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Carnegie Corporation of New York
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/5/20


Carnegie Corporation of New York

The Corporation's headquarters at 437 Madison Avenue in New York
Formation: 9 June 1911; 108 years ago
Founder: Andrew Carnegie
Type: Foundation
Legal status: Nonprofit organization
Purpose: To promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding
Headquarters: New York, United States
Region: Global
Methods: Grant-giving
Fields: Education, democracy, international peace, higher education in Africa
President: Vartan Gregorian
Chair of the Board: Thomas Kean
Revenue (2018): $253 million[1]
Expenses (2018): $180 million[1]
Endowment (2018): $3.5 billion[1]
Website http://www.carnegie.org

The Carnegie Corporation of New York MHL is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world.[2] Carnegie Corporation has endowed or otherwise helped to establish institutions that include the United States National Research Council, what was then the Russian Research Center at Harvard University (now known as the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies),[3] the Carnegie libraries and the Children's Television Workshop. It also for many years generously funded Carnegie's other philanthropic organizations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT), and the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS).

History

Founding and early years

By 1911 Andrew Carnegie had endowed five organizations in the US and three in the United Kingdom, and given more than $43 million to build public libraries and given another almost $110 million elsewhere. But ten years after he sold the Carnegie Steel Company, more than $150 million remained in his accounts and at 76, he wearied of philanthropic choices. Long-time friend Elihu Root suggested he establish a trust. Carnegie transferred most of his remaining fortune into it, and made the trust responsible for distributing his wealth after he died. Carnegie's previous charitable giving had used conventional organizational structures, but he chose a corporation as the structure for his last and largest trust. Chartered by the State of New York as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the corporation's capital fund, originally worth about $135 million, had a market value of $1.55 billion on March 31, 1999.

In 1911-1912, Carnegie gave the corporation $125 million. At that time the corporation was the largest single philanthropic charitable trust ever established. He also made it a residual legatee under his will so it therefore received an additional $10 million, the remainder of his estate after had paid his other bequests. Carnegie reserved a portion of the corporation's assets for philanthropy in Canada and the then-British Colonies, an allocation first referred to as the Special Fund, then the British Dominions and Colonies Fund, and later the Commonwealth Program. Charter amendments have allowed the corporation to use 7.4 percent of its income in countries that are or once were members of the British Commonwealth.[clarification needed]

In its early years Carnegie served as both president and trustee. His private secretary James Bertram and his financial agent, Robert A. Franks, acted as trustees as well and, respectively, corporation secretary and treasurer. This first executive committee made most of the funding decisions. Other seats on the board were held ex officio by presidents of five previously-established US Carnegie organizations:

• Carnegie Institute (of Pittsburgh) (1896),
• Carnegie Institution of Washington (1902),
• Carnegie Hero Fund Commission (1904),
• Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) (1905),
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) (1910).

After Carnegie died in 1919, the trustees elected a full-time salaried president as the trust's chief executive officer and ex officio trustee. For a time the corporation's gifts followed the patterns Carnegie had already established. Grants for public libraries and church organs continued until 1917, and also went to other Carnegie organizations, and universities, colleges, schools, and educational agencies. Carnegie's letter of gift to the original trustees making the endowment said that the trustees would "best conform to my wishes by using their own judgement."[4] Corporation strategies changed over the years but remained focused on education, although the trust did also increasingly fund scientific research, convinced that the nation needed more scientific expertise and "scientific management". It also worked to build research facilities for the natural and social sciences. The corporation made large grants to the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the National Bureau of Economic Research, Stanford University's now-defunct Food Research Institute[5] and the Brookings Institution, then became interested in adult education and lifelong learning, an obvious follow-on to Carnegie's vision for libraries as "the university of the people". In 1919 it initiated the Americanization Study to explore educational opportunities for adults, primarily for new immigrants.

Frederick P. Keppel

With Frederick P. Keppel as president (1923-1941), the Carnegie Corporation shifted from creating public libraries to strengthening library infrastructure and services, developing adult education, and adding arts education to the programs of colleges and universities. The foundation's grants in this period have a certain eclectic quality and remarkable perseverance in its chosen causes.[6]

Keppel initiated a famous 1944 study of race relations in the United States by the Swedish social economist Gunnar Myrdal in 1937 by naming a non-American outsider as manager of the study. His theory that this task should be done by someone unencumbered by traditional attitudes or earlier conclusions led to Myrdal's widely heralded book American Dilemma (1944). The book had no immediate effect on public policy, but was later much cited in legal challenges to segregation. Keppel believed foundations should make facts available and let them facts speak for themselves. His cogent writings on philanthropy made a lasting impression on field and influenced the organization and leadership of many new foundations.[7]

In 1927 Keppel toured sub-Saharan Africa and recommended a first set of grants to establish public schools in eastern and southern Africa. Other grants went to for municipal library development in South Africa. During 1928 the corporation initiated the Carnegie Commission on the Poor White Problem in South Africa. Better known as the "Carnegie Poor White Study", it promoted strategies to improve the lives of rural Afrikaner whites and other poor whites in general. A memorandum sent to Keppel said there was "little doubt that if the natives were given full economic opportunity, the more competent among them would soon outstrip the less competent whites"[8] Keppel endorsed the project that produced the report, motivated by his concern with maintaining existing racial boundaries.[8] The corporation's concern for the so-called "poor white problem" in South Africa stemmed at least in part from similar misgivings about poor whites in the American South.[8]

White poverty defied traditional understandings of white racial superiority and thus became the subject of study. The report recommended that "employment sanctuaries" be established for poor white workers and that poor white workers replace "native" workers in most skilled aspects of the economy.[9] The authors of the report suggested that white racial deterioration and miscegenation would be the outcome[8] unless something was done to help poor whites, endorsing the necessity of the role of social institutions to play in the successful maintenance of white racial superiority.[9][10] The report expressed trepidation concerning the loss of white racial pride, with the implicit consequence that poor whites would not successfully resist "Africanisation."[8] The report sought, in part, to forestall the historically inevitable accession of a communal, class based, democratic socialist movement aimed at uniting the poor of each race in common cause and brotherhood.[11]

Charles Dollard

World War II and its immediate aftermath were a relatively inactive period for the Carnegie Corporation. Charles Dollard had joined the staff in 1939 as Keppel's assistant and became president in 1948. The foundation took greater interest in the social sciences, and particularly the study of human behavior. The trust also entered into international affairs. Dollard urged it to fund quantitative, "objective" social science research like research in physical sciences, and help to diffuse the results through major universities. The corporation advocated for standardized testing in schools to determine academic merit regardless of the student's socio-economic background. Its initiatives have also included helping to broker the creation of the Educational Testing Service in 1947.

The corporation determined that the US increasingly needed policy and scholarly expertise in international affairs, and so tied into area studies programs at colleges and universities as well as the Ford Foundation. In 1948 the trust also provided the seed money to establish the Russian Research Center at Harvard University, today known as the Davis Center for Russia and Eurasian Studies,[12] as an organization that could address large-scale research from both a policy and educational points of view.

In 1951 the Group Areas Act took effect in South Africa and effectively put the apartheid system into place, leading to political ascendancy for Afrikaners and dispossession for many Africans and colored people suddenly required to live in certain areas of the country only, on pain of imprisonment for remaining in possession of homes in areas designated for whites. The Carnegie corporation pulled its philanthropic endeavors from South Africa for more than two decades after this political change, turning its attention from South Africa to developing East African and West African universities instead.

John Gardner

John W. Gardner was promoted from a staff position to the presidency in 1955. Gardner simultaneously became president of the CFAT, which was housed at the corporation. During Gardner's time in office the Carnegie Corporation worked to upgrade academic competence in foreign area studies and strengthened its liberal arts education program. In the early 1960s it inaugurated a continuing education program and funded development of new models for advanced and professional study by mature women. Important funding went to the key early experiments in continuing education for women, with major grants to the University of Minnesota (1960, co-directors Elizabeth L. Cless and Virginia L. Senders), Radcliffe College (1961, under President Mary Bunting), and Sarah Lawrence College (1962, under Professor Esther Raushenbush).[13] Gardner's interest in leadership development led to the White House Fellows program in 1964.

Notable grant projects in higher education in sub-Saharan Africa include the 1959-60 Ashby Commission study of Nigerian needs in postsecondary education. This study stimulated aid increases from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States to African nations' systems of higher and professional education. Gardner had a strong interest in education, but as a psychologist he believed in the behavioral sciences and urged the corporation to funded much of the US' basic research on cognition, creativity, and the learning process, particularly among young children, associating psychology and education. Perhaps its most important contribution to reform of pre-college education at this time was the series of education studies done by James B. Conant, former president of Harvard University; in particular, Conant's study of comprehensive American high schools (1959) resolved public controversy concerning the purpose of public secondary education, and made the case that schools could adequately educate both average students and the academically gifted.

Under Gardner, the corporation embraced strategic philanthropy—planned, organized, and deliberately constructed to attain stated ends. Funding criteria no longer required just a socially desirable project. The corporation sought out projects that would produce knowledge leading to useful results, communicated to decision-makers, the public, and the media, in order to foster policy debate. Developing programs that larger organizations, especially governments, could implement and scale in size became a major objective. The policy shift to institutional knowledge transfer came in part as a response to relatively diminished resources that made it necessary to leverage assets and "multiplier effects" to have any effect at all. The corporation considered itself a trendsetter in philanthropy, often funding research or providing seed money for ideas while others financed more costly operations. For example, ideas it advanced resulted in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, later adopted by the federal government. A foundation's most precious asset was its sense of direction, Gardner said,[14] gathering a competent professional staff of generalists that he called his "cabinet of strategy," and regarded as a resource as important to the corporation as its endowment.

Alan Pifer

While Gardner's opinion of educational equality was to multiply the channels through which an individual could pursue opportunity, it was during the term of long-time staff member Alan Pifer, who became acting president during 1965 and president during 1967 (again of both Carnegie Corporation and the CFAT), that the foundation began to respond to claims by various groups, including women, for increased power and wealth. The corporation developed three interlocking objectives: prevention of educational disadvantage; equality of educational opportunity in the schools; and broadened opportunities in higher education. A fourth objective cutting across these programs was to improve the democratic performance of government. Grants were made to reform state government as the laboratories of democracy, underwrite voter education drives, and mobilize youth to vote, among other measures. Use of the legal system became a method for achieving equal opportunity in education, as well as redress of grievance, and the corporation joined the Ford and Rockefeller foundations and others in funding educational litigation by civil rights organizations. It also initiated a multifaceted program to train black lawyers in the South for the practice of public interest law and to increase the legal representation of black people.

