In Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology, edited by Allan Hunt Badiner, Berkeley: Parallax Press. _____ (). World as Lover, World as Self. Berkeley: Parallax Press. McMahan, David L. (). The Making of Buddhist Modernism. New York: Oxford University Press. Schmithausen, Lambert (). Buddhism and Nature. Tokyo Buddhism Ecology Essay Harvest In, Hec Mba Essays , Essay By Hannah Moscovitch Pdf, When Is A Cover Letter Too Long. Sophie Siaita online. completed orders. Know the exact price of the order and have no unexpected surprizes. Hire Writer. Our writers will offer prices for your order /10() Badiner, Allan Hunt, ed. Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology. Berkeley, Calif.: Parallax Press, Dharma Gaia, or “earth consciousness,” brings together ecologists and Buddhists in order to examine the spiritual roots of the ecological crisis
Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology - Google Books
Originally published in the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology. In recent decades Buddhists have started formulating responses to the climate crisis and other environmental problems.
Parallel to the praxis of these groups, eco-Buddhists have published monographs, anthologies, and articles in journals and popular Buddhist publications. What we are seeing in these writings is the emergence of a new theoretical dimension of the Buddhist tradition: environmental ethics. The arguments and activism of these Buddhists, however, are not without controversy.
Critics have claimed, buddhism ecology essay harvest in example, that Buddhism has not been as ecological as some have made it out to be, and that eco-Buddhists are engaging in acts of eisegesis by looking selectively in Buddhist sources to support the environmental ethic they brought to their practice of Buddhism in the first place. It is important to note that eco-Buddhists are generally focused more on continuing their activism than on responding to the skeptics, buddhism ecology essay harvest in.
Much of the debate about Buddhism and ecology has centered on interpretations of paṭicca-samuppāda Skt. When this does not exist that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases. Critics also buddhism ecology essay harvest in claims that awakening to paṭicca-samuppāda leads us automatically to value and care for the world.
The debate about early Buddhist views of the world, however, is not settled. Some have argued that the main thing that early Buddhists were rejecting was not the world or nature per se but certain ways of viewing it, responding to it, and living in it. As we will see, Mahāyāna Buddhists view the conditioned world of nature described by the doctrine of paṭicca-samuppāda more positively than early Buddhists did, and it is generally out of this Mahāyāna perspective that eco-Buddhists marshal their arguments.
In short, although the monks who formulated the doctrine of paṭicca-samuppāda may have seen the world buddhism ecology essay harvest in a trap, this does not mean that the doctrine constitutes a negative view of the world.
We can criticize such claims as these by noting that although things may affect each other, it is not necessarily the case that I depend on everything else or buddhism ecology essay harvest in all things support and nurture buddhism ecology essay harvest in while I am affected by the destroyed nuclear reactors in Fukushima, they do not support or nurture me and my well-being does not depend buddhism ecology essay harvest in them but depends on my becoming physically in dependent of them.
Nor in any intelligible ethical sense do we all have to assume responsibility for everything that happens: Jewish children in the Warsaw ghetto did not bear any responsibility for the Holocaust. Some eco-Buddhists lift up passages from suttas to claim that from the start Buddhism has valued nature. For example, they point out that early canonical sources celebrate wild places—with their solitude, silence, and abundant examples of impermanence—as good locations for meditative practice. Critics have pointed out, however, that the Pali canon also portrays them as dangerous, for it is there that one encounters large predators like tigers, poisonous snakes and insects, bandits, and others who would do one harm.
At the very least, however, early Buddhists did not see nature in stark instrumentalist terms as something to be exploited for the sake of building human cities and civilization. The natural world functions as a locus and an example of the impermanence and unsatisfactoriness of death and rebirth, buddhism ecology essay harvest in. This view of nature, however, is found mainly in early Buddhism rather than in the frameworks from which many eco-Buddhists are operating: Mahāyāna texts and East Asian Buddhism.
These strands of Buddhism offer a view of nature that differs from what we have sketched thus far. Eco-Buddhists also draw upon such East Asian resources as hermitage traditions, the celebration of nature in arts influenced by Buddhism, and discourse on the Zen-inspired love of nature ostensibly felt by the Japanese.
