Eco-Buddhism: Environmentalism and the Distortion of Dharma

The "ecoBuddhism" represented in Buddhism and Ecology repeatedly evidences an ignorance of, among other pivotal ideas, the ultimately central notion of emptiness, and furthermore implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) encourages a view of nature - in the ecological sense - as possessing intrinsic reality or selfhood. Compounded upon this error, and perhaps largely responsible therefor, are the various and sundry agendas many of the book's essayists bring to the table and allow or force to be admixed with Buddhist thought, generally to the detriment of the latter. By bringing their cups already full, the tea poured in is spilled.

Examples abound of a dubious identification of self with other which does not quite resemble that realized in light of understanding the nature of things to be empty. In Habito's article there is an outstanding example (Tucker & Williams p. 172), where he claims that the practitioner of Zen "sees oneself as not separate from mountains, rivers, and the great wide earth. To see one's true self as ... all the inhabitants of the great wide earth, constitutes a solid basis for living an ecologically sound way of life." This talk of a "true self" is worrisome enough in a purportedly Buddhist discourse, but Habito goes further, saying that this identification of one's "true self" with the natural world leads to a highly sympathetic relationship. "Further, one is enabled to feel as one's very own the pain of the earth being destroyed by human selfishness and greed and shortsightedness ... In all this, one feels one's own body racked in pain." Here is an ascription not only of selfhood to oneself and to the natural world, but also of the reality of their suffering, when exactly the opposite should be demonstrated by a Buddhist argument.

Loori begins his curious gloss of the ten precepts seemingly more along Buddhist lines, essentially restating the First Noble Truth when he notes that people tend to live taking the distinction of self and other for granted: "We live our lives in a way that separates the pieces, alienates, and hurts." (Tucker & Williams p. 177) When he returns to emptiness, however, in explaining "The Seventh Grave Precept" (Tucker & Williams p. 181), Loori interprets "realize self and other as one" to fit the ecological context as meaning "Do not elevate the self and put down nature." After a brief invective against the Abrahamic roots of ecological anthropocentrism, in which he perpetuates the distinction of humankind from the rest of nature, he declares "Buddhas and ancestors realize the absolute emptiness and realize the great earth." Fair credit must be given to Loori inasmuch as this reference to emptiness is connected to the dissolution of the distinction of self from other, yet that dissolution is not quite what seems to be articulated in this (and other) passages. Rather, Loori asserts that humankind should desist holding an anthropocentric view because the actions arising from that view are detrimental to nature, not that humankind should desist holding an anthropocentric view because the truth of emptiness shows that view to be delusional. Loori's earlier statement (Tucker & Williams p. 179) that "The mountain suffers when you clear cut it" is further evidence of ascription of reality both to self (humankind) and other (nature) and to suffering.

The presence of "ancestors" and the realization of "the great earth" in Loori's peculiar statement noted above suggests the influence of something other than Buddhism in his ostensibly Buddhist view. In the case of Snyder, presented in Barnhill's essay, this admixture is thoroughly evident, and indeed explicit. Barnhill puts it quite nicely when he says that Snyder has taken a Buddhist idea and applied it to ecology - or we could say that he has applied ecology to ... Buddhism. He has, in effect, "ecologized" the Buddhist notion of interpenetration and the image of Indra's net and "Buddhacized" the notion of ecosystem. (Tucker & Williams p. 189)

Speaking of Snyder's notions of ecological community, Barnhill notes that his "scientifically based but Buddhistically developed notion ... is complemented by a different sense of community, arising principally from his study of Native American cultures." (Tucker & Williams p. 194) While Barnhill justifies Snyder's cherry-picking with a nod of comparison to the "blendings of Buddhism and popular/shamanistic religions in China and Japan" (Tucker & Williams p. 199), Snyder is clearly bringing an already full cup to the table, as it were.

Exploring Snyder's hodgepodgery, Barnhill, like the writers above, blunders when he brings up emptiness (Tucker & Williams p. 200). Barnhill first equates the axiomatic "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" with the notion "that for the shaman/ecologist, the natural is the supernatural, the supernatural is nature." This equation contains no support for itself, and rather than even attempting to demonstrate an actual similarity between the two assertions - a similarity which, if sought for, would likely be found lacking - it seems to be supposed that since each statement claims that two apparently disparate things are in fact the same thing, the one must ipso facto support the other. Again, an understanding of emptiness is not evidenced. After this malapropism, Barnhill reveals the agenda underlying (at least his exposition of) Snyder's thought as he effectively discards the "philosophical/mystical" Mahayana view of "ultimate reality in terms of an impersonal, single Mind" in favor of Snyder's pseudo-shamanic "community of beings."

