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Buddhist Ecological Ideas
and Practices
by Wei
Dedong
Buddhism itself is not
ecology, but it contains extremely profound ecological ideas and practices.
Their philosophical basis can be found in the teaching of “dependent
origination.”
Ecology involves
relationships between living things and their surroundings, as well as the
science dealing with these relationships. In 1866, German biologist Ernst Haeckel developed the term “ecology,” but it was not
until 1920 that ecology began to be regarded as a separate discipline. With
man’s realization of environmental crisis in the 1960s, ecology suddenly
found itself on the public stage, playing a significant role in guiding
people toward preserving the global ecological equilibrium.
From the 1970s, some
monographs about the relationship between Buddhism and ecology began to
appear in English. In 1999, Harvard
University published Buddhism and Ecology. Within Chinese
academic societies, too, there has been a mass of monographs since 1990,
including my “Fojiao De Shengtai
Guan (The Ecological View of Buddhism),” in Zhongguo Shehui Kexue
(Social Science of China, Vol. 5, 1999).
Although Buddhism itself is
not ecology, it contains extremely profound ecological ideas and practices
when viewed from an ecological standpoint. And some traditional Buddhist
practices embody something of, and ultimately spring forth from, ecological
practices.
Theory of Dependent Origination: The Philosophical Basis
of Buddhist Ecological Ideas
“Dependent origination”
means that all that exists within the universe arises from various conditions,
rather than being independent. Asvajit, one of
the Buddha’s earliest disciples, once detailed this basic doctrine: “All
phenomena arising in conditions will cease as the conditions do, and there
would appear the Truth, . . . after all conditions
have ceased.” Every phenomenon has to exist in a condition and will cease
due to a condition; and the transcending of conditions implies nirvana, the
achievement of ultimate truth.
Primitive Buddhism expresses
this thought thus: “This exists just because that does. . . . The
nonexistence of this represents the nonexistence of that.” Here, the “this”
and “that” constitute an inseparable unity, and each “this” depends upon
each “that” for its existence. Only within a unity, that is, under a
variety of conditions, can existence be possible. Things do not exist
independently.
Based on this theory,
Mahayana proposes the concept of emptiness (sunya), which means lack of
self-nature (asvabhava).
All things emerge due to dependent origination, obtaining their existence
through relationships; hence, they themselves are not reality.
Thus, the doctrine of
dependent origination illustrates the truth in a simple way, which is one
of the great contributions of Buddhism to the thinking of mankind. Ananda, one of Shakymuni’s
greatest disciples, once casually remarked that the doctrine of dependent
origination is simple and easy to understand; immediately, the Buddha
reminded him that “This doctrine of dependent origination is extremely
profound and obscure.” Differentiated from such theories as fatalism, this
theory gives a comparatively reasonable account of the real appearance of
the world, displaying a strong rationality even in modern society: “The
doctrine of dependent origination . . . has gradually become a basic principle
for the establishment of ethical rules of ecology in the modern world.”1
The Essential Character of Buddhist Ecological Ideas
Theory of Unity
According to the doctrine
of dependent origination, the entire world is both a net of relationships
and an inseparable unity itself. The theory of unity is the most
outstanding characteristic of Buddhist ecology, according to which the
whole world is a unity whose parts coexist with one another and cannot be
divided. And mankind’s relation to nature is like a bundle of reeds—it
cannot stand unless all the reeds support one another.
According to Buddhism, even
a mustard seed contains Mount
Sumeru,
and a single pore contains continents and oceans. That these small things
can contain the infinite universe shows the correlativity of everything in
all worlds. Among the Chinese Buddhist sects, the Tiantai
(T’ien-t’ai) and the Huayan
(Hua-yen) schools developed this idea to its
utmost from the doctrine of yuan-rong (yuan-jung; the
concept that things remain their perfect selves in unity, and yet contain
each other without contradictions).
