By Michael Vermeulen<\/p>\n\n
Worldwide Buddhists are at the frontline of initiatives to halt the disastrous ecological crisis of our time. Some call themselves ecosattvas, others talk about ecodharma or even about a new main Buddhist tradition: terra-yana. But the ecological movement is a large house with many different rooms, and some are less compatible with Buddhism than others.<\/p>\n\n
Ecodharma is right insofar as it emphasises the need for ecological awareness in everything we do, including in our spiritual and ethical practice. This is actually not new or alien to Buddhism. But in the enthusiasm to take action it sometimes appears that anything with an eco-label gets embraced, especially if there is a reference to traditional cultures or Mother Earth. When some describe (eco)dharma as \u2018a powerful companion for us on our journey from egocentricity to ecocentricity\u2019 (Dharma Gaia, 1990, pXIV), the concept of centricity risks to turn the dharma into its opposite: an ideology.<\/p>\n\n
Ecological awareness has been at the heart of Buddhism from the very start. Trees for example were always considered sacred. The Buddha was born and died in open air between trees, he had his first meditation experience as a child under a tree and – central to all Buddhist traditions – he reached Awakening under a Bodhi Tree (Ficus Religiosa) evoking the Earth as his witness. Trees provide shade and protection to humans and other animals, so the Buddha told his sangha of lay and celibate women and men to approach them as friends. Mendicant monks and nuns were not allowed to cut a tree or even cut a branch.<\/p>\n\n
Although this respect for trees could also be explained by religious rather than ecological motives, other rules showed a remarkable awareness of the impact of urbanisation and human behaviour on nature. The sangha was for example urged to be conscious of water contamination and how it could affect the many life forms living in the waters. The mendicant nuns and monks were advised not to throw their waste or food leftovers in rivers and lakes.<\/p>\n\n
This ecological awareness was no coincidence but an integral part of Buddhist ethics as reflected in the Metta Sutta: \u2018May all beings be happy; may they live in safety and joy.\u2019 So when emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism in 264 BCE, this implied more than personal spiritual training. Ruling as a Buddhist also entailed social and ecological actions: he ordered the building of hospitals for humans and animals (which in the West only appeared in the late 18th century CE), planted new trees, created public parks and made laws to protect wells.<\/p>\n\n
This 2500 year old history in India of caring for the environment may come as a surprise to Westerners, for European cultures were dominated by the Judeo-Christian religion for almost 2000 years. The central dogma of its theocentric worldview is that the universe was created by a super-natural, male, omnipotent, omniscient and all-good being. He placed men at the centre of a world with a sharp distinction between nature and humanity. Nature was created to meet all men\u2019s needs and desires; it had no purpose on its own. Cardinal Newman wrote: \u2018We have no duties towards the brute creation; there is no relation of justice between them and us. (…) We may use them, we may destroy them at our pleasure, not our wanton pleasure, but still for our own ends, for our own benefit and satisfaction, provided we can give a rational account of what we do.\u2019 (Passmore, The Treatment of Animals, 1975, p203)<\/p>\n\n
Modern nations in post-Medieval Europe would replace theology by economy as the highest good within their societies. A more secular anthropocentric worldview would emerge next to the theocentric one, but it was still based on the same premises: humanity was totally different from nature, and nature an unlimited pool of resources for eternal growth. One of its most extreme versions is the Neoliberal Ideology. In here, the central dogma is that every individual has the unconditional and unlimited right to make as much profit as possible. Social and ecological impacts are at best secondary considerations but mostly presumed irrelevant. The Neoliberal Ideology was – and is – the main accelerator of our disastrous violent relation with nature and Earth during the last decades.<\/p>\n\n
In the – urgently needed – efforts to liberate our societies from the Neoliberal Ideology, many ecological movements cherish a rather romantic view on the environment: humanity will flourish if we restore a presumed lost harmony with nature and Mother Earth. Such ecocentric worldviews lift the mental schism between humanity and nature but replace it by a new duality between \u2018natural\u2019 and \u2018unnatural.\u2019 The natural world is now looked at as a source for ethical inspiration for what humans should or should not do. This leads to numerous contradictions and paradoxes, for the beauty of ecosystems has a dark side: they are impossible without tremendous suffering. It is natural for example that the lion eats the lamb; predators need to kill, both for their own survival and to maintain the ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n
Furthermore there are many things in nature that we do not find exemplary: procreation is natural but so is incest and infanticide; cooperation is natural but so is survival of the fittest and cannibalism. In the end \u2018(un)natural\u2019 provides no clear ethical criterion but is used to objectify personal preferences. Even in Antiquity the cherry picking of this worldview was exposed: \u201cIt is ridiculous to cite the behaviour of irrational animals in one place as an example and to reject it as irrelevant in another place.\u201d (Plutarch, De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 22)<\/p>\n\n
