Episode 19 - Buddhism, interdependence & ecology

In this episode I trace some parallels between Buddhist and ecological views of the world. We live in a universe of interwoven and interactive processes and energies – a universe in which things are actually events, with no fixed essences or identities. Everything is in flux, merging and mingling in changing patterns of dynamic kinship. We are relational beings in a relational universe. It is these characteristics of connectedness, intercommunication and change that form the focus of this episode. 

Transcript

I would like to begin with an extract from a poem by the Chinese poet, Han Shan (who lived sometime in the 7th or 8th Century):

The peach blossoms would like to stay

   through the summer

But the winds and moons hurry them on and

   will not wait

(Watson 1970: 16)

Given that everything is subject to change, all entities can only ever be provisional and contingent, subject to processes of restructuring, decay and dissolution - however fast or slow. Every entity will become something else and has been something else. Mutation and transformation are the norm, not the exception. In this sense we inhabit a changeful universe - ambiguous, paradoxical and uncertain. We can never be sure where one thing ends and another begins, including where we end and someone else begins. The self is not a hermetically sealed kernel or soul, absolute and unchanging, it is a dynamic interweaving of streams of being – of perceptions, emotions, thoughts, imaginative constructions, memories and aspirations – a network of relationships with no fixed perimeter. Our boundaries are fluid, indeterminate and inextricably interwoven into the shifting boundaries of everything else in the universe. Our skin is a semi-permeable membrane through which moisture, light, tiny organisms and sub-atomic particles pass. Likewise, our minds are permeable indefinite structures flowing with experiences, of every imaginable kind. Our very being is fluid and many-stranded, and not contained within definite mental, physical, social or cultural boundaries. 

At the risk of wandering into territory that is too abstract, I would like to mention the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, who has some useful things to say about the self and the nature of our being-in-the-world. Heidegger conceives of our being as a field of care and concern that is not co-extensive with a particular human body - but is rather an open network of fluid relationships with others and with the world. Heidegger calls this field of being, Dasein – which can be translated from the German as ‘being-there’. In Heidegger’s view Dasein is without essence, it is indeterminate, a field of possibilities, some of which can be actualised by an individual in the course of his or her life. And each person’s field of care and concern is a social space, overlapping, merging and interacting with the fields of concern of other beings. The self is both an agent of care and concern, and a channel through which care flows in, out and through us. Dasein, ‘being-there’, is also ‘being-with’ or ‘being-together’ – it is an ever-changing network of relationships with others and with the world. In this sense our being, our personal self, is not a ‘thing,’ an object – it is a process, a fluid stream of connections between the organism that is us and the world we inhabit – a world of other organisms, substances and processes. 

The idea that each self includes everything about which he or she feels care and concern – rather than the self being an isolated ego concerned only with itself – suggests parallels with the Buddhist notion that awakening involves a reorientation of the self away from the delusion that the self is isolated and separate from the world, towards a wiser and more inclusive view of the self as being an active agent of connection and kinship – a relational self that aspires towards sukha or the wellbeing and flourishing of all beings. 

In Heidegger’s view human existence involves being-in-the-world, rather than being separate from the world. As William Barrett points out, we can think of this like a magnetic field, yet without a solid magnet at its centre. We are implicated in the world whether we like it or not. We care about it and are concerned with it, whether we live in an urban high-rise apartment or a cottage in deepest Devon. We are dependent on the earth for food, water, heat, light, for the materials out of which we build our lives and our artefacts, and for the aesthetic nourishment that nature provides. Through our senses, our breathing, eating and drinking we absorb and converge with the world around us – there is a fundamental permeability to our being-in-the-world. In William Barrett’s words:

Man does not look out upon an external world through windows, from the isolation of his ego: he is already out-of-doors. He is in the world because, existing, he is involved in it totally. (Barrett 1990: 217)

Buddhists describe this condition of interbeing, interpenetration and interdependence as ‘dependent co-arising’ or ‘dependent origination’, awkward phrases that are translations of the Sanskrit term, pratītyasamutpāda – which combines the word, pratītya, meaning ‘meeting, relying, depending’, with the word, samutpa, meaning ‘arising’.  