Maintaining its commitment to early childhood education, the corporation endorsed the application of research knowledge in experimental and demonstration programs, which subsequently provided strong evidence of the long-term positive effects of high-quality early education, particularly for the disadvantaged. A 1980 report on an influential study, the Perry Preschool Project of the HighScope Educational Research Foundation, on the outcomes for sixteen-year-olds enrolled in the experimental preschool programs provided crucial evidence that safeguarded Project Head Start in a time of deep cuts to federal social programs. The foundation also promoted educational children's television and initiated the Children's Television Workshop, producer of Sesame Street and other noted children's programs. Growing belief in the power of educational television prompted creation of the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television, whose recommendations were adopted into the Public Broadcasting Act of 1968 that established a public broadcasting system. Many other reports on US education the corporation financed at this time, included Charles E. Silberman's acclaimed Crisis in the Classroom (1971), and the controversial Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America by Christopher Jencks (1973). This report confirmed quantitative research, e.g. the Coleman Report, showed that in public schools resources only weakly correlated with educational outcomes, which coincided with the foundation's burgeoning interest in improved school effectiveness.

Becoming involved with South Africa again during the mid-1970s, the corporation worked through universities to increase the legal representation of black people and increase the practice of public interest law. At the University of Cape Town, it established the Second Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty and Development in Southern Africa, this time to examine the legacies of apartheid and make recommendations to nongovernmental organizations for actions commensurate with the long-run goal of achieving a democratic, interracial society.

The influx of nontraditional students and "baby boomers" into higher education prompted formation of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (1967), funded by the CFAT. (During 1972, the CFAT became an independent institution after experiencing three decades of restricted control over its own affairs.) In its more than ninety reports, the commission made detailed suggestions for introducing more flexibility into the structure and financing of higher education. One outgrowth of the commission's work was creation of the federal Pell grants program offering tuition assistance for needy college students. The corporation promoted the Doctor of Arts "teaching" degree as well as various off-campus undergraduate degree programs, including the Regents Degree of the State of New York and Empire State College. The foundation's combined interest in testing and higher education resulted in establishment of a national system of college credit by examination (College-Level Entrance Examination Program of the College Entrance Examination Board). Building on its past programs to promote the continuing education of women, the foundation made a series of grants for the advancement of women in academic life. Two other study groups formed to examine critical problems in American life were the Carnegie Council on Children (1972) and the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting (1977), the latter formed almost ten years after the first commission.

David A. Hamburg

David A. Hamburg, a physician, educator, and scientist with a public health background, became president in 1982 intending to mobilize the best scientific and scholarly talent and thinking on "prevention of rotten outcomes" - from early childhood to international relations. The corporation pivoted from higher education to the education and healthy development of children and adolescents, and the preparation of youth for a scientific and technological, knowledge-driven world. In 1984 the corporation established the Carnegie Commission on Education and the Economy. Its major publication, A Nation Prepared (1986), reaffirmed the role of the teacher as the "best hope" for quality in elementary and secondary education. That report led to the establishment a year later of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, to consider ways to attract able candidates to teaching and recognize and retain them. At the corporation's initiative, the American Association for the Advancement of Science issued two reports, Science for All Americans (1989) and Benchmarks for Science Literacy (1993), which recommended a common core of learning in science, mathematics, and technology for all citizens and helped set national standards of achievement.

A new emphasis for the corporation was the danger to world peace posed by the superpower confrontation and weapons of mass destruction. The foundation underwrote scientific study of the feasibility of the proposed federal Strategic Defense Initiative and joined the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to support the analytic work of a new generation of arms control and nuclear nonproliferation experts. After the end of the USSR, corporation grants helped promote the concept of cooperative security among erstwhile adversaries and projects to build democratic institutions in the former Soviet Union and Central Europe. The Prevention of Proliferation Task Force, coordinated by a grant to the Brookings Institution, inspired the Nunn-Lugar Amendment to the Soviet Threat Reduction Act of 1991, intended to help dismantle Soviet nuclear weapons and reduce proliferation risks. More recently, the corporation addressed interethnic and regional conflict and funded projects seeking to diminish the risks of a wider war resulting from civil strife. Two Carnegie commissions, Reducing the Nuclear Danger (1990), the other Preventing Deadly Conflict (1994), addressed the dangers of human conflict and the use of weapons of mass destruction. The corporation's emphasis in Commonwealth Africa, meanwhile, shifted to women's health and political development and the application of science and technology, including new information systems, to foster research and expertise in indigenous scientific institutions and universities.

During Hamburg's tenure, dissemination achieved even greater primacy with respect to strategic philanthropy. Consolidation and diffusion of the best available knowledge from social science and education research was used to improve social policy and practice, as partner with major institutions with the capability to influence public thought and action. If "change agent" was a major term during Pifer's time, "linkage" became a byword in Hamburg's. The corporation increasingly used its convening powers to bring together experts across disciplinary and sectoral boundaries to create policy consensus and promote collaboration.

Continuing tradition, the foundation established several other major study groups, often directed by the president and managed by a special staff. Three groups covered the educational and developmental needs of children and youth from birth to age fifteen: the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development (1986), the Carnegie Task Force on Meeting the Needs of Young Children (1991), and the Carnegie Task Force on Learning in the Primary Grades (1994). Another, the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government (1988), recommended ways that government at all levels could make more effective use of science and technology in their operations and policies. Jointly with the Rockefeller Foundation, the corporation financed the National Commission on Teaching & America's Future, whose report, What Matters Most (1996), provided a framework and agenda for teacher education reform across the country. These study groups drew on knowledge generated by grant programs and inspired follow-up grantmaking to implement their recommendations.

Vartan Gregorian

During the presidency of Vartan Gregorian the corporation reviewed its management structure and grants programs. In 1998 the corporation established four primary program headings: education, international peace and security, international development, and democracy. In these four main areas, the corporation continued to engage with major issues confronting higher education. Domestically, it emphasized reform of teacher education and examined the current status and future of liberal arts education in the United States. Abroad, the corporation sought to devise methods to strengthen higher education and public libraries in Commonwealth Africa. As a cross-program initiative, and in cooperation with other foundations and organizations, the corporation instituted a scholars program, offering funding to individual scholars, particularly in the social sciences and humanities, in the independent states of the former Soviet Union.

Honours

• Honorary-Member of the Order of Liberty, Portugal (5 April 2018)[15]

See also

• Carnegie Commission on the Poor White Problem in South Africa
• Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland
• Carnegie library
• Andrew Carnegie
• Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
• Nicholas Murray Butler

Footnotes

1. "Annual Report 2018" (PDF). Carnegie Corporation of New York. Carnegie Corporation of New York. 2019. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
2. Carnegie Corporation of New York
3. "Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies". Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. Harvard University. 2017. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
4. Gary Mulholland; Claire MacEachen; Ilias Kapareliotis (2013). Charles Wankel, Ph.D.; Larry E. Pate (eds.). Rise, Fall, Re-Emergence of Social Enterprise. Social Entrepreneurship as a Catalyst for Social Change: Research in Management Education and Development. Information Age Press. p. 53. ISBN 978-1623964474.
5. "Food Research Institute". Stanford University.
6. Richard Glotzer, "A long shadow: Frederick P. Keppel, the Carnegie Corporation and the Dominions and Colonies Fund Area Experts 1923–1943." History of Education 38.5 (2009): 621-648.
7. Walter Jackson, "The Making of a Social Science Classic: Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma." Perspectives in American History 2 (1985): 221-67.
8. The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race By Frank Füredi. Page 66-67. ISBN 0-8135-2612-4
9. Haunted by Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in North American History By Ann Laura Stoler. Page 66. ISBN 0-8223-3724-X
10. Racially segregated school libraries in KwaZulu/Natal, South Africa by Jennifer Verbeek. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, Vol. 18, No. 1, 23-46 (1986)
11. The American Century: Consensus and Coercion in the Projection of American Power By David Slater and Peter James Taylor. Page 290. ISBN 0-631-21222-1, 1999
12. "History". Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. Harvard University.
13. Elizabeth L. Cless, "The Birth of an Idea: An Account of the Genesis of Women's Continuing Education," in Helen S. Astin (ed.), Some Action of Her Own: The Adult Woman and Higher Education, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1976, pp.6-7.
14. Ellen Condliffe Lagemann (1992). The Politics of Knowledge: The Carnegie Corporation, Philanthropy, and Public Policy. University of Chicago Press. p. 183. ISBN 0226467805 – via Google Books.
15. "Cidadãos Estrangeiros Agraciados com Ordens Portuguesas". Página Oficial das Ordens Honoríficas Portuguesas. Retrieved March 20, 2019.

Further reading

• Sara L. Engelhardt (ed.), The Carnegie Trusts and Institutions. New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1981.
• Ellen C. Lagemann, The Politics of Knowledge. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989.
• Inderjeet Parmar, Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.
• Patricia L Rosenfield, "A world of giving : Carnegie Corporation of New York-- a Century of International Philanthropy." New York : PublicAffairs, 2014.

External links

• Carnegie Corporation of New York
• History of the Carnegie Corporation
• Carnegie Corporation of New York archives at Columbia University
• Time For Ford Foundation & CFR To Divest? Collaboration of the Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie Foundations with the Council on Foreign Relations

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World Economic Forum
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/6/20


World Economic Forum

Headquarters in Cologny, Switzerland.
Motto: Committed to improving the state of the world
Formation: January 1971; 49 years ago (as European Management Forum)
Founder: Klaus Schwab
Type: Nonprofit organization
Legal status: Foundation
Purpose: International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation
Headquarters: Cologny, Switzerland
Region served: Worldwide
Official language: English
Executive Chairman: Klaus Schwab
Website: http://www.weforum.org Edit this at Wikidata
Formerly called: European Management Forum

The World Economic Forum (WEF), based in Cologny-Geneva, Switzerland, is an NGO, founded in 1971. The WEF's mission is cited as "committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas".[1] It is a membership-based organization, and membership is made up of the world's largest corporations.[2]

The WEF hosts an annual meeting at the end of January in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The meeting brings together some 3,000 business leaders, international political leaders, economists, celebrities and journalists for up to five days to discuss global issues, across 500 public and private sessions.

The organization also convenes some six to eight regional meetings each year in locations across Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and India and holds two further annual meetings in China and the United Arab Emirates. Beside meetings, the organization provides a platform for leaders from all stakeholder groups from around the world – business, government and civil society – to collaborate on multiple projects and initiatives.[3] It also produces a series of reports and engages its members in sector-specific initiatives.[4]

History


Professor Klaus Schwab opens the inaugural European Management Forum in Davos in 1971.


F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela shake hands at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Davos in January 1992


Naoto Kan, then Japanese prime minister gives a special message at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2011


Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman, World Economic Forum


The economics expert Prime-Minister Meles Zenawi, being a panelist at World Economic Forum on 2012.

The WEF was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, a business professor at the University of Geneva.[5] First named the European Management Forum, it changed its name to the World Economic Forum in 1987 and sought to broaden its vision to include providing a platform for resolving international conflicts.

