Humankind and Nature : An Endangered System of Interdependence in Today’s Globalising World [1 ed.] 9781443873529, 9781443866057

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Humankind and Nature

Humankind and Nature: An Endangered System of Interdependence in Today’s Globalising World

Edited by

Albert Wong and Artur K. Wardega, SJ

Humankind and Nature: An Endangered System of Interdependence in Today’s Globalising World, Edited by Albert Wong and Artur K. Wardega, SJ This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by Albert Wong, Artur K. Wardega, SJ and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-6605-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-6605-7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Notes on Editors and Contributors ............................................................ vii Foreword .................................................................................................. xiii Artur K. Wardega, SJ and Albert Wong Part I: Reflections on Religions and Ecology Chapter One ................................................................................................. 2 Asian Religions and Ecology Christopher Key Chapple Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 13 Emerging Earth Community: Creativity and the Enveloping Powers Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 33 Implementing Dignity and Sustainability in a Cancer Hospital Philip J. Chmielewski, SJ and Stephan Rothlin, SJ Part II: Reflections on Humankind Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 50 On Buddhism’s Changing the Ways of the World by Changing Human Minds: A Reflection On Human Beings Leiquan Wang Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 60 Pure Mind and Pure Land: Buddhist Inspiration to Environmentalism Xue Yu Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 83 Reflection on China’s Institution of Environmental Protection Administration Ziran Bao

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Part III: Reflections on the Conservation Movement Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 102 The Paradox of Need Satisfaction: An Economics Inquiry Baocheng Liu Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 110 Dharma Master Cheng Yen's Environmental View of Life and the Development of Tzu Chi’s Environmental Mission Rey Her Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 143 The Church’s Responsibility to Environmental Issues Timothy Liau Part IV: Reflections on Technology Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 166 Welcome and Blessing: Transformative Learning Encounter with Indigenous People Peter Walpole, SJ Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 187 Eclipse and Restoration: Interconnectedness and Interdependence beyond the Imperatives of Materialism Keith Morrison Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 212 Reflections on Technology: A Buddhist Perspective Guang Xing Afterword ................................................................................................ 218 Religion and Ecology: Jesuit Contributions Christopher Key Chapple The Macau Ricci Institute........................................................................ 221 Index ........................................................................................................ 222

NOTES ON EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Artur K. WARDEGA, SJ (࿤ቺϯ) is director of the Macau Ricci Institute and a specialist in twentieth-century Chinese and French literature. He has written several articles published in the Macau Ricci Institute’s quarterly ઓԀҬࢬ Chinese Cross Currents and in scholarly journals in China and abroad. His recent publications include a French translation of the novel ಀξၭ൑ Lishan nongchang by the renowned Hakka writer ᗛ ౛‫ ک‬Zhong Lihe (1915–60) under the title La Ferme de la Montagne Li (Arras, 2010). He edited the 2007 MRI Symposium proceedings under the title Belief, History and Individual in Modern Chinese Literary Culture (Cambridge, 2009) and (with Anders Hansson) Portrait of a Jesuit: Matteo Ricci, MRI Jesuítas Publication Series (Macau, 2010). Recently he edited a trilingual book jointly published by the MRI and Centre Sèvres of Paris, Playing Bach in France and in China: An Encounter of Musicians in Macau (Macau, 2011) and Doubt, Time and Violence in Philosophical and Cultural Thought; Sino-Western Interpretations and Analysis, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012. Albert WONG (Ц᐀అ) has been an academic assistant at the Macau Ricci Institute since 2009. He graduated from the University of Macau, receiving a BA in English Studies (2004). He went to the United States in 2005 and received his MA in Sociology in 2007 at SUNY Binghamton. His major research interests are the politics and society of Macau. He is a regular contributor to Sonpou (ૻൔ), and Macau Observer (ᐞߐᢀჸൔ), two local weeklies. He has also contributed to META, a social science bimonthly published by the Hong Kong International Relations Research Association. He also contributed to the editing of the Institute’s quarterly 䤆ⶆṌ㳩 Chinese Cross Currents (2009–12), and Casino Development and Its Impact on China’s Macau SAR (edited by Beatrice Leung and Sonny Lo), which was published by the City University of Hong Kong Press in 2010. Ziran BAO (ᓡԾฅ) is a senior engineer, who works for the Centre for Environmental Education and Communications of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China. Her research field includes

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environmental management and environmental policy implementation. She is co-translator of “Teacher’s Manual of GLOBE Planning Program” and co-editor of “Manual on Implementing Environmental Management System for Automobile Industry.” Two recently published articles of hers are “Economic Analysis on Corruption during Conducting Environmental Impact Assessment” and “Discussion on Policy-Making’s Influence on Policy-Implementation Taking the Environmental Impact Assessment Law of PRC as an example.” Christopher Key CHAPPLE (PhD, Fordham, 1980) is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He specializes in the religions of India and religion and ecology. He is the editor of the journal Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology (Brill) and has published many books, including Karma and Creativity (1986), Nonviolence to Animals, Earth and Self in Asian Traditions (1993), Hinduism and Ecology (edited with Mary Evelyn Tucker, 2000), Jainism and Ecology (2002), Yoga and the Luminous (2008), Yoga and Ecology (2009), and In Praise of Mother Earth: The Prthivi Sukta of the Atharva Veda (with O. P. Dwivedi, 2011). He serves on the Advisory Board of the Forum on Religion and Ecology (Yale). Philip J. CHMIELEWSKI holds the Sir Thomas More Chair of Engineering Ethics at Loyola Marymount University. He has taught and written about technology and ethics, anthropology and ethics, urban planning and ethics, the workplace and ethics, international economics and ethics as well as business ethics. His current research focuses on the development of an international professional ethics in design and production. In China, he has frequently given lectures at universities. Chmielewski is a Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and of the Association of Asian Studies. Further, he is an Affiliate Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers. Having earned degrees in Chicago, Boston and Frankfurt-am-Main, he was awarded a doctorate at Yale University. Guang Xing (ቶᑫ) received his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London. He is assistant professor at the Centre of Buddhist Studies, University of Hong Kong and was Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation Visiting Professor in Buddhism and Contemporary Society at the University of British Columbia in 2007. His publications include The Concept of the Buddha: Its Evolution from Early

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Buddhism to the Trikaya Theory (London: Routledge, 2005) and The Historical Buddha (Beijing: Religious Culture Publications, 2005). He is currently working on two monographs, “Filial Piety in Chinese Buddhism” and “Buddhism and Chinese Culture,” and has published many papers including “A Buddhist-Confucian Controversy on Filial Piety” in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy. REY-SHENG HER ( օ ᰕ ⭏ ) is Spokesman and Director of the Humanity Development Department of the Tzu Chi Foundation, Associate Professor of Tzu Chi University, and Ph.D. Candidate of the Philosophy Department of Peking University, China, Director of Humanity Communications of the Medical Mission of Tzu Chi Foundation, He has given lectures at Harvard Business School, Peking University and Renmin University of China. He is the author of The Philosophy and Practices of Buddhist Tzu Chi (Parts I and II), The Moment of Inspiration, and The Great Love as a Running Water: Testimony to the Development of Bone Marrow Transplantation. A veteran media worker by profession and a graduate of the University of South California (Master in Communications Management), Her has been anchor and producer of television stations in Taiwan. He has been awarded Golden Bell Awards, the highest honor of Taiwanese TV Industry. The documentary he produced "The Great Love as a Running Water-Testimony to the Development of Bone Marrow Transplantation", selected as the best documentary in the regions of Asia and Africa of the 32nd Emmy Award International. Keith MORRISON worked at the University of Durham, UK, for fifteen years before moving to Macao, China, in 2000, where he has been a professor of education, a university vice-rector and is currently registrar at Macau University of Science and Technology. He is the author of fifteen academic books, including Causation in Educational Research, he co-authored Research Methods in Education (7th ed.), and he is the co-editor of the international journal Educational Research and Evaluation. He has published over 150 academic papers in journals, several of which are about education in Macao. He has conducted educational consultancies and produced papers, reports and technical reports for governments and research institutions in several countries. Before moving into higher education, Keith Morrison taught in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools in the UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an organist and amateur pianist.

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Timothy LIAU (ᄃ෢౺) was born in Taiwan and received theological training at Taiwan Theological College and Seminary, Tainan Theological College and Seminary, and the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, Indiana, USA. He has served as pastor of the Mennonite Church in Taiwan for ten years, since 1974. He entered the University of Notre Dame in 1984 and received a doctorate in Moral Theology in 1991 under the supervision of Dr John H. Yoder. He has since taught at Fu Jen Catholic University and at Taiwan Theological College and Seminary, specializing in moral theology, professional ethics, enterprise ethics and ethics-related courses. His major works include Ecological Theology in the Christian Faith (co-authored with Luis Gutheinz, 1994) and essays in Collectanea Theological, with other professional articles in Fu Jen Studies and Collected Essays on Professional Ethics. His major translations include The Politics of Jesus by John H. Yoder (1990). Baocheng LIU (ቅᝊԋ) earned his MBA and MSc in International Business from Seton Hall University, a bachelor degree in International Trade, and a PhD in Law from the University of International Business and Economics. He was the winner of a National Teaching Excellence Award in 2008. Dr Liu has published extensively in the area of international business, ethics and law. He is on the council of the World Economic Forum and the advisory board to the Ministry of Commerce and the China Expert Bureau on the development of talent expertise for international business. He is also a member of the China Social and Economic Council and a council member of the China Business Ethics Society. His area of research and teaching covers a variety of disciplines including marketing, business ethics, cross-cultural communication and business law. As current affairs commentator, he regularly voices his opinions on CCTV News, VOA, BBC, China International Radio, Public Radio and Beijing Radio. Stephan ROTHLIN, SJ (ᛥШጄ) is Professor of International Business Ethics at the University of International Business and Economics, Beijing. He serves as secretary-general of the Center for International Business and Economics. His primary field of research is the research of business ethics and Catholic social teaching in Asia, especially in the Chinese context. He works also on research about the interaction of China with other countries in the world, especially in Africa and Europe. He serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Business Ethics, as well as of a fifteen-volume series of textbooks on business ethics published by Peking University Press. Currently he is working on the second edition of his

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introduction to international business ethics in the Chinese context. The first edition has been published in English and in Chinese under the title Becoming a Top-Notch-Player: 18 Rules of International Business Ethics (Beijing: Renmin University Press, 2004). He has created associations for the promotion of business ethics in Macau, MACASBE (2002), in Beijing and Hong Kong, CIBE and AIBE (2004), as well as in his native Switzerland (2008). Brian Thomas SWIMME is professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he teaches courses on evolutionary cosmology to graduate students in the humanities. He is author, with Thomas Berry, of The Universe Story. Mary Evelyn TUCKER is senior lecturer and research scholar, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Yale Divinity School. She is co-founder and co-director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale and author of Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase. Peter WALPOLE, SJ, or Pedro, is a practitioner in sustainable environment and community land management in Southeast Asia. He received his doctorate in land use change from King’s College in London in 2003. Today much of his work involves facilitating a greater understanding of the causes of landslides and flooding as they occur in the Philippines, as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. He continues to live with the Pulangiyen, an upland indigenous community in Bendum (Mindanao, Philippines), supporting multi-lingual education, peace and ecological stability in the area. The Jesuit Conference of Asia-Pacific (JCAP) appointed Pedro as Coordinator for the JCAP–Ecology theme. He was also invited to be a representative for Asia-Pacific in the Global Ignatian Advocacy Network (GIAN)–Ecology. In these roles and venues, he continues to share his views about poverty reduction in forest lands, human security in protected areas, partnerships for local development, disaster risk reduction, social concerns in forest law enforcement and governance, climate justice and indigenous peoples’ rights. Leiquan WANG (Цႜࢨ) was born in Shanghai in 1952. He enrolled in the Philosophy Department of Fudan University in 1978, where he stayed as a tutor in 1984. He is professor of philosophy at Fudan University, teaching courses in Principles of Religious Studies, History of Buddhist Philosophy, Selective Readings of Buddhist Original Works, Topics in the

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History of Buddhism in China, and Studies of Zen Buddhism. Wang has been vice-director of the Department of Philosophy, director of the Department of Religious Studies, and Director of the Graduate Institute of Religious Studies, Fudan University. His research interests include Buddhist philosophy and Principles in Religious Studies. He has authored or translated A Translation and Annotation of Maha Shamatha-Vipashyana, Summaries of Chinese Academic Classics: Religious Studies, Chinese Social Sciences in the 20th Century: Religious Studies, Zen and Western Thoughts, Zen and Psychoanalysis and The Revival of Chinese Buddhism. He is characterized by integrity and practicality, expressing his reflections and outlook on Chinese Buddhism through historical material and facts. He stresses the importance of the collection of data and information, and surveys based on real cases. He is now editing A Dictionary of Appreciation of Buddhist Classics. Xue Yu (Ꮲ༿). A graduate of the Buddhist College of China in 1986, he went to study Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka, receiving an MA and an MPhil in Kaleniya. He received his PhD in Chinese Buddhism in 2003 after studies at University of Tokyo, Princeton University and University of Iowa (1996–2003). Before joining the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2004, teaching and conducting research in Buddhism, and in particular Humanistic Buddhism, he taught at Grinnell College, USA. In 2006, he was awarded a Research Excellence Award. He was a visiting scholar at École Française d’Extrême-Orient in 2005 and at the Harvard-Yenching Institute of Harvard University in 2007–2008. He was also invited by the Goethe Institute in Germany to deliver a series of lectures in 2010. His academic interests include primitive Buddhism, Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, and the theological and historical dimensions of Humanistic Buddhism. His recent work Buddhism, War, and Nationalism: Chinese Monks in the Struggle against Japanese Aggression, 1931–1945 (in Chinese and English) discusses the relationship between Buddhism, society and politics by using the history of Republican monks joining the Anti-Japanese War as a point of penetration. Currently he serves as director of the Centre for the Study of Humanistic Buddhism co-organized by the Fo Guang Shan Foundation for Buddhist Culture and Education and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the chief editor of the Series of Study on Humanistic Buddhism and Journal of Humanistic Buddhism.

FOREWORD

Since the 1960s, concepts like “conservation” and “environment friendly” have become part of our language and to a lesser degree of our lifestyle. When it comes to facing these issues, religions are positioned par excellence to teach about and deal with the relationship between man and his environment. Eastern thought has many references to this, notably Ϻ Γӝ΋ tian ren he yi (unity of humankind and nature), and there is also an equally reflective teaching in Western religion (Christianity) expressed in the first divine invitation to man: “to fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:1–3:23). Where are we now with the response of major religions, such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Taoism, to this particular call? Today’s relationship between man and nature is defined by economic development. With the great impact on other forms of life and also human suffering and poverty, however, this “development” could be seen as a myth. Billions of people experience growing vulnerability to food and water shortages, wars and environmental disasters. Much of the challenge is related not only to science and technology but also to neo-liberalist economic policy. Again, where has religion helped to deepen this human engagement with resource development and the need for balance? How does religion contribute to bringing about a greater human consciousness of the value of the gift of life? Where is the celebration of creation? The economic development that guides science and technology has greatly contributed to today’s crisis in the relationship of humans to nature. Conservation and actions to protect the environment have been aimed to remedy this problem, but this relates very much to an urban middle class’s re-discovery of this relationship and easily blames or excludes the rural poor as part of the problem. Ecology is an “-ology,” a study, science or ideal that is not always inclusive of all of humanity, especially of people at the margins. We as humanity are not one, nor are we one with that into which we were created. Nowadays the elites in our societies dominate not only creation but also humanity, and consequently our participation in globalization is unequal. When dogs in condominiums often eat better than children in the streets of many of our global cities, it is clear that our humanity is no longer what includes us in a common fellowship. What has development done to humanity? Does it always have to be advanced technologies that

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give us a comfortable lifestyle? We are still working here in the realm of comfort zones, and there is no place in any of this for religion that speaks of limits, or even cutbacks, and that accepts and enters into human suffering. Man does not merely influence nature in a destructive way; it is as if all men, women and children are in a battle to triumph over the realities of nature. There is a struggle for power in the dominant human self-image, while there is a lack of self-reflection as part of nature, and of recognition of human needs, especially in terms of suffering and limits of moral values. In this particular context we can consider the role of religions and seek their valuable contributions. Religion’s role is not simply one of morality; rather, it seeks, especially in Christianity, to show the face of God. It is out of this relation that we then seek to live towards the “good,” especially in relation to our neighbours, creation and God. Religious believers may have failed severely in communicating this relationship in the twenty-first century. Our present publication gathers a roster of Western and Asian experts’ contributions from various fields of knowledge related to ecology, anthropology, religions and ethics, economics, technology, and to environmental and health protection studies. The essays selected embrace a wide scope of current topics, theme and questions, such as the following. Whilst globalization has increased the interconnectedness and interdependence of people, many key features of humanitarian society have been eclipsed. Is there any way to restore the humanitarian, ethical and non-materialistic aspects of humankind? And how? In an Asian confessional context, how to sustain vitality in the face of diminished resources coupled with greater consumer demands? In the Christian community in Taiwan the awareness of the ecological crisis is not sufficiently acute. How about “ecological ethics” being seriously taken into consideration as a part of its belief? Buddhism changes the world by changing human minds: what is the ecological role of the doctrine of the union between mind and matter, and the call for cultivation of the pure mind?

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The Buddhist inspiration to environmentalism is ୤Јృβ wei xin jingtu (mind-made pure land); this contains a demonstration that the pure mind can lead to pure acts and to a pure land on earth par excellence. Οቲ san fei (three wastes) and China’s administrative system of environmental protection. Economic inquiry and the insatiable demand for the satisfaction of populations’ growing needs. People’s greed and arrogance lead to the destruction and vicissitudes of the major ଳ ‫ ڷ‬Qiankun (heaven and earth); Dharma Master Chen Yen proposes a remedy in her environmental concept and practice. Transformative learning by the encounter with indigenous people: a field study in northern Mindanao (Philippines). Modern technology and the spread of Chinese Buddhist texts as an instrument for improving the lives of humankind. A case for printing and distributing the sacred texts of the Buddhist tradition. How to implement dignity and sustainability in a cancer hospital? Facing death in modern China’s health institutions. Thus, the essays presented in this book reveal and share with its readership the ecological thoughts within the various faith confessions, and the ways of their implementation, to respond to the needs of the human being, and are especially addressed to our disadvantaged brothers and sisters. While relying on a good number of examples within the analyzed cases, they illustrate a positive relationship between religion and ecology in their empirical experience, coming in particular from the geographically and ethnically diverse Asian continent. Unfortunately, national and economy-dictated interests of the so-called power-generation often seem to have preceded scientific, ecological and social considerations. What is more, the unequal distribution of benefits may also imply future tensions among the countries in the region. Looking back at the city we are in, Macau, we may notice that rapid development, ecology issues and social justice are all in conflict. As the city re-integrates itself into the globalized economy through liberalizing its

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gaming industry, its wetland and hills have been given away to casino-resorts and housing projects. Government bodies have reserved part of the wetland for more than one hundred species of birds, including the vulnerable black-faced spoonbill. They also hold education programs and campaigns to raise public awareness of ecological issues. However, taking the green areas as an example, the majority of the effort is concentrated in the richer but less populated “South.” However, in respect of the above, we are glad to note the city’s recent environmental actions, such as a campaign for the preservation of the “white heron bushes” in Old Taipa, the advocacy against the consumption of endangered species, and the collection of plastic materials on the Coloane beaches. This is also a sign of reconnection by the city’s residents to the rest of the world, since the ecological system is a whole and is inseparable from one location to another. In fine, on behalf of the Macau Ricci Institute, we would like to express our gratitude to the members of the Scientific Committee, especially to Father Luis Gutheinz, SJ, Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Fu Jen University in Taiwan, to Father Peter Walpole, SJ, Director of the Institute of Environmental Science for Social Change, Manila, Philippines, and the founding member of the “Ecology and Jesuits in Communication,” to Professor Christopher Key Chapple, Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at the Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA, as well as to Father Dominique Tyl, SJ, professor at the St. Joseph Catholic University of Macau and officer for the “Ecologically Friendly Jesuit Communities and Institution” in the Jesuit Chinese Province, who have provided us insights and help with the organization of our conference. We would also like to thank Professor Mary Evelyn Tucker, co-founder and co-director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology of Yale University, who has generously allowed us to make a presentation of the documentary The Journey of the Universe at the conclusion of the conference. We hope that the present collection of essays will renew awareness of the ecological dilemma and stimulate reflection on its spiritual and social dimensions. May the revisited academic reflection contribute to the human effort for the better and more just use of our environmental resources while ensuring basic human and natural rights, making this world a better place for all to live in harmony with flora and fauna, and with respect for its ecological system. Artur K. Wardega, SJ Albert Wong

I REFLECTIONS ON RELIGIONS AND ECOLOGY

CHAPTER ONE ASIAN RELIGIONS AND ECOLOGY CHRISTOPHER KEY CHAPPLE

Asia extends from the Himalayan Mountains southward to the Indian Peninsula and Southeast Asia as well as eastward through China to the Korean Peninsula. The peoples of Asia have lived continuously in this complex environment for thousands of years, seeking to live in balance within the limits of each specific geo-region. These regions include the Tibetan Plateau, various deserts and mountain ranges, as well as verdant river valleys and deltas. In years past, the populations of Asia sustained themselves through local agriculture, venturing outward for purposes of trade. Natural and human-made calamities periodically have interrupted the balance of life in Asia, the result of earthquakes, monsoons, floods, droughts, and warfare. Religion in its various forms has sought to understand and enhance human experience within the rhythm of the seasons in each of these places. This work has taken the form of rituals and practices that help people harmonize and find their place of peace within the cosmic order. The religious process was referred to as Rta in early Hinduism, as Dharma in Buddhism, and as the Dao in Confucianism and Daoism.

Hinduism: Rta These early worldviews provided a context within nature and human interaction that provided ongoing stability, particularly when linked with cultural practices as expressed in law. The idea of Rta, as articulated in the Rg Veda, “Stands as the body of the Norm, the accumulations of practices, customs, goals, and rules of survival for a community within which individuals are born and foreigners accepted. In this sense, the Rta is the moving body of the social group, of the embodied community.”1 Various 1 Antonio T. de Nicolas, Meditations through the Rg Veda: Four Dimensional Man (York Beach, Maine: Nicolas-Hays, 1976), 163.

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gods and goddesses of the Vedas, dating from at least 3,500 years ago, manifest Rta each in a special way. Agni, the god of fire, brings light to heaven and earth. Varuna, the god of social stability, “shows one how to cross over darkness into Rta.” 2 The goddess of dawn, Usas, the river goddesses, and Indra, the warrior god who releases the life-giving monsoons, all move in accord with Rta. It is even said that “there is no effective thought which is not born of Rta.”3 By participating in sacrifices and rituals that are attuned to the seasons, one can achieve cosmic order and harmony. The concept of Rta held so much weight in the early IndoEuropean context that the word itself has migrated into modern English in various forms: art, order, rite, ritual, coordinate, ordain,4 as well as the obvious cognate, rhythm. The Sanskrit word derives from the IndoEuropean root r, which means to move or go; Mahony writes that the word indicates “a principle of harmony in which all things move together smoothly and support each other in a fitting manner.” 5 In the Vedic tradition, worship and sacrifice performed for particular gods yield the benefits symbolized by that deity. For instance, homage to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, brings one closer to wealth; homage to Sarasvati, the goddess of knowledge, brings success in studies, and so forth.

Buddhism: Dharma The teachings of the Buddha are known collectively as the Dharma. According to the key principles of Buddhism, human greed, delusion, and hatred cause suffering. By working to stop the influx and outflow of such tendencies, the attendant suffering can be mitigated, bringing peace not only to the individual but to the broader community as well. The Buddha himself wandered for six years attempting different techniques, such as meditation and fasting, in order to purify his body, mind, and emotions. Eventually he came upon a middle path and established an order of monks to whom he preached three core ideas: the world is impermanent, it is suffused with suffering, and there is no enduring ego self that can ever hope to control everything. These teachings resulted in the development of an eightfold path of reasoned analysis and pacification of the mind through meditation, which allowed 500 individuals to attain nirvana during the 2

Ibid., 161. Ibid. 4 William K. Mahony, The Artful Universe: An Introduction to the Vedic Religious Imagination (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 3, 46, 261. 5 Ibid., 235. 3

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lifetime of the Buddha. Restraint, for Buddhists, holds the key to liberation. The word Dharma derives from the Sanskrit root dhr which means to hold. By holding one’s impulses in check and by working for the sake of the community rather than the fulfillment of selfish desires, Buddhists pursue a life characterized by introspection and ethical reflection. Though Buddhism arose in India, its influence has helped shape virtually all Asian and even Pacific cultures, from Afghanistan to Hawaii.

Confucianism and Daoism: Restraint and Flow The writings of Confucius and Lao Zi have come to define East Asian cultural sensibilities. Confucius emphasized the practice of virtue, later fine-tuned into a practice of self-cultivation by the Neo-Confucians. Confucius wrote: Humanity (jen/ren) is the distinguishing characteristic of the human being, and the greatest application of it is in being affectionate toward relatives. Righteousness (i) is the principle of setting things right and proper, and the greatest application of it is in honoring the worthy.6

Lao Zi extolled the virtues of no-effort and the beautiful example provided by nature as the key to self-fulfillment and balance. He wrote: The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world. Non-being penetrates in that in which there is no space. Through this I know the advantage of taking no action. Few in the world can understand this teaching without words and the advantage of taking no action.7

Lao Zi invoked the valley and water as central exemplars or metaphors for optimum behavior: The spirit of the valley never dies. It is called the subtle and profound female … . The best person is like water. Water is good; it benefits all things and does not compete with them.8 6

“The Doctrine of the Mean, 20,” in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, translated and compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 104. 7 “Tao Te Ching, 43,” in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, p. 161. 8 Ibid., 6, 8, 142–43.

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These complementary systems suggest that, on the one hand, human effort is essential to establish equilibrium, while on the other hand, doing nothing and simply witnessing and imitating the gentle side of nature will bring peace. Like Buddhism, the cultural influence of these traditions spread beyond their homeland. Confucianism remains particularly strong in Korea, Japan, Singapore, and many parts of Indonesia. Daoism has become popular, particularly in Western countries. Both contain conceptual resources that can both bolster and inhibit environmental activism. Confucianism lends itself to strong governmental policies. If central governments embrace the need for ecological restoration, then Confucianism will assist in the enforcement of policy. However, if government values market growth and exploitation of resources more than sustainability, then the environment will suffer. Similarly, Daoism could be used to encourage appreciation of natural beauty leading to environmental concern, or its philosophy of wu wei could serve as a rationale for taking no action.

Environmental Degradation For the past three hundred years, Asia has been wracked by external and internal colonialism, political change, and, most recently, a full assault on traditional ways of living. With the advent of the industrial revolution and the conversion of agriculture from a family-based enterprise to a factory and commodity model, people have been driven in great numbers to the cities, where value is not found in the rhythm of the seasons and fulfillment with family and friends, but is driven by a market economy that values advancement, cleverness, and the acquisition of material goods. At the same time, natural resources are being diminished rapidly. Forests are being destroyed, those rivers that have been allowed to continue to flow have become polluted, and air quality has worsened. Cancer rates have escalated as Asian communities adopt such mistakes in the Western lifestyle as over-consumption of meat and the smoking and chewing of tobacco. With the increasing abundance of material goods, from automobiles to fast food, India faces the challenge of losing its fundamental connection with the rhythms of life, as its sanctified and thoughtful approach to the material world becomes incrementally overwhelmed by the presence of things themselves. The values expressed in the concept of Rta in traditional Indian society take their expression through the arts and through the philosophical contemplation of the relationship between the witness and the observed. Observation or consciousness historically has

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been accorded greater status in India than what is seen, resulting in an emphasis on interior states known as bhavas. The most elevated of these eight states, knowledge or jnana, brings insight that leads to a state of rarefied spiritual connection. The most troublesome bhavas cause one to wallow in attachment and weakness. These states determine one’s interactions with the world. Understanding and controlling the bhavas takes precedence over any particular material manifestation; knowledge of things is greater than the things themselves. Gandhi cultivated a political view predicated on the supremacy of attitude over ownership, of the importance of a strong moral core over things. He brought the British Empire to its knees as a result of this philosophy. Nehruvian economic policies, rooted in Gandhian principles, slowed materialism and capitalism for several decades. With India’s economic liberalization in 1991, industrialization and modernization have increased. India now boasts the world’s largest middle class. But it also runs the risk of losing touch with its traditional values of Rta and its emphasis on interiority. India has paid very dearly for its industrial excesses, most notably the chemical disaster in Bhopal and the poisoning of its great rivers. East and Southeast Asian countries have also been swept up into the world of economic growth, resource exploitation, and the rise of a powerful consumer middle class. Two great Buddhist leaders, the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, have emphasized the need to remain mindful of the Buddha’s teachings on impermanence and no-self in light of these developments. The Dalai Lama has repeatedly stated that we only have one planet and that solutions to planetary problems cannot come from either below or above, but must emerge from the care of human beings.9 Thich Nhat Hanh has urged people to reflect on the reality of inter-being, the truth that all things depend on one another. He writes, “When we develop concentration on inter-being, on the interconnectedness of all things, we see that if we make them suffer they will make us suffer in return.”10 As awareness of the effects of industrial pollution becomes more widely known, a deeper appreciation of the Buddhist philosophy of causality and consequences will emerge. Buddhism, which began in India, has profoundly affected all cultures of Asia and has become increasingly influential in Europe and America. Confucian propriety and the Daoist theory of flow present yet another way to approach issues of ecological concern. Mencius once commented that the whole world seems to hurt when one hears a tile fall and break. 9

Stephen C. Rockefeller and John C. Elder, Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992). 10 Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power (New York: HarperOne, 2007), 24.

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Likewise, as we see pictures of polluted waters, such as Tai Lake, China’s third-largest body of freshwater, located near Shanghai, one cannot help but be repulsed by the lake “choked by toxic algae fed by the phosphates from the human and industrial waste that had been poured into the water and its tributaries.”11 Like the issues and obstacles facing the Ganges River cleanup, a complex network of competing interests makes it difficult to find the political resolve necessary to improve the situation. Factories throughout Asia need to close or relocate or invest in expensive wastewater systems. From a Confucian perspective, the right action would benefit both individuals and their expanding networks of family and friends. From a Daoist perspective, action would be seen as allowing the lake to return to its natural state, delivering it from the complexities and compromises fanned by human greed. Environmental degradation brings new challenges to the religions of Asia. Meditation and ritual have always been engaged to bring peace of mind to the human situation. However, climate change, species loss, health risks, and other problems are requiring religions to ask new questions. What is the place of the human on the planet? What actions can be taken to ensure sustainable living? Traditionally, religious ethics were developed and adapted to address problems of human unhappiness. In contemporary times, religions must address planetary malaise in the form of severe weather events, loss of purpose in light of broken family structures, and a sad trivialization of material goods, including food, that were once revered as the source of all sustenance. Asian worldviews must be newly interpreted in light of these new environmental demands. The vow-based personal ethics of Jainism, Buddhism, and Yoga offer a starting point for regaining a sense of personal connection and responsibility. The opening lines of the Dhammapada express the core problem and the solution: (The mental) natures are the result of what we have thought, are chieftained by our thoughts, are made up of our thoughts. If a person speaks or acts with an evil thought, sorrow follows that person (as a consequence) just as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the cart. If a person speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows that person like a shadow that never disappears.12

11

“China: A Lot to Be Angry About,” The Economist, May 3, 2008, 49. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, ed., A Source Book of Indian Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954), 292. 12

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South Asia developed several systems for cultivating thoughts of purity. These include the five vows (vrata/yama) of Jainism and classical Yoga, the five perfections (paramitas) of Buddhism, and the four abodes or habits of mind (Brahma-vihara) of Buddhism and Yoga. By adopting these practices, conditioning of one’s thought patterns can be shifted from compulsive, consumptive behavior to constructive consciousness. Specifically, non-violence, truthfulness, not stealing, sexual restraint, non-possession, and abstention from intoxicants constitute the vows and perfections, the preferred behaviors for all three traditions. These create an atmosphere of safety for oneself and one’s associates and cultivate an overall climate of goodness. Parsimony and sobriety can be particularly instructive and useful tools for the cultivation of a personal and social environmental ethic. Parsimony suggests that we exercise extreme conservatism in our consumption of resources. Rather than driving and spending money on gasoline, it would be more economical to walk. Rather than eating out at a restaurant, eating at home nurtures a more intimate relationship with food; growing one’s own food would further deepen this intimacy. Sobriety applies not only to abstention from intoxicants but also to a general outlook that takes into account the unseen consequences of human consumption. If one eats meat, huge resources of water and petroleum are needed: water to grow the fodder for the animal, and oil for fertilizer and transport. One useful tool for learning the sobering effects of lifestyle choices is the website www.ecoprint.org, which allows one to see the consequences of one’s decisions and lifestyle choices in regard to food and transportation. On a personal level, these vows and perfections serve as the touchstone for making moral decisions. Before embarking on any course of action, an individual trained in these traditions would ask: Will this cause violence? Does this feel honest? Does this object freely belong to me? Will my amorous actions arouse passions and expectations with unintended consequences? How important is the ownership and holding of this thing? Will this substance cloud my judgment? One pauses before making a commitment, certifying that the action undertaken will yield happiness and not sorrow. Another set of guidelines became the hallmark for enlightened behavior among both the Buddhists and the followers of Yoga. The Brahma Vihara urges one to cultivate friendliness toward those who are happy, compassion for those who suffer, sympathetic joy for the virtuous, and equanimity toward those bereft of virtue (Yoga Sutra: II:33). Again, these behaviors allow one to become anchored, equipped to deal with all manner of people and situations. In a two-step process, one first assesses

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the circumstance. Are these people happy or unhappy? Are they dedicated to goodness and purity or the reverse? Once one determines which way the wind is blowing, an appropriate approach and demeanor can be employed. Seek out those who are happy and virtuous and enjoy their company without jealousy or envy. Be aware of those who are experiencing difficulty, and find generosity of heart. Stay clear of criminals and avoid falling for the allure of ill-gotten gains. Both these systems were developed to allow for peace of mind within oneself and in one’s interpersonal relationships. At times, they were used to rally people into mass movements, such as the Bishnois movement in Rajasthan, India, where villagers took a principled stand to stave off forest destruction. Many people lost their lives for the sake of protecting the trees and even today the Bishnois continue to guard and protect several species of large desert animals, including the Blackbuck.13 Gandhi, although predating the modern environmental movement, would have been appalled by the profligate waste that has permeated the consumer economy. Far from a philosophy rooted in the production of one’s own homespun khadi cloth and the consumption of simple, homegrown vegetarian food, modern economics seems to value complex manufacturing and distribution chains, regardless of their net drain on resources, both human and natural. This essay began with reference to the Himalayan Mountains, the one common geographic feature that dominates Asian identity and culture. The Himalayas, whose name means “Abode of the Snows,” loom over the north of India and the far west of China. Their glacial waters feed most of Asia’s great rivers: the Indus, the Ganges, the Yamuna, the Brahmaputra, the Irawaddy, the Mekong, the Yangtse, and the Yellow River. However, with the advent of global warming, their life-giving glaciers are receding, disappearing from the Himalayas just as they are diminishing in Alaska, Greenland, Montana, the Sierras, the Alps, and the Andes. M. C. Mehta, India’s Goldman Environmental Prize–winning lawyer, commented in an interview that: “We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions so we can bring back the climate. The glaciers are melting. I saw this happen myself when I went to 14,000 feet there and even within one day, a huge chunk collapsed.” 14 The consequences of glacier failure are difficult to comprehend. Each year precipitation at high elevations falls as snow and remains frozen. As temperatures mount, this ice has begun to melt at alarming rates. Within two decades, Glacier National Park in Montana will most likely have not a single glacier. In the Asian environment, where 13

See www.bishnoi.org. See also Pankaj Jain, Dharma and ecology of Hindu Communities: Sustenance and Sustainability (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011). 14 Personal interview, December 2006, Eco Ashram, Rishikesh, India.

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precipitation falls intensely for the three-month monsoon season, the failure of glaciers will result in horrendous flooding during the rainy season and dry riverbeds during the rest of the year. Without the steady flow of water, agriculture will wither and billions of people could potentially starve throughout Asia. A techno-optimist will advocate more and bigger dams. However, the scale of such a massive geographical change most likely will make such remedies impracticable. As M. C. Mehta has noted, the solution lies in slowing and stabilizing the climate. We have discussed three key religious ideas that characterize Asian thought. Rta, translated as movement and rhythm, derives its imagery from the steady flow of life-giving rivers throughout India. Without the flow of water, engendered and set free by the god Indra, the bringer of the monsoon, Rta will lose its foundation. Dharma had been used by the Buddha to advocate sparing use of resources in order to curb human desire and its deleterious consequences. He urged followers of his Dharma to eat only twice each day, in the early morning and at midday, seeing this as a way to cultivate abstemiousness in the daily life of monks and nuns. Similarly, Jaina Dharma advocates fasting twice each month and for a full week in the late summer, allowing its adherents to achieve and maintain a state of spiritual purification. However, if the glaciers fail and crops disappear, humans will lose the luxury of self-purifying abstention from food and be forced to deal instead with famine. In Daoism, without the flow of pure water, of what use is the metaphor? Waters in China, such as Tai Lake, are already severely polluted. If the flow of the Yangtze and the Yellow River cease, what will happen? Will people perish without the metaphoric and literal presence of water? The current situation demands a call for action, action that can be informed by religious symbols. Rta as Rhythm, Dharma as Order, and the Dao as Flow provide powerful wisdom and incentive for correcting human behavior. Rhythm provides constancy. Order provides stability. Flow provides agility and gracefulness. Rhythmic, repeating rituals celebrate the beauty of the natural world. These can and are being re-conceptualized with an environmental message in India. 15 Imaginative creation of new laws can bring about an order that will help limit human greed. Such laws regulating vehicle emissions are being enacted throughout Asia. Finding peace of mind to undertake these momentous self-correcting tasks can be made more palatable with a working philosophy of flow, acknowledging the limits of what one can do, and setting out to do one’s best. These three 15

See Vasudha Naryanan, “One Tree Is a Thousands Sons: Hindu Responses to the Problems of Ecology, Population, and Consumption,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 65, no. 2 (January 1997), 291–332.

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tools, arising from traditional Asian wisdom, can help the world move toward doing what must be done. Acknowledging and celebrating the rhythms and cycles of life will help people establish and abide by a new earth-friendly order, taking joy in a new flow requiring imagination and creativity. Eban Goodstein, Professor of Economics, has summarized the coming challenge as follows: This is a moment in history that demands a new politics. For some of us, this will be a politics grounded primarily in a concern for our children and grandchildren and for the people across the globe who will suffer from global heating. For others, it will be motivated as well by the clear recognition that the diversity of life on Earth is at stake… polar bears, salmon, seals, chimpanzees, cheetahs, corals and frogs and trees and tortoises and bees and birds… We need smart, aggressive action from government to cap emissions of global-heating pollutants and push for a new generation of clean-energy technologies… so that they will be there when our children need them.16

On January 31, 2008, Goodstein helped organize events across the United States to educate the new generation about the urgency of these issues. “Over 1900 colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, faith organizations, civic groups and businesses sponsored panels, workshops, theater events, technology fairs, poetry readings, keynotes, sculpture displays, poster sessions and debates on the topic of Global Warming Solutions for America.”17 This sort of grassroots activism will hopefully raise awareness and prompt individuals and governments to make needed changes. Asia has already seen the effects of a rampant market-driven economy and the emptiness of a possession-driven lifestyle. Asia has for thousands of years been aware of the critical need for a reliable source of food. Both India and China endured horrendous famines in the twentieth century. As the price of food and fuel continue to increase, humans worldwide will be driven to a deeper appreciation of its precious resources. To protect the well-being of the planet, governments and consumers must make reasonable choices that will conserve, rather than exploit and squander, the abundance of the planet.

16

Eban Goodstein, Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction: How Passion and Politics Can Stop Global Warming (Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Press, 2007), 141–42. 17 See www.focusthenation.org, May 12, 2008.

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Human beings have a choice. They can fall prey to the sort of fear that arises in times of scarcity. This traditionally has resulted in war. The other option invites human ingenuity to find and implement reasoned and reasonable solutions. Asian cultures can help become part of the solution, with traditions informed by the rhythms of life and a desire for the order and peace that flows from restraint and balance.

CHAPTER TWO EMERGING EARTH COMMUNITY: CREATIVITY AND THE ENVELOPING POWERS BRIAN THOMAS SWIMME AND MARY EVELYN TUCKER

The challenge of conscious self-awareness is unlike anything that has occurred for millions of years. We are finding ourselves in the midst of a vast transition. How are we to respond? For we sense we are in a dark night. We dwell in unknowing and yet grope forward. The path is still unclear. With what shall we navigate? The path is uncertain because our sense of larger purpose and destiny is clouded. We are seeking patterns that connect us to a vaster destiny – a vital participation in Earth’s unfolding. There is nothing more mysterious than destiny – of a person, of our species, of our planet, or of the universe itself. But in the modern era the question was considered unimportant compared with the practical necessities of commerce and trade. Our puzzlement regarding our destiny is especially poignant since everything else in the universe seems to have a role. The primeval fireball had the work of bringing forth stable matter. The stars had the work of creating the elements. The same is true on Earth. Each species has its unique role to play for the larger community. The phytoplankton in the oceans fills the air with oxygen and thus enables every animal to breathe. That is their great work, to fill each lung with nourishing breath. But do we humans have such a role? With respect to the universe itself – is there a reason for our existence? Is there a great work required of us? Throughout the modern period, we have often been dissatisfied with the traditional answers concerning human destiny. Maybe this restlessness reveals something significant in our deep nature. Other species found their biome and settled into it, but nothing has seemed to satisfy us fully. Every

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place we went we felt we were at home, yet not at home. Some urge carried us forward from place to place. Perhaps our destiny has something to do with this desire to journey and to experience the depths of things. Perhaps that is why we are here – to drink so deeply of the powers of the universe that we become the human form of the universe. To become not just nation-state people, but universe people. To become a form of human being that is as natural to the universe as the stars or the oceans. Knowing how we belong and where we belong so that we enhance the flourishing of the Earth community.

Wonder and the stars In this process of becoming human we are searching for ongoing guidance. We will need to know what we can rely on. So many of our former certainties are gone now, or are in the process of changing. In order to move into the future we need to know what will be there for us. First of all, there are the stars. We can count on their presence, their immense fiery light. In the depths of night they are a reassurance that we can find our way. They stun us with their beauty, drawing us into wonder. This sense of wonder is one of our most valuable guides on this ongoing journey into our future as full human beings. Wonder is a gateway through which the universe floods in and takes up residence within us. Consider the stars. They shone down on Earth for four and a half billion years. Then these new creatures emerged, these humans. What was different about them is that they were amazed every time they beheld the stars. Their amazement inspired works of art and science. Hundreds of thousands of years later, humans discovered that it was these stars that forged the elements of their bodies. By dwelling in a world of wonder, humans were led to realize that they were children of the stars – something intuited in early myths and uncovered by modern science. They came to understand that everything in the universe then forms a huge interconnected family that we can call “all my relations.” Wonder is not just another emotion; it is rather an opening into the heart of the universe. Wonder is the pathway into what it means to be human, to taste the lusciousness of sun-ripened fruit, to endure the bleak agonies of heartbreak, to exult over the majesty of existence. The universe’s energies penetrate us and awaken us. Through each moment of wonder, no matter how small, we participate in the entrance of primal energies into our lives.

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However insignificant we may feel with respect to the age and size of the universe, we are, even so, beings in whom the universe shivers in wonder at itself. By following this wonder we have discovered the ongoing story of the universe, a story that we tell, but a story that is also telling us.

Intimacy and the oceans The oceans too will be our guide as we journey into the future. The ocean is a power that can dissolve things into itself. Even the hardest rocks, given enough time, will become one with the ocean’s waves. With our symbolic consciousness, we are very much like the ocean with its power to pour through boundaries. What we long for is profound intimacy of relationship. Our human imagination brought something radically new to Earth’s life: the capacity to experience the world from another’s perspective. We call this empathy. What does this mean? In the mammalian world, a mother bear has the capacity to identify with her young cubs and thus devote herself to their well-being. With the emergence of humans, we have arrived at an evolutionary breakthrough in being able to develop compassion, not just for our offspring, but for all beings of every order of existence. With this alone, Earth gave rise to the possibility of an empathetic being who could flow into and become one with the intimate feelings of any being. Our human destiny is to become the heart of the universe that embraces the whole of the Earth community. We are just a speck in the universe, but we are beings with the capacity to feel comprehensive compassion in the midst of an ocean of intimacy. That is the direction of our becoming more fully human.

Creativity and flourishing Finally, along with the stars and the oceans, we can consider what we make with our hands as a way to reflect on human destiny. Our urge to make things, to create things, is certainly as deep as the urge of the Sun to shine and the Earth to spin. Our destiny is woven into the mystery of creativity and time. For one of the most stunning discoveries in twentieth-century cosmology is the deep sense of time that the universe carries. This is not a mechanical time but a cosmological time of universe emergence. In some remarkable way the universe seems to be similar to the unfolding of a giant red oak, where one stage of development leads to the next, as when

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the galaxies began to form several hundred million years after the birth of the universe. It was not possible for galaxies to emerge earlier or later. If any galaxies started to appear in the first hundred thousand years they would have been torn apart instantly. The energy conditions and patterns of organization necessary for such a magnificent feat were present then and only then. And with the galaxies in a stable form, it was suddenly possible for second- and higher-generation stars with planets to form. These solar systems could not have formed in an earlier era. It is the same with our moment. We are in the midst of vast destruction, but it is simultaneously a moment of profound creativity. We are involved with building a new era of Earth’s life. Our human role is to deepen our consciousness in resonance with the dynamics of the fourteen-billion-year creative event in which we find ourselves. Our challenge now is to construct livable cities and to cultivate healthy foods in ways congruent with Earth’s patterns. Our role is to provide the hands and hearts that will enable the universe’s energies to come forth in a new order of well-being. Our destiny is to bring forth a planetary civilization that is both culturally diverse and locally vibrant, a multiform civilization that will enable life and humanity to flourish.

The enveloping powers Because we know that life is an adventure involving both chaos and order, we sometimes want desperately to control things. And whenever our fear grows too strong we become vulnerable to simplistic promises concerning the future. But no one knows what the future holds – all of that is hidden in the darkest night. The future is being created by all of us, and it is a messy and confusing process. What is needed is courage to live in the midst of the ambiguities of this moment without drawing back into fear and a compulsion to control. Are there guarantees? No, none. But there are reasons for confidence. When the universe was just quarks and leptons, could anyone have known that it was in the process of bringing forth stars and galaxies? Or later, when Earth emerged, and life existed in the form of tiny jiggling cells, could anyone have seen in them the possibilities of the bluefin tuna or a vast temperate rain forest? We find ourselves inside an amazing drama filled with danger and risk but also stunning creativity. This has happened many times in the past. Two billion years ago, when the atmosphere became filled with oxygen, all of life was deteriorating. The only way for the life of that time to survive was to burrow deep into the

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mud at the bottom of the oceans. The future of Earth seemed bleak. And yet, in the midst of that crisis a new kind of cell emerged, one that was not destroyed by oxygen, but was in fact energized by it. Because of this miracle of creativity, life exploded with an exuberance never seen before. It is in the nature of the universe to move forward between great tensions, between dynamic opposing forces. If the creative energies in the heart of the universe succeeded so brilliantly in the past, we have reason to hope that such creativity will inspire us and guide us into the future. In this way, our own generativity becomes woven into the vibrant communities that constitute the vast symphony of the universe.

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Scheffer, Marten. Critical Transitions in Nature and Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Schell, Jonathan. The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008. Schmitz, Oswald. Ecology and Ecosystem Conservation. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2007. Schor, Juliet. Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. New York: Penguin Press, 2010. Selin, Helaine. Nature Across Cultures: Views of Nature and the Environment in Non-Western Cultures. Berlin: Springer, 2003. Shiva, Vandana. Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2008. Speth, James Gustave. The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Spier, Fred. Big History and the Future of Humanity. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Spretnak, Charlene. Resurgence of the Real. New York: Routledge, 1999. Thomashow, Mitchell. Bringing the Biosphere Home: Learning to Perceive Global Environmental Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. Tu Weiming. Commonality and Centrality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989. Tucker, Mary Evelyn, ed. The Sacred Universe. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Tucker, Mary Evelyn. Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase. LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 2004. Tucker, Mary Evelyn, and John Grim, eds. Worldviews and Ecology: Religion, Philosophy and the Environment. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008. First published 1994. Waltner-Toews, David, James J. Kay, and Nina-Marie E. Lister, eds. The Ecosystem Approach: Complexity, Uncertainty, and Management for Sustainability. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Warren, Julianne Lutz. Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006. Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. —. The Creation: An Appeal to save life on Earth. New York: Norton, 2007. Worster, Donald. Nature’s Economy: The Roots of Ecology. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1977.

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Appendix: Timeline Formation of the Universe 13.7 billion years ago

The beginning of our observable universe. Particles of matter and light expanding away from a hot origin point. The gravitational, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and electromagnetic interactions begin shaping the unfolding of the universe. Within minutes, the first nuclei are forming. Within half a million years, the first atoms of hydrogen, helium, and lithium are forming.

GALAXIES AND STARS 13 billion years ago

12 billion years ago 8–9 billion years ago

Within half a billion years of the beginning, the first massive stars begin to emerge. Clouds of atoms collapse into the primal galaxies. The first galaxies begin conglomerating into larger disk and elliptical galaxies. The universe has formed some 100 billion galaxies, including our Milky Way. The most rapid star formation in the history of the Milky Way. Most of our Milky Way stars form in this period. Star formation continues to the present and will continue far into the future. Supernova explosions spread elements throughout the galaxies beginning 13 billion years ago and continuing into the future.

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM 4.6 billion years ago 4.5 billion years ago

Three supernova explosions trigger star formation in one particular disk-like cloud in the Orion arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. Sun is born.

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4.45 billion years ago 3.0 billion years ago

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Earth forms and brings forth an atmosphere, oceans, and continents. Moon’s geological activities are frozen.

LIFE 4.0 billion years ago 3.9 billion years ago 2.3 billion years ago 2.0 billion years ago 1.0 billion years ago

First cells emerge. Photosynthesis. First Ice Ages. First cells with nuclei, first multicellular organisms. Sexual reproduction and heterotrophy.

PLANTS AND ANIMALS Paleozoic Era Cambrian 542 million years ago 488 million years ago

Jellies, sea pens, flat worms. Cambrian extinctions: 80–90 percent of species eliminated.