The Tiantai School was the earliest sect of
Chinese Buddhism that specifically expressed a holographic idea about the
world in the concept of xing-ju (hsing-chu), which holds that everything in the universe
contains everything in the infinite universes. Zhiyi
(Chih-i), founder of the Tiantai School, proposed the idea as “The
universes of the ten realms respectively contain one another” and “Three
thousand worlds are present in a single thought.”
The Huayan School reckons that the world of
phenomena exists in such a way that one phenomenon constitutes all
phenomena and from all phenomena arises one: The one contains everything in
the universe, and everything is contained within the one. Taking the images
of “a pore” and “a grain of dust,” the scholars of the Huayan School expounded the relationship
between “one” and “all,” showing their profound grasp of the world’s
holographic character. A pore is small, but it holds all living creatures
in all worlds. A tiny grain of dust contains all the creatures of the past,
present, and future worlds.
The Huayan School also employs Indra’s Net to illustrate the holographic character of
the world. Indra’s Net is the wonderful net of
the deity Indra. Every knot in the net is tied
with a pearl, and there is an infinitude of them.
Each pearl reflects all the others, and in this way all the pearls reflect
one another. The Flower Adornment Sutra (Avatamsaka
Sutra) takes Indra’s Net as an example to explain
that all the things in the world reflect and contain one another.
To look at today’s
ecological practices from this point of view, one
must not confine oneself to the limited sphere of a person, a small group,
a country, or even a continent, but must think at least globally. The only
way to act is for the benefit both of oneself and all others.
Theory of Nonself
Buddhism regards all
things in the world as conditional existences with no permanent qualities,
and it refers to this phenomenon as emptiness. In Mahayana, the concept of two kinds of emptiness is most popular. These are
the emptiness of the self, which means that no individual living beings have a real
self-essence, and the emptiness of the dharmas, which means that no non-living beings possess their own
bodies.
With its denial of the
selves of living beings, Buddhism denies the reality of all living beings,
hence rejecting mankind’s superiority in the world. It is a reaction
against the bigotry of anthropocentrism. Thus, the Buddhist idea of nirvana
is based upon the concept of nonself and is
thereby cosmocentric. The Buddhist view of the
relationship between mankind and nature offers a spiritual basis for a
possible solution of one of the most pressing problems that we are
facing—the destruction of the environment. This is
an attitude in which people regard nature as a mere hindrance, or as a
treasure-house to plunder in order to satisfy their selfish desires, and
people consistently seek ways to exploit or conquer it. The fundamental
cosmology of Buddhism does not regard nature as something belonging to man;
rather, it asserts that man belongs to nature—which not only helps
overcome man’s alienation from nature, but also harmonizes man and nature
without the abolition of their own individualities.
One of the significant
characteristics of modern ecology is its opposition to anthropocentrism,
which has led to problems in modern society, inducing the antipathy between
man and nature. Ecology does not perceive man as an entity, but as a correlativity. According to the view of inherent
correlativity, man is no more special than anything else. Mankind’s
arrogant sense of self-importance has resulted in massive damage to the
ecological order in which both human beings and all other species have to
live. Thus, ecology advocates a kind of global ethics. Buddhism also has as
equally satisfactory a mode of thinking as modern ecology and
postmodernism, which displays the value of Buddhism to the modern age.
Detailed Buddhist Ecological Ideas
Buddhist Opinion of Nature
Mahayana views all things
that exist as incarnations of the nature of the Buddha, and so all things
that exist contain the very essence of the Buddha. Zhanran
(Ts’an Jen, 711–782), a Tiantai
master, specified that even non-sentient beings have the potential to
become a buddha. Furthermore, the Chan (Jpn. Zen) School claims that every flower indicates the
Great Wisdom (prajna),
and that every stalk of bamboo is the Law Body of the Buddha (dharma-kaya).
In this it suggests that every piece of grass and every tree is a
manifestation of the buddha-nature. And thereby
it is naturally a vocation of Mahayanists to clean the lands belonging to
the Buddha and to care for nature.