Granted, this is, strictly speaking, a kind of instrumental value rather than intrinsic value, but nature is indeed being valued and the view of the natural world buddhism ecology essay harvest in dangerous, ensnaring, or unsatisfactory has dropped largely out of the picture. Eco-Buddhists have lifted up the Jātaka Taleswith an array of buddhism ecology essay harvest in animals, as granting value and dignity to non-human species.
Eco-Buddhists have argued that this intimate karmic connection between humans and animals provides a basis for valuing animals. Gowans and Harris point out, however, that the animals in these stories are anthropomorphized and function to motivate humans to cultivate virtues like compassion.
Even so, one might respond, animals are viewed there not as mere objects but as sentient beings with at least some value, even if the tradition did not—until recently—build on this to argue in a systematic way for the protection, moral standing, buddhism ecology essay harvest in, or rights of animals. Overlapping with the debate about the proper connotation and denotation of core Buddhist doctrines like paṭicca-samuppāda has been a debate about Buddhism and Environmental Ethics in the formal sense.
Some critics have argued that Buddhism is ill-equipped to argue for the sorts of things that typically appear as cornerstones of philosophical and religious formulations of environmental ethics, whether rights, buddhism ecology essay harvest in, intrinsic value, or the sanctity of nature. Some Buddhist writers have made claims about animal rights. Critics have raised the issue of what might be a legitimate Buddhist basis for claims about the possession of rights, given the Buddhist rejection of the soul and any other sort of separate, atomistic existence apart from the web of changing relationships that constitute things.
In response, eco-Buddhists have argued that intrinsic value and moral standing derive from sentience, especially the ability to feel pain and suffer in a significant sense.
Others have looked to buddha-nature, but Buddhists do not agree on the connotation and scope of this construct. Some think of it as the potential to become awakened while others see it as an inherent awakening.
Early Buddhists ascribed it only to sentient animals, not to insentient plants, while some in East Asia extended the scope to plants and even to inorganic things like rocks and waters. Entering this debate, one can argue that rather than forcing Buddhism to fit into received categories and frameworks in environmental ethics or Western philosophical ethics more broadlyeco-Buddhists might remain true to their tradition and still construct a viable environmental ethic by taking as their primary focus the alleviation of suffering of humans and other sentient beings, or in positive terms, the promotion of their sustained well-being, which is contingent upon certain types of ecosystems.
Of course, focusing on humans and other sentient beings lands us in the arena of the debate about the respective values of individuals and the wholes of which they are part, that is to say, the ongoing debate in Environmental Ethics between individualism and holism.
In large part Buddhist ethical concern—expressed through such doctrines as non-harming, loving-kindness, compassion, and the bodhisattva ideal—is directed toward individual suffering beings, not groups, buddhism ecology essay harvest in, species, or wholes like ecosystems. Simply put, as humanity faces the eco-crisis, Buddhism offers a value system and way of living that not only lead to greater fulfillment buddhism ecology essay harvest in materialist and consumerist living does but also prove useful for mitigating such problems as global warming and adapting to a new world in which we will all be forced to live more simply.
While the de facto virtue ethic of Buddhism does offer resources for ecological living, the discipline of Ethics features an ongoing debate about the limitations of virtue ethics—Buddhist or otherwise—in responding to urgent problems like the climate crisis. Though the cultivation of a virtuous character over the course of a lifetime may very well lead to a more sustainable way of being, it does not readily buddhism ecology essay harvest in the kind of immediate response that the climate crisis calls for, nor does it offer much help in making decisions about what might be most effective response to the climate crisis and buddhism ecology essay harvest in environmental problems.
In addition to tapping Buddhist metaphysical constructs, texts, and values, eco-Buddhists have reformulated ritual practices, invented new practices, or simply engaged in activism in response to environmental problems, [3] and these efforts have spawned debates buddhism ecology essay harvest in well. Buddhists in Thailand have been debating the practice of ordaining trees as a way to protect them from logging and protect rural farming communities that depend on forests, buddhism ecology essay harvest in.
This practice, originating in the s, immediately caused backlash from developers and government officials whose profits, power, and agendas were threatened by the practice. Critics among the laity and the sangha administration have claimed that the environmentalist monks performing the rituals cannot ordain trees, for ordination rituals can be done only for humans Darlingtonand that political and economic activism is inappropriate for monks and reduces their purity.