Ordovician 480 million years ago 440 million years ago

Supercontinent Gondwana – South America, Africa, Antarctica, and Madagascar joined as a single land mass. Ordovician catastrophe.

Silurian 425 million years ago 415 million years ago

Jawed fishes appear; life moves ashore. Development of the fin.

Devonian 395 million years ago 380 million years ago 370 million years ago

Insects. Lungs appear in fish. Devonian catastrophe; invention of the wood cell by the lycopods; the first trees; vertebrates go ashore; amphibians.

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Carboniferous 350 million years ago 330 million years ago 313 million years ago

Land-worthy seeds by the conifers. Wings appear on insects. Reptiles appear, land-worthy eggs.

Permian 256 million years ago 245 million years ago

Therapsids, warm-blooded reptiles. Permian extinctions: 75–95 percent of all species are eliminated.

Mesozoic Era Triassic 235 million years ago 220 million years ago 210 million years ago

Dinosaurs appear, flowers spread. Pangaea appears, all continents are joined as a single supercontinent. First mammals; birth of the Atlantic Ocean; breakup of Pangaea.

Jurassic 150 million years ago

Birds.

Cretaceous 125 million years ago 114 million years ago 70 million years ago 65 million years ago

Marsupial mammals. Placental mammals. Primates emerge. Cretaceous extinctions.

Cenozoic Era Paleocene 55 million years ago

Rodents, bats, early whales, premonkeys, early horses.

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Eocene 40 million years ago 37 million years ago

Various orders of mammals complete. Cosmic impact: Eocene catastrophe.

Oligocene 36 million years ago 35 million years ago 30 million years ago 25 million years ago

Monkeys. Early cats and dogs. First apes. Whales become largest marine animals of all time; carnivores take to the sea and become seals.

Miocene 24 million years ago 20 million years ago 19 million years ago 15 million years ago 12 million years ago 11 million years ago 10 million years ago 9 million years ago 8 million years ago 7 million years ago 6 million years ago

Grass spreads across land. Monkeys and apes split. Early antelopes. Cosmic impact: Miocene catastrophe. Gibbons. Surge in grazing animals. Orangutans. Gorillas. Modern cats. Elephants. Modern dogs.

Pliocene 5 million years ago 4.5 million years ago 4.0 million years ago 3.7 million years ago 3.5 million years ago 3.3 million years ago 2.6 million years ago 1.8 million years ago

Chimpanzees, hominids: Australopithecus Afarensis. Modern camels, bears, and pigs. Baboons. Modern horses. Early cattle. Current Ice Ages begin. First humans: Homo habilis. Modern big cats, bison, sheep, wild hogs.

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Pleistocene 1.5 million years ago 1.0 million years ago 730,000 years ago 700,000 years ago 650,000 years ago 500,000 years ago 200,000 years ago 150,000 years ago 120,000 years ago 72,000 years ago

Hunters: Homo erectus. Mammalian peak. Cosmic impact: Pleistocene catastrophe. Brown Bears. Wolves. Llamas. Cave bears, goats, modern cattle. Woolly mammoths. Wildcats. Polar bears.

THE HUMAN JOURNEY PALEOLITHIC 2.6 million years ago 1.5 million years ago 500,000 years ago 200,000 years ago 100,000 years ago 40,000 years ago 35,000 years ago

African origins with Homo habilis, stone tools. Homo erectus, hunting. Clothing, shelter, fire, hand axes. Homo sapiens, earliest evidence of human art in the caves of South Africa. Ritual burials. Entering Australia. Entering the Americas.

AURIGNACIAN 32,000 years ago

Musical instruments.

GRAVETTIAN 20,000 years ago

Spears and bows and arrows.

MAGDALENIAN 18,000 years ago

Cave paintings in southern Europe.

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BECOMING A PLANETARY PRESENCE NEOLITHIC 12,000 BCE 10,700 BCE 10,600 BCE 10,000 BCE 9,000 BCE 8,800 BCE 8,500 BCE 8,000 BCE 7,500 BCE 7,000 BCE 6,400 BCE 5,300 BCE 5,000 BCE

4,500 BCE 3,500 BCE

Dogs tamed. Sheep and goats tamed in Middle East. Settlements in Middle East; wheat and barley cultivated in Middle East. Dogs tamed in North America. Settlements in Southeast Asia: rice gardeners; water buffalo, pigs, and chickens tamed; painted pottery culture. Cattle tamed in Middle East. Settlements in the Americas: cultivation of corn, squash, peppers, and beans; weaving in Middle East. Irrigation in Middle East; population of Jericho is 2,000. Hassuna culture; millet farmers in North China. Çatal Hüyük population is 5,000. Horses tamed in eastern Europe. Pottery in the Andes. Early European settlements; gourds, squash, cotton, amaranth, and quinoa in the Andes; camels and donkeys tamed in Middle East; elephants tamed in India. Peanuts in the Andes. World population is 5–10 million people.

CLASSICAL CIVILIZATIONS 3,500 BCE 3,000 BCE 2,800 BCE 2,100 BCE 2,000 BCE 1,750 BCE 1,700 BCE 1,525 BCE

The wheel and cuneiform writing in Sumer. Civilization of the Nile in Egypt. Indus Valley civilization on the Indus River. Minoan civilization on Crete. Megalithic structures in Europe. Hammurabi’s Code in Babylon. Earliest origins of the alphabet in Palestinian region; Aryan-Vedic peoples with Sanskrit language enter India. Shang Dynasty in northern China.

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1,250 BCE 1,200 BCE 1,100 BCE 700 BCE 628 BCE 600 BCE 560 BCE 550 BCE 509 BCE 450 BCE 327 BCE 260 BCE 221 BCE 150 BCE 31 BCE 4 BCE 64 CE 100 CE 300 CE 313 CE 410 CE 570 CE 650 CE 790 CE 800 CE 900 CE 925 CE 1000 CE 1088 CE 1095 CE 1115 CE 1200 CE 1211 CE

1215 CE 1271 CE

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Moses. Greek settlements; exodus of Israelites from Egypt, monotheism. Olmec civilization in Meso-America. Homer. Zoroaster. Beginning of Greek philosophy. Confucius in China; Buddha in India. Persian Empire. Founding of Roman Republic. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. Alexander’s invasion of the Indus Valley. India unites under Asoka. China unites in the empire of Qin Shi Huang. Zhang Qian establishes route to Bactria. Roman Empire under Augustus Caesar. Jesus. Buddhism in China. World population is 300 million. Classical Mayan civilization. Constantine issues edict of Milan forbidding religious persecution and calls first council of Nicea. Fall of Rome. Mohammed. Muslim civilization. Vikings reach North America. Carolingian Renaissance in Europe under Charlemagne. Toltec civilization. Arabic numerals. Islamic science. University of Bologna established. Crusades. Compass invented. Inca civilization. Beginning of the Mongolian Empire under Genghis Khan. Magna Carta limits the king’s power in England. Marco Polo begins travels.

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1320 CE 1325 CE 1347 CE 1433 CE 1450 CE 1453 CE 1492 CE 1500 CE 1517 CE 1519 CE 1607 CE

Aztec civilization. Ibn Battuta begins journeys. Black Death; Asian and European population decline. Cheng Ho voyages to India Ocean, Persian Gulf. Gutenberg Bible printed. Byzantine Empire falls to Turks. Columbus sails to America. World population is 400–500 million. Protestant Reformation begins with Martin Luther. Spanish conquer Aztecs and Incas. English settlement of North America begins at Jamestown.

THE MODERN WORLD 1600 CE 1623 CE 1721 CE 1757 CE 1763 CE 1776 CE 1789 CE 1815 CE 1833 CE 1841 CE 1848 CE 1854 CE 1867 CE 1884 CE 1914 CE 1917 CE 1918 CE 1919 CE 1933 CE 1939 CE

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British East India Company chartered. Japanese policy of isolation. Peter the Great in Russia. British control over India. European powers divide the colonial world. American Revolution. French Revolution. Napoleon defeated at Waterloo. Slavery abolished across British Empire. Opium War settled, with China establishing live trading ports. Revolutions across Europe. Matthew Perry forces Japan open to Western trade. Karl Marx publishes Das Kapital. European powers divide Africa into colonies. World War I. Communism takes control in Russia. Influenza pandemic. League of Nations. Great Depression. World War II.

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1944 CE 1945 CE 1947 CE 1948 CE 1949 CE 1957 CE 1968 CE 1969 CE 1970 CE 1972 CE 1979 CE 1982 CE 1989 CE 1990 CE 1991 CE 1992 CE

1995 CE 1996 CE 1999 CE 2000 CE 2002 CE 2005 CE 2007 CE 2010 CE

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Bretton Woods conference establishes monetary system. First atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima; United Nations Charter. Partition of India. Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated. Founding of Israel. Mao Zedong controls China. Sputnik launched, first artificial satellite. Student riots in France, United States, Japan. Humans set foot on the Moon. Earth Day inaugurated. First picture of Earth from space, called the Blue Marble. Iranian revolution ignites Islamic resurgence. World Charter for Nature. Berlin Wall falls and Cold War ends. Nelson Mandela is freed and apartheid ends in South Africa. Dissolution of Soviet Union; Internet initiated. UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro; Framework Convention of Climate Change; Convention on Biological Diversity. World Social Summit in Copenhagen; UN Women’s Summit in Beijing. UN Human Settlements Summit in Istanbul; World Food Summit in Rome. World population reaches 6 billion. Earth Charter. World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. United Nations Alliance of Civilizations formed. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Nature. Earth Charter + 10 conference in Ahmedabad, India.

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THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 1543 CE 1609 CE 1609 CE

1620 CE 1637 CE

1687 CE 1749 CE 1750 CE 1755 CE 1795 CE 1809 CE 1827 CE 1830 CE 1859 CE 1866 CE 1905 CE

Nicolaus Copernicus formulates a heliocentric Universe. Johannes Kepler discovers the elliptical movement of the planets around the Sun. Galileo Galilei establishes empirical mode of observation by effectively using precise measurements in his observations of natural phenomena. Francis Bacon promotes a pragmatic orientation of modern science. René Descartes establishes mathematic mode of dealing with the natural world and divides the physical world and mind into two entirely different realms. Isaac Newton explains the modern view of the Universe. Georges-Louis Buffon rethinks the age of the Earth. Carolus Linnaeus provides the modern system of taxonomic classification of life. Immanuel Kant proposes a theory of the formation of celestial bodies and the solar system. James Hutton discovers that the geological formation of the Earth and of life can be traced back in time. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck traces the evolutionary sequence from lower forms to higher forms of life. Georges Cuvier sets the basis for the classification of animals. Charles Lyell describes the structure of the Earth. Charles Darwin publishes his theory of natural selection and alters our understanding of the development of life. Gregor Mendel publishes paper on plant hybridization. Albert Einstein alters our basic understanding

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1912 CE 1927 CE 1929 CE 1950 CE 1953 CE 1962 CE 1965 CE 1969 CE 1972 CE 1977 CE 1984 CE 1998 CE 2003 CE 2010 CE

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of time, space, motion, matter, and energy. Alfred Wegener proposes the theory of continental drift. Werner Heisenberg changes our perception of knowledge at the atomic level. Edwin Hubble provides evidence that we live in an expanding universe. Hans Albrecht Bethe describes how stars evolve. James Watson and Francis Crick propose double helix structure of DNA. Rachel Carson exposes the effects of modern pesticides on the natural world. Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias find evidence of the origin of the universe. Neil Armstrong is first human to set foot on the Moon. Niles Eldredge and Steven Jay Gould propose theory of punctuated equilibria. Ilya Prigogine wins Nobel Prize for work on self-organizing dynamics. Theory of cold dark matter proposed. Accelerating expansion of the universe proposed. Human genome project. Since 1990s thousands of extra solar planets have been discovered. Discovery of a 13.1-billion-year-old galaxy.

CHAPTER THREE IMPLEMENTING DIGNITY AND SUSTAINABILITY IN A CANCER HOSPITAL PHILIP J. CHMIELEWSKI, SJ AND STEPHAN ROTHLIN, SJ

The transcendental question of the existence of God seems to be largely absent in contemporary China. Even in light of a significant growth in the practice of all religions, nobody could claim that religion occupies a prominent place in a society which is manifestly characterized by the pursuit of material wealth, power and prestige. However, one area presents a notable exception: conversations with people from different walks of life may well at some point touch on the question of what happens after death. Is the whole game just over? The question turns more dramatic if a family member or a friend is faced with imminent death, as in the case of cancer. A successful, solid career may swiftly turn to chaff. The present paper reflects on ethical questions underlying a design competition for a cancer hospital in downtown Beijing: dignity of a person, the value of life, telling the truth about the status of the illness, stance toward the future, as well as the impact upon and the care from society. A cancer hospital can help society become and remain sustainable. The usual approach to the topic of sustainability is to take certain goals, for example, energy efficiency, and then apply them to a given structure or process. The frequently encountered attitude toward cancer is abstracted – cancer is a disease that is threatening – or the attitude is denial: someone has cancer, let’s talk about something else. A cancer hospital may thus provoke a process of truth finding: to admit the fact of cancer; to welcome it as an opportunity to gain new insights into the value of life. A cancer hospital can help society reach and value sustainability because the focus of quality economic, cultural and national development is the dignity of persons. A cancer hospital can assist the members of

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society in securing this dignity for all persons because its structures shelter persons who are struggling at the limits of their energies and time, and also because it provides the framework wherein those who care for the cancerafflicted persons can realize their own dignity as family members and care givers. The meaning of “dignity” may just then be discovered and experienced as the intrinsic value of a person. This focus on personal dignity as critical for a society’s enduring development requires as a key dimension the achievement of equal respect. How does a cancer hospital do this? This can be done by locating the hospital within the city and by articulating it within the metropolitan texture. The presence of the building itself asserts that both the effort to control, limit or remove the disease and its effects and also the attention and compassion offered to those persons whose lives the disease is ending – both the labors toward cure and the work of care – are significant for these ailing individuals and their families. The presence of the hospital affirms that both curing and caring are required for the proper development of society. A further dimension of equal respect which the hospital achieves is among those who work there. The administrators, doctors, nurses, technicians, secretaries, maintenance personnel, laboratory specialists and all the other participants in curing and caring can be shaped by the hospital to carry out their daily efforts in a manner that affirms the dignity both of those who are ill and of their family and other visitors. The enormous pressure to fulfill these duties under stress may easily be overlooked. In some institutions there is no doubt that there has been a growing stress to fulfill their tasks without any proper guidance. The person who is to receive care instead risks being treated like an object. The manner in which the members of the staff carry out their service and tasks can affirm the equal respect owed to patients, family and friends. Just because a person is horizontal most of the day, this does not mean that he/she does not want to stand erect and meet others eye to eye; it does not mean that she/he does not want to be treated with respect. Just because someone is attached to a machine or subjected to invisible energy as part of therapy, this does not mean that that person is in him or herself either artificial or passive, and hence merely secondary. The hospital building, structure and systems can contribute to eliciting from the staff the desire and the activity to engage patients, families and other visitors as each deserving of equal regard. Conversely, and dangerously, the hospital building could tempt the staff members to use them like passing waste.

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But these patterned activities of equal regard achieved within a medical matrix have several additional consequences. Those staff members who learn and enact equal regard toward visitors and infirm persons will manifest this same behavior toward each other.1 This, naturally, means that the team of staff members will provide better, more humane care. They will be more supportive of each other, and thus experience less burnout. It also suggests that the hospital and its patients will witness a greater loyalty toward this work. As a result there is less turnover, and consequently, greater stability of tacit and institutional knowledge. Further, as the staff members move between work and home, between the hospital and the world of commerce, transportation and recreation – the so-called normal world – they will bring with them the habits of equal regard, learned and experienced in and through the hospital as reminders to the rest of society about the necessary focus for achieving proper, sustainable development. The repeated expression of equal regard affirms personal dignity. The affirmation of personal dignity provides society a compass for securing sustainability. The repeated expression of equal regard is enacted through rituals. A ritual is not a routine. A ritual is not a remnant of the past. A ritual is a set of socially determined words and actions that manifests and affirms values preferred by the members of that society – values that enable that society to continue to meet human needs and hopes. When people, not strangers, meet, handshakes are often exchanged as people wish each other well. Birthday gifts and greetings are sent. A wedding ritual makes use of certain actions and words. Certain rituals require that the place and the décor be of a particular design. The opening of the Olympics does not take place with the chief arrangers of the event meeting in a library to sign a decree. The rituals that take place in a hospital for those afflicted with cancer include the assurance of support in difficulties, targeted instruction, the making of critical decisions, the recollection of memories, patterns of forgiveness, the maintenance of hope, as well as the rituals of sorrow and grieving. The rituals take place on the plane of equal regard – among patients, family members, friends, and the members of staff. 2 The engagement in these rituals asserts and maintains the dignity of the person who has been afflicted by the disease. The maintenance of personal dignity at the very edge of society, at the very limit of time, enables the participants in these rituals to maintain their own dignity and, upon 1

Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution (Washington, DC: Earthscan, 2010). 2 Paul Clemence, “Building Community,” Metropolis: Architecture Design (January 2012): 24.

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leaving the hospital, the dignity of other members of society. To assert personal dignity even at society’s edge and time’s limit means that the members of society, in their enactment of these rituals, uphold the value of human dignity, exactly when it is being most challenged, throughout all the varied patterns of social life. The upholding of personal dignity is a requisite for achieving social sustainability. In fact, the rituals of assurance, education, forgiveness, etc., listed above, are patterns of traditional social interaction found throughout society, although, often, in less personal and less critical settings. Thus, the social rituals that take place outside the hospital setting already signal that what occurs within the hospital is normal, standard and expected in society. 3 Conversely, the profoundly personal and deeply urgent rituals that are called for within the hospital setting model, instantiate, and corroborate what is required by society: viz., the rituals assert personal dignity and thereby enable society to be sustainable. It has been very surprising to observe that different student groups coming from the several universities from all over China explicitly mentioned in the presentations of their views concerning a cancer hospital in Beijing the spiritual needs of those who are going to die and suggested that a chapel could be integrated in order to cater to those needs. Much creativity would be required to respect the different wisdom traditions which suggest rituals, prayers and ceremonies. In China the main traditions are basically Taoist, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian. However, in the case of the student presentations the most prominent tradition has been Christianity with its rituals centered on the symbol of Resurrection, the symbol of victory over death. The structure and design of the hospital are there to achieve sustainability both of the hospital itself and for the persons – staff, patients, family, and friends – who are sheltered there. By achieving this sustainability in construction and among persons, the properly designed hospital helps society achieve sustainability. Sustainability is achieved in three dimensions.4 To be sure, the relation with the environment is a prominent, well-understood aspect of sustainability. Two other dimensions fill out sustainability as a human and social goal: sustainability must also attend to economic conditions, and to lasting public interaction among persons.

3

Linda Hales, “Coming Home,” Metropolis: Architecture Design (February 2012): 46–70. 4 World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

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How the structure and design of the hospital responds to space can foster some rituals that affirm personal dignity. From within the hospital, the views that are available to the patient can instill a connection with nature and its changes. The placement of building units and windows can optimize personal reflection on dawn and dusk. The care shown to the site in terms of slopes, water features and selected vegetation can convey an analogous care shown in the details of medical care and staff–family– patient interactions. Similarly, the situation and proximity of old-growth trees can signal to those within the hospital buildings a respect for both those living things and also the people who have endured much. From the viewpoint of the inhabitants of the metropolis, how is the hospital positioned in the city? The hospital could be located in a position that is prominent in terms of history or culture or transportation. 5 This would announce the centrality of the efforts there in the conception of an effective and lasting sustainability. How is the hospital positioned with respect to natural growth and natural forces? If the urban inhabitants see that the hospital is set amid verdant growth and/or near flowing water, this would signal that the practices that take place within are themselves part of the world that embraces society. The urban dwellers would recognize that this medical institution is offering respite and care to their metropolitan peers who are ill. The siting of the hospital can indicate common efforts to shelter the buildings and, likewise, those within the hospital, from summer heat or harsh winds. The buildings’ placement can affect actual shelter and signal to those inside and outside the social effort of sheltering those who are exposed to common threats, be they weather or disease.6 Shared rituals of admiring nature, noting the passing of the seasons, taking a walk together or tending a garden can be fostered by the clever siting of the hospital. Such rituals, then, supported by the hospital’s design, offer both a softening and a reflective framework. One notes that this attention to nature takes into account environmental concerns, such as placement with regard to daily and annual solar change so as to decrease heating or cooling costs. The attention to placement with respect to site certainly makes the workspace more pleasant and also localizes the cancer care institution so that the staff members recognize that they do not work just anywhere or with just anyone but in a particular locality with specific persons; hence, a solid identification develops. This 5 Jade Chang, “Michael Maltzan,” Metropolis: Architecture Design (January 2012): 46–51. 6 Giovanna Borassi and Mirko Zardini. “Demedicalize Architecture,” Design Observer (posted 03.06.12): http://places.designobserver.com/feature/imperfecthealth-demedicalize-architecture/32928/.

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produces better work, more adequate care, increased loyalty, reduced employee transience, and greater workplace attractiveness. Further, imaginative siting induces the exchange of ideas, perspectives and stories. Because each person – infirm, familial or medical – is established within his/her body, each has a stance toward the location, and toward a particular location. 7 The affirmation of the particularity of site implies the affirmation of individual dignity. The emphasis on individual dignity elicits personal perspectives on nature, on this view, on these colored leaves now fallen, on the pond now ice-covered. One utters words about such small topics, in part as relief from stress and strain. But then small topics can lead to a more significant exchange about physical struggle and complex procedures. Siting, then, facilitates the ecological, economic and social dynamics of sustainability. With respect to structure and design, the cancer hospital can, further, become sustainable both in itself and on behalf of society insofar as it makes proper, creative choices in establishing its connection with its habitat. Beyond its position and place, how does the hospital connect with the traditions, species and urban patterns of the metropolis in which it is located? Once again, the dynamics that achieve sustainability and affirm personal dignity are bi-directional. In the case of Beijing much invaluable historical infrastructure has been lost, especially due to ruthless bribing and the complete lack of the sense of beauty in buildings from former times. With respect to urban patterns, the hospital design should allow the staff, families and patients to have a continuing sense of the urban life around them – a life to which they have themselves contributed. At a minimum, the patients should be able to see, to view, and to comment upon city life. The buildings can be designed so that a neighboring schoolyard is visible, a high-speed bus lane can capture attention or the entrance to a nearby mall can stimulate conversation about city and holiday changes. The danger of a disjunction between the hospital and urban patterns is that the patients will feel isolated in their personal, medical challenges. For those whose lives are not (yet) touched by cancer and the attempts to cure it, the integration of the hospital into the urban habitat will daily call to mind the efforts made by those who are sick and by the staff members who try to aid them. The hospital that is integrated into the city 7 John Hockenberry, “The Re-education of Michael Graves,” Metropolis: Architecture Design (October 2006): 123–25, 127.

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fabric will also, to be sure, remind each person both of his/her mortality and also of the requisite dignity each person owns in and through this fate. So the hospital design must consider the massing and appearance of the buildings. Do the hospital buildings both harmonize with the other buildings in the neighborhood and mark themselves as a place that is special in its social care? Or, do the buildings hide themselves? Do they project a sense of anonymity or darkness? Can those who pass by the hospital remark on its attractiveness on a bright, sunny day? At night, does the light from the hospital serve as a landmark for children finding their way home? At night, do the windows offer a light through the trees that signals to the neighbors that over there families are striving for life and for dignity? Such steps to articulate the hospital into its context will mean that those who work or are cared for in the hospital can come to realize that they are not living in two separate worlds, one of which is hidden. In fact, as the city-dwellers come to sense the hospital as part of their world, during holidays, for example, nearby residents may visit with kindness or bring music or other surprises to the patients or staff members. Those in the hospital will come to realize they are part of one world, one vital city. And they will have some sense that their struggles with care or with the end of life matter for each member of the metropolis. Sustainability requires an awareness of limits – starting with personal, embodied limits – and a sense of solidarity in that each resident of the city shares an equal fate.8 How the hospital engages its habitat can stimulate sustainability. The hospital’s incorporation of animal and plant species can be another means of lodging the internal activities of the hospital within the urban framework. What are the urban animal species of a metropolis? Certainly household pets and songbirds. Do the appointments of the hospital rooms or their access to garden space provide for allowing household pets to accompany their owners? Outside the buildings, have the designers thought to provide for means to attract a variety of birds? Perhaps even within the hospital by means of internal courtyards, this song and color can be brought proximate to the normal patterns of movement within the hospital. Likewise for plant species, even beyond the above-mentioned trees. A careful selection of tree varieties can call to mind the youth and neighborhoods of the patients and their families. But beyond these, in the 8

National Academy of Engineering, Engineering, Social Justice and Sustainable Community Development (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2010).

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selection of plants, both for the areas adjoining the hospital buildings and for their interiors, variety can contribute to sustainability. The plants can be selected from among those found in the local habitat. The plants can be selected for the display of color, both in flowers and in seasonal leaf changes. Further, the plants can be selected to recall particular local traditions – such and such a flower signifies a particular social value or recollection. Still more, how plants have been arrayed according to local tradition – as in garden design – can be constructed once again around and within the hospital. The plants placed within the building corridors and rooms can, in fact, provide not only textural variety but also can contribute to improving air quality. And, as is well known, the selection of the proper species for the exterior of the building can control heat loss/gain and aid in effective rainwater use. Once again, the selection of and care for particular animals and plants as part of the design and functioning of the cancer hospital can aid in the processes of care, can assist patients in grasping their own dignity in that they are not severed from the living pleasures of urban life, can encourage those who live near and pass by the hospital to regard it as a normal place, indeed, one that is, because of its profound significance in the human effort to face illness and dying, integral to the metropolitan habitat. Traditions constitute another dimension through which the hospital’s articulation into the urban habitat is attained. The structure and design of the hospital should look at the built traditions and at the ritual traditions of the city. If Beijing is the location of the hospital and if grey brick for many people is a sign of shelter, care, and familiarity, then could this material could be introduced into the fabric of the hospital? What is the paving of public spaces? If people are familiar with courtyard houses, even though they very likely did not live in one, and if they are comforted even by the memory of that domestic form, should not elements of this style be incorporated into the hospital – not as a cute, decorative touch, but as features that can be utilized, for example, as a place for sitting and talking together? What features of modern apartments in the city do people find attractive, calming and ordinary? Could these not be introduced into the rooms of the patients? Room-connected or common solaria would be a possible example. Likewise, the traditions that take place at urban holidays can be displayed also in the hospital. Do (some of) the doors have doorposts? Does the surface of these allow for decoration? Which holidays have people enjoyed? What have they done on those holidays? The hospital design should not only allow for such activities, but also encourage them.

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Obviously, the utilization of local traditions, both built and enacted, reminds the patients of their participation in society, gives families and friends ready means to accompany the patients and show support, provides a social variety to cushion and enrich the care of the staff members, and increases the likelihood that neighbors, school children, students and other caring urban dwellers will visit the hospital as a part of their world. The interaction between those within the hospital and those in its metropolitan habitat raises social sustainability and underscores personal dignity – and not simply that of the patients. A cancer hospital is sustainable and helps the adjacent city develop sustainability in its care for resources. The usual understanding of the goal of such care is that resources are limited and they are being used up too quickly, so that out of a concern either for climate change, a desire to reduce costs, an attitude of fairness toward future opportunities for developing nations, or because of a sense of justice toward future generations, resource use must be reduced. While these motivations have great significance in a proper care for resources in many social and economic contexts, here one may focus on the motivations for resource care in connection with a cancer hospital. Care is comprehensive. In order to care for persons, especially those who are seriously ill, the surrounding frameworks of structure, design, processes and procedures should stimulate and echo this care for persons. One must consider that if a patient sees a waste of materials, of energy, of time, then he/she may consider, especially if his/her weakness affects his/her self-judgment, that these medical professionals and the society “out there” regard him/her as waste also. Make no mistake: a cancer hospital in its design must take into account heat, energy, water and other physical resources. And yet, particularly in this institution, still other resources are operative. Earlier we discussed the retention of personnel. Here is a personal resource. To reduce the turnover of medical personnel contributes to environmental sustainability because knowledgeable staff members make fewer mistakes and, thus, waste less. Likewise, this same turnover reduction raises economic sustainability because, obviously, training costs are reduced. And social sustainability is supported because team members are familiar with each other in their common tasks. Now imagine what reduced staff turnover means for a patient. In the rituals of therapeutic or palliative care, the patient is immersed in a world where the professionals become familiar. If there is a repeated or rapid change of personnel, not only does this induce anxiety in the patient, but also the patient may come to see him/herself as someone who also will

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soon disappear. So a reduction in resource loss – here, personnel – contributes to sustainability as well as to personal dignity. Memories and narratives are resources – for nations, cities, families and persons. When challenged by cancer, memories and stories of lives lived and of struggles now faced are precious resources. One notes that they transcend economics because they are priceless. To the degree that memories and stories are lost, society becomes unsustainable. To the degree that they are lost, family bonds become more tenuous, grief becomes pathless, struggle and effort appear futile. Thus, to secure the hospital, the ward and the room against the loss of memories and narratives contributes to attaining sustainability as well as personal dignity during times of loss and struggle. Given the extensive effort to retain, organize, transfer and interlink medical records, no surprise should emerge when society is concerned with narratives and recollections that lie at a deeper level than the technical. The care for the resource of memory can be engaged in the cancer hospital along several lines. For example, simple manageable devices could be built into every patient room so that personal or family stories and conversations could be recorded by the press of a button or the wave of a hand. When no one is around, patients could, on their own initiative, even though they are weak, press a button and begin recording a memory. Then there are the libraries. Through various agencies, Holocaust survivors or Hiroshima survivors have recorded their memories. Even now cancer survivors cooperate in networks. Is it not possible that their memories of struggle – and the memories of those who succumbed to the illness – can be made available to those now ill with cancer. Further, for those who wish, it may well stimulate the self-respect and personal dignity of some patients if they know that their recorded stories would be available to assist others – patients and families – in the future. With respect to physical resources, the structure and design of the building should reduce the use of, encourage recycling of, and even produce the physical resources that the hospital requires. The hospital buildings should utilize natural light and natural ventilation both for reasons of efficiency and for the enjoyment of those inside the buildings.9 The design of atria within the buildings is one way both to add such brightness and air close to the patients and also to provide alternative spaces for relaxation and conversation.

9

Yenna Chan, Sustainable Environments: Contemporary Design in Detail (Beverly, MA: Rockport Publishers, 2007).

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The materials and orientation of the buildings can contribute to the production of needed heat. The heat generated in the building that accumulates throughout the course of the day can, through clever design, be recovered and directed throughout the buildings. The delivery of heat might be through radiant heating in the floors. This is a more efficient provision of heat within a room and allows for more useable room area. The design and equipping of the buildings could contribute to the production of energy. The installation of solar panels would be an obvious approach. In the garden or children’s play area, small wind turbines could provide energy and also a playful element to engage the attention of children. Gestures to incorporate contemporary technology offer another aspect of care, for the patients will not see themselves as relegated to a past or static time. Similarly, with respect to light, heating and ventilation, the patients’ ability to control their immediate environment should be manifest in intention and simple in operation. No patient should have to ask a relative to wrestle with a strange thermostat. Conversely, smart rooms will turn off the lights, when no movement is sensed in the room – perhaps the patient has fallen asleep. Or, when the sensors detect that the room has been vacated, heating or cooling beyond the selected median would be halted. Provision can be made in the building’s fabric and roof for the collection of rainwater and snowmelt. This would, naturally, be insufficient for hospital uses, but could be directed both toward gardens and fountains – the gardens for their views, the fountains for sound. Further, the patients could learn from the staff members that this is the recycling of natural processes, so that the patients remain engaged with their surroundings: weather, flowers, and the gentle sound of a fountain splashing. More humbly, the gray water that results from hospital practices can be simply processed for reuse within the hospital or directed toward natural filtering in properly designed landscape zones, rather than being directed into metropolitan sewage treatment. Often, ordinary consumer recycling is regarded as a burden or annoyance – separating plastic from paper, for example. In the hospital setting, procedures for recycling – after a patient has finished a meal – may appear to the staff as yet another labor-intensive requirement. Recycling, however, must be integrated into the practices of the hospital: as one element in the overall, urban responsibility for sustainability and as part of medical care. If patients and their families see no care for recycling and, in fact, perceive frequent waste, this could lead them to wonder about how they themselves are regarded. Positively, recycling action can signal

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to the visitors and those who are ill that the staff is habitually caring. This means that the staff members must be trained to learn how recycling is a manifestation of and an emblem of care, in particular, caring for the patients. Similarly the garments, bandages, caps, masks, bags and other articles of patient clothing or medical care should not be simply “disposed of” or “removed.” Because these textiles and plastics are so closely associated with actual persons, it becomes too simple with the constant change of patients to think of them as merely “removed.” In contrast, the deliberate effort to invite the staff for self-education about recycling, stimulated by the design provision both for discussion rooms and for the mechanical systems that provide for the processes of recycling, assist the hospital in advancing all three aspects of sustainability. Those who design the hospital, then, must as a result provide for spaces where staff members can learn ways of showing this care in the details of recycling. To be sure, there are medical concerns about recycled materials and their sanitation. The designers, however, can direct that the substances and materials utilized can meet the criteria of sanitation and have the capacity to be recycled. Further, the sites for recycling – the obvious example, bins – should be designed to brighten the hospital spaces and also be so constructed that they reduce noise – from dumping or slamming. Recycling is an economic and environmental process. Recycling in a cancer hospital should also be a human process: one where attention is paid to the strained situation of family members and patients. Beyond the care of personal, social and physical resources, the details of design and décor should contribute to sustainability.10 Overhangs at the entrances, and outside the patients’ rooms, can regulate the sunlight within and provide structures for alternative energy sources or offer a framework for vegetation. Even more, overhangs can signal an offer of shelter. The entrance areas – for families and patients especially – should signal hospitality, welcome and engagement. Impressively high skylights that require expensive heating and cooling will not suit a sustainable hospital. The design of an entrance should alert the people arriving not to the size of the building but indicate to them the activities of welcome and care. Hence, all three dimensions of sustainability could be signaled and enacted right at the entrance. Stone flooring and decorative touches, in the gardens for example, not only require little maintenance but also can refer to local, traditional architecture. Further, its very character may offer those who come to the 10

Jasmin Yu, Hospitals (Hong Kong: Design Media Publishing, Ltd., 2010).

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hospital a sense of stability and endurance. In China, wood is in too limited a supply to be used in a sustainable building. However, natural or laminated bamboo, in all its varieties, could readily be used as a material that is drawn from a renewable resource. In the cases of both stone and bamboo, people find their place and ease more readily because of the tactile attraction of each material. This means that the designers should consider not finishing the stone to a smooth, polished surface. Uneven surfaces invite touch. Robot skins repel; auntie’s wrinkled hand invites caresses. Thus, the design of surfaces throughout the building can elicit a touching tenderness toward the patients. And, as mentioned earlier, everyone who moves within the hospital can feel more at home with naturally varied, rather than mechanically regular, surfaces. Further, just as each section of stone or each length of bamboo is particular, different from others, this design offers a framework that emphasizes specificity, so that each staff member and each patient can know or sense more readily his or her individual identity. Overall, the designed appointments and décor should offer a sense of brightness. The design too should strive to offer a variety, not only in the different layouts for different rooms for different functions, but also a variety where there is, in the buildings, iteration. As a result, one should see a variation from corridor to corridor, from room to room. The variety can be attained by way of changes in color, layout, shape, lighting, etc. It is also the case that the hospital ventilation system can be set up in such a way that there is a variation in flow throughout the day – that is, a change in flow not just in response to temperature changes outdoors having an effect inside; rather, the flow can be altered for its own sake, much as a breeze rises and falls in a forest. What has brightness and variety to do with sustainability? Staff members working in such a setting are more likely to feel integrated into a setting rather than drawn into a function. As a result, they are more likely to stay in their positions and also are more likely to care more adeptly for their patients. If a person knows that he/she stands in a particular place, his/her own skills are affirmed. As a result that person can reach out as one, skilled, person to another, ill, person. The brightness and variety contribute to that key dimension of sustainability: personal dignity. Family members and friends visiting the patient can more readily find their way to the patient’s room, to the rest room, to the cafeteria, to the exit. In a strange place that attempts to face a strange illness, the sense of being lost on one’s own two feet is not merely an inconvenience, but more, can be disheartening. Still more, the brightness and variety can help each of the patients themselves to know

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that this space is his or hers, because it is different from that of the others. The variation of ventilation flow is a dynamic that calls forth response, even at an unconscious level. Such a quiet eliciting of response can signal to the patients that they live in a place that is designed, on the one hand, to encourage their own efforts at recovery or, on the other, as they move to the end of their lives, to honor their own place and person. The design of the overall floor plans should be such as to stimulate flow. This can be metaphorically understood as the flow of life, in contradistinction to mechanical pulses. Such a flow can be prompted by curving forms. The increased costs of construction can be met by the reduced costs of maintenance, for example, in corners, and by the increased effectiveness of airflow. The curving shapes could also be arranged so as to dissipate sounds. Another dimension of designed flow is the arrangement of public and private spaces, that is, moments of openness and seclusion. The ready access from private areas to more open spaces blocks the tendency in institutions to transform privacy into isolation. The ready access from public to private areas certainly addresses the needs of professional, medical service, but, further, underlines that the focus of the hospital is not medicine, but people as individuals. The third dimension of sustainability pursues rich social interaction. This factor in sustainability can contribute to the environmental and economic dimensions. Likewise in the cancer hospital’s design: those who serve in cancer wards at present, the families of deceased cancer victims, cancer survivors – all these should be consulted about the hospital’s design. This appeal to those close to the disease and its demands on people are likely to offer ideas and views that will contribute to ecological care and financial stability. Obviously, these ideas can most readily have a bearing on surface décor – wall colors or materials, for example. Given proper timing for conversations with the lead architects, insightful ideas may emerge for the overall structure of the hospital. Since most patients spend long hours in bed, the surface of the ceiling should attract design reflection. In terms of material economy, rather than plaster perhaps a fabric could provide, on the one hand, the ceiling cover for the pipes, conduits, fixtures and the like above the room, and, on the other hand, offer texture and color for comforting view by the patient. In any case, the change of pictures, calligraphy, sculpture, floral arrangements and other decor in the rooms and public spaces should be undertaken upon consulting with the patients and staff members. Alteration should occur; voices should be heard. First, people will be able

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to sense the place as theirs.11 Second, new ideas may emerge. Third, ideas sought in this area will encourage the contribution of ideas in other areas as well. “Thank you for asking about which photograph to put in my father’s room. By the way, did you know that the window in the room won’t close?” Or “Oh, something else, I know a professor in the art department at Tebie Youming University whose students want to donate pictures.” The pursuit of sustainability as manifested in their surroundings and in the course of their work can provide the staff members with a renewed sense of purpose. This same purpose can foster a sense of personal dignity in the patients, both as they know the particular care-giving that they experience and as they know they are still contributing to a larger, urban process for the benefit of others.

11

Matt Muhlenkamp, “A World-Class Community Hospital for the American Military,” in Modern Steel Construction (March 2012): 40–45.

II REFLECTIONS ON HUMANKIND

CHAPTER FOUR ON BUDDHISM’S CHANGING THE WAYS OF THE WORLD BY CHANGING HUMAN MINDS: A REFLECTION ON HUMAN BEINGS LEIQUAN WANG

Spiritual atrophy as the root of China’s social illnesses China is at a critical moment: it has to determine its orientation and strategy for social development. Two lines from Li Po’s poem entitled “Hard Traveling” may describe the situation China is facing today: The waterway is blocked by ice as I intend to cross the Yellow River Drawing my sword and looking around, I feel totally at a loss.

This transition is a painful and existential turning point. “Shrunk brain” or “cerebral atrophy,” “dried and emaciated chest,” and “protruding belly” are some of the phrases used to portray current Chinese society, in which social norms and values, ethics, morality and credit have been lost. In India, there are four pursuits in human life: namely, to fulfill your desires, seek profits, follow the laws and observe the principles. Although a big reason does not repel small reasons, small reasons must follow the big reason. Above the pursuits of desires and profits, there are higher objectives, such as the pursuit of laws and principles, which regulate and enhance the quality and state of our life. If no principles are observed, laws cannot play their role; without laws, profit cannot be gained and desires cannot be satisfied. According to the Buddhist teachings, all living beings are sustained by food. Four types of eating sustain our life: duanshi ( ࢤ १ , kava‫ڲ‬im-kƗrƗhƗra), or eating at regular intervals; chushi (᝻१, sparĞƗ), or eating in a good environment; sishi (ࡘ१, mana‫ۊ‬-saۨcetanƗ), or eating

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for a purpose; and shishi (᛽१, vijñƗnƗ), that is, alaya. Duanshi refers to the basic diet for maintaining the functions of our body; chushi can help make us happy; sishi is the desire and will that motivate all activities of life; and shishi means the force that keeps us living and helps our mind and body grow. Our life, however, should not stay at the animal level, following the rule of the jungle for material gain. Instead, it should be elevated to a higher spiritual level. The traditional Chinese ideology emphasizes the role of the human mind. “Dayu mo,” in the Book of Documents points out that “although human minds are treacherous, the virtues of charity, duty, propriety, wisdom and goodness are profound as well as subtle. One should strive for profundity, honesty, and the golden mean.” Lao Tzu states that, “The sage often has no will but takes the people’s will as his own.” On the basis of the integration of mind and matter, one should bring into full play the subjective initiative of the mind; under the framework of the unity of man and nature, one should stress reverence for divine providence and the mandate of heaven rather than promoting the inappropriate idea that man can definitely conquer nature. In a world that incorporates heaven, earth, the community and the self, one should use the Buddhist teachings and people’s will to guide one’s actions in the world. This is why we say that what heaven sees and hears is what we see and hear, and it is why Lao Tzu says what he does about the will of the sage. What does China need today? In the three dimensions of economy, politics and spirit, what we need are wealth, social justice, natural justice and kindheartedness. Melamine and clenobuterol hydrochloride are both high-tech products, but as soon as they are linked with big businesses that are bent on making profits, they can turn into poisons for people, cause huge social disasters and touch off a trust crisis. It can thus be seen that knowledge and the economy, if not enhanced by the value of kindheartedness, can evolve into evil knowledge and an evil economy. As China marches on the road to prosperity and modernization, and as China calls for natural justice and kindheartedness, the role of Buddhism has become increasingly prominent. This is a consensus opinion shared by all educated people throughout the country.

Fundamental Buddhist views on the relationships between mind and man, and society and the world The realistic world described in the Buddhist scriptures features the Three Realms and the Six Spheres. The three realms are the Realm of Desire, the Realm of Form, and the Realm of No-form or Formlessness. And the

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different practices of living beings place them in one of the following Six Spheres of existence, namely, the Sphere of Heaven or Devas, the Sphere of Humans, the Sphere of Asuras, the Sphere of Animals, the Sphere of Ghosts and the Sphere of Hell. The central tenet of Buddhism is the Four Noble Truths: that is, dukkha (suffering), samudaya (anxiety), nirodha (stress) and magga (dissatisfaction), which mean respectively that suffering is an inherent part of existence, that the origin of suffering is ignorance and the main symptoms of that ignorance are attachment and craving, that attachment and craving can be stopped, and that following the Noble Eightfold Path will lead to the cessation of attachment and craving and therefore suffering. The foundation and premise of the Four Noble Truths are the negative judgment of the above-mentioned world composed of the Three Realms and the Six Spheres, that is, all actions in the world are constantly changing, and these constant changes bring us suffering. The existence of the Six Spheres is caused by actions of living beings. Buddhist dogma tells us that in the six spheres of transmigration, only humans can perform good and/or bad actions and take their consequences. Therefore, a person must bear responsibility for his or her own actions, but he or she also enjoys the freedom of changing his or her own fate. In the Four Noble Truths, dukkha or suffering is the prerequisite for understanding Buddhism. The so-called knowledge of suffering means a calm observance of the world from a critical perspective, examination of the defects of our society, and investigation into the causes of these defects and suffering, which originate from the anxieties and dissatisfactions deep in human minds. The root of anxieties lies in our ignorance of the facts of cosmology and life. As a result, we twist the true relationship between the self and the world. The problem of anxiety and dissatisfaction comes from sensory desires, and the problem of ignorance is embedded in our limited knowledge. It is these two problems that keep us from understanding the truth. Since humans do not understand the illusory life cycles, they enlarge their individual desires to a maximal degree and cherish various kinds of unrealistic dreams. Twisted minds solidify the dynamic, fluid world, and form ridiculous dreams through examining the world from a stagnant and isolated perspective. Our internal mental anxieties and discontent are the causes of our present erroneous conduct, and this erroneous conduct will, in turn, bring about corresponding consequences, resulting in our currently imperfect state of existence and the imperfect environment in which we are living. The whole process can be summed up in a few words: ignorance, greed, bad deeds, and suffering.

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In the Four Noble Truths, the truths of suffering and anxiety explain the pains of human life and their causes, whereas the truths of stress and dissatisfaction illustrate the ideal condition and the path leading to it. The ideal condition of nirvana can be changed through internal transformation, which can help deliver us from a painful and bewildered life to a pure and saintly one free from bad deeds and agonies. This saintliness, starting from the transformations of the mind, that is, the transformation of consciousness into intelligence or wisdom, the transformation of pollution into purification, and the transformation of ordinary humans into sages, constitutes the ideal life that is attainable in Buddhism. That is to say, our life can be transformed through mental cultivation, which can turn ordinary humans into sages, pollution into purification, and differentiated consciousnesses into higher intelligence or wisdom. These transformations can lead us correspondingly to the ideal condition called nirvana, a holy land described in the Buddhist doctrines. Hinayana or the Lesser Vehicle is the abode of the arhats, whereas Mahayana or the Great Vehicle is the home of the Bodhisattvas and Buddhas. “The General Precepts Hymn of the Seven Buddhas of the Past,” the core of all Buddhist teachings, has this to say: “Do not perform any bad deeds. Perform good deeds instead. Purify your mind and get rid of all illusions. These admonitions constitute the fundamental teachings of Buddhism.” Of all the above admonitions, the most important is “purify your mind and get rid of all illusions,” because it is meant, in the dimension of ethic morality and practice, to elevate the subjects of living beings and purify society and the world in an active manner. The two pillars of Buddhist philosophy are the theory of the Twelve Nidanas or the twelve links of dependent origination, and the theory of karma or volitional action, as both try to explain the truths of cosmology and life, and their growth and movement. The theory of the twelve links of dependent origination is a wonderful philosophical illustration of the karmic cycle, whereas the norms of life values, such as the cycle of perpetual death and rebirth and the karmic effects in the theory of volitional action, are founded on the philosophical ground of emptiness in the theory of dependent origination. The theory of the Twelve Nidanas or the twelve links of dependent origination forms the philosophical foundation of Buddhism. Bhiksu Awvajit, in his answer to the question raised by Sariputra, summed up the thought of the Buddha Sakyamuni as “My Lord Gautama Buddha often says, all Dharmas come into being due to some nidanas (or causes) and all Dharmas turn into nothing due to some nidanas too.” This, known by later generations as the DharmakƗyagƗthƗ, is the classic description of the

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theory of the Twelve Nidanas or dependent origination. It indicates that the birth of Dharma was not an isolated event; there was a good cause. Nothing in the world is isolated. The polluted water discharged at the source of a river will come back to us through natural circulation one day sooner or later. All things in the world are related. The disappearance of tropical rain forests in South America is closely linked to the fate of the Chinese nation, and the hunger prevalent in Africa is also connected with our peaceful life in the future. Therefore, do not ever think that things that take place in other countries have nothing to do with us. The concept of the Global Village has once again proved the universality of the Buddhist theory of dependent origination. If we continue to make deductions from the theory of the Twelve Nidanas, we will surely arrive at conclusions such as “sunyata,” that is, emptiness or the absence of inherent existence in all phenomena, and “no-self” or “not-self.” “No-self” is a negation of the existence of the spiritually independent “I”. In the eyes of Buddhism, the roots of all problems faced by human beings lie in the view of self-centeredness. In the originally dependent world, some people are lost in self-centeredness, regarding their families and their nation or state as centers. All of these are manifestations of an illness known as “paranoia.” Only the theory of no-self can shatter the human concept of self-centeredness and make people treat the self and the world with a realistic attitude. The theory of karma serves as a pillar for Buddhist morality. Based on the theory of dependent origination as its philosophical foundation and incorporated with some elements of value theory, it emphasizes the sublimation of the spiritual life of the subjects, thus forming the foundation of the Buddhist view of life and self-discipline at the moral level. Karmas are volitional and conscious actions, which can bring about corresponding consequences. In other words, the kind, evil, polluting and pure actions of all living beings will eventually lead to the samskaras of misery or joy. Two pairs of categories, namely, “mind prints” and “environ,” “individual karma” and “common karma,” are derived from this view. Mind prints refer to the volitional actions that bring living beings to the realm of devas or the realm of hell in the six realms of existence. Environ means the corresponding living environment for the subjects in each realm of living beings. The environ is determined by the mind prints. The type of subjects of beings decides the corresponding living environment for living beings. Individual karma refers to the actions of individual beings, whereas common karma is the actions taken by a social group. In the practical dimension of mind purification, volitional actions are

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embodied in the will, that is to say, in the relationship between the environments and subjects of living beings. Subjective initiative of the mind, however, is stressed. In the relationship between individual life (self) and groups (others), the Mahayana school of Buddhism treats the other as the self, resulting in the creation of a universal mind of compassion and actions, even though there is no evident karma involved. As to individual beings, the purity of the mind determines good or bad actions, which lead to the corresponding consequences of misery or joy. In the dimension of relations between individuals and society, individual karma and common karma are closely intertwined. In the relation between all living beings and the world, the mind prints of the subjects are tightly connected with their environments. The theory of karma has not only explained the fundamental reasons for human suffering, but also provided ways to seek the release or liberation from suffering. The dialectic relationships between the mind prints and environments, between the common karma and individual karma, have built a philosophical foundation for Buddhism to transform the world and society. From the theory of the twelve links of dependent origination and the theory of karma, we can deduce two sets of basic principles: first, universal dependency, nature of emptiness and no-self; second, integration of the mind and environ and the sameness of the other and self. These two sets of basic principles can be likened to the two wheels of wisdom and compassion. And the mind is the main shaft connecting the two wheels (referring to compassion and wisdom respectively). This mind, half bright and half dark, seen in everyday human life, can make one become an angel up in heaven or a demon down in hell. According to the methods (known as the one hundred elemental constructs [dharmas]) used by the Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism for the analysis of the real world and ideal world, there are fifty-one ways to distinguish the psychological states and mental activities. And of these fifty-one mental ways, twenty-six, over half of the total, dwell on kleshas that include states of mind such as anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire and depression. It can thus be seen that the mind not only decides the rise or fall of life, but also serves as a fundamental cause for the purification or pollution of all beings and peace or upheaval in the world. From the ontological point of view, it does not matter which, the mind or matter, comes first into existence. The Dharma believes that the mind and matter form a unity and are essentially the same. However, in practice, the emphasis is placed on the dynamic role of the mind. The unity of the mind and matter is an ultimate ontological point of view whereas the view that the mind can turn into matter dwells on its pragmatic function. Unfolded vertically, we see

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the upward path centered round the achievement of full Buddhahood, and when horizontally extended, we get the relationships among the mind, living beings and their environments. Subjective spirit and moral purification have thus turned into a practical link between Buddhists’ selfcultivation and social changes.