The affirmation that all
non-sentient beings have the buddha-nature and
the emphasis upon the value of things other than human beings are both
based on the concept that everything arises from Thusness,
which means that the buddha-nature is itself
unchangeable, and that it is only embodied conditionally in various things;
and all matter shares the essence of the Buddha, and hence has a value equal
to that of the Buddha. Now the universality of the essence of the Buddha
does not distinguish between what is sentient and what is not.
Looking into the statement
that non-sentient beings contain the buddha-nature,
we come to realize that it carries almost the same meaning as land ethics,
an important branch of modern ecology.
The founder of land ethics
was an American named Aldo Leopold (1886–1948), whose representative work
is A Sand County
Almanac. From the point of view of ecology, he looked upon the earth as
an organism, developing a concept of land ethics. He conceived of every
part of the earth as one of its organs, and saw man as just another part of
nature.
According to land ethics,
man’s relation to nature should be a kind of fellowship. Land ethics
teaches that mankind will have to respect all other living beings and the
land. When human beings begin to look upon the land as a fellow member of
the same community to which they belong, they will begin to treat it with
love and respect. And there is no other way to preserve the land under the
impact of human beings equipped with machinery. Leopold emphasized that
there could not be any relationship between ethics and the land if we had
no love, respect, or reverence for the land, or if we did not pay much
attention to the land’s value.
The Buddhist Concept of
the Value of Life
Buddhism teaches the
equality of all living beings in all universes. Buddhism teaches that all
beings reincarnate in the six realms of the heavenly deities, human beings,
asura
(demigods having the same powers as the heavenly deities), animals, hungry
ghosts, and the demons of hell (niraya). Each type of being achieves its own return in a
future life in terms of the effect of its own actions (karma). He who does good may transmigrate from the realm of hungry ghosts to
that of human beings, and vice versa. Lives take on different forms, some
of which are lower, and some of which are higher, but they all share the
same quality as their nature—they are all beings that can either progress
or fall back. Each life, therefore, is neither inferior nor superior to any
other. Thus, the ultimate goal is to transcend this realm of ordinariness
and become a buddha.
It is a fundamental Buddhist
precept to respect and value all life. Indeed, the taking of life is
considered the worst type of evil by Buddhism. Those who take the lives of
sentient beings, no matter whether they kill by themselves or have others
perform the killing, thus commit a sin and fall into the three bad paths of
hell, hungry ghosts, and animals after they die; and even if they were
reincarnated as human beings, they would suffer the two evil returns of
many illnesses and short lives.
In the age of Shakyamuni, Buddhist disciples had to utter the oath
that “From today unto the end of my days, I will protect lives.” This is
reminiscent of the saying of Confucius: “Do not force upon others what you
are reluctant to accept.”
There are two reasons not to
destroy lives: one is compassion, and the other is the avoidance of evil
karma arising from the destruction. Many kings in ancient India
undertook the Buddhist practice of not taking life. Many Chinese monarchs
of benevolent reigns issued edicts to forbid the taking of lives.
Ever since the middle of the
twentieth century, life ethics has been attracting more and more attention
in the West, and its theoretical basis is a deep reverence for all life.
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965), the founder of this ethical theory and
winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1952), has greatly influenced the peace
campaigns and the environmental protection movements in the modern world.
“Reverence for life” is the
foundation of Schweitzer’s worldview, which is essentially to have
reverence for the lives of all living beings. It is good to protect and
enhance lives, and it is bad to destroy or suppress them. This is the
ultimate principle of morality. The fundamental cause of being responsible
for all lives begins with taking responsibility for one’s own life. Without
respect for our own lives, we cannot begin to revere all life. Every life
has its own value and right to exist.
