Some Aspects of the Ecological Ethics
in Chinese Buddhism

Mariya Anashina

H

UMANKIND has, by the present time, distinctly acknowledged its
responsibility in the face of the current ecological crisis. Globalwarming (and, possibly, ensuing global cooling), rise of the level of theocean, melting of polar and mountain glaciers, deterioration of waterand air, natural calamities having become more frequent—such as
floods, hurricanes, droughts, earthquakes et al.—all this has made people seriously consider further ways of evolvement of human being andnature, on elaborating a strategy of stable development.
A number of researchers, in their time, took notice of the fact that thereligion dominating in this or that culture, also determines, in particular,
man’s attitude to nature and ways of interaction with it. Thus, Lynn
White, Jr., laid the blame for the ecological crisis on West EuropeanChristianity, with its accentuation of man’s domination over nature.1 It isnoted there, for example, that «Christianity, especially in its Westernform, is the most anthropocentric of all the world religions. As early asin the 2nd century A.C. both Tertullianus and St. Irenoeus of Lyon
insisted that when the God was creating Adam, the latter already contained anticipation of the image of embodied Christ—the other Adam.
Man’s attitude to nature is to a great extent determined by the fact that
he, as well as the God, is transcendent as related to the world. Being
completely and irreconcilably opposed to ancient paganism and Asian
religions, except, perhaps, for Zoroastrianism, Christianity not only
established dualism of man and nature, but also insisted on considering
it established that the God’s will consists exactly in providing that man
exploit nature for his purposes». Alternative, solicitous attitude tonature, as presented, for example, in views and deeds of St. Francis ofAssisi, was later eradicated and was looked upon, rather, as a certain
marginal line of the teaching.
Pagan West European traditions, with their sacred groves, fauns, centaurs, gnomes and other fantastic natural beings, used to be eradicatedwith fire and sword. In the long run it resulted in the development of themechanistic attitude to nature, to the world, as presented in the philo124

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sophical tradition of the Modern Time. Nature was conceived as a kindof clockwork functioning according to native laws.
The situation wasn’t much better in Russia, with its Orthodox Christianity. However, in our country pagan traditions, not completely eradicated, were stronger and, besides, the very logic of the infinite expanseof the unbounded Russian plain imposed somewhat different, more cautious treatment of nature, based, true, not on esteem, but, rather, ondread of the mighty forces of nature.2 A certain role belonged also to thefact, that the Russian man was ever anew colonizing Russia, movingfrom one place to another and having no time anywhere to change natural environment to such an extent as to make it lose its ability for selfrestoration. Thus, the words said by V.O.Klyuchevsky more than one
hundred years ago, still remain topical: «Peasants’ settlements along theVolga river and in many other places of European Russia, with theirprimitive character, with the absence of simplest living comfort, up tonow make, especially on a traveller from the West, the impression oftemporary, occasional camps of nomads who are just about to leave theirhardly assimilated places in order to move again to new ones. That
reflected migratory vagrancy characteristic of earlier times, as well as
chronic fires—circumstances which from generation to generation inculcated disdainful indifference to home improvement, to comfort in everyday domestic situation» (p. 87).
In the 20th century the influence of mankind on nature assumed athreatening character practically in all places of the Earth. The blame forit may be, possibly, laid on one more side of human activity—materialproduction. More than 30 years ago a book by B.Commoner—«The
Closing Circle: Nature, Man, Technology»3 was issued, in which theauthor was trying to substantiate the incompatibility of modern economic system (both capitalist and socialist) and nature preservation. First ofall, it is not remunerative for the producer to put expenses for ecology
into the cost price of the commodity. As is known, any trader seeks tomaximize profit at any cost. For ages, humankind conceived nature as
gratuitous store of resources and as a dump to throw out what’s been
exhausted. Till recently, indirect expenses for fighting maladies caused
by bad ecology, damages from calamities etc., in fact, were neverincluded into economic calculations. Besides, the economic and ecological cycles themselves do not coincide, i. e. nature hasn’t enough time torestore itself during all the short periods.
Of late, the governments of almost all states of the world have been
adopting different programs and plans of actions aimed at improving theecological situation. And a great role in the elaboration of a new ecolog-