The ways for Buddhism to enter into the social mainstream In contemporary China where materialism and desires prevail, Buddhist thinking can play a huge countervailing role. Although Buddhism encompasses three circles, namely, faith, society and culture, it must get into the mainstream of society before its purposes of humanistic Buddhism can be truly fulfilled. It must try to gain its say before it can boost society’s understanding of Buddhist wisdom and bring into full play the social functions of Buddhist thinking in educating the secular world. Judging from the demand for Buddhism from the various current social and cultural circles, the educational targets of humanistic Buddhism should not only be limited to “Buddhist practitioners” and “Buddhist operators,” but should be open to all lay persons, Buddhism lovers, and non-Buddhist believers, in order to cultivate and train “cultural Buddhists” who can transform the ways of the world and human minds. In his 1929 article entitled “Cultural Beings and the Alayaconsciousnesses,” the Venerable Master Taixu pointed out that all sentient beings in the universe are endowed with the alaya-consciousness, and the alaya-consciousness of each being is intimately associated with the karma or volitional actions made by all human beings. Extended in time and space, they form the two historical and social meanings of “cultural man.” The so-called alaya-consciousness refers to the volitional actions (karma) performed by living beings, which, according to the principle or law of cause and effect, accumulate and eventually turn into potential energy embedded deep within the spirit. When conditions become ripe, these alaya-consciousnesses activate the cycles of life and their corresponding living environments. The time factor of the alaya-consciousness can be illustrated by “permanency” and “transformation.” “Permanency” indicates perpetual existence, without a beginning and without an end, whereas “transformation” denotes constant change, the birth of new things and death of old ones. Since time immemorial, the constant changes of the alaya-consciousness have propelled human civilization forward. And this is the nature of human history. The space factor of the alaya-consciousness can be

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explained by two words, that is, “commonness” and “uncommonness.” Commonness means the social nature of human beings, which is not only wrought by the culture of their own ethnic group or nationality, but also absorbs, transforms, enriches and adapts to the cultures of different nations in the world. Uncommonness is where the characteristics and values of human existence in this world lie, because man is not just the product of the times and the social environment, but also creates the times and transforms the environment at the same time. The essence of education is rooted in the making of glorious and perfectly cultivated individuals. And they have to possess the qualities to carry on the cultural heritage handed down from the past generations, absorb, renovate and develop alien cultures, and take them into the infinite future. “Universality” is a combination of historical and social factors. The lives of those individuals who are able to integrate past and present cultures will be perpetuated in the universe. Culture is the fruit cultivated by all human beings together. Humans cannot do whatever they like away from their established environments and conditions. A “common” environment is an embodiment of numerous “uncommon” individual actions. The “permanent” and “common” human social history is really driven and made by the extraordinary “uncommoners.” It can thus be said that good individual karmas performed by luminary figures can transform the common karmas of all living beings, and can, in this way, further push the progress of the times and improve the social environment. The karmas created by numerous individual alaya-consciousnesses form a “permanent” stream in the universe, or the so-called boundless masses of creatures and inexhaustible anxiety, hate, and delusive desires. However, the revolutionary significance of the Buddhist philosophy is embedded in its capability to turn the tainted seeds of alaya-consciousness into untainted ones. Therefore, the individual karmas and common karmas can be transformed into the infinite “rounds” of rebirth and death, making it possible for the Mahayana Bodhisattva to bring sentient beings to spiritual maturity and to glorify the Buddha land at the same time. This is what is called the unsurpassed path to the Buddhahood and the measureless Dharma gates. Ouyang Chien (1871–1943) pointed out in his “A Letter to Chang Shih-chao” (1881–1973) that education should not just follow popular desires or social trends. Instead, it should identify its fundamental purposes. He wrote that, “The purpose of education is not to invigorate a nation. It is to enlighten the citizens on how to be good citizens instead. A nation may perish, but its citizens will never. Therefore, they should be

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taught to understand why they are citizens.” In an era and society where no one cares about the distinction between righteousness and profit, where no one respects teachers, the prerequisite for saving the present world should be to strive for righteousness, if need be via the sacrifice of one’s own life, in a heroic fashion. “Those with fixed properties and fixed purposes are common people; and those without fixed properties but with fixed purposes are scholars.” The theme of the first World Buddhist Forum is “A harmonious world begins in the mind.” “Mind” is the subject of human life and the current world of living. “Beginning,” indicating a goal in a process, has the connotations of practice and upwardness. The mind not only serves as a junction where life ascends or descends, but also decides the states of purification or pollution for living beings and the peace or disorder of the world. “Beginning in the mind” means we can fulfill the Bodhisattva vows to seek the Bodhi, educate living beings, and purify the Buddha land. This Bodhisattva practice can help cure social ills such as the unwholesome ethical conduct and materialism prevalent in the current world. It can also serve as a break-through point for Buddhism to enter mainstream society. Concretely speaking, the idea of harmony can be employed to deal with the problem of extreme actions, dialogues used to convince the general public, compassion to mitigate conflicts, and criticism to improve ethic morality. The theme of the first World Buddhist Forum has also expounded the ways for Buddhism to change the ways of the world and human minds from three different perspectives. Purification of the mind can lead to the purification of land. This deals with the relationship between man and nature. It can provide rich intellectual resources for resolving such pressing issues concerning human survival as shortage of resources, energy and environmental pollution. Peaceful minds can calm the minds of all living beings. This deals with the relationship between man and society. In such issues as improvement of people’s livelihood, maintenance of social stability, political and institutional reforms, relationship between the state and religion, organization of religious communities and lay practitioners, Buddhism should play the role of educating and guiding the secular people, just as Vimalakirti, a Mahayanist lay practitioner, did in his time, traveling from one place to another to promote Buddhist teachings. Peaceful minds can also lead to peace in the world. This deals with the relationship between man and the world. In such issues as peace and war, inter-religious dialogues, conflicts and harmony among different civilizations, Buddhist circles can put forward their unique proposals, and

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make their commentaries and positions known to the public. “From the Internet to the Indra’s net, from knowledge economy to kalyƗnamitra economy,” this is my 1999 summary of how Buddhism should enter the mainstream of society in the new century. The growth of the Internet has not only expanded the range of influence of Buddhist teachings, but also transformed the way for Buddhism to grow itself. Knowledge and the economy, the two great forces, can push the realization of a pure land in the human world only under the spiritual guidance of Buddhism at its best. In a word, Buddhism changes the ways of the world by changing human minds first. We must try to instill wisdom into the minds of those with power, and power into the minds of those with wisdom. This requires more and more people among the general public to understand the Buddhist positions, views and methods, and promote the true Buddha dharma so as to turn it into a material force to transform the world. Translated from the Chinese original by Guo Yidun

CHAPTER FIVE PURE MIND AND PURE LAND: BUDDHIST INSPIRATION TO ENVIRONMENTALISM1 XUE YU

Introduction As the ecological situation continues to deteriorate, humans are more and more concerned with environmental issues, and as a result a field of Ecology or Deep Ecology has emerged, specializing in studying the relation between human beings and the natural environment. According to the Buddhist theory of dependent origination, man and nature are interrelated within the framework of causality (as in the Buddhist term: Nidana). All existents are formed through the interaction of cause and conditions. The existence of a phenomenon lasts as long as the relation between the individual parts maintains some kind of relative balance. If there is any change from any part within this process its previous balance will be upset and the existent relationship will be modified or even broken up, and a new relationship will be generated, and so will a new phenomenon appear. Accordingly, the contemporary environmental problems are the consequence of the changing relationship between man and nature, which is largely initiated by human beings. Buddhist causality functions both in the physical world and the mental realm. The frequent natural disasters and the deterioration of the natural habitat are largely caused by the insatiate desire of humans. Human desires, equipped with the advances in science and technology, have expanded extensively, impelling us to hasten our invasion and exploitation of the 1

The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project no. CUHK457110).

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natural world. Our relationship with nature has thus changed from one where humans were being limited by the forces of nature, to another where humans have assumed the role of mastership over the natural environment. This self-assumed mastery position over other habitats has empowered us to willfully extract natural resources to such an extent that reckless exploitation has almost exceeded the limit of natural capacity. Natural disasters and the extinction of various species are the inevitable results. Therefore, it can be said, to a large extent, that natural disasters are actually caused by humans who in return have become the victims of their own attitudes and behaviors. Humans have mastered the technology of science yet have lost their natural wisdom, so that they have to constantly face natural disasters, such as global warming, pollution, rising sea levels and ground subsidence. The Buddhist law of cause and effect explains that human destruction of the natural world in fact will rebound to the destruction of human beings themselves. In order to avoid self-destruction, humans should establish a right understanding about the mutual relationship of man and nature, to construct the appropriate perspective on nature, and thus to alleviate the destruction of ecological systems. Thus, first, they need to change their attitude towards nature and have a right understanding of the man–nature relation. Second, they should strive to put such a beneficial understanding of the need for protection of the ecosphere into practice. The first is mind-oriented environmentalism, while the second is act-oriented environmentalism. Mind-oriented environmentalism includes the two aspects of reasons and ethics, and wisdom and compassion. Today, more people have realized the damage they have caused to the environment and experienced the consequences, and they have engaged in environmental activism to produce less waste, to protect the animals and the forests, etc. However, to solve the environmental problem fundamentally, it is essential for humans to change their mindset towards nature and develop a worldview of interdependent origination regarding the relationship between humans and nature. In other words, environmentalism begins with the purification of a human’s mind. This is why Buddhists, in general, have highlighted the importance of mind-oriented environmentalism.

Environmentalism starting from the mind Religion in general is a belief system that emphasizes the cultivation of the mind and despises material hedonism; it is the same for Buddhism, which pays more attention to the active and critical capacities of the mind. Nevertheless, Buddhism also highlights the interconnectedness of the

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mind and the material world. Early Buddhism maintains the interdependence of the mind and its surroundings. The Pali version of Majjhima Nikaya states: “Eye-consciousness arises from the contact of eye-organ and eye-object. Similarly, the connection of body and body-object gives rise to body-consciousness. The union of [the] three leads to the arise of sensation, perception, and volition.” 2 Eye-organ, material existence, and eye-consciousness together form a union, which results in the recognition of the outside world. Early Buddhism thus promotes the interdependence between the mental world and the material world while highlighting the predominance and activeness of the mind. The Samyukta Agama comments: “bhiksu! The mind is vexed therefore the sentient beings are vexed; the mind is pure therefore the sentient beings are pure.”3 Also, in the Dhamapada of the Theravada Buddhism it says: “Mind precedes its objects. All are mind-governed and mind-made. To speak or act with a defiled mind is to draw pain after oneself, like a wheel behind the feet of the animal drawing it. Mind precedes its objects. They are mind-governed and mind-made. To speak or act with a peaceful mind is to draw happiness after oneself, like an inseparable shadow.” The mind leads the bodily actions and the purification of the mind pilots the pure act or wholesome karma, which in due course purifies the world, including both living beings and the environment; in contrast, the polluted mind generates a polluted being and environment. Based on the principle of the dependent origination in early Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism further developed the philosophy of purity of the mind and purity of a living being, and promoted a theory of “pure mind and pure land” which further emphasizes the active quality and creativeness of the mind. In the Vimalakirti Sutra it is written: Thus, Ratnakara, having initiated the mind of straightforwardness, a Bodhisattva put it into action; following the action, one gains a deep mind; 2

Е‫׸‬ੀ፣ Taiken Kimura, চ‫ۈ‬Օ௲ϐЈ౛Ꮲ “Yuanshi Fojiao zhi Xinlixue” [Psychology of primitive Buddhism], in চ‫ۈ‬Օ௲ࣴ‫ ز‬Yuanshi Fojiao Yanjiu [Studies in Primitive Buddhism], ed. ஭ୗᔱ Zhang Mantao (Taipei: Mahayana Culture Press, 1972), 115. “Thus, I say, Depending on conditions, consciousness arises; when conditions do not exist, consciousness disappears. The eye-consciousness comes into existence because of eye and matter as conditions. Thus arisen consciousness is called eye-consciousness, so are ear, nose, tongue, body, mind and mind-object consciousness. For instance, if a fire is produced by wood it is called the wood-fire; if it is produced by grass-dung, then it is called the fire of grass-dung.” (Maha Tanhasankhaya Sutra of Madhyamagama) 3 Chinese Buddhist Canon, 2:69 b.

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having a deep mind, one’s will is tamed; having tamed the will, one practices what he preaches; by practice in accordance with his words, one transfers [merits]; through transferring merits, one is endowed with expedience; being endowed with expedience, one enlightens living beings; by enlightening living beings, a land becomes pure; the purity of the land leads to the purity of Dharma preaching; the purity of Dharma preaching gives rise to the purification of wisdom; the purification of wisdom is directed to the purity of the mind; the purity of the mind accomplishes all merits. Therefore, Ratnakara, the Bodhisattva should first purify his mind if he is to establish a pure land. The Buddha-land will be pure as the Bodhisattva’s mind is pure.4

The Bodhisattva, once embracing a straightforward mind, deep mind, and bodhi-citta, pursues the course of attaining Buddhahood and liberating sentient beings, while adorning the Buddha-land. The attaining of Buddhahood, liberating sentient beings, and adorning the Buddha-land are actually the same, and the perfection of any one means the perfection of the three. This practice of self-benefit and altruism of the Bodhisattva is actually the process of mind purification. The Bodhisattva endowed with a purified mind endeavors to transform the world and to construct a pure land. The transformation of the world means to guide and help sentient beings to purify their minds. The living being whose mind is thus purified under the guidance of the Bodhisattva will be born into the pure land thus 4

“ӵࢂǴᝊᑈǼ(1)๦ᙓᒿ‫ޔځ‬ЈǴ߾ૈวՉǹ(2) ᒿ‫ځ‬วՉǴ߾ளుЈǹ(3) ᒿ‫ځ‬ుЈǴ߾ཀፓҷǹ(4) ᒿཀፓҷǴ߾ӵᇥՉǹ(5) ᒿӵᇥՉǴ߾ૈ଑ӛǹ (6) ᒿ‫ځ‬଑ӛǴ߾ԖБߡǹ(7) ᒿ‫ځ‬БߡǴ߾ԋ൩౲ғǹ(8) ᒿԋ൩౲ғǴ߾ Օβృǹ(9) ᒿՕβృǴ߾ᇥ‫ݤ‬ృǹ(10) ᒿᇥ‫ݤ‬ృǴ߾ඵችృǹ(11) ᒿඵች ృǴ߾‫ځ‬Јృǹ(12) ᒿ‫ځ‬ЈృǴ߾΋ϪфቺృǶࢂࡺᝊᑈǼऩ๦ᙓటளృβ Ǵ྽ృ‫ځ‬Јǹᒿ‫ځ‬ЈృǴ߾ՕβృǶ” Chinese Buddhist Canon, 14:538. A similar version is also found in the Tibetan translation of Vikalakirti Sutra: “Thus, noble son, just as is the bodhisattva’s production of the spirit of enlightenment, so is his positive thought. And just as is his positive thought, so is his virtuous application. His virtuous application is tantamount to his high resolve, his high resolve is tantamount to his determination, his determination is tantamount to his practice, his practice is tantamount to his total dedication, his total. Dedication is tantamount to his liberative technique, his liberative technique is tantamount to his development of living beings, and his development of living beings is tantamount to the purity of his buddha-field. The purity of his buddha-field reflects the purity of living beings; the purity of the living beings reflects the purity of his gnosis; the purity of his gnosis reflects the purity of his doctrine; the purity of his doctrine reflects the purity of his transcendental practice; and the purity of his transcendental practice reflects the purity of his own mind.” http://www2.fodian.net/World/0475_01.html (accessed 3 October 2013).

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constructed by the Bodhisattva. The doctrine of “pure mind and pure land” is the ideological source for the Buddhist practice of mind-oriented or spiritual environmentalism (Ј ᡫᕉߥ). This doctrine has prevailed in Chinese Buddhism, especially in the development of Zen Buddhism, for the past millennium; in the end, all Buddhist practices mean the cultivation of the mind, and the attainment of Buddhahood or adornment of Buddha-land are non-different from the awakening or purification of the mind. One’s mind plays a vital role in attaining Buddhahood and purifying the Buddha-land. Accordingly, an effort to protect nature and to recover the ecological system must start from the purification of the mind of individuals. To purify one’s mind means to eradicate one’s ignorance and craving; to establish an awareness of the interdependence between humans and nature; and to love all sentient beings with compassion. Among contemporary Taiwanese Buddhist communities there has recently been an increasing interest in environmentalist campaigns based on the idea of purity of the mind, such as “Expecting a Pure Land in the Human World” (ႣऊΓ໔ృβ) carried out by Tzu Chi, and the “Spiritual Environmentalism” (Јᡫᕉߥ) program pioneered by Dharma Drum Mountain. Both of these Buddhist organizations put emphasis on purity of the mind. Although Master Hsing-Yun advocates the idea of “protection of the mind and the protection of nature” (Јߥᆶᕉߥ), which demands the engagement of both one’s mind and actions, the Fo Guang Shan still prioritizes the purification or protection of one’s mind. Hence, on the theoretical side, Buddhist communities in Taiwan have inherited the tradition of Chinese Buddhism in reaffirming the doctrine of “pure mind and pure land” and the critical need for changing one’s mind as regards the transformation of the natural environment. On the practical side, this reaffirmation has led to the launch of a series of environmentalist campaigns such as reforestation, recycling, conditional release of creatures, encouraging cremation, promoting the use of recyclable papers, using solar power, adopting a lifestyle of simplicity, etc. Buddhist communities in Taiwan in general have carried out environmental campaigns by complementing both the spiritual and ecological aspects. Nevertheless, most of them continue to follow the tradition that emphasizes the concept of “pure mind and pure land.” The premises for environmental protection and the purification of the world become the purification of the mind; that to protect the earth one must first purify one’s mind, and “to change the climate one must first change the

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mind.”5 What it means to change one’s mind is to change the mind of desire and greed that exploits nature, and to reestablish a consciousness of interdependence between humanity and nature. The Venerable Cheng Yen once said: The sickness of the mind ushers the sickness of the Earth, it is possible for the mind of man to be purified. If we can purify the mind then we can protect the Earth. Buddha once said: “everything comes from the mind.” If we want to protect the Earth the foremost thing to do is to purify our mind. Humans have the five defects of desire, aversion, ignorance, arrogance and indecisiveness … If we can cure these five defects then everyone will be healthy. Every family will be happy. The society will be harmonious. Everyone will cherish good fortune, and eventually decrease the exploitation of the resources of the Earth … .6

According to the Ven. Cheng Yen, there is a pure land inside every human being, and it is only because of defects, such as desire, aversion and ignorance, that one’s mind is polluted and leads to natural and man-made disasters in the world. The world is the externalization of the mind, and a reflection of the inner activity of the mind. The purification of the mind may rediscover one’s own pure land within the inner self, and a pure mind will generate a pure world. “Waste can become renewable gold, and we can transform our waste land into a pure land; this pure land must be generated from the mind; a pure mind can lead to a pure land. If our mind is pure and we are willing to cherish good fortune, then waste lands will naturally become purified.”7 The key to smoothing away natural disasters, to protect nature, and to sustain ecological balance is to transform the mind and only then will humans change their behavior towards the natural world. As early as the 1980s the Ven. Sheng-yen of Dharma Drum Mountain promoted a Buddhist campaign of spiritual environmentalism in response to calls from Taiwanese society for improving the environment and protecting nature and its resources. The focus of spiritual environmentalism is the 5

ញ᛾ᝄ Cheng Yen, ᆶӦౚӅғ৲Ǻ100 ঁੵெӦౚ‫ࡘޑ‬ԵᆶՉ୏ Yu Diqiu Gong Shengxi: Yibai ge Tengxi Diqiu de Sikao yu Xingdong [Coexist with Earth: 100 thoughts and actions caring for the Earth] (Taipei: Commonwealth Publishing Group, 2006), 285. 6 The Tzu-Chi Almanac (1966–1992), 520–21. 7 ញ᛾ᝄ Cheng Yen, ᆶӦౚӅғ৲Ǻ100 ঁੵெӦౚ‫ࡘޑ‬ԵᆶՉ୏ Yu Diqiu Gong Shengxi: Yibai ge Tengxi Diqiu de Sikao yu Xingdong [Coexist With Earth: 100 thoughts and actions caring for the Earth] (Taipei: Commonwealth Publishing Group, 2006), 162.

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transformation of the mind. According to the Ven. Sheng-yen, “to save the world one must start by saving the people’s minds, if their minds cannot be purified it would be very difficult to purify society … only by doing so would the actualization of a Pure land occur in this world, not just hollow ideals.”8 Based on the concept of “pure mind and pure land” of the Vimalakirti Sutra, and the concepts of mind-only from the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Ven. Sheng-yen’s advocates also contribute natural disasters to the polluted mind, as he said: “Environmentalism should start from two aspects, one is to protect the physical world, and another is to purify the mind. The former is a temporary solution [for the environmental problem], the latter is the permanent solution to the root of the problem.”9 It is worth noting that both the temporary and permanent solutions are important, yet only the permanent one can fundamentally solve the problems from the very root. Therefore the Dharma Drum Mountain emphasizes the priority and criticalness of spiritual environmentalism. The spiritual environmentalism of Tzu Chi and the Dharma Drum Mountain has gained a wide response and positive reception from the public, yet it also has received various criticisms. Yang Huinan summed up the environmentalist activities of the Taiwanese Buddhist communities in three main characteristics: (1) Buddhist environmentalism lacks doctrinal and theoretical support; (2) most of the environmentalist activities, such as recycling and animal protections, stayed at the superficial level, they were not able to establish a direct and comprehensive environmentalist mindset from the very core; (3) most of the Buddhist communities only focus on spiritual environmentalism while the external world is often neglected.10 At the same time Yang argued that, in terms of quantity, the environmentalist campaign of the Taiwanese Buddhist communities was only limited to a few environmentalist aspects, while the core issue had not been addressed. “In terms of the construction of an environmentalist mindset, both [Tzu Chi and DDM] have a tendency to focus on the [inner] mind while neglecting the [external] world; that means both are inclined to eradicate the “waste of the mind” (defilements such as desire, aversion and 8

ញဃᝄ Sheng-yen, Јᡫᕉߥ Xinling Huanbao [Environmental protection of the mind] (Taipei: Cheng Chung Book Co. Ltd., 1994), 213. 9 Ibid., 9. 10 Yang Huinan ླྀඁࠄ, ྽жѠ᡼Օ௲ᕉߥ౛‫ࡘ࣪ޑۺ‬ǺаႣऊΓ໔ృβ‫ک‬Ј ᡫᕉߥࣁ‫“ ٯ‬Dangdai Taiwan Fojiao Huanbao Linian de Xingsi: Yi Yueyue Renjian Jingtu he Xinling Huanbao wei li” [Reflection on contemporary Buddhist environmentalism ideals in Taiwan: Using expecting pure land in the human world and spiritual environmentalism as examples], Contemporary Monthly 104 (1994), 45.

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ignorance) while the solutions to the “real waste” of the external world (such as the various kind of pollutions in the air, land and sea) are being ignored.”11 Thus, no matter whether it is the “Expecting a pure land in the human world” of Tzu Chi or the Spiritual Environmentalism of DDM, both have their own biases and limitations, and their endeavors do not contribute much to the current ecology. Yang believes that the reason for their failure is their misunderstanding of the concept of “a pure mind leading to a pure land”; a misconception that the eradication of the defilements from the mind will lead to a purification of external pollutions. If we say that spiritual environmentalism focuses on the purification of the mind while ecological environmentalism focuses on the purification of the world, then what is the relationship between the purification of the mind and that of the world? Which is more important? Buddhist leaders inherited the doctrine of “pure mind and pure land” from traditional Buddhism and extended it towards the issue of environmentalism: is there any problem in this re-appropriation? Yang’s criticism of this kind of interpretation and practice in Buddhist communities in Taiwan is based on his own understanding of the concept of “pure mind and pure land.” According to him, the traditional interpretation only reflects a single aspect of its meanings and exaggerates the importance of the purification of the mind while overlooking the importance and effect of actions, therefore hindering the development of the environmentalist activism of the contemporary Buddhist communities. Traditional interpretation of the concept, as adopted by Buddhist leaders, may give rise to an illusion such that Buddhists cannot recognize the essential need for participating in environmentalist activities. Instead, it would lead to the creation of a passive attitude towards environmentalism while doing nothing to improve the environment. In his criticism, Yang puts forward a theory that equally emphasizes both one’s mind and actions. He argues that the passage of “pure mind leads to pure land” in the Vimalakirti Sutra is not a simple “conditional sentence” but a “bi-conditional sentence.” This means the following: “[If and only if] the mind is pure, then the world is pure. That means that the two matters of pure mind and pure land are actually a

11 Yang Huinan, வნှಥ‫ډ‬ЈှಥࡌҥЈნѳ฻‫ޑ‬Օ௲ғᄊᏢ “Cong Jing Jietuo dao Xin Jietuo Jianli Xinjing Pingdeng de Fojiao Shengtaixue” [Establishing mind-context equal Buddhist ecology from contextual liberation to mind liberation], in Օ ௲ ᆶ ‫ ཮ ޗ‬ᜢ ᚶ Ꮲ ೌ ࣴ ૸ ཮ ፕ Ў ໣ Fojiao yu Shehuiguanhuai Xueshu Yantaohui Lunwenji [Proceedings of the Symposium on Buddhism and Social Care] (Chinese Buddhist Literary Foundation, 1999), 195.

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single matter of totality.”12 A pure mind leads to a pure land, and similarly a pure land would lead to a pure mind too; the two are mutually dependent and mutually cause and effect. Yang borrows the concept of the Bodhisattva’s adornment of Buddha-land and maturing beings (ᝄβዕғ) from the Mahayana Buddhist canons to demonstrate that a purification of Buddha-land is an obligatory condition to attain Buddhahood. Therefore, the purification of the mind and the purification of the land in essence are reciprocal, both of them should be of equal concern, and hence it is equally important for man to purify both. Yang creatively reinterpreted the Buddhist doctrines and promoted the importance of the purification of the land or the physical world itself. He also criticized the Buddhist practice that neglects justice, and accused such a practice as an excuse for tolerating political corruption and environmental destruction. Yang’s criticisms have spawned heated discussions among scholars and the Buddhist community. Lu Yang provides a counterargument that Yang’s reinterpretation of Buddhist canons, especially his re-appropriation of the concept of “pure mind and pure land” as a bi-conditional sentence, lacks doctrinal basis. Lu insists on the traditional interpretation and argues that the passage from the Vimalakirti Sutra should remain understood as a conditional sentence: if the purification of a Buddha-land is totally dependent on the purification of the mind, the purity of the material world have no relevance here whatsoever. In response to Yang’s comments on the Ven. Cheng Yen and the Ven. Sheng-yen, Lu has instead argued that their understanding towards the Buddhist doctrines was correct and praiseworthy. Their promotion of spiritual environmentalism cannot be seen as a misunderstanding of the Buddhist philosophies but, on the contrary, was an expression of the spirit of Mahayana Buddhism. Lu said: Yang sees the purification of the mind as if one “hides” within the temple or at home to cultivate the mind. He considers Buddhist practice only in terms of philosophical understanding, and overlooks the point that the true purification of the mind must be actualized on a practical level of “enlightenment.” What the Ven. Cheng Yen and the Ven. Sheng-yen are actually suggesting is that a person with a true pure mind would naturally commence with acts of well being, or else it is only hypocritical.13 12

Yang Huinan, “Reflection on Contemporary Buddhist Environmentalism Ideals in Taiwan: Using Expecting Pure Land in the Human World and Spiritual Environmentalism as Examples,” Contemporary Monthly 104 (1994), 44. 13 ഌ໚ Lu Yang, ε४Օ౛ǵᕉნߥៈᆶ‫ׯ཮ޗ‬೷ᜢᖄ‫܄‬ϐӆࡘԵ “Dacheng Foli, Huanjing Baohu yu Shehui Gaizao Guanglianxing zhi Zai Sikao” [Rethinking

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A person with a purified mind will certainly put such a mind into practice to adorn the Buddha-land. Similarly, a person with a purified mind will truly and readily participate in activism for protecting the environment. In responding to Lu, Yang insists on the dual importance of both the purification of the mind and that of the world in understanding the concept of “pure mind and pure land.” He argues that the passage “the Bodhisattva creates a pure land according to sentient beings” is a core principle of the Bodhisattva way of purifying the Buddha-land in the chapter on Buddha-land in the Vimalakirti Sutra. “The Bodhisattva establishes a Buddha-land while he enlightens living beings.” The Bodhisattva will construct a pure land according to the needs of different sentient beings. Therefore there are two layers of meaning in the “way in purifying the Buddha land,” and that is the liberation of the mind and the liberation of the world. Within it [the process of liberating living beings] the 9th step is “the purification of the Buddha land”; the 12th [actually the 11th] step is the “purification of the mind.” From this sequence the “purification of the Buddha land” can be seen as the “effect” of the “purification of the mind,” as seen in the passage “the purification of the mind would lead to a purification of Buddha land,” and that the purification of Buddha-land can also be the cause of the purification of the mind. That means there is an interdependent relationship between the “purification of the mind” and the “purification of the Buddha land” and that both are mutually cause and effect ... .14

A pure mind leads to a pure land, and a pure land could also lead to a pure mind; they are mutually interdependent and conditional. Meanwhile, Lu sees the meaning of “pure” in the Vimalakirti Sutra as the purification of desires and not the purity of the world in a materialistic sense. Whether the material world is pure or not is only an illusion and conditional (Ԗࣁ‫)ݤ‬. “According to Buddhism, the purification of the Buddha-land is totally dependent on the purity of the mind, and it has no relevance to the purity of any material world; this is because the purity and the context of Mahayana theory, environmental protection and social reform], Contemporary Monthly 107 (1995), 133. 14 Yang Huinan, ؒԖ࿶ᡍ‫ޑ‬Ш໔Ǵবٰຬᡍ‫ޑ‬ნࣚǻ “Meiyou Jingyan de Shijian, nalai Chaoyan de Jingjie?” [How does a transcendent realm come forth without a empirical world?], Contemporary Monthly 108 (1995), 129. Here Yang divides “the purification of Buddha-land leads to the purity of Dharma preaches” into two, thus thirteen items.

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impurity of the material world is only a conditional dharma full of illusion. So we may say that, even if we are placed in a world that is thoroughly ideal in terms of material aspects, as long as there is still desire, aversion and ignorance, there is no difference from hell and we should abandon it. From a more extreme view it is possible to say that a purified material world is an expression of human desire.” 15 Thus, according to Lu, whatever is related to a pure land in the Buddhist canons is only a metaphor applied by the Buddha to attract those with lesser wisdom to affiliate to Buddhism. However, Professor Yang denies this view as if it were “totally without basis.” Borrowing from Nakamura Hajime’s Bukkyogo Daijiten, Yang insists that a pure land should include the purification of the material world. The word “pure land” in Sanskrit consists of the word root suddh-, which comprises both the meaning of a pure mind and the purity of the material world. In the canons of Mahayana Buddhism there are also sayings of “pure Buddha-land” and “sublime pure-land,” as well as descriptions of a material world of the pure land, such as “a land covered with gold” while flowers smell sweet and birds sing (޸३ചᇟ). Yang further argues that the followers of the Pure-land School would certainly be upset by Lu’s denial of the material world of the pure land as they would see the pure land as genuine and real.16 The debate between Yang and Lu prompts us to reread the Buddhist canons and to discover the relationship between Buddhism and environmentalism. We may take the original text from the chapter on Buddha-land in the Vimalakirti Sutra as a bi-conditional sentence, yet the whole text is not a conditional sentence of one subject. The subject from the passage of “in following the direct mind” to the passage of “thus the Buddha land is purified” (ᒿ‫ޔځ‬Ј to ߾Օβృ) is the Bodhisattva; the subject from the passage “the purification of Buddha-land” to that “then all merits are purified” (ᒿՕβృ to ߾΋Ϫфቺృ) is the sentient beings who have thus been liberated by the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva by skilful means undertakes the course of liberating living beings that is the very way to purify the Buddha-land. Once completed, the Buddha-land is created, yet the sentient beings who are born within the Buddha-land may not all be entirely purified. They may need to listen to the Dharma and gain pure wisdom so that they can be thoroughly purified and achieve an ultimate pure land of their own. The question whether the pure land of 15

Lu Yang, “Rethinking the Context of Mahayana Theory, Environmental Protection and Social Reform”, Contemporary Monthly 107 (1995), 131–32. 16 Yang Huinan, “Meiyou Jingyan de Shijian, nalai Chaoyan de Jingjie?” Contemporary Monthly 108 (1995), 129–30.

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the mind is only a metaphor or a real world full of material richness has been a debate among Chinese Buddhists for centuries, yet no definite conclusion has been arrived at. But one thing can be certain: from the Buddhist philosophy of transcendental reality, anything that has a form is an illusion. But from the conventional view of the Pure Land School, the pure land of Amida Buddha is a manifestation of the Rewarded Body (ൔ ‫)ي‬, and those who have a deep and firm faith in him will be born there, as Amida Buddha promised. “As if a man may build up a palace over an empty place as he wishes without any hindrance, it is impossible to build up it in the sky. Similarly, the Bodhisattva, for the sake of fulfilling sentient beings, vows to build up a Buddha-land, and this Buddha-land is not constructed in the sky.” A truthful and direct mind enables the Bodhisattva to complete the pure land or Buddha-land. When the Bodhisattva attains Buddhahood, a pure land is also created and those who have faith in him will be born there, because “the Bodhisattva will never cheat sentient beings to be reborn in his land.”17 A pure land is, then, the actualization of the Bodhisattva’s vow and perfection of the merits accumulated through the course of his seeking enlightenment and liberating sentient beings. It is essentially pure, both physically and spiritually, in contrast to the defiled world where human and other sentient beings are situated.

Pure mind, pure act, and pure land A pure land or Buddha-land (buddha-kúetra) is the place where the enlightened ones teach the Dhamma, like the Western paradise of the Amitabha and the Saha World of Sakyamuni Buddha. The Mahaprajnaparamitasastra writes: “A Buddha land consists of a hundred-billion suns and moons, a hundred-billion Sumerus, and a hundred-billion heavens of four great kings, and this is called the three-thousand great thousand world. This endless and limitless world is a Buddha land.”18 Thus, to the enlightened one, the three thousand great thousand world is a pure land where the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas preach the Dharma. There are impure sentient beings in the Buddha-land; in other words, the unenlightened ones are also a part of this pure land. In his commentaries on the Vimalakirti Sutra, Kuiji (ᑍ୷) demarcated the world into two: 17 18

Chinese Buddhist Canon, 14:538. Chinese Buddhist Canon, 25:708.

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Chapter Five There are twofold profane worlds: 1) sentient beings, and 2) the world which accommodates the sentient beings (the world of the insentient beings). Similarly there are twofold sacred worlds: 1) Bodhisattvas and 2) the land of treasures (ᝊБ). There is no land without living beings, and only if there are living beings does the world come into existence. The world which accommodates sentient beings becomes the land of treasures; once there appears a Bodhisattva who teaches the Dharma to other living beings with skillfulness and transforms the profane world into the world of treasures, so that sentient beings may be liberated. Transforming the profane world into a pure land is not fundamental as the world itself is the least concerned. The land of sentient beings is specified simply because the Bodhisattva’s practice is to adorn the Buddha land.19

The Bodhisattva created a Buddha-land for the liberation of the sentient beings. The liberation of the sentient beings is the objective while the creation of the Buddha-land is the method that could ultimately achieve such an objective. Therefore, “The Bodhisattva adorns the Buddha land for the sake of sentient beings … . To adorn the land where one is to attain Buddhahood is called the purification of Buddha land. It is not yet called the Buddha-land while one is still a Bodhisattva.” 20 The Bodhisattva adorns a pure land during the course of seeking enlightenment, and when his merits are accomplished the Bodhisattva gains enlightenment while a pure land is established too. The sentient beings the Bodhisattva has thus liberated will be born in this land. To a large extent the sentient beings born into the pure land are not totally pure, but once in the pure land they are greatly influenced by the ideal surroundings which gradually purify their minds. The Vimalakirti Sutra explains the causal relationship between the Bodhisattva’s practice of liberating sentient beings and the creation of a Buddha-land. It states: “Ratnakara, the Bodhisattva’s Buddha land is for living beings. Why? The Bodhisattva creates the Buddha land throughout the course of liberating sentient beings. While liberating living beings, the Bodhisattva constructs the Buddha land for the sake of living beings of different sentiments. Why? The Bodhisattva creates a pure land entirely for the benefit of all living beings.” How does the Bodhisattva accomplish the Buddha-land? The Vimalakirti Sutra identifies seventeen acts of purification: deep mind, Bodhi-citta, almsgiving, observing the precepts, endurance, diligence, meditation, wisdom, four Brahman vihara (loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity ཁൿ഻௭), 19 20

Chinese Buddhist Canon, 38:1023. Ibid.

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the four methods of all-embracing, (almsgiving, lovely speeches, beneficial acts, cooperation), the thirty-seven ways to enlightenment, mind in merit-transferring, preaching the way to release eight difficulties, self-discipline, no mocking of other’s fault, and the ten virtues. Traditional Buddhism sees these seventeen acts as the causes leading towards the creation of a pure land, and at the same time considers the creation of a pure land as a natural result of the Bodhisattva’s practice of liberating sentient beings. Ven. Jizang suggested that there are two main themes in the chapter on the Buddha-Land of Vimalakirti Sutra: “1) the Bodhisattva creates a pure land according to the needs of different sentient beings; and 2) the pure land is the accomplishment of Bodhisattva’s straight mind. The Bodhisattva creates a pure land for the liberation of the sentient beings and allows them to be born within. This cannot be false, but is the true fulfillment of the Bodhisattva’s vow. The pure land starts from the straight mind of the Bodhisattva and ends with the purification of the mind that covers all practices of benefitting others and self-benefiting.” Thus the straight mind and pure mind are all causes of a pure land. When the Bodhisattva is undertaking the course of creating the pure land, he first purifies his own mind while also making the minds of other living beings purified. In other words, the Bodhisattva carries out these beneficial activities during the time of constructing the pure land. He attains Buddhahood after the completion of self-benefit and the benefiting of others, and the pure land appears. The sentient beings who he has taught will be born in the pure land and continue to receive his teaching.21

The sentient beings who are born into the pure land of the Bodhisattva (who has then already attained enlightenment) may not be pure entirely, so they must continue to listen to the teaching of the Buddha and purify their minds. The Bodhisattva, endowed with the straight mind, deep mind, and Bodhi-mind, purifies his own mind while endeavoring to liberate all living beings. Once the merit of liberating sentient beings is accomplished, the pure land is created simultaneously so that the liberated sentient beings can be reborn there. In this way, the bodhisattva must not only purify his own mind but also purifies others; not only benefits himself but also benefits others through altruism. When self-benefit and altruism are perfected the Buddha-land is created. Thus, liberating sentient beings, seeking for Buddhahood and construction of the Buddha-land are actually 21 Jizang, “Treatise on the Profundity of the Vimalakirti,” in Chinese Buddhist Canon, 8:904.

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the same; to bring benefit to the sentient beings is in fact to achieve the Buddhahood and to establish the pure land. The Ven. Sengzhao (Ⴖᆬ) once said: “Once the Bodhisattva’s mind is straightforward, benefiting others is the same as benefitting oneself, and the pure land will appear naturally so that all his accomplices will be gathered there.”22 The minds of different sentient beings vary so that they may attain various degrees of purification in the same pure land. The Saha world where humans are situated is the pure land of Sakyamuni Buddha, but most humans are not aware of this and think that the world is impure. The purity of the world depends on the purity of the mind of sentient beings; the difference in the purity of the mind of the sentient beings will be reflected in the purity of their world. In the Vimalakirti Sutra, Sariputra was confused after hearing of the concept of “pure mind and pure land” from the Buddha. He was wondering why the land of the Sakyamuni Buddha is in this Saha world but not in the pure land, as he saw the world full of pits and rubbish, dirty, foul and evil. When the Buddha knew his thought he pressed his feet against the ground: “Sudden, countless and limitless treasures appeared in the three-thousand great thousand worlds, which are as magnificent, as any other of the Buddhas’ lands.” Later the Buddha said to Sariputra: “My Buddha-land is always as pure as this. Yet, for the sake of enlightening the living beings of low quality, the dirty and evil instead of pure land is manifested. As if living beings in heaven may take food from the same treasure vessels, yet the color of the food may look different due to the virtue and quality of the individuals. Therefore, Sariputra, those whose mind is pure see this world pure and beautiful.”23 Man with a pure mind and man with an impure mind, both can be found in the Buddha-land, but what they perceive is respectively different, pure and impure. The concept of “pure mind and pure land” is one of the Buddhist philosophies that emphasize the incredible capacity of the mind. But this does not nullify the influence of the material world on the mental world of individuals. The purity of the material world also exerts influence on the purity of the mind and the bodies of persons. According to the doctrine of dependent origination, all existences are formed and interrelated according to the law of causality. On the one hand, the presence of a person, including the environment one lives in, is determined by his past karma, and one is possessed with the ability of changing one’s karma as well as the environment. On the other hand, the environment can also create conditions that may influence a person’s mind, which in return plays an 22 23

Chinese Buddhist Canon, 38:335. Chinese Buddhist Canon, 14:538.

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active role in determining one’s current mind and actions. A pure mind leads to pure acts and pure acts create a pure environment or a pure world; and a pure world contributes to the purity of one’s mind and actions. As the degree of the purity of the mind varies, so will the level of the purity of the world differ. In this way, the purity of living beings who are born into the pure land of the Buddha also contributes to the purity of the Buddha-land.24 The Mahaprajnaparamitasastra writes: The Bodhisattva first purifies his body, speech, and mind, and then purifies the Buddha land. He purifies other living beings once he is purified. Why? It is not one but all who are born there [the pure land] together who contribute to the purity of the Buddha land. Both transcendental Dharma and worldly dharma, good and not good, can all be causes and conditions. The land would grow thorns if more living beings spoke bad words; the land would be rough if the mind of living beings were full of flattery and was tyrannical; the world would grow pebbles and be full of floods and droughts if living beings were stingy and craving. However, the land could be flat and grow treasures if the above evil minds were absent. When the Maitreya Buddha appears in the human world all people practice ten virtues and the land is full of treasures.25

When the time comes for the Maitreya Bodhisattva to become the Buddha, the human world would become a pure land. The pure land of the human world is therefore the collective creation of Maitreya Bodhisattva and all the sentient beings in this world. The pure mind and acts of the Bodhisattva and of sentient beings collectively create the pure land of the Buddha. Although the mind of the sentient beings cannot be as pure as that of the Bodhisattva they cannot lack virtues and merit if they are born in the pure land. Virtues and merit can only be produced through a pure mind, and the pure mind, even for a moment, can lead living beings to be born in the pure land. In explaining the Vimalakirti Sutra Sengzhao (Ⴖᆬ) said, “The purification of the land must be done by the sentient beings. The purification of the sentient beings 24

Chinese Buddhist Canon, 2:69 b. “Bodhisattva, who can purify Buddha-land and benefit living beings, lives in accordance with the emptiness without obstacle, instructing living beings to perform Ten Wholesome Actions and other Dharmas. The Buddha-land is purified once the living beings perform the wholesome Dharma, they live longer life due to non-killing; the Buddha-land is prosperous and happy because of non-stealing. These living beings will then be born there within a thought moment. Thus, living beings perform wholesome Dharma to adorn the Buddha-land.” 25 Chinese Buddhist Canon, 25:708.

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must be due to their various acts. Therefore, it is appropriate to speak of living beings when explaining the pure land. Only when the acts of living beings are fully explained will one understand the purity of the land. When the acts are pure, the living beings who have performed such acts will be pure too; and when sentient beings are pure then the Buddha land is adorned. All these are inevitably bound together and consequential.”26 A pure mind is the utmost cause for the purification of the sentient beings, pure acts and the attainment of a pure land. The seventeen purification acts as listed above are a summary of the acts of purity. What, then, does a pure mind mean? Generally there are two layers of meaning: ethics and reasons. Having a pure mind means to have wisdom and compassion. The combination of wisdom and compassion is the same as the unity of right understanding of truth and proper acts. Compassion without wisdom is false compassion and wisdom without compassion is not true wisdom. A mind full of wisdom and compassion is the mind of purity. The ignorance and evil of humans caused the world to be impure, while wisdom and compassion may purify one’s mind, which in turn leads to the purification of the sentient beings and ultimately the purification of the world. In the following, we will analyze some passages from the Agganna Sutta and Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta of the Dirgha Agama to highlight the relatedness of the human mind and the world they live in. The Agganna Sutta describes the origin and the evolutionary process of mankind. During this process man has always been exploiting the Earth. Following the downfall of human morality and wisdom, the Earth’s environment deteriorated. At a certain time, the ancestors of the human race, who are mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous, moving through air, and glorious, descended from the Abhassara Brahman World to this primitive earth, which is still in chaos. A watery substance poured out [from the Earth] like a spring which tasted like wild honey. They tasted this watery substance and found out its delicious taste. Greed immediately seeped into their mind. They ate the substance voraciously and felt so good that they could not stop. As they continued to consume the substance of the earth their heavenly bodies began to lose their luminous glow and they lost their supernatural power of flying in the air and had to walk on the ground. Suddenly there was complete darkness covering the world and after it the sun and moon appeared from the void, and from that moment on nights and days appeared, as well as the seasons and the years.

26

Chinese Buddhist Canon, 38:335.

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The greed of the human mind led to the continuous exploitation of the Earth’s natural resources and caused the changes in the natural world. During this period various evils such as robbery, deception, lust, arrogance, envy, and the four afflictions of birth, age, sickness and death appeared. After humans consumed all of the watery spring, wild mushroom and grains of low quality cropped up but they were soon all consumed one by one by the humans. Eventually humans had to grow their own food and demarcate the land. From then, private possessions appeared which led to conflicts and disputes. After collective discussion among the people, a king was elected to protect the people’s private possessions and this is when the form of the state appeared. 27 The Agganna Sutta vividly portrays the intricate relationship between the degeneration of human morality and wisdom, and the deterioration of their natural world. The ignorance and greed of humans were two major reasons that contributed to the deterioration of the material world. The creation of the state was meant to restrain humans’ evil but it may not be able to alter their sinister minds at the very root. Thus, we may say that since the very beginning of the human race, and up to this very day, humans have been exploiting and damaging the natural world. The Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta depicts the story of the reign of the Universal Monarch (ᙯ፺ဃЦ). When the reign of the previous Monarch ends the sacred wheel that represents royal authority would vanish in the air, and a new king must follow the true Dharma for this sacred wheel to reappear and establish a new authority. How to follow the true Dharma? The text goes like this: “One must follow the Dharma, to lay down the law and uphold it according to the Dharma, to be respectful and observe the Dharma, to put the Dharma above all matters, and to protect the Dharma; to teach the Dharma to all ladies in the court, and to educate and discipline the princes, ministers, officials, the people, shamans, Brahmans and all creatures according to the Dharma.”28 However, the seventh king failed to rule according to the Dharma, and that is why poverty, robbery, killing, lust, deception, greed, and all kinds of false acts appeared one after another. The human life span also decreased from 48,000 years of age to just ten years. At this moment humans forgot about the ten virtues and performed the ten vices. They were unfilial to their parents, disrespectful to their teachers, disloyal and unrighteous. “At this time the oil and honey were not delicious anymore. Grains turned out to be grass; silk, cotton and all kinds of delicate fabrics vanished and people had to cover their bodies 27 28

Chinese Buddhist Canon, 1:36. Chinese Buddhist Canon, 1:39.

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with animal skins. Thistles, mosquitoes, louses, snakes, and all kinds of poisonous creatures were rampant. Gold, silver, amber and various kinds of precious stones were nowhere to be found; all that was left were rocks and debris.”29 In this period the sentient beings in this world lacked virtues and righteousness and were full of desires and hatred. The land was barren, deserted and difficult to cross. At the last, warfare broke out and people killed each other randomly. People of wisdom escaped into the forest. Frightened and terrified, they said to each other, “If you do not harm me, I will not harm you.” They could only survive by relying on the seeds and the bark of the trees, but they were happy and it occurred to all of them that they should together practice what is good. Consequently they promised not to kill and harm each other, and accordingly their lifespan increased to twenty years; later, the ten virtues, such as refraining from stealing, chastity and not lying were practiced. They showed filial piety to their parents and respect to their teachers, and their lifespan eventually increased to 80,000 years of age. Meanwhile nature also started to recover. “At this time, the land became flat and calm; there were no abysses, thistles, mosquitoes, snakes and poisonous creatures. Rocks and debris turned to azurite. People began to prosper and grains were plentiful at harvest. At this period cities were flourishing and in great prosperity.”30 At this moment the Maitreya Bodhisattva would appear in the world and attain Buddhahood, liberating sentient beings. Meanwhile, the Universal Monarch would also emerge to rule over the world. This is the pure land and an ideal kingdom for humans. One’s mind and actions mutually interact with each other. The pure mind leads to the purity of land while a sound environment also intensifies the purity of the mind of people. This is the principle of early Buddhist philosophy, and the key for us to understand the concept of “pure mind and pure land.” It may, however, enable us to see into the relationship of humans and nature in the context of contemporary environmentalism. The mind is the pioneer of all actions, and the transformation of the mind would lead to a person’s change in behavior; the changing of behavior towards nature would eventually change the world that we live in. Some scholars have questioned the concept of “pure land and pure mind” and its interpretation in Buddhist tradition. They argue that “pure mind and pure land” should not be simply explained as “if the mind is pure then the land would also be pure.” The Ven. Huiming, having comprehended the Prajna philosophy, emphasizes the sequence of pure mind, pure act and pure land. 29 30

Chinese Buddhist Canon, 1:41. Ibid.