In the summer of 1971, Schwab invited 444 executives from Western European firms to the first European Management Symposium held in the Davos Congress Centre under the patronage of the European Commission and European industrial associations, where Schwab sought to introduce European firms to American management practices. He then founded the WEF as a nonprofit organization based in Geneva and drew European business leaders to Davos for the annual meetings each January.[6]

Events in 1973, including the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange rate mechanism and the Arab–Israeli War, saw the annual meeting expand its focus from management to economic and social issues, and, for the first time, political leaders were invited to the annual meeting in January 1974.[7]

Political leaders soon began to use the annual meeting as venue for promoting their interests. The Davos Declaration was signed in 1988 by Greece and Turkey, helping them turn back from the brink of war. In 1992, South African President F. W. de Klerk met with Nelson Mandela and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the annual meeting, their first joint appearance outside South Africa. At the 1994 annual meeting, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat reached a draft agreement on Gaza and Jericho.[8]

In late 2015, the invitation was extended to include a North Korean delegation for the 2016 WEF, "in view of positive signs coming out of the country", the WEF organizers noted. North Korea has not been attending the WEF since 1998. The invitation was accepted but after the January 2016 North Korean nuclear test on 6 January, the invitation was revoked, and the country's delegation was made subject to "existing and possible forthcoming sanctions".[9] Despite protests by North Korea calling the decision by the WEF managing board a "sudden and irresponsible" move, the WEF committee maintained the exclusion because "under these circumstances there would be no opportunity for international dialogue".[10]

In 2017, the WEF in Davos attracted considerable attention when for the first time, a head of state from the People's Republic of China was present at the alpine resort. With the backdrop of Brexit, an incoming protectionist US administration and significant pressures on free trade zones and trade agreements, Paramount leader Xi Jinping defended the global economic scheme, and portrayed China as a responsible nation and a leader for environmental causes. He sharply rebuked the current populist movements that would introduce tariffs and hinder global commerce, warning that such protectionism could foster isolation and reduced economic opportunity.[11]

In 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the plenary speech, becoming the first head of state from India to deliver the inaugural keynote for the annual meet at Davos. Modi highlighted global warming (climate change), terrorism and protectionism as the three major global challenges, and expressed confidence that they can be tackled with collective effort.[12]

In 2019, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro gave the keynote address at the plenary session of the conference. On his first international trip to Davos, he emphasized liberal economic policies despite his populist agenda, and attempted to reassure the world that Brazil is a protector of the rain forest while utilizing its resources for food production and export. He stated that "his government will seek to better integrate Brazil into the world by mainstreaming international best practices, such as those adopted and promoted by the OECD".[13] Environmental concerns like extreme weather events, and the failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation were among the top-ranking global risks expressed by WEF attendees.[14]

Organization

Headquartered in Cologny, the WEF also has offices in New York, Beijing and Tokyo. In January 2015 it was designated an NGO with "other international body" status by the Swiss Federal Government under the Swiss Host-State Act.[15]

On October 10, 2016, the WEF announced the opening of its new Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. According to the WEF, the center will "serve as a platform for interaction, insight and impact on the scientific and technological changes that are changing the way we live, work and relate to one another".[16]

The World Economic Forum claims to be impartial and that it is not tied to any political, partisan, or national interests. Until 2012, it had observer status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, when it was revoked; it is under the supervision of the Swiss Federal Council. The foundation's highest governance body is the foundation board.[17]

The WEF is chaired by Founder and Executive Chairman Professor Klaus Schwab and is guided by a Board of Trustees that is made up of leaders from business, politics, academia and civil society. Members of the Board of Trustees include: Mukesh Ambani, Marc Benioff, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Mark Carney, Laurence D. Fink, Chrystia Freeland, Orit Gadiesh, Fabiola Gianotti, Al Gore, Herman Gref, Angel Gurría, André Hoffmann, Christine Lagarde, Jack Ma, Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Maurer, Luis Alberto Moreno, Muriel Pénicaud, H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, L. Rafael Reif, David M. Rubenstein, Mark Schneider, Klaus Schwab, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Jim Hagemann Snabe, Feike Sijbesma, Heizo Takenaka, Zhu Min.[18]

The Managing Board is chaired by the WEF's President, Børge Brende, and acts as the executive body of the World Economic Forum. Managing Board members are Emma Benameur, Børge Brende, Julien Gattoni, W. Lee Howell, Jeremy Jurgens, Anil Menon, Adrian Monck, Sarita Nayyar, Richard Samans, Olivier M. Schwab, Murat Sönmez, Dominic Kailash Nath Waughray, Saadia Zahidi, Alois Zwinggi.[19]


Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the World Economic Forum in 2009.

Membership

The foundation is funded by its 1,000 member companies, typically global enterprises with more than five billion dollars in turnover (varying by industry and region). These enterprises rank among the top companies within their industry and/or country and play a leading role in shaping the future of their industry and/or region. Membership is stratified by the level of engagement with forum activities, with the level of membership fees increasing as participation in meetings, projects, and initiatives rises.[20] In 2011 an annual membership cost $52,000 for an individual member, $263,000 for "Industry Partner" and $527,000 for "Strategic Partner". An admission fee cost $19,000 per person.[21] In 2014, WEF raised annual fees by 20 percent, bringing the cost for "Strategic Partner" from CHF 500,000 ($523,000) to CHF 600,000 ($628,000).[22]

Activities

Annual meeting in Davos


A sports shop has turned into a temporary informal reception location "Caspian week", WEF 2018.

The flagship event of the World Economic Forum is the invitation-only annual meeting held at the end of January in Davos, Switzerland, bringing together chief executive officers from its 1,000 member companies, as well as selected politicians, representatives from academia, NGOs, religious leaders, and the media in an alpine environment. The winter discussions ostensibly focus around key issues of global concern (such as the globalization, capital markets, wealth management, international conflicts, environmental problems and their possible solutions).[4][23] The participants are also taking part in role playing events, such as the Investment Heat Map.[24] Informal winter meetings may have led to as many ideas and solutions as the official sessions.[25]

At the 2018 annual meeting, more than 3,000 participants from nearly 110 countries participated in over 400 sessions. Participation included more than 340 public figures, including more than 70 heads of state and government and 45 heads of international organizations; 230 media representatives and almost 40 cultural leaders were represented.[26]

As many as 500 journalists from online, print, radio, and television take part, with access to all sessions in the official program, some of which are also webcast.[27] Not all the journalists are given access to all areas, however. This is reserved for white badge holders. "Davos runs an almost caste-like system of badges", according to BBC journalist Anthony Reuben. "A white badge means you're one of the delegates – you might be the chief executive of a company or the leader of a country (although that would also get you a little holographic sticker to add to your badge), or a senior journalist. An orange badge means you're just a run-of-the-mill working journalist."[28]

All plenary debates from the annual meeting also are available on YouTube,[29] with photographs at Flickr,[30][31]

Annual meeting in Davos

Year / Dates / Theme

1988 / -- / The new state of the world economy
1989 / -- / Key developments in the 90s: implications for global business
1990 / -- / Competitive cooperation in a decade of turbulence
1991 / -- / The new direction for global leadership
1992 / -- / Global cooperation and megacompetition
1993 / -- / Rallying all the forces for global recovery
1994 / -- / Redefining the basic assumptions of the world economy
1995 / -- / Leadership for challenges beyond growth
1996 / -- / Sustaining globalization
1997 / -- / Building the network society
1998 / -- / Managing volatility and priorities for the 21st century
1999 / -- / Responsible globality: managing the impact of globalization
2000 / -- / New beginnings: making a difference
2001 / 25–30 January / Sustaining growth and bridging the divides: a framework for our global future
2002 / 31 January – 4 February / Leadership in fragile times
2003 / 21–25 January / Building trust
2004 / 21–25 January / Partnering for security and prosperity
2005 / 26–30 January / Taking responsibility for tough choices
2006 / 25–29 January / The creative imperative[32]
2007 / 24–28 January / Shaping the global agenda, the shifting power equation
2008 / 23–27 January / The power of collaborative innovation
2009 / 28 January – 1 February / Shaping the post-crisis world
2010 / 27–30 January / Improve the state of the world: rethink, redesign, rebuild
2011 / 26–30 January / Shared norms for the new reality
2012 / 25–29 January / The great transformation: shaping new models
2013 / 23–27 January / Resilient dynamism[33]
2014 / 22–25 January / The reshaping of the world: consequences for society, politics and business
2015 / 21–24 January / New global context
2016 / 20–23 January / Mastering the fourth industrial revolution
2017 / 17–20 January / Responsive and responsible leadership
2018 / 23–26 January / Creating a shared future in a fractured world
2019 / 22–25 January / Globalization 4.0: shaping a global architecture in the age of the fourth industrial revolution
2020 / 20–24 January / Stakeholders for a cohesive and sustainable world[34]

Participants


Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia, at the 2010 World Economic Forum

In 2011, some 250 public figures (heads of state or government, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, heads or senior officials of international organizations) attended the annual meeting, including: Felipe Calderón, Robert B. Zoellick, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Nicolas Sarkozy, Ban Ki-moon, Angela Merkel, Oommen Chandy, N. Chandrababu Naidu, Ferenc Gyurcsány, François Fillon, Morgan Tsvangirai, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Min Zhu, Paul Kagame, Queen Rania of Jordan, Dmitry Medvedev, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Kevin Rudd, Barney Frank, Kofi Annan, Werner Faymann, Leonel Fernández, Jacob Zuma, Cyril Ramaphosa Naoto Kan, Jean-Claude Trichet, and Zeng Peiyan.[35]

Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Orrin Hatch, Victor Dzau, Georg von Krogh,[36] Bono, Paulo Coelho, and Tony Blair also are regular Davos attendees. Past attendees include George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Charles Butt, Robert Bass, Donald Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Mandela, Raymond Barre, Julian Lloyd Webber, Sandro Salsano, Wences Casares, Imran Khan, Sadhguru.

Summer annual meeting


Wang Jianlin, Chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group, at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian

In 2007, the foundation established the Annual Meeting of the New Champions (also called Summer Davos), held annually in China, alternating between Dalian and Tianjin, bringing together 1,500 participants from what the foundation calls Global Growth Companies, primarily from rapidly growing emerging countries such as China, India, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil, but also including quickly growing companies from developed countries. The meeting also engages with the next generation of global leaders from fast-growing regions and competitive cities, as well as technology pioneers from around the globe.[37][38] The Premier of China has delivered a plenary address at each annual meeting.