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ical ideology may, no doubt, be played by East-Asian Buddhism with its
strongly articultated ecological orientation.
Any traveller, investigator, or just an average man getting to a Chineseor a Japanese buddhist monastery or just a park, is astonished by the surprising beauty, harmony of what is natural and what is artificial. Fancifultrees, brooks, rocks are to be met in the neighborhood of refined pavilions, arbors, from which exciting views of the surrounding landscapeare seen. As distinct from this, Indian or Ceylonese buddhist monasteries are deprived of such fascination. And, naturally, the question comes,
why it is so.
To my mind, the basic reason lies in the fact that the East-Asian, firstof all the Chinese, Buddhism is to a considerable extent synthesis ofBuddhism and Taoism and has also undergone the influence ofConfucianism. Traditional Chinese religions by their essence have aconsiderable ecological touch. A well-known Russian investigator ofConfucianism L.S.Perelomov notes that «in China as early as in theancient time a stable tradition of gratitude to nature took shape... In thejudgments of “Analects” one may single out four fundamental principles
of mutual relations of society and nature:
1. In order to become a worthy member of society, a man is obliged
to constantly extend his knowledge of nature, to know not only behavior
habits of beasts and birds, but also natural laws of the growth of trees
and grasses.
2. It is only in nature that man and, consequently, also society canreceive vital power and repose.
3. Therefore it is necessary to solicitously treat both the animal kingdom and the natural resources.
4. Solemn prayers should be regularly held and sacrifices made inhonor of the spirits of the Heavens and of the Earth, and, what is mostimportant,—on the highest state level».4Mencius, used to give considerable attention to problems of mutual
relations of nature and man. In the long run, Mencius connects withthrifty use of nature the possibility of incarnating the kindest nature ofman and of realizing the principle philanthropic rule. In a society, wherepeople will always have eough of clothes, of food, of other means of life
support (for example, of wood to build and to heat home), harmony will
reign.
No less attention to problems of nature was given by Sun-zi. In thelong run, the power of the state depends exactly on its resources, first of

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all on natural resources. That is why hunt, fishing, procurement of timber, berry-picking etc. must be carried on at strictly definite time and inplaces specially allotted for it.
The ecological ethics of Taoism is based on somewhat different principles. Tao (the Way), the fundamental Taoist category, in the words ofYe.A.Torchinov, «presents itself as a substantivized regularity of allexistent, the law of spontaneous being of cosmos, man and society; thegenerating basis genetically preceding the world of “shaped” things; theprinciple of cyclic character of time, “the Way”, the mode of life of a
devotee, striving to unite with Tao as the ontological essence of theworld» [26]. Man, following Tao, should not interfere into the natural
course of events, realizing the principles of «no deed» (wu-wei) and of«naturalness» (zi-ran). Taoist texts, describing Tao, constantly resort to«natural» allegories. Thus, Tao is often compared with water, weak andfluid, but, thanks to these properties, all-conquering and all-piercing.
The Taoist ideal is a small patriarchal state remaining in homeostasis.
This is how it is described in «Dao de jing» (paragraph 80):
“Let the state be small and sparsely populated. If there are [in thestate] different tools, they should not be applied. Up to the end of theirlives people should not go far [from their places]. If there are [in thestate] boats and chariots, they should not be used. Even if there are warriors, they should not be presented. Let the people begin again to weave
nodules and use them instead of writing. Let their food be tasty, theirdress beautiful, their dwelling comfortable, and life happy. Let different
states that are in the neighborhood of one another look at one another,
listen to the neighbors’ cock-crow and dogs’ barking and let people up
to old age and up to the death refrain from visiting one another” [27].
«Zhuang-zi», another fundamental Taoist treatise, advances the ideaof simplification, rejection of wisdom, of excessive technical devices
distorting natural course of things. In ancient times harmony between
people and nature reigned, until sages came and brought sedition anddiscord.
In times when properties of life did not suffer damage, people’s walk
was steady and glance inexorable. In those days there were yet no pathsin the mountains and neither boats nor bridges in lakelands. All creatures lived together, and people’s settlements clung to one another.
Beasts and birds gathered in packs and flocks, trees and grasses in their
growth used to achieve full length. Therefore everyone could adjust alead to a beast or to a bird and thus go on a walk, or could bend a tree
and look into a crow’s or a tomtit’s nest. In those times people lived
together with birds and beasts like descendants of one kin. How could