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He says: “The concept that ‘the pure mind leads to the pure land’ cannot be explained as: if the mind is pure then a pure land will ‘itself be created.’ It is rather that the purification of the mind leads to the purification of sentient beings so that pure sentient beings would lead to a pure Buddha land.”31 Scholars seem to see the pure mind as a simple and independent activity of the mental realm, totally isolated from human actions. This kind of understanding may have violated the Buddhist philosophy of dependent origination. The chapter on the Buddha-land in the Vimalakirti Sutra discusses the relationship between pure mind and pure land, and explains that the pure mind is the cause of a pure land. Yet, it also lists the seventeen purification acts as the causes of a pure land. From this inference the purification of the mind and the seventeen purification acts are identical: straight mind and deep mind, Bodhi-citta, almsgiving, observing the precepts, endurance, diligence, meditation, wisdom, the four immeasurable minds, the four methods of all-embracing, skilful means, the thirty-seven ways to enlightenment, mind of merit-transferring, preaching the Dharma to release those in eight difficulties, self-discipline, no mocking of another’s faults, and the ten virtues; all these are the way of purifying one’s mind. A person with a pure mind may not necessarily perform pure acts, yet whatever acts the person with pure mind performs must be the acts of purity. Thoughts are the guidance to actions, and willpower determines the karmic forces. The actions of a man with a pure mind would certainly be pure. The ultimate pursuit for a disciple of Theravada Buddhism is the attainment of arhat, and they meditate on loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. Some of them may not actualize these kinds of meditation in real actions in saving and liberating sentient beings, yet, once they do, their acts would be pure. Mahayana Buddhism highlights the mind and acts of great loving kindness and great compassion. If there is no mind of great compassion there will be no act of great compassion. A Bodhisattva with a great compassionate mind cannot simply extend his kind thought towards sentient beings without carrying out such mind-into-action to liberate them; the actions guided by a great compassionate mind must be acts of purity. Thus a Bodhisattva first purifies his own mind by producing bodhi-citta and puts it into real practical action to purify the sentient beings; if the mind of the Bodhisattva is pure then his act would be pure, and the land built upon by 31

ញඁ௵ Huimin, Јృ߾ՕβృϐԵჸ “‘Xin Jing ze Fotu Jing’ zhi Kaocha” [An investigation on “The Pure Mind Leads to the Pure Buddha-Land”], ύ๮Օ ᏢᏢൔ Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 10 (1997), 25.

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his mind and acts will also be pure. Similarly, under the guidance of the Bodhisattva the sentient beings could also generate a pure bodhi-citta and actualize it in practical actions. Thus, the pure bodhi-citta – pure acts – pure land of the Bodhisattva leads to a pure mind, pure acts and a pure land of sentient beings.

Conclusion The relationship between the pure mind, pure acts, pure beings and the pure land is the theoretical foundation of the spiritual environmentalism in contemporary Buddhism in Taiwan. So far as Buddhist participation in environmentalism is concerned, Buddhist communities in Taiwan clearly are in the leading position among the other Buddhist communities in Greater China, and have thus received great applause for their achievements. However, some scholars seem not to be satisfied with this traditional way of approaching the issue and attempt to search within Buddhism for a better theory and more efficient practice in connection with contemporary ecology. There is no ready-made theory and practice in traditional Buddhism, which is 2,500 years old, that would fit into the issue of contemporary environmental ethics; only by reinterpreting Buddhist philosophy and practice according to the needs of the relevant era can Buddhism serve contemporary society. An important thing we should bear in mind is that the ecological problem is not the only problem that Buddhism is addressing now; it is only one of many that concern Buddhism. The spiritual environmentalism of Buddhism is not aimed at contemporary ecology, but is a way to fundamentally resolve the contradiction and conflict between human and nature and the ecological problems humans are currently facing. Therefore, it is not a must for Buddhists to address any existing ecological theories by reinterpreting Buddhism, but rather to enrich and perfect their ethics and serve the survival and better living of humankind directly. Buddhism cannot surpass its own doctrine, and it may not be the solution for all ecological or environmental problems; yet any attempt that sees Buddhism as a footnote to contemporary ecology is also unnecessary. Therefore, spiritual environmentalism may not necessarily follow the approach and demands of existing ecology, but could make use of Buddhist doctrine and practice to discover the cause for the current ecological crisis, and suggest Buddhist solutions for the crisis by transforming the minds of the people. By doing so, we may see into the interdependence of humans and nature so as to actualize a harmonious relationship between the two. The purification of the mind is the premise

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in purifying one’s actions, the purification of the land, and the purification of all sentient beings. Thus, Buddhism does not need to comply with contemporary ecology that focuses on activism; Buddhists may consistently highlight the conception of “pure mind and pure land” to assist humankind to rediscover their inner selves and abandon their ecological chauvinism that accords man superiority over nature; and truly recognize the interdependence of humans and nature and the idea of mutual independence of all that inhabits the earth. The ecological restoration and the actualization of a pure land is not a sudden event, but a slow process of perfecting the purity of people’s minds and the purity of their acts. It may take time for the pure land to appear in this world, yet it will certainly come if everyone starts to purify his or her mind here and now. Viewed from the Buddhist concept of dependent origination and law of causality, we may realize that the current ecological crisis, to a very large extent, is due to the wrongdoings of human beings, or as the result of humans’ reckless exploitation and destruction of the natural environment. Humans are endowed with the capacity of changing the world, for better or for worse. We also have the wisdom and ability to improve the environment. The ecological problem is in fact a human problem, caused by humans, and in return affects humans. The ecological crises generated by humans are becoming a threat to the very existence and survival of humankind; humans are suffering from the effects of their own wrongdoings. We may not be able to alter what already has been done in the past, but we can start by correcting our mindset and changing our present actions and try our very best to alleviate the effects that could be harmful to the environment. By so doing, we may see the true position of humans in this world and reestablish the interdependent relationship between human and nature. Master Hsing-Yun once said: “Every problem in the world is ‘human-related,’ humans are the creators of problems. Only when all people have awakened themselves will ecological crises be dealt with effectively.” 32 Self-awakening means the creation of the right understanding to see into the interdependence of humans and nature. “Right understanding is similar to the taking of a photo; if the aperture is not properly used or focus is not properly adjusted then the captured photo will not be clear. Therefore, right understanding is spiritual environmentalism.”33 32

ࢃ໦εৣ Hsing-yun, Γ໔Օ௲྽жୢᚒ০ፋ཮ Renjian Fojiao Dangdai Wenti Zuotanhui [Humanistic Buddhist seminars on contemporary problems] (Taipei: Gandha Samudra Culture Company, 2008), 1:14. 33 Ibid., 17.

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The Bodhisattva purifies his own mind while undertaking the course of liberating living beings and wishing to construct a Buddha-land. Fundamentally, to liberate the sentient beings is to purify their minds. Sentient beings with a purified mind would self-consciously engage in various environmental activities, and that may transform the surroundings in which we humans are situated and actualize a pure land in this world.

CHAPTER SIX REFLECTION ON CHINA’S INSTITUTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ADMINISTRATION ZIRAN BAO

The evolution of China’s institution of environmental protection administration The institution of China’s environmental protection administration is characterized by the transformation of environmental protection agencies. Its gradual growth, perfection and consolidation run in tandem with the changes in China’s economic system, the development of environmental protection undertakings and the evolution of the functions of the environmental administration. The transformation of environmental protection agencies has gone through four stages: namely, foundation, stagnation, consolidation and growth.

The stage of foundation After the liberation of China in 1949, in tandem with the recovery of its national economy, serious pollution caused by the “three wastes,” namely, waste water, waste gases and waste residues, became a prominent issue. A leading group was thus set up in 1971 under the State Infrastructure Commission to control environmental pollution. One of the main functions of the leading group was to reduce and prevent industrial pollution by rationally recycling the three industrial wastes. The convening of the United Nation’s Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, in 1972, made China further realize the serious impact of environmental issues on socio-economic development in the world and the gravity of its own environmental problem. The first national

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conference on environmental protection, held in August 1973, issued a document entitled “Some Regulations Concerning the Protection and Improvement of the Environment (for trial implementation),” which formulated the principle of environmental protection, that is, “Governments at all levels shall develop comprehensive environmental protection plans, allocate resources rationally for the purpose of environmental protection, and make comprehensive use of industrial wastes so as to turn the harmful substances into beneficial ones. In addition, governments shall mobilize all the people in their fight against environmental pollution and try their best to bring benefit to the people.” In this manner, China’s environmental protection undertaking took an important step forward. December 1974 saw the creation of the Environment Protection Leading Group of the State Council, whose main functions were to formulate environmental protection principles, policies and regulations; examine and approve the National Environmental Protection Plan; and to organize, coordinate and supervise the environmental protection efforts made by various regions and departments. In 1978, China promulgated a new Constitution, which stipulated that “the state shall shoulder the responsibility for protecting the environment and natural resources, and preventing and controlling pollution and other public hazards.” This was the first time that China had made environmental protection one of the fundamental tasks of the government. The Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (for trial implementation) enacted in 1979 clearly required the creation of environmental protection agencies at various levels of the government and defined their concrete responsibilities. In response to that requirement, a majority of governments at or above the county level established bureaus of environmental protection that are included in the government hierarchy as first-class bureaus. A national administrative system of environmental protection took shape as a result.

The stage of stagnation The Environmental Protection Leading Group of the State Council was abolished during the institutional reform in 1982. Its office was merged into the urban and rural construction department and became the Bureau of Environmental Protection under the newly formed Ministry of Urban and Rural Construction and Environmental Protection. The year 1984 witnessed the birth of the Environmental Protection Commission under the State Council, headed by Li Peng, then vice-premier, with the leaders of twenty-four ministries, commissions and bureaus under the State Council as members. The Commission was mainly responsible for studying and

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reviewing the principles and policies of environmental protection, initiating requirements for action plans, and organizing and supervising environmental protection work throughout the country. Affected by the institutional adjustment at the central level, many local governments merged the original primary environmental protection bureaus into the construction authorities, downgrading their status to secondary bureaus. The administration of environmental protection at the local level was thus weakened.

The stage of consolidation Following the 1998 institutional reform, the State Council made the State Environmental Protection Bureau an independent agency under its direct control. Its function is to provide centralized supervision over, and management of, environmental protection work nationwide. The State Council ruled that the Bureau is a functional administrative department under the State Council in charge of comprehensive environmental protection work and, at the same time, an administrative agency of the Environmental Protection Commission under the State Council. The institutional reform in 1994 upgraded the functions of macro adjustment and control, law enforcement and supervision of the State Environmental Protection Bureau in environmental protection. The “Decision on Several Issues Concerning Environmental Protection,” published in 1996 by the State Council, clearly defined the responsibilities of administrators in carrying out environmental quality surveys. It also stipulated that the people’s governments at or above the county level shall set up supervisory administrations for environmental protection, which shall independently exercise their power of centralized supervision over and administration of environmental protection work. Relative departments in the people’s governments at or above the county level shall, in accordance with the related laws and regulations, exercise supervision over and administration of the prevention of environmental pollution and conservation of natural resources. Under the leadership of the government, the administrative system for environmental protection, which features centralized supervision and divided obligations, was once more affirmed. As a result, the environmental protection authorities in various regions were also expanded and reinforced.

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The stage of growth During the institutional reform in 1998, the six ministries for electric power, coal, machinery, electronics, metallurgy and chemical engineering were abolished, whereas the State Environmental Protection Bureau was elevated to full ministerial level and renamed the State Environmental Protection Administration, and continued under the direct jurisdiction of the State Council. The functions of industrial guidance from the six abolished industrial ministries were shifted to the then State Economic and Trade Commission, whereas their functions relating to environmental protection went to the State Environmental Protection Administration. The function of industrial pollution prevention and control of the environmental protection agencies was strengthened as a consequence. At the same time, the function of ecological conservation in the Ministry of Agriculture was also transferred to the State Environmental Protection Administration, strengthening its function of ecological conservation. As the State Bureau of Nuclear Safety was also merged into the State Environmental Protection Administration, the prevention of industrial pollution, ecological conservation and monitoring of nuclear and environmental radiation became the three main fields of work for the State Environmental Protection Administration. In March 2008, the State Environmental Protection Administration was elevated and renamed the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Since then, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has been on an equal footing with other powerful ministries and commissions at the executive meetings of the State Council. It has also been involved in the important process of national decision-making, and has had its say as an independent party.

Limitation of China’s system of environmental administration After forty years’ evolution, the initial “Leading Group” was gradually transformed into the State Bureau of Environmental Protection, which then became the full-fledged Ministry of Environmental Protection as it is now. Up to now, China has promulgated and implemented as many as nineteen laws on the protection of the environment and natural resources. Although China has made some achievements in environmental protection (for example, its achievement of the binding environmental protection targets during the 11th Five-Year Plan Period), the situation with regard to environmental pollution has not been fundamentally reversed. As major environmental pollution incidents occur frequently, the existing system of

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environmental protection has faced many challenges.

Inadequate authority of environmental protection departments 1. Limited authority of the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Although the Ministry of Environmental Protection was founded in 2008, the scope of its mission has not been changed. The conservation of natural resources is still in the hands of other departments under the State Council and the model of environmental management is still that, “Under the unified leadership of the State Council, the Ministry of Environmental Protection shall carry out the responsibility of centralized supervision, other departments shall share divided obligations, while different levels of local governments shall carry out their due tasks.” Under this system, the environmental protection authorities merely serve as supervisors whereas other departments entrusted with divided obligations are administrators. This model is derived from the Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China that went into effect on December 26, 1989. Article Seven of the law stipulates that: “The competent department of environmental protection administration under the State Council shall conduct unified supervision over and management of the environmental protection work throughout the country. The competent departments of environmental protection administration of the local people’s governments at or above the county level shall conduct unified supervision over, and management of, the environmental protection work within the areas under their jurisdiction. The state administrative departments of marine affairs, harbor superintendence administration, fishery administration and fishing harbor superintendence agencies, environmental protection departments of the armed forces and administrative departments of public security, transportation, railways and civil aviation at various levels shall, in accordance with the provisions of relevant laws, conduct supervision over and management of the prevention and control of environmental pollution. The competent administrative departments of land, minerals, forestry, agriculture and water conservancy of the people’s governments at or above the county level shall, in accordance with the provisions of relevant laws, conduct supervision over and management of the protection of natural resources.” Article 15 states that “The prevention and control of environmental pollution and damage that involve multiple administrative areas shall be conducted by the relevant local people’s governments through negotiation, or by decision of the people’s government at a higher level through mediation.” Article 16 prescribes that “The local people’s governments at various levels shall be responsible for the environmental

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quality of areas under their jurisdiction and take measures to improve the environmental quality.” From the above stipulations it can be seen that the functions related to environmental protection are scattered between more than ten departments in addition to the environmental protection authorities. Take the management of the water environment, for instance. The Ministry of Environmental Protection, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Health, the State Oceanic Administration and various valley authorities share responsibility for water environment protection, resulting in a situation in which “a multitude of dragons are vying with each other to protect the water environment.” Apart from that, the protection of water resources and the water environment is the obligation of two ministries. The Ministry of Water Resources is in charge of the development and exploitation of water resources whereas the Ministry of Environmental Protection takes care of the prevention and treatment of water pollution. Although the development and exploitation of water resources and the prevention and treatment of water pollution are inseparably linked, the existing dual administration will lead, for sure, to a situation in which the protector will not take into account the interests of the exploiter, and vice versa. In addition, since there is no relationship of administrative subordination between the supervisory authorities and administrative departments, their legal status is the same. What is more, since the law does not give environmental protection departments any administrative authority to coordinate the operations of relevant departments, the environmental protection authorities often encounter awkward situations when trying to exercise unified supervisory authority. For instance, the environmental protection department thinks that fish farming in floating cages in the Three Gorges Reservoir will cause water pollution, but the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery Administration believes that fish farming in floating cages is ecological or environment-friendly and should therefore be widely promoted. The awkward result is that fish farmers do not know whose orders they should follow.1

1

Ֆ ઢ He Xiao, ‫ ך‬୯ Н ᕉ ნ ೕ ‫ ่ ޑ ڋ‬ᄬ ፂ ँ ᆶ ‫ ڐ‬ፓ ࣴ ‫“ ز‬Woguo Shuihuanjing Guizhi de Jiegou Chongtu yu Xietiao Yanjiu” [A study on the structural conflict and mediation caused by the water environmental regulations in China], Journal of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, 2009/3.

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2. Limited authority of the local environmental protection administrations. China’s hierarchy of environmental protection administrations is composed of four levels (that is, the central, provincial [including autonomous regions and municipalities under the direct jurisdiction of the central government], municipal and county) of environmental protection administrations. However, the relationship of subordination between the local environmental protection administration and government at the same level is stipulated in the Organic Law of Local People’s Congresses and Local People’s Governments. Article 66 in the law states that The working offices of the people’s governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government shall be under the unified leadership of the respective people’s governments as well as the operational guidance or leadership of the competent departments of the State Council in accordance with the law or provisions of administrative regulations. The working offices of the people’s governments of autonomous prefectures, counties, autonomous counties, cities and municipal districts shall be under the unified leadership of the respective people’s governments as well as the operational guidance or leadership of the competent departments of the people’s governments at higher levels in accordance with the law or provisions of administrative regulations.

As the local environmental protection administrations are subordinated to the local governments, the appointment of local environmental protection administrators, allocation of funds, purchase of equipment, etc. are made by the local governments. As environmental protection administrations are subordinated to the local governments, they have less power and thus carry limited authority. In areas where local protectionism prevails, the environmental protection administrations are helpless when local governments pay no attention to environmental protection in the name of economic development. What is more, although agencies of environmental supervision are functionally environmental law enforcers of the country, most of them do not enjoy the legal right to immediate law enforcement since they are basically government institutions (only part of their personnel are treated as public servants). According to the Administrative License Law, government institutions have to receive an application from a client before they can carry out law enforcement action, or they will be very likely to face resistance or administrative litigation. At the sites of most of the environmental pollution incidents, people from the environmental protection administrations are, as a rule, kept outside the gates of the emergency response headquarters. In some localities,

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environmental protection personnel are not even allowed to visit the scenes of accidents.

The failure of the current performance appraisal practice to stimulate the environmental protection personnel at the local government level During the reform of the Chinese financial system, especially after the implementation of the tax-sharing practice, local governments gained the autonomy that enables them to take the initiative in developing the local economy. As independent regional interest groups, they naturally fix their eyes on economic growth in the regions under their jurisdiction. Since the administrative model in China is centralized, the power of local governments is delegated by the central government, and local administrators are appointed by the government at a higher level. Local governments, on the one hand, serve as administrative agents for the central government; on the other hand, they act in the interests of the local economy. The power of rating and appointing local officials lies in the People’s Congress, the government and the CPC Committee at the level above, and the grounds for promoting an official lies in his or her performance. Employment rates and tax revenues are two of the most important indicators of an official’s performance. Apparently, employment rates and tax revenues can only be enhanced by growth of the economy. Since the situation of economic growth constitutes the most important indicator of performance for a local administrator, the growth rate of GDP is therefore directly linked to the political future of the official. The existing financial system and performance rating practice will, therefore, prompt an administrator to do the following: do his or her utmost in his or her term of office to lower the environmental thresholds and attract investment; always afford lenient treatment to established high-profit, high-tax-contributing, though heavily polluting businesses (resulting in the emergence of a variety of “highly protected companies”); and tolerate and even cover up environmental pollution and damage brought about by enterprises to the local and/or surrounding areas. Over the past few years, environmental pollution incidents caused by enterprises that are under the protection of local governments have taken place frequently. In Huixian County of Gansu Province, the lead poisoning incident in which 368 people were found to have excessive lead in their bloodstream stirred up a nationwide uproar in 2006. This is a representative case. The culprit of the incident, Huixian Non-ferrous Metal Smelt Co., Ltd., was set up in 1996 by Huixian County as a strategic industrial project, which was supposed to

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invigorate industry in the county. From its establishment in 1996 until 2004, despite the fact that the company had discharged an excessive amount of waste, it still found a place on the list of “highly protected enterprises” published in April 2003 by the Huixian County Government. The main reason for its inclusion in the list is that in Huixian County, the profit derived from lead, zinc and their related industries accounts for more than 70% of the local fiscal revenue. In this sense, those enterprises are absolute pillars of the local economy.2

Lack of environmental law enforcement resources China’s environmental administrative law enforcement is accomplished through the coordinated efforts of two departments, namely, the department of environmental monitoring and the department of environmental supervision. The former takes charge of evidence-gathering, whereas the latter is responsible for its execution. In other words, the former provides technical support for the latter. At present, the departments of environmental supervision at the county level are seriously over-staffed. As the government budget only pays the salaries of personnel on the regular payroll, expenses for keeping over-staffed personnel are then squeezed from law enforcement funds (funds for purchasing law enforcement equipment and vehicles), leading to a shortage of law enforcement funds. According to a survey conducted by this author, in 2011, in the environmental law enforcement agencies at the county level, 8.96 people share, on average, one vehicle for law enforcement purposes, that is to say, the per capita ownership of a law enforcement car is only 0.11, which fails to meet the third-class criteria set in the “National Criteria for the Building of Standardized Environmental Supervisory Agencies” (for central and western China). In 2009, 2,158 county-level environmental monitoring stations were set up throughout the country.3 However, as there are altogether 2,858 county level administrative regions in China,4 there are still 700 counties without environmental monitoring 2

ਮ᐀ӹ Chai Xiaoyu, வᔇᑜȨՈႉຬ኱ȩ٣ҹቩຎ‫ך‬୯ᕉნ៾‫ޑࡋڋ‬લѨ Ϸ ࡌ ҥ “Cong Huixian ‘Xue Qian Chaobiao’ Shijian Shenshi Woguo Huanjingquan Zhidu de Queshi ji Jianl”’ [A close look at the lack of environmental rights and its provision from the “excessive lead in blood” case in Huixian County in China], vol. 1, Rule of Law in Environmental Protection and Construction of a Harmonious Society: Proceedings of the 2007 National Symposium (Annual Conference) on Environment and Resources Law, 2007. 3 China Environment Yearbook 2009. 4 Wikipedia, http: // zh.wikipedia.org/zh.

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stations, that is to say, 24.5% of the counties have not yet set up environmental monitoring stations. Since there are numerous small township enterprises that are scattered over a wide area in China, the environmental law enforcement authorities at the township and county levels find themselves overburdened when carrying out supervisory operations. Without assistance from the environmental monitoring stations, the quality and efficiency of supervision over and control of the environmental protection sites are seriously affected. As a result, enterprises may take the risk and discharge their wastes secretly. The devastating 2011 water pollution incident in the Tuhaihe River that affected the neighboring provinces was caused by the secret discharge of waste water from the Yanguang Pengcheng Biological Co., Ltd., a xylitol producer in Nanle County, Henan Province. This explains why most of the major environmental pollution incidents that have taken place in the past few years have been caused by the illegal discharge of pollutants from the township enterprises.

Over-reliance on administrative means in the enforcement of environmental law At present, the means adopted by the environmental authorities to handle environmental issues is mainly administrative, i.e., the means of environmental law enforcement is an administrative penalty. Since the amount of the fine prescribed in the relevant Chinese environmental laws and regulations is too low, the limited deterrence arising from the tickets written by the environmental authorities is far from sufficient to arouse the attention of the law-breaking firms. Without support from all sectors in society, the environmental protection authorities are fighting a losing battle, as their operations need strong backup from the media and social activism. On the other hand, enforcement of the environmental law without supervision can easily lead to unjust enforcement or corruption. Judicial and public supervision (including by NGOs and the media) over polluting businesses and competent environmental administrations is therefore urgently necessary. 1. Media as a driving force for environmental protection. Chinese news media have always been an important driving force in the historical process of environmental protection. Successful cases of media supervision at various levels indicate that, although the problems have existed long before the media coverage, environmental law enforcement agencies often fail to solve them in a timely manner due to a variety of

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reasons. Some of the law-breaking projects and firms are forced to take measures of rectification only when they are placed under the powerful pressure of media exposure. News media’s frequent exposures of local protectionism sound the alarm for the local governments too. However, as the legislation in the realm of journalism is still lagging, there is no definite law to regulate the practices and problems in that field. Since there is no legal foundation for the media to exercise the power of supervision, some journalists have been subject to abuses when trying to cover environmental issues. For that reason, the supervisory authorities are unable to carry out media supervision effectively. 2. Limited role of judicial supervision. Judicial supervision covers the categories of non-litigation supervision and litigation supervision. While the former mainly refers to the court’s review and supervision, upon receiving the application from an administrative organ, of some specific administrative action before its actual execution, the latter refers to the court’s review and judgment, based on the indictment submitted by an administrative counterpart, of the legality of the specific administrative act executed by the administrative organ. Environmental administrative litigation, as a primary form of procuratorial supervision, refers to the litigation process in which any citizen, legal person or other organization is entitled to lodge a complaint to a People’s Court if they believe that the specific administrative action executed by the administrative authorities of environmental protection, or by related departments that exercise the power of environmental protection and/or supervision according to law, or by personnel from the administrative authorities of environmental protection, has, in any way, infringed upon their lawful rights and interests. Up till now, both practices have failed to play their part in the protection of the environment. Non-litigation supervision is not conducive to the timely prevention of illegal act of pollution. In the light of relevant regulations in the Environmental Protection Law and the Law on Administrative Reconsideration,5 if a polluter, upon receiving the notification of administrative 5

Article 40 in the Environmental Protection Law stipulates that “A party refusing to accept the decision on administrative sanction may, within 15 days of receiving the notification on such a decision, apply for reconsideration to the department next higher to the authorities that imposed the sanction; if the party refuses to accept the decision of reconsideration, it may, within 15 days of receiving the! reconsideration decision, bring a suit before a people’s court. A party may also bring a suit directly before a people’s court within 15 days of receiving the notification on the sanction. If, upon the expiration of this period, the party has not

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penalty from the environmental protection authorities, fails to lodge a complaint to the court within 15 days, or fails to apply for reconsideration within 60 days, and still refuses to obey the decision, the administrative authorities of environmental protection that have made the decision regarding the penalty may submit an application to the People’s Court for compulsory enforcement. In other words, the administrative authorities of environmental protection have to wait at least 60 days after it decided to punish the polluter before it can apply to the court for compulsory enforcement. By the time of compulsory enforcement, the law breaker has already gone into hiding, or the pollution has had serious consequences. Chinese laws do not contain any stipulation on the compulsory prevention of illegal environmental polluting acts while the case is under administrative reconsideration or litigation. If the polluter continues to discharge waste illegally while he or she is applying for administrative reconsideration or lodging a lawsuit to the court, the administrative environmental protection authorities are not permitted to take any effective measures to stop the spread of pollution. Neither environmental civil litigation nor environmental administrative litigation can protect public interest in terms of environmental rights. Of the three forms of litigation, namely, civil litigation, administrative litigation and criminal litigation, only criminal litigation requires the presence of prosecutors that represent the state in cases that damage the national or public interest. In civil and administrative lawsuits, however, there is no stipulation on public interest litigation. More often than not, public interest litigations are discouraged. For instance, Article 108 in the Civil Procedure Law stipulates that: “the plaintiff must be a citizen, legal person or any other organization that has a direct interest in the case.”6 “Direct interest” emphasizes that the plaintiff must be a person with substantive rights whose interest is encroached upon and that those rights belong only to the plaintiff.7 But as environmental elements such as clean applied for reconsideration or has neither brought a suit before a people’s court nor complied with the sanction, the authorities that imposed the sanction may apply to the people’s court for compulsory enforcement.” Article 9 of the Administrative Reconsideration Law prescribes that “Any citizen, legal person or any other organization, who considers that a specific administrative act has infringed upon his or its lawful rights and interests, may file an application for administrative reconsideration within 60 days from the day when he or it knows the specific administrative act.” 6 See the Civil Litigation Law. 7 ೿ᑉ᜽ Du Yingli, ‫ך‬୯ᕉნϦ੻ນ೜‫“ زࣴࡋڋ‬Woguo Huanjing Gongyi Susong Zhidu Yanjiu” [A Study on the environment public interest litigation in

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air and clean water are shared by the public in the traditional sense of civil law, the plaintiff has no right to lodge a suit against a polluter in the name of safeguarding the public interest. 8 Article 2 in the Administrative Procedure Law prescribes that: “A citizen, legal person or any other organization have the right to litigate a lawsuit to the people’s courts in accordance with this Law once they consider that an administrative action by the administrative organs or personnel infringes upon their lawful rights and interests.”9 In the light of this stipulation, only a citizen, legal person or any other organization whose lawful rights and interests are encroached upon is entitled to sue an administrative organ for its illegal administrative action. Therefore, instead of protecting public environmental interests, the relevant stipulations in the Civil Procedure Law and the Administrative Procedure Law actually limit the judicial protection of the environment. In practice, as lawsuits brought by individual citizens or environmental protection groups against polluters repeatedly fail to bring any positive results, the enthusiasm of social organizations for environmental protection has been greatly dampened, and the supervisory role of judicial organs in environmental protection has also been weakened. 3. The general public’s right to information not guaranteed. The right to information is an important guarantee for public supervision. If the public is deprived of the right to information, then a prerequisite for supervision is lost. To ensure the general public’s right to information on environmental protection administrations and polluting enterprises, environmental information must be made public. Despite the fact that the Regulations on the Disclosure of Government Information and the Measures on Open Environmental Information (for Trial Implementation) were implemented on 1 May 2008, environmental information disclosed by the government is far from enough. A good case in point is the outcomes of applications submitted by the Shanghai branch of Friends of Nature to the Shanghai Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau for the disclosure of environmental information. In 2008, when the Shanghai branch of Friends of Nature asked the Shanghai Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau to disclose the monitoring report on the water quality in the protected drinking water sources in Shanghai, the Bureau turned down the request on the grounds that the “disclosure of the report might cause public panic”;10 and when the Shanghai branch of Friends of Nature China] (master’s thesis, Jilin University, 2007), 22. 8 Ibid. 9 See the Administrative Procedure Law. 10 ໳λЛ Huang Xiaomao, ӵՖ௢୏ࡹ۬ၗૻϦ໒ “Ruhe Tuidong Zhengfu

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asked the Shanghai Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau in February 2010 for the “list of major or grave environmental pollution accidents that took place in 2008 and 2009 and the polluting enterprises involved,” the Bureau, in its reply, said “Upon our search, we found that this bureau has not yet produced or obtained such information. The government information you requested is therefore non-existent.”11 A typical case in which the public’s right to information was ignored is the PX project in Haicang District, Xiamen. In 2004, an investment of RMB10.8 billion yuan from the Dragon Aromatics (Xiamen) Co., Ltd., a Taiwanese-funded company, in a PX chemical project was approved by the State Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). As the site is located in the Haicang Taiwanese Investment Zone, the project is widely known as the Haicang PX project. Should the project go smoothly into production, it would churn out a gross industrial output value worth 80 billion yuan each year for the city. The environmental impact assessment report indicates that the project would exert limited impact on the local environment, well within the limits of its self-cleaning capacity. As a result, the environmental impact assessment report on the project passed the review of the State Environmental Protection Administration in July, 2005. But during the whole course of environmental impact appraisal, whether in its early stage or later stage, no opinion was sought from the interest-related parties, no openness or public participation was involved from the beginning to the end, and none of the content of the environmental impact assessment report was ever published. As a consequence, the residents in Xiamen knew nothing of the project. The site of the project, located in the densely populated Haicang District, is less than seven kilometers away from the Xiamen downtown area and Gulangyu Island (or the Isle of Thundering Waves), a national scenic spot, and only four kilometers away from the Xiamen Foreign Language School and Xiamen Haicang School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University, with Xinxi Gongkai” [How to push the government to open its information], at http://www.pubchn.com/articles/86824.html. 11 ΢๓ऩН Shangshanruoshui, ӛ΢ੇѱᕉߥֽҙፎǴा‫؃‬ᕇ‫ڗ‬Ȩ2008 ԃ‫ک‬ 2009 ԃ΢ੇѱวғख़εǵ੝εᕉნԦࢉ٣ࡺ‫ޣ܈‬٣ҹҾ཰Ӝൂȩ “Xiang Shanghai Shizhengfu Huanbaoju Shenqing, Yaoqiu Huoqu Erlinglingba he Erlinglingjiunian Shanghaishi Fasheng Zhongda, Teda Huanjingwuran Shigu Huozhe Shijian Qiye Mingdan” [Application to the Shanghai Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau for the “List of major or grave environmental pollution accidents that took place in the period of 2008 and 2009 and the polluting enterprises involved”], http://shanghaiwater.blogbus.com/logs/60717234.html.

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a combined student popluation of 5,000. During the “Two Sessions” (the meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference [CPPCC]) in March 2007, 105 CPPCC members jointly signed and submitted a proposal entitled “A Proposal for the Relocation of the Haicang PX Project in Xiamen,” the hottest proposal of the year in the CPPCC, calling for a halt to and relocation of the project. However, instead of heeding the opinion of the CPPCC members, the Xiamen Municipal People’s Government quickened the pace of project construction. It was not until the end of May 2007, when the residents who had been kept in the dark received a text message about the PX project, that they got to know that PX is a dangerous chemical substance and highly carcinogenic. They therefore staged a “walk-in” in front of the municipal government building to express their open opposition to the construction of the project. Under pressure from people from all walks of life, the Xiamen Municipal People’s Government was forced to announce the postponement of the project. Meanwhile, the government conducted a new assessment of the environmental impact on the surrounding area of the project, started to solicit public opinions, activated the process of public participation, and reexamined the development orientation of Haicang District and the layout of various projects. In the end, the Xiamen Municipal People’s Government accepted the opinions of the general public and the suggestions made in the new environmental appraisal report and terminated the construction of the project. Although the outcome is satisfactory, the event reveals that in the implementation of the practice of environmental impact assessment, it is quite common to see the absence of transparent information and public participation. In the past few years, the lack of transparent environmental information has led to an endless stream of mass incidents. For instance, the incident of the Fujia PX project in Dalian in 2011, the disturbance and protest touched off by Hongda Group’s project to deep-process molybdenum-copper alloy products in Shifang City, Sichuan Province in 2012, and the protest in Qidong City, Jiangsu Province in 2012 against the pipeline project initiated by the Japanese Oji Paper Co., Ltd. for the discharge of waste water into the sea. 4. The weak influence of non-governmental environmental protection organizations. In China, numerous non-governmental environmental protection organizations (NGOs) are getting more and more involved in safeguarding the public’s environmental interests. Of these environmental NGOs, the Chinese Association for Environmental Sciences, China Wildlife Conservation Association (CWCA), Chinese Society for Sustainable Development, China Environmental Protection Foundation

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(CEPF) and Friends of Nature are the most well-known. These nongovernmental environmental protection organizations have played a positive role in environmental protection and stepped up their supervision over the behaviors that stimulate the growth of the local economy at the expense of the environment or the public’s environmental rights and interests. For instance, the decision made by Chongqing in 2002 to build a coal-fired power plant with an installed capacity of 300,000 kW in its downtown area touched off strong opposition from the residents. After a careful study and consultation with the residents, the Green Volunteer League of Chongqing came to the conclusion that the construction of the power plant would cause air pollution in the downtown area and suggested that the government halt its construction. At the end of 2003, the Chongqing Municipal People’s Government decided to drop the project. However, non-governmental environmental organizations face many problems relating to their own growth. Firstly, many of the organizations, in fact 49.9% of them, are formed at the suggestion of the government. Those formed on the initiative of the people themselves account for a mere 7.2%. 12 This situation will have some intangible bearing on their supervision over the government. Secondly, there is a shortage of operational expenses. According to statistics, 76.1% of the non-governmental environmental protection organizations have no fixed source of funds. In 2004, environmental protection NGOs that have failed to raise any funds accounted for 22.5%, and 81.5% of them raised an amount of less than 50,000 yuan.13 The above problems directly affect the supervisory role played by the environmental protection NGOs.

Some Suggestions for the Improvement of the Environmental Administrative System 1. Increase the authority of the Environmental Protection Administration. In order to boost the unified supervision and management of environmental protection administrations, the environmental-protection-related functions in the departments of natural resources should be handed over to the environmental protection administrations for unified supervision and management. 12

The State Environmental Protection Administration, ύ୯ᕉߥ҇໔ಔᙃ౜‫ރ‬ ፓࢗൔ֋ “Zhongguo Huanbao Minjian Zuzhi Diaocha Baogao” [Investigation report on the current situation of the non-governmental environmental protection organizations in China], in Ꮲ཮ Xuehui, 2007/3. 13 Ibid.

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2. Establish a vertical administrative system of environmental protection. As the environmental issue is trans-regional, it is therefore impossible for any one local government to take sole responsibility for the protection of the environment. In addition, the fact that local environmental protection administrations are subordinated to the local governments at the same level is the fundamental reason why it is difficult for them to carry out environmental policies. To solve that problem, two sets of vertical administrative systems should be created. The first is the national administrative system of vertical environmental protection; the other is the local administrative system of vertical environmental protection at the provincial and local levels. If the vertical administration could not be implemented in the near future, then this author suggests that reform of the current practice for appointment of environmental protection officials be instituted. The appointment of leading environmental protection administrators below the central level should be initiated by the local governments, pending the review and approval of the environmental protection administrations at the higher level. When necessary, the environmental protection administrations at the higher level could directly appoint the director of environmental protection administration at the lower level in order to avoid the awkward situation in which local environmental protection administrations are controlled by the local governments. 3. Increase the financial inputs to environmental law enforcement. Environmental law enforcement at the grassroots level should be enlarged and the staff should be treated as public servants. Operational funds for grassroots environmental law enforcement authorities and resources for the development of enforcement capacity should be ensured. 4. Perfect the mechanism for the appraisal of local government officials. The weight given to environmental quality in appraisal of projects by local officials should be increased to make local governments change their attitude from their original stress on economic growth to emphasis on both economic development and environmental protection. 5. Enhance judicial and public supervision. An environmental protection litigation system should be established to safeguard the environmental rights and interests of the general public. Public supervision should be perfected. Greater support should be given to non-governmental environmental protection organizations in addition to encouraging individual citizens to supervise the environmental protection efforts. Meanwhile, the

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practice of open information should also be perfected to guarantee the public’s right to environmental information. Finally, a press law should be launched as soon as possible. Such a law should define clearly the rights of the media and the range of their responsibilities, and regulate the supervisory actions of the media so as to ensure the normal expression of public opinion and keep the supervisory channels open. Translated from the Chinese original by Guo Yidun

III REFLECTIONS ON THE CONSERVATION MOVEMENT

CHAPTER SEVEN THE PARADOX OF NEED SATISFACTION: AN ECONOMICS INQUIRY BAOCHENG LIU

Satisfaction: an economic problem Man by his very nature is devoted to the pursuit of happiness through the satisfaction of his needs. Though the understanding and interpretation of needs varies among all individuals, to maximize the utility of available resources appears to be the only viable solution to optimize one’s happiness. (See Fig. 7-1.) Faced with a common problem of scarcity, dedicated to the same goal, the notion of economics finds its role. Aside from its elevated theories and models, economics can be highly practical. As a matter of fact, the word “economics” can be traced to its Greek origin meaning “the management of a household.”1 Economists assume: (a) the ends of human beings are without limits; (b) those ends are of varying importance; (c) the means available for achieving those ends – human time and energy and material resources (free goods and scarce goods) – are limited; (d) the same means can be utilized in many different ways (can be used to produce different goods), i.e., the functions of resources are versatile. To achieve the goal of happiness optimization, one is faced with three choices: (a) To possess more resources; (b) Ceteris paribus, to better utilize fixed amount of resources; (c) To restrain the needs.

1

Jack Harvey, Modern Economics, 7th edition (London: Macmillan Press, 1998).

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Fig. 7-1: An economic dilemma

Happiness: an ascetic recipe Now that scarcity is relative to demand, choice (c) seems to be the most low-cost solution to mitigate this gap. Human efforts in this direction are documented by a bewildering varieties of ascetic prescriptions. Asceticism denies various worldly pleasures, refraining from sensual joys and the accumulation of material wealth. Many religious traditions (e.g., Buddhism, Jainism, the Christian desert fathers) include practices that involve restraint with respect to actions of body, speech and mind. Behind such extremely austere lifestyles, asceticism is not completely a rejection of the enjoyment of life, not because the practices themselves are virtuous, but as an aid in the pursuit of salvation or liberation. This means that by being an ascetic, one’s desire is not eliminated, but rather ascends to a spiritual height and even expands to a longer cycle of life. The need for restraint either by ontogenesis or imposition is considered a panacea for all human problems, but this seemingly low-cost approach is more often than not quixotic. Voluntary restraint over one’s needs is regarded as an indigenous virtue. For Confucius, such virtue rests in the sense of shame. “If people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will seek ways to avoid, but forfeit the

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sense of shame,” the Master said. “If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good” (Confucian Analects: Government). Now, a question rises as to whether such moral judgment is morally justifiable. On the assumption of resource scarcity, more resources are made available to others once one of them chooses to live a life of austerity. In this sense, aren’t those who expect and set a moral standard of austerity over this individual more selfish? Gluttony is non-virtuous when the supply of food is inadequate, whereas gourmet is a culinary art when food is abundant. Therefore, the moral judgment becomes volatile, shifting with the level of supply and demand. Consumer spending bears a positive moral underpinning in developed countries where products and services abound. When the economy plunges into the doldrums, the most conventional approach by their central banks to revive GDP growth is to lower the interest rate in order to discourage deposits and spur consumption. Underdeveloped countries pick the opposite approach: to counteract demand by calling on the nation to tighten their belts. That is because they do not have the capability to supply sufficient goods and services catering for the national needs. In China, feudal ethics of asceticism formulated in the Song Dynasty (960–1279) were characterized by Zhu Xi’s proposition of “Uphold Justice, Annihilate Desire.” However, he did not go to the extreme, but rather maintained the doctrine of the mean – moderation in all things. When asked where justice among food and drink lies, “food and drink are justice, whilst delicacies from land and sea are desires. Monogamy is justice whilst polygamy is desires,” he replied.2

GNH: a multidimensional approach The term “Gross National Happiness (GNH)” was first coined in 1972 by the fourth King of Bhutan who declared that GNH is more important than GDP.3 Nine domains are developed for their GNH index. The first three domains are very familiar from a human development perspective – living standards (such as income, assets, housing), health and education. The next three focus on resource management – the use of time (and time poverty), good governance and ecological resilience. And the last three are more subjective – psychological wellbeing (which includes overall 2

Zhu Xi Analects, §XIII. Karma Ura, et al., A Short Guide to Gross National Happiness Index (The Centre for Bhutan Studies, 2012), 6.

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happiness, but also emotions and spirituality), community vitality and cultural diversity and resilience. Table 7-1: Number of indicators under each domain 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Domain Psychological wellbeing Health Time use Education Cultural diversity and resilience Good Governance Community vitality Ecological diversity and resilience Living standards Total

Indicators 4 4 2 4 4 4 4 4 3 33

Notwithstanding the implacable differences over a standardized measurement of happiness, longevity is unanimously placed at the top of the agenda when happiness is measured. The UNDP proposed the Human Development Index (HDI) as a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living. 4 The reality unveiled for Bhutan is not as entirely overwhelming as has been boasted. With per capita GDP at $1,920, ranked 154th, its total population exhibits a life expectancy of 67.88 years.5 Though rapidly increasing, its HDI value for 2011 (0.522) is positioned at 141 out of 187 countries and territories. By the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), 27.2% of Bhutanese suffer multiple deprivations while an additional 17.2% remain vulnerable to multiple deprivations. A study was carried out by the Office of Policy at the US Social Security Administration in an attempt to investigate the difference in both the level and the rate of change in mortality improvement over time by socioeconomic status for male social security–covered workers (see Table 7-2).6 4

UNDP, Human Development Report 2011, http://hdrstats.undp.org/images/ explanations/BTN.pdf. 5 CIA World Factbook, July 26, 2012. 6 Hilary Waldron, “Trends in Mortality Differentials and Life Expectancy for Male

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Table 7-2: Differentials in mortality improvement by earnings category Earnings group Age for bottom half of distribution Age for top half of distribution

1912 77 79

Year of Birth 1922 1932 1941 78 79 80 81 84 86

In a sample size of 100,000 male workers, despite of the fact that both cohorts are covered under social security packages, the impact variance in their life expectancy by different levels of earnings is striking. The bottom half of the earnings group had a life span of 77 years for the 1912 birth cohort and 80 for the 1941 birth cohort, whereas the comparable ages for the top half of the earnings distribution were 79 and 86 respectively. The top earning group did not only attain a longer lifespan, but its rate of marginal increase over time also far outstripped the control group.

GNH vs. Income As shown in Table 7-3, although life expectancy as a cornerstone of national happiness does not bear a linear correlation with a nation’s per capita income, the top 15 countries that enjoy the longest life expectancy do fall within the 43 countries with the highest per capita income. Meanwhile, no statistics indicate that GNH relates positively with the size of a country’s GDP. In 2010, the United States, being the largest economy, saw its national life expectancy ranked 29th, whereas China, the second largest, was ranked 64th. 7 This is obviously comprehensible, simply because GDP does not guarantee an individual’s access to the benefits of national wealth. It is interesting to note that per capita income, as a more reliable index, also presents a perplexing picture. As shown in Table 7-3, the top 15 countries that enjoy the longest life expectancy even exclude the 3 top per capita countries (Monaco, Liechtenstein and Bermuda). However, they do include countries within the top 43 per capita incomes. After all, higher income means better access to quality healthcare and a healthier lifestyle. Persistent poor health, in turn, may in itself be a cause of socioeconomic hardship.

Social Security–Covered Workers, by Average Relative Earnings,” ORES Working Paper No. 108, October 2007. 7 http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-health-rankings/.

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Table 7-3: Life expectancy vs. GDP per Capita, 2010 Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Life Expectancy 82.8 82.1 81.8 81.8 81.7 81.3 81.2 81.1 81.0 80.9 80.7 80.7 80.7 80.4 80.4

Country Japan Switzerland Australia Iceland Italy France Sweden Canada Spain Singapore Norway New Zealand Israel Austria Netherlands

GDP per Capita(USD) 42,150 70,350 43,740 33,870 35,090 42,390 49,930 41,950 31,650 40,920 85,380 29,050 27,340 46,710 49,720

Rank 28 7 23 36 35 26 14 27 38 30 4 41 43 19 15

Sources: (1) World Health Organization, http://www.healthstats.nsw.gov.au/ Indicator/bod_intlex (2) World Bank, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/ Resources/GNIPC.pdf

According to research by the World Health Organization, in the case of Australia, aboriginal people have a much shorter life expectancy than nonaboriginal people. In 2005–2007, life expectancy in New South Wales (NSW) was estimated to be 69.9 years in aboriginal males, almost 8.6 years lower than in the general population, and 75.0 years in aboriginal females, 7.4 years lower.8 Apparently, aboriginal people have less income, which is explained by the lack of knowledge and drive for socio-economic status as a result of immobility. It has been widely argued that mortality is predetermined by race differences. A report from the nonpartisan US Congressional Budget Office proved the contrary. While a disparity still exists in the life expectancies of whites and blacks, the rate of increase is similar. For example, a six-year gap between white men and black men has been 8

World Health Organization, http://www.healthstats.nsw.gov.au/Indicator/bod _intlex.

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maintained for years, despite increases for both groups. However, black women have made disproportionate gains so that they now have a life expectancy that is about seven years greater than that of black men, compared with a difference of about four years in 1950. Fig. 7-2: Life expectancy at birth, by race and sex

Source: Income Inequality Extends to Life Expectancy, the Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2008

But when the data is broken down by socioeconomic status instead of race, a growing disparity is clear. In 1980, life expectancy at birth was 2.8 years more for the highest socioeconomic group than for the lowest. By 2000, that gap had risen to 4.5 years. The 1.7-year increase in the gap amounts to more than half of the increase in overall average life expectancy at birth between 1980 and 2000. The report concluded that an increase in life expectancy is concentrated among people with higher incomes, and those people who tend to receive higher monthly benefits live longer than people with low incomes.

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Conclusion Lives of full human dignity are not possible in conditions of poverty. Therefore, the obligation to respect human dignity calls forth systemic efforts to provide individuals with the material conditions that will permit them to exercise and enjoy their moral autonomy.9 Wealth creation, from the perspective of economics, is dependent on the successful allocation and distribution of resources – land, labor, capital – in which entrepreneurship plays a central role. While austerity is a virtue and asceticism a choice of lifestyle, they all rest on the premise of economic freedom and rationalization.

9

Stephen B. Young, “Sovereign Responsibility for Sound Financial Intermediation,” 3 July 2012.

CHAPTER EIGHT DHARMA MASTER CHENG YEN’S ENVIRONMENTAL VIEW OF LIFE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF TZU CHI’S ENVIRONMENTAL MISSION REY HER

Preface: Tzu Chi philosophy on the environment The Tzu Chi Foundation, the largest charitable organization in the Chinese world, which is based on Buddhist teaching, launched its environmental recycling mission in 1991. At that time, the international media described the Taiwan as the world’s most expensive garbage dump. In a speech, the Venerable Cheng Yen, founder of Tzu Chi, asked her followers to use their hands that were applauding her to do recycling. These volunteers established community-based recycling centers that aimed to educate their neighbors to follow suit. As of today, there are more than 5,000 recycling centers in Taiwan, where more than 200,000 volunteers give their time and effort to preserve the cleanliness of their communities and contribute to environmental conservation. Millions of families have been inspired by Tzu Chi volunteers to recycle materials at home. The recycling centers have attracted members from all age groups and social status, including a 104-year-old woman and three-year-old boys, doctoral students, businessmen, policemen and women, housewives and diplomats. There are over two hundred million plastic bottles recycled in Taiwan every year and it is estimated that Tzu Chi volunteers recycle one third of them. Its recycling mission now has spread to the southern provinces of China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Haiti, Indonesia and to countries in South America. The proceeds from the sale of the recycled materials are given to Tzu Chi’s charity mission. In recent years, entrepreneurs who are also Tzu Chi volunteers have set up a non-profit

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company which turns these recycled plastic bottles into blankets that have been given to survivors of disasters around the world. The recycling centers are also places of “healing” and a community that can provide mutual support. Those suffering from chronic illnesses and psychological disorders have found comfort and self-improvement through recycling activities. This is a result of the possible link between the material recycled and restored self-esteem. When an elderly volunteer picks up a used plastic bottle and turns it into a blanket for emergency relief, she acquires self-esteem and a new meaning to her life. Furthermore, some of the interviewees provide the empirical evidence to show that recycling volunteers who suffered from depression, psychological disorders, drug abuse, gambling and alcoholism were able to get rid of these addictions after devoting themselves to Tzu Chi’s recycling projects. My interviewees also specified that, by focusing on how to categorize recycled materials, volunteers organize their lives better, which helps to decrease the worries and uncertainty that infects their lives. Tzu Chi’s recycling centers serve as a new kind of Buddhist temple. They provide religious functions that promote the virtues of altruism, collaboration, solidarity, humility and a simpler life. Blind, handicapped and sick patients come to the recycling centers. This is an example of a new form of religion, stemming from the fact that religious practices need not be limited to temple or church. For Dharma Master Cheng Yen, all places, even hospitals and recycling centers, are just like temples, where people undergo spiritual development. The research indicates that this new way of practicing religion has long been established in the Tzu Chi charity mission and has been translated into Tzu Chi’s recycling centers. The recycling centers are making an important contribution to environmental conservation in Taiwan and many other areas in the world. They also help to improve the physical and psychological health of the volunteers.

