Religion (1995) 25, 199–211

Buddhist Environmental Ethics andDetraditionalization: The Case of EcoBuddhism

I H

EcoBuddhism represents a modern American attempt to articulate an authenticallyBuddhist response to present environmental problems. This article isolates the basicfeatures of the movement and notes a substantial shift away from traditional Buddhistcosmology. Most notably, ecoBuddhism constructs a picture of the world that isintrinsically teleologic. The factors that have given rise to this reworking of traditionare analysed and the question of authenticity is tested against a variety of criticalmethodologies. The ‘protestant Buddhism’ thesis, in particular, is examined and foundwanting. The conclusion drawn is that ecoBuddhism should be classed as a form ofreflexive apologetics generated primarily by forces originating from within theBuddhist tradition itself. ? 1995 Academic Press Limited

The contemporary emergence of a plethora of new religious movements has been citedas a good example of the impact of modernity on religious sensibilities. It has beenargued that the reflexive nature of the post-traditional order has left us unable to rely onthe traditions of the past. In consequence, the force of normativity is ebbing away to bereplaced with a bewildering range of lifestyle options. In the religious domain a periodof long sleep has ended and, Rip van Winkle-like, traditions have emerged toreluctantly embrace the supermarket options of future-oriented and unlimited self-realization. The modicum of reflexivity needed by pre-modern cultures to ensure theadequate exegesis and clarification of their traditions has undergone such colossaltransformation that ‘chronic revisionism’1 has begun to dominate modern religiosity.Commitment to traditional religious expression, then, entails such a radically reflexiveencounter that the force of normativity is subverted and rendered, in Giddens’ words a‘sham’.2 This subverted form is a simulacrum of the past though, in essence, it isthoroughly modern. In effect, then, a generalized disruption of traditions has occurredin late modernity. The continuity of past with present has been ruptured. A goodexample of this process at work is the ‘unacknowledged incoherence’3 of contemporaryAmerican attempts to search for roots in traditional cultures which are theoreticallyincapable of accommodating the levels of extreme individuality necessary to support thequest for roots in the first place.In contemporary Japan a roughly similar, though quite independent discussion, has

been taking place over the status of some of the currently practised forms of Buddhism.Swanson’s4 synopsis of the debate is quite comprehensive so I need do little more herethan illustrate a couple of relevant points. Two Soto-Zen affiliated scholars, MatsumotoShiro5 and Hakamaya Noriaki6 have recently courted controversy by suggesting that awide range of Buddhist movements, including Zen itself, have failed to maintain an un-deviating allegiance to the Buddha’s fundamental insight that all conditioned things arein a state of perpetual flux. The doctrine of dependent origination (pratıtyasamutpada),the bedrock from which all other authentically Buddhist notions are held to proceed,entails a radical impermanence of all entities (dharmas), including of course the self(atman), and a denial of any end, purpose or meaning to the world. This reading, then,condemns all the forms of Buddhism that have engaged in reification, or in the

0048–721X/95/030199+13 $12.00/0 ? 1995 Academic Press Limited

attribution of inherent value to entities, to an inauthentic outer darkness. They aresimply not Buddhist. This is rather surprising, for most forms of Mahayana Buddhism,particularly those flourishing in the contemporary East Asian cultural domain areimplicated here. Indeed our two scholars, secure in their tenured posts at the Soto-ZenKomazawa University, have gone so far as to proclaim that ‘Zen is not Buddhism’!Schmithausen7 has pointed out, quite reasonably in my view, that the methodological

assumptions of Hakamaya and Matsumoto are entirely arbitrary but, be that as it may,these self-proclaimed ‘guardians of doxic truth’ are as authoritative as anyone is everlikely to be in the Buddhist context.8 There are, of course, some difficulties entailed inthe works of both scholars, not least because they seem unconsciously to endorse aWeberian other-worldliness in their presentation of ‘authentic’ Buddhism. This has ledthem to regard almost all development beyond the Urbuddhismus of the early canonicalperiod in a suspicious light.9 In short both scholars encourage a ‘nirvanization’ ofBuddhism.10

It seems clear that, despite obvious differences in their starting points and method-ologies, Giddens et al. on the one hand and contemporary Japanese scholarship on theother are in agreement on one crucial fact. Religious traditions like Buddhism may onlyremain true to their early canonical purity by continuing their long sleep, oblivious tothe realities of the post-traditional order. Only then, assuming that this is even possible,can the imprimatur authenticity be convincingly given. Deviation from this basicground of tradition must inevitably result in a state of affairs that is traditional in nothingmore than in name.The purpose of this paper is to test such views in the context of contemporary

Buddhism. The U.S.A. is now a significant area of growth for most extant forms ofBuddhism, be they traditional or modern. EcoBuddhism,11 an ecologically engagedform of recent American Buddhism has risen to the fore in recent times. Owing anobvious debt to East Asian manifestations of the tradition, yet clearly influenced by theremarkably eclectic world of West Coast spirituality, ecoBuddhism provides a perfectsubject for scrutiny given its twin geographic poles in Japan and California, the epitomesof inauthentic Buddhism and sham traditionality, at least as far as Matsumoto andGiddens et al. are concerned.

Elements of EcoBuddhismIt has become commonplace to regard contemporary manifestations of religiosity underthe heading of ‘invention’ or ‘reinvention’ of tradition and this is, perhaps, even morelikely when the phenomenon under discussion has its locus in the remarkably eclecticworld of Californian spirituality. It is, of course, clear that the establishment ofBuddhism on the North American continent is a very recent phenomenon12 yet a lackof traditional roots in U.S. culture need not incline us to assume that all forms ofAmerican Buddhism represent substantial deviations from the norms of tradition.13

Although it is difficult to be precise about the origins of the Buddhist ecologicalmovement in America, not least because its earliest stages are closely connected with anumber of factors, most notably New England Transcendentalism and the Romanticismof the great push Westward,14 the first significant articulator of an explicit movement isGary Snyder, most widely known as the hero of Jack Kerouac’s cult novel the DharmaBums. An active and influential nature poet15 and co-founder of the Berkeley-basedBuddhist Peace Fellowship, Snyder spent the period 1956–64 at the Daitokuji, a RinzaiZen temple in Kyoto, studying under Oda Seso Roshi (1901–66). It is quite likely thatthe ‘naturalism’ of Rinzai, particularly of its Five Mountain (Gozan) culture, combined