Regional meetings


Prithviraj Chavan, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, India; Sudha Pilay, Member-Secretary, Planning Commission, India; and Ben Verwaayen, chief executive officer, Alcatel-Lucent, France were the co-chairs of the India Economic Summit 2011 in Mumbai


Felipe Calderón, President of Mexico, speaking during Latin America Broadens Its Horizons, a session at the 2007 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum

Every year regional meetings take place, enabling close contact among corporate business leaders, local government leaders, and NGOs. Meetings are held in Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The mix of hosting countries varies from year to year, but consistently China and India have hosted throughout the decade since 2000.[39]

Young Global Leaders

The group of Young Global Leaders[40] consists of 800 people chosen by the WEF organizers as being representative of contemporary leadership, "coming from all regions of the world and representing all stakeholders in society", according to the organization. After five years of participation they are considered alumni.

Social Entrepreneurs

Since 2000, the WEF has been promoting models developed by those in close collaboration with the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship,[41] highlighting social entrepreneurship as a key element to advance societies and address social problems.[42][43] Selected social entrepreneurs are invited to participate in the foundation's regional meetings and the annual meetings where they may meet chief executives and senior government officials. At the Annual Meeting 2003, for example, Jeroo Billimoria met with Roberto Blois, deputy secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, an encounter that produced a key partnership for her organization Child helpline international.[44]

Research reports


Two Academy Award winner, Pakistani journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy at WEF in 2013

The foundation also acts as a think tank, publishing a wide range of reports. In particular, "Strategic Insight Teams" focus on producing reports of relevance in the fields of competitiveness, global risks, and scenario thinking.


Filipino businessman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala at WEF in 2009

The "Competitiveness Team"[45] produces a range of annual economic reports (first published in brackets): the Global Competitiveness Report (1979) measured competitiveness of countries and economies; The Global Information Technology Report (2001) assessed their competitiveness based on their IT readiness; the Global Gender Gap Report examined critical areas of inequality between men and women; the Global Risks Report (2006) assessed key global risks; the Global Travel and Tourism Report (2007) measured travel and tourism competitiveness; the Financial Development Report (2008)[46] aimed to provide a comprehensive means for countries to establish benchmarks for various aspects of their financial systems and establish priorities for improvement; and the Global Enabling Trade Report (2008) presented a cross-country analysis of the large number of measures facilitating trade among nations.[47]

The "Risk Response Network"[48] produces a yearly report assessing risks which are deemed to be within the scope of these teams, have cross-industry relevance, are uncertain, have the potential to cause upwards of US$10 billion in economic damage, have the potential to cause major human suffering, and which require a multi-stakeholder approach for mitigation.[49]

Initiatives

Health

The Global Health Initiative was launched by Kofi Annan at the annual meeting in 2002. The GHI's mission was to engage businesses in public-private partnerships to tackle HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and health systems.


Mohammad Khatami at Economic Forum in 2004

The Global Education Initiative (GEI), launched during the annual meeting in 2003, brought together international IT companies and governments in Jordan, Egypt, and India[50] that has resulted in new personal computer hardware being available in their classrooms and more local teachers trained in e-learning. The GEI model, which is scalable and sustainable, now is being used as an educational blueprint in other countries including Rwanda.

On 19 January 2017 the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global initiative to fight epidemics, was launched at WEF in Davos. The internationally funded initiative aims at securing vaccine supplies for global emergencies and pandemics, and to research new vaccines for tropical diseases, that are now more menacing. The project is funded by private and governmental donors, with an initial investment of US$460m from the governments of Germany, Japan and Norway, plus the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust.[51]

Society

The Water Initiative brings together diverse stakeholders such as Alcan Inc., the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, USAID India, UNDP India, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Government of Rajasthan, and the NEPAD Business Foundation to develop public-private partnerships on water management in South Africa and India.

In an effort to combat corruption, the Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) was launched by CEOs from the Engineering and Construction, Energy and Metals, and Mining industries at the annual meeting in Davos during January 2004. PACI is a platform for peer exchange on practical experience and dilemma situations. Approximately 140 companies have joined the initiative.[52]

Environment

Further information: Business action on climate change

In the beginning of the 21th century the forum begun to increasingly deal with environmental issues[53]. In the Davos Manifesto 2020 it is said that a company among other: "acts as a steward of the environmental and material universe for future generations. It consciously protects our biosphere and champions a circular, shared and regenerative economy." "responsibly manages near-term, medium-term and long-term value creation in pursuit of sustainable shareholder returns that do not sacrifice the future for the present." "is more than an economic unit generating wealth. It fulfils human and societal aspirations as part of the broader social system. Performance must be measured not only on the return to shareholders, but also on how it achieves its environmental, social and good governance objectives."[54]

The Environmental Initiative covers climate change and water issues. Under the Gleneagles Dialogue on Climate Change, the U.K. government asked the World Economic Forum at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles in 2005 to facilitate a dialogue with the business community to develop recommendations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This set of recommendations, endorsed by a global group of CEOs, was presented to leaders ahead of the G8 Summit in Toyako and Hokkaido held in July 2008.[55][56]

In January 2017, WEF launched the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE), which is a global public private partnership seeking to scale circular economy innovations.[57][58] PACE is co-chaired by Frans van Houten (CEO of Philips), Naoko Ishii (CEO of the Global Environment Facility, and the head of UN Environment (UNEP).[59] The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the International Resource Panel, Circle Economy and Accenture serve as knowledge partners.

The Environment and Natural Resource Security Initiative was emphasized for the 2017 meeting to achieve inclusive economic growth and sustainable practices for global industries. With increasing limitations on world trade through national interests and trade barriers, the WEF has moved towards a more sensitive and socially minded approach for global businesses with a focus on the reduction of carbon emissions in China and other large industrial nations.[60]

Also in 2017, WEF launched the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) for the Earth Initiative, a collaboration among WEF, Stanford University and PwC, and funded through the Mava Foundation.[61] In 2018, WEF announced that one project within this initiative was to be the Earth BioGenome Project, the aim of which is to sequence the genomes of every organism on Earth.[62]

The World Economic Forum is working to eliminate plastic pollution, stating that by the year 2050 it will consume 15% of the global carbon budget and will pass by its weight fishes in the world's oceans. One of the methods is to achieve circular economy[63][64].

The theme of 2020 World Economic Forum annual meeting was "Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World". Climate change and sustainability were central themes of discussion. Many argued that GDP is failed to represent correctly the wellbeing and that fossil fuel subsydies should be stopped. Many of the participants said that a better capitalism is needed. Al Gore summarized the ideas in the conference as: “I don’t want to be naive, but I want to acknowledge that the center of the global economy is now saying things that many of us have dreamed they might for a long time,” "“The version of capitalism we have today in our world must be reformed,”[65].

In this meeting the World Economic Forum:

• Launched the Trillion Tree Campaign an initiative aiming to "grow, restore and conserve 1 trillion trees around the world - in a bid to restore biodiversity and help fight climate change". Donald Trump joined the initiative. The forum stated that: "Nature-based solutions – locking-up carbon in the world’s forests, grasslands and wetlands – can provide up to one-third of the emissions reductions required by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement targets," adding that the rest should come from the heavy industry, finance and transportation sectors. One of the targets is to unify existing reforestation projects[66]
• Discussed the issue of climate change and called to expanding renewable energy, energy efficiency change the patterns of consumption and remove carbon from the atmosphere. The forum claimed that the climate crisis will became a climate apocalypse if the temperature will rise by 2 degree. The forum called to fulfill the commitments in Paris Agreement. Jennifer Morgan the executive director of Greenpeace said that as to the beginning of the forum, fossil fuels still get 3 times more money than climate solutions[67]

Global Future Councils

The Network of Global Future Councils meets annually in the United Arab Emirates and virtually several times a year.[68] The second WEF annual meeting was held in Dubai in November 2017, when there were 35 distinct councils focused on a specific issue, industry or technology.[69] In 2017 members met with representatives and partners of WEF's new Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.[70] Ideas and proposals are taken forward for further discussion at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters in January.[69]

Criticism


Protest march against the WEF in Basel, 2006.

During the late 1990s the foundation, along with the G7, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and International Monetary Fund, came under heavy criticism by anti-globalization activists who claimed that capitalism and globalization were increasing poverty and destroying the environment. Ten thousand demonstrators disrupted a regional meeting of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne, obstructing the path of two hundred delegates to the meeting.[71] Small demonstrations are held in Davos on most but not all years, organised by the local Green Party (see Anti-WEF protests in Switzerland, January 2003) to protest against what have been called the meetings of "fat cats in the snow", a tongue-in-cheek term used by rock singer Bono.[72]

After 2014, the protest movement against the World Economic Forum largely died down, and Swiss police noted a significant decline in attending protesters, 20 at most during the meeting in 2016. While protesters are still more numerous in large Swiss cities, the protest movement itself has undergone significant change.[73] Around 150 Tibetans and Uighurs protested in Geneva and 400 Tibetans in Bern against the visit of the China's paramount leader Xi Jinping for the 2017 meeting, with subsequent confrontations and arrests.[74]

Participation of NGOs

The WEF attracts a number of non-governmental organisations, including Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, Amnesty International, and the ICRC.

Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of the anti-poverty confederation Oxfam International co-chaired the 2015 meeting, where she presented a critical report of global wealth distribution based on statistical research by the Credit Suisse Research Institute. In this study, the richest one percent of people in the world own forty-eight percent of the world's wealth.[75]

At the 2019 meeting, the Oxfam director presented another report claiming that the gap between rich and poor has only increased. The report “Public Good or Private Wealth” stated that 2,200 billionaires worldwide saw their wealth grow by 12 percent while the poorest half saw its wealth fall by 11 percent. Oxfam calls for a global tax overhaul to increase and harmonise global tax rates for corporations and wealthy individuals.[76]

Public cost of security

In September 2018, the city of Davos approved by popular vote to increase the security budget for the yearly meeting to CHF 1.125 million. Later that month, the Swiss house of representatives (Nationalrat) also agreed to increase police and military expenditures to CHF 39 million while the Kanton of Graubünden contributes CHF 2.25 million, the same amount the WEF is paying for security costs.[77]

Private vs public meetings

Since the annual meeting in January 2003 in Davos, an Open Forum Davos,[78] which was co-organized by the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches, is held concurrently with the Davos forum, opening up the debate about globalization to the general public. The Open Forum has been held in the local high school every year, featuring top politicians and business leaders. It is open to all members of the public free of charge.[79][80]

"Davos Man"

"Davos Man" is a neologism referring to the global elite of wealthy (predominantly) men, whose members view themselves as completely "international" and who despise the people of their own country, being loyal only to global capital itself. According to political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, who is credited with inventing the phrase "Davos Man",[81] they are people who "have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the élite's global operations". In his 2004 article "Dead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite", Huntington argues that this international perspective is a minority elitist position not shared by the nationalist majority of the people.[82]

Gender debate

Since 2011, the World Economic Forum has been addressing its very own gender quota, to introduce at least one woman for every five senior executives that attended. Female participation increased from 9% to 15% between 2001 and 2005. In 2016, 18% of the WEF attendees were female; this number increased to 21% in 2017, and 24% in 2020, five years of growth.[83][84]

See also

• 2009 Davos incident
• Asian Leadership Conference
• Boao Forum for Asia
• Davos process
• European Business Summit
• International Labour Organization
• International Transport Forum
• Istanbul World Political Forum
• St. Petersburg International Economic Forum
• Sustainable development
• World Knowledge Forum

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External links

• Official website

[admin]

Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue
Edited by Steven C. Rockefeller and John C. Elder
by Stuart Smithers
Tricycle
FALL 1992

SPIRIT AND NATURE: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue
Edited by Steven C. Rockefeller and John C. Elder.
Beacon Press: Boston, 1992.
226 pp. $30.00 (clothbound) $16.00 (paperback).