From the Buddhist perspective there are no separate entities – all phenomena arise within a relational field, bound together by causal relationships extending through space and time. Everything is dependent on everything else and everything is in a state of change. There are no fixed essences or identities – for change and interdependence penetrate every entity. This is equally true for us human beings - none of us can be considered as separate, existing for, or of, ourselves. We are deeply porous beings, overlapping, merging and interweaving with our surroundings and with other beings, including our human co-habitants of planet earth. Just as our bodies are porous, our minds aren’t bounded by our bodies or by our conventional sense of self. Our being is both a function of our body’s negotiation of our surroundings, firmly located in this space we occupy, and, a non-localised web of connections: with those for whom we care, and who care for us; with the other organisms who share our envelope of skin; and with all the strands of ideas, stories, beliefs and values that constitute our cultural commonwealth.

The term, pratītyasamutpāda, dependent origination, is closely associated with another term, karma, denoting the infinite threads of causality that give form to every aspect of reality. All phenomena, including us humans, are temporary forms generated by currents of causality that extend throughout the universe. One thing leads to another, one action or event gives rise to another, and another – causal effects that ripple out in every direction. If we consider this cup I am holding as an example: it is made out of plastic; plastic is made from oil; oil from fossils; fossils from ancient life forms; these life forms evolved over millennia from other life forms going back to single-cell organisms; and prior to that to chemical interactions, and to the ‘big bang’ origin of the universe; and maybe to other ‘big bangs’ and other universes. This great web of causality and interdependence gives rise to this cup. This humble cup could be said to be one, temporary, manifestation of endless cycles of cause and effect - a brief realisation of all the processes that have gone into its making.

Likewise, this chair that I sit on is its own history, bound up in its present. It is the coming together of all the forces, actions, ideas and materials that went into its making, and that went into their making, and so on, and so on, throughout time and space. The chair exists in the way that it does, because everything else in the universe exists as it does. Things are as they are, because other things are as they are, because everything is as it is. Change one thing and all things change.

As Thich Nhat Hanh puts it: ‘This is, because that is. This is not, because that is not. This ceases to be, because that ceases to be.’ (Hanh 1999: 221-222)

Causal relationships and dependent origination extend to all phenomena, a continually changing web of mutual influences and connections. Not only are past and future implicated in each other, but they are also contained in the present. In a sense, past and future are only ever two dimensions of the multi-dimensional present – and the present is not a thing, a noun, it is a process, a verb – the fluid activity of being present or ‘presencing.’ And what appears to us, being present to us, is never fixed or definite, because everything is always subject to change, growth and decay. Seen from a Buddhist perspective, the universe is a vast relational field, endlessly in motion – an infinite network of interdependent and interpenetrating processes. All phenomena are dependent upon each other – bound together in endless cycles of arising and decaying – a dynamic field of interaction and interplay. Nothing exists on its own, separate or unconnected to the whole. All entities are both unique – in Zen, denoted by the term, tathata – suchness - and, every entity is, at the same time, an integral part of the whole of existence. 

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Many indigenous peoples around the world speak of what Chief Luther Standing Bear of the Lakota Sioux calls their ‘kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water.’ (McLuhan 1973: 6) This sense of belonging, and unity with all beings, is common amongst tribal cultures – a ‘brotherly and sisterly feeling’ that binds all beings together in friendship, respect and care.

I would now like to try to convey something of the flavour of this interwoven world. 

We are only just beginning to understand how all the diverse forms of life, from the smallest and simplest, to the largest and most complex, interact within networks of cooperation. They respond to the environment, and to each other, with sensitivity and mutual dependence. The earth’s surface can be said to be sentient and communicative – buzzing with information and sensory exchange – a dynamic array of receptors and transmitters woven together into a functioning system that is alive and alert, attending to itself, to its parts and to its cosmic context. We could consider this as the original ‘world wide web’, the sentient internet of the biosphere. We are all kindred beings within this great web of sensation, sign and song. 