200 I. Harris

with Snyder’s earlier life in the rugged grandeur of the Pacific northwest to stimulate hispoetic vision which later became the basis of a specifically Buddhist form ofenvironmentalism.Terminological revisionism is a factor present in most movements of reform and

ecoBuddhism is no exception to this rule. In an early foray into the environmental fieldSnyder repositions the central Buddhist term sangha by moving it away from itstraditionally monastic domain so that it may act as a designation for the totality of allbeings.16 Elsewhere in the same essay Snyder holds that traditional peoples, such asNative Americans and Australian Aborigines, have attained this ‘condition of Sangha’,17

living as they do in complete harmony with their natural surroundings. Being sangha,then, no longer entails particular assent to the doctrine and practice of the Buddha asembodied in the Pali Canon, the Mahayana sutras or to any of the schools of northernand eastern Buddhism. On the contrary, it specifically represents an attitude of respecttowards the natural world. This fundamental reorienting of Buddhist terminology mayserve as evidence for the re-invention of tradition and it is certainly clear that a varietyof other writers in the genre take their lead from Snyder. Hunt-Badiner, for example,understands the term sangha to apply, not just to the traditional community of monksand nuns . . . [but] more informally . . . to mean all practitioners [of Dharma-Gaia] andkindred spirits’.18 This universalizing tendency is also observed in Devall’s concept ofand ‘eco-sangha’19 and in the writings of Buddhist inspired eco-feminism.20 Theevidence of an appropriation of Buddhism by the counter-culture appears convincing21

yet the persuasiveness of the evidence is rather compromised by the fact that thehomogenization of the term sangha has previously served as a model for nationalist andmodernist revival movements in southeast Asia, most notably by Burmese Buddhistsocialists like U Nu who argued that the canonical community of monastic propertyshould act as a model for a this-worldly, non-acquisitive Burmese Buddhist polity.22

Given that the Burmese elite in the early to mid 20th century were never open to adegree of Anglicization that characterized Buddhist countries like Ceylon, there is noprima facie case for assuming that this particular example of terminological revisionismindicates a fall from the norms of tradition under the impact of exogenous, i.e., Westerncolonialist influence.To illustrate further the fact that exogenous factors need not always be invoked in

order to account for terminological change, the use of the term bodhisattva by theprominent author and eco-spokeswoman Joanna Macy23 to define ecologically awarepractitioners of ecoBuddhism should be noted. In developed forms of MahayanaBuddhism the term came to be associated with the achievement of advanced stages ofspiritual practice, yet this has always been only one meaning among many. Hirakawa,24

for instance, argues convincingly that the term was originally employed as a generaldesignation for members of a non-monastic ‘reformist’ movement within earlyBuddhism. Snyder’s appeal for a social/activist reformation of institutionalized traditionsincarcerated in the scholastic contemplation of certain epistemological and psychologicalproblems, which even in its Mahayanist form has been dedicated ‘toward the end ofliberating a few dedicated individuals’ and consequently dead to ‘any meaningfulfunction of compassion’.25 may be seen as a recurrence of this endogenous leitmotif. Ofcourse, the term bodhisattua was regularly employed to legitimate the political power ofearly Buddhist kings,26 and recent political leaders like S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike andU Nu seem to have been happy to allow their followers to view their programmes ofreform, and indeed their personal accomplishments, in a similar light.27 Bearing all ofthis in mind, i.e., the universal applicability of the term in the early period, and its more

Buddhist Environmental Ethics 201

recent associations with political activism, we come to see that contemporary usage canbe viewed, with some justification, as part of a seamless reflexive process inherent to theBuddhist tradition itself.Apocalyptic and millennial elements, perhaps reflecting the Judaeo–Christian back-

ground of most spokesmen of the environmentalist movement, are also present in thewritings of ecoBuddhism. Snyder has regularly endorsed the thesis, first propounded bythe historian of science Lynn White,28 that Asian systems of thought, and Buddhism inparticular ‘serve the natural world a little better’29 than those with their roots inJudaeo–Christianity. In fact ecoBuddhists have tended to argue that it is the obstructiveand destructive character of the dominant Western model of the self that lies at the rootof our present ecological crisis. The condition of extreme individualism, conceived as afinal stage in the disease of the Western self can only be arrested by the kind of radicalrestructuring to which Buddhism alone holds the key. Joanna Macy, for instance,believes in the existence of a true or ecological self below the level of our dysfunctionaland pathologic empirical self which she characterizes as the great ‘epistemological errorof Occidental civilisation’.30 Consideration of how far this eco-self can be reconciledwith the antimetaphysical character of the anatta doctrine is beyond the scope of thispaper, though attitudes such as Macy’s are widespread in ecoBuddhist discourse.Whatever the merit of White’s thesis, the case remains to be proved, with a fair amountof contrary evidence indicating that environmentally cogent conclusions may be drawnfrom mainstream European thought.31

Snyder’s adherence to the orientalist cause goes back to at least 1969 and his poemSmokey the Bear Sutra. In this work the environmental concerns of the author areexpressed in a clever pastiche of the traditional Buddhist Prajnaparamita literary genre.The poem tells of the Buddha’s future rebirth in kali yuga, a future time in whichAmerica32 is enveloped in the smoke and fire of man-made forest fires. Clad in bluework overalls and a stetson hat, in the wrathful form of Smokey the Bear, the Buddhatramples ‘underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs: smashing the worms ofcapitalism and totalitarianism’.33 Exposing the enemies of nature He teaches hisfollowers the mahamantra ‘Drown their butts, crush their butts . . .’34 and ushers in amillennial era of peace, free from oil slick, in which all beings are destined to achievecomplete enlightenment.This poem may most satisfactorily be viewed as a playful comment, in Buddhist guise,

on the dangers of unaverted eco-catastrophe. As such it would be rather unwise toattribute it with any special doctrinal quality. Nevertheless, future commentators mightbe inclined, particularly if they are unaware of the poem’s context, to regard it as asubstantial deviation from the norms of canonical ecoBuddhism which nowhere to myknowledge envisages the transplantation of Buddhism in America! Now, while this maywell be so, we must take care in ascribing too obvious a cause for the ‘deviation’,particularly in the light of Bechert’s35 observation that chiliastic movements inBuddhism tend to appear during periods of crisis and that such movements seem toflourish on the periphery, or even outside, established sangha, i.e. canonically justified,organizations. In this connection one needs to hold in mind the fact that, though thesangha has always sought to act as the sole source of authority within the tradition, othervoices have always been present and on occasions have been surprisingly influential. Theexistence of visible non-sangha organizations in the present period, then, need not beread as a sign of the activity of exogenous factors.In most respects the programme of Buddhist environmentalism as reflected in the

writings of Snyder, Macy et al. embodies two of the principal features of Buddhist