One of the most common and enduring stereotypes in environmental literature is the idea that Eastern religions promote a sense of harmony between human beings and nature. On the other side of the stereotype stand the religions of the West, promoting the separation of human beings and nature and encouraging acts of domination, exploitation, and control....

This image of an affirmative Eastern attitude toward nature must have lurked in the minds of the environmental activists and friends of the environment who gathered at Middlebury College in the fall of 1990 to hear the 14th Dalai Lama speak on the topic of "Spirit and Nature." Tibet, like traditional Japan, has been the focus of a certain Western yearning for the East as a place to discover not only a unique sense of wisdom (what one observer called "an intimate and creative relationship with the vast and profound secrets of the human soul") but a wisdom that can insure "the future survival of Earth itself."6 There was a hush in the Middlebury field house as the Dalai Lama seated himself on the stage and began to speak.7 It must have been a surprise when he began by saying that he had nothing to offer to those who came expecting to hear about ecology or the environment, and even more surprising when he interpreted the word "nature" as a reference to "the fundamental nature of all reality" and entered into a discourse on the Buddhist concept of Emptiness. To explain the connection between nature and Emptiness, he said: "When talking about the fundamental nature of reality, one could sum up the entire understanding of that nature in a simple verse: 'Form is emptiness and emptiness is form' (The Heart Sutra). This simple line sums up the Buddhist understanding of the fundamental nature of reality."8 And he went on to explain how Tibetan philosophers use logical analysis to develop their view of Emptiness and to pursue what he said was the "expressed aim of Buddhism," namely, the purification and development of the mind.

The Dalai Lama's words were surprising not because he seemed unfriendly toward the "natural" world in the prevailing sense of the word (that is, toward ecosystems of plants, animals, the atmosphere, the ocean, rivers, mountains and so on), but because he so gently and easily shifted attention away from the natural world toward the development of human nature and the purification of the mind. The sense of surprise only became more acute when he began to develop the concept of Emptiness and indicated that it involved a denial of the reality of what he took to be "nature" itself. To say that "Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form," in the language of Mahayana philosophy, is to say that all things are "empty" of any inherent "nature" or identity.9 The purification of the mind, which the Dalai Lama called the "expressed aim of Buddhism," comes from stripping away false concepts of the "nature" of things and resting content with their Emptiness. In other words, "nature" (in one possible meaning of the word) may very well be a barrier to overcome in a quest for human development.

What should we make of the gap between the Dalai Lama's words and the conventional image of the Buddhist attitude toward nature? Does the Dali Lama see something in the Buddhist tradition that others do not? Is the image of Buddhism as an ecologically friendly tradition simply an artifact of the Western imagination?

-- Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature?, by Malcolm David Eckel

-- Review: [Untitled] Reviewed Work: Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue, by Steven C. Rockefeller, John C. Elder, by Leslie A. Muray

Driving toward Seattle in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I am faced again with a certain despair for the environment and myself. Here I am rushing to Seattle past urban sprawl and “industrial parks” (a wonderful oxymoron) in a truck that con­sumes far more energy than is necessary, pondering the conse­quences of our ugly “progress”­ only to realize I have arrived at these same observations, conclu­sions, and sentiments before. I have begun to recognize a familiar feeling that life is moving in circles, that for all the politically correct talk about the environ­ment, the charters, and the summits, nothing really changes for the better, and just identifying environmental and ecological problems is no longer important. The next far more difficult step must be to question how these problems can be corrected and to admit that many of the proposals already put forward have failed; not because the ideas were wrong, but because advocates have not appreciated the need for a more sophisticated understanding of human nature in relationship to the environmental crisis. Spirit and Nature, edited by Steven C. Rockefeller and John Elder, is an important new direction in envi­ronmental discourse because it squarely faces the question of reli­gious force, both personal and institutional, as a prime player in the politics of environment.

The text contains the lectures and addresses of a four-day symposium entitled “Spirit and Nature: Religion, Ethics, and Environmental Crisis,” which was held at Middlebury College (where both Rockefeller and Elder are professors) in the fall of 1990. The symposium presented Buddhist, Islamic, Christian, Jewish, and Native American religious perspectives.

Every chapter in Spirit and Nature sounds a note that could be lengthened, shortened, or tuned in some way; and while each voice is intelligent and caring and unique, several recurring themes and questions emerge.

In different ways many of the authors have arrived at the central importance of “interdependence” as a primary principle for under­standing ecological reality and for the actions which proceed from such an understanding. This notion is hardly unfamiliar to Buddhists and is included in the Dalai Lama’s remarks (“A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective”) at the symposium. According to the Buddhist view of “interdepen­dence,” our lives are propelled by craving or desire, and that fact has not been overlooked by other traditions. Ismar Schorsch (“Learning to Live with Less: A Jewish Perspective”), for example, laments our lack of self-restraint and the “ferocious consumerism of American life,” while Sallie McFague (“A Square in the Quilt”) alludes to the same dilemma in her discussion of St. Augustine’s understanding of sin as “living a lie”:

… living in false relations to God and other beings. It [sin] is, as he said in a term that may sound quaint and anachronistic but which is ecologically up-to-date, “concupiscence,” an insatiable appetite …

Recognizing this fact of human nature (desire, the force of desire, and its many subtle and uncon­scious layers of manifestation) must lead to important questions about the challenge we face as the Western “lifestyle” of consumerism spreads across the globe: should we expect rational discourse to prevail against non­rational forces, especially the non­rational forces of consumerism, which is nothing more than a meaningless economics of desire?

The full danger of consumerist societies and our inability to convert societies to a more envi­ronmentally sound lifestyle is only weakly represented in Spirit and Nature because, I think, the book is one-sided. While I consider myself to be very much on the same side, I wonder how useful it is to talk to oneself, as it were. Ronald Engel (“Liberal Democ­racy and the Fate of the Earth”) seems to be approaching this point when he writes: “We need to pause for a moment and listen to the two sides of this debate.”

Spirit and Nature is undoubt­edly a successful book because it makes us return to the primary issues of the environmental move­ment and ask, What next? One very real possibility introduced in Spirit and Nature is to convene another conference that would include “the other”: that is, intelligent and successful people in busi­ness, politics, science, and technol­ogy who do not share the point of view of the authors and editors. Listening to “the other,” I might gain a new respect for the incredi­ble forces that resist restraint, forces which—even though I am in sympathy with ecology and conservation movements—I find echoes of in myself: a certain lazi­ness, a refusal to give up a life of luxury (like the luxury of driving alone to Seattle) for the Spartan life advocated by Socrates or even Zen Master Dogen.

Professor Schorsch discusses his use of pen and paper for writ­ing as a way of resisting mecha­nization. But one wonders if his secretary did not process his words on a computer. This type of small contradiction is also a part of human nature, and the inability to see such contradic­tions certainly is a part of human nature and the resistance to change. It would be helpful to meet with “the other,” especially if one came to realize that “the other” exists, in some form, in all of us and that “the other” might offer some unanticipated oppor­tunities for change.

Nevertheless, the intriguing religious orientation offered in Spirit and Nature suggests that the environmental crisis exists not because we have forgotten the world, but because we have forgotten ourselves. In one of the most demanding chapters, Seyyed Hossein Nasr (“Islam and the Environmental Crisis”) describes us as a “humanity in rebellion against both heaven and earth,” and concludes that:

The solution of the environmental crisis can come about only when the modern spiritual malaise is cured and there is a rediscovery of the world of the Spirit, which, being compassionate, always gives Itself to those open and receptive to Its vivifying rays.

And yet if one does believe that a “spiritual sense” is a necessary prerequisite to an enlightened ecoview, then perhaps the environmental crisis is even worse than previously thought. One might even argue that to view the environmental crisis as a spiritual issue or from a spiritual point of view only reflects the pitifully low ebb of “Spirit” in our general culture. As the Dalai Lama noted:

Taking care of the planet is nothing special, nothing sacred or holy. It’s just like taking care of your house. We have no other planet, no other house, except this one….We cannot go to any other planet. If the moon is seen from a distance, it appears quite beautiful. But if we go there to stay, I think, it would be horrible. So, our blue planet is much happier. Therefore, we have to take care of our own place. This is not something special or holy. This is just a practical fact!

Stuart Smithers is assistant professor of South Asian Religions at the University of Puget Sound.

[admin]

Review: [Untitled] Reviewed Work: Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue, by Steven C. Rockefeller, John C. Elder
by Leslie A. Muray
American Journal of Theology & Philosophy
January, 1994

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[Jeff Gibbs] Where did the idea of colleges going green by burning trees come from, anyway? A little college called Middlebury, in the heart of Vermont.

[Man] Welcome to the celebration of the opening of Middlebury’s new biomass gasification system. It’s now my great pleasure to introduce this afternoon’s speaker, Bill McKibben.

[Audience clapping]

[Bill McKibben] What powers a learning community? And as of this afternoon, the easy answer to that is wood chips. Um, it’s incredibly beautiful to stand over there, and see that big bunker full of wood chips. You can put any kind of wood in, you know: oak, willow, whatever you want. Pretty much anything that burns we can toss in there if we can chip it down to the right size. And there are very few similar cases any place in this country of that kind of change over that scale. But it shows it could happen anywhere, and it should happen anywhere. In fact, it must happen everywhere.

-- Planet of the Humans, written, produced and directed by Jeff Gibbs

Bill McKibben resides in Ripton, Vermont, with his wife, writer Sue Halpern. Their only child, a daughter named Sophie, was born in 1993 in Glens Falls, New York. He is a Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, where he also directs the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism. McKibben is also a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute. He is a long-time Methodist.

-- Bill McKibben, by Wikipedia

This is a collection of papers given at the four-day symposium entitled "Spirit and Nature: Religion, Ethics, and Environmental Crisis" held at Middlebury College during the fall of 1990. Significantly, Bill Moyers produced a public television documentary, first aired in June 1991, about the symposium.

