of, 5, 6-7,
8, 45
Wabi, 99 mercantile activities of, 9
Waka poetry, 99 views of nature in, 10
Walking meditation Western Buddhism, 199
at Green Gulch center, 232 Western thought, environmentalists
at Spirit Rock center, 238 in, 124-125
Walpola Rahula, 8 Western worldview
Walters, Derek, on feng shui, 104 Buddhist worldview versus, 46,
Waste. See also Radioactive waste 56-59, 59-60, 79-80
Zen Buddhist attitude toward, environmental crisis and, 111-112
280-281 hierarchy in, 80
Waste management, at Buddhist “Whale banquets,” 156
centers, 242-243 Wheelwright, George, 220, 221
Waste recycling Wheelwright, Hope, 221
at Buddhist centers, 243 Whistler, James McNeill, 330
at Green Gulch center, 231 White, Lynn, Jr.
at Spirit Rock center, 237 on Christianity, 72-73
Watanabe, Masao, on Japanese view on Judeo-Christian anthropo-
of nature, 328, 330 centrism, 327-328
Water conservation Whitehead, Alfred North, 1077
at Buddhist centers, 242-243 field model of nature and, 93
at Green Gulch center, 231—232 on the living body, 81-82
Wats, 48 Whitman, Walt, 144
in monastic communities, 52 on animals, 131-132
Wat Suan Mokh “Wild,” the, 311, 337
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu at, 25-26 Wilderness retreat, at Zen Mountain
founding of, 24 Center, 262—263
Watsuji Tetsuro, on the human/ “Wild mind,” in reinhabitory ethic,
nature relationship, 94—95 227
Watt, W. Montgomery, on early Winter solstice, ekos at, 228
Islam, 334—335 Wisdom, 357-358, 367
Watts, Alan, on Zen Buddhism, 360 in reinhabitory ethic, 227
Way of Heaven, in Taoism, 123 Women
Wealth, 9-10 cultural relativism regarding,
worldly increases in, 22—23 294-295
Welch, Lew, Gary Snyder and, 195 discrimination against, 56
West, the maternity and, 301-302
Buddhism and, 206—207 motherhood and, 308-309
Christianity and, 73 nurturing and, 309-310
environmental ethic of, 72—73 relationships with men, 310-311
environmentally damaging Woodpecker and lion, jataka about,
enterprises of, 386-387 135
 Index 467

Work as practice, at Green Gulch ecology and, 165-173

center, 233 field model of nature in, 93-94
Workshops. See Environmental Kegon infrastructure of, 97-98,
workshops 99-100
World Charter for Nature, on practices in, 117-118
intrinsic value of species, 319 rise of, 355
World Commission on Environment waste in, 280-281
and Development, on environ- Zen Center, founding of Green
mental protection, 317-318 Gulch Zen Center by, 220—221
Wrongness, responsibility for, 285 Zen circle, 272
Wu Ti, Emperor, 386 Zendo, 240
at Green Gulch center, 228, 234
Xing, 128n Zen garden, at Ryoan-ji, 330
Zen Mountain Center
Yab-yum icon, 310-311 biological survey of, 251-254
Yaksas, in Indian fine art, 394 endangered flora and fauna at,
Yasai Nehan (Ito Jakucht), 390— 252-253t
393, 392illus. environmental ethics at, 263-264
Yin/yang forces, 104 environmental program at, 249-
Yoga, 336 250, 259-261, 263-264
Yogacara doctrine, 357 environmental workshops at,
Yogacara school, 152 261-263
on Subject/Object antithesis, 384 fire management at, 256-258
Yoga Sitras, 137 flora and fauna at, 251
Yoga tradition, 336 forester at, 256—257
Yojo, 99 land stewardship by, 256—259
Yokyoku, 394 land use at, 254—256
Yoshimasa, 153 locality of, 249, 250-254
Yoshimitsu, 153 residents at, 258
Yoshimochi, 153 soils at, 250-251
Yoshinori, 153 Zen practice, 174n
Yuasa Yasuo, on the human/nature ecological action and, 172-173
relationship, 94—95 Gary Snyder and, 205
Yigen, 99, 101 human body in, 345-346
Yujo beings, 102 pitfalls in, 165—167
three fruits of, 167-171, 172
Zazen, 240 Zen Precepts, environmental
benefits of, 167-169, 171, 172 relevance of, 177-184
Zeami, 99 Zen satori, 101
Zen Buddhism, 13, 124-125, 353 Zen training, at Zen Mountain
Aldo Leopold and, 100-101 Center, 262
biocentric equality in, 120-121 Zero-point, in Zen Buddhism, 168,
criticism of universality of, 119-120 169-170
D. T. Suzuki and, 388-389 Zhao, Teaching Master, 169-170
 volume of this kind is an important step in engaging scholarship
address critical issues of our time. The potential of religious traditions _..
ffering resources for rethinking our relation to the earth is one of _
the most exciting themes to emerge from scholarship in many years. This _
volume will be a first important step to the full understanding of the
contribution humankind’s perceptions of the sacred can make to the way we
care for our earth.”
— Rodney L. Taylor, Professor of Religious Studies and Associate Dean
of the Graduate School, University of Colorado

hat a significant advance these articles represent for the study of

religion and ecology. The potential contribution to the new field of
religious ecology is immense. These papers will help to create a
coherent field for the study of Buddhism and ecology. What is even more
important, though this is not the precise task of scholarship, these papers will
help define the modern Buddhist response to ecological ethics.”
—John Berthrong, Associate Dean for Academic and Administrative Affairs,
Boston University School of Theology, and Director, Institute for Dialogue among Religions ©

Cover art: Prudence See, “Blue Mountain Buddha”

Cover design: Patrick Santana, San Francisco

ISBN O0-9454S4-14-7
Harvard University Haat iD i 1 1 ) 90000 |
Center for the Study of World Religions ae
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
ISBN 0-945454-14-7 $19.95