Against the background of
two world wars in the twentieth century and the worsening global
environment, Schweitzer came to the conclusion that man can be arrogant no
more, proposing the need for all to have reverence for all life. The
problems Schweitzer pointed out have not been solved yet; on the contrary,
they are worsening in some aspects. Compared with Buddhist concepts, we can
see that reverence for life is a universal value that displays the nature
of compassion to a certain degree.
Buddhist Ideals
A Pure
Land, also known as a Buddha Land,
or a Land of Ultimate Bliss, is the domicile of a
buddha. The most representative type of Pure Land
is that of Amitabha, also known as the Western Paradise. Many Buddhist sutras embody this
thought, but here I shall explain the ecological ideals of Buddhists mainly
on the basis of the Amitabha Sutra translated by Kumarajiva and another version by Xuanzang
(Hsuan Tsang; the Cheng Fo Jing Tu Fo She Shou
Jing).
The Land of Ultimate Bliss
is a pleasant world with no hardship. As the Amitabha
Sutra says, “Why is this land named Ultimate Bliss? The very reason is that
all living beings therein indulge in pleasures without suffering (duhkha). That
is why it is so named.” Then what is the Land of Ultimate Bliss
like?
First, this land is in
perfect order. Everywhere there are wonderful railings, trees, and nets;
and around them are four kinds of treasures, particularly gold, silver, and
gems.
Second, the land is rich in
water, the fundamental element of life. Everywhere there are pools that are
filled with water of the eight virtues: cleanness; coolness; sweetness;
lightness and softness; smoothness; peacefulness; the solution of numerous
problems, such as thirst and hunger, when it is drunk; and the cultivation
of various virtues after a drink of it.
Third, around the pools
there are wonderful trees, and in the pools there are colorful lotus
flowers.
Fourth, everywhere sweet,
peaceful, elegant, and lovely music resounds. Hearing this music, all
sentient beings can eliminate their karmic obscurations, cultivate virtue,
and gain wisdom.
Fifth, every day it rains
bright, fragrant, soft, and colorful flowers that make it possible for all
sentient beings to foster unbelievable virtues.
Sixth, there are numberless
species of birds, many of which are unknown in our world, that utter
beautiful sounds, preaching the wisdom of Buddhism.
Seventh, there is wonderful
air, and breezes in the precious trees carry beautiful sounds.
In a word, the Pure Land is a world filled with joy
without suffering, and it is a goal for all Buddhists. The Pure Land is a karmic reward for
bodhisattva-like actions, whose realization fundamentally depends upon the
common efforts of all living beings. Chinese Buddhism lays special emphasis
on self-enlightenment in achieving self-morality and the creation of a Pure Land among human beings. Indeed, the
Chan School
asserted that the only Pure
Land is that which
already exists in the human realm.
Buddhist Ecological Practices
The View of Karma
The theory of karma and
its effect is the basis for Buddhist practices. Karma is a Sanskrit word
that refers to all actions such as physical activities, speech, and
thoughts. And the effect created by karma is a kind of retribution.
According to Buddhism, karmic retribution, which always occurs sooner or
later, is the effect of all the karmic activities of a sentient being.
Karma is one of the most important concepts in Indian philosophy, and
Buddhism incorporated it as the basis for inspiring all mankind to choose
the good and abandon the bad.
Different types of karma
cause different types of retribution.
Individual retribution consists of the effect of karmic activities
upon the individuals who performed the karmic activities, and common
retribution consists of the effect upon the environment in which those who
performed the karmic activities live. So the activities of human beings
influence not only themselves, but also the environment. Therefore, the
Buddhist concept of common retribution highlights a concern for an
ecological environment.
Ecological Practices of
Traditional Buddhism
To deal with the evil
results brought on by bad karma, what is needed is not intellectual
activity, but moral activity. Yet in the so-called developed countries,
greed seems to be appraised as a virtue; and I believe that uncontrolled
greed can only lead to self-destruction. However, as Mahayana teaches, the
altruism of Buddhist compassion can change an individual’s greed into
compassion for other creatures.