The "Introduction" gives an excellent overview of the history of the discussion concerning religion and ecology, environmental ethics, and the development of deep ecology and ecofeminism since the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. An important and informative aspect of this section is the inclusion of the efforts of international organizations and associations to formulate a global ethic of sustainable development (9-11). The first chapter, "A Tradition of Thanksgiving," by Audrey Shenandoah, a Clan Mother of the Onondaga nations, is the keynote presentation of the symposium. This is a commentary on the thanksgiving prayer with which she opened (unfortunately, it is not reproduced in the volume), which stresses various dimensions of humanity's inherent spiritual connection to the earth.

Readers unfamiliar with Jewish perspectives on ecology will find "Learning to live with less: A Jewish Perspective" by Ismar Schorsch, Chancellor and Professor of Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, illuminating. His discussion centers on the following question: "Can religion responsibly imbue the individual citizen with a spiritual renewal that will enable his world view, enlarge his inner life, and temper his wants?"(30). Schorsch develops "a portrait of Judaism as a millennial effort to foster a religious culture of self-restraint that intuitively respects the value and integrity of its natural environment"(30). This "religious culture of self-restraint" can be found in Jewish law's injunction against inflicting pain on animals, its restrictions on the use of land, and participatory study through which the Torah is internalized (30-37).

In "A Square in the Quilt: One Theologian's Contribution to the Planetary Agenda," Sallie McFague both reiterates and moves beyond some of her main themes in Models of God. Shifting emphasis from dualism, authority, and hierarchy to holism, participation, and community, she focuses on the "the common creation story," the contemporary picture of the world depicted by postmodern science that can potentially enable contemporary theology to make consonant with contemporary visions of reality its understanding of God, thus rendering its claims credible (50). Radically interrelated and interdependent with everything in the universe, humans are co-creators with God, who is "in, with, and under the entire evolutionary process" (51). Emphasizing our belonging to the earth, McFague links justice and ecological issues through the common creation story. She reminds us, with a sense of urgency, of our planetary citizenship, of the fact that the planetary agenda is everyone's agenda, and calls us to contribute one square to the quilt (51-58).

Of particular interest to readers of this journal is J. Ronald Engel's "Liberal Democracy and the Fate of the Earth," bearing the obvious influence of John Dewey. Engel focuses on the need to understand the ecological crisis as a crisis of citizenship, in the sense of extending the concept to the non-human natural world and our responsibility for its despoliation (64-66). This crisis of citizenship must be understood as a crisis in liberal democracy: its formalism and consumerism, its being an expression of the mechanistic, dualistic, "ontological individualism" of the modern world view that is at the root of the ecological crisis and that has to be supplanted by an understanding of democracy rooted in an ontology of the individual-in-community inclusive of the whole of the web of life (66-74).

In this discussion, the author points out that scientific reason and critical reason are indispensable to the liberal democratic tradition and environmental responsibility. Just as the histories and futures of the modern sciences and the liberal democratic tradition are inseparably linked, indispensable to the very meaning of democracy is "the liberal conviction that all our traditions and personal beliefs must be submitted to searching self-criticism and reconstruction in light of our changing situation and the emergence of new knowledge and insight" (68). Finally, he addresses the urgent problem of awakening faith, "the faith of prophetic liberal democracy ... that this immediate and absolute world of ordinary human experience, this world we share with each other and all other living things on this earth, is the sphere of ultimacy" (76). That awakening is awakening to Spirit in Nature (78). Engel's use of the work of Vaclav Havel not only shows a perceptive understanding of Central and Eastern Europe but also displays a creative contrast in meaning of democracy and ecological responsibility between the West and the former Eastern bloc.

One of the more fascinating and illuminating pieces in this volume is Seyyed Hossein Nasr's "Islam and the Environmental Crisis," written from a Sufi perspective. Nasr espouses a panentheistic position: God is the All-Encompassing whose creation is a theophany, the "Cosmic Quran" (88-89), revealing God. The role of humans is to be vice-gerents of God (92). He expresses this notion of vice-gerency, complemented by servanthood, in the following manner:

In the same way that God sustains and cares for the world, humankind must nurture and care for the ambience in which they play the central role. They cannot neglect the care of the natural world without betraying that "trust" (al-amanah) which they accepted when they bore witness to God's lordship in the pre-eternal covenant (al-mithag) ... (92-93).

Nasr maintains that it is the modern turning away from God the All-Encompassing that has led to the environmental crisis (93). The author concludes with a perceptive and informative discussion of the Islamic world's responses to modernity, particularly in relation to Western imperialism and domination (97-106).

Some readers of this journal may be interested in Nasr's brief allusions to the Pakistani philosopher-poet Sir Muhammad Iqbal, whose panentheism has been treated at some length by Charles Hartshorne (see especially, Philosophers Speak of God). Nasr mentions that, while Iqbal was too preoccupied with problems affecting the Islamic world and too profoundly influenced by nineteenth century philosophy to make environmental concerns central to his work, there are glimpses of the kind of ecological attitude he is advocating in some of the Pakistani philosopher's poetry (99). Iqbal was profoundly influenced by Bergson and the impact of Whitehead is no less evident; his work (see especially, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam and Islam as an Ethical and a Political Ideal) is indispensable in gaining an understanding of Islam. I hasten to add that Nasr is more than a worthy successor to Iqbal as an Islamic dialogue partner for North American radical empiricists, naturalists, and religious liberals interested in environmental issues.

"A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective on Spirit in Nature" by Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is a down-to-earth, non-technical presentation of a Buddhist understanding of nature, reality, and response to the environmental crisis. Seeking "a practical ethic of caring for our home" which he grounds in the Buddhist understanding of interdependence (117), he advocates the cultivation of compassion, which he identifies with "a strong sense of care and concern for the happiness of the other..." (118-19). Taking increased responsibility leads to the hope, courage, joy, peace, and the feeling of being cared for, necessary for sustained action: "... basic human nature is compassion or affection" (120).

One of the most common and enduring stereotypes in environmental literature is the idea that Eastern religions promote a sense of harmony between human beings and nature. On the other side of the stereotype stand the religions of the West, promoting the separation of human beings and nature and encouraging acts of domination, exploitation, and control....

This image of an affirmative Eastern attitude toward nature must have lurked in the minds of the environmental activists and friends of the environment who gathered at Middlebury College in the fall of 1990 to hear the 14th Dalai Lama speak on the topic of "Spirit and Nature." Tibet, like traditional Japan, has been the focus of a certain Western yearning for the East as a place to discover not only a unique sense of wisdom (what one observer called "an intimate and creative relationship with the vast and profound secrets of the human soul") but a wisdom that can insure "the future survival of Earth itself."6 There was a hush in the Middlebury field house as the Dalai Lama seated himself on the stage and began to speak.7 It must have been a surprise when he began by saying that he had nothing to offer to those who came expecting to hear about ecology or the environment, and even more surprising when he interpreted the word "nature" as a reference to "the fundamental nature of all reality" and entered into a discourse on the Buddhist concept of Emptiness. To explain the connection between nature and Emptiness, he said: "When talking about the fundamental nature of reality, one could sum up the entire understanding of that nature in a simple verse: 'Form is emptiness and emptiness is form' (The Heart Sutra). This simple line sums up the Buddhist understanding of the fundamental nature of reality."8 And he went on to explain how Tibetan philosophers use logical analysis to develop their view of Emptiness and to pursue what he said was the "expressed aim of Buddhism," namely, the purification and development of the mind.

The Dalai Lama's words were surprising not because he seemed unfriendly toward the "natural" world in the prevailing sense of the word (that is, toward ecosystems of plants, animals, the atmosphere, the ocean, rivers, mountains and so on), but because he so gently and easily shifted attention away from the natural world toward the development of human nature and the purification of the mind. The sense of surprise only became more acute when he began to develop the concept of Emptiness and indicated that it involved a denial of the reality of what he took to be "nature" itself. To say that "Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form," in the language of Mahayana philosophy, is to say that all things are "empty" of any inherent "nature" or identity.9 The purification of the mind, which the Dalai Lama called the "expressed aim of Buddhism," comes from stripping away false concepts of the "nature" of things and resting content with their Emptiness. In other words, "nature" (in one possible meaning of the word) may very well be a barrier to overcome in a quest for human development.

What should we make of the gap between the Dalai Lama's words and the conventional image of the Buddhist attitude toward nature? Does the Dali Lama see something in the Buddhist tradition that others do not? Is the image of Buddhism as an ecologically friendly tradition simply an artifact of the Western imagination?

-- Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature?, by Malcolm David Eckel

'''Caring for the World' [Earth]" by Robert Prescott-Allen, senior consultant for "Caring for the Earth," a document that attempts to formulate strategies for the attainment of a sustainable way of life, sponsored by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Wide Fund for Nature, emphasizes the need to develop a "world ethic of sustainability." He reiterates six principles from "Caring for the World": 1) limit human impact on the non-human natural world to carrying capacity; 2) conserve the conditions of life; 3) minimize the depletion of nonrenewable resources; 4) aim for an equitable distribution of the costs and benefits of resource use and environmental management; 5) promote long-term economic development so as to increase resource productivity and natural wealth; 6) promote values that aid the attainment of sustainability (131). Additionally, he enumerates six strategic directions proposed for the transformation to sustainability: 1) transformation of attitudes and practices; 2) building a global alliance; 3) empowerment of communities; 4) integration of environment and development; 5) stabilization of population and resource demand; 6) conservation of the variety of life (32-36). He closes with a call for a Universal Declaration and Convention on Sustainable Development, violations of which should be monitored by an "Amnesty for Earth" or "Advocates for Earth" modeled after Amnesty International.

Steven C. Rockefeller's "Faith and Community in an Ecological Age" eloquently raises the religious dimension of environmental ethics. Comparing anthropocentric and biocentric approaches to environmental ethics (142-44), he claims that, since "the environmental crisis is a crisis in our understanding of and commitment to community" (144), a major transformation in human values and behavior can occur only if it involves a concern and faith that are religious in nature (144). Rockefeller maintains:

A religious concern is one that is a matter of fundamental controlling interest to a person. A person is religiously concerned about those values which he or she regards as essential to fulfillment in the deepest sense. To be religiously concerned about a set of moral values is to have faith in those values, trust them as true guides to enduring well-being and peace. A moral faith that is religious in nature has a unifying effect on the personality focusing and releasing energy (144-45).

Religious faith springs from the deepest center of the self, involving the whole personality -- in biblical language, the heart (145). A moral faith religious in quality involves the awakening and transformation of the heart, dependent on an encounter with the sacred that empowers a sense of the sacredness of the non-human natural world (145).

