The Misuse Of Western Terms By Eastern Mystics By Charles Carreon
This essay is a brief critique of an article entitled "Conserving the Inner Ecology," drawn from a talk by a "Thai forest monk," named Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. At first read, Buddhadasa's article appears unobjectionable. It seems to offer gentle words of advice to hyped-up modern people, and an explanation of the spiritual meanings behind several words that are of great importance to Western thought -- nature, conservation, and ecology.
The author claims to understand the mystical connection between the outer world and the inner world. As an Eastern interpretation of the old maxim, "as above, so below," it doesn't rate badly. But as advice for what to do in order to deal with the ecological crisis now facing humanity, it is useless, indeed destructive.
The logic driving the argument is simple: "nature is all things that are born naturally, ordinarily, out of the natural order of things...." This tautology drives the entire argument. While none of us can ascertain what is natural, the speaker uses this tautological argument to fuel all of his other arguments. He claims to discover "four fundamental aspects of nature" that he identifies as "nature itself, the law of nature, the duty that human beings must carry out toward nature, and the result that comes with performing this duty according to the law of nature." This is all because of the "basic dhammic law of nature that regulates everything."
The problem with articulating a law this broadly is that we don't know what it commands. Does it command humans to protect their children? Do we violate the law of nature when we put people in the hospital and make them well? Do we violate the law of nature when we develop vaccines that frustrate the spread of disease? Do we violate the law of nature when we put out fires, as modern day foresters tell us? Do we violate the law of nature when we fail to till the fields that could produce food because we don't want to displace native peoples? The law of nature, as explained by this Buddhist, gives no indication.
The essay claims that it will teach us how to "conserve the law of nature," within ourselves, but this is just adopting one more Western word and twisting the meaning. If we read closely, "conserving the law of nature," means nothing other than practicing dharma.
And that's really the answer to all of the problems, anyway, according to this author. "When there is no ego or selfishness, there is nothing that will destroy nature, nothing that will exploit and abuse nature." This is about as practical as visualizing whirled peas. Of course a planet full of egoless beings wouldn't damage anything. They would probably all just sit around and turn into a bowl of jelly. Nobody even knows what it means to be without an ego except this man. How can this be a prescription for saving the ecology of the world? Ah, he explains it here. Once we have no egos then "the external, physical aspect of nature will be able to conserve itself automatically." Right, even with 5 Billion egoless beings eating, driving cars, burning fossil fuels, and polluting the seas.
Now, for the happy close-out. "When Buddhists remember that the Buddha was born under and among trees, awaking while sitting under a tree, taught in the outdoors sitting among trees and, in the end, passed away into parinirvana beneath some trees, it is impossible not to love trees and not to want to conserve them." Very comforting, except that Nepal is a very Buddhist country, and despite all the tree lovers there, there is nary a tree to be found. The Thais started out with more trees, but will end up with just about as many as the Nepalese if they keep it up, notwithstanding their being Buddhist.
All of these problems, of course, are the outward projection of inner "defilements" that disturb the "mind's natural ecology....like evil spirits or demons that destroy the mind's natural state." Yes, but that doesn't mean that corporate executives with planet raping on their mind, and military leaders who bomb first and ask questions later are just figments of our neurotic imagination. They are real people who will not go away simply because we meditate effectively.
The speaker is comforted because he looks out and sees that "the entire cosmos is a cooperative system." He needs a bigger telescope. Looking through the Hubble, scientists have discovered the universe is a demolition derby among celestial bodies of vastly different size and speed. Tiny black holes can rape a red giant down to nothing. Every 10,000 years or so our solar system dips through part of the spiral arm of the milky way galaxy where lots of big, fast-moving stars and space junk proliferate, and we're lucky we don't have an interstellar collision every damn time it does that. The speaker suggests we "bring back the cooperative in the form of comrades sharing birth, aging, illness, and death." That's hard to argue with, but then he concludes by saying "then we will have plenty of time to create the best ecology." This seems to suggest that we can complacently wait until we get our mind and society sorted out before we tackle the problem of the world's degrading physical condition.
I would say quite the contrary. Whenever you get around to realizing the nature of the universe in your own mind, it will still be there. If we wait too many more years before addressing the ecological problems afflicting the earth, it will be too late. So what would you do first?