During its long history,
Buddhism has developed a series of unique practices, including vegetarianism,
the releasing of captive animals (not taking life), purification of the
environment, and so forth. In terms of environmental protection, these
practices are still valuable. Vegetarianism is the consumption of edible
plants, which effectively guarantees the practice of not taking animal
life. According to the Lankavatara Sutra, “If one
did not eat meat, there would be no slaughter of animals. So those who eat
animals commit the same sin as those who slaughter them.” In terms of
ecological problems, vegetarianism may play a positive role. At present,
the resources of wild animals are being increasingly destroyed, and several
species are becoming extinct at an unprecedented rate. One of the most
urgent reasons is that mankind is eating them up. This is most striking in China,
where it is often reported in the media that protected rare animals are
being eaten in restaurants.
Buddhism also has a
tradition of releasing captive animals. To perform such a release, one
simply buys some captive animals, such as fishes and birds, and then sets
them free. To satisfy followers who wish to release captive prey, some
temples set up a special “life-releasing facility,” known as a
“life-releasing pool,” which is usually built before or near the gate of a
temple, and in some larger ones there are even artificial hills, pavilions,
and flowers and grasses for animals to live on. Buddhism also holds
religious gatherings especially to release animals, and these are known as
“life-releasing gatherings.” The Brahmajala Sutra
says that a Buddhist should practice the releasing of lives with
compassion, since all the living beings in the six realms of existence were
once his or her parents. The Samyuktaratna-pitaka
Sutra tells about a monk who enjoyed longevity just because he once saved
an ant from drowning. Zhiyi tried to dissuade the
fishermen along the coast from living on fishery and built some
life-releasing pools. Sometimes, some governments even undertook such
actions. Emperor Su in 759 and Emperor Zhen in 1017 ordered the building of
life-releasing pools; and in 1019, the Tiantai School
asked the Court to declare West Lake (in Hangzhou) a life-releasing
pool. Also, this school held life-releasing gatherings every April 8 by the
lunar calendar.
Also, even in the time of Shakyamuni, there were some devices that were used to
protect lives, and one was known as the “life-releasing filter.” In the
area where the Buddha lived, it was very hot and life flourished, so
drinking water contained many living beings. To prevent people from killing
them, Buddhists prepared special bags with which they filtered their
drinking water, and then returned the small creatures to rivers or pools.
The use of life-releasing filters offers a practical way for Buddhists to
protect living creatures in their daily lives.
With the goal of final
release (nirvana), Buddhists tend to build temples in beautiful mountains
and near clean waters, so as to create an ideal environment for religious
practices. They plant trees and flowers, enhancing the temples and the
environment surrounding them. Whether deep in the mountains or in crowded
urban areas, Buddhist sites are fully surrounded by trees, singing birds,
and fragrant flowers. With an eye to today’s increasingly polluted
environment, many Buddhist temples seem like lush, green oases. From the
people’s adoration of such religious sites, we may conclude that the
Buddhist ideal of living in harmony with the environment reflects a
universal requirement of human beings.
Ecological Practices of Modern Buddhism
Based on the fundamental
Buddhist doctrine of not taking life, one of the objectives for the
twentieth century was peace. The two world wars and the cold war, which was
marked by a nuclear arms race, were like a suicide attempt by mankind.
Because of all of these conflicts, the Buddhist concept of reverence for
life has an extremely high value, which has been recognized by all human
beings.
In the 1990s, Buddhists from
China, South Korea, and Japan began to work together
for the common goal of world peace. In 1996, they held a meeting in South
Korea and published a common declaration stating that: 1) the Buddhists of
the three countries should insist on coexistence based on the doctrine of
dependent origination; 2) they should intensify their ties and gain a
better understanding of the principle of the universe as a community; and
3) they will have to devote more efforts toward saving our forests and
beautifying the earth in order to purify human minds to protect all life,
to eliminate the nuclear weapons threatening the survival of life on earth,
to protect and restore the ecological balance of the earth, to maintain the
thought of valuing lives, and to restore morality.