202 I. Harris

modernism as defined by Bechert. Firstly, the movement represents a dissolution oftraditional boundaries between the mundane and supramundane realms, the universal-ization of the sangha concept being a good example of this process at work. Secondly,environmental activity, proceeding, as it clearly does, from a scientific observation ofchanges in the natural world reflects a ‘tacit elimination of traditional cosmology’.36 Infact, the cosmological system of the canonical and immediately post-canonical period, asreflected in the writings of Vasubandhu, Buddhaghosa, etc. is capable of supplying amore or less coherent response to the present ecological debate. The problem of theextinction of species, for example, is straightforwardly resolved through the principle ofthe preservation of sentiency which allows for the rebirth of being in a variety ofdifferent destinies (gati) within the realm of sam*sara. The preservation of species makeslittle obvious sense in this context, particularly since Buddhism has not traditionally seenbeings as embedded in a grand teleological narrative along Judaeo–Christian lines.Nevertheless, the capacity of the literary tradition to respond fully to all aspects of thepresent debate is not complete. It is a bit difficult, for instance, to envisage the futureestablishment of a universal, hereditary monarchy as the sole guarantor of harmony ona global scale. This has certainly been the view of the Theravada tradition,37 although,as Reynolds observes:

new influences associated with modernity have seriously challenged the traditionalTheravada conception of a single dhammic order. . . . Thus, the traditional belief thatdhammic activity in the religiomoral realm will ensure the proper functioning ofnature . . . has been undermined.38

Whatever the rights and wrongs of an appeal to the literary resources of classicalBuddhism, the Copernican revolution in traditional cosmology entailed by theappearance of the Buddhist environmental movement requires some kind of explanationeven if that explanation is able to dispense with an appeal to decisive exogenous factors.This brings us to the scholarly phenomenon of ‘Protestant Buddhism’. The term, firstexplicitly employed by Obeyesekere, Gombrich, and others39 seems to me to representan elaboration of the general concept of Buddhist modernism, first proposed by Bechert,in that recent change within the tradition is no longer ascribed to the impact of a varietyof factors operating within modernity but much more specifically to British colonialpatterns of religiosity. Under this account, phenomena like the rise of lay influence,more democratic modes of organization, social reformist activity, emphasis on textualstudy, and the like, are accounted for by one factor alone, i.e., the impact of ChristianProtestantism. The tendency to view Buddhist modernism in this light has, however,begun to lose contact with Obeyesekere and Gombrich’s initial work on Sri Lankandevelopments. There is little doubt that missionary Christian activity in 19th centuryCeylon had a very significant impact on the later development of Buddhism in theisland. Macy’s ‘reverence for natural systems’,40 an ideal representing a blend ofBuddhism and general systems theory, derives in part from her contact with the SriLankan Sarvodaya movement, a ‘practical this-worldly asceticism of an altruistic’41

character that corresponds well with some of the basic themes of Christian Protestant-ism. Be that as it may, it is not at all clear that Protestantism, or Christianity for thatmatter, were such crucial influences in Burma and Thailand where modernist reformmovements have also flourished in recent times. Again, the status of reform movementsin French Indo-China, where the colonial power was Catholic, though similar in manyrespects to those operating in Ceylon, cannot easily be accounted for by an appeal to the

Buddhist Environmental Ethics 203

Protestantism thesis. Nevertheless, there has been a discernible tendency in recent yearsfor scholars to lump together all forms of Buddhist modernism under the rubric of‘Protestant Buddhism’. This lack of specificity is rather problematic for almost alldeviations from canonical Buddhism may be similarly categorized, including develop-ments in the traditional, post-canonical period which predate the Christian Reforma-tion itself! Uncritical scrutiny of ecoBuddhism could lead to similar conclusions, thoughthe great variety of influences at work in the Californian religious domain suggest thatProtestantism is unlikely to have any particular priority. Looked at from anotherperspective, and bearing in mind the tendency of ecoBuddhism to embrace the Whitehypothesis, it would be rather odd to designate as ‘protestant’ a movement that rejectsthe ecological credentials of Christianity in favour of oriental systems of thought andaction. Obviously some influential ecoBuddhists do look favourably on a democratiza-tion of tradition in which monks are subsumed into a wider community of eco-activismand Snyder himself quotes the Zen maxim ‘a day without work, a day without food’42

with approval, though we need not suppose this to be an appeal to the Protestantwork-ethic for the maxim predates the impact of Christianity on East Asian culture bymany centuries. The maxim is, in fact, an expression of endogenous Sino-Japanese socialand historical factors and a ‘primordialist’43 account stressing continuity with premodernfactors is probably sufficient to explain Snyder’s appeal to the concept.EcoBuddhism is sometimes said to drink from the same trough as ‘deep ecology’.