Personally experience the unity of the environment and all beings A movement or ideology that spreads far and wide is not, in general, enabled to do this through its uniqueness. What is more important is that the ideology is widely recognized and full of sincere emotion when practiced personally. Tzu Chi’s environmental mission in Taiwan is both unique and influential. It has gradually expanded into the global environmental protection movement, which includes energy saving, carbon reduction, recycling and adoption of environmental technology, reflecting the full range of environmental protection. Its source of

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orientation is an environmental ideology: the promotion and practice of the teachings of Master Cheng Yen.

Journey of an enlightened person towards the abundance of nature Nestled in the Xincheng township of Hualien, Taiwan, is the Jing Si Abode, the place where Master Cheng Yen began her mission. It is also the place where the Tzu-chi Charity Foundation was established; it is a solemn yet elegant structure with a white roof, and the dark green majestic Central Mountains with their towering peaks as a backdrop, while at the front is the endless open expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The mountain, the sea, the abode and the nuns, all form a strong contrast that describes a kind of naïve, strange and solemn harmony. Chinese speaks of the harmony between heaven and man, Chinese artists often painted landscapes with magnificent mountains and rivers, while people and houses were placed at the corners, as if insinuating the insignificance of human beings before nature. But China’s academics have never really addressed the practice of incorporation of heaven and human beings. The unity of heaven and man thus becomes a conception of poetic and artistic feeling, like a realm that is beyond the feelings of various scholars in the real world. In 1964, Master Cheng Yen daily repeated the Lotus Sutra, alone in her log cabin. She went to bed at midnight, woke up at two and continually burned her arm as an offering to the Buddha in her ascetic life. There are three volumes of the Lotus Sutra that the Dharma studied; one is the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings, which had a deep impact on her lifelong idealistic practice of practical Buddhism. In the silence of the night, when the young practitioner was praying, one section of the Sutra of the Innumerable Meanings caught her eye and touched her deeply. “In the silence of the dawn / Mysterious aspirations in the virtual desert / Guarding it motionlessly / after so many years / the innumerable doctrine / Is learned immediately / With great wisdom / We come to know all universal law.”1 These words enlightened and inspired her, and this was indeed what she experienced at that time. Many years later, she described her experience to her disciples: “This was exactly my inner feeling at that time.” At that moment, seeing the reflection of her inner self in the

1

Master Cheng Yen, The Innumerable Sutra, Sutra Collection-7 (Taipei: Tzu Chi Cultural Publishing Co, 2001), 121–23.

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scripture, it was as if her heart and the whole universe converged, was comprehended, and became totally clear. Under the majestic mountains and the vast landscape, the Dharma was able to connect the infinite wisdom of the universe with the nature of human wisdom. This comprehension corresponds to the enlightenment of the Buddha under the Bodhi tree. We can imagine the contrast between the majestic mountain, the vast ocean and the small hut, and even the practitioner who blends our consciousness and comprehension with wisdom. This comprehension and reflection is a beginning: it brings forth an awareness of mankind towards the atmosphere that surrounds us, and reveals a new path for practicing conservation. She also stresses the spirit of modern scientific technology from a pragmatic point of view: one that brings about the specific idea of practising environmental co-existence in everyone’s daily life, as well as incorporating it into today’s social structures and instilling the belief that all things are equal.

Man as a part of nature The Master’s concept of the environment has Chinese characteristics, with the paradox of harmony between man and heaven, and the interdependence of man and the Earth. On the other hand, her view of nature is also Buddhist, emphasizing the love for life, and the equality of all things and all beings without distinction. In retrospect, Master Cheng Yen brought “Love” into the environmental view, emphasizing the love of Mother Earth, the care for all things and regard for all matters. Master Cheng Yen said, Man and all things should be in harmony. There are two elements in this world that are absolutely indispensable: one is “Gratitude” and the other one is “Great Love.” The basic necessities of our daily life are bestowed to us from heaven and earth with the assistance of society. That is why we should be grateful always to everything, and should reciprocate our talents to the world. “Great Love” is to have compassion for all beings. Although everyone is different in aspects, all of mankind is similar with their emotions and each and everyone has a Buddha nature that is pure and clean. Man can even communicate with each other even without verbal communication. The same is true with their communication with other beings by means of sincere love that conveys their feelings which can create a friendly and peaceful world.

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Cherish everything starting with self-discipline Seven thousand years ago, the ancient shamans buried the bears they hunted in the belief that the bear would be reborn. 2 Ancient people respected their prey. If they hunted for birds on this side of the forest; they would not hunt on the same site in the next season. Ancient hunters knew that they had to give nature time to restore life. But then, with the onset of highly industrialized society, man began to slaughter livestock by mechanical means. Its cruelty is unthinkable. In some pigpens pigs are confined in tight cages from birth. They never stand up, even once in their lives, until the day they are to be slaughtered. Gill fishnets caught all sizes of fish from the sea. Since mankind’s industrial development took off, three centuries ago, more than 50 million whales have been killed. Seventy million cattle are slaughtered a year, together with billions of chickens, not to mention the devastation of the forests and rain forests and various types of species that are facing extinction. Man’s endless greed and desire to expand results in the destruction of nature and its species. This eventually becomes the source of our self-destruction, in the form of the greenhouse effect that brings the only world we have to the brink of destruction. Master Cheng Yen said: The “Greenhouse effect” comes from a “Ventricular effect.” To save the planet Earth, we have to start by being frugal in our inner selves. The nuns in the abode set a good example in frugality. Damage to the environment will not stop if we are not frugal. We must experience the value of material things. We must convert our respect for nature into action: talking about uniting nature and man into one is just talk.

The Jing Si Abode is a very frugal temple. The Tang-style main building is less than 60 square meters in size. It was used as a place for chanting the doctrines, conferences for charity work, contacting members, and, in the early years, eating and sleeping: everything was done here. Even after more than ten waves of renovation, the abode maintained its height restriction of not more than three floors. This is the spiritual home for every Tzu-chi member from all over the world. Self-denial and thrift are the core values of the Abode, which is the character embodied in its working environment. There are more than 400 people working at and cultivating the Abode every day. All the offices use 2

M. Eliade, Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses: de l’âge de la pierre aux mystères d’Eleusis, trans. Dong, Qiang (Paris: Payot, 1989; Taipei: Shangzhou Publishing Co., 2001), 45–47.

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ceiling fans instead of air-conditioning. The only room with airconditioning is the one used for the equipment for the production of the Dharma’s daily lecture program on DaAi TV. The furniture in the visitors’ room and the office is simple and wooden. The wooden lodge and window lattice resemble those of a traditional academy. It is difficult for people who come here from faraway places to imagine that this is the central office of one of the world’s largest charitable organizations. An endless stream of volunteers and visitors from all over the world arrives at the abode. The nuns have to accommodate these travellers who are returning to their spiritual home. The kitchen is busy every day, preparing meals for more than 400 people. The funds come from the nuns, who work hard, day in, day out. This is their way of supporting the Tzuchi Foundation. It is concrete proof of the fact that they are not dependents of the Foundation; rather, they are the donors of the Foundation. In one corner of the Abode are several nuns mending the clothing and quilts of the nuns. As far as possible, they take care of their daily needs among themselves. Whatever they can save, they save. There were fewer of them doing manual work in the early days, and life was more difficult. They made babies’ shoes and picked vegetables, fried peanuts to extract oil for cooking, and produced hard and salty bean curd, so that one small piece could serve two bowls of rice. To this day, the Abode occasionally makes these traditional salty bean curds to cherish the memory of those days of struggle. Meals are served on round tables, making the dining room a warm family atmosphere. There are serving spoons and chopsticks for hygienic purposes. At the same time, whatever is left will be served to the next round of people who come to dine. Food is placed on a small plate and everyone is supposed to finish whatever they take. There is a small pot of water at the table. Everyone washes the residue of the small plate with the water and drinks from the bowl. The plates and bowl are left clean. This kind of eating ritual has been practiced for more than forty years, not only by the nuns, but also by more than a hundred colleagues working in the Abode. There is a candle room at the back of the Abode which is packed with nuns and volunteers who come to help every day. The nuns melt the wax into the candle moulds until it cools down, before inserting the wick to become the final product. This candle is called the candle without tears, a design that is cherished by the Dharma. The Dharma likes to watch candle lights flickering in the dark. This inspires people to contemplate deeply. The Dharma noticed that the burning candles drip candle wax, which is a waste and does not look good. The Dharma used empty Yakult bottles as

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shells to mould the candles, and when the candle is burning, the wax remains in the case: this makes use of valuable wax, and, since the candle does not drip, it symbolizes that light given to others is happy and does not shed tears. The lesson is: helping others without hurting oneself is happiness. Master Cheng Yen’s life has always been simple and hard. She firmly believes that everything has a hidden life that is rich. In the olden days, when writing letters to her friends, she often used the back of letters from her friends as stationery to answer their letters. She insists that a piece of paper has a life; it has to be used to the full. The Dharma uses only one bucket of water a day, emphasizing the importance of water conservation. Her dining table is an old, used, round table that has been with her for more than twenty years. Her dining chair is a small rattan chair that is assumed to be more than twenty years old too. Everything is simple and unadorned and useful. Frugal, industrious and simple are the traits the Dharma and the nuns follow strictly in their daily lives. They use natural light in the visitor’s room. Lights will be turned on only if there are documents that need to be read. The Dharma’s study room is very small. It has only a desk light. After forty years, life is still just like the days when they were in the cabin, except that light bulbs take the place of candle light. A hard and frugal life is not only a virtue, or a realm of cultivation. It is also the source of energy for Mother Earth. A society that overexploits its resources will ultimately suffer from self-destruction. For this reason, life at the Abode is characterized not only by the practitioners’ frugal lifestyle, but is also a manifestation of their respect and affection for nature. The unity of heaven and man as heaven symbolizes nature, and man must control his desire in order to attain the real coexistence of man and nature. In Tzu-chi’s way of thinking, this is possible only through real practice. The spirit of the Abode is an exact model of the spirit of Tzu-chi volunteers all over the world in their mission for the relief of poverty. It is the spirit they bring with them in every calamity they go to. This model teaches Tzu-chi members to be thrifty to be able to avert disasters; and to practice self-denial so as to be able to save mankind and save planet Earth. In the idea of the butterfly effect, one imagines that a butterfly waving its wings in Beijing could cause a Caribbean hurricane; in the same way, the behaviour of each individual human being is connected to every other. Using the butterfly effect metaphor, wastage on one side of the world could be the reason for hunger and famine on the other side. In the history of mankind, excessive consumption of resources is the culprit behind climate anomalies, the floods and droughts that we are experiencing today. Anyone who cannot control his desires today will be the cause of global

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warming, resulting in rising sea levels, and the sinking of bustling metropoli in a few decades.

Material things have the same value as my life Master Cheng Yen once said, “Walk lightly, or the Earth will feel the pain.”3 Does the land feel? The thought that “Every wriggling spirit has its Buddha’s nature” has been the expression of Master Cheng Yen’s feeling towards all natural resources, be it the mountains or the rivers.4 The beings that Buddhist doctrines mention do not refer to human beings alone; they include anything that is either with or without life. To love the land is different from enjoying the beauty of the forest, or experiencing a quiet early morning breeze. The Dharma wants Tzu-chi members to use their sweat to personally experience the love of the land, to use their hands in reflecting the love of the Earth. This emotion towards matter is expressed in the surroundings of every Tzu-chi construction. All the open spaces are covered with connecting cement blocks. The reason for using cement blocks instead of cementing or asphalting these areas is the hope that the land can breathe. This is the practice of Master Cheng Yen towards concrete in her avocation towards loving our land. The 921 earthquake was the fiercest fury that Mother Earth has let loose as a response to her being oppressed. In the aftermath of rebuilding, the Dharma’s concentration was not on the lives of the victims or school children alone. She tried to establish a new humanitarian treatment for the land. She uses a gray colour for the buildings to blend with the blue sky and the land. The design is simple but elegant, emphasizing its frugal principles. All of the fifty schools have been carefully landscaped by more than 200,000 volunteers within a two-year period. The students and their parents and the Tzu-chi volunteers from all over Taiwan helped create green forests and scenes of nature with their hands, in the hope that the children will be able to grow in a natural atmosphere. All the buildings are designed with corridors that run around the galleries, which can reveal the sky and overlook the green mountains.5

3

Shih De-fan, Cheng Yen Shangren Nalu Zuji (Taipei: Tzu Chi Cultural Publishing Co, 2006), 70. 4 Ibid. 5 Liu Feng-juan, Xie Lei-nuo, Tu Miao-yi, Fan Yu-wen and Ruan Yi-zhong, “Special Report on the 3rd Anniversary of 921 Earthquake,” Tzu Chi Monthly 430 (2002): 10–57.

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All the school grounds are laid with cement bricks so that the earth can breathe, and rainwater can seep back into the land. This not only saves water resources, it allows the trees to be nurtured as well, and the soil can breathe the air. All fifty schools of Tzu-chi’s Project Hope have cement bricks. Every Tzu-chi construction, including hospitals, schools and the headquarters, uses cement bricks in the open spaces, totalling 5 million bricks. This is a significant number with regards to nourishing the land. Every hospital that Tzu-chi builds begins with the laying of cement bricks. We often see groups of Tzu-chi volunteers in blue and white uniforms laying bricks in front of the hospitals. These include the directors, assistant directors, department heads and doctors squatting on the ground, using their hands to help in laying bricks for several days. They brave the scourging sun and sweat it out to lay a hundred and fifty thousand bricks. The doctors are not helping the patients today; they are helping the sick Earth. They hope that, with care, they will be able to nurture the sick land back to health again, like every drop of their perspiration that dripped into the land. Each drop will become a nutrient that will save the world.6

Let the land breathe. Let the buildings breathe In the Tzu-chi Dalin Hospital, an eco-pool has been set up for insects to take a rest. This is an expression of idealistic coexistence between man and nature. All the Tzu-chi hospitals are equipped with water recycling systems that enable the recycling of rainwater and other water resources, as every drop of water and everything is considered precious in the Tzuchi world. The Master’s philosophy and feelings are indeed reflected everywhere. Air-conditioning has always been one of the propellants of the greenhouse effect. The Tzu-chi Taipei Hospital occupies more than three hectares of land with 1,600 bed spaces. In Master Cheng Yen’s conception, all the wards must have a balcony to serve as scaffolding for workers cleaning the windows to prevent them from falling, to prevent direct sunlight on the patients, and to save on the expense of air-conditioning. Aside from providing patients with sunlight, the windows also let in the breeze during spring and autumn. The design helps with the physical and mental health of the patients and is also ecologically sustainable. In response to energy conservation, from the Tzu-chi Hualien Hospital to the Taichung Hospital built in 2006, solar panels are used as a backup 6

Xie Ming-jin and Jian Ling-jie, “Let’s Build a Hospital Together,” Ren Yi Xin Chuan 36 (2006): 82–84.

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system for power-generation, and all the street lamps use solar power. That takes the Tzu-chi way of saving energy and loving planet Earth to another milestone. Water recycling is another form of energy saving in the design of the Tzu-chi Hospitals. All the water used in the Tzu-chi Hospitals is recycled. The bathing water used by the patients is also recycled. The Tzu-chi University and the Tzu-chi Technical School also recycle their water, in an endless cycle. It was mentioned earlier that Master Cheng Yen uses only one bucket of water a day. As a result, many Tzu-chi volunteers practice the same principle at home. Brother Gan Bancheng, who is responsible for recycling in the Foundation, is famous for his wisdom in water recycling. He uses the water he bathes with for flushing the toilet. The way he conserves water is based on his extended respect for things. Brother Kenny Tai, Tzu-chi’s honorary director, is involved with building cisterns for the farmers of Gansu Province in China, and his experiences were unforgettable. After the Gansu trips, he began to conserve water at his own residence with water-saving designs. Everyone has to conserve water because water resources are not inexhaustible. Once one sees a shortage of water, one knows the value of water. It is not only Tzu-chi members who responded to conserving water. The Dharma also appeals to the people of Taiwan to protect and love this beautiful land. The Snow Mountain Tunnel that runs from Taipei to Ilan drains off water that has accumulated in the Snow Mountain for hundreds of years. Its excavation diverted millions of tons of water to the sea, which led to a serious shortage of water in the area. The Dharma was saddened by the action of man in disregarding precious water. She personified the mountains and rivers as a metaphor of the human anatomy: the digging and chiselling of the mountains is like a skinning of the human body and taking his veins, opening his stomach and going through his intestines. The end result will be the total loss of blood and disintegration of the body. Master Cheng Yen strongly urges people to place importance on maintenance of the mountains and not to give in to temporary desires for superficial economic prosperity at the expense of Mother Earth. Man tends to forget mankind’s survival and lets Mother Earth suffer unprecedented pain. The Master uses the human body to describe the pain of the Earth, due to her love for all beings in the Buddhist world. All beings refer to all sentient life. Since all sentient life is equal, all living things and all beings are interconnected; no one dominates others, no one will have the right to

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control others. The earth nourishes all beings. Man should learn from the spirit of the earth, to love all beings; and such idea, as far as Tzu-chi is concerned, is through constant contact with nature, using the body to feel and to heal in order to be enlightened and be awakened. This is possible through practicing a frugal lifestyle, which will bring forth the emotion towards all beings. This is the way that man can ensure his survival.

The launching of the Tzu Chi environmental recycling mission From the moral principle of daily practice to incorporate all beings Master Cheng Yen has been advocating the practice of Buddhism all her life by practicing profound Buddhism in daily life. She tells the Tzu Chi volunteers that all things are equal; everyone has a sentient world which includes everyone and every creation. That is why to love all beings means to love all humans, all sentient beings and to cherish the life of everything. In her view, the purpose of life is to practice the teaching of Buddhism, while every location is a temple and a rare opportunity to experience Buddhism. And recycling is a way of cultivation; it embodies the concrete practice of loving all sentient beings. Moreover, through recycling, TzuChi volunteers not only extend the lifespan of all things, they also affirm the value of life itself. This is truly using the recycling station as a spiritual temple. Tzu Chi’s environmental recycling originated on 23 August 1990, the day on which Master Cheng Yen arrived in Taichung to participate in a public lecture. Her entourage passed by an urban market and she saw the market in a very dirty state with garbage all over the place and with a very unpleasant smell. In the 1990s, TIME magazine described Taiwan as a greedy island with garbage everywhere. After her lecture that day, the audience clapped enthusiastically and Master Cheng Yen responded with a request: “Why don’t we use our clapping hands to do recycling in order to maintain a clean society?” Every Tzu-Chi volunteer throughout Taiwan was inspired by Master Cheng Yen. They started using their own homes or the spaces of their factories as temporary recycling stations to separate plastic bottles and papers. At first, the neighbors brought in different kinds of garbage, especially those they found difficult to deal with, like old mattresses, furniture, dead rats, dead cats, etc., and threw them into bins that were affixed with the label “recyclables.” Volunteers had to spend months or

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even years lecturing the community at large, that the aim of the Tzu Chi recycling station is to collect recyclable resources rather than waste. Subsequently, the volunteers ran pickup trucks in the streets in each community to collect recyclable material. From individual to individual, from community to community, Tzu-Chi volunteers gradually expanded the recycling campaign, and the selfless dedication of the volunteers eventually affected the surrounding neighborhood. Recycling, which is traditionally associated with scavengers, is considered a low menial job. With its promotion by Master Cheng Yen it has become a national enterprise. In Tzu Chi, everyone from three-yearolds to a 104-year-old, from illiterate grandmothers to doctoral students, from the blind to ambassadors, and even the President: everyone joined in at this recycling station to practice love for the earth, to experience the value of life in all things. Recycling in Taiwan has become a course of practice to protect the Earth, to clean up the community, and to cherish the substance regained from the value of life. Why is it that a seemingly humble garbage collection activity can transform the inner soul of many, and reaffirm the value of life? What is the relationship between the objects and the people? Can the love shown in recycling help people rebuild their self-confidence and self-esteem?

Environmental context and transformed mood Ancient Chinese wise men often said that by forgetting both matter and self, mind and matter can unite. Heart is the heart, and matter is matter, but how can mind and matter unite? Mind and matter are difficult to understand in science. Nor is the difference clear in philosophy. However, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu said, “When we are exposed to certain things, whether physically or socially, in that context, we will attain a certain temperament (disposition).” (“The individual agent develops these dispositions in response to the objective conditions they encounter”).7 From his viewpoint, when the heart and matter come into contact, some kind of sense and blending seems likely to occur. If Bourdieu’s insights are true, then from this point of view, when the heart and matter interact, it will create a reciprocal effect, and this may explain why, through Tzu-chi recycling efforts in treasuring material life, one experiences the transformation of one’s self for the purification of 7

Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 72, 95.

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one’s soul. Whenever a volunteer picked up a PET bottle, or a piece of paper, does their inner self reach a higher realm? Looking at the Tzu Chi volunteers, who seem to be so casual in picking up PET bottles along the streets or any piece of paper that lies on the floor, with no sense of dismay, this common experience is wonderful for it proves that man and material can form a bond; that “material life” and “life” itself are no different and inseparable.

Recycling function I: converting material value and its projection “Useless objects have big use”: this is the most profound experience for the volunteer who joins in recycling. This experience of value is not only confined to the value of material wealth, but the significance and impact lie at the level of the soul. As previously mentioned in Bourdieu’s “habitus theory” (Habitués), the human body can even change a person’s temperament directly. While the environmental volunteers watch the useless junk being recycled every day, their temperaments will eventually be inspired and changed. If a discarded plastic bottle or a useless piece of paper can be recycled to protect the Earth and purify the mind, how about his old but still active physical body? In the course of their involvement with recycling, the volunteers are enlightened by their observation of the reuse of useless objects. Their physical body also changes within this kind of environment with their actions, which change their attitude towards life. Recycling strengthens their sense of the value of life, and they are greatly respected in their community. In fact, many of them experience the feelings of rebirth in recycling. There is a 104-year-old grandma, Chang Lin Chao, at Jiaosi in Ilan, who started recycling at the age of ninety. 8 People from her village wondered why this grandma, who had everything, and was surrounded by plenty of children and grandchildren, had to go and pick up trash? Her children, of course, had to face ridicule from their neighbours for letting the old grandmother go scavenging. The children felt ashamed at first, and begged the old grandmother not to go picking up trash. Of course, the children knew that the elderly woman was touched by Tzu Chi in her effort to protect the environment and to clean up the community, and that 8

Shan-hui shu-yuan, Cheng Yen Shangren de Nalu Zuji, Spring (Taipei: Tzu Chi Cultural Publishing Co, 2007), 274–87.

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the money raised would be donated to Tzu Chi for public purposes. But they were very disturbed because the neighbours did not understand. But the old grandmother persisted. Not only did she continue working, she gradually influenced her neighbours to join her. After a while, the neighbours’ response changed from puzzled gossip to deep respect and gratitude to the old grandmother. A recycling station was gradually set up and the old grandmother became its most respected “Recycling Angel.” All because of her efforts, the sanitation of the community was improved. Through recycling, they know not to be reckless and pollute the environment in ways that will cause the destruction of Mother Earth. Using useless materials has far-reaching effects. In the process of recycling, old volunteers saw many useless items being recycled and still valuable. A piece of waste paper can turn into gold, a PET bottle can turn into a blanket, and a copper thread can be reused as a wire. How about the volunteers’ bodies? These old useless bodies seem to Šƒ˜‡ a long way to go. The psychological cues and the strengthening of self-worth gave these volunteers a sense of rebirth like the old grandma of Ilan. Through recycling activities, they were convinced that they still have value. They built their own value in enhancing cleanliness in their own communities and as guardians of the Earth.

Recycling function II: practising equality of life Specific physical activities affect one’s temperament: they can even change a person’s temperament. This has proven true for many of the TzuChi recycling volunteers who are disabled. Recycling makes these disabled volunteers feel like they are whole again, as a person with value in their life. The Buddhist scriptures mention the blind threading the needle, which sounds like a myth. Aniruddha, one of the Ten Disciples of the Buddha, dozed off when the Buddha was lecturing. He was apprehended by the Buddha and he regretted it endlessly, by refusing to close his eyes from then on, even when sleeping, and he became blind. He became more diligent until he became clairvoyant with the ability to see even though he was blind. He might seem to be blind physically, but he can sew his own clothes. Once his thread fell from the needle and he asked for anyone who was willing to help him rethread his needle. The Buddha was meditating nearby, and, with compassion, he helped Aniruddha thread his needle.9

9

Master Cheng Yen, The Innumerable Sutra, 121–23.

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This story is a metaphor for physical disabilities that can yet still function. In the Tzu-Chi recycling stations, we can experience the same example. Sister Chuo Su-Hwei of the recycling station at Bagua, Kaohsiung County, has suffered from poor eyesight since her childhood. She can only see light and shadow in one eye, while the other eye became completely blind when she was twenty-seven. Although she is blind, she still steps out to preserve this Earth through recycling.10 You can see her dismantling electric fans or filing newspapers at Kaohsiung County Recycling Station every Saturday night. On one occasion, she found out that some neighbours did not want to keep the recyclable materials at home for too long; some were discarded into garbage trucks. Sister Chuo negotiated with Mr. Liu Yue-Long who owned a piece of idle land in their neighbourhood to use it as a recycling station so neighbours could leave their recyclable materials in this open space. From that time on, between three and four o’clock every afternoon is Sister Chuo’s recycling schedule. Her brother and sister-in-law will bring their two kids to join in recycling on weekends. The neighbours were moved by her example and they gradually joined in the task of recycling. This blind girl is now considered a Bodhisattva, for becoming a guardian of the environment, and for leading her community in environmental protection.

The definition of trueness is that we practice the True Lev Semenovich Vygostky, a Russian master of psychology, mentioned in The Zone of Proximal Development, “the truth in our lives comes from the truth that we practiced,” which is parallel with the experience of these volunteers. The true value of life is felt by the recycled PET bottles, cans and paper. The experience was internalized and confirmed by the volunteers. He said, “Like all functions of consciousness, it originally arises from action.” Real construction of a concept comes not from the language or concept, but from the concept in real practice.11 This is why the Master used practice as a temple. Whether it is the 104-year-old grandma of Ilan, or the blind Sister Chuo Su-Hwei of Kaohsiung, the disabled Sister Chue Su-Min or Sister Wu Xiu-Yue, all of 10

Cheng Yen Shangren, “Life, Transform a Moment to Eternity,” Tzu Chi Monthly, 432 (2002): 6. 11 L. S. Vygotsky, Mind in Sociology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 9–30.

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them experienced life changes during their involvement with recycling. Their inadequate physical appearance was able to project an extremely positive energy that was admired by all. No scripture or statement can substitute the force of practice. “Using uselessness is a big use.” Volunteers are inspired; values are internalized and recognized through practice. The Master said in Buddhist scriptures “all moving objects have a Buddha’s nature,” 12 all sentient beings including those with or without life or shape. The Chinese concept of “unity of mind and matter” is just an abstract philosophy, but when environmental volunteers use their hands to touch the recycling materials, they touch the precious value of every life. This is a real experience, and this experience reflects the philosophy and values of life that “the mind and matter are one” and “all matters have emotions.”

Esteem is passed through Love As Vygotsky puts it, “the concept of construction is from the true practice and experience of the concept.” 13 In spite of this, the same kind of experience may appear different from the idea and will have different results. For example, a scavenger’s concept of recyclables may differ from a Tzu Chi volunteer’s view of the recyclables’ value for life. The difference lies in the fact that “love” was being passed on and strengthened during the process of recycling. This is where Tzu-Chi is different from any scavenger, because love is used as a medium in the process. Tzu Chi recycling stations provide a feeling of family “love” that has long been lost in the modern world. It is like everyone drying beans in the daytime in the courtyard and chatting under the stars at night in a traditional society, with mutual help and support in a village system that has a sense of love and value that goes hand in hand. Without love, the concept of value is cold. It can even become dogmatic. When the essence of love is not found in value, then everything is presumed as “should,” and “should” will mostly be about the system. The psychologist Karen Horney (1885–1952) said that it becomes a “should atrocity.” When things are done through the medium of love, it makes people happy and it inspires people to join in. Value is like a music sheet, it can make happy music dance in the depth of our souls.14 12

Shan-hui shu-yuan, Cheng Yen Shangren de Nalu Zuji, 274–87. L. S. Vygotsky, Mind in Sociology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 92–104. 14 Karen Homey, “The Tyranny of the Should,” in Neurosis and Human Growth, trans. Li, Ming-bin (New York: Norton, 1950; Taipei: Zhiwen Publishing Co., 13

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Ask any environmental volunteer why they like to work in the recycling station: almost all answer, in unison, that they feel a sense of joy at the recycling station. This inexplicable sense of joy is the value obtained, as well as the great love that brings happiness to this group. This sense of a big family, of love and joy, is not only felt by those who joined in as volunteers. Those who rejected recycling in the beginning are deeply moved and inspired by this family atmosphere once they join. An environmental volunteer described the process of how he joined recycling work. He said, at first, he was invited by neighbours to help drive the environmental vehicles. He thought, “Well, I’ll just help out.” But when the vehicle was loaded, he dared not look out: he felt embarrassed. Although he joined in in segregating the garbage, he wished that he could get out as quickly as possible, because he was afraid that he might meet acquaintances and he did not know how to explain himself. But just as he wanted to leave, a volunteer ran in and said, “Everybody! Come and have some snacks!” He thought, “Okay! Eat something and leave!” Just after the snacks, he was about to leave, but he felt a bit embarrassed and so he worked for a while. Just as he was about to leave, another volunteer said, “Come and drink some winter melon tea!” Again, he could not get away. As a result, he stayed in the recycling station the whole day until dusk. He felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment and inexplicable joy that day. A recycling station is like a home, filled with love and positive energy. The warm feeling of home is the key that attracts many people to join the work of recycling. Once enjoined in recycling, their concept of environmental protection will build slowly. A doctoral candidate in biological science from Academia Sinica started going to the Neihu recycling station in Taipei to wait for his wife after she participated in the evening’s activities. He thought to himself that instead of waiting at the side, he might as well join in the recycling activity. For someone who was not aware of Tzu-Chi’s environmental protection program, he found that there were many professionals and successful entrepreneurs in the recycling station. Everyone regarded him as a son. This student was able to gain many life experiences from the senior volunteers there that he had never had before. This is like the great love of a big family that attracts people. From then on he set aside his time regularly to undertake recycling, as part of his spiritual education.

1976), 64–65.

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Recycling function III: recycling and physical rehabilitation Many modern diseases are a result of the lack of love, caused by loneliness and worthlessness. Psychiatrists have long confirmed that a person’s mental state will determine his physical state. Many environmental volunteers, after working in the recycling station for a while, miraculously found their weak body or sick body regaining health and vitality. Medical sociologist Chris Shilling pointed out that the human body is a constantly changing physical and social phenomenon.15 Why is the human body social in nature? Sociologist Jon Ivar Elstad also pointed out that those at the bottom of society easily get sick. Social life, selfesteem, a sense of security, self-control, as well as being loved, maintains a person’s health status.16 It is easier to get sick in an environment of low self-esteem and high pressure, or one lacking in social support systems. Conversely, a person’s body is in a better state if he is in the support system of love, guaranteed self-esteem, welcomed, or is engaged in work that has a sense of profound significance. Sociologist Peter Freund also pointed out, “the interaction of the structural context of social life or social contact has a direct impact on the physical state of the person.”17 These theories explain why many Tzu Chi recycling volunteers experience incredible physical change when they perform environmental work. Recycling stations provide every environmental volunteer a network of love, as well as the force of warm and solid social support. This force is what medical sociologists point to as the cause of their greatly improved physical and mental state. Xu Jin-Lian had a 90-degree bent back before she joined the Neihu recycling station. After recycling for a year, her back gradually straightened.18 Xu, who is in her eighties, often appears in the recycling station to share her environmental experience and miracle. Watching her recycling, which involves moving boxes and filling them with recyclables, getting up, and walking around, it is as if she has forgotten her physical pain. Eventually, her body was straightened. She does not suffer from any 15

Chris Shilling, The Body and Social Theory (London: Sage, 1993), 37–61. J. I. Elstad, “The Psycho-social Perspective on Social Inequalities in Health,” Sociology of Health and Illness 20, no. 5 (1998): 598–618. 17 P. E. S. Freund, “The Express Body: A Common Ground of Sociology of Emotion and Health and Illness,” Sociology of Heath and Illness 12, no. 4 (1990): 452–77. 18 Shan-hui shu-yuan, Cheng Yen Shangren de Nalu Zuji, 42. 16

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pain and aches nowadays. This old Bodhisattva Xu said with a thankful mood, “I thank the Dharma Master!” She recalled, “When my back had straightened, I went home to my maiden home and everyone was startled! Carrying out environmental protection work really makes people become healthier, and happier!” Xu Jin-lian’s daughter-in-law Xu Yalan recalls, “When I got married, I saw my mother-in-law hunched, cooking in the kitchen. Now she can stand straight when she is working.” What Jin-lian experienced is not just the recycling movement that made her back upright. The environment of warm family values is also one of the factors that helped her to gradually recover.

Recycling function IV: rehabilitation of sad souls “Situational Education” is one of Tzu-Chi founder Master Cheng Yen’s keys to a lifetime committed to purifying the mind. A person’s transition through situational or group involvements is what Master Cheng Yen described as “Situational education.”19 With reference to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, “domain” determines a person’s thinking and his behavioural changes. The environmental conservation field provides one of the best scenarios for life education, like a religious altar or temple. But from another point of view, it is more powerful than a religious temple because people here have accepted the idea, not only by reading the classics to attain understanding of the concept, not just through listening to preaching by the Master to have clear thoughts, but through a specific practical force that will wash away or sublimate their negative emotions. The Tzu Chi recycling process lets so many lives wash away their long-standing bad habits (Habitués). According to the theory of Bourdieu’s “habitus” (Habitués), a habit that can initiate and continue to develop its own characteristic would be formatted within societal environment and supported by the milieu. 20 Moreover, once the habitus developed, even the social milieu might in due course be diminished, but the habitus could keep on. In the Tzu-Chi experience, the recreation of habitus is stimulated by “love,” and then the milieu of volunteerism constructs the habitus and internalizes its character. Tzu Chi volunteer Ku Si-Chiao was a drunkard for nearly two decades. His fall away from consciousness started when he became disappointed 19 20

Shan-hui shu-yuan, Cheng Yen Shangren de Nalu Zuji, 274–87. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 7, 46.

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with humanity. As a first-grader, he carelessly sprinkled his teacher with water when he was cleaning. Although he did not do it on purpose, four of his classmates chased him and surrounded him and even slapped him heavily. The slap shattered his self-confidence, resulting in having a deep secret that shaded his life afterwards. Ku never trusted anybody from then on, and suffered from severe paranoia. He became anti-social. His character gradually enclosed himself within his own world. He was always alone, unhappy, and did not want to mingle with others. Finally, he had taken to alcohol, which was his only escape from sadness. After twenty years of drinking, during an encounter Ku was invited by the Tzu Chi volunteers at the Xinzhuang recycling station to drive their environmental vehicle. Under the guidance of Tzu-Chi volunteer Ke JaneTao, he regularly joined environmental work three or four days a week. At first, Ku did not stop drinking. He often went to the recycling station after he had had some drinks. When the volunteers smelt his breath, some of them would pretend not to notice, but some would ask, “Why do you smell of alcohol?” Since then, he drank after working in the recycling station for fear that the volunteers might notice his alcoholic breath. Doing environmental work is sometimes hard. There is only a little money after a lot of cartons are sold to the recyclers. Although the money is donated to Tzu Chi to do public service, Ku often used the price of wine to measure the value of things. He drove a truckload of cartons, and the money in exchange was less than a few bottles of beer. This had a big impact on him: he realized that his drinking had wasted so much of his money and his life as well. So he devoted himself more to the work of Tzu-Chi, changing from being a participant to becoming a devotee. He joined in training to be certified as a Faith Corp, even getting rid of his twenty-year habit of drinking.21 “Tzu Chi makes me feel that life has become very real. It is no longer an illusion,” said Ku. Through activities such as meditation sessions, home visits and environmental protection he felt like his heart had opened up. He gained the courage to socialize, and gradually getting out of the shadow of “a slap in the face.” Ku-Si-Chiao never drank again and his heart is full of joy and happiness. Alcoholism, from a psychological point of view, is usually a form of escape within one’s character. When a person who has low self-esteem is confronted by life’s obstacles, emptiness and worthlessness, or is in a 21

Wen-si, “Walk out the Shadow of a Slap: Awakening of Wu Xi-jiao,” Tzu Chi Monthly 373 (1997): 66.

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depressed mood, he uses alcohol to achieve the feeling of “just compensation.” What is it that makes Ku-Si-Chiao stay away from the alcohol that has imprisoned him physically and mentally for the past twenty years? His focus on his work of environmental protection gives him a positive view of his valuable work, and moves him away from his dependence on alcohol. .

Bourdieu’s theories of Domain and Habitus (Habitués) Bourdieu’s habitus (Habitués) theory maintains that the body attains a certain temperament through the environment and its activities; and this can even directly change a person’s temperament.22 This temperament will open his world and the social structure to which he belongs. This is true of the friendly atmosphere and interpersonal relationship that changes a person’s habits and temperament in an emotional dimension. Bourdieu further discusses habitus as a “structural mechanism” (Structuring Mechanism). Its operation works from a person’s own awakening, and it changes its own habits through the inner spiritual awakening. This seems to be precisely what many Tzu Chi environmental volunteers are able to do, to improve themselves through practising the culture and value formation that leads to their transformation. This theory applies to people like Ku Si-Chiao, who has been transformed both physically and mentally and become “reborn.”

The hands that played cards to the hands that do recycling Eric Fromm once said, “The blows of life on the one hand let people grow up, while on the other hand, it may deeply exploit a person’s selfconfidence.”23 Environmental protection volunteer Lin Chien does not look like a gambler. Her early years had been ill-fated: her husband was paralyzed due to a car accident, and he passed away after being bedridden for eighteen years. Her eldest daughter also met with an accident and passed away after her husband had died. This series of misfortunes put Lin Chien into extreme grief and she buried herself in sadness and tears every day. To be able to tackle her grief, Lin started “gambling.” At first it was just to pass the time, and she did not expect herself to develop a heavy 22

Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 86. E. Fromm, The Art of Loving, trans. Meng Xiangsen (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956; Taipei: Zhiwen Publishing Co., 1986), 25.

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gambling addiction. She started gambling a few hundred dollars, and finally she was betting tens and thousands of dollars on lotto. She was bogged down. Despite the concerns of relatives and friends, she was completely indifferent. Her daily mood was attached to the wins and losses in her gambling. Before long, her heart was burdened with this heavy load of emotional ups and downs, and as a result of the erratic schedule of night and day her heart failed. Even her limbs had a variety of symptoms from sitting at the gambling table for so long. These sad souls seem to use big wins or losses at the gambling table to stimulate their feelings. This psychological mechanism has dominated her. The excitement in the casino made her forget her departed loved ones; on the other hand, the casino provided home-like warmth: gamblers shout, wail, cry or laugh. All pulled her fragile mind into a deeper state of loss. One day, she lost everything. In frustration and anger, she ran home to get more money to go back to gamble. This coincided with the presence of a Tzu Chi member in her house to accept her daughter-in-law’s donation. At that time, Lin thought that Tzu-Chi was a temple, and that the temple was raising money to build temples. Her instinct at that moment was: since she had lost so much money, she might as well donate some money to the temple to obtain the protection of Divine Providence. With this mindset, although she was not blessed, in exchange it brought in the living Buddha who changed her life. Lin donated the last $500 she had to the Tzu Chi member, and then rushed out to gamble again. She came home late that night after losing everything again. Actually, she is the type that always loses at gambling. After a month, the Tzu-Chi member visited her house again, and Lin suddenly became angry and scolded the Tzu-Chi member as swindlers who had come to bilk her for food and drinks. Her anger did not scare away the Tzu-Chi member. He brought Master Cheng Yen’s videotapes to show Lin the next day. She patiently watched the video and saw how compassionate master Cheng Yen was towards the suffering of the world as a whole. She was touched by the teaching of the Master and her empathy was ignited. Under arrangements with the Tzu-Chi member, Lin participated in the Hualien Tzu-Chi Root Tour, and listened to Master Cheng Yen’s speech in the Taichung branch. Master Cheng Yen said, “Turn garbage into gold, gold into love, love into a clear stream, the stream will go around the world … .” 24 Lin thought about Master Cheng Yen’s speech carefully. 24 Shih De-fan, Cheng Yen Shangren de Nalu Zuji, vol. Winter (Taipei: Tzu Chi Cultural Publishing Co, 2006), 70.

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“Every one of us has a pair of hands. We have the means to do something meaningful, using environmental protection to do good deeds. We can also learn to cast aside one’s reservations.” The Dharma’s speech awakened her: these hands could do good deeds, but she used her hands daily to indulge in gambling… At that moment, Lin was awakened from her confusion. She devoted herself to the recycling activities of Tzu-Chi. Her darks days are finally over and a bright new beginning has brought her back to the fold.25 Nowadays, Lin takes advantage of her early morning exercise in the park to pick up items that can be recycled: the first thing she does in the park is not exercising but to go through the trash bin for recyclable stuff to fill up her recycling bag. In the afternoon, she will ride a bicycle, together with her daughter-in-law, to collect recyclables from house to house. They will segregate these in the evening in the open space of their home. The whole family will work on segregating the recyclables in the recycling station on holidays. Her sunny disposition is seen in every corner of the recycling station, no matter if it is sunny or raining; her dark soul has finally been exposed to the bright sun. At first, her neighbours were curious and suspicious of her behavioural change, but her persistence and cheerfulness convinced them. With a pure heart, Lin was able to actively encourage residents in her entire community to take up the work of environmental protection aside from doing it herself.26 From the psychoanalytical point of view, and with a view to explaining Lin’s transformation, what is the power of the recycling station that enables Lin to stay away from the gambling table and has changed her life totally? Paul Bellringer, from the well-known British Gambling Care Association, explains the gambler’s psychology: “For the gamblers, gambling can be fulfilling for oneself. It is an escape from pressure. It gives a feeling of being in control, and winning increases a sense of accomplishment.”27

25

Zhang Shun-yan and Li Shu-hui, “Tzu Chi first Recycling Volunteer Convention: From Environmental Protection to Family and Mind Reservation,” Tzu Chi Daolu, 244 (1996): 2. 26 “Recycling Volunteer: Lin Qian,” 1900-sot, DaAi News (Taipei: DaAi TV, June 16, 2004). 27 P. Bellringer, Understanding Problem Gamblers, trans. Guang, Meifang (London: Free Association Books, 1999; Taipei: Zhang Laoshi Cultural Publishing Co., 2002), 110–12.

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When Lin’s husband passed away and her daughter died, she could not bear the enormous sorrow. She felt powerlessness in life, so she used gambling to escape her grief. Winning and losing at the gambling table was her way of manipulating her life. At the same time, she also expected to attain social warmth and affection at the gambling tables, although this was impossible. That is, until she joined Tzu Chi. When she engaged in recycling and environmental work her life gained a specific direction and she was able to get the satisfaction of achievement from being in control. The significance of environmental protection and the importance of recycling work for the sustainability of mankind gave Lin a positive value toward life. The care given by Tzu-Chi members, the religious feelings and Master Cheng Yen’s great love gave her a new sense of wisdom to accept the impermanence of life. She was able to understand that “people cannot dictate the length of life, but can dictate the depth of life.” All the fortune and misfortune ends with an idea. Like hands, they can be used to gamble and can also be used to do meaningful work. This value of life and the warmth of a family are the main reasons why Lin stayed away from her gambling habit after joining the recycling program. After the earthquake in Sichuan, China, Tzu Chi cared for the victims by giving relief, building schools and Great Love Villages, and introducing recycling in the disaster-hit areas. The Sichuan folks who liked to play mahjong were convinced to use those same hands to undertake recycling.

Feelings of worth and the physical and mental states It is worthy of further mention that Lin, and other volunteers who are elderly, disabled or psychologically impaired, have experienced significant transformations after joining the recycling program. This shift in disposition is not entirely due to the recycling work, but also because of the practice of true values in the Tzu-Chi recycling station that continued to support the kind of love and compassion that strengthened these people’s hearts and minds. Master Cheng Yen’s concept of “Treasuring life of things” was promoted by a group effort at each recycling station, and reinforced by the media arm of Tzu-Chi and DaAi TV. Volunteers’ sharing of experience during meetings penetrates deeply into every environmental volunteer’s heart, which becomes the key energy for the physical and psychological transformation that they experience in these recycling stations. This is the same as what was said by Kurt Koffka, master of Gestalt psychology, namely, that the sense of value connects man’s inner self to the outside world; people’s “psychological field” and “physical field” interact with

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each other mainly because the sense of their value and meaning are established: The mental state of the person is not a series of experiences accumulated, or direct physiological responses to the environment; it is the continuity of the significance of cognition and construction. The concept of value: helping people to understand the world and to understand themselves.28

The sense of meaning and value is an important tool for people to rebuild the mind. As Koffka said, “we collect, classify and acknowledge living experience, in order to help our mind establish a simple and constructive meaning of value.” Koffka further pointed out that the reward may not necessarily be positive as regards a person’s ability to learn. Many became models of success through the establishment of the sense of value and significance. The physical and mental state of these environmental volunteers were reconstructed and revived, not through material reward, but through the establishment of values and meaning that leads to its final results. We observe that in the recycling area of Tzu Chi, there are many elderly, people with disabilities, and those who used to indulge in various vices, and even people who are victims of psychological or family problems. They rediscover their value of life through working in these recycling areas.

Recycling function V: reconstructing family relationships The concept of values is the key to uniting a family. Although many families have love, their concept of value differs. They will have difficulty in getting along with each other, and might even become enemies. At Tzu Chi recycling stations families are able to rediscover their common values. Through entering into recycling there are common themes in their life values. Through the interaction of its members in the recycling station, the originally cold and antagonistic family relationship is improved. A study conducted at a Tzu-Chi recycling station revealed that many families facing problems were able to mend and restore their warm family relationships. The biggest crisis of the modern family is due to job specialization. Under industrial capitalism, everyone seems to live life in a box. Individuals not only become isolated in human society, but even the 28 K. Koffka, Principle of Gestalt Psychology, trans. Wei Li (London: Lund Humphries, 1935; Taipei: Zhao-ming, 2000), 65–128.

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family drifts further and further apart due to the lack of common topics for discussion about life issues and values. The rising divorce rate is the inevitable result of a capitalist society. Man in a materialistic environment has to face pressure brought by daily competition. His desires have to be relieved through a variety of escape and comfort mechanisms. Human nature, in its demand for true love, is dampened in a highly competitive society. This repression cannot be recovered through the family, as it suppresses the gentle family unit and its mutual love. Ulrich Beck, a German sociologist, and his wife Elisabeth BeckGernsheim, co-authored the book The Normal Chaos of Love to illustrate the civilized world phenomenon of the division of labor in an industrial society, and its impact on the family: If the social situation is forcing individuals to focus on their own interests, how much does it take to share the possibility of a personal life? Even if the motive is completely perfect, the following is also bound to be the result: two world bodies that cannot build a common life, must each defend their own world, which will ultimately lead to a violent dispute in this civilization, and will sometimes get out of control.29

Recycling stations provide a married couple with a common mission and values. The recycling station is like a big family, full of great love. This atmosphere of love lets many couples who are on the verge of separation re-establish harmonious family relationships. Sister Yang Wang Yi, who served at the Grand Bay recycling station in Tainan, had a small grocery store next to the army barracks. Her husband, a taxi driver, was considered as hard working, but because of the nature of his work, he had to drive everywhere, and acquired many bad habits: he smoked, chewed betel nuts, and had a very bad temper. The family relationship always bothered the simple Sister Wang, until she joined the recycling station during an encounter with a Tzu-Chi member ten years ago. That was when a Tzu-chi member approached her to inquire if she would like to donate the cans, bottles and other recyclables from her store to Tzu-Chi. Her business was very good at that time. Soldiers regularly came to buy necessities from her. Sister Wang knew about Master Cheng Yen’s public appeal, not only to save the Earth, but also to use the proceeds from the recyclables to purify the mind and to give relief to those in poverty. She immediately agreed to donate the recyclables from her store to Tzu-Chi, not knowing that her kindness and gesture eventually 29

Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, The Normal Chaos of Love (Malden MA: Blackwell, 1995), 92.

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would change the problem of her family relationship that had haunted her for years. In the beginning her husband strongly opposed her recycling work, because he was concerned about the sanitary conditions of their environment and the effect on their children’s health. But when he saw the way she organized the recycling materials in an orderly manner and her happiness in doing this, he gradually joined in the work of the environmental protection unit. Mr. Yang, Sister Wang’s husband, used to chew betel nuts all the time. He did not observe good personal hygiene habits, and spat casually. He played mahjong with his friends when he was not working, and driving for long hours in his taxi resulted in an irritable personality. Since joining as an environmental volunteer, he has learned to be sensitive in his manners like other Tzu-Chi members. He has quit all his bad habits. The joy of recycling work has replaced the happiness he attained from his bad habits. Tzu Chi recycling stations undoubtedly provide couples with a space for family activities. This domain becomes a place where they can share a common topic for communication. This domain is not competitive but creative; it does not exploit, but can give each other a sense of achievement and respect; rather than having mutual suspicion, there is mutual respect and the relationship of mutual love. This relationship provides the modern world with another kind of reflection and healing. This domain of love of nature and love of each other provides a common value system, which is the opportunity Tzu Chi volunteers used in rebuilding family relationships.