We humans have a strong mental tendency to think in binary categories. Unfortunately, what is initially seen as something we don\u2019t like is very quickly turned into an evil that needs to be fought and eradicated. Our binary bias leads to a moral judgement between good\/superior\/healthy versus bad\/inferior\/ill. It makes no difference if the duality is based on distinguishing Self from Other, Us from Them, Saint from Sinner, or Natural from Unnatural.<\/p>\n\n
When Gotama left his home to start his spiritual quest, he not only left behind a life of comfort and luxury, but also an eco-centric worldview. He had realised that no life form can escape the fates of illness, ageing and death. These are the true laws of nature, and no offerings to secure harmony with the cosmos could ever take such existential suffering away. Ultimately he would realise that the road to a flourishing life did not lie in harmony with nature, nor in rejecting nature and adopting a \u2018soul\u2019 (atman) as a new centre, nor in fantasies about a super-natural eternal order. The Buddha rejected such binary worldviews because they were no answer to dukkha\/suffering. His worldview was what Stephen Batchelor calls a-centric: \u201cFor ultimately nothing in the universe deserves pride of place. No matter how noble something may be, as soon as it is placed at the center of things it becomes susceptible to deification, reification, and all the subsequent distortions and abuses that have characterised things at the center of human history.\u201d (Dharma Gaia, p180)<\/p>\n\n
This a-centric dharma is described by Ken Jones as the \u2018ultimate solvent\u2019 of ideologies: \u201cThe world in general, observed the Buddha, grasps after systems and is imprisoned in ideologies (\u2026) Ideology supports the believer with a reassuringly simple picture of where he or she stands. It centers absolutely upon a key issue that becomes the distorting organizing principle for all other phenomena, except for those that are ignored because they cannot be made to fit.\u201d (Dharma Gaia, pp186&187).<\/p>\n\n
But how did the Buddha manage to avoid moral dualism and create such an \u2018ideological solvent\u2019 rather than a new ideology? He did so by focussing on interdependence instead of a sacred centre we need to bow, fight and die for. Interdependence places at the same time nothing and everything at the centre. As Zen masters remind us, even the most humble daily situation is worth our attention and compassion and can lead to Awakening. Insight in interdependence, combined with empathy, makes us realise that all beings desire to flourish. It puts us on the road to a non-violent relation with all life forms and ecosystems; to \u2018suffuse the whole world with unobstructed unconditional friendliness\u2019 (metta sutta). Our spiritual path is then to learn to distinguish what is \u2018skillful\u2019 and \u2018unskillful\u2019 to deal with daily dukkha, rather than judging the world based on ontological good and evil.<\/p>\n\n
The Buddhist Middle Path is not only a balance between personal hedonism and asceticism, it is also a worldview in between cosmic harmony with and a sharp separation from nature. It is no coincidence that the Buddha is often compared to a doctor and the dharma to medicine. Despite the awareness that illnesses are part of the natural harmony of life, doctors look to actively intervene with this natural course of events without causing new harm. Just like a doctor does not accept an illness but looks for ways to cure it, so does the dharma look for ways to deal with suffering and guide us to a flourishing life.<\/p>\n\n
A modern example of this a-centric perspective is the way we approach new technologies such as genetic engineering. In an eco-centric worldview this is an unnatural human interference in the natural way of things. It should therefore be rejected and avoided in all circumstances. The other extreme is the ego-centric Neoliberal view that whatever is possible should be allowed to happen if it offers a good opportunity for business. Buddhist ethics advocates a middle way between these extremes: everything that can avoid or diminish suffering is worth our consideration. What is important is how we use it and in what context. We can use a knife as a tool to eat or a weapon to kill. It is a fact that genetic engineering can be an instrument to eradicate illnesses and avoid famine on a scale that is never seen before in history. It is equally true – and unfortunately already proven in the facts – that if we leave this technology to minds that are subject to the three poisons\/fires of greed, aggression and prejudice, it can cause severe ecological and social harm and suffering.<\/p>\n\n
This example does not imply that Buddhists must embrace all possibilities of genetic engineering or even accept it at all. But it shows how Buddhist ethics does never a priori reject prospects to reduce suffering on dogmatic, doctrinal grounds.<\/p>\n\n
At the decisive moment in the process of Awakening Gotama touched the Earth. In doing so, he chose fact over fantasy; evidence & experience over tradition & authority. The Earth was evoked as a witness so Gotama could refer to reality as it is – empty of our concepts and cravings – and become the Buddha. But Mother Earth did not become a Goddess at the centre of a Buddhist eco-ideology. On the contrary. Touching the Earth awakens us from our distorted binary dreamworlds and our compulsive craving to reify and deify the worlds-we-want. The Buddha-dharma is a solvent to such fantasies and a medicine for our addiction to them; its a-centricity keeps us focussed on the real, interdependent world and liberates our mind from its imprisonment in ideologies.<\/p>\n\n
Dr Michael Vermeulen is a philosopher, medical doctor and religious-studies scholar. From 2011 to 2015 he was the representative of the EBU to the European Union, after which he became chair of the EBU Rainbow Sangha. He has been a speaker on several UN conferences on topics related to Human Rights, Queer Buddhism and Buddhist Environmentalism. (mmdv68-ebufilo@yahoo.co.uk)<\/p>\n\n
This article first appeared in EBU Magazine #10 \u2013 Ecodharma<\/a> (Spring 2023). 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