In terms of the idea of the Pure Land, modern Buddhists view the
protection of the environment as an important way in which they might
contribute to society. For half a century, many Buddhist temples on the
mainland of China
have done much positive work. At the end of the 1950s, the teachers and
students at the Chinese Buddhist Academy
of the Fayuan
Temple in Beijing
took part in the construction of the Thirteen-Mausoleum Reservoir, working
hard to improve the ecological environment of Beijing. And for years, the Yonghe Palace at Beijing
has been an “advanced unit for the afforestation
of Beijing City,”
offering its own contribution to the ecological balance in the Beijing area.
Mount
Fagu in Taiwan has
also set an example for the public in protecting the environment,
innovatively integrating the concept of environmental protection into the
daily lives of Buddhists. Master Shengyan, a
leader on Mount
Fagu,
divides their environmental protection activities into environmental
protection in terms of materials and in terms of the mind. The former means
to fulfill the task of environmental protection at every level of material
life, changing people’s daily actions into those that enhance environmental
protection; the latter means to help the human mind to develop an awareness
of environmental protection and then to consciously transform it into action.
According to Master Shengyan, material protection
is rooted in spiritual protection, and the two enhance each other.
The ways of environmental
protection vary at Mount
Fagu.
In terms of life, they advocate the use of stainless steel bowls and
self-prepared drinking containers instead of plastic bowls, chopsticks, and
paper cups. This means more chores in terms of cleaning, but in the long
run, the amount of waste will be greatly reduced if everyone cooperates. In
physical terms, the principle of revering, protecting, and enhancing life
is followed by advocating vegetarianism. In terms of rituals, it is
advocated not to burn incense for the divine or paper products for the
dead, and to replace such offerings with flowers, fruits, and fresh water.
In terms of society, they often organize social activities to spread their
ideas on environmental protection.
According to Master Shengyan, “The point of how to construct a Pure Land among human beings is how to
enhance the mind. The Pure
Land already exists
in the mind of each human being. Since we have a Pure
Land in our minds, we have a Pure Land in reality.”2 If we clean the environment
conscientiously, the environment we live in will become better and
eventually become a Pure
Land.
The practices of Mount Fagu not only offer modern ways for Buddhists to
perfect themselves, but also point out a significant direction in which Buddhism
can engage in the improvement of the global ecological balance.
Leading in a New Direction
At a time when modern
progress threatens the survival not only of the human race, but also of the
very earth itself, the ecological ideas and practices of Buddhism should be
beneficially inspiring to us.
In 1993, the Parliament of
the World’s Religions was held in Chicago,
and its declaration deplored the lack of world peace and condemned our
abuse of the global ecological system. The statement also said that
religions cannot solve all environmental, economic, political, and social
problems in the world, but that they can offer what is not available
through economic planning, political creeds, or legal terms: the ability to
change inherent trends, to change ways of thinking, and to lead us in a new
direction toward enhanced lives.
Buddhism plays the same role
for ecological problems. Buddhism alone cannot solve all ecological crises,
but it can indeed offer us useful concepts that will help lead toward the solution.
Notes
1. Monk Zhao Hui, Fojiao Lunlixue (The Ethics of Buddhism) (Taipei: Buddhist
Press, 1995), p. 17.
2. Master Shengyan, “Ruhe Jianshe Renjian Jingtu (How to Construct the Pure Land in the Human
World,” The Central Daily News (Taiwan), Aug.
31, 1997.
Wei Dedong is an associate
professor at the Renmin University of China in
Beijing, specializing in Buddhist philosophy and the sociology of religion.
His major works include Fojiao Weishi Zhexue Yaoyi (The Essence of Yogacara
Philosophy) and Fojiao De Shengtai
Guan (The Ecological View of
Buddhism).
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