Recycling function VI: classification of goods and the reorganization of one’s soul Social psychologists suggest that, if a person is unable to rely on his will to change his mood, he can gradually change his behaviour by changing his temperament. Therapists in psychology using the “letting one foot in first” theory (a foot-in-the-door principle), guide people to start with a small step, so that people with psychological distress can change gradually, broaden out into every part of their lives, and from then on change a troubled body and mind and their unstable temperament. 30 The outside world to a certain extent affects a person’s inner self. This is what we have

30 J. L. Freedman and S. C. Fraser, “The Foot-in-door Technique,” Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 4 (1966), 195–202.

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mentioned previously in Bourdieu’s theory: that, through contact with the outside world, a person’s temperament might change. Social psychologists teach that if people tend to be lonely, depressed, withdrawn and shy it is because of a lack of external social skills rather than internal problems. In a safe place, people learn new social skills, and will be able to rebuild their lives into a life of confidence. Perhaps this can be used to illustrate why many volunteers gradually leave depression behind after joining the recycling programs and overcome their long psychological sicknesses. When the environmental volunteer segregates items like paper, plastic and cans, his inner self seems to be going through a reclassification too. Environmental volunteers concentrate on recycling work with a pure and innocent heart, and through it, the process has a healing effect on mental illness such as anxiety and mood conversion. Chai Man was plagued by depression. She said her life was full of drama. Her mom died when she was four; her father followed when she was fourteen. During her most trying times, at twenty-four, all her valuables were stolen by robbers who visited her home. Her illegal shelter was destroyed by a fire when she was thirty-four. She went into depression when she was forty-four and her whole life fell into the deepest valley.31 Although she suffered the deep pain of depression, Chai was very brave. She continued to join in the work of Tzu Chi. Sister Hong XiuMien encouraged her to temporarily put aside her disease and leave it alone. This attitude and mood was quite effective. Chai Man concentrated on the recycling work, her mind only focusing on how best to dismantle the boxes, how to effectively segregate the plastic bottles, as well as how to crush the aluminium cans effortlessly. Gradually, the pain of depression vanished. She said, “I’m happy when I have something to do, unlike before when I had nothing to do at home every day, like the living dead.” The happiest thing in her day is when she discusses the amount of recycling or the discovery of a new recycling station. This strengthens Chai Man again and again, until she cleans up the garbage that she has accommodated deep in her inner self, finding perseverance and courage to get through her depression each time it flares up. “Doing recycling keeps our descendants from worries. Everybody stays healthy!” Chai Man chants these words all the time, because she has never imagined “Doing recycling” was the prescription for her to cure her sadness without medication. 31

Wang Shu-fang, “The Experience of Cai-man: Seven Years Trapped in Mind Cocoon,” Tzu Chi Monthly 472 (2006), 21.

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Recycling function VII: cohesion in community love Many of those who join in the environmental program have been living alone for a long time; in order for them to persuade people to engage in recycling, volunteers have to go from house to house to encourage people to join in the recycling. With the passage of time, they were able to share what they have learned in Tzu-Chi; like cherishing life; like the spirit of treasuring Mother Earth that they introduced to every corner of their community. The people of their community started off being passive, then being approached, before joining in the movement to become a guardian of their community and to work for the betterment of Mother Earth. These old grandmothers gradually become environmental protection leaders in their communities. Old Grandma Chen Chian-Cha of Keelung recycling station is ninetyfour years old. She wakes up every day at four o’clock in the morning, ties up her urine bag and starts recycling work in her community.32 She has become happier during the past few years that she has been involved with recycling, and she is loved by her neighbours. Everyone prepares their recyclables for this Bodhisattva every day for when she passes by their houses. Whenever she passes by a 7-Eleven store, the young staff will have a cup of coffee ready for her; Family Mart Convenient Store will have rice pudding ready for her when she goes there, as she is considered an angel in her community. Neighbours pitied her when they saw her carrying so many recyclables every day. Many started helping her whenever they had time. One neighbour even gave her a space in front of her gate to let her place her recyclables. Slowly, this small place gathered more and more volunteers; the small open court became a community recycling station. The energy that comes out of such a practice is indeed very touching. From being an old lady who stayed home every day, trapped in a family in a small district waiting for family members to come round, she became an outgoing and persuasive advocate of environmental protection, an angel of their community, and turned the community into a big family.

32

Shih De-fan, Cheng Yen Shangren de Nalu Zuji, Spring (Taipei: Tzu Chi Cultural Publishing Co, 2003), 674.

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Recycling function VIII: establishing a cheerful outgoing personality The aging problem in Taiwan has increased year by year. The government, and even private organizations, rarely propose specific methods to address the loss of social status for the elderly, who increasingly need more and more care and have other growing problems. Today’s elderly feel worthless. They stay at home all day without anyone to talk to. Their loneliness, which is associated with old age, is a growing phenomenon of self-isolation cases. However, joining in environmental protection work gradually transforms them into outgoing individuals who everyone praises as Bodhisattvas. These include the more-than-ninety-year-old Grandma Chen Chien-Cha, and old Bodhisattva Chang Lin Chiao of Ilan who is over a hundred years old. All of them have been able to retrieve their selfesteem by undertaking recycling. There are thousands of grandpas and grandmas over eighty years old in Taiwan who are volunteers in recycling stations, and all of them have experienced the transition from emptiness to fulfilment, from self-isolation to integration with the community. For someone who hardly says a word in a day to become a community leader who persuades his community about recycling work, their journey in transformation confirms research made by psychologists that behavioural change changes attitudes.

Recycling function IX: establishing a simple and pure life Sister Xiao Xiu-Chu, initiator of the Tzu Chi recycling station at Bade Road, Taipei, is at present one of those volunteers responsible for the Bade Recycling station. She used to be one of the biggest suppliers of Styrofoam tableware in Taipei. Styrofoam is considered one of the most environmentally unfriendly household materials. Sister Xiao used to work in food distribution, but her products were often slow moving, and once the products had expired, her company had to face losses. In the process, she learned that in business, the product lifespan should be long. She realized that Styrofoam does not expire. If business is slow, she could still sell them in the future. As a result, she went into the Styrofoam business. She was hoarding her stock in all her neighbourhood side streets and on verandas near her company. Her business was booming and she earned a lot of money. But Styrofoam does not comply with environmental protection. Sister Xiao gradually felt confused because she had joined Tzu Chi. She felt her industry was contrary to the environmental philosophy, so she and her

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husband were constantly thinking about how to change their livelihood. Since the business was good, the couple had a hard time deciding on how to compromise with the environmental issue. Then, they suddenly heard Master Cheng Yen saying on DaAi TV, “Be willing to let go.” Sister Xiao suddenly decided it is time to let go willingly. They decided to stop their Styrofoam business and joined the ranks of volunteers in recycling.33 Sister Xiao changed from being a wholesaler selling tens of thousands of Styrofoam dishes a day to becoming a volunteer leader in recycling. She and her husband sold many items of usable furniture, dishes, clothes and even antiques they had collected from the recycling station and donated the proceeds to the Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Humanitarian Program. She and many other Tzu Chi volunteers further developed the Bade recycling station into an environmental education pavilion for students, media and foreign dignitaries, to enable them to learn about the wisdom of Tzu Chi Recycling program. Sister Xiao used to be engaged in an industry that caused pollution of the environment, but now she has become a spokesperson on environmental protection. Like Sister Xiao, many volunteers have experienced the same change of life style in undertaking recycling. The lives of many people have become more environmentally friendly, more caring of living things, and more frugal. After witnessing so many good things being discarded, people will learn to cherish these goods. Many environmental volunteers lose their taste for aimless shopping after getting involved with recycling. Many who are into the stock market gradually lose their desire to buy stocks; their lives have become simple and frugal. The concept of “caring for living things and love of things” has changed their daily lives and they have, instead, developed a simple lifestyle.

Recycling function X: the meaning of life and its expansion Tzu Chi recycling volunteers often use the recycling station as a venue for meditation. The recycling station may not have a Buddha statue, but with the Buddha in mind, every piece of material has been carefully handled in the recycling station, everything has been segregated, cleaned and reused. This is how life is being felt by another life. Director-General Chen Jin-Hai of the Tzu Chi North District Environmental Protection Program is a successful entrepreneur. He started 33

Shih De-fan, Cheng Yen Shangren de Nalu Zuji, vol. Fall (Taipei: Tzu Chi Cultural Publishing Co, 2004), 464–83.

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recycling by driving a Mercedes Benz. For him, recycling is a Dharma. He says, “Master Cheng Yen hopes that everyone will be able to gain recycling of the soul in carrying out the recycling of goods. Performing recycling is to learn how to love and to achieve the goal of being a good neighbour in the community.” That is why he assumes that recycling is the best leisure activity for urbanites. It is the best way to purify the body and soul. Brother Chen says that recycling is the most grass-roots “countryside culture”34 which demonstrates an ultimate concern for every human life, that all living beings are equal, and we have to love all sentient beings equally. These sentient beings include the lives of those that are tangible and intangible. This is why Master Cheng Yan always says that the recycling station is like a temple. Environmental protection volunteers will say a prayer before they start the day undertaking recycling activities. Facing a blank wall, the volunteers silently pray that there will be no disaster in the world, that people’s hearts will be purified and that there will be social harmony. Buddha was in everyone’s mind; they do not have to dedicate themselves to a specific image. The Diamond Sutra said, “Tathagata should not be based on his physical body.” Bonding of the environmental volunteers is a centripetal force. It is like the spirit of a religion that absorbs. This kind of religion does not seek eternal life, but uses the tangible life to touch on the material life, to cherish the Earth like cherishing one’s body. This feeling of human, Heaven and Earth communicating with each other, is both practical and transcendental. This is the religious outlook of Master Cheng Yen, which is a feasible and practical way to let people embody a kind of self-awareness beyond emotion and immortal wisdom of life. The recycling efforts to maintain our sustainable living environment reflect a kind of “intergenerational care and justice,” and a more specific philosophy. Volunteers who participate in environmental work, in fact, have a hidden psychological concern more like a religious ritual that is beyond this world, which is to pray for the endless extension of the life of the world. Brother Chen Ching-Wan from Taipei said, “pick up the garbage, and put down the garbage in one’s heart.” Let go of one’s ego in order to do recycling better, therefore, to purify the land of the dirtiest places, and also throw away the dirtiest garbage in one’s heart. He thinks that recycling not only takes him to a peaceful realm, but it can also benefit people. While 34 Wang Shu-mei, “Set aside One’s Ego to Realize the Value of Recycling,” Tzu Chi Daolu 179 (1993): 5.

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picking up tangible garbage, we also clean up the invisible garbage in our hearts. “One law can take all the laws.” That is the essence of the Immeasurable Sutra.35 Every individual is a small unit, but he can “Praise the genesis of Heaven & Earth.” Each force is as small as a grain of sand, but as long as we surmount, trickles of sand can form a tower. It can be shaped into a society of true goodness and humanity for the effort. Every PET bottle that is picked up can let the world journey into the direction of continuation. Every piece of paper recycled is a small step toward the purification of the human soul. Every grain of sand is a world, and a paradise can be seen in a wildflower. Grasp infinity in the palm of your hand and place eternity into a moment of time. Nothing is insignificant for the environmental volunteers; their actions closely reflect the true meaning of this world. Through Tzu Chi’s recycling efforts, each tiny life of each individual extends to the purification of people around the world. The cleansing of each personal being elevates the lives of a group. Who says this is not “one is all”? All this is a subtle manifestation of the profound Dharma!

35

Master Cheng Yen, The Innumerable Sutra, 182.

CHAPTER NINE THE CHURCH’S RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES TIMOTHY LIAU

In Taiwan’s religious world, the organization that should be considered the best at dealing with the question of environmental issues is the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation. The Foundation is well known to most Taiwanese people, and in most people’s minds, besides being a religious emergency relief organization, the Foundation is an important organization that promotes environmental protection. Its followers not only cherish their faith and do their own recycling, but they invite their family and friends to engage in environmental protection as well. According to Tzu Chi’s publications, the Foundation designates the second Sunday of every month throughout Taiwan as Environmental Protection Day. To promote “waste reduction,” and advocate “recycling resources,” there are more than 4,500 designated recycling centers and more than 50,000 environmental protection volunteers throughout Taiwan’s counties, towns and communities. Tzu Chi branches in other countries of the world also promote local recycling, community environmental protection and other works. These Tzu Chi volunteers promote environmental protection as a center of spiritual practice: they are not afraid of getting “down and dirty,” and do not hesitate to go to the trouble of sorting, classifying and recycling garbage. One individual’s efforts can help protect a community’s environment. According to statistics, from 1992 to December of 2005, Tzu Chi volunteers recycled over 616.3 million kilograms of paper, which is equivalent to saving over 12.32 million large trees.1 The impression of the general public is that Christianity does not pay as much attention to environmental issues as Buddhism, because the 1

Lin Bizhu and Xie Mingzhu, eds., εང᠀Γ໔ Da Ai Sa Renjian [Spread human love] (Taipei: Tzu Chi Foundation, 2006), 130–34.

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contribution of Christianity to environmental issues cannot compare with those of the Buddhist world. The average person will rarely associate their impression of Christianity with that of being an agent of environmental protection. The most influential organizations that promote environmental protection efforts in the Christian world are a handful of Christian societies (for example, Homemakers United Foundation and the Environmental Theology Research Center). But while these organizations are dedicated, their influence is far less than that of Tzu Chi’s. In regards to this issue, the specific actions of Christians, including Protestants and Catholics, are rarely heard of. Thus, environmental problems and the church’s responsibilities towards these problems are worthy of the church’s deep analysis and thought. Why has the church not done enough on this issue? Could it be that it lacks the relevant environmental theological foundation? In fact, Christian theologians have been discussing environmental issues on the basis of theology and faith since as early as the middle of the last century. Relevant texts by Chinese and English authors can be found everywhere.2 Indeed, by comparison, books by relevant authors in the Buddhist world are far fewer. Therefore, the reason why the church does less than the Buddhists is not because it lacks a theological foundation. I believe that the most important reason is nothing more than the fact that the church or Christian awareness of environmental crises is not focused. They do not pay enough attention to ethical responsibilities, and therefore do not care much about “environmental ethics.” Thus, awareness of environmental ethics in the Christian church still needs to be strengthened, and should be the church’s current priority. This chapter intends to discuss the reasons behind environmental crises, the specific solutions to them, and finally to think about how the church can fulfill its responsibility in the face of today’s extremely urgent environmental crises. The majority of the data in this paper comes from a book co-written with Luis Gutheinz, SJ entitled, Jidu xinyang zhong de Shengtai Shenxue (Environmental theology in Christian faith).3 Although this book is a little past its time, nonetheless there is some data that is still timeless and referable. 2

Luis Gutheinz, SJ and Liau Yeong Shyang, ୷ ࿎ ߞ һ ύ ‫ ޑ‬ғ ᄊ ઓ Ꮲ Jidu xinyang zhong de Shengtai Shenxue [Environmental theology in Christian faith] (Taipei: Kuangchi Cultural Group, 1994), 419–35. The writings listed here are from before 1994. After eighteen years, there are now numerous publications about environmental issues from the Christian perspective. 3 Ibid.

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The cause of environmental crises There are at least three main reasons for environmental crises: (1) The first is technological advance and mankind’s modern lifestyle. That technological developments have brought negative influences to humanity is difficult to deny. Look at humanity’s basic necessities, such as food, clothing, shelter and transportation. Take transportation, for example. In the past, man used his two feet to walk, or rode a horse, but has slowly progressed to the bicycle, car, train, plane and other modern forms of transportation. These forms of transport do not only consume natural resources, they also create environmental pollution. Added to this is the fact that human beings blindly pursue technology, which leads to technology’s supremacy over and independence from human beings. Technology rules over humans and controls all aspects of their lives. In due course, it has given rise to overpopulation, environmental destruction and degradation, the depletion of non-renewable resources and other environmental crises. (2) The second reason is humanity’s blind desire to develop industry and seek economic growth. Classic economic theory is still widely accepted by the majority of modern economic theorists. To satisfy the needs of human beings, markets must remain open and competitive. As long as people’s needs are growing, and profits outweigh consumption, we should just continue in this manner. For example, economists all agree that industrial development is the best tool to improve people’s standard of living. To develop industry, it is necessary to build factories, but all the gas, water and waste emissions create pollution, which is reflected in the greenhouse effect. (3) The third reason is a lack of human morality, that leads people to blindly seek a life of material enjoyment. When someone lacks morality, and only seeks enjoyment, and does not possess self-discipline, then the technology used to serve humanity will become the culprit of economic crises. In the end, given the development of an attitude of irresponsibility, the use of technology and the desire for economic growth, the primary cause of environmental crises is humanity’s lack of moral concepts. Thus, we can see that there is a close relationship between environmental crises and morality. When speaking about humanity’s lack of morality, we can take it a step further and talk about it under three headings: what may be called “materialism,” “egoism” and “humanism.” These three ideologies are the primary human factors that create environmental crises.

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(1) Materialism: materialism manifests itself in humanity’s reckless industrial development, its desire for economic growth and its blind search for happiness through a materialist lifestyle. Under the corrupting influence of materialism, many people spend a life dedicated to seeking wealth and luxury as their only life goals. In today’s world, this type of materialism controls all of society’s value systems. Our society is positioned to advance toward a higher material standard of living. To improve living standards is understandable and rational. However, the average person’s motivation behind improving their standard of living is selfish. These people mistakenly believe that earning more money, owning property and material happiness are the natural and logical order of things. In doing so they ignore the needs of others and never think about how much harm their own behavior can cause the environment. The yearning for this type of materialist, luxurious lifestyle has brought about the crisis we face from depleting the world’s limited resources, and has also led to the acceleration of various forms of pollution. When human beings seek happiness solely in a materialist lifestyle, and place priority on production and economic interests, this can lead to a twisted sense of contempt towards human nature. Because, in this style of living, economic materialism takes precedence over character and human dignity is neglected. This perception and lifestyle not only lacks the value of human nature, it can also cause damage to the natural environment. Therefore, in order for the environment to improve, human beings must discard these materialistic values and change their lifestyle of greed. (2) Egoism: people who hold an “egoistic” or “individualistic” philosophy of life advocate that the basis for determining right and wrong behavior depends solely on what is of personal benefit, as the individual concerned is morally the only one that needs to be taken into consideration. Because of egoism’s strong emphasis on uniqueness and individuality, it over-promotes the dignity and value of human nature and thus discards another characteristic of human nature, namely, the collectivism of human beings and the relationship between one human being and another, and to creation. When possessing a mental disregard for other people or other forms of creation, egoism can easily turn into selfishness. This is exactly what the ancient Chinese Yang Zhu4 school of thought says about passive practices, “pulling one hair will benefit the world, but one still refuses to do it.” People who have this type of outlook on life will even build their happiness on the suffering of others. 4

Translator’s note: Yangzhu was a Chinese philosopher during the Warring States Period. His philosophy, known as Yangism, was an early ethical egoist alternative to Mohist and Confucian thought.

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Where egoism prevails, the restraints of morality are hard to put into effect. The result is damage to the public interest. Because of the problem of selfishness, as in the case of self-interest, it is easy not to appreciate the sacrifices of others or the benefits of communal sacrifice. In discussing environmental problems, egotists only follow their own happiness when dealing with the environment. They only take personal benefit as the behavioral base for their environmental interactions. As long as it does not threaten their own interests, they are completely careless of others’ needs and the fact that the natural environment is being polluted and destroyed. They have forgotten one fact, namely that the natural environment is not only essential for themselves, but for everyone, and for the survival of all of our offspring. (3) Humanism: Humanists insist that “human dignity” alone is the primary concern of ethics. This viewpoint does not incorporate individualism. Fundamentally, it is only concerned with benefits to humanity at large. That which is created outside of humanity is not without value, but it only possesses dependent value. For that which has been created outside of humanity to be of value, that value must come entirely from human beings. It is only because something is needed by humanity, can be beneficial to humanity, or can influence human existence that it has value. Moreover, generally speaking, humanists insist that only human benefit possesses fundamental value, and that other forms of creation only exist to add to the benefit of humanity. We can easily see that this type of philosophy, which places humans at the center, presents a very grave danger to the natural environment. If the environment only existed for the benefit of humanity, then we could all exploit the environment for our own desires and benefit and in accordance to our own personal happiness. Since the progress of science and technology can bring mankind incomparable benefits, the development of science and technology is seen as necessary and the protection of the environmental environment as secondary. In this way, the natural environment would have no protection at all, because protecting it would mean limiting technological development. However, humanists should consider this: humanity’s current and future interests are extremely closely related to the protection of the environment. When the environment is damaged, human interests, and even survival, can all come under threat. It is only when human beings let the natural environment remain intact that human interests are really secure. Strict humanists should consider the fact that, from a theological point of view, although humanity is at the center of creation (because humans are created in the image of God), being created in the “image of

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God” does not mean that human beings can arbitrarily do, or treat, things however they wish. More than that: being created in the “image of God” means responsibility, namely, that human beings should bear the responsibility in the name of God for caring for the environment and all other things. Humanists should also recognize that human beings and the rest of creation are one, and that humans cannot separate themselves and exist apart from the rest of creation. Moreover, humanists must not overlook the interests and rights of future generations. To not be moderate in the use of the planet’s resources is to think that the interests and rights of today’s people are greater than the interests and rights of future generations. This is a clear demonstration of a denial of human equality.

What are the specific actions required to solve environmental crises? Facing a worsening plight from environmental crises, many people have proposed the concept of “sustainable development.”5 This is an economic model of development where the environment is protected while at the same time the needs of the people today are met and the interests of future generations are unharmed. They advocate that economic development and environmental protection are not in contention, and that protecting the environment is also to achieve long-term economic development. Therefore, “sustainable development” includes two basic principles: (1) need – the basic necessities needed for survival should be met; (2) moderation – human economic activities affecting the environment should be limited to fulfill current and future needs. They should not threaten the environmental system but should maintain its integrity. Speaking about specific behaviors, “sustainable development” advocates that human economic activity should: (1) adapt to climate change and minimize greenhouse gas emissions; also, human economic activity must be able to cope with climate change now and not leave it to be passed on to future generations; (2) reduce the production of waste and ensure that any economic activity produces the least amount of waste possible; (3) ensure biodiversity and be able to protect the best environment for wild animals and plants; (4) be inclusive and allow more people to communally contribute to environmental protection and enjoy the fruits of sustainable 5

Joseph R. Des Jardins, Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy, trans. Lin Guangming and Yang Aimin (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2002), 66–69.

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development. The economists and policy makers who seek economic growth should get rid of traditional economic theories and accept the theory of “sustainable economics” that is being promoted by ecologists, which is something that cannot be ignored. In speaking about practical actions, I would like to suggest five other specific actions: (1) Actively reduce the consumption of materials and eliminate the habits of a luxurious and wasteful lifestyle. Modern society emphasizes consumerism, because without consumption there is no production, and it is production that drives the economy and creates high economic growth rates. In this type of consumer society, many behaviors and habits of consumption are wasteful, and are the main cause of the drying up of natural resources. The popularity of buffet restaurants is a good example. Many consumers who eat at these types of restaurants have difficulty resisting the temptation to “get the most for their money.” Therefore they eat and they eat, and would rather eat till their stomachs and bodies hurt than have the restaurant owners earn a cent. The result is that much more food is produced than can be consumed. Thus, not only does food that the environment provides us go to waste, but the burden on the environment also becomes heavier. Furthermore, when talking about clothing, the clothes of the modern person must be 100% fashionable, stylish, and, on top of that, from a name brand. Wearing clothes has become a symbol of identity. Many people buy famous and expensive clothes but only wear them once or twice before switching to another style or get rid of them, when really they could wear them for a lifetime without their becoming ruined. If we have obtained an understanding of environmental ethics, when life has reached such a level of luxury, waste and temptation, then we must be courageous and reject the substance of this temptation. We do not own the Earth because it belongs to God, and therefore we are merely God’s stewards. (2) Actively impel the recycling of used materials. This is another way to reduce the consumption of goods. This is simply taking the things people discard and using them again; as, for example, taking ragged clothes and using them as cleaning cloths. The recycling of resources not only reduces unnecessary garbage, but also achieves the goal of saving new resources. We can employ practical ways to use recycled paper, and by replacing traditional paper factories with recycled paper factories we reduce the use of wood and the depletion of forests. Imagine if half of the people in the world really started to recycle. How much could we cut

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down on consumption of resources and on garbage? How much environmental damage could be reduced? By how much could the greenhouse effect be reduced? Given the environmental crises and trends in resource depletion of today, this method – recycling – should not be treated as a matter of choice but should be regarded as an ethical action that cannot be evaded. (3) Strengthen the quality of life by strengthening religion, philosophy, aesthetics, the arts, and other facets of life, to enjoy a complete life with the least amount of material consumption. This practice requires a change in values and outlook on life, which is something that many people ignore. The main reasons why people are unable to abandon luxuries or the habits of a wasteful lifestyle are due to the influences of materialism. A materialist’s main object in life is to seek material happiness. He or she is even willing to be enslaved by materials, which is greatly counter to human nature. They use wealth and materials as a standard to measure value, not knowing what quality of life means, let alone the value of religion, philosophy or the arts. We can say that, as long as this concept does not change, then we cannot place great hopes on the possibility that our environmental crises will one day disappear. Jesus said: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”6 The objective of life cannot only be about the pursuit of material happiness. Life has more important objectives, such as religion, spirituality and knowledge. Therefore, as individuals we must have one type of basic understanding, that is, we should do away with the values of materialism and replace them with those of religion, philosophy, aesthetics and the arts, and other life values. Once we are able to overcome high levels of materialism and enter into a realm of spirituality, our lives will not be constrained by materialism and will enter into a higher level of communication with God. In a materialistic and wealthy modern society, we should value a lifestyle of quality, religion and philosophy. It is only by changing to these values and life views that we will be able to completely eliminate the lifestyle habits of luxury and waste. (4) Completely control pollution and eliminate damaging behaviors, because these are hostile acts that are directly damaging to the natural environment. There are many ways that we can pollute the environment, for example, through the emissions released while driving, by use of pesticides, sprays, plastic bags, disposable tableware and various chemical 6

Matthew 4:4.

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products, such as cleaning agents, and by the arbitrary discarding of batteries. Other examples are deforestation, the over-exploitation of wild animals and fish, etc. Most of these acts of environmental destruction come from human greed or an inability to exercise moderation, and must be stopped. We must completely control all polluting and destructive behavior, and of course we must demand that everyone completely changes his or her style of living. (5) Stabilize the population growth rate. Some people liken the Earth to a spaceship. 7 The water, air and natural resources inside are limited. Therefore, the number of astronauts inside the spaceship should be strictly controlled and should not grow without being managed. This analogy helps us to understand the seriousness of the environmental crisis, because the plight of the spaceship and the Earth are both very similar. The size of both is fixed, as there is no way to expand either. The resources of both are also limited and neither can be increased. If the users are unable to be frugal, or if the number of users increases too quickly, then the limited resources will reach a point when they are exhausted. Seriously speaking, the plight of the Earth is in a more serious state than that of the spaceship, because the human population continues to increase every day. According to statistics of a few years ago, excluding deaths, the entire world’s population was increasing by 2.8 people every second. Mainland China’s population increases by one person every 2.3 seconds, and Taiwan’s population increases by one person every three seconds. There are some places in the world where the population is increasing even more quickly. In addition, according to the United Nations’ recently published world population report (World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision), the world’s population will be over seven billion people by the end of October 2011, having exceeded the six-billion mark only twelve years ago. The report shows that the world’s population could possibly reach 10.1 billion by the year 2100. Moreover, the UN report shows that the Mainland Chinese population will peak at approximately 1.4 billion in 2030, the European population will reach a peak of about 740 million in 2020, but the Indian population will probably reach a peak of 1.7 billion in 2060. Furthermore, due to the United States’ Latino population’s fairly high birth rate and high immigration numbers, the current overall population numbers for the United States could rise from 311 million to 478 million by 2100. In some poorer countries, fertility rates are declining more slowly 7

Paul E. Lutz, “An Interdependent World,” in Environmental Renewal, edited by William H. Lazareth, 1–7 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972).

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than expected. In the United States, Britain, Denmark, etc. fertility rates have risen slightly, which has prompted the United Nations to increase the 2050 global population estimates by 1.56 to 9.3 billion.8 If population growth does not slow down, especially in some underdeveloped regions, the world will suffer from this population explosion. As a result, there will not only be an added burden on the environment, there will also be famines, more and more extinct species, desertification, global warming, ozone depletion and climate change that, in the end, could possibly lead to wars over the possession of natural resources. Thus, the environmental crises we face today are serious. The governments and churches of every country must devise a solution on how to deal with overpopulation. This is an urgent problem.

What are the Church’s responsibilities? When speaking about environmental crises, Bernard Häring believes that today’s Christians take on the burden of the gospel message “the salt of the earth”9 in response to this complex issue. They believe it is enough to try to influence public opinion and present ideas when policy is being made.10 I believe that before the church tries to influence and shape social opinion, it should first do its homework and reflect on teaching Christians about the urgency of environmental issues, the necessity of correct environmental morality, and require Christians to seriously observe the ethical principles of an environmental lifestyle. I will now discuss the specific ideas on the responsibilities that the Church should take on board to deal with the causes of the environmental crises mentioned above.

The Church’s responsibility to educate its followers about environmental theology and theory The main concern of the Church’s traditional moral theology is to place appropriate emphasis on the relationship of other people to oneself, humans to humans, and human beings to God. There is less frequent discussion of the relationship between humans and other animals, and 8

Refer to: http://goooqle-money.blogspot.com/2011/06/201270205090.html (accessed on 8 August 2013; site now discontinued). 9 Translator’s note: this phrase comes from Matthew 5:13. Today it refers to someone who is humble and lacking pretension. 10 Bernard Häring, C.S.S.R., Dare to be Christian: Developing a Social Conscience, trans. Neng Lü (Taipei: Kuangchi Cultural Group, 1992).

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even more seldom regarding the relationship between humans and the natural environment. When environmental crises become an issue of universal concern, the Church has the responsibility to break from past traditions and extend the issues discussed within moral theology to the relationships between people, nature and the Earth. It should also put forth theological foundations for the moral principles and behavioral standards that its believers should have towards the environment. Below are a few, relatively brief, summaries of key environmental theologies we have taken from the Bible, systematic theology and moral theology: (1) The Bible’s environmental view: The Bible continually emphasizes that humanity is at the center of God’s creation, and that the world was created to support the existence of human beings. At the beginning of creation, God endowed man with the right and responsibility to manage, control, care for and protect the earth. But the Bible also points out that, over and over again, humans violate God’s commands and, instead of cherishing and caring for the Earth, increase their subjugation of everything and anything, even to the point of destroying it. Humanity always only looks after its own needs, seeks only its own happiness, and forgets its responsibility to manage and use the natural world in the interest of all living creatures. To be brief, the Bible’s environmental perspective is that the world possesses character, value and a status that cannot be treated with human carelessness. We can sum it up in the following five points: (a) The Bible’s perspective on creation emphasizes that God is the creator of man and the universe. As creations of God, human beings and the rest of creation all possess status and value. (b) Humans are created in the “image” of God and God endows us with the right and responsibility to manage and control the natural world. However, humans and nature are in a relationship of “responsibility.” Therefore, humans cannot exploit the Earth howsoever they please, but should play the role of “steward,” to be responsible like God, and to carefully use the Earth’s natural resources. (c) Although the world was created for humans, it still possesses its own independent status and value. The natural world is a part of the covenant between humans and God11 that, along with humans, has been redeemed by Christ. 12 The stipulating of the sabbatical and years of jubilee13 are even clearer expressions of respect for the Earth. 11

Genesis 9:10. Romans 8: 19–23. 13 Leviticus 25. 12

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(d) The meaning of “righteousness” (or justice), is not limited to the relationship between human beings, but also includes the correct and harmonious relationship between humans and the natural world. (e) The ultimate objective of history is the achievement of a “new heaven and earth.” At that time, human beings and the rest of creation are redeemed and enjoy a harmonious relationship. (2) The environmental perspective of systematic theology: (a) In theological thought, environmental theology emphasizes the value and status of that which has been created, meaning that the Holy Trinity resides within the world of creation, and the world of creation resides within God’s Holy Trinity. Everything that has been created does not exist independently or solely for itself, but exists with and for others. After God finished creating the world he still continued to work on his creation. The entire world is his workplace. If you want to find the meaning in anything that exists it must be found in the Holy Trinity. Everything that has been created in the Holy Trinity, especially humanity, can find perfection there. (b) When speaking about Christology, we believe that within Jesus is the integration of God and the world. In Him, the relationship between God and the world and the essence of God are specifically manifested. In Christ, God’s love for the created world, and the response of the love of the created world to God, are encountered. The incarnation of God’s word, God’s suffering, and God’s salvation are all expressions of God’s presence on the Earth and his participation in the pain of the world to achieve the final goal of world salvation. In Christ, we see the ultimate limitlessness of God’s holiness, and his willingness to provide the world with grace. This type of self-manifestation expresses God’s love – God sanctifies the world and redeems it through love. (c) From the point of view of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit possesses the power of integration in the world of creation. First, the Holy Spirit was sent out into all things through the connection between the Father and the Son, so that everything has individuality, independence and is limited. Second, the Holy Spirit is the power of the unity of the Father and the Son. This means that the Holy Spirit sent the power of communication, of integration and the search for integrity and completeness to all things. The Holy Spirit, which resides in all of creation, created the interaction between everything, and the relationships of harmony and mutuality are within this interaction. (d) Speaking from an anthropological viewpoint, the first thing we must understand is that the existence of man is a type of “relationship” as,

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according to Christian beliefs, both humans and the natural world are creations of God. Humans are one part of the natural world because they exist within it. However, humans and the natural world are not on the same level. Humans are created in the image of God and are entrusted to manage the earth. This type of belief also suggests that humans and the natural world are inseparable. Because people now live in the natural world, our lives are completely dependent upon it to survive. God created the natural world for the survival of human beings. Therefore humans cannot live outside of this world, but must depend upon it for their survival. This is what is meant when we say, “The existence of human beings itself is a relationship.” Humans are unable to exist without relationships and must build relationships of mutual dependence, both within themselves and with the outer world. Therefore, the significance of what human beings have is not what already exists within their bodies but what they give and receive. This type of “global village” perspective shows that humans and the rest of creation are one. They must jointly establish a cohabiting, symbiotic field and maintain a dynamic relationship of giving and receiving. From this relationship we can clearly see the necessity of environmental ethics. Then, from the categorical view of the “process,” there is no longer just a static human body, but more a fact that is compelled by intrinsic motivation. It is no longer about being independent, but more about an existence in communion. It is not to see things from a particular point in time, but as an evolution of the historical process. In other words, to recognize a person or a living being, we must be aware of their past, present and future. Only with such a complete understanding of the situation is this possible. So the achievement of truth is also a process. Likewise, the relationship between human history and nature is also an inseparable process. Humans gradually evolved from the evolution of nature, in the presence and under the guidance of God. Since then, humankind has constantly been closely linked with nature (hunting, the nomadic lifestyle, farming). The Earth is the platform for the history of humanity. From the Christian perspective, the history of humanity is still a process of interaction between heaven, Earth and humans, where all three are striving towards a realm of perfection. Therefore human history is moving towards the perfection of a “new heaven and new earth.” In order to achieve this perfect goal, human beings use their reason and freedom to continually create, with the Creator, an unfinished work. This “theological “process” is an affirmation of humanity. (e) Speaking from an eschatological perspective and according to Christian belief, when the end of time comes, not only will creation not be

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destroyed but there will be a “new heaven and new earth” and that which has been created will be renewed and receive eternal life. There will be a permanent state of harmony and peace between heaven, Earth and humans. When facing affirmation of the status and value of the natural world by God, how will human beings respond? How will humans bring about the realization of a future utopia? Firstly, all aspects of human life should demonstrate the most appropriate balance; both material and environmental lifestyles must be allocated properly and complement each other. Secondly, in order to confront environmental changes, everyone’s lifestyles should demonstrate creative flexibility. Thirdly, people should all have the highest possible dynamic, integrated relationships with materials, themselves and with God so that they combine with each other to form a community of life. Of course, the fulfillment of such a quality of life depends on the inspiration of God’s love and the pursuits and efforts of humanity.

The Church has the responsibility to cultivate and guide the motivation, attitude and spirituality of its believers towards the practice of environmental theory From a believer’s perspective, the motivation behind Christian behavior comes from the requirements of faith. A Christian’s belief in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit is the foundation of their lives. This belief joins with their ethical decision-making process and becomes a requirement for moral and ethical behavior. A Christian’s ethical lifestyle is influenced by his beliefs and, at the same time, his virtues – namely the three theological virtues (faith, hope and charity) and the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance). A Christian’s spiritual practice is to make the work of redemption into that of a personality change, thus showing a new way of life. The foundation of spirituality is the arrival of God’s revelation, specifically the revelation of Christ in history, as well as the traditions of the Church. A Christian’s environmental spiritualism is his recognition of environmental problems and reflections on theology and ethics. This is manifested by a new attitude towards life and practice according to the requirements of the principles and norms of the ethics of ecology.14 The environmental ethic formed by the three theological virtues (faith, hope and charity) is that these virtues cultivate human morality, which can produce a fundamental change in the way humans treat the Earth. 14

Gutheinz and Liau, Jidu xinyang zhong de Shengtai Shenxue, 371–72.

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When speaking about the virtue of faith, faith ensures that people have the correct beliefs in God – to not only believe that God is the creator of the universe and all things in it, but also that God lives in the world – and all other relevant beliefs about the Earth. Simply stated, belief in the Holy Trinity makes people realize that heaven, Earth and humans are an inseparable unit. This type of belief also causes humans to have an attitude of veneration and nurturing towards the Earth, where they no longer look at it as a thing without value, status or as a subjective “it” that is subjected to arbitrary exploitation and devastation. When speaking about hope, a Christian’s faith can arouse hope, and hope can arouse ethical behavior. For example, Jürgen Moltmann’s Theology of Hope, which promotes a view of eschatology where Christian hope for the future would bring about social and political change, and help in the preparation for such reforms. 15 For the purposes of this chapter, Christians should cultivate a sentiment of hope for the future and in the treatment of the natural Earth so that the Earth can be renewed. When facing many environmental crises, it is difficult to keep people from generating feelings of powerlessness. Coupled with an understanding of humans’ limitations and sinful nature (unwilling to change their lifestyle), people are even more inclined to lose hope for the future. But Christian hope has inspired us to believe in God’s love and power, allowing our eyes to see a perfect realm at the end of time. It has inspired us to take practical action and lead a life of cooperation with God in order to facilitate the implementation of a new heaven and Earth. When speaking about charity, because God’s love encompasses all of creation, Christian love should therefore also possess such universality. In other words, God’s love towards all things should become a part of how Christians treat nature. Even though a Christian’s love cannot be compared to the love of God, yet our love, although limited, should still follow the example of the love that the Earth has for humanity. Moreover, if we follow the example of St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) and consider the Earth as the brother and sister of humanity, then human beings should demonstrate a love of brotherhood towards the Earth.16 Environmental ethics are formed by the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude). The four cardinal virtues are the hinge upon which all the other virtues depend, and it is inevitable that the environmental attitude of a Christian who possesses these four cardinal

15 16

Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (London: SCM Press, 1967). Gutheinz and Liau, Jidu xinyang zhong de Shengtai Shenxue, 192–93.

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virtues will conform to ethical and moral requirements. I will summarize these below. When speaking about prudence, it helps people to understand the facts of the current environmental crises, and to know how to take proper action to prevent the crises from worsening. Specifically, a Christian with prudence has the ability to contemplate what correct actions will solve environmental crises. For example, he or she will avoid using nonrenewable resources and change to using renewable resources. When speaking about justice, people who possess justice advocate that human beings have an obligation towards the integrity of all that has been created. Because all creatures belong to God, all have status, value and rights. Thus, the core of justice is to respect that everything has value and the right to exist. This is also in accordance with the will of God. When speaking about temperance, temperance is a strength that balances human desire. It is important because uncontrolled desires will bring destruction to humanity and the planet. Temperance gives humans the strength to live a simple life while promoting human restraint from blindly following scientific research and limitless economic growth. It also promotes the adoption of reasonable measures to prevent overpopulation that would impose a burden on the environment. When speaking about fortitude, on one hand it helps people to overcome fear, but on the other hand it suppresses people’s uncontrolled courage and recklessness. It also makes humans repent when the majority of people do not know that they should do so, and helps them to adhere to principles, and not to be tempted or dissuaded from following them. This means that, when we realize the seriousness of environmental crises, we will no longer be silent or shrink from our responsibilities, but instead take bold action and continue to pursue and implement the work of rescuing the Earth. This is a demonstration of fortitude. Because a person wants to live a simple life and protect the environment and the Earth, they will inevitably face contempt, bullying, criticism, persecution and even the threat of being killed. To save the Earth, when it comes to environmental ethics, fortitude is a necessary and appreciated virtue.

The church has the responsibility to train its believers by example, to put into practice, and to live up to, the ideals of environmental ethics From the perspective of faith, the church has the responsibility to teach their believers to change their existing lifestyles and instantly to repent, and to admit in front of God that they have not made their best efforts to

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be responsible and protect the environment. From the beginning, God has given humans custody and use of the Earth, which has resulted in the destruction and ruination of the Earth to be found today. In our daily lives we both intentionally and unintentionally behave in ways that damage the natural environment, and these behaviors can become a way of life and a lifestyle habit. For example, when people leave their house they like to drive a big, comfortable car; everyone’s home has an air-conditioner and heater; and for the sake of convenience we use styrofoam products excessively ... These things have all become necessities in our daily life: it is difficult to live without them. Although we know that this type of lifestyle will damage the environment, we are still unable to quit or change because they have become lifestyle habits and ways of life. Therefore, the Church should take the responsibility to teach its believers to clearly recognize their inappropriate way of life, to admit their faults, repent and in front of God decide to lead a simple lifestyle. To live a simple lifestyle does not mean to revert to the way of life of primitive times, nor is it to deny or reject the achievements of human civilization. A simple life means to cherish nature, and the comfortable living environment it has provided us, together with a responsible, careful and cherishing attitude. We must correct our careless and spendthrift habits and replace them with a cautious, restrained lifestyle, saving where we can. These are the basic principles we should remember when talking about environmental responsibilities. In accordance with the principles above, it is possible to suggest eight specific actions:17 1. At church functions, such as meals or other gatherings, try to avoid using styrofoam products, and instead use reusable dishes and utensils. 2. Use recycled paper to print church publications and reduce paper use. 3. Rethink the use of the annual Christmas tree: is it possible to do away with the Christmas tree? If the tree cannot be dispensed with, then at least keep to the following principles: (a) if a real Christmas tree is used, then it should be replanted afterwards so that it continues living; (b) if plastic trees are used, then they should be stored away and used again next year. If they cannot be stored, then they should not be used at all. 4. Allow the usage of the Church grounds as a community-recycling center, for the exchange of old materials, or as a place for the renewal of other resources. Upgrade environmental protection from the individual level to community level. 5. Train environmental volunteers, both within and outside the church, to engage in waste sorting, recycling ... and so on. 17

Gutheinz and Liau, Jidu xinyang zhong de Shengtai Shenxue, 414.

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6. Thoroughly promote environmental education in the Church by inserting environmental theory into the curriculum of religious education, as, for example, in Sunday School lessons. 7. Teach Catholics that when they go to confession they should not only confess their crimes that offend God or other people, but that they should also learn how to confess their sins against Mother Earth (the environment), and receive penance to correct such misconduct. 8. The Church could engage in dialogue with other religions, thereby learning or sharing environmental theology with other religions and communally cooperating to contribute to a solution to environmental crises. Earlier I mentioned that the Taiwanese Buddhists (Tzu Chi Foundation) have played a very important role in the issue of environmental protection and that their contributions have been obvious, and everyone in Taiwan is aware of this. How did they do it? The answer really requires a careful study by Christians of their practice of environmental protection. The Church can take this opportunity of religious dialogue to learn from other religions’ experience with an open mind. To take the issue of environmental conservation as an instrument for religious dialogue will not only help the Church to promote the work of conservation, but will also help to carry out the teaching of Vatican II (De Ecclesiae Habitudine ad Religiones Non-Christianas, 1964).18 In summary, the environmental responsibility of the Church today is to evoke the environmental concerns of both Christians and non-Christians. When it comes to evangelization the Church should leave the internalizing and ideological trap that overstates human-centeredness, and instead enter into a wider field of vision that takes the environment into account. Traditionally, most evangelization emphasizes repentance and conversion, as the ultimate goals have always been about saving an individual’s soul and increasing the number of believers. To achieve these goals, some churches excessively emphasize a dualistic ideology and say that “the world is not my home,” because heaven is the only eternal material and spiritual homeland. They teach people to renounce the secular world and

18 Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions. For reference to the situation of the Catholic Church’s teachings on religious dialogue and the Taiwanese Church’s implement of religious dialogue, see Huang Hauiqiu’s The Theory and Practice of Religious Dialogue – With Catholicism as an Example, published in Huang Hauiqiu et al., Religious Dialogue: Theory and Practice (Taipei: Wu-Nan Book Inc., 2000), 43–90. Chen Deguang, Interreligious Dialogue Based on Integrated Introspection, ibid., 155–78.

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pursue a future eternal life in heaven. This particular idea is specifically expressed in a widely sung Christian hymn: This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through, My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue; The angels beckon me, from heaven’s open door, And I can’t feel at home, in this world anymore. My Savior pardoned me, from guilt and shame I know, I’ll trust His saving grace, while traveling here below; I know He’ll welcome me, at heaven’s open door And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.19

This ideological emphasis on individual salvation and belittlement of the world directly causes people to deny and reject the world. This world is not our home, and is only a temporary home away from home, a stepping-stone to enter heaven. This world may entice us away and impede us from achieving salvation, therefore we must fundamentally reject it and wholeheartedly pursue heavenly things, which is the only proper path to salvation. Adopting such a strategy, it can be said that human salvation is the primary concern of evangelization, and completely ignores the value and importance of the natural world. It can be said that this is a form of humanism. In the environmental crises of today, it seems as if this view needs to be adjusted. Ideologically speaking, besides concerning itself with internal questions of spiritual salvation, the evangelical work of the modern church should also be concerned with the human body and the natural world, and with what the body depends on outside of itself to survive, because the human soul cannot exist without the body. In other words, the soul and the person have an intimate relationship. In the lives of human beings in the material world the human soul can be trained and it can receive good fortune, but it can also be contaminated or tainted. As the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World 20 says: The Ecumenical Council advises the faithful, according to the spirit of the Gospel, to take the fullness of faith as a responsibility, because the believers are not just citizens of the kingdom, but are also citizens of this world. Although we are from this world, we do not have a permanent homeland on earth, but should seek the kingdom in the afterlife. But if the faithful believe that they can ignore their earthly tasks and do not understand that it is their mission to fulfill their responsibilities to this 19

Arranged by Albert B. Brumley, “This World Is Not My Home,” 1937. Pastoral Constitution On The Church In The Modern World, Gaudium Et Spes, Promulgated by His Holiness, Pope Paul Vi, 7 December 1965.

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Chapter Nine world, then they are far from the truth. Ignoring this earthly mission is ignoring their responsibility to love others and even the Lord, and their guide to eternal life is in great danger. (# 43)

In the face of the deteriorating environmental crises of today’s world, the Church should place more emphasis on a mission of evangelization that has long been ignored or excluded from its vision, which is to place the world and nature at the center of salvation. Today’s Church has to take the responsibility to curb the continued growth in the number of environmental crises, to extend its concerns beyond the church, and to move from a human-centered vision of the past to a view centered on the entire world of creation. It should also take concrete action to express these concerns in its daily affairs and the lives of its members.

Conclusion Humans are the principal culprits of environmental crises. Therefore, to solve this problem we must begin with humans. The moral issues involved in this problem are not just the immoral actions of humans towards the Earth, but are the immoral actions of humans towards humans, and humans towards God. When a person harms the natural environment, it is not just the environment that suffers but other humans as well (including later generations of human beings). Even God suffers, because the natural world is a creation of God and an object of his love. Moreover, based on our belief in the Holy Trinity, God also resides within the world and in all it contains. Thus, since environmental crises are an ethical and moral problem, they are also a problem of religious belief. When it comes to environmental crises, what the contemporary church should take responsibility for is self-evident. The basic ways to solve the issue of environmental crises come from religion and morality. The Church traditionally contains within it a wealth of relevant environmental ethical theory that is sufficient to be a foundation for the Church and for Christians of today. We can say that the Church’s greatest contribution to the issue of environmental crises is that the basis of its theories is solid. However, from another aspect, the Church’s actions are far from being sufficient. Given the seriousness of the crisis in the environment, this should be a field for deep reflection by the Church. Early on in the 1960s, the Church formally began to express concern regarding environmental crises and, from the 1970s onwards, it has shown great concern for these issues. This means that the Church’s environmental awakening has been going on for half a century. But in the meantime, how much does it actually contribute to the environmental

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protection of the entire planet? This is a question worthy of discussion, and even review. There are people who say that knowing does not automatically equate to action. The biggest problem for modern Christians is not that they lack the relevant principles of environmental theory but that they don’t know how to apply them, or are unwilling to use existing theoretical principles, or that these traditional theories are not paid attention to or universally accepted. And even if people do accept them, the time people spend on living up to these theories is not very long, which is to say that what today’s Christians need is not a new type of theory, but a new type of “moral reformation” or moral rebirth. Now that we all agree that the current attitude of human beings towards the natural world is incorrect, we must change our hearts and minds, and our actions, laws and living habits. As a consensus has been secured on the issue of environmental crises, the Church should play an even greater role as a protector of the truth and promoter of morality. By all means necessary, the Church should use the spirit of the prophets to remind and inspire all Christians and people of other religions to become protectors of the environment. Speaking from a philosophical perspective, there is no way that human beings can completely adjust their moral behavior because people have limitations, are lowly, can be haphazard, and are fragile. From a theological perspective, it is difficult for human beings to be completely at one with God because humans are born into sin. This impedes humanity’s implementation of responsible environmental ethics. However, we cannot use these perspectives as a cover to evade our responsibilities. Christians should not forget that humans are created in the “image” of God. Although humans are sinners, with God’s help, they still possess the ability to improve their environment. In order to bring hope to ourselves and to Mother Earth, we must have the willpower to conquer our limitations. As Häring says: However, should we not sincerely and modestly reflect on whether or not we are this type of guilty person? Do we have the intention to review and improve our use of resources and consumption habits? Based on one’s mindset and belief in the truth of God, is our relationship with the entire phenomenal world harmonious and correct? To completely change opinions and make lifestyle changes, are we really willing to take on this responsibility?21

Translated from the Chinese original by Michael Chang 21

Häring, Dare to be Christian, 155–61.