This approaching of Buddhism with one's cup full of agenda-tea is perhaps most prominent in Kraft's essay. He is quite explicitly looking to make Buddhism work for the ecological ends he lays upon it, and indeed in opening his discussion Kraft rhetorically asks whether it is "possible to transform Buddhism authentically in light of today's ecological challenges" (Tucker & Williams p. 269, italics mine). Kraft's willful effort to "transform Buddhism" results in his coinage of several bizarre terms in his discussion of karma, and is clear evidence of his project of "[refining] and [enriching] ... doctrine to suit current conditions" (Tucker & Williams p. 280). If even clearer evidence is desired, see Kraft's acknowledgment that after his proposed alterations "karma won't be what it used to be, but it may serve constructive purposes in unforeseen arenas." That is, karma will no longer be the same notion of karma - note Kraft's concern with "The degree to which karma can be decoupled from literal interpretations of rebirth" (Tucker & Williams p. 279) - but the new, divorced notion will be useful in service to ecological ends.

The disparity between the "ecoBuddhist" perspective and that of an actually Buddhist one is nicely highlighted by Eckel when he refers to the Dalai Lama's Middlebury speech on "Spirit and Nature." Speaking on the topic of "nature," Eckel recounts (Tucker & Williams p. 328-329), His Holiness "began by saying that he had nothing to offer to those who came expecting to hear about ecology or the environment ... he interpreted the word 'nature' as a reference to 'the fundamental nature of all reality' and entered into a discourse on ... Emptiness." Not only did the Dalai Lama not focus on nature in the ecological sense, he focused on expounding the emptiness which is the nature (in the ontological sense) of all reality, and which involves "a denial of the reality of what he took to be 'nature' itself", that is, ecological nature (along with everything else). The key point to be taken from Eckel's article pertinent to the present discussion is that "ecoBuddhism" has at its heart ecological concerns, and its objectives are ecological ends, be they responsible nuclear containment practices, environmentally sound community structures, or just a generally improved ecological world view. Contrasted to this, Buddhism properly so called, in its diverse forms retains the ultimate goal of enlightenment and freedom from the cycle of birth and death, regardless of whatever additional corollary objectives may stand alongside this pursuit. The Dalai Lama said as much in his Middlebury speech when "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." (Tucker & Williams p. 329)

Eckel sums up this contrast most astutely: "[The Dalai Lama] was not hostile to nature [in the ecological sense], but he had other important topics in mind, not the least of which was the purification of the mind itself." (Tucker & Williams p. 338) Just so, Buddhism is by no means necessarily opposed to ecological ends, but such ends (or any like them, in any arena) are not Buddhism's own ends. In bringing their ecological agendas into Buddhism, the "ecoBuddhist" essayists have ended up presenting a skewed Buddhist perspective, and one that may very well and fairly be questioned as to whether it remains Buddhist at all.

As a final point, we might now return to Loori's suffering mountain (Tucker & Williams p. 179). It should be clear that an understanding of emptiness renders a view of the mountain as possessing no intrinsic selfhood, no permanence, nothing that could be a basis for suffering. Thus, even if one were to speak of the mountain suffering metaphorically, one would be obliged to note that its suffering is also empty. Rather, Loori chooses to represent the mountain's suffering (metaphorical or otherwise) as real and actual. The same erroneous ascription of reality is made by many of the other contributors to Buddhism and Ecology who identify themselves as Buddhist. Their tendency to do so stems directly from what they have brought with them to the study of Buddhism, namely their ecological ends and views, which they clothe more or less thinly with Buddhist notions, or worse, merely vaguely Buddhist-sounding words. In any event, their ecology definitely overwhelms their Buddhism, as they demonstrate repeatedly by their consistent adherence to ecological views when allegedly speaking in a Buddhist discourse. If these ecologists would really bring Buddhism into play in their arena, they must be wary of treating it as something to be used, carelessly tossing Buddhist ideas around, and presenting them in a skewed form, bent to suit their ends and attachments.