Deep ecology44 is a form of environmental activity that calls for a ‘total revolution in[human] consciousness’45 in such a way that ‘. . . understanding of our integration intothe natural world, respect for the right of all beings to life, and profound awareness ofinterdependence’46 are encouraged to arise. In this respect deep ecology may bedistinguished from the more mainstream ‘fight against pollution and resource depletion’which is regarded by the proponents of the former view as a ‘shallow’ response to theeco-crisis in that it assumes a far lower level of existential investment.47 The extent ofoverlap between ecoBuddhism and deep ecology is significant and it could be argued,with some justification, that the former represents a Buddhist authentication of thelatter. However, before that charge is levelled it is necessary to investigate the genesisand character of deep ecology in more detail. Its founding father is Arne Naess, aNorwegian mountaineer and Spinoza scholar. For most of his career Naess has tried toapply Spinoza’s thought to a resolution of the problems raised by his perception of anunfolding eco-catastrophe. However, Naess is aware that Spinoza cannot easily supportan ecological ethic without significant reworking and this has led him to blendpotentially useful elements in Spinoza with other thought patterns, the most notable ofwhich being Buddhism and the teachings of Gandhi.48 Borrowing from the fundamen-tal Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination (pratıtyasamutpada), Naess has argued that‘there is a network of cause–effect relations connecting everything with everything’,49

though he situates this causal process within a quasi-divinized realm of nature (Spinoza’sDeus sive Natura) in which everything is said to possess intrinsic value. For Naess allthings strive towards higher and higher levels of self-realization and the goal of humanaspirations must be the ‘realisation of union with the whole of nature’.50 In so far as deepecology possesses a religious sensibility, it is this expansion of self to the outermost limitof being that represents its summum bonum. Macy’s previously mentioned ‘greening ofthe eco-self’ is probably a conscious mirroring of this notion and, as such, the elementsof deep ecology within ecoBuddhism appear to compromise its authentically Buddhistcharacter. One could certainly argue that the dependence of sections of white,Anglo-Saxon, American Buddhism on deep ecology represents a subversion of the

204 I. Harris

Buddhist tradition by extraneous factors, yet another reading is quite feasible. Deepecology itself represents a Buddhification of Western metaphysics. Certainly Naess andhis fellow travellers retain the language of ‘rights’ and ‘nature’, both concepts that playlittle part in traditional Buddhist discourse, yet the entire edifice is infected by thecentral Buddhist insight into pratıtyasamutpada, the sine qua non of authenticity for ourpreviously mentioned influential group of contemporary Japanese Buddhist scholars.The idea that deep ecology owes as much to oriental influences as it does to westernphilosophy gains in strength when we take on board the fact that a surprising numberof recent Spinoza scholars, like Jon Wetlesen51 and Paul Wienpahl,52 have alsoendeavoured to construct Buddhist readings of Spinoza.The ecoBuddhist idea of ‘the world as a vast interrelated network in which all objects

and creatures are necessary and illuminated’53 is in line with the Mahayanist teachings ofAvatam*sakasutra, in particular its Gan*d*avyuha section, where existents are described asdistinct yet infinitely interpenetrating. Superficially, the East Asian Hua-Yen/Kegonviewpoint, which represents the most successful post-canonical attempt to elaborate thedoctrine, has much to recommend it when searching for an appropriate support for anecological ethic. However, as I have attempted to show elsewhere,54 the symmetry ofrelationships entailed by the doctrine of radical interpenetration renders the Hua-Yenmetaphysic fundamentally dysteleologic, for the mutual identification and penetration ofall things necessarily negates creativity, novelty and the exercise of free will. As such, itis impossible to offer any meaningful chronology to events. Paradoxically, Buddhistenvironmentalism aims to open up the possibility of a better ordering of man’s relationswith the natural world in its infinite diversity and complexity, yet its adherence to theHua-Yen principle of interdependence55 negates its social and eco-activist agenda, for ifall depends on all then the black rhino depends on the hydrogen bomb, the rain foreston the waste dump. As Odin soberly observes:

Hua-yen Buddhism is deficient in categoreal equipment or adequate conceptualapparatus to argue both for the retention of a single determinate form by each dharma,as well as the ‘total fusion of all that is’.56

This paradox is unacknowledged by ecoBuddhism although recognition of the problemis, perhaps, indicated by the insinuation of an implicit teleological principle into itsdiscussions, even when this is at odds with the dysteleological character of the canonicalliterary tradition. As we have already noted, traditional Buddhist cosmology, and thetheory of gatis, etc., effectively negate the need for environmental activism, yet apositive agenda for change is precisely the position of ecoBuddhism. EcoBuddhism,then, promotes a picture of the world in which teleological narratives are prominent. Ofcourse, it is very difficult to provide an adequate account of how such a fundamentalchange in the soteriological significance of the natural world has been brought about butone factor in the equation seems, to my mind at least, to be significant. This is theinfluence of process theology.It is perhaps no more than fortuitous that process theology is a dominant form of

Christian philosophy in the United States. Nevertheless, amongst American scholars acongruence between the process understanding of reality and the Buddhist notion ofpratıtyasamutpada57 have been widely acknowledged, to the extent that fruitful dialoguebetween Buddhism and Christianity has prospered for some time.58 In fact, a significantnumber of American Buddhist scholars owe more than a passing debt to the influenceof figures like Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb and David Griffin.59 Much recent work

Buddhist Environmental Ethics 205

in process theology has focused on the present environmental crisis with Cobb, forinstance, arguing that Whitehead’s maxim, ‘God’s persuasive power lures all aspects ofthe universe toward the realization of instances of ever greater richness of experience’60

provides the basis for a coherent Christian environmental ethic. Macy herself, whoacknowledges a debt to Whitehead’s conception of causation while rejecting histheism,61 is clearly influenced by this way of thinking. Could it be that the teleologicprinciple, absent from traditional Buddhist thought, has been introduced from thedirection of process theology and employed positively by ecoBuddhism so thatBuddhism may become more receptive to an environmentalist ethic? Certainly, theimportation of a doctrinal element of this kind preserves the coherence of the sociallyand ecologically engaged activities now regarded as consistent with the redefined role ofsangha and bodhisattva.Here, then, is the decisively novel element in the theoretical position of an emerging