This debate in Thailand is part of a larger debate about the appropriateness of Buddhist activism. Over the years this author has heard Zen masters and other Buddhist teachers advocate that their students devote their efforts to intensive meditative practice and defer social activism until after they have woken up or at least reach advanced stages on the Buddhist path.
Some have even said that if one tries to save the world before extricating oneself from the self-centered ego, one will only end up making things worse. An eco-Buddhist might respond to this criticism by noting that existential suffering is not the only form of suffering that the Buddha took seriously, and working to reduce social, economic, and other forms of suffering through activism falls within the scope of the foundation Buddhist commitment to reduce suffering in all of its forms. Granted, some eco-Buddhists may be misconstruing doctrines, but most are simply reinterpreting them in response to the eco-crisis, and this hermeneutic should not be dismissed out of hand.
In this respect eco-Buddhists are engaging in the sort of intellectual labor that, for example, biblical theologians have been doing for centuries as they look selectively in the Bible for passages that support the constructive argument they are making and defending as consistent with what they take buddhism ecology essay harvest in be the core principles of Judaism or Christianity in response to challenges they have faced in their particular historical situations.
For example, many buddhism ecology essay harvest in of the Bible accept—or at least do not reject—slavery, but this does not mean that anti-slavery arguments that have tapped other parts buddhism ecology essay harvest in the Bible are illegitimate.
Like other religious traditions, then, buddhism ecology essay harvest in, Buddhism has continuously changed as its beliefs and practices have been reinterpreted in different cultural contexts and historical moments. So as David McMahan points out. Simply to dismiss the current environmental and ethical discourse of Buddhist interdependence as an inadequate representation of traditional Buddhism…would fail to take seriously the process of modernity as it manifests itself on the ground…, buddhism ecology essay harvest in.
Pointing out the incongruities between ancient and modern cosmologies, while crucial, is not more historically important than showing how the often radical reconstitution of doctrine in terms of present circumstances has attempted to bridge these incongruities.
The history of religions is precisely the history of such reconstitutions of doctrine and practice, which are themselves reconstitutions of prior versionsbuddhism ecology essay harvest in, It is also important to note that some of the most important eco-Buddhists doing this modification and reinterpretation are not convert Buddhists who might be bringing exogenous elements from their Christian, Jewish, or leftist roots to bear on Buddhism but rather renowned Asian Buddhists who were brought up in the Buddhist tradition, such as the Dalai Lama, buddhism ecology essay harvest in, Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhadasa, and Sulak Sivaraksa.
Harris seems to assume that eco-Buddhists are all Western converts or simply people approaching Buddhism from typically Western perspectives, but this is clearly not the case even allowing for some degree of Western influence on Asian eco-Buddhists.
At the same time, eco-Buddhists, or at least those focused on theory more than praxis, have much intellectual labor to do. For example, work needs to be done to clarify the exact resources that the doctrine of dependent origination offers. Some eco-Buddhists have begun addressing this question Jones; Loy ; Kaza ; Ives, and as their formulations become more systematic we can expect further debates.
Aitken, Robert Boston: Shambhala. Batchelor, Stephen New York: Cassell Publishers. Blum, Mark. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, Darlington, Susan M. The Ordination of a Tree: The Thai Buddhist Environmental Movement. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Deicke, Carla. Berkeley: Parallax Press, de Silva, Lily Boston: Shambhala Publications. Eckel, Malcolm David Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, buddhism ecology essay harvest in. Gowans, Christopher W. Buddhist Moral Philosophy: An Introduction. New York: Routledge.
Harris, Ian London: Curzon Press. Ives, Christopher. Ithaca NY: Snow Lion Publications. Taylor, New York: Thoemmes Continuum. Eugene OR: Cascade Books. Zen Awakening and Society. Jones, Ken Beyond Optimism: A Buddhist Political Ecology. Oxford: Jon Carpenter Publishing. The New Social Face of Buddhism: A Call to Action. Boston: Wisdom Publications. Kapleau, Philip To Cherish All Life: A Buddhist Case for Becoming Vegetarian.
Rochester: Rochester Zen Center. Kaza, Stephanie
Understanding the Buddhist Precepts
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