Rockefeller gives a succinct historical analysis of the kinds of value that have encouraged the despoliation and exploitation of nature including aspects of the biblical tradition, the Greek heritage, and the Newtonian-Cartesian worldview (147-55). Rockefeller also engages in the retrieval of "prophetic voices in the past" -- Hua-yen Buddhism and Shingon Buddhism; the Confucian philosopher Chang Tsai; aspects of the Hebrew and Christian traditions that affirm ecological sensitivities, compassion for animals, and the liberation of the oppressed; Jesus' standing in this prophetic tradition; St. Francis of Assisi; Dionysius the Areopagite; Hildegard of Bingen; Meister Eckhart; Whitehead; Heidegger; John Macquarrie's dialectical theism; al-Ghazali; Sufism; aspects of the Shari ' ah; Schweitzer; Buber; Henry David Thoreau; John Muir; Aldo Leopold (155-66). The author describes growing ecological sensibilities over the last two decades as a "Great Awakening" (167). He concludes that the roots of the awakening of a faith in ecological and democratic values, indispensable to the long term success of the environmental movement, " ... lie deep in ancient traditions, but it is the destiny of this and future generations to bring this faith into full flower in the light of the new knowledge of the interdependence of the whole earth community" (169).

The stimulating discussion between the presenters, moderated by Steven C. Rockefeller, is reproduced in Chapter 9, entitled, '''Keeping Faith in Life': A Dialogue." The Epilogue, John C. Elder's "Brooding over the Abyss," analyzes Judith Anderson's etching Missa Gaia: This is My Body with its depiction of brooding in the midst of the beauty and variety of life as an appropriate image for the quest for a spiritual basis of environmental responsibility (195-96). He uses a number of complementary examples from various areas of human endeavor (Whitehead, St. Francis, Taoist-influenced Buddhism, Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, scientists who study organisms not in isolation but in relation to their environments and to each other, and Darwin), concluding with the Apollo 17 photograph "Planet Earth," fruitful for the necessary religious transformation of our views of the non-human natural world (197-99). The book concludes with an Appendix containing the United Nations' "World Charter of Nature" (201-5).

World Charter for Nature.
Publisher: UN General Assembly
Author: UN General Assembly (37th sess.: 1982-1983)
Publication Date: 28 October 1982

Cite as: UN General Assembly, World Charter for Nature, 28 October 1982, A/RES/37/7, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3b00f22a10.html [accessed 6 May 2020]

The General Assembly,

Having considered the report of the Secretary-General on the revised draft World Charter for Nature,14

Recalling that, in its resolution 35/7 of 30 October 1980, it expressed its conviction that the benefits which could be obtained from nature depended on the maintenance of natural processes and on the diversity of life forms and that those benefits were jeopardized by the excessive exploitation and the destruction of natural habitats,

Further recalling that, in the same resolution, it recognized the need for appropriate measures at the national and international levels to protect nature and promote international co-operation in that field,

Recalling that, in its resolution 36/6 of 27 October 1981, it again expressed its awareness of the crucial importance attached by the international community to the promotion and development of co-operation aimed at protecting and safeguarding the balance and quality of nature and invited the Secretary-General to transmit to Member States the text of the revised version of the draft World Charter for Nature contained in the report of the Ad Hoc Group of Experts on the draft World Charter for Nature,15 as well as any further observations by States, with a view to appropriate consideration by the General Assembly at its thirty-seventh session,

Conscious of the spirit and terms of its resolutions 35/7 and 36/6, in which it solemnly invited Member States, in the exercise of their permanent sovereignty over their natural resources, to conduct their activities in recognition of the supreme importance of protecting natural systems, maintaining the balance and quality of nature and conserving natural resources, in the interests of present and future generations,

Having considered the supplementary report of the Secretary-General,16

Expressing its gratitude to the Ad Hoc Group of Experts which, through its work, has assembled the necessary elements for the General Assembly to be able to complete the consideration of and adopt the revised draft World Charter for Nature at its thirty-seventh session, as it had previously recommended,

Adopts and solemnly proclaims the World Charter for Nature contained in the annex to the present resolution.

48th plenary meeting
28 October 1982

_______________

Notes:

14. A/36/539.
15. Ibid., annex 1.
16. A/37/398 and Add.1.

ANNEX

World Charter for Nature

The General Assembly,

Reaffirming the fundamental purposes of the United Nations, in particular the maintenance of international peace and security, the development of friendly relations among nations and the achievement of international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, technical, intellectual or humanitarian character,

Aware that:

(a) Mankind is a part of nature and life depends on the uninterrupted functioning of natural systems which ensure the supply of energy and nutrients,

(b) Civilization is rooted in nature, which has shaped human culture and influenced all artistic and scientific achievement, and living in harmony with nature gives man the best opportunities for the development of his creativity, and for rest and recreation,

Convinced that:

(a) Every form of life is unique, warranting respect regardless of its worth to man, and, to accord other organisms such recognition, man must be guided by a moral code of action,

(b) Man can alter nature and exhaust natural resources by his action or its consequences and, therefore, must fully recognize the urgency of maintaining the stability and quality of nature and of conserving natural resources,

Persuaded that:

(a) Lasting benefits from nature depend upon the maintenance of essential ecological processes and life support systems, and upon the diversity of life forms, which are jeopardized through excessive exploitation and habitat destruction by man,

(b) The degradation of natural systems owing to excessive consumption and misuse of natural resources, as well as to failure to establish an appropriate economic order among peoples and among States, leads to the breakdown of the economic, social and political framework of civilization,

(c) Competition for scarce resources creates conflicts, whereas the conservation of nature and natural resources contributes to justice and the maintenance of peace and cannot be achieved until mankind learns to live in peace and to forsake war and armaments,

Reaffirming that man must acquire the knowledge to maintain and enhance his ability to use natural resources in a manner which ensures the preservation of the species and ecosystems for the benefit of present and future generations,

Firmly convinced of the need for appropriate measures, at the national and international, individual and collective, and private and public levels,to protect nature and promote international co-operation in this field,

Adopts, to these ends, the present World Charter for Nature, which proclaims the following principles of conservation by which all human conduct affecting nature is to be guided and judged.

I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES

1. Nature shall be respected and its essential processes shall not be impaired.

2. The genetic viability on the earth shall not be compromised; the population levels of all life forms, wild and domesticated, must be at least sufficient for their survival, and to this end necessary habitats shall be safeguarded.

3. All areas of the earth, both land and sea, shall be subject to these principles of conservation; special protection shall be given to unique areas, to representative samples of all the different types of ecosystems and to the habitats of rare or endangered species.

4. Ecosystems and organisms, as well as the land, marine and atmospheric resources that are utilized by man, shall be managed to achieve and maintain optimum sustainable productivity, but not in such a way as to endanger the integrity of those other ecosystems or species with which they coexist.

5. Nature shall be secured against degradation caused by warfare or other hostile activities.

II. FUNCTIONS

6. In the decision-making process it shall be recognized that man's needs can be met only by ensuring the proper functioning of natural systems and by respecting the principles set forth in the present Charter.

7. In the planning and implementation of social and economic development activities, due account shall be taken of the fact that the conservation of nature is an integral part of those activities.

8. In formulating long-term plans for economic development, population growth and the improvement of standards of living, due account shall be taken of the long-term capacity of natural systems to ensure the subsistence and settlement of the populations concerned, recognizing that this capacity may be enhanced through science and technology.

9. The allocation of areas of the earth to various uses shall be planned, and due account shall be taken of the physical constraints, the biological productivity and diversity and the natural beauty of the are as concerned.

10. Natural resources shall not be wasted, but used with a restraint appropriate to the principles set forth in the present Charter, in accordance with the following rules:

(a) Living resources shall not be utilized in excess of their natural capacity for regeneration;

(b) The productivity of soils shall be maintained or enhanced through measures which safeguard their long-term fertility and the process of organic decomposition, and prevent erosion and all other forms of degradation;

(c) Resources, including water, which are not consumed as they are used shall be reused or recycled;

(d) Non-renewable resources which are consumed as they are used shall be exploited with restraint, taking into account their abundance, the rational possibilities of converting them for consumption, and the compatibility of their exploitation with the functioning of natural systems.

11. Activities which might have an impact on nature shall be controlled, and the best available technologies that minimize significant risks to nature or other adverse effects shall be used; in particular:

(a) Activities which are likely to cause irreversible damage to nature shall be avoided;

(b) Activities which are likely to pose a significant risk to nature shall be preceded by an exhaustive examination; their proponents shall demonstrate that expected benefits outweigh potential damage to nature, and where potential adverse effects are not fully understood, the activities should not proceed;

(c) Activities which may disturb nature shall be preceded by assessment of their consequences, and environmental impact studies of development projects shall be conducted sufficiently in advance, and if they are to be undertaken, such activities shall be planned and carried out so as to minimize potential adverse effects;

(d) Agriculture, grazing, forestry and fisheries practices shall be adapted to the natural characteristics and constraints of given areas;

(e) Areas degraded by human activities shall be rehabilitated for purposes in accord with their natural potential and compatible with the well-being of affected populations.

12. Discharge of pollutants into natural systems shall be avoided and:

(a) Where this is not feasible, such pollutants shall be treated at the source, using the best practicable means available;

(b) Special precautions shall be taken to prevent discharge of radioactive or toxic wastes.

13. Measures intended to prevent, control or limit natural disasters, infestations and diseases shall be specifically directed to the causes of these scourges and shall avoid adverse side-effects on nature.

III. IMPLEMENTATION

14. The principles set forth in the present Charter shall be reflected in the law and practice of each State, as well as at the international level.

15. Knowledge of nature shall be broadly disseminated by all possible means, particularly by ecological education as an integral part of general education.

16. All planning shall include, among its essential elements, the formulation of strategies for the conservation of nature, the establishment of inventories of ecosystems and assessments of the effects on nature of proposed policies and activities; all of these elements shall be disclosed to the public by appropriate means in time to permit effective consultation and participation.

17. Funds, programmes and administrative structures necessary to achieve the objective of the conservation of nature shall be provided.

18. Constant efforts shall be made to increase knowledge of nature by scientific research and to disseminate such knowledge unimpeded by restrictions of any kind.

19. The status of natural processes, ecosystems and species shall be closely monitored to enable early detection of degradation or threat, ensure timely intervention and facilitate the evaluation of conservation policies and methods.

20. Military activities damaging to nature shall be avoided.

21. States and, to the extent they are able, other public authorities, international organizations, individuals, groups and corporations shall:

(a) Co-operate in the task of conserving nature through common activities and other relevant actions, including information exchange and consultations;

(b) Establish standards for products and manufacturing processes that may have adverse effects on nature, as well as agreed methodologies for assessing these effects;

(c) Implement the applicable international legal provisions for the conservation of nature and the protection of the environment;

(d) Ensure that activities within their jurisdictions or control do not cause damage to the natural systems located within other States or in the areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction;

(e) Safeguard and conserve nature in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

22. Taking fully into account the sovereignty of States over their natural resources, each State shall give effect to the provisions of the present Charter through its competent organs and in co-operation with other States.