form of modern Buddhism. Buddhism in its traditional, and particularly in its Hua-Yen,forms cannot account for purposive change since it conceives the realm of conditionedthings in symmetrical terms. Conditionality so understood implies the full equality andmutuality of interpenetrating entities.62 Under such conditions it is impossible toenvisage any ‘. . . cumulative or incremental change in the structure of reality’.63 Thisis an expression of the dysteleological principle at the heart of Buddhist accounts ofcausation. The cosmic ‘togetherness’ of entities as conceived in the traditional Buddhistworld-view is translated by ecoBuddhism into a picture of reality in which anasymmetry of relations predominates. Asymmetry results in a uni-directional andtemporal connectedness of cause and effect that provides for a ‘closed past and openfuture’.64 The result is that a teleology of emergent purpose is established. This can thenprovide the basis for an environmentalist ethic, even though ecoBuddhism must clearlyreject the idea of a supratemporal telos that is also fundamental to the work of a Christianprocess theologian like John Cobb. I would argue that this transformation of traditionalBuddhist metaphysics has been achieved quite consciously by a writer like Macy,though it needs to be stressed that writers less informed about the literary history ofBuddhist thought have tended to reach the same conclusions by a more or less uncriticalprocess of perculation.EcoBuddhism, then, seems to possess a variety of exogenous elements somehow

tacked on to a traditional Buddhist core which is incapable, without modification, ofresponding to the present environmental crisis. Since it preserves the centrality of thedoctrine of pratıtyasamutpada, in a symmmetric form perhaps characteristic of the mostancient sources, ecoBuddhism passes the test of authenticity set by Matsumoto andHakamaya. Its close proximity and mutual relationship with deep ecology, and Naess’reworking of Spinoza’s conatas as an expansion of self to the farthest limit of the cosmos65

in particular, does not compromise the authenticity of the movement for, as we havealready noted, this interpretation of Spinoza is substantially Buddhistic. However, theneed to protect the activist message of engaged Buddhism has resulted in theintroduction of a principle of emergent purpose, quite probably from the direction ofprocess theology.

ConclusionIn the final analysis, ecoBuddhism seems to meet the central criterion of Matsumoto andHakamaya to be classed as authentically Buddhist in that it maintains the centrality ofdependent origination (pratıtyasamutpada), though admittedly in its Hua-Yen form. OurJapanese scholars are reluctant to accord East Asian traditions the same degree of

206 I. Harris

authority as Indian forms of Buddhism, not least because the former tend to encouragehigher levels of reification than are thought desirable when a strict adherence to thedoctrine of impermanence is the norm. Certainly, ecoBuddhists are inclined to reify thenatural realm, a tendency inherited, in part, from East Asian influences at work along thePacific rim. However, we have also identified the impact of process theology as anotherfactor likely to intensify this tendency.Sociologists like Giddens are likely to characterize ecoBuddhism as a sham tradition,

devoid of any overarching normativity. Contemporary religiosity of this sort is thenexplained by reference to the supermarket analogy where elements from a variety oftraditions, and from none, are selected to accord with an individual’s personal life-styleoptions. On this basis, ecoBuddhism could be described as detraditionalization of itscentral ingredient by admixture with adventitious elements. I hope that I have been ableto demonstrate that this is an overstatement of the case. In fact, all traditions demonstratea modicum of reflexivity that has enabled them to adapt and flourish. In the case ofBuddhism, the periodic ability to generate eccentric, though essentially endogenous,movements of reform has maintained the essential dynamism of the tradition overseveral millenia. It is not, therefore, necessary to invoke the spectre of ‘protestantism’ toaccount for the emergence of the Buddhist environmentalist cause. Mature consider-ation of the genesis of ecoBuddhism, and of its activist programme, suggest that it isunhelpful to characterize the movement as a deviation from traditional norms. It wouldbe far closer to the truth to see this as an example of a vigorous tradition engaged in ahealthy process of reflexive apologetics.

Notes1 Mellor, Philip, A., ‘Reflexive traditions: Anthony Giddens, high modernity and the contours ofcontemporary religiosity’, Religious Studies 29 (1993): 117–27; 130.

2 Giddens, Anthony, The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge, Polity Press 1990, p. 38.3 MacIntyre, Alasdair, ‘Individual and social morality in Japan and the United States: rivalconceptions of the self ’, Philosophy East and West 40/4 (1990): 489–97; 492.

4 Swanson, Paul L., ‘ ‘‘Zen is Not Buddhism’’ recent Japanese critiques of the Buddha-Nature’,Numen 40 (1993): 115–49.

5 Matsumoto, Shiro, Engi to ku—Nyoraizo shiso hihan (Causality and Emptiness—A Critique ofTathagatagarbha Thought) Tokyo, Daizo Shuppan 1989.

6 Hakamaya, Noriaki, Hongaku shiso hihan (A Critique of the Thought and Inherent Enlighten-ment) Tokyo, Daizo Shuppan 1989. Also Hihan bukkyo (Critical Buddhism) Tokyo, DaizoShuppan 1990.

7 Schmithausen, Lambert, Buddhism and Nature. The lecture delivered on the occasion of the EXPO1990 (an enlarged version with notes) Tokyo, The International Institute for Buddhist Studies,1991 [Studia Philologica Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series VII] p. 57/63.4.

8 Schmithausen certainly regards them in this general way. Ibid., p. 61 [65.1].9 For convenience sake I shall adopt Bechert’s three-fold distinction of ‘canonical’, ‘traditional’,and ‘modern’ to define the periodization of Buddhism. cf. Bechert, Heinz, ‘Sangha, state,society, ‘‘Nation’’: persistence of traditions in ‘‘post-traditional’’ Buddhist societies’, in S. N.Eisenstadt (ed.) Post-Traditional Societies, New York, Norton 1972, pp. 85–95. Another useful,and roughly parallel, distinction between the traditions of mediators and scholiasts is made bySchmithausen in ‘Spirituelle Praxis und Philosophische Theorie in Buddhismus’ Zeitschrift furMissionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 57/3 (1973): 161–86. [Republished & translated intoEnglish as ‘On the problem of the relation of spiritual practice and philosophical theory inBuddhism’ in German Scholars on India, vol. II, Cultural Department of the Embassy of theFederal Republic of Germany, New Delhi 1976, pp. 235–50.