IV 

REFLECTIONS ON TECHNOLOGY   

    

CHAPTER TEN WELCOME AND BLESSING: A TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING ENCOUNTER WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE PETER WALPOLE, SJ

When I started to write this review on “encounter as a way of learning,” I recalled how we receive visitors in the community where I live and how deeply affirming the sense of welcome and blessing is in the rituals and reflections during the visit.1 In the process of talking about transformative learning and engaging with others, we need to give time to all aspects of the experience and see how genuinely inclusive the sense of welcome and blessing can be. In this time of continuous technological advances, a momentary pause can help us obtain a more human slant on where we want to go. There are many urgent problems to solve but much can be achieved by simply adapting and deepening our sensitivities to what is truly necessary. I live with the Bukidnon Pulangiyen,2 an indigenous community in Sitio Bendum in the Philippines. It is a village of over 300 inhabitants,

 1

Pedro Walpole, SJ,“Welcome and Blessing: Transformative Learning,” in a Workshop on “Humankind and Nature: An Endangered System of Interdependence in Today’s Globalising World,” Macau Ricci Institute, Macau SAR, China, 7–8 November, 2012. Though this paper is placed under “reflections on technology,” and most of the questions are posed as to the contribution of religions, neither is developed here. The focus is on an older wisdom than today’s technology, which challenges mankind with questions of relations: relations between cultures, the land we live on and a sensitivity to the Other. 2 The Pulangiyen are viewed as part of a broader “Bukid-non” culture, one of the seven recognized by local government across the Province of Bukidnon, Mindanao, who speak Binukid. The language is also very similar to that of the Talandig culture. In earlier times people identified themselves by ancestry and the river where they lived. The Pulangiyen live by the Pulangi River, which gives

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80% of whom are of the “Bukid-non” culture and 20% of whom are migrants. Bendum was officially recognized as a sitio (hamlet) in the mid-1980s. It then became part of the political jurisdiction of Barangay Busdi under Malaybalay City. The Pulangiyen are dependent on their environment and on access to natural resources to provide for their daily needs and economic relations. Root crops are a major part of their diet and they rely on forest resources to sustain their food supply, shelter and livelihood. The community contributes significantly to the ecological services of the province, though they are given little consideration for what they do. The Pulangiyen of Bendum made a formal claim to their ancestral domain in 1995. The Certificate of Ancestral Domain (CADC) was secured in 1998. They are still processing the title that will give them legal rights to manage their domain.3

 them a deep sense of belonging, and for these reasons they use their traditional identity. 3 Currently, the process of ancestral land titling in the Philippines is being revised by government and the management initiatives have stalled. Joint Administrative Order (JAO) No. 1 was signed in January 2012, effectively relegating the ancestral domain titling process to a joint national committee composed of the DENR, Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), Department of Agriculture (DA), the Land Registration Authority (LRA) of the Department of Justice, and the NCIP.  These four government agencies are responsible for issuing and registering land titles in the country. JAO 1-2012 lays out the jurisdiction and policy mandates of the DAR, DENR and NCIP, the contentious areas and issues, and the mechanisms to resolve these at the national and field levels. The LRA is the government office that administers the Torrens system of registration of real estate ownership in the country, and comes into the process as the agency that oversees the Register of Deeds. The joint task force has the responsibility for resolving the jurisdictional, operational and policy issues related to the issuance and registration of ancestral domain and ancestral land titles. The issuance of the JAO effectively suspends the following identified contentious areas: ancestral domain and ancestral land titling by NCIP; land acquisition and distribution and issuance of Certificates of Land Ownership Allocation; processing and issuance of free patents by DENR, and registration of titles by LRA. Titling procedures will proceed only if the Joint Provincial/Regional or National Committee is able to resolve the contentious issues. This does not bode well for non-politicized indigenous communities far from the centers of administration. One generation of children has already grown up in the post-Marcos era and still there is little assurance of traditional land use rights and resource control.



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Welcoming What does it mean to welcome someone today? To be welcomed is to be met and greeted as a friend, even when one is a stranger. To be welcomed means that, upon your arrival, you are wished that “your coming be well” and that your going forth again will be safe. A genuine welcome is an occasion that, when given time, most people, giver and receiver, value and remember with kindness. Given modern technology and the pace of our lives, we have to make a real effort to find opportunities to give people a true welcome, to share time and space, food and comfort, language and authentic conversation. Often, we are so preoccupied with other concerns that we fail to acknowledge the importance of establishing deeper relationships with other people, with the environment, and with creation that together give us life. When a new visiting group arrives in Bendum, they settle their bags where they will sleep and see to immediate needs. They then sit around the dugo, a central sunken floor, while the datu, the local leader, speaks of the village and the peace that dwells in the area, of their ancestors, the forest, the water, the land and life, and how they are blessed. He welcomes the visitors, talking about where they have come from, and the importance of their visit. He offers prayers for their safe arrival and stay in the community and for no evil to enter through any party. Food is prepared, and usually chickens or a pig are offered. The datu offers thanks to the Creator for the life taken in order to sustain those who come. There are no expressions of power. There is the power only of openness and kindness. This act of welcome revolves around a whole new basis for encountering people with time and thought. In this way, we learn to engage by listening, not by leading. There is no “agenda”; rather, the basis for meeting is transformed into a simple appreciation of being present and of openness to new relations and reflections that may emerge in the days ahead.

Engaging For the past three years, a group of students from the United Nations’ University for Peace (UPEACE) have been taking a course that involves engaging the youth of this upland Indigenous Peoples’ community. The UPEACE students are young professionals with significant and demanding work assignments. The field engagement in Bendum allows the students to be with the young people and provides an opportunity to



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see how their development theories and concepts hold up in village reality. The UPEACE students are focused primarily on natural resource management and peace education, and although some have had work and office experience, not all of them have the experience of community engagement. Some of the visiting students come from a rural background and a simple lifestyle where a sense of belonging is rooted in the village of their birth, and with the young and the old people with whom they grew up. A few talked about the difficulties they experienced, and also of a deep association with family and community. This has remained deep within the personal memory of the young professionals. Often, through entering this village, these students reconnect with their past, some finding meaning and reconciliation, while others are challenged anew to bring different worlds together. The experience of the students who recently visited Bendum illustrates the value of focusing on these life-changing struggles and connections. The engagement was designed to create an occasion for self-reflection; an opportunity to understand how we can learn from others, to review and recognize authentic human needs – not those created by society and technology. The young professionals know the accepted procedures for and use the jargon of development work, but in Bendum they come face to face with the very real situation of economic poverty, of people’s vulnerability in a world where change does not come easily. The field engagement in Bendum allows students to experience life with the indigenous youths who are working to sustain their culture and traditions, but who are also seeking ways to engage with a broader society.

Learning with the indigenous youth The youths of Bendum have the benefit of a community school, which implements a culture-based curriculum. Teaching the culture makes it possible to keep traditional knowledge and practices growing within the community. As people move towards a more mainstream culture, there is a very real tendency to view traditional knowledge as outdated or even something of which they should be ashamed. The cultural education system of Bendum allows the young people to grow up knowing who they are in the land, and gives them a basis to relate to others while living out their culture. Their sense of identity goes beyond a traditional costume and into a deeper, richer understanding of life based on “who I am” rather than “what I have.” The meanings that emerge in this context are not defined by



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economics, but by relationships. This cultural rootedness gives the youths a strength and confidence that allows them to engage with others. The young professionals expressed their personal commitment to the service of others and yet were searching in, and stressed by, a world where change at the bottom does not come with ease and the poor remain poor and vulnerable. In these contexts, human integrity is challenged in the face of injustice. Engaging with the community affirms the idea that being poor is about having less, not being less. This is where we ask: how do traditions help people struggle to meet basic human needs and orient their lives towards the good? Traditional ways are often seen as obstacles to development, especially when there is limited understanding of the values involved. Experiencing the welcome and blessing of the indigenous community and then meeting the young people, challenges the visiting students to engage with greater integrity. In their idealism, the youth of Bendum are clear as to who they are and the options they want. In response to alternatives posed by the visitors, the village youth are able to relate experiences that show the harsh reality of development without real choice or services. The youths clearly want to belong to their community. The context and reality of village life, as well as the questions of the young, pose serious challenges to development concepts and strategies. So, too, do many of the visitors, at different times, question the expectations they have of themselves and their way of life. Communication between the youths and the visitors necessitated much translation and explanation, both in terms of language and context. Conversations were deeply engaging, allowing people to assess and reassess what they and others were saying. Acknowledgement and adaptation were ongoing. Few held out for what they said at the beginning, and all learned from each other in a process that truly sought to understand, sometimes at the cost of pain and frustration to the other. There was growth that changed peoples’ lives. Perhaps a common appreciation was that everybody shared a desire to live a good life (in all its variations) and that basic human needs are of global concern and need to be met with respect. True engagement comes when we are able to go beyond simply the awareness of differences, when we lose self-consciousness, and let go of the desire to control outcomes. Exposure to problems and realities doesn’t always bring about the necessary response, but a process of engaging and questioning with others often results in new ways to act. This happens when the issues in question are deeply rooted in our existence, in what we think, feel and do. When we engage with and question these central issues,



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and seek to respond and make a difference, we find that we must also change. We will not be the same again. We must be open to growth by working through change at all levels: head, heart and hands.

Exposure vs. Engagement Some of us may support immersion programs for high school or college students with visits to marginal communities in other countries. During these occasions, social and cultural relations are deepened, and head and heart come together. Often the experience is memorable, but we have to guide participants to reflect on the process so that it is not seen as just another expensive excursion, referred to as “poor-ism,” a form of tourism. Exposure programs should not be a “tick the box experience”: been there, done that: get on with life: next year do something else. Some programs do change students’ lives, but for many the response is “what can I do anyway?” An exchange program with the poor or marginalized can perhaps ease some guilty feelings by more deeply acknowledging their dignity and create some healthy discussion, but will it help people to go beyond seeing “them” as merely a distant segment of society? How can people learn to see the poor or marginalized as part of their own society? How can people learn to see the impact of their actions on the ability of others to participate creatively in society? Exposure programs can create awareness and deepen humility. This is often best done in one’s own country first, so that, when visiting abroad, there is already a self-acknowledgement that this is common to all countries and not simply a cultural issue or a matter of economic development. Exposure may not be sufficient for a change in the thought process; the critique of see-judge-act is brief and does not always allow for the development of a response. We have to experience, to listen again and again, and to reflect again and again, in order to know where we are being led. When the thought and sense of compassion combine, it can become more of an enabling experience. We talk more of an “engagement” that seeks to consciously build the relationship between head, heart and hand (action). This puts emphasis on communicating and learning with others and not simply processing one’s own feelings. Engagement allows time to process in context, to build relationships, and to reflect and share a sense of commitment to life. We really need to ask, “Yes, what can I do as I form a pattern of daily living in a global economy?” The struggle remains one of how to be engaged and move forward in ways that are life-changing, engendering sustainability after the experience.



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Engaging with development Here we may ask the question, “How can we balance development and conservation and still meet the basic needs of many people, of humanity?”4 Many who come to visit Bendum ask this very question. Faced with the reality of the village and community, they find they must start by responding to people who are alive to these concerns, and not simply join in the global debate. For the last hundred years, local people have not been able to invest in their life’s work, as they lack any form of tenure that acknowledges their role in management. This lack of recognition is one of the major factors undermining sustainability of a people and of biodiversity. Only recently, with the emergence of ancestral land recognition, although not yet finalized with the authorities, is there the possibility of closing access to the forest so that communities in the vicinity can have basic, human security of land management and resource rights. To conserve such an area by making it a Protected Area would create competition for “land and resources – biodiversity,” especially when it comes from external conservation movements. The community hopes to establish its rights and, through a cultural process of empowerment, to strengthen its relations in resource management by a method that is rooted in their culture and not from a blueprint of social management zoning. Integrated local management is preferable, given the lack of financial resources available from outside for the management of most of the eighty or more Protected Areas in the Philippines (UNDP, 2012, p. 26).5 In one sense the question above may be a false dichotomy and the answer may be more a matter of who is asking it and who is allowed to make the decision. The main issue is not about development and conservation lobbies but about people and the pressures they are under. Some people, given their experience or their program of studies, may feel well equipped to assess a community, determine its problems, and formulate approaches to foster greater development and progress. When we visit a community, we usually bring with us our preconceived notions and big ideas. More than these automatic responses, what is needed is more time with the community, to understand and reckon with people’s experience and what they know. We may have the broad strokes, but not



4 There is one question initially posed reflecting the theme of conservation and basic needs and three questions posed in preparation for the workshop, all are broadly included in this response. 5 United Nations Development Program, Communities in Nature: State of Protected Areas Management in the Philippines (Philippines, 2012).



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the real answers to the development questions that are raised by the community. Most of the time, the community is already struggling to articulate the answers for itself, and this is, perhaps, how it should be. Our ideas of development are often based on our own experiences and our own understanding of what it takes to make “a better life.” We often fall into the trap of thinking about what people should have, not necessarily what they need or want. We bring concepts like “roads” and “resource management,” and believe that these are automatically applicable to the community. In reality, people have their own experience and understanding, which may or may not be aligned with short-term projects that have momentary impacts. The challenge for many development professionals is to get away from the idea of projects. Projects often have fixed time frames. In reality, change does not happen within such time frames. Moving from a project approach to a mode of personal engagement allows us to work more consciously with the changes happening within people. It is important to see people and communities as human beings, not as “project beneficiaries” or exposure sites. Rather than simply a development experience, time and engagement with the community provide the opportunity for a human experience. There is a need to understand what the people who are directly affected know of both development and conservation in their particular context. The forest-based poor are some of our poorest and most vulnerable resource-based people. 6 They are often under pressure, both from conservation and exploitation. Conservation in many cases excludes the forest people, while corporate economic development strategies lack adequate distribution of benefits. Both approaches have taken much land from the forest communities, while their rights to use, manage and protect these resources may never have been formally granted or recognized. In the process of engagement and resolution, people need to be at the forefront and must be the priority. Recognizing the contributions of communities to ecological services is a critical step in balancing development and people’s needs. Until payment for ecological services to local communities are factored into actual costs, the goals of sustainability will not be met.

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“Millions of people depend upon forest resources for their survival. Forest resources directly contribute to the livelihood of some 90 percent of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty.” The World Bank, Sustaining Forests: A World Bank Strategy (2001), Washington D C. FAO, APFNet and AFN, Making Forestry Work for the Poor: Assessment of the Contribution of Forestry to Poverty Alleviation in Asia and the Pacific (Bangkok, 2012).



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Technology and the modern world In a world of convenience and high-speed technology many of us have come to expect things to happen automatically. Fast food is a perfect example of how we have lost any sense of where our food actually comes from – the land and the sea. When we are unable to connect the food on our table with the resources and the human labor that make it possible for us to eat, we are unable to feel gratitude for the gifts we receive. Indigenous communities live in close relation to the resources that give them life. When they plant their crops, they begin with an expression of dependence and hope that the land will be productive. They labor through the seasons and at harvest time they again give thanks for the crops received. When they hunt, they give thanks for the animal that has given up its life so that they may have meat to feed their children and celebrate life. Modern lifestyles make us believe that food is not only instant, but without any relation to nature: instant coffee, instant noodles, bottomless Coke, hamburgers and other “foods” that seem to bear no resemblance to natural produce. Food and nature seem almost unrelated in the modern world: even fruit doesn’t come from trees but from an aisle in Gaisano, the shopping mall. We don’t know where it was grown or whether it has had the sun to sweeten it; in choosing fruit without blemish we may be choosing those subjected to, and still with residues of, pesticides. In Sila-e, a village down the valley from Bendum, farmers have planted hybrid maize, as many farmers have in other places in Mindanao. They use herbicides (glyphosate) that the seeds are genetically manipulated to withstand, and so they no longer have to plough the land; and because of this, their life may be much easier. But at harvest time, they must pay back what they borrowed for seeds, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, with interest, on top of what must be paid for transport. In some years, the crop is not enough to cover costs and feed the family. The government had an assistance program, but repayment was low and the program was cancelled. Although the men work less, they have less to eat and they can’t use their high-yield crop seed for planting. After a poor harvest they are in debt, so much so that in recent years they have become laborers on their own land. They don’t have many options. Otherwise, they are “free” to leave for the cities. These are the same people who lost their forests when logging opened up the area. They turned to cultivating rice by the rivers and maize on the expanding uplands. During the drought of 1987, fire consumed what remained of the forest. Intense rain in 2009 and 2011 caused landslides. Over 100 hectares of soil have been lost and production is much lower.



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Logging, hybrid and GMO maize, along with broad climate shifts, have not given people a better life. These have been the only livelihood options over time, during which they have fed the market but have barely fed the children. The global market has not made a positive impact on people’s lives; rather it has increased dependency. It creates a vicious cycle of borrowing and debt rather than freedom from poverty. The United Nations is celebrating the International Year of Family Farming in 20147 but questions remain as to how to sustain farmers in the face of large agribusinesses. The ways forward are not clear, and the youth are greatly challenged to find new paths of hope. In Bendum, some people still share their seed stock of local varieties of maize. Few farmers planted hybrid maize after the first year, and they continued producing white maize for food consumption. Among the migrants in Bendum, there have been two major shifts in livelihood. Coffee prices fell in 2000, and it became too exhausting to carry out such a labor intensive activity with inadequate returns. As a result, planting coffee was lost as an economic strategy. By 2004, the shift to the production of GMO maize and the “Roundup-Ready” 8 approach of spraying the land with herbicides resulted in other land being planted to rubber. Migrants see rubber as a longer-term strategy to secure their future and to achieve greater productivity. For the local labor force, however, rubber is a great loss to food sustainability in the area. The Pulangiyen maintain balanghoy, gabi and kamote (cassava, taro and sweet potato) as staple crops and have food resources in the forest they can draw on in times of drought. Few have lost all their land, though there are many difficulties as people live far from the city. People would like to have much more but they value what they have and do not want to give it up without real alternatives. The future for all in the uplands is uncertain, but there is hope. Developments in science and technology can be beneficial, but society has not always been able to apply these developments for the benefit of those most in need. With biotechnology progressing so fast, development seems to come from science and industry, not humanity. Humans are often seen as contributing to many of the problems, from the impact of continuing population growth to conflicts in conservation.

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International Year of Family Farming, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc .asp?symbol=A/RES/66/222 8 The Roundup Ready System is a brand of crop seed and agricultural herbicide produced by Monsanto.



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While we are part of the problem, we must also find ways to be part of the solution. Before we lose it completely, we need to restore our connection to nature and make critical shifts in decision-making. Once again, we need to experience creation as the basis and foundation for all life, not just for industrial economic growth. We need to experience how we, as human beings, are an integral part of creation and can help sustain life-giving relationships. Some ask, how does faith help us move a day at a time, when we can bear no more? How do we live relationships with faith as a dimension that sustains the youth in their struggle to find values and live with purpose? Maybe this is the approach to the second question, “How relevant is religion to the challenges and changes in a sustainable world as a result of market growth and financial crisis?” Many of today’s youth, whether coming from the mountains or an urban ghetto with high unemployment, are asking serious questions as to the meaning of society, and have sought to occupy the minds and hearts of a civil movement for change. From the mountains to the cities of the Occupy Movement and the Arab Spring, basic questions are being asked and echoed about how we live globally. What about concepts of perpetual growth and financial accountability in the face of youth unemployment and environmental degradation? It seems for the moment that the world is too frightened, and the banking and business “powers that be” are too free and seemingly beyond the control of those who seek to make redress and change the model of development. An example of this is the mining industry giving million-dollar payouts to its executives, an action that seems to emphasize profit, rather than responsibility or accountability.9

Meaning and values One lesson learned in the engagement between the visiting students and local youths is that the people are not poor – they are not defined by poverty. Human dignity does not need to be dressed up when the kindness of another is met. A person is no longer defined by poverty, but by dignity, not by guilt or inferiority. This is a lesson of the heart. A second lesson learned is that many well-designed and well-intentioned programs have many impacts – some helpful, some harmful. We must work and hope for a better kind of development, a human development. In Latin America there is a new expression of living, a new desire that is not



9 P. Walpole, SJ, and S. Miclat, “Emerging Limits to Mining,” editorial in Ecojesuit, 30 June 2012, http://ecojesuit.com/emerging-limits-to-mining/3349/.



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based on “more” or “better” but on what is “good.” They ask what is a good life: “buen vivir”? A good life is not simply a better life measured against others, but one of well-being for all.10 The third lesson is that of relationships. The young acknowledge that their lives are inextricably linked, not only with their land, but also in their relationships with each other and with their Creator, and that these relationships are rooted in the ancestral domain, or gaup. Though this may not be found in textbooks of technological development, it is an essential part of what is true human development and resource sustainability. Such development is not understood in terms of abstract figures or quantity of output, but rather in the quality of relationships and in a life well lived. Fourthly, those who have visited such communities often come away acknowledging and valuing how people in the local community have sustained their lives – their spirit, culture and wisdom – in relation to the land. Their domain is their source of life: it is their home, their place of worship, their school and their market. It is the source of their identity. The hopes of the Pulangiyen in Bukidnon rest on the sustainability of their land. In this we see part of the answer to human sustainability. Maintaining their cultural identity requires that the people continue to speak their language, understand their genealogy, and keep important practices and ways of living alive. The traditional allocation of lands to families by the leadership, the geographic importance of events, occasions, rituals, burials and marriages are all linked to genealogy and landscape. Governments are slowly learning to work with where people are, but basic rights and services are still at some distance. This does not mean that the community doesn’t use cell phones, motorbikes and televisions. It means that if society is going to accommodate them, then the basic needs of health and education, and food and land security need to be given in ways that don’t take from community, but provide greater options.11 One area where this is growing is in the opportunity of receiving education in the local language.

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Cordaid, “Buen Vivir, The Good Life (Imagining Sustainability - 6)” 14 June 2012, http://www.cidse.org/content/articles/rethinking-development/growth-andsustainability/ buen-vivir-the-good-life-imagining-sustainability-6.html. 11 This is similar in content to the call of Indigenous Peoples in Rio de Janeiro for better participation. Rio + 20 Indigenous Peoples’ International Declaration on Sustainable Development and Self-Determination, 19 June, 2012, Rio de Janeiro. Indigenous Peoples from all regions of the world met at the “Indigenous Peoples International Conference on Sustainable Development and Self Determination,” 17–19 June 2012 at the Museu da República in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.



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Education and culture We learn by means of concepts. Concepts are the basic means of understanding an object, a feeling or an event, and a common understanding enables these concepts to be shared with others – teachers, parents, classmates. At home and at school, children learn a network of shared concepts, which forms a paradigm and ways of speaking of things and perceiving reality. They also include values and broad principles affecting behaviour. Concepts are explored and experienced in the environment and in relationships with the community. These concepts ground the reality of daily living and are a language of primary experience. Later, other languages are learned, with variations in construction and greater diversity of experience. Education is a system of instruction, of learning concepts and competencies, and of knowledge. If the educational system comes from outside, based on an experience that is foreign to the child, implemented in another language, and grounded in an ideal of progress at the national level, it may not be relevant to communities at the margins. Such an education fails to deepen values and may create greater inequality and alienation rather than a sense of belonging. A school, and the educational system it employs, affects the community and all relationships. When teachers are from the culture and use the local language, communication is seamless and learning can be shared within the community. The challenges are many but, with respect, exchange is generally possible. The multiplicity of meanings, values and options can more easily be weighed. None of this is new, but it is continuously discovered by the youth of today in their efforts to get closer to a less stressful and more integral way of life. There are many theories that support ‘integrated learning’ beyond classroom and textbook. Although there is much information available electronically and many options for learning, there is a need for a broader context for acquiring knowledge. Learning in context makes it possible for us to live a more integrated life, rather than simply preparing for a chosen profession. Today, there are many efforts at sustaining a “living text” in recognition of the need to get closer to how we learn in real life and to constantly update our understanding through other peoples’ experiences, analyses and reflections. Learning needs to connect with others’ thinking and acting, and with community decisions, and not just be experienced as textbook project-design and implementation. The learning by engagement as experienced in Bendum is valuable for both visitors and the host community. The students from abroad are given the opportunity to integrate their own sense of self with their studies and



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professional lives; the youth of the locality grow through the exchange and communication that challenge their worldview and options. Engagement is a “natural tool,” enabling greater human integration of thoughts and practices and a deepening of the human spirit. Two recent visitors from the West left me with their reflections and lessons learned. I quote below from Katherine Pitman and Leticia Alonzo to give the context, but the lessons are simple.

Reconciling and transforming The young are integral to the activities of Bendum, particularly in the restoration of forest cover and biodiversity through assisted natural regeneration. The standard practice of reforestation using plantation species has little to do with an integral ecology; rather it is more about carbon sinks and holding soil in place. A reforested area will invite logging in about ten to twenty years. When young people plant a tree in Bendum they are thinking of sustainability over the next sixty years. Planting is often done around areas of water needing protection. Visitors understand the simplicity and integrity of a basic, safe village water system. For many of us, water distribution is present but unseen in daily life. The sad reflection for many is that water is bottled for much of urban drinking. Athletic skills are inherent to most youths, yet the visiting students learn the most basic skill of planting a banana sucker with new insights into the demands of such work. A walk further into the forest gives students an opportunity to understand its height, depth and diversity, and to see how all is connected and mutually sustaining. The local youths draw seedlings from the forest to plant in the shade of the banana trees, which provides a vision of a restored forest and a community life sustained for decades. Katherine Pitman stayed in Bendum for six months helping to plan with the local people a new work area for expressing culture and ecology. “My generation has grown into a world where work contracts rarely last longer than a few years, and discussions with my peers are always about what we will do next. I came here (Bendum) after talking through possible work engagements, and realised soon after arriving how unrealistic my expectations had been, as formed in the West. Transport and communications networks mean I can pretty much access any information or get anywhere within a short amount of time, without the need to consider what the weather is doing, or the situation of security. I guess if I



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Many people are engaged in tree planting these days and it gives a refreshing sense of doing something for others. In many interesting ways it can build a sense of community and belonging. In Japan, the effort to engage people in caring for community woodlots was very well received, with many people looking for opportunities to engage with nature, to show their concern for the environment, and to interact with their locality. The term they use is satoyama, or homeland-mountain. In practice, however, the term captures the idea of community or communal forests for which people share responsibility.12 This idea of fostering more harmonious and sustainable relations with nature has been recognized in Japan through programs such as the Satoyama Initiative.13 For the students in Bendum, the hike in the forest, the planting of seedlings that belong to the forest, relationships and the community are often a blessing for many of the young people. They acquire this experience knowing that they have done something with other people – that is what is so important – and that it will live on with care. This experience by young people is seen across many cultures. Most interesting is the return from urban to rural life, often called a j-turn, in that people move from their villages to big cities and then often return to a rural environment. While things may not always be as they were, there is still an appreciation of the old practices and recognition of

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P. Walpole, SJ, “Kutzuki Village: Reworking of Community Values and Opportunities,” 17 August 2009, http://essc.org.ph/content/view/171/163/. 13 Satoyama Initiative, “About,” http://satoyama-initiative.org/en/about-2/.



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their value. Caring with others for a better future often forms a basis for new values to grow and the possibility of change, and in this way a greater respect for self also emerges. The youth of Bendum recognize that sustaining their forest is a way of sustaining their cultural heritage. For example, lawaan is viewed as a gift of creation and is of great significance to the local culture. The youth identify mother trees of several indigenous species for wider planting.14 These were trees that took over a hundred years to mature and were extracted for the plywood industry. Little is left of them today. Planting lawaan is a process that draws in knowledge of the land and strengthens the community’s cultural values. If the community continues to value lawaan, it continues to value the resources from which it draws life. The structure of the forest is formed by lawaan and eight other related dipeterocarp species, along with oak, dammar, and a thousand other trees, vines, and epiphytes. With such a full canopy, the ground cover is not a tangled mass of vegetation, as seen in jungle war movies, or degraded secondary forest. The primary forest (puwalas) is easily passable and water flows clear and continuously. The local youth are expanding the work of water and soil conservation in developing their livelihood options. With fluctuations in market prices and trader controls there is a need for diversity and flexibility in production. Many of the youth are joining a program of planting abaca (for banana fibre) intercropped with Arabica coffee. This protects the forest by creating a buffer while diversifying their products in the hopes that they will not be exposed to loans and debt in times of poor productivity, hoarding or market gluts. The youth are the community’s hope for true leadership in service and for sustaining all relationships and life. Fulfilling their hopes and dreams requires that they care for what the Creator gives them. A spiritual reality must be granted to the youth in relating to the life of the land and the sea, to the diversity of their culture and to relationships among themselves and with others, always trusting, always peaceful.

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“Lawaan” (white mahogany), Shorea contorta; “danguleg” (white mahogany), Shorea almon; “kiwan,” (red mahogany) Shorea negrosensis; “balakbakan” (tangile Tagalog, red mahogany) Shorea polysperma; “dagang,” Anisopteria auria; “ubanan” (white mahogany), Shorea palosapis; “kaliyaan,” Dipterocarpus validus; “sabunan” (tiger wood), Podocarpus javanicus; “huwag,” Podocarpus nerifolius; “upilen,” Nageia wallichianus; “banglas” (malaybalabas Tagalog) Tristiania decorticata; “salumayag” (almasiga Tagalog, dammar) Agathis philippinesis; “ulayan” (oak), Lithocarpus sultii.



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The call for transformative education Globalization and technology can facilitate education and learning and may also encourage a more focused interaction and engagement with the wider community, as well as with the environment. Global environmental destruction driven by economic growth affects the whole world, but it affects most directly and painfully the lives of the poor. Despite today’s modern lifestyle, where people engage little with nature and often only in the specialized ways of tourism, sport and adventure, the experience and connection with creation continues to be important in personal reflection. There is a long-held adage of “finding God in all things” that requires a sense-based awareness of the world as it is.15 It is a matter of recognizing what touches the heart as an invitation to a deeper acceptance of meaning over want, and this is simply found when the person is silent, listening to creation and the Creator. There is increasing emphasis on our need for care of creation, and this is also at the core of faith affecting relationships with God and with others. A contemplative approach is helpful in guiding the basis for action. The challenge is to continue to find God even in degraded landscapes, in the destruction of life, and in people’s suffering. The drive towards development has not always resulted in an improvement in people’s lives and in many cases has led to conflict and exploitation, often of the most vulnerable sectors of society: the poor and the indigenous. In witnessing their suffering, we are challenged to heed the call to restore right relations with creation and others. We are confronted at times by contradictions and the challenge “to celebrate failure” when aspirations are not met – yet people remain engaged.16 Even with our experience of conflict, there is hope in people’s desire for communication, dialogue and peace. Indigenous Peoples can share the integrity of the deep relationship they have with the landscape where they live. Reconciliation with creation does not begin by confronting the problems that must be overcome. Rather, it begins with a sense of gratitude that connects us with life. There is an increasing awareness of today’s ecological crisis and the role we have played in creating this situation, but the response has been inadequate and we have not yet taken full responsibility for our actions. If we can acknowledge how the earth and all creation support our lives, we then have a basis for making a commitment to change our lifestyles, habits and

 15

“Healing a Broken World,” Promotio Iustitiae No. 106 (2011/2): 15. “Vision” in Questions for Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, SJ, at the Major Superiors Meeting in Sydney. Province Express, (25 January 2012), http://www.express .org.au/article.aspx?aeid=30068. 16



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patterns of consumption, to care for creation and establish the right relationships. The reality is that 50% of the world’s population is urbanized. More and more young people are growing up without a connection to and a relationship with the environment. In the process of restoring our relationship with creation, we need to work with our youth, who, like the youth of Bendum, are critical to the work of reconciliation with creation. For education to be transformative, it must not only focus on teaching subject matter, but also create opportunities to engage meaningfully with society and respond to its needs. This is where teachers don’t have all the answers and can learn, together with students and the local community, the necessary actions and responses. This calls for an “excellence in humanity,” not simply a more competitive and successful educational system. Deepening the sense of excellence is to be found in “forming better human beings; people with heart, with compassion, with understanding; people who can understand our society without bias, without ideological imposition … attentive, responsible, understanding.”17 Education needs to be transformative, to form a conscience, and develop values. Higher education can enable people to work for a humane, just and sustainable world. Education can give youths the opportunity to engage with the world-as-it-is, to experience the “broken world, especially the world of the poor, waiting for healing.”18 Educators are challenged to respond to the needs of young people, in terms of an education that promotes compassion for the poor, for the suffering, and for God’s gift of creation to us. Leticia Alonso worked for a month with people to gather materials in Pinulangiyen that are being used in the school to teach primary level competencies. “People come to Bendum, but not all of them have the experience of engaging with the community and living without commodities. Others come with specific knowledge and experience in natural resource management and peace education. I think there are special characteristics in this community resulting in new experiences for visitors. At gatherings with the youth and children [one notices] their quietness, the way they respect themselves and others’ presence, how they are happy doing their

 17

Ibid. A. Nicolás, SJ, “Depth, Universality and Learned Ministry: Challenges to Jesuit Higher Education Today,” Remarks for “Networking Jesuit Higher Education: Shaping the Future for a Humane, Just, Sustainable Globe,” (2010), Mexico City.

18



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Chapter Ten tasks, the way they live their childhood and their adolescence and take care of each other. This is another lesson in engagement. What people learn here can change how they go away and do things. Some support is needed: more people with whom to share the new learning and have a continuing process of learning with them. “I learn how these people live, their options, their way of proceeding, the essence of their culture, and this is the answer to one of the questions of our time: how to live a sustainable life? This for many of us in the global economy is not new, but it is very recent. The community has always known the answer to this question but from a very different experience. It is part of their great wisdom. They have kept walking the right way that others lost many years ago and we want to recover now. “‘When we plant a tree in Bendum we are thinking of the next sixty years.’ That surprised me! And when you teach a child in Bendum, for how long are you thinking? It is on-going education. Great! In Bendum it is easy to realise the importance of education as present (students enjoying life) and future (their sons and daughters will also enjoy life in a sustainable way). “In Bendum we can experience our Creator. We need to experience how God lives in Creation, in our lives, and in the lives of others. Institutions, books, and impermeable and inflexible structures can be useful, but alone cannot support faith. Nothing can be lived without inculturation. In Bendum it is easy for someone who comes from the fast world in western cities to face questions of life. Here there’s nothing between what our Creator made and certain life. Life and people are like they are, and not more, and the Creator enjoys his creatures. He doesn’t enjoy the injustice in this place in terms of lack of land rights and basic services, but is close to these people, to these children, to this land. He is working here in everything.”

Blessing The question remains: in today’s world, dominated by high-speed technology and the global market, does the occasion of welcome and blessing still resonate in modern society? Is there still a space to value a relationship with others that is founded not simply on communication and shared information but starts with the depth of the human condition, creation and an experience of the sacred? In today’s world, there is an increasing reliance on technology for our needs. At times we fail to acknowledge how nature provides so much of what is necessary for our survival: air, water, climate and fertile soil that allows us to grow the food we need. We fail to live with a sense of



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gratitude, taking for granted what gives us life. Mining and extraction of energy and rare earths for construction and technology are, in many cases, a blind spot in economic development. We seek the immediate benefit and subscribe to the myth of perpetual growth and give only a cursory consideration to local and global consequences. Can we really achieve a balance that is good for all? How are we to live in this world today? The Indigenous Peoples19 show us one way, however vulnerable this may be, and they remind us of forgotten values. Their traditions and way of life are based on a relationship with their land, guided by humble wisdom, a moral order and a sense of care. The engagement in Bendum challenges the young professionals in their concepts and expectations of development as they continue to grow in capacity, commitment and sincerity. Celebration of creation and relationship to the land is vital for our sense of gratitude and is easy to initiate with the young. A third question is “How can modern religions adapt, contribute and be part of social maturation in response to the times and context of a vulnerable heaven and earth?” In this we ask, how is clarity of meaning for the young deepened by faith? This is always difficult if religion persists in presenting its institutional structure with little adaptation to context. The faith witness of a particular person is what youth meets and what changes lives. Faith can contribute if it is a faith that can celebrate the challenges of the young, touch their lives, and enable them to transform society and the environment. In this we can approach the final question: how can faith-based lives respond to the call to meet basic human needs and to have a more secure and sustainable relationship with the natural resources and diversity of life? There is both the faith of ordinary people and of those who constantly reflect upon and articulate their experience. For all who live a faith-based life the question is always, how do we listen to each other and seek change with empathy? How do we listen to ordinary people living under extraordinary pressure, and how do they live by their sense of faith that often finds very little expression? Regardless of economic status, the reality is that each one of us is human. We share the context of living on this planet and the

 19

“Indigenous Peoples” is capitalized to emphasize the importance of their political reality and is recognized by the United Nations and at the State level. They are not merely local communities but a “People” with language, history and often legal and other cultural systems that are valuable to a nation’s diversity, ongoing creativity and integrity.



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drive to meet basic human needs, needs that cannot always be met by money, status or achievement. How do we live out this deeper experience of life with others? How do we live out this experience with hope? Life is not about being master over everything. It is primarily through reading the signs of the times20 that we learn how and with whom we can engage. Healing a broken world is part of this reality.21 Many people are seeking ways to go back to basics, a return to a faith relationship (rather than moralization), which gives the deepest reassurance as to the value of taking a path less travelled. The Indigenous Peoples provide an example of how to live with a sense of creation and the sacred. The sacred is often set aside from daily activity in order to recognize the different relations with the source and the meaning of a life shared with others. In today’s world we may not feel we need ritual or a sense of the sacred, when the economy gives security and happiness, and when technology provides communication and recreation. Technology may supply communications but it cannot ensure commitment, integrity, relationships and meaning. These must come from within. Sharing time and space with the indigenous communities reveals their deep spirituality and connection with creation, and their welcome lingers as we depart, somehow blessed by their lives. Now that we have engaged with the Pulangiyen community (or any other community) how are we transformed and how do we give space for this to grow? Can we now go to the poor because we have made friends with each other, and not simply because we want to do something for them or correct the development paradigm? With this, there can be real change.



 20

C. Arevalo, SJ, “On the Theology of the Signs of the Times,” Philippine Priests Forum 4, no 4. (1972): 15–26. 21 “Jesuit Response to Environmental and Ecological Challenges: Healing a Broken World,” Editorial, Ecojesuit, September 20, 2011, http://ecojesuit.com/jesuit-response-to-environmental-and-ecological-challenges-h ealing-a-broken-world/1427/.



CHAPTER ELEVEN ECLIPSE AND RESTORATION: INTERCONNECTEDNESS AND INTERDEPENDENCE BEYOND THE IMPERATIVES OF MATERIALISM KEITH MORRISON

Introduction My chapter is a reflection on humankind. My message is not neutral; it is a personal view, a personal exhortation. It is perhaps a response to Nietzsche’s withering attack on scholars:1 They sit cool in the cool shade: they want to be mere spectators in everything and they take care not to sit where the sun burns upon the steps. Like those who stand in the street and stare at the people passing by, so they too wait and stare at thoughts that others have thought. If one takes hold of them, they involuntarily raise a dust like sacks of flour; but who could guess that their dust derived from corn and from the joy of summer fields?

This chapter sets out a message that is both simple yet difficult. We live in a connected age, but this has created a paradox: the more connected we have been become, the more disconnected are many sectors of society, of the economy, of the polity and the community, and individuals, both between and within themselves. We rely on each other, we are interdependent, yet we do not operate on the fundamental principle of equality in that interdependence. Though nations and peoples are interdependent, the rich nations exploit the poorer nations (indeed, 1

F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961), 147.

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arguably, depend on that exploitation), and the poorer nations, in their own way, comply with this, not least because they have little choice or because it helps them to raise some of their members out of poverty (again, arguably, they depend on the richer nations exploiting them). They are interdependent, yes, but the relationship is unequal and exploitative. We operate with insufficient concern for conscience. This is familiar ground. Globalization has recognized the symbiotic relationship between peoples, but such interdependence seems to have brought little improvement in equality, humanitarianism and consciencedriven behavior. Indeed, arguably, it has exacerbated them. This chapter argues that, whilst globalization (as defined in this chapter) has increased the interconnectedness and interdependence of peoples and improved the situation in some sectors of society, many key features of humanitarian society have been eclipsed and many social, ethical and humanitarian ills have increased. Recovering and restoring ethical conscience and humanity, it is argued, starts with people, and it requires a reconnection of people with their inner life, with their conscience, and with each other, humanistically, together with breaking down rampant materialism and demolishing zero-sum models of development where my gain is your loss and where my gain rides on the back of your being exploited. Whilst globalization has the potential, as never before, to restore and develop the humanitarian, ethical and nonmaterialistic aspects of humankind, this will require a reassertion and further learning of ethics, conscience, compassion, respect, equality and humanitarianism in and across societies, polities and economies. This chapter suggests that this can, indeed must, start with individuals and it involves a return to education, reflective thinking with an egalitarian intent, the cultivation of the inner life and a reactivation of conscience on the part of individuals, institutions, organizations, societies and nations. The analysis here simplifies the complexity of the issues, perhaps overgeneralizing and, it might be argued, polarizing them unfairly, but this is done for heuristic clarity, to expose the issues in the keenest way.

Globalization and social theory It is no accident that globalization is on the current social theory agenda. It conforms to a long-held paradigm, more recently described by complexity theory, in which holism and interrelations, interdependence and interconnectedness are paramount. Here is not the place to expound at length on complexity theory and its various interpretations, but some central features of one interpretation of it resonate very powerfully with

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interconnectedness, as set out below, and these provide a theoretical foundation for the subsequent argument. None of us exists independently of our relationships with each other. The notion that an organism interacts dynamically with its environment, influencing and, in turn, being influenced by its environment, is a key principle of the emerging science of complexity. The burgeoning interest in this field touches several areas of human life, for example anthropology, biology and ecology. This is a holistic, connectionist and integrationist view of the individual and the environment, rather than a fragmented, separatist perspective.2 In this view feedback is essential for development and change, and the interdependence of the organism and its environment are emphasized. The individual and the environment change and shape each other, both growing and changing together. Change is endemic to survival. Further, learning is a critical factor within this ever-changing environment. Systems or organisms that cannot learn from their environment, and environments that cannot learn from their constituent elements, simply perish. Feedback is essential if the system is to be in step with itself and its environment.3 Learning requires memory; self-organization requires memory. If an organism is to learn from experience – even vicarious experience – then it needs a memory. It has a history. We need to reflect. That this runs counter to the fashions of postmodernism and the eternal present does not diminish its importance. A complex system comprises independent elements (which themselves might be made up of complex systems) which interact with each other and which give rise to organized behavior in the system as a whole). Indeed, independence is replaced by interdependence and interconnectedness; organisms cannot survive without each other. The direction of change is not necessarily imposed, totally pre-determined and fixed, but rather the universe (however defined) is creative, emergent (through iteration, learning and recursion), evolutionary, changing, transformative and turbulent. Order emerges out of the interacting elements in complex systems. 4 Life is holistic and profoundly unpredictable. Order is not imposed from without or by external constraint: it emerges from within. It

2

M. Youngblood, Life at the Edge of Chaos (Dallas, Texas: Perceval Publishing, 1997), 34. 3 R. Marion, The Edge of Organization: Chaos and Complexity Theories of Formal Social Systems (London: Sage, 1999), 74–75. 4 S. A. Kauffman, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995), 24.

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is autocatalytic. It emerges spontaneously, of its own accord. 5 Autocatalysis describes the ability of elements to catalyze each other and, thereby, to generate new forms from within. The order and freedom of mutually interdependent organisms are characterized as both partners and competitors.6 Complex adaptive systems possess a capability for self-organization, which enables them to develop, extend, replace, adapt, reconstruct or change their internal structure and their modus operandi. For example, the brain is a mass of neural networks with no single control center to oversee its functioning. Processing information and feedback for learning is not routed through a central control mechanism; it is distributed throughout the system, and information, knowledge and meaning and their control are also distributed throughout the system.7 Our self-organization must include our ethical self-organization and, as argued below, the reintegration of conscience with action. Connectedness, a key feature of complexity theory, exists everywhere. Connectedness is required if a system is to survive. Disturb one element in the connections and the species or system must either adapt or die. The message is ruthless. One part of the system disturbs another part, which, in turn, disturbs the former part. Connectedness through communication is vital. Such connection requires a distributed knowledge system, in which knowledge is not centrally located in a command and control center or the property of a limited set of agents (e.g., senior managers in an organization). Rather, it is dispersed, shared and circulated throughout the organization, community or society (and, in keeping with globalization, more widely across countries). Connected networks rather than islands are the order of the day. It requires all participants to exercise ethical behavior, and to think of the consequences of their actions on each other. Connectedness implies relationships, for example: within and between individuals, groups, subsystems and institutions, and between the institution and its environment, 8 scaling up to societies and nations. Further, these relationships are reciprocal, not one-way. As Wheatley 5

J. Cohen and I. Stewart, The Collapse of Chaos (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995), 265. 6 M. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1999), 87. 7 M. M. Waldrop, Complexity: the Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992), 145–47. 8 Lewin, R. and Regine, B. (2000) The Soul at Work: Listen, Respond, Let Go: Embracing Complexity Science for Business Success. New York: Simon and Shuster.

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observes, self-organization through connectedness requires democratic processes. It is inevitable. As she says: “you can’t avoid including people.”9 At issue here is that one strand of current social theory – complexity theory – provides a staunch theoretical underpinning to the claim that we live in a world marked by interconnectedness and interdependence. A manifestation of this is evidenced in globalization, as discussed below.

Winners and losers in globalization Cochrane and Pain draw attention to four features of one reading of globalization, and these underpin the issues of interconnectedness and interdependence:10 x x x x

“Stretched social relations”: cultural, economic and political networks of connections are now not only at local levels but cross continents and the world. “Intensification of flows”: we are witness to increased density of interaction across the world, whose impact is felt more strongly than previously. “Increasing interpenetration”: distant and separated cultures and societies now come face to face with each other (often through technology), creating both increased diversity and homogeneity. “Global infrastructure”: there is an increase in the formal and informal institutional structures and arrangements needed for globalized networks to be able to operate effectively.

Similarly, Giddens notes that globalization has brought:11 x x x x x x

9

Compression of space and time; Increased information flow; International community acts in crisis situations, e.g., natural disasters and interventions such as war; Local identities being revived; Transnational corporations; Global finance.

Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science, 5. A. Cochrane and K. Pain, “A Globalizing Society?” in A Globalizing World? Culture, Economics, Politics, 2nd ed., edited by D. Held, 6–45 (London: Routledge, 2004). 11 A. Giddens, Sociology, 6th ed. (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2009). 10

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In discussing global commodity chains and the electronic economy,12 Giddens writes that: “transnational corporations are at the heart of economic globalization. They account for two-thirds of all world trade … [and] are larger economically than most of the world’s countries.”13 He writes that we rely on imports from all over the world yet: [u]nder conditions of globalization, however, we are faced with a move towards a new individualism, in which people have actively to construct their own identities. The weight of tradition and established values is retreating, as local communities interact with a new global order. The social codes that formerly guided people’s choices and activities have significantly loosened.14

Giddens notes that globalization has seen the collapse of communism and moves towards Western-style political and economic systems, international mechanisms of government such as the United Nations and the European Union, and towards international NGOs such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International, the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières. Forces for globalized culture, he notes, include: television, the emergence of a unified global economy, global citizens (managers of large corporations), international organizations and electronic communications. 15 Indeed he remarks that “[i]ndustrial capitalism … depends on and promotes constant innovation in productive technology.”16 Here is a recognition that, as globalization increases, so do interdependence, interpenetration and interconnectedness, both quantitatively and qualitatively. As Koenig-Archibugi remarks: Sweatshop workers in Central America, human rights activists in East Timor, entrepreneurs in transition economies, Inuit threatened by global warming in their Arctic homelands, HIV-infected people in Southern Africa, not to mention stockbrokers in London or Tokyo, sense that their fortunes depend on events occurring in distant parts of the globe … . [S]ome people consider themselves liberated and excited about new opportunities for economic or social advancement, while others may feel increasingly threatened and powerless.17 12

Ibid., 134. Ibid., 133. 14 Ibid., 147. 15 Ibid., 147. 16 Ibid., 149. 17 M. Koenig-Archibugi, “Introduction,” in Taming Globalization: Frontiers of Governance, edited by D. Held and M. Koenig-Archibugi (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press in Association with Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2003), 1. 13

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Developments in information and communication technology, and the concomitant democratization of knowledge that they bring, have exploded into the epistemological and ethical arena, and the full impact of this has only started to be felt. Communications networks have increased and multiplied exponentially. For example, Internet and cell phone use have increased dramatically, and in a highly telescoped time frame (Table 11-1 and Figures 11-1 and 11-2). Table 11-1 indicates the prevalence of Asia in the global picture of Internet users, double that of its nearest contenders (final column), whilst North America is the overall world leader (78.6 per cent of its population). Importantly, the catch-up rate over eleven years by Africa (3,000 per cent, rounded) and the Middle East (2,200 per cent, rounded) indicates the rapid global spread of the Internet. Figure 11-1 indicates that Macau is the world leader in mobile cellular subscriptions, outstripping other East Asian rivals, and having the fastest recent recorded rise in the world. However, Macau still has some way to go in the percentage of individuals using the Internet (Figure 11-2). Here we are, caught up in a maelstrom of increasing interconnectedness and interdependence, with power as never before to act both globally and locally. Yet globalization throws up deep ontological and de-ontological questions in an age of intolerance, permissiveness and, in many countries, the rule of the gun and the sanctioning of gross exploitation. Indeed Kelly and Prokhovnik argue that international cybercrime has hugely increased.18 On a cultural level, Mackay observes that, whilst global communication and media companies are impacting local media broadcasting to the extent that “the paternalism and elitism of national broadcasting systems”19 are reduced, these same internal media giants impose their own power across the world. On an economic level, Kelly and Prokhovnik argue that globalization has the potential to bring many out of poverty and to improve living standards, for example: (a) in developing countries, to which large conglomerates and organizations relocate because of cheap labor, creating jobs where none had existed before (but then only to remove to yet cheaper labor if to do so turns a greater profit); (b) by foreign direct investment; (c) by lowering of trade barriers and increasing competition; (d) by increasing technology transfer from richer to poorer countries; 18

R. Kelly and R. Prokhovnik, “Economic Globalization?” in Held, A Globalizing World?, 97. 19 H. Mackay, “The Globalization of Culture?” in Held, A Globalizing World?, 81.