The world is a hubbub of languages, of songs and stories, dances and images, woven into the air and waters, inscribed on the land, reaching into the past and the future – including the symbol structures and communication systems not only of humans but of other mammals, and of insects and birds, and the information-processing and sharing systems of other organisms. It is in a spirit of embeddedness and participation in the universe, that we need to listen to all voices – not just our own species, but also the voices of birds, insects, other mammals, trees, flowers, clouds, rivers and mountains – the complex communication systems that hum, vibrate and shimmer throughout the universe. 

It may be that we think we are speaking metaphorically or poetically when we say that plants talk to each other – but recent studies in plant interactions demonstrate that plants do communicate, sharing information about resources and dangers to their well-being. Plants listen to the ‘chemical chatter’ of their neighbourhood species and participate in a ‘social network’ via their root systems – the ‘rhizosphere.’ Mindful meditation, like ecology, is a way of listening, a way of attending to this ceaseless multi-sensory music. And there is no composer or conductor controlling what happens, only an endless process of polyphonic improvisation. For this is a universe at play: purposeless in its entirety yet made up of countless threads of purpose; without beginning or end yet made up of countless beginnings and endings – a dynamic relational field of beings and currents of existence. 

The idea that there are more intelligences at work in the world than just the human and that these intelligences fill the world with communication systems, codes, stories and songs is a very powerful one – and it is a central belief of many indigenous cultures around the world – and still has great relevance insofar as it engenders a reverence for the natural world and its processes and mysteries. 

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The boundaries between humans and other living beings, and between our individual bodies and the surrounding environment, are much less definite and fixed than we often think. Again, recent studies, this time in genetics and bacteriology, suggest that we are each of us, in a very precise sense, a community of organisms rather than one organism. For instance, our skin is home to a diversity of microbes distributed in different densities around our bodies. The geneticist, Julia Segre, likens the human skin to the surface of the earth, broadly comprising three ecological habitats: moist, oily and dry – each with a distinctive community of bacteria, feeding off and interacting with their immediate surroundings. (in Connor 2009) Segre likens an armpit to a rainforest, a forearm to a desert and a navel to a rich oasis of life.  As Steven Connor suggests, ‘most skin bacteria do no harm and are likely to keep the skin healthy by preventing infections by more harmful microbes’. (ibid.) Connor adds that ‘bacterial cells are about 1,000 times smaller than human cells but far more numerous’ – there are probably about ten times more bacterial cells in, and on, the human body than human cells. This may seem alarming, but it is also re-assuring. Each of us does not stand alone! We are many, not one – a community of interdependent organisms sharing the same body, just as, on a vaster scale, all beings share the same body of the earth. 

It is important that we absorb these findings and add them to the teachings of many philosophical and religious traditions from around the world. For a sense of kith- and kin-ship carries with it a sense of mutuality and shared residency. If we are not only interrelated and porous communities of cells and microbes, through which genetic codes are transmitted, life is experienced and intentions are articulated, we are also needful of, and necessary to, each other. This ought to lead us, if not to the daily practice of tolerance and compassion, then at least to the aspiration for such tolerance and compassion.

Given that each of us is a community of organisms, cells and atoms, taking a community perspective, an ecological viewpoint, makes so much sense – and it follows that the maintenance of bio-diversity and cultural diversity is crucial to our well-being. It has been recently proposed that we have now entered (possibly beginning in the industrial revolution) a new era in planetary evolution: the Anthropocene period. An era marked by the impact upon the earth of one species: Homo sapiens – human beings. Certainly, there are few places on earth that aren’t affected by human activities. Large areas of the globe are habitats managed by humans – in the form of agriculture, horticulture, mineral extraction and urban expansion.  We have to take full responsibility for these managed habitats and consider carefully what we do as individuals acting within, and on behalf of, diverse communities of beings. 