10 I feel that I have seen this term used before but I don’t know where. If, on the other hand I haveinvented the term, some definition is in order. I understand it to mean a certain rarification orabstraction of tradition to the extent that it begins to lose contact with the historical and personal

Buddhist Environmental Ethics 207

realities that gave it its distinctive shape. In particular the tradition begins to be seen aspre-eminently revealed through highly edited texts rather than through the actuality of praxis.In this sense ‘nirvanization’ represents the same general semantic ground as the rather overusedand condescending term ‘protestantization’. It is perhaps preferable, particularly since it avoidsthe ‘orientalist’ undertones of the latter. On the distinction between textuality and actuality, cf.Schopen, Gregory, ‘Archaeology and Protestant presuppositions in the study of IndianBuddhism’, History of Religions 31/1 (1991): 11.

11 For an examination of the movement, its principal ideas and figures cf. my ‘An Americanappropriation of Buddhism’, in Skorupski, Tadeusz (ed.) Buddhist Forum vol. 4, Tring, Instituteof Buddhist Studies 1995 [in press]. A Buddhist concern for environmental matter is not, ofcourse, confined to the U.S.A. but it is also becoming more common in its Asian heartlands.H.H. Dalai Lama, for example, has spoken on the subject on numerous occasions. Atranscription of one such discourse is found in Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th DalaiLama, ‘A Tibetan Buddhist perspective on spirit in nature’, in Steven C. Rochefeller and JohnC. Elder (eds), Spirit and Nature: Why the environment is a religious issue, Boston, Beacon Press1992, pp. 109–23. I must confess to having found the content of this talk rather opaque.

12 On the way in which Buddhism developed in the early period cf. Tweed, Thomas A., TheAmerican Encounter with Buddhism, 1844–1912: The Victorian culture and the limits of dissent,Bloomington, Indiana U.P. 1992. Also Prebish, Charles S., American Buddhism, North Scituate,Mass., Duxbury Press, 1979. For a readable but journalistic treatment cf., Fields, Rick, How theSwans Came to the Lake: A narrative history of Buddhism in America, 3rd edn, Revised and Updated,Boston and London, Shambala 1992.

13 Finney, for instance, uses participant observation in America and Japan to suggest that thedesignation of American Zen as a ‘deviant cult’ is difficult to sustain; Finney, Henry C.,‘American Zens’s ‘‘Japan Connection’’: a critical case study of Zen Buddhism’s diffusion to thewest’, Sociological Analysis 52/4 (1991): 379–96. In a recent article, Prebish examines the ‘twocompletely distinct lines of development’ in American Buddhism by contrasting Buddhismpractised by Asian Americans with so-called ‘White Buddhism’ optimistically concluding thatthere is ample scope for coalescence. [‘Two Buddhisms reconsidered’, Buddhist Studies Review10/2 (1993): 187–206].

14 A number of sources shed light on these matters, most notably Nash, Roderick, Wilderness andthe American Mind, 3rd edn, New Haven, Yale U.P. 1982 and Hargrove, Eugene C., ‘Thehistorical foundations of American environmental ethics’, Environmental Ethics 1/3 (1979):209–40. Odin, Steve, ‘The Japanese concept of nature in relation to the environmental ethicsand conservation aesthetics of Aldo Leopold’, Environmental Ethics 13/4 (1991): 345–60, mayalso be read with profit. For rather more idiosyncratic treatment of the intellectual meaning ofthe movement westward cf. Thompson, William Irwin, At the Edge of History, New York,Harper Colophon 1971.

15 Critical opinion seems divided over Snyder’s poetic merits. For Altieri, Snyder’s rejection of thetragic/heroic convention of earlier American poetics enables him to ‘put mind more directlyinto the impersonal processes of the world’. [Altieri, Charles, Enlarging the Temple: New directionsin American poetry during the 1960s, Lewisburg, Bucknell U.P. 1979, p. 144.] In a less flatteringlight Boyers characterizes the poet as a ‘poetic Marlboro man’. [Boyers, Robert, ‘A mixed bag’,Partisan Review 36 (1969): 313].

16 Snyder, Gary, ‘Buddhism and the possibilities of a planetary culture’, reprinted in Devall, Billand George Sessions, Deep Ecology, Layton, Utah, Gibbs M. Smith 1985, pp. 251–3.

17 Ibid., p. 252.18 The term Dharma-Gaia is used by Hunt-Badiner to define a syncretism of Buddhism and ancient

Goddess worship in the environmental domain. However, he does little for his case byadvocating additional parallels between Buddhism and the Gaia hypothesis of scientist JamesLovelock, Central Asian Shamanism, the economics of E. F. Schumacher, the Orphic andDionysian mysteries, modern physics, eco-feminism, cybernetics, general systems theory andthe Christian creation-centered spirituality of the renegade Dominican Matthew Fox—averitable embarrassment of riches! cf. Hunt-Badiner, Allen (ed.), Dharma Gaia: A harvest of essaysin Buddhism and ecology, Berkeley, Parallax 1990, p. xviii.

19 Devall, Bill, ‘Ecocentric Sangha’ in ibid, pp. 155–64. Another essay that looks at thehomogenization of the concept of the sangha in America, although it has nothing to say on thesubject of ecoBuddhism, is Stevenson, Daniel B., ‘Tradition and change in the Sangha: a

208 I. Harris

Buddhist historian looks at Buddhism in America’, in Fu, Charles Wei-hsun and Sandra A.Wawrytko, Buddhist Ethics and Modern Society: An International Symposium, New York,Greenwood Press 1991, pp. 247–57. For an example of a British writer with a similar line onthe notion of sangha, cf. Claxton, Guy, ‘Involuntary simplicity: changing dysfunctional habits ofconsumption’, Environmental Values 3 (1994): pp. 71–8.

20 cf. Gross, Rita, ‘Buddhism after patriarchy?’, in Cooey, Paula M., William R. Eakin and Jay B.McDaniel (eds), After Patriarchy, Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis Books 1991, pp. 73–8. Also Kaza,Stephanie, ‘Acting with compassion: Buddhism, feminism and the environmental crisis’ inAdams, Carol J. (ed.), Ecofeminism and the Sacred, New York, Continuum 1993, pp. 50–69[p. 62 in particular].