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they know who is a noble and who a mean man! («Zhuang-zi», chapterIX) [28].
One more episode is also very significant.
While going on travels in Southern lands Zi-Gong achieved the Chu
kingdom and was already returning to the Jin territories. When he waswalking along the Northern bank of the Han river, he noticed a man who
was digging up a kitchen-garden and was watering it, for which purpose
he was time and again getting into a well with an earthen jug in hishands. The man laboured indefatigably, trying his hardest, yet his work
was moving slowly.
—There exists now a machine, which waters a hundred of vegetable
patches for one day!—Zi-Gong shouted to him.—It does not require
much efforts, but the work with it moves quickly. Don’t you desire,esteemed gardener, to use it?
The man who was working at the kitchen-garden raised his head andasked: «What is that machine like?»—It is made of wood, its backpart is heavy and forepart is light.
Water pours from it in a stream, like a boiling spurt from a spring. They
call the machine water-wheel.
The gardener frowned and said with an ironical grin: «I’ve heard frommy teacher that one who works with a machine, himself does everything
like a machine, and one who does everything like a machine, has a heartthat also becomes a machine. And when the heart becomes like amachine, chastity and purity disappear. And if there is no chastity andno purity, neither will there be strength of mind. And one who is notstrong by mind, will not preserve Tao in himself» (chapter XII).
On the whole, Taoism, being opposition to Confucianism, sees thereason of the destruction of harmony between man and nature, of theloss of Tao in that people lost the feeling of unity with the whole world,
lost naturalness, began to consider the opinions of the sages, to apply
technical devices. But in reality it’s all blunders. The world is a single
whole, there aren’t «this» and «that» in reality.
Indian Buddhism proceeds from the idea of illusory, transient character of the sansara. In the world where all is determined by causalitydependence origin, where suffer (duhkha) dominates, it is possible totalk only of compassion (karuna) for all the living, and of non-harm(ahimsa) to what is also involved in the infinite round of deaths-andbirths. This attitude towards the surrounding world found reflection also
in monastery construction where natural environment plays a subordinate role. Moreover, in Theravada Buddhism such phenomena as
decomposition, decay etc., were object of meditation.

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Chinese Buddhism as a whole proved to be near to the Taoist view ofthe problem of mutual relation of society and nature, corroborating itwith a number of postulates. First of all, the very attitude towardsansara changed, it was looked upon rather positively, as a hope for
eternal existence, and not negatively, as in Buddhism. Besides, practically all Chinese Buddhists adopted the idea of identity of nirvana andsansara, elaborated as early as in the 2nd century B.C. in the teaching ofNagarjuna. As it followed from the idea, all living creatures possess the«nature of Buddha» (fo xing) and, consequently, all of them will in thelong run come to elucidation and become buddhas. Moreover, the principle of possessing the «nature of Buddha» was extended also to inanimate beings. Thus, Jizang (549–623), the principal systematizer of thesanlun school (the school of «three shastras»), wrote about the presenceof the nature of Buddha in insensible things: not only emptiness (sunya,kong), but also grasses and trees possess the nature of Buddha.
But the ecological ethics of Chinese Buddhism, as it seems to me, hasreached its peak in no other trend, but Chan, which presents, as many
researchers noted (in particular D.Suzuki and A.Watts) synthesis ofBuddhism and Taoism. The Chan in its finally developed form shifted
the accent from the liberation from sansara to the lucidity and awareness of the unity of all the existent. The truly elucidated man is conscious of the fact that all the surrounding possesses Buddha, is Buddha.
This reality is beyond expression in words and at the same time is conceivable, it lends itself to conceiving in the process of what D.Suzuki so
fortunately called the «art of life».
The Chan’s dicta—“wen-da” (Japanese “mondo”), “gong-an” (Japanese “koan”), different stories are full of nature images, they draw attention exactly at the harmony of nature, which is just Buddha.
Thereby, cardinal difference of the ecological ethics of the Chinese
Buddhism from Indian one, in my opinion, derives from its close relationship to traditional Chinese teachings, strongly oriented towards natural basis.
Notes
1—
1990
188–202
in more detail:1987. . 1. . 63-89
3:
4
“” “
2004. . 24
2”