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(e) by increasing labor mobility; (f) by increasing consumer choice; (g) by reducing the role of (corrupt) governments in trade. On the other hand Stiglitz 20 argues that the IMF and the WTO are dominated by rich countries to the detriment of poorer countries, and, indeed, he argues for greater representation and decision making by developing countries. Kelly and Prokhovnik suggest that globalization “increases the legal authority of non-governmental organizations such as the World Trade Organization to override local and national authority if there is a violation of the terms of the agreement”21 and that: Contemporary patterns of economic globalization have shifted power away from democratically elected governments towards unaccountable global market forces … . [S]ince capital is increasingly mobile, significant constraints are created on the power of national governments to pursue progressive economic policies or redistributive social policies.22

Concerns about the economic impact of globalization have been put clearly by Galbraith: “the push for competition, deregulation, privatization and open capital markets has actually undermined economic prospects for many millions in the world’s poorest people,” 23 including women. 24 Globalization has become a euphemism for the hijacking of egalitarian economic interdependence by neo-liberalism. Kelly and Prokhovnik indicate the rise of severe economic inequalities, discussed below. Whilst the economies of many countries are expanding, those of many others languish. Global unemployment has accompanied a global population explosion. Figure 11-3 indicates the global population increase, indicating how this has been at its strongest in the two most recent centuries. Since 1800 the global population growth has been staggering. Table 11-2 shows that, by regions of the world, with the exception of OECD Europe, OECD Pacific and non-OECD Europe and Eurasia, the population growth in the last two decades has seen huge increases.

20

J. Stiglitz, “Globalization and development,” in Taming Globalization: Frontiers of Governance, edited by. D. Held and M. Koenig-Archibugi, 47–67 (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press in Association with Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2003). 21 R. Kelly and R. Prokhovnik, “Economic Globalization?” in Held, A Globalizing World?, 96–97. 22 Ibid., 94. 23 J. K. Galbraith, “The Crisis of Globalization,” (1999), 1, quoted in Held, A Globalizing World?, 99. 24 Kelly and Prokhovnik, “Economic Globalization?,” 101–104.

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Feeding the world’s population has become a massive undertaking. Each year the World Food Programme feeds over 90 million people in 70 countries. The World Bank’s figures for 2010 (Table 11-3) indicate gross poverty in very many regions of the world, and its 2011 figures indicate “that an estimated 165 million children under five years of age worldwide were stunted (i.e., low height-for-age)”25 At the same time unemployment is an international scourge. Figure 11-4 indicates global unemployment up to 2010. Figure 11-5 indicates current unemployment rates in recession-hit Europe, whilst Figure 11-6 compares unemployment rates for different regions of the world in 2010. Youth unemployment (15–24 year olds) is particularly hard-hit, and is in crisis worldwide. For example, nearly 11 million young people across the OECD (17.1 per cent of the working population) in March 2012 were out of work, twice that of the rest of the working population. In Spain and Greece, the youth unemployment rate was over 51 per cent; in the UK and France it was close to 22 per cent; in the United States it was 16.4 per cent, and in Italy it was 35.9 per cent. The International Labour Organization’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2012 reports that young people are three times more likely than adults to be unemployed. The United Nations News Centre writes that the youth unemployment rate in East Asia (the region with the world’s lowest rate) will rise to 9.5 per cent in 2012. Public Services International notes that: “in East Asia, the youth unemployment rate in 2011 was 2.8 times higher than the adult rate.”26 It seems that interconnectedness and interdependence may be doing little to reduce serious problems of global unemployment. What does it signify when interdependence seems to mean that some economies’ gains are bought at the expense of so many people’s unemployment? On an environmental level, globalization and ease of global travel have increased global warming, global shifts in climate, cross-border pollution and the dumping of rubbish from the rich onto the poor nations (e.g., Kelly and Prokhovnik).27 It appears that interconnectedness and interdependence are the happy faces of what are actually global poisoning, global poverty, global 25

UNICEF, WHO and The World Bank, UNICEF-WHO-The World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates, 2012, http://www.who.int/nutgrowthdb/jme_ infosheet.pdf. 26 Public Services International, “Youth Unemployment Increase,” 22 May 2012, http://www.world-psi.org/en/print/622. 27 Kelly and Prokhovnik, “Economic Globalization?,” 97–98. See, for example: Macroevolution (http://www.macroevolution.net/air-pollution-graphs.html).

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unemployment and global starvation. Add to these the point that galloping materialism consumes many countries, and the recipe is there for increasing pauperization. Conventional notions of identity and community are challenged as Westernization, commodification and consumerism secure their footholds worldwide.28 The threat to ecological diversity, in its widest sense, goes to the heart of notions of issues of interpersonal behavior and inter-species survival. If interconnectedness and interdependence are key elements of globalization, then questions can be raised as to the legitimacy of the persistence of such gross asymmetries of power and privilege in that relationship. Questions can be asked as to how much mutually beneficial interconnectedness and interdependence are more than high-sounding but vacuous principles when all around there is poverty, exploitation, greed, pollution, materialism, unemployment, inequality, war, starvation and other ills, as can be observed across the world. These are not inevitable. If we need each other, then why does one partner treat the other so badly? What has happened to the common good?

Globalization and inequality Of course, it is easy to question how far globalization is responsible for, or has caused, the ills identified above, or whether they were happening anyway, or to state that how we judge the effects of globalization depends on how we define the term and its features. Whether globalization causes or is only correlated with inequality may be debatable (e.g., Wade argues that some key data are unclear on the relation between globalization and increasing poverty, even though poverty has been rising since the 1970s).29 However, there is a spate of recent texts on growing inequality, indicating that the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening. James’s study Affluenza 30 charts the obsessive, envious, virus-like runaway consumerism and race to keep up with one’s neighbors, fuelled by globalized communication systems that advertise and fuel the next “must have,” bringing in its wake depression, anxiety and addictions to people in developed nations. 2010 saw the publication of Wilkinson’s and

28 P. Dalin and V. D. Rust, Towards Schooling for the Twenty-First Century (London: Cassell, 1996). 29 R. H. Wade, ‘The Disturbing Rise in Poverty and Inequality: Is it All a ‘Big Lie?’” in Held and Koenig-Archibugi, eds., Taming Globalization, 18–46. 30 O. James, Affluenza (London: Vermilion, 2007).

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Pickett’s celebrated multi-country review entitled The Spirit Level, 31 charting massive inequalities of income across and within countries, and arguing that it is largely not the average overall income levels or average living standards in a country that matter in terms of improving quality of life, but income differences within that country, i.e., the levels of inequality of income distribution within it. They find income differences and inequality within populations to be highly significant in terms of their causal relationship to a range of problems found consistently in countries across the world (e.g., physical and mental health, life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, drug addiction, educational performance, violence, crime, imprisonment and social mobility). They argue that ill-health and social problems occur less frequently in more equal countries, whereas they are more common in countries with bigger income inequalities. If we wish to improve the quality of life, they write, we must reduce inequality, particularly in income, and have our politicians address the psychological and social wellbeing of societies rather than simply focus on economic growth. The year 2011 saw the publication of Dorling’s Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists, in which he argues that older forms of inequality have been replaced by five vicious new tenets of social injustice:32 x x x x x

Elitism is efficient Exclusion is necessary Prejudice is natural Greed is good Despair is inevitable.

Each belief, he writes, creates its own victims. Elitism creates delinquents and stigma. Exclusion creates the debarred, with people excluded from many social norms because they are poor. Prejudice creates the discarded, with people treated as second-class citizens. Greed creates debtors, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Despair creates the depressed. The nail in the coffin, he argues, is that people accept this as natural and unavoidable: that’s life, and life is unfair. The following year, 2012, saw the publication of Mount’s The New Few, Stiglitz’s The Price of Inequality 33 and Lansley’s The Cost of 31

R. Wilkinson and K. Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better for Everyone (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2012). 32 D. Dorling, Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists (Bristol, UK: The Policy Press, 2011).

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Inequality. These all attest to the growing gap between the super-rich and the others and indicate the pernicious effects on inequality of such differences. Lansley reports that the ratio of the average annual pay of the CEOs of some US companies, compared with “the rest” of their employees, had risen from 42:1 in 1960 to 344:1 in 2007. A Macau newspaper reported that the collective wealth of Asia-Pacific millionaires totaled nearly US$ 10 trillion in 2011. Forbes magazine reported in 2011 that China had 115 billionaires living on the mainland, second only to the US, and that in the US the top 1 per cent enjoyed 34.6 per cent of the nation’s wealth in 2007. Mount indicates that “globalization has brought a level of affluence undreamed of to millions of Chinese and Indian workers but globalization has also exacerbated inequality in many Western countries, especially America.” 34 He reports that “the ratio of the total rewards of chief executive officers of FTSE 100 companies to the pay of the average UK employee rose from 45 to 1 in 1998 to 120 to 1 in 2010.”35 He notes 36 the cases of a banker being paid 400 times the amount of the office cleaner, a company CEO receiving 37 million pounds in 2008 (the equivalent of the pay received by 1,374 average workers at his headquarters in the UK),37 the CEO of Tesco receiving nearly 900 times as much as the average Tesco employee, and the head of the advertising firm WPP receiving 631 times the pay of his average employee (and Lansley reports this same CEO receiving 90 million pounds in 2009 after cashing in share options).38 Mount reports that the average pay ratio of CEO to employee has risen from 74 to over 128 in ten years to the present,39 and that the average UK household wealth of the top 10 per cent was over 100 times higher than the wealth of the poorest 10 per cent.40 To the argument that It is better to tolerate some degree of inequality if it energizes the economy. A rising tide lifts all boats.41

33

J. Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality: The Avoidable Causes and Invisible Costs of Inequality (London: Allen Lane, 2012). 34 F. Mount, The New Few: Or a Very British Oligarchy (London: Simon and Schuster, 2012), 5. 35 Ibid., 3. 36 Ibid., 22. 37 Ibid., 61. 38 S. Lansley, The Cost of Inequality (London: Gibson Square, 118). 39 Mount, The New Few, 62. 40 Ibid., 75. 41 Ibid., 6.

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comes Mount’s response “[t]he blunt fact is that wealth is not trickling down to anywhere near the bottom. The rowing boats are stuck on the mud.”42 The timing of these publications is unsurprising. Western nations struggle with economic meltdown, credit squeezes, bank rate fixing scandals, crises in the Eurozone, austerity measures, stagnant GDP and double-dip recession. At the same time the incomes of many bankers and financiers have not stalled, indeed have risen, as they pay themselves monstrous bonuses and salaries. Macau is no stranger to huge salaries for bosses. It was reported that one Macau CEO had his contract renewed at an annual salary of US$ 1.2 million plus 260,000 share options. Bloomberg Businessweek reports a Macau CEO receiving over US$ 17 million in 2011 and a total compensation package calculated at over US$ 27 million from different sources. Others receive between US$ 1.2 million and 27 million annually. What about the rest of society? Whilst a few amass fortunes, vast tracts of the population struggle to survive. What kind of society is it that, like Macau, has to advertise that it is building “affordable housing” (regardless of the fact that many cannot afford it and for others it is like living in a shoe-box)? As Fintan O’Toole wrote, “to say that a fraction of a nation’s housing – say 4 per cent – is ‘affordable’ implies that the other 96 per cent is not.”43 It has been argued so far that the rise of globalization, whether causally or correlationally, has been concomitant with the gross increase in inequality. It is a great paradox that, at a time of increasing interdependence and interconnectedness, i.e., just when we depend on each other more and more, key aspects of behavior – individual, institutional, communitarian, societal, national, international – have been deformed into, and seen the flowering of, a range of inequalities, together with poverty, rampant consumerism, commodification of all aspects of human life, greed, envy, acquisitiveness, arrogant disregard for others, social injustice, materialism at every turn, profit and wealth, environmental destruction, global impoverishment, starvation and exploitation. At a time of immense and increasing globalization, the world suffers, dies young, “is wasted by systematic greed,”44 bombs its neighbors or is bombed, starves, is diseased, lacks basic sanitation, exploits already exploited nations, cannot educate its population even to primary levels, globalizes to serve corporate interests, is prey to rampant consumerism 42

Ibid., 6. F. O’Toole, Ship of Fools (London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 2010). 44 J. O’Neill, The Poverty of Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1995), 196. 43

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and unbridled materialism, perpetuates gross racism, sexism, chauvinism and ageism, violates human rights and freedoms of speech, assembly, expression, employment and religion, detention without trial, and so on. Yet what we see in globalization is the colonization of interconnectedness and interdependence by the wealth profiteers with their self-serving agenda, and the neglect of democracy, human rights, ethics and conscience, the inner self and humanitarian development. Why does this happen?

Reasserting humanity and conscience The widespread disconnect that we see between macro-level conscience and behavior rehearses the micro-level individual disconnect between behavior and conscience. It is as if what happens at the societal, national and international levels is the individual level disconnect writ large. Missing from many of the discussions of globalization are people, their life-chances, their ethics and a questioning of their values. Yet it is people who make ills happen, not only faceless organizations, societies, nations or, indeed nature. Of course institutions, organizations and nations have their own impetus. They have a social force which is often greater than some of the individuals within them. But inside them are individuals, and they should be driven by the force of equality rather than the thirst for profit at any price. It is not only globalization that brings ills; it is also the people who operate it. On the inside of globalization are people. Although a truism, it is not to deny that many individuals strive to turn globalization towards equalizing the quality of life and living standards of the have-nots, and that many organizations are striving to bring societies out of poverty, corruption and inequality. A quarter of a century ago Thompson’s The Poverty of Theory mounted a blistering,45 if contested, attack on Althusserian structuralism. The arguments are perhaps familiar: we are not mindless puppets of a given social order; we are not “ideological dopes of stunning mediocrity”;46 we exert our own agency, albeit in circumstances not of our own choosing; accounts of human behavior that leave out humanity, human conscience, human dynamics, human inventiveness and agency are incomplete; they miss out and depersonalize the very ideas that they should be including and personalizing. A reassertion of humanity and conscience is necessary, and it must build in people, in all their diversity, 45 46

E. P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory (London: Merlin, 1978). A. Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory (London: Macmillan, 1979), 52.

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humanity and flesh-and-blood immanence. It must embrace the complicated, tension-ridden, uncertain, complex, contradictory, messy, uncontrollable and wonderful world of people. Conception, execution and conscience must unite. People must reunite with their conscience. Tell that to Wall Street. Rather than being beautiful but bloodless and lifeless, human development for interconnectedness and interdependence must not only have a practical intent but a conscience and a passionate intent: human, thinking, visceral, passionate and ethical. As the poet Pasternak (1961, p. 539) says: You see, the passage of the centuries is like a parable And catches fire on its way.47

We need a reassertion of humanitarianism and conscience that catches the dynamics of human life and celebrates its vitality, vibrancy and ethical values. We have to learn to be better. We have learned from studies of thinking and the brain that creativity, emotion and the search for spirituality underlie, and are hard-wired into, apparently cool cognition and higher faculties.48 Meaning, value and feelings precede cool logic and the austere beauty of calm, disinterested rationality. While it would be a categorical mistake to proceed from an “ought” to an “is,” we ignore this at our peril. This is to argue for attending to people’s conscience, views, values, visions, practices, developments, experiments, excitements and arguments. As Bruner suggests,49 actual minds are a precursor to possible worlds, and we ought to listen to voices speaking to us from possible worlds: we have to listen to ourselves, and reflect rather than simply being carried along by crowd mentality. The voices of possible worlds speak for a better present and a better future. We have to reconnect conscience and action, conscience and planning, conscience and behavior. In an emergent, dynamic present and future, holism and integration are the watchwords. Bringing together voices, rationalities, arguments, values, ethics, conscience, ideas, stories, exchanges and experiences may not endear themselves to planners and policy makers who seek simple solutions to complex problems or profit at any price, but they are the stuff 47

B. Pasternak, “Gethsemane,” in Doctor Zhivago (London: Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd, 1961), 31. 48 D. Zohar, Rewiring the Corporate Brain (San Francisco: Berret-Koehler Publishers Inc, 1997), 31. 49 J. S. Bruner, Actual Minds: Possible Worlds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).

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of the rewired communal and individual brain. As O’Shaughnessy remarked: “We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams.” 50 We have to reconnect our conscience, our inner being, with what we do, how we feel, how we judge actions, and how we promote humanitarian equality. In Macau, official discourse is almost silent on many big issues – global and local – of inequality, poverty, materialism, commodification of all aspects of human life, greed, envy, acquisitiveness, arrogant disregard for others, social injustice, materialism at every turn, profit and wealth, environmental destruction, global impoverishment and exploitation, democracy, human rights, ethics, the inner self, conscience, and humanitarian development, both within and outside Macau. These are lost in parochialism: the celebration of the next thousand hotel rooms, the next few hundred gaming tables, the next luxury brand shopping mall, the next up-market apartment, the next piece of technological wizardry, the next entertainment project, the next bijou restaurant and the next few million tourist arrivals. What kind of society or nation is it that turns such a blind eye to exploitation, greed, inequality and poverty? The rupture with ethics, values, conscience, compassion, respect and human dignity shouts out for debate to be heard in Macau, but there is none. In spite of this we have to be optimists. We have to rethink our priorities. We have to act. As was mentioned at the start of this chapter, we are autocatalysts. Interdependence does not mean that our benefit depends on the impoverishment of others or the exploitation of others. Interconnectedness does not mean that we dictate our terms to others, even if they are happy or forced to receive sub-standard wages and rewards. This is a message that the fair trade movement has taken to heart, which has been seen to spread across nations, and which has seen certain banks – those which state that they will not take part in exploitative financial transactions – flourish. Globalization has the potential, as never before, to restore the humanitarian, ethical and non-materialistic aspects of humankind. For the first time in history, we can have real-time awareness of the situation and plight of peoples across the world, brought home to us with graphic and shocking immediacy. We have to let this touch us; we have to engage the big issues that it raises; we have to be moved by inequality, not just witness it or exploit it; we have to engage with people, not just watch them or use them. We have to look at ourselves anew. The American 50

A. O’Shaughnessy, Ode, in Music and Moonlight: Poems and Songs (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 1984; 2007).

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philosopher Martha Nussbaum cites the example of Ghandi, who remarked that: “the struggle for freedom and equality must first of all be a struggle within each person, as compassion and respect contend against fear, greed and narcissistic aggression.” 51 This requires fortitude and a willingness to reflect on and revalue ourselves. Reconnecting within ourselves means looking inward to our conscience, educating our conscience, and reconnecting our conscience with our actions. This will require a reassertion and further learning of ethics, compassion, respect, equality and humanitarianism in and across individuals, societies, polities and economies. It can start with individuals. We need to reconnect with our consciences. I take heart from the demonstration by individuals, groups of individuals, and movements which strive to reassert globalization as a force for increasing humanity, who resist the colonization of the life world of individuals by the imperatives of global capitalism, and who take a stand against exploitation, and zero-sum models of human development at national and international levels: in short, those who reassert the importance of conscience in our everyday lives at all levels. It is unacceptable for democracy to be suppressed in the name of international corporate-service and economic expansion. It is not a given that economic expansion means exploitation, using people as instruments for individual or corporate financial gain, and using people as a means to an end. The eclipse of humanity that we witness in so much of globalization must be replaced by the restoration of the humanitarianism of humans; we must restore the prominence of the ethical debate; we must restore conscience. That starts inside people’s heads and hearts. Naïve? Perhaps. Simplistic? Maybe. Partial? Probably. However, we are not simply self-interested or one-dimensional homo economicus or homo avidus. We have a conscience: individual, institutional, communitarian, societal, national and international. This must be restored, not eclipsed. Think of the derivation of “conscience”: knowing with people, not against them. We are not solipsistic, but connected. We need not only interconnectedness but intra-connectedness; not only interdependence but intra-dependence. As Jacob Bronowski remarked: We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.52 51

M. C Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 29. 52 J. Bronowski, The Ascent of Man. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1974), 374.

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Table 11-2: Carbon emissions World 28.4% Africa 58.4% Middle East 53.4% Asia (except China) 36.9% Latin America 32.0% OECD North America 25.1% China 17.3% OECD Europe 9.9% OECD Pacific 9.5% Non-OECD Europe and Eurasia -2.7% Source: International Energy Agency 2011: CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion http://www.iea.org/co2highlights/co2Highlights.pdf. © OECD/IEA 2012. Reproduced with permission.

Table 11-3: Poverty data from the World Bank.

Region

% in $1.25 a day poverty

Population (millions)

Pop. in $1 a day poverty (millions) 316

East Asia and Pacific 16.8 1,884 Latin America and the 8.2 550 45 Caribbean South Asia 40.4 1,476 596 Sub-Saharan Africa 50.9 763 388 Total Developing 28.8 673 1345 countries Europe and Central Asia 0.04 473 17 Middle East and North Africa 0.04 305 11 Total 5451 1372 Source: World Bank PovcalNet: Replicate the World Bank’s Regional Aggregation at http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/povDuplic.html. © World Bank. Reproduced with permission.

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Fig. 11-1: Mobile cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, 2011

Source: International Telecommunication Union. http://www.itu.int/ITUD/ict/statistics. © International Telecommunication Union. Reproduced with permission.

Fig. 11-2 over: Percentage of individuals using the Internet, 2011 Source: International Telecommunication Union. http://www.itu.int/ITUD/ict/statistics. © International Telecommunication Union. Reproduced with permission.

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Fig. 11-3: World population growth in the last two millennia

Source: United Nations Population Division (http://www.population-growthmigration.info/population.html). © United Nations Population Division. Reproduced with permission.

Eclipse and Restoration Fig. 11-4: Global unemployment rates up to 2010

Source: World Bank. © World Bank. Reproduced with permission.

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Fig. 11-5: Countries with the highest rates of long-term unemployment, January – March 2012

Source: http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2012/07/23/tackling-the-job-crisis-whats-tobe-done/ From Tackling The Jobs Crisis: What’s To Be Done? © European Union. Reproduced with the permission of Eurostat.

Eclipse and Restoration Fig. 11-6: Unemployment rate in different regions of the world 2010

Source: Reserve Bank of Australia (http://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2010/images/sp-ag-250310-graph2.gif). © Reserve Bank of Australia. Reproduced with permission.

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CHAPTER TWELVE REFLECTIONS ON TECHNOLOGY: A BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVE GUANG XING

“Mankind today,” says Professor Barrett in his The Woman who Discovered Printing, “can look back on the Buddha, the ‘Enlightened One’, as one of the most successful religious teachers in history, a man whose ideas still influence millions in every part of the world. However to grasp his importance not to religion but to information technology we need to understand not the whole of his religious message but the way in which he perceived himself.”1 Here Barrett has highlighted the importance of information technology, and printing in particular, in the spread of the message of the Buddha. Unlike other religions, Buddhism welcomes any new development in the field of technology and never rejects or even resists new developments in science and technology, because Buddhism considers science and technology as instruments to improve human life. Why does Buddhism welcome new developments in science and technology? Because Buddhism holds an open-minded attitude to everything and considers that holding any view dogmatically is bad for personal and social development, insofar as it leaves no room to accept anything new, even the good opinions of others. So it is said in the Uttaravipattisuttaۨ of the AnguttanikƗya that “Whatsoever is well spoken, all that is the word of the Buddha.”2

1

H. T. Barrett, The Woman Who Discovered Printing (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 42. See, more generally, Alan B. Wallace, ed., Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground, Columbia Series in Science and Religion (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). 2 A iv 164. F. H. Woodward, trans., The Books of the Kindred Saying (repr., Oxford: The Pali Text Society, 1997), IV: 112.

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Thus, Buddhism does not hold to the idea that only Buddhist teaching is good and valid, but allows that there are good teachings in other religions and philosophies, and hence Buddhism accepts whatsoever is good and beneficial. That is why Buddhism has taken up many Chinese cultural elements and become Chinese Buddhism. The Buddhist liberal attitude of mind is also reflected in another saying. When two Brahmin brothers who became the disciples of the Buddha and wished to translate the words of the Buddha into Sanskrit, the refined language of the time, the Buddha told them, “I allow you, monks, to learn the speech of the Buddha according to his own dialect.”3 Here “in his own dialect” means the dialect of the monks, not that of the Buddha because, according to the Vinaya Matrika Sutra, “In my teachings emphasis is not laid on rhetoric. What I mean is that the doctrines should not be misunderstood. They should be taught in any language which is understood by the people, according to their suitability.”4 Thus, there is no official language and no official interpretation in Buddhism. You can learn Buddhism in any language you like. The original Buddhist scriptures are preserved not only in Indian languages, such as Pali and Sanskrit, but also in Chinese and Tibetan translations as well. Today there are also complete English translations of the Pali canon and some partial translations in other European languages. Most religions in the world are very strict in their teachings and regulations because they think that they are divine. But the Buddhist attitude towards their own religious teachings and regulations is different from that of other religions: as the Buddha told Ananda, his attendant, just before he died, “If it is desired, Ananda, the Sangha may, when I am gone, abolish the lesser and minor rules.”5 This also reflects the Buddha’s openminded attitude. Thus, in their transmission of the Dharma, Buddhist 3

Cullavagga, V. 33.1. I. B. Horner, trans., The Book of Discipline (repr., Oxford: The Pali Text Society. 2000), 194. 4 CBETA, Taisho Tripitaka, T24, no. 1463 (2011; repr., Tokyo: Daizo Shuppansha, 1988), http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/, 822, a20–21. Ƞᱻѭ҆࿶ȡ‫ ڔ‬4ǺNjՕ֋КЫǺ րՕ‫ݤ‬ύόᆶऍ‫ࢂࣁق‬Ǵՠ٬က౛όѨǴࢂրཀΨǶᒿፏ౲ғᔈᆶՖॣԶள ‫ڙ‬৴ǴᔈࣁᇥϐǶnj 5 D ii 154. T. W. Rhys Davids, trans., The Dialogue of the Buddha (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2000), 2:171. The Chinese translations of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, T1, 26, 28–29 and Mahisasaka Vinaya, T22, 191b, 3–4; Mahasanghika Vinaya, T22, 492b, 4–5, c7; Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, T22, 967b, 11–13; Sarvastivada Vinaya, T23, 449b, 13–14; Mulasarvastivada Vinaya Samyutavastu, T24, 405b, 3–5 and Vinaya Matrtka Sutra, T24, 818b, 3–4.

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monks changed some of the minor rules in order to accommodate the local culture and climate, such as in China. Hence there arose a special rule called the “Vinaya according to locality.”6 Some may argue that this may give rise to a craving for and an attachment to science and technology, which Buddhism considers as bad and detrimental to spiritual development. In fact this is a misunderstanding, because the true Buddhist renunciation is psychological, not physical. Therefore Buddhist training is a mental culture, which is not based on the suppression of sense, but develops the senses to see things as they truly are. The Nibbedhikasutta of the A۪guttara-Nikaya says, In passionate purpose lays man’s sense desire, the world’s gain glitters are not sense desire, in passionate purpose lays man’s sense desire, the world’s gain glitters as they abide, but the wise men hold desire, therefore, in check.7

So what the Buddha wanted to convey is that the manifold objects in the external world do not constitute our desire. What constitutes our desire is lustful intention, lustful desire within us, not the things themselves, but lustful desire towards them. So the true renunciation is not being completely withdrawn from the world physically, but the cultivation of a particular attitude of mind within ourselves. It is because of such an open attitude of mind that Buddhism welcomes and adopts whatsoever the new science and technology offers for the dissemination of the Dharma. Here I will give a few examples to show the Buddhist adaptation of new technology. The Indian people were fond of memorizing things, particularly the Vedas, because they thought that Vedas were the sacred teachings given by Maha Brahma, the God. So the transmission of these sacred teachings should be entirely transmitted by word of mouth, and it is only by such a method that not only is the meaning kept but also the ways of chanting the Vedas. It was Buddhist monks who first adopted writing in India, according to the eminent scholar Ji Xianlin, when writing became the main way of transmitting ideas and thought in the second century. At the same time, the Sanskrit language became widely used in India and the 6

CBETA, Taisho Tripitaka, T36, no. 1736 (2011; repr., Tokyo: Daizo Shuppansha, 1988), http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/, 664, b12–17. 7 A iii 411. E. M. Hare, trans., The Book of the Gradual Sayings (repr., Oxford: The Pali Text Society, 2001), 3: 291.

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scriptures of some Buddhist schools underwent a continuous process of Sanskritization. That is why, at the end of nearly every MahƗyƗna scripture, there is a saying that one will gain great merit if one disseminates the sutra by copying it by hand. This was the way to encourage Buddhist followers to copy Buddhist scriptures for mass distribution before the invention of printing technology.8 The second example is a printing technology called xylography, which was invented in China in the Tang dynasty. Some scholars, such as Timothy Barrett, even argue that Buddhism was the driving force for the invention of woodblock printing technology, as there were so many Buddhist scriptures for distribution. However, even if Buddhism were not the driving force behind the invention, Buddhism was readily accepting of the new technology and used it for the distribution of Buddhist scriptures. This eventually led to the printing of the entire Buddhist canon in the Song dynasty. A group of officials and Buddhist monks took thirteen years to make the entire 130,000 woodblocks for printing, and the work was completed in 984.9 According to Richard D. McBride, the oldest available woodblock printed book isġ ˪คࠣృӀεߒᛥѭ࿶˫(Wugoujingguangdatuoluonijing; Great Dharani Scripture of Flawless, Pure Light) printed in 751 and discovered in Korea in 1966.10 This is a scroll, nearly twenty feet long and three and a half inches wide, produced from about twelve woodblock pages printed on bamboo paper. The second oldest is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra printed in 868, which was discovered at Dunhuang in 1907 and is kept in the British Library, one of the oldest known printed books. It was printed for merit, and for everyday use, on seven woodblock pages and pasted on a footwide scroll sixteen feet long.

8 For a general account of this topic, see Thomas Francis Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward, 2nd ed., revised by L. Carrington Goodrich (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1955). 9 ዐਦܴ Pan Guiming, ဠဂ Dong Qun and ഞϺ౺ Ma Tianxiang, History, vol. 3 of ύ ୯ Օ ௲ ԭ ࣽ ӄ ਜ Zhongguo Fojiao Baike Quanshu [Encyclopaedia of Chinese Buddhism], ed. ᒘ ҉ ੇ Lai Yonghai (Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 2000), 310–13. 10 Richard D. McBride, II, “Printing Technologies,” Encyclopedia of Buddhism, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2003), 2: 675–78. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 27 Oct 2012.

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Fig. 12-1 The Diamond Sutra printed in 868, ©British Museum.

In the late 1980s Mahidol University began the process of digitizing the Thai edition completed in the nineteenth century – the first full canon to appear using the new technology. Since the development of computer science, the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA) has employed the new tool and has digitalized all the Chinese Buddhist texts, which it donates free of charge to all those who wish to have a copy for research and for reading. The digitized Buddhist scriptures in Chinese are distributed through the Internet as well as on CDs and DVDs worldwide. In conclusion, Buddhism welcomes new developments in science and technology that help in the mass distribution of Buddhist scriptures, which comprise thousands of books in a printed format. This is because Buddhism considers science and technology as the best tools for the dissemination of the Dharma.

Reflections on Technology: A Buddhist Perspective

Fig. 12-2 ©CBETA, 2011.11

11 CBETA DVD (Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association) 2011. http://www.cbeta.org/index.htm New Web: http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/

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AFTERWORD RELIGION AND ECOLOGY: JESUIT CONTRIBUTIONS CHRISTOPHER KEY CHAPPLE DOSHI PROFESSOR OF INDIC AND COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY EDITOR, WORLDVIEWS: GLOBAL RELIGIONS, CULTURE, AND ECOLOGY

In a recent document titled “Healing a Broken World,” Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, SJ, General of the Society of Jesus, lays out five agenda items to be taken up in the coming decades: education, peace and human rights, migration, ecology, and sustainability. The first, education, hearkens back to the very founding of the order and the establishment of Jesuit schools, colleges, and universities worldwide. The Jesuits operate at many institutions of higher learning worldwide: 28 in the United States, 27 in India, 27 in Latin America, and several in East Asia, including the Philippines. Since Fr. Pedro Aruppe, SJ, Jesuits have excelled in providing leadership in the areas of peace and human rights and the related issue of migration. For many years Fr. John Dear, SJ, directed the Fellowship for Reconciliation, one of the venerable organizations that championed civil rights and antiwar initiatives in the United States; Greg Boyle, SJ, author, innovator and founder of Home Boy Industries, has helped forge new life paths for many poor, former criminals in Los Angeles. Seemingly, however, the fields of ecology and sustainability have drawn relatively less attention from the Order, though as we will see, some important initiatives have emerged from the seminal work of Jesuits who anticipated a need for a reconnection with the earth. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, found great inspiration in his childhood from the fields and forests and rocks that surrounded his childhood home in France. His love of geology brought him to studies and travels reminiscent of the original founders of the Jesuit Order. He lived for many years in China, examining and writing about the ancient landscapes and

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peoples, from the coastal regions to the desert interior. He wrote the definitive geologic study of Malibu Canyon in California. As a paleontologist he not only developed expertise in the evolution of the human being, he also reflected on the place of the human in the cosmos. His many essays, circulated first in mimeograph and then published posthumously in several books, create a vision of the cosmic Christ that urges feeling a connection with God through reflecting on the vastness of time and space. By telling the story of the emergence and endless variation of all things, he suggests that a new scripture has now been revealed. Through science we are invited into a place of worship. Though his writings were very popular when published, and although many Jesuits have continued to study science and contribute to scientific research, theologians were somewhat reluctant to develop his ideas. One historian of religion, Thomas Berry, a member of the Passionist Order, paid heed to Teilhard’s vision. He headed for many years the Teilhard Association of North America and, in collaboration with mathematical cosmologist Brian Swimme (Ph.D., Oregon), wrote a book called The Universe Story that updates the scientific work of Teilhard’s narrative and more fully explores the human role in terms cultural history, including the sad reality of the negative human impact on earth systems due to technology. Students of Thomas Berry from his teaching years at Fordham University, including Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim of Yale University and myself at Loyola Marymount University, began a series of conferences on the topic of world religions and ecology. Tucker and Grim established the Forum on Religion and Ecology and convened a series of twelve conferences at Harvard University, the United Nations, and the Museum of Natural History, inviting more than 600 scholars to think deeply on how religions throughout the world have been complicit in the difficulties that have resulted from blindly adhering to the creature comforts made available in the current “technological trance” and how religions, both conceptually and practically, can help craft a new ethic that will provide some rethinking of lifestyle choices. The resulting ten volumes and the ongoing publication of the journal Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology have helped launch a new field of study. Several positions have been created at universities to teach about religion and ecology, and a burgeoning group of eco-theologians continue to explore the changed relationship between God and the human and the earth. As we heard at the November 2012 gathering on Humankind and Nature: An Endangered System of Interdependence in Today’s Globalising World, mounted by the Macau Ricci Institute, Jesuits are examining their

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past and current work in this field. Some Jesuits are simply not interested; others, such as Al Fritsch in the Appalachian Mountains of North America, have labored for years to raise consciousness in regard to what is emerging as the definitive issue for peace and social justice in the twenty-first century. As climate change continues to batter the coastlines of North America and elsewhere, and as extreme weather events provide abundant proof of its reality, religious leaders can no longer ignore the fact that the human has become a geologic force, a force that must be re-educated and re-formed in order to guarantee safe passage into a sustainable future. Hopefully, Jesuits and their lay partners can continue to provide leadership in regard to this issue, correctly identified by Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, SJ, as a top priority.

The Macau Ricci Institute is a non-profit, research and cultural institution dedicated to fostering better mutual understanding between China and the world community. Offering a blend of cultural, professional and interdisciplinary research programmes, the purpose and method of the Macau Ricci Institute are best summed up in its links with the city of Macao, the person of Matteo Ricci, the Society of Jesus and the peoples of China. Macao, from its earliest history (1557) and very geographical existence, remains in today’s world a noteworthy experiment in intercultural encounter and understanding. In many respects, Macao is a human and cultural crossroads – a real although small international city. Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), a Jesuit, is known as the initiator, in modern times, of the Catholic missions in China. To the present day he remains respected and admired among the people of China. The roots of Ricci’s success lie in his full integration as a human being, which enabled him fully to enter another culture without losing himself. Since Ricci’s times, the Jesuits in Macao have always been at the service of the human person, whether in need of education or of humanitarian help, but always at the very deepest level of ideals and hopes, where culture finds its roots. This Jesuit tradition continues even today in Macao and at the Macau Ricci Institute. Since Ricci’s times, China has taken various steps to develop many new channels of contact and exchange with the world. This was not achieved without challenges and suffering. Through its various programmes, publications and services, the Macau Ricci Institute wants to bear witness to the advantages that China and the world can gain from prolonged encounters and exchanges.

INDEX

Page numbers in italics refer to figures and tables accidents, polluting 89–90 act-oriented environmentalism 61 acts, purity of 78–80 Agganna Sutta 76–77 air-conditioning 118 alaya-consciousness 56–57 alcoholism, recycling and 128–130 Alonso, Leticia 183–184 Anguttara-Nikaya 212, 214 asceticism 103–104 Asian religions and ecology 2–12 Australia 107, 107, 204, 209 Barrett, T. H. 212 Beck, Ulrich 135 Beck-Gernsheim, Elisabeth 135 Bellringer, Paul 132 Bendum, Philippines 166–184 Berry, Thomas 219 bhavas 6 Bhutan 104–105 Bible 152, 153–154 Bishnois movement 9 Book of Documents 51 Bourdieu, Pierre 121, 128, 130 Bronowski, Jacob 203 Bruner, Jerome S. 201 Buddha 212, 213 Buddha-land 62–64, 68–76 Buddhism 3–4, 6, 51–56 dependent origination 53–54, 60–61 Dharma 3–4, 10–11, 53–54, 213–214 ethics 7–9 Four Noble Truths 52–53 four types of eating 50–51

no-self 54 pure mind and pure land 60–81 and technology 212–217 Twelve Nidanas 53–54 ways to enter social mainstream 56–59 see also Cheng Yen; mind; Tzu Chi Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta 77–78 cancer hospital, implementing dignity and sustainability in a 33–47 animals and plants 39–40 building materials and décor 44–47 building siting and design 37–39, 40–41 care of resources 41–44 equal respect 34–35 rituals 35–36, 37 carbon emissions 205 cause and effect see dependent origination Chai Man (recycling volunteer) 137 Chang Lin Chao (recycling volunteer) 122–123 Chen Chian-Cha (recycling volunteer) 138 Chen Ching-Wan 141–142 Chen Jin-Hai 140–142 Cheng Yen 65, 68, 112–113, 114, 115–116, 117, 120, 128, 131–132, 140, 141 China billionaires 198 communications technology 206, 207

Humankind and Nature environmental protection administration 83–100 evolution 83–86 limitations 86–98 suggestions for improvement 98–100 pollution 7, 83–84, 86–87, 89–91, 92, 93–94 population growth 151 spiritual atrophy as the root of social illnesses 50–51 unemployment 209 see also cancer hospital Chongqing Green Volunteer League 98 Christianity education in environmental theology 152–156 Jesuits 218–220 lack of awareness of environmental ethics 143–144 motivation of environmental ethics 156–158 training in environmental ethics 158–162 Chuo Su-Hwei 124 Church see Christianity Cochrane, Alan 191 communications technology 193, 204, 206, 207 complexity theory 188–191 Confucianism 4–5, 6–7 Confucius 4, 103–104 connectedness (complexity theory) 190–191 conscience 200–203 conservation vs. development 172–173 consumerism 149 see also materialism creativity 15–17 crop production 174–175, 181 Dalai Lama 6 Dalin Tzu Chi hospital 118

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Daoism 4–5, 6–7, 10–11 see also Lao Zi (Lao Tzu) dependent origination 53–54, 60–61 depression, recycling and 137 destiny 13–17, 155–156, 157 development 168–171, 172–173, 176–177, 182 Dhammapada 7 Dharma 3–4, 10–11, 53–54, 213–214 Dharma Drum Mountain 64, 65–67 dialogue, religious 160 Diamond Sutra 215, 216 Dirgha Agama: Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta 77–78 disabled recycling volunteers 123–124 Dorling, Daniel 197 Earth destiny of 13–17, 155–156, 157 human exploitation of, in the Agganna Sutta 76–77 human relation to, in Christian theology 153–154 humanitarian treatment of 117–118, 119–120 likened to a spaceship 151 see also nature, humankind's relationship with; resources East Asia 6, 193, 195, 204, 205 see also China; Japan; Macau; Taiwan economics globalization and 193–194, 196–200 need satisfaction and 102–109, 145 vs. environmental factors . 90–91, 99, 119, 139–140, 148–149, 176 education 57–58, 128, 178–179, 182–184 see also learning through encounter egoism 146–147 elderly people 122–123, 138, 139 Elstad, Jon Ivar 127 empathy 15 energy conservation 118–119

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environmental degradation actions required to solve 10–12, 148–152, 176 causes of 5–7, 9–10, 60–61, 76–78, 114, 116–117, 145–148, 162, 174–175 globalization and 195 environmental ethics 7–9, 148–152, 156–160, 162–163 environmental protection administration in China evolution 83–86 limitations 86–98 suggestions for improvement 98–100 environmental theology 144, 147–148, 152–156 eschatology 155–156, 157 see also destiny ethics austerity vs. consumption 103–104 defining a good life 176–177 environmental ethics 7–9, 148–152, 156–160, 162–163 lack of morality as cause of environmental crises 76–78, 145–148 Europe 151, 195, 204, 205, 209, 210, 211 evangelization 160–162

fortitude (cardinal virtue) 157–158 Francis of Assisi, St. 157 Freund, Peter 127 Friends of Nature, Shanghai branch 95–96 Fromm, Eric 130

faith, and environmental ethics 157 family relationships, recycling and 134–136 farming 174–175 fish farming 88 flooding 9–10 flow of being (intimacy) 15 in Daoism 4–5, 6–7, 10–11 designed, in buildings 45, 46 Fo Guang Shan 64 food production 174–175 forest communities 9, 173, 174–175, 179–181

habitus (habitués) (Bourdieu) 128, 130 Haicang PX project, Xiamen 96–97 happiness 102–109 Häring, Bernard 152, 163 health, recycling and 127–130, 133–134 Himalayan Mountains 9–10 Hinduism 2–3, 5–6, 10–11 Holy Spirit 154 hope, and environmental ethics 157 hospitals, sustainability in see cancer hospital hospitals, Tzu Chi 118–119

Galbraith, J. K. 194 gambling, recycling and 130–133 Gandhi, Mahatma 6, 9, 203 Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) 161–162 Giddens, Anthony 191–192 glaciers 9–10 globalization 187–211 complexity theory 188–191 features of 191–196 inequality and 196–200 reasserting humanity and conscience 200–203 God 153–156, 157, 158–159, 182, 184 Goodstein, Eban 11 greed 76–77, 114, 146 Green Volunteer League of Chongqing 98 Grim, John 219 Gross National Happiness (GNH) 104–108 Gutheinz, Luis 144

Humankind and Nature Hsing-Yun 64, 81 Huiming 78–79 Huixian County, lead poisoning incident 90–91 Human Development Index (HDI) 105 humanism 147–148 humankind alaya-consciousness 56–57 conscience 200–203 creativity 15–16 destiny 13–17, 155–156, 157 greed 76–77, 114, 146 in the "image of God" 147–148, 153 need satisfaction 102–109, 145, 170 origins and evolution, in the Agganna Sutta 76–77 relationship with nature 60–61, 76–78, 112, 113, 116–117, 152–156, 160–162, 182–183 hunting 114, 174 incidents, environmental pollution 89–91, 92 India 5–6, 9, 10, 151, 214–215 Indigenous Peoples 107, 166–186 individualism 146–147 industrial development 145 industrial pollution 83–84, 86, 90–91, 92 inequality, globalization and 196–200 The Innumerable Sutra 112–113, 142 inter-being 6 interconnectedness see dependent origination; globalization; inter-being Internet 193, 204 intimacy 15 Jainism 7–8, 10 James, Oliver 196 Japan 180, 206, 207 Jesuits 218–220

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Jesus 150, 154 Jing Si Abode 112, 114–116 Jizang 73 justice (cardinal virtue) 157–158 karma 54–55, 56, 57 Kelly, Bob 193, 194 Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias 192 Koffka, Kurt 133–134 Ku Si-Chiao (recycling volunteer) 128–130 Kuiji 71–72 land, purification of see pure mind and pure land Lansley, Stewart 197–198 Lao Zi (Lao Tzu) 4–5, 51 law enforcement, environmental 91–98, 99 lead poisoning incident, Huixian 90–91 learning, in complexity theory 189 learning through encounter 166–186 blessing 184–186 the call for transformative education 182–184 education and culture 178–179 engaging 168–169 engaging with development 172–173 exposure vs. engagement 171 learning with the indigenous youth 169–171 meaning and values 176–177 reconciling and transforming 179–181 technology and the modern world 174–176 welcoming 168 Li Po 50 Lin Chien (environmental protection volunteer) 130–133 local government and environmental protection 90–91, 93, 99 Lotus Sutra 112

226 love environmental ethics and 157 recycling and 125–126, 127, 133, 138 Lu Yang 68–70 Macau 193, 199, 202, 206, 207 Mackay, Hugh 193 Mahaprajnaparamitasastra 75 mankind see humankind materialism 146, 150 see also consumerism McBride, Richard D. 215 media 92–93, 100, 193 Mehta, M. C. 9, 10 memory in complexity theory 189 as a resource to be cared for 42 mental health, recycling and 133–134, 136–137 mind 50 purification of 53, 54–56, 58–59, 62–71, 72–81 relationship with material world 61–62, 65, 74–75, 121–122 mind-oriented environmentalism 60–82 mining industry 176 Ministry of Environmental Protection (China) 86–100 Moltmann, Jürgen 157 morality austerity vs. consumption 103–104 defining a good life 176–177 environmental ethics 7–9, 148–152, 156–160, 162–163 lack of, as cause of environmental crises 76–78, 145–148 Mount, Ferdinand 197–199 natural disasters 60–61, 65, 66 natural resources see resources nature, humankind's relationship with 60–61, 76–78, 112, 113, 116–117,

Index 152–156, 160–162, 182–183 see also Earth; resources need satisfaction 102–109, 145, 170 Nietzsche, Friedrich 187 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) environmental protection 97–98 international 192, 194 North America 193, 204, 205 see also United States of America Nussbaum, Martha 203 oceans, as guide to human destiny 15 O’Shaughnessy, Arthur 202 Ouyang Chien 57–58 overpopulation 151–152, 158, 194–195, 208 Pain, Kathy 191 Pasternak, Boris 201 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes 161–162 Philippines 166–186 Pickett, Kate 197 Pitman, Katherine 179–180 pollution 7, 83–84, 86–87, 89–91, 92, 93–94, 150–151 population growth 151–152, 158, 194–195, 208 poverty Bendum, Philippines 169–170, 173, 176 globalization and 193–194, 195–196, 205 printing technology 215–217 Prokhovnik, Raia 193, 194 prudence (cardinal virtue) 157–158 public, role of in environmental protection 95–97, 99–100 public interest litigation 94–95 Pulangiyen (indigenous community of the Philippines) 166–167, 168–171, 175, 177, 183–184 pure mind and pure land 60–81

Humankind and Nature recycling in Church life 159 effect on: alcoholism 128–130 community life 123–126, 138–139 depression 137 family relationships 134–136 gambling 130–133 health 127–130, 133–134 meaning of life and its expansion 140–142 mental health 133–134, 136–137 simple lifestyle 139–140 values 122–126 hospital design and 42–44 need for 149–150 Tzu Chi environmental recycling mission 110–111, 120–142, 143 water 119 religion and ecology 2–12, 218–220 religious dialogue 160 religious values, importance of 150 resources care of 41–44 destruction of 5, 60–61, 76–77, 114, 116–117, 145–148 for satisfaction of need 102–109 Rta 2–3, 5–6, 10–11 salvation, human vs. natural world 160–162 satisfaction of needs 102–109, 145, 170 Satoyama Initiative, Japan 180 science 218–220 see also technology Sengzhao 74, 75–76 Shanghai, Friends of Nature 95–96 Sheng-yen 65–66, 68 Shilling, Chris 127 Sila-e, Philippines 174–175 situational education 128 Snow Mountain Tunnel 119 social inequality 196–200

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South Asia 8, 205 see also Bhutan; India Southeast Asia 6 see also Philippines spiritual (mind-oriented) environmentalism 60–82 spiritual values, importance of 150 stars, and wonder 14–15 Stiglitz, Joseph 194 Styrofoam 139–140 sustainability, in cancer hospital see cancer hospital sustainable development 148–149 Sutra of Innumerable Meanings 112–113, 142 Swimme, Brian 219 systematic theology 154–156 Taiwan 64–67, 80, 143–144, 151 see also Tzu Chi Taixu 56 technology Buddhist perspective on 212–217 as cause of environmental crises 145 food production 174–176 information and communication 193, 204, 206, 207, 214–217 see also science Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre 218–219 temperance (cardinal virtue) 157–158 theology, environmental 144, 147–148, 152–156 Thich Nhat Hanh 6 Thompson, E. P. 200–201 time 15–16, 56 timeline of the universe galaxies and stars 22 our solar system 22–23 beginnings of life 23 plants and animals 23–26 the human journey 26–32 trees 9, 173, 174–175, 179–181 truth, practicing 124–125 Tucker, Mary Evelyn 219 Tuhaihe River pollution incident 92 Twelve Nidanas 53–54

228 Tzu Chi 110–142 building projects 117–118 environmental recycling mission 110–111, 120–142, 143 hospitals 118–119 Jing Si Abode 112, 114–116 spiritual environmentalism 64, 66–67 water conservation and recycling 119 unemployment 195, 209, 210, 211 United Kingdom 195, 198, 206, 207, 210 United Nations’ University for Peace (UPEACE) 168–169 United States of America Eban Goodstein and global warming 11 inequalities 198 information and communications technology 193, 204, 206, 207 Jesuits 218–220 life expectancy 105–106, 107–108 population growth 151–152 unemployment 195, 209, 210, 211 universe and human destiny 13–17 timeline 22–32 values 122–126, 150, 176–177 Vimalakirti Sutra 62–63, 67–68, 69, 70, 72–73, 74, 75–76

Index Vinaya Matrika Sutra 213 virtues, environmental ethics and 4–5, 103–104, 156–158 Vygostky, Lev Semenovich 124, 125 water conservation and recycling 119 environmental protection in China 88, 95 glacier melting 9–10 pollution 7, 92 welcoming 168 Wheatley, Margaret 190–191 Wilkinson, Richard 196–197 wonder 14–15 Xiao Xiu-Chu (recycling volunteer) 139–140 Xu Jin-Lian (recycling volunteer) 127–128 Xu Yalan 128 Yang Huinan 66–69, 70 Yang Wang Yi (recycling volunteer) 135–136 Yang Zhu 146 Yoga 7–9 young people learning through encounter with Indigenous Peoples 168–171, 176–177, 178–181, 183–184, 185 unemployment 195 Zhu Xi 104