21 An interesting and recent contribution to the body of literature on the subject is Charles Tart’sstudy of the very high levels of psychedelic ‘drug-literacy’ among American Tibetan Buddhistpractitioners. cf. ‘Influences of previous psychedelic drug experiences on students of TibetanBuddhism’, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 23/2 (1991): 139–74.

22 cf. Sarkisyanz, Emmanuel, ‘Buddhist backgrounds of Burmese Socialism’, in Smith, Bardwell L.(ed.), Religion and Legitimation of Power in Thailand, Laos, and Burma, Chambersburg, PA, AnimaBooks 1978, pp. 87–99 [particularly pp. 90–4]. Also Sarkisyanz, E., Buddhist Backgrounds ofthe Burmese Revolution, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff 1965 and Tambiah, Stanley J., ‘Thepersistence and transformation of tradition in southeast Asia, with special reference to Thailand’in Eisenstadt (ed.) op. cit. pp. 55–84. On parallel uses of the term sangha among the‘modernizing monks’ (phra tan samai) of Thailand cf. Phra Maha Prayut Payutto ‘Problems,status and duties of the sangha in modern society’ Visakha Puja B.E. 2511, Bangkok, BuddhistAssociation of Thailand 1968, pp. 58–72; Suksamran, Somboon, Buddhism and Politics inThailand: A study of socio-political change and political activism of the Thai sangha, Singapore, Instituteof Southeast Asian Studies 1982, pp. 52ff; Sulak Sivaraksa, ‘Buddhist ethics and modern politics:a Theravada viewpoint’ in Fu et al. (eds), op. cit. pp. 159–66.

23 Macy, Joanna, ‘The greening of the self’, in Hunt-Badiner (ed.), op. cit. p. 54.24 Hirakawa, A., ‘The rise of Mahayana Buddhism and its relationship to the worship of Stupas’,

Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 22 (1963).25 op. cit. p. 251.26 cf. Tambiah, Stanley, J., ‘The persistence and transformation of tradition in southeast Asia, with

special reference to Thailand’, in Eisenstadt, op. cit. pp. 54–84; pp. 60–1 in particular.27 Onu Nu’s use of the bodhisattva ideal cf. Ling, Trevor O., Buddhism, Imperialism, and War: Burma

and Thailand in modern history, London, Allen and Unwin 1979, p. 121 and Sarkisyanz (1965)op. cit pp. 43–8. Also Bechert op. cit. p. 89.

28 White, Lynn, ‘The historical roots of our ecological crisis’, Science 155 (1967): 203–7. White’sthesis has been extraordinarily influential and is repeated in most of its essential features by JohnPassmore who considers environmentalism to be a form of ‘anti-scientific nature and mysticism’with no basis in the history of Western civilization. cf. Passmore, John, Man’s Responsibility forNature: Ecological problems and western traditions, London, Duckworth 1974, p. 123. Beyer, Peter,Religion and Globalisation, London, Sage 1994, p. 207 argues that the sociological treatment ofreligious environmentalism has generally proceeded as if White were correct.

29 Snyder, Gary, ‘A village council of all beings: ecology, place and the awakening of compassion’,Turning Wheel: Journal of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship Spring 1994, 12–14.

30 J. Macy, ‘The greening of the self’ in Hunt-Badiner (ed.), op. cit. pp. 53–7.31 Hargrove’s 1979 article (op. cit.) is a particularly detailed repudiation of the White/Passmore

thesis. I have also tried to argue that White’s prejudice in favour of Asian systems of thought isnot as easy to maintain as would appear on casual scrutiny. cf. ‘How environmentalist isBuddhism?’, Religion XXI (1991): 101–14.

32 In the poem America is described topographically with particular emphasis placed on the naturalgrandeur of the Grand Canyon, Big Sur, and perhaps most significantly, Walden Pond—thetemporary residence of Henry David Thoreau proto-environmentalist and the first person tointroduce Buddhism to the American reading public. For the impact of Thoreau on bothAmerican Buddhism and the environmental movement, cf. Tweed, Thomas A., The AmericanEncounter with Buddhism 1844–1912: The Victorian culture and the limits of dissent, Bloomington,Indiana U.P. 1992. Fields, Rick, How the Swans Came to the Lake: A narrative history of Buddhismin America, 3rd edn, Revised and Updated, Boston and London, Shambala 1992, p. 64 and my

Buddhist Environmental Ethics 209

‘An American appropriation of Buddhism’, in T. Skorupski (ed.) Buddhist Forum vol. 4, Tring,Institute of Buddhist Studies 1995 (in press).

33 Snyder, ‘Smokey the Bear Sutra’ (1969) reprinted in Devall and Sessions op. cit. pp. 25–7.34 Ibid., p. 2635 op. cit. pp. 87–8.36 op. cit. p. 91.37 cf. Reynolds, Frank E. and Mani B. Reynolds, Three Worlds According to King Ruang, Berkeley,

Asian Humanities Press 1982 [University of California Research Series No. 4] p. 153.38 Reynolds, Frank E. ‘Ethics and wealth in Theravada Buddhism: a study in comparative religious

ethics’ in Sizemore, Russell F. and Donald K. Swearer, Ethics, Wealth and Salvation: A studyof Buddhist social ethics, Columbia, South Carolina, University of South Carolina Press 1992,pp. 73–4.

39 See, for example, Gombrich, Richard F., Theravada Buddhism: A social history from ancient Benaresto modern Colombo, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1988, pp. 173ff. Obeyesekere,Gananath, ‘Religious symbolism and political change in Ceylon’, Modern Ceylon Studies 1/1(1970): pp. 43–63. On the application of the protestant thesis to western forms of Buddhism cf.Mellor, Philip, ‘Protestant Buddhism? The cultural translation of Buddhism in England’,Religion XXI (1991). For a more general treatment of the topic and the impact of protestantismon Buddhism scholarship itself cf. Schopen op. cit.

40 cf. Macy, Joanna, Dharma and Development: Religion as a Resource in the Sarvodaya Self-HelpMovement, West Hartford, CN, Kumarian Press 1983, also her Mutual Causality in Buddhism andGeneral Systems Theory: The Dharma of natural systems, Albany, NJ, State University of New YorkPress 1991.