From a Buddhist perspective, there are no firm boundaries between things and therefore we are intimately related to everything else. Coming to this realisation that our being extends into our surroundings leads to a sense of participation and kinship that underpins the Buddhist beliefs in compassion, minimising harm done to others and in ‘loving-kindness’ towards all of creation. Although our ability to translate these beliefs into action is always limited by historical understanding and cultural conditioning, in the twenty-first century we are in a position to extend Buddhist compassion, not only to our fellow humans but to our kith and kin throughout the natural world – from mice to mountains, from tiny bacteria to vast river systems – to listen to the songs sung by every organism and to learn from all beings. It is this shift of viewpoint – from the one to the many, the part to the whole – that Buddhism, and ecology in a very different way, work towards – providing us with tools and methods that enable us to experience the world as it is, to come to a realisation of who, and how, we are in the world: to fully realise that we are relational beings in a relational universe.

When we walk amongst trees, we feel the air around us, washing over our faces and hands. We perceive the air, the trees, birds, mosses, earth and glimpses of sky. We are these experiences. We are the sounds, the scent and taste of the moving air. We are what we are because of those who came before – a stream of evolution going back to the first organisms almost four billion years ago. As we stop and stand close to a tree – maybe this giant oak in a Devon woodland – we breathe as the tree breathes. As we breathe out carbon dioxide, the chlorophyll in each leaf of the oak tree absorbs it, mixes it with water drawn up by the tree roots, and breathes out oxygen and water vapour. It is this oxygen that we then breathe in – a wonderful process of exchange and mutual benefit. In this way we and the tree breathe as one. We are interdependent strands of one great cycle of respiration and life.

As far as we can tell, the method of mindful meditation advocated by the Buddha is very similar to zazen (sitting meditation) and vipassana (insight meditation) as they are practiced today in parts of Asia and in the West. One important aspect of both zazen and vipassana is the use of the breath as a focus of attention. The process of breathing becomes a gateway to a realisation of our interdependence with the world about us, the constant interaction between our embodied mind and the air we breathe. We observe the in-breath and the out-breath as the rhythmic manifestation of the rise and fall of consciousness, the motion of life as we observe it from moment-to-moment. This steady, patient observation of the breath becomes a gentle discipline of the mind, a way of becoming calm and collected, and it affords us a refuge from whatever turbulence might otherwise be troubling us. Paying attention to the whole sphere of sensations, thoughts, moods and emotions follows on from the practice of being mindful of the breath. By being mindful we can observe the interconnectedness of everything. When we breath in, the universe flows into us. When we breathe out, we flow into the universe.

Mindful meditation enables those who practice it regularly to experience the self as a process that extends out into the world, to realise how open and porous we are and how interconnected we are with other beings and with our surroundings. We feel less divided from the world about us and less alienated from ourselves and other creatures. We observe, and contribute to, the interplay of countless causal networks that make up our being – ever-changing streams of causality that, like evolution, are constantly flowing through, and from, us, forming and re-forming who we are and how we are in the world. Mindful meditation is a method of enquiry and realisation – a way of observing impermanence and interconnection in action – as a process. It is also the practice of feeling kinship and kindness towards all beings – seeking to nurture biodiversity in our planet and openness of mind in ourselves. This is a worldview that combines both, ecological, scientific understanding, and Buddhist mindful practice.

Thank you for listening and bye for now.

NB. Many of these ideas are drawn from my book, Interwoven Nature: relatedness and identity in a changeful world – in which I explore the interwovenness of everything in much more detail.

Bibliography

Barrett, William. 1990. Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy. New York: Anchor Books.

Connor, Steven. 2009. How the human skin is a des res for bacteria, The Independent, 29 May 2009. 

Danvers, John. 2016. Interwoven Nature: relatedness and identity in a changeful world. Whitewick Press.

Hanh, Thich Nhat. 1999. The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. Three Rivers Press.

McLuhan, T.C. ed. 1973. Touch the Earth. London: Abacus. 

Watson, Burton, trans. 1970. Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han-shan. Columbia University Press. p. 16.