Performative Environmentalism

If you scream something on the internet, will anyone hear you?

On the way to Koyasan

I recently read through a new Wisdom book, Zen Ecology by Christopher Ives, a well-respected academic with solid translation credentials under his belt, some of which are in my library. This is not a review of his book, which, concisely put, is a humble assessment of the environment, as well as the author’s acknowledgment of his own limitations with respect to the environment.

But in reading his book, and reading the reams of environmentally focused stacks, I wonder, are we really not acutely aware of the state of the environment? We have hundreds, if not thousands of writers earnestly telling us we are doomed if we don’t take action right now, send money to this charity, read that author’s book, plant this tree, develop that compost pile, drive this EV, boycott that corporation, vote against this politician, and so on. I find this all to be rather performative, performative environmentalism.

The Buddha’s most important message is not “suffering is everywhere.” His most important message, uttered at the end of his life, was “Conditions fall apart. Persist with diligence.”¹ I am not suggesting that we use this statement as an excuse to wallow in apathy. Of course we must not be passive. We must do our best. But if we are going to advocate for the environment situated in Buddhadharma, it must be reality-based. Conditions fall apart. When they do, that stream of conditions will never again arise.

When the complex system of a forest environment reaches a tipping point, that forest, which has evolved for thousands of years, if not millions of years, will never again reach the complexity it had prior to its being ravaged by the timber industry, or broken up into housing lots. Many people falsely imagine we can go back. We cannot. The world cannot be healed. It can’t even be patched up. The world is broken and will become more so. We have passed the point of mitigation, and while scifi novels like Ministry for the Future seem to offer hope, that hope is false. We have broken the world.

Most environmentalists agree that capitalism is the root cause of the present environmental crisis. Even so, there is one faction who believes we can mitigate the negative effects human activities have on the climate through the “right” kind of capitalism. Needless to say, they are deluded. As for the other faction, those who propose to end capitalism altogether, no one has an effective solution for ending capitalism that does not involve the mass death of billions of humans. Most are stuck in the middle of these two extremes, hoping for the best expecting the worst.

Consumerism is the favorite target of Buddhist writers on environmentalism. But this is too easy. It is easy to criticize consumerism, and much more difficult to address in any meaningful way. Anyway, it’s the wrong target.

Both capitalism and consumerism are symptoms, not causes of the problem. One cannot cure a malady by treating its symptoms. Neither capitalism nor consumerism is the root cause of our present environmental crisis. This is why books that rail against the patriarchy, capitalism, the fossil fuel industry, or make feel-good suggestions about changing our patterns of consumption, and so on, are performative at best. None of these are the actual causes of our present crisis. Those who do not follow Buddhadharma, however, cannot be faulted for looking at external causes for the environmental crisis.

What then is the cause of the environmental crisis? It is the same set of problems that Buddha identified as the immediate cause of suffering: desire, hatred, and anger. We are sentient beings, and as sentient beings, not buddhas, we are subject to these three poisons. The Buddha has another term for sentient beings, bālapṛthagjana, childish, common people. That’s us. It’s obvious to anyone who thinks about it seriously for any length of time. The indirect cause of the three poisons is ignorance. Not the simple ignorance of absence of knowledge of causes and effects, but the deep ignorance that does not recognize fundamental delusion of “I” and “Mine.” This fundamental delusion is termed “the knowledge obscuration.”

All solutions to the problems raised by all environmentalists depend on human cooperation. However, we simply are not evolved enough to truly cooperate with one another at a planetary level. We can barely cooperate with each other at the family level. Why? Because of “I” and “Mine.” How could we evolve? We would have to remove the three poisons from our bodies, voices, and minds. How would we do that? We would start by looking at the cause of the three poisons. We know that the cause of the three poisons are: “I” and “Mine.” Śāntideva, a renowned Mādhyamika scholar and mahāsiddha, stated succinctly:

         All happiness in the world is produced through wishing the happiness of others.
         All suffering in the world is produced from wishing for one's own happiness.

The Buddhist definition of love is different than our emotional attachment and clinging to our parents, spouses, children, and relatives, it is not the same as our emotional attachment and clinging we called “love of country,” or any other allegiance we may care to think of. In Buddhadharma, “love” is the simple wish that another sentient being have happiness and the causes of happiness. This kind of love is unconditional love. The only people truly capable of this unconditional love and unconditional compassion are those who have realized the falsity of “I” and “mine.”

Now, there are some people of the deep ecological persuasion, who argue that we must instead identify with an ecological “self.” This is an error. This is an anthropomorphism. A tree has no sense of self. A forest has no sense of self. Nor does a river, an ocean, and so on. Any sense of self represents a boundary, if there is self, there is other.. If “mine exists, “theirs” exists. This is a separate issue from recognizing the rights of forests, rivers, and mountains to be as they are, free from human interference. If nonhumans such as corporations can have rights, why can’t a mountain or a river have rights? We can leave that for the lawyers.

Those who advocate for an “eco-self” do so because they imagine it widens the boundary of self-interest. But in fact, this idea is no better than our normal conception of a self (some may argue it is no worse, either). The problem with this rhetoric is that it is rooted in the narrative of self-interest which underlies Adam Smith’s (misunderstood) example from the Wealth of Nations about various tradespeople working for their own benefits, and by doing so, maximizing the benefit of all.

An environmentalism rooted in Buddhadharma should reject this rhetoric of self-interest, as well-intended as it might be. The great Zen master Dogen wrote:

To study the way of enlightenment is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.²

An environmentalism situated in Buddhadharma must be grounded in unconditional love for the world. Unconditional love is grounded in the realization that there is no self. Even if we ourselves are not awakened people, even if we have not completely woken up to the truth of the absence of self, to the extent that we are awake, even if we still are subject to self-grasping and the three poisons, we can see the truth. If we ground our sense of the world in love, desiring the happiness of others rather than ourselves, then maybe humanity has a tiny chance of surviving our own afflictions and actions. And even if we don’t, “Conditions fall apart.”

An ancient buddha said, “Mountains are mountains, waters are waters.” These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains. In this way, investigate mountains thoroughly. When you investigate mountains thoroughly, this becomes the endeavor within the mountains. Such mountains and waters of themselves become wise persons and sages.³

1. https://suttacentral.net/dn16/en

2. Tanahashi, Kazuaki. Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo (p. 156). (Function). Kindle Edition.

3. Tanahashi, Kazuaki. Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo (p. 318). (Function). Kindle Edition.