41 Gombrich, Richard F. and Gananath Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed: religious change in SriLanka, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass 1990, p. 245.

42 Snyder, Gary, The Real Work: Interviews and talks 1964–79. New York, New Directions 1980,p. 104.

43 On the distinction between primordialist and modernist accounts of South Asian social,religious and political reform movements in the 19th century, cf. Rogers, John D., ‘Post-Orientalism and the interpretation of premodern and modern political identities: the case of SriLanka’, Journal of Asian Studies 53/1 (1994): 10–23.

44 For a survey of writings in the area cf. DeGroh, Teresa, Deep Ecology and Environmental Ethics:A selected and annotated bibliography, Chicago, Council of Planning Libraries 1987. Criticaltreatments are given by Sylvan, Richard, A Critique of Deep Ecology, Dept. of Philosophy,Australian National University 1985 [Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy no. 12]and Bradford, George, How Deep is Deep Ecology? Ojai, CA, Times Change Press 1989.

45 Seed, John, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming and Arne Naess, Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards acouncil of all beings, Philadelphia, New Society Publishers 1988, p. 9.

46 Hunt-Badiner, op. cit. 242.47 For a seminal paper on the distinction between deep and shallow ecology cf. Naess, Arne, ‘The

shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement’, Inquiry 16 (1973): 95–100.48 cf. for example ‘Through Spinoza to Mahayana Buddhism or through Mahayana Buddhism to

Spinoza?’, in J. Wetlesen (ed.), Spinoza’s Philosophy of Man: Proceedings of the Scandinavian SpinozaSymposium 1977, Oslo, University of Oslo Press 1978, pp. 136–58. Also his Spinoza and the DeepEcology Movement, Delft, Eburon 1992.

49 ‘Spinoza and Ecology’ in S. Hessig (ed.) Speculum Spinozanum 1677–1977, London, Routledgeand Kegan Paul 1977, pp. 418–25, p. 420.

50 Ibid., p. 421.51 cf. Wetlesen, Jon, The Stage and the Way: Spinoza’s ethics of freedom, Assen, van Gorcum 1973,

p. 13f. Also his ‘Body awareness as a gateway to eternity: a note on the mysticism of Spinoza andits affinity to Buddhist meditation’ in Hessig (ed.), op. cit. pp. 479–494 on the relations betweenSpinoza and Buddhist insight meditation (vipassana). Wetlesen is, incidentally, a self-confessed‘eco-catastrophist’.

52 Wienpahl, Paul, The Radical Spinoza, New York, New York University Press 1979. Also‘Spinoza and Mysticism’, in Wetlesen (ed.), op. cit. pp. 211–24. Wienpahl seems to have begunhis academic career after a clearly influential stay in a Japanese Buddhist monastery in the 1950s.

53 Snyder in Devall and Sessions op. cit. p. 252.

210 I. Harris

54 ‘Buddhism, causation and telos: the problem of Buddhist environmentalism’, Journal of BuddhistEthics 1 (1994) p. 46–59.

55 Macy (1991) op. cit. attempts to prove that the early i.e., ‘authentic’, doctrines of Buddhismstress the interpenetration of entities. From her perspective the Hua-Yen version of Buddhismis implicit in the initial teachings on pratıtyasamutpada. The theory of linear causation, which shelinks to the Abhidharma, is regarded as a later aberration. I believe that this reading is highlyselective and rather simplistic for the two forms of causation, which I term ‘spatial’ and‘temporal’ respectively, may both be found in material from the earliest strata of the literarytradition.

56 Odin, Steve, ‘A metaphysics of cumulative penetration: process theory and Hua YenBuddhism’, Process Studies 11/2 (1981): 65–82, 71.

57 cf. for instance, Neville, Robert C., ‘Buddhism and process philosophy’, in K. K. Inada andN. P. Jacobsen (eds), Buddhism and American Thinkers, Albany, NJ, State University of NewYork Press 1984, pp. 121–42. Also Altizer, T. J. J., ‘The Buddhist ground of the WhiteheadianGod’, Process Studies 5/4 (1975): 227–36.

58 A good example of such dialogue took place at a conference on Buddhism and Whiteheadpublished as Mahayana Buddhism and Whitehead in Philosophy East and West 25/4 (1972) [entirevolume]. The society for Buddhist–Christian Studies was also founded in America in 1987although its journal Buddhist–Christian Studies goes back to 1980.

59 Nolan P. Jacobsen, for instance, dedicates his book [Buddhism and the Contemporary World:Change and self-correction, Carbondale, S., Illinois U.P. 1983] on contemporary Buddhism toCharles Hartshorne. This is partly significant in the context of our discussion in that he holdsthat both Christianity and Buddhism are concerned to preserve the ‘endangered future’ [pp.54–5].

60 W. Fox, Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing new foundations for environmentalism, Boston,Shambala 1990, p. 181.

61 op. cit. p. 108.62 Nagarjuna’s influential treatment of causation in Mulamadhyamakakarika seems to me to reach

the same conclusion. If all entities participating in the causal process are empty (sunya) then theyare equally devoid of distinguishing marks. This shared null value makes all dharmas equivalent.

63 Odin, op. cit. pp. 70–1.64 Hartshorne, Charles, Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method, London, SCM Press 1970 [The

Library of Philosophy and Theology] p. 205.65 An idea that fits well with Paul Heelas’s idea of self-religiosity as the defining character of many

new age religious movements ‘The new age in cultural context: the premodern, the modern,and the postmodern’, Religion XXIII/2 (1993).

IAN HARRIS is reader in Religious Studies at the University College of St Martin,Lancaster and the author of The Continuity of Madhyamaka and Yogacara in EarlyMahayana Buddhism, Leiden, E. J. Brill 1991. He is the editor, with S. Mews, P. Morris& J. Shepherd, of Contemporary Religions: A world guide, London, Longman 1992 and haswritten a number of articles on Buddhism and ecological ethics. He is presently theeditor of the Bulletin of the British Association for the Study of Religion.

Castle Cottage, Leeming Lane, Burton-in-Lonsdale, North Yorkshire, U.K.

Buddhist Environmental Ethics 211