23. All persons, in accordance with their national legislation, shall have the opportunity to participate, individually or with others, in the formulation of decisions of direct concern to their environment, and shall have access to means of redress when their environment has suffered damage or degradation.

24. Each person has a duty to act in accordance with the provisions of the present Charter; acting individually, in association with others or through participation in the political process, each person shall strive to ensure that the objectives and requirements of the present Charter are met.

This is a very fine collection of essays, usable as a text in classes on ecological theologies, theology (at least those that put ecology and pluralism at the center of their concern), and environmental ethics. It is one of the few books that deal with religion and ecology to contain essays from the primal, Western, and Eastern religious traditions and include the liberal democratic tradition. The volume is an indispensable resource. The essays, individually and collectively, advance the discussion in substantial ways. The book is also virtually unique in attempting to connect the more explicitly religious concerns with the United Nations' "World Charter of Nature" and the document ''Caring for the Earth," prepared jointly by IUCN, UNEP, and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

Nevertheless, I experienced frustration and incompleteness in reading and rereading this volume. While the need to see the environmental crisis as a religious problem cannot be stressed enough, my reaction, to allude to the immortal words of that eminent North American thinker, Yogi Berra, was, "It's deja vu all over again!" I remember well attending conferences and seminars addressing similar themes over twenty years ago! The gist of my criticism is that the book does not address more concretely and specifically some of the issues -- free trade, animal rights, deep ecology -- alluded to in some of the papers and documents presented. The use of sexist language by some of the authors I found anachronistic and irritating.

Of course, no book can possibly do everything or address every need. My criticism is intended, in a highly appreciative vein, as an urging to Rockefeller and Elder for another symposium on religion and concrete issues of eco-justice, with the hope that the papers will be of as high quality as those contained in this volume.

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World Charter for Nature.
Publisher: UN General Assembly
Author: UN General Assembly (37th sess.: 1982-1983)
Publication Date: 28 October 1982
Cite as: UN General Assembly, World Charter for Nature, 28 October 1982, A/RES/37/7, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3b00f22a10.html [accessed 6 May 2020]

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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-- Planet of the Humans, written, produced and directed by Jeff Gibbs

The General Assembly,

Having considered the report of the Secretary-General on the revised draft World Charter for Nature,14

Recalling that, in its resolution 35/7 of 30 October 1980, it expressed its conviction that the benefits which could be obtained from nature depended on the maintenance of natural processes and on the diversity of life forms and that those benefits were jeopardized by the excessive exploitation and the destruction of natural habitats,

Further recalling that, in the same resolution, it recognized the need for appropriate measures at the national and international levels to protect nature and promote international co-operation in that field,

Recalling that, in its resolution 36/6 of 27 October 1981, it again expressed its awareness of the crucial importance attached by the international community to the promotion and development of co-operation aimed at protecting and safeguarding the balance and quality of nature and invited the Secretary-General to transmit to Member States the text of the revised version of the draft World Charter for Nature contained in the report of the Ad Hoc Group of Experts on the draft World Charter for Nature,15 as well as any further observations by States, with a view to appropriate consideration by the General Assembly at its thirty-seventh session,

Conscious of the spirit and terms of its resolutions 35/7 and 36/6, in which it solemnly invited Member States, in the exercise of their permanent sovereignty over their natural resources, to conduct their activities in recognition of the supreme importance of protecting natural systems, maintaining the balance and quality of nature and conserving natural resources, in the interests of present and future generations,

Having considered the supplementary report of the Secretary-General,16

Expressing its gratitude to the Ad Hoc Group of Experts which, through its work, has assembled the necessary elements for the General Assembly to be able to complete the consideration of and adopt the revised draft World Charter for Nature at its thirty-seventh session, as it had previously recommended,

Adopts and solemnly proclaims the World Charter for Nature contained in the annex to the present resolution.

48th plenary meeting
28 October 1982

_______________

Notes:

14. A/36/539.
15. Ibid., annex 1.
16. A/37/398 and Add.1.

ANNEX

World Charter for Nature

The General Assembly,

Reaffirming the fundamental purposes of the United Nations, in particular the maintenance of international peace and security, the development of friendly relations among nations and the achievement of international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, technical, intellectual or humanitarian character,

Aware that:

(a) Mankind is a part of nature and life depends on the uninterrupted functioning of natural systems which ensure the supply of energy and nutrients,

(b) Civilization is rooted in nature, which has shaped human culture and influenced all artistic and scientific achievement, and living in harmony with nature gives man the best opportunities for the development of his creativity, and for rest and recreation,

Convinced that:

(a) Every form of life is unique, warranting respect regardless of its worth to man, and, to accord other organisms such recognition, man must be guided by a moral code of action,

(b) Man can alter nature and exhaust natural resources by his action or its consequences and, therefore, must fully recognize the urgency of maintaining the stability and quality of nature and of conserving natural resources,

Persuaded that:

(a) Lasting benefits from nature depend upon the maintenance of essential ecological processes and life support systems, and upon the diversity of life forms, which are jeopardized through excessive exploitation and habitat destruction by man,

(b) The degradation of natural systems owing to excessive consumption and misuse of natural resources, as well as to failure to establish an appropriate economic order among peoples and among States, leads to the breakdown of the economic, social and political framework of civilization,

(c) Competition for scarce resources creates conflicts, whereas the conservation of nature and natural resources contributes to justice and the maintenance of peace and cannot be achieved until mankind learns to live in peace and to forsake war and armaments,

Reaffirming that man must acquire the knowledge to maintain and enhance his ability to use natural resources in a manner which ensures the preservation of the species and ecosystems for the benefit of present and future generations,

Firmly convinced of the need for appropriate measures, at the national and international, individual and collective, and private and public levels,to protect nature and promote international co-operation in this field,

Adopts, to these ends, the present World Charter for Nature, which proclaims the following principles of conservation by which all human conduct affecting nature is to be guided and judged.

I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES

1. Nature shall be respected and its essential processes shall not be impaired.

2. The genetic viability on the earth shall not be compromised; the population levels of all life forms, wild and domesticated, must be at least sufficient for their survival, and to this end necessary habitats shall be safeguarded.

3. All areas of the earth, both land and sea, shall be subject to these principles of conservation; special protection shall be given to unique areas, to representative samples of all the different types of ecosystems and to the habitats of rare or endangered species.

4. Ecosystems and organisms, as well as the land, marine and atmospheric resources that are utilized by man, shall be managed to achieve and maintain optimum sustainable productivity, but not in such a way as to endanger the integrity of those other ecosystems or species with which they coexist.

5. Nature shall be secured against degradation caused by warfare or other hostile activities.

II. FUNCTIONS

6. In the decision-making process it shall be recognized that man's needs can be met only by ensuring the proper functioning of natural systems and by respecting the principles set forth in the present Charter.

7. In the planning and implementation of social and economic development activities, due account shall be taken of the fact that the conservation of nature is an integral part of those activities.

8. In formulating long-term plans for economic development, population growth and the improvement of standards of living, due account shall be taken of the long-term capacity of natural systems to ensure the subsistence and settlement of the populations concerned, recognizing that this capacity may be enhanced through science and technology.

9. The allocation of areas of the earth to various uses shall be planned, and due account shall be taken of the physical constraints, the biological productivity and diversity and the natural beauty of the are as concerned.

10. Natural resources shall not be wasted, but used with a restraint appropriate to the principles set forth in the present Charter, in accordance with the following rules:

(a) Living resources shall not be utilized in excess of their natural capacity for regeneration;

(b) The productivity of soils shall be maintained or enhanced through measures which safeguard their long-term fertility and the process of organic decomposition, and prevent erosion and all other forms of degradation;

(c) Resources, including water, which are not consumed as they are used shall be reused or recycled;

(d) Non-renewable resources which are consumed as they are used shall be exploited with restraint, taking into account their abundance, the rational possibilities of converting them for consumption, and the compatibility of their exploitation with the functioning of natural systems.

11. Activities which might have an impact on nature shall be controlled, and the best available technologies that minimize significant risks to nature or other adverse effects shall be used; in particular:

(a) Activities which are likely to cause irreversible damage to nature shall be avoided;

(b) Activities which are likely to pose a significant risk to nature shall be preceded by an exhaustive examination; their proponents shall demonstrate that expected benefits outweigh potential damage to nature, and where potential adverse effects are not fully understood, the activities should not proceed;

(c) Activities which may disturb nature shall be preceded by assessment of their consequences, and environmental impact studies of development projects shall be conducted sufficiently in advance, and if they are to be undertaken, such activities shall be planned and carried out so as to minimize potential adverse effects;

(d) Agriculture, grazing, forestry and fisheries practices shall be adapted to the natural characteristics and constraints of given areas;

(e) Areas degraded by human activities shall be rehabilitated for purposes in accord with their natural potential and compatible with the well-being of affected populations.

12. Discharge of pollutants into natural systems shall be avoided and:

(a) Where this is not feasible, such pollutants shall be treated at the source, using the best practicable means available;

(b) Special precautions shall be taken to prevent discharge of radioactive or toxic wastes.

13. Measures intended to prevent, control or limit natural disasters, infestations and diseases shall be specifically directed to the causes of these scourges and shall avoid adverse side-effects on nature.

III. IMPLEMENTATION

14. The principles set forth in the present Charter shall be reflected in the law and practice of each State, as well as at the international level.

15. Knowledge of nature shall be broadly disseminated by all possible means, particularly by ecological education as an integral part of general education.

16. All planning shall include, among its essential elements, the formulation of strategies for the conservation of nature, the establishment of inventories of ecosystems and assessments of the effects on nature of proposed policies and activities; all of these elements shall be disclosed to the public by appropriate means in time to permit effective consultation and participation.

17. Funds, programmes and administrative structures necessary to achieve the objective of the conservation of nature shall be provided.

18. Constant efforts shall be made to increase knowledge of nature by scientific research and to disseminate such knowledge unimpeded by restrictions of any kind.

19. The status of natural processes, ecosystems and species shall be closely monitored to enable early detection of degradation or threat, ensure timely intervention and facilitate the evaluation of conservation policies and methods.

20. Military activities damaging to nature shall be avoided.

21. States and, to the extent they are able, other public authorities, international organizations, individuals, groups and corporations shall:

(a) Co-operate in the task of conserving nature through common activities and other relevant actions, including information exchange and consultations;

(b) Establish standards for products and manufacturing processes that may have adverse effects on nature, as well as agreed methodologies for assessing these effects;

(c) Implement the applicable international legal provisions for the conservation of nature and the protection of the environment;

(d) Ensure that activities within their jurisdictions or control do not cause damage to the natural systems located within other States or in the areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction;

(e) Safeguard and conserve nature in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

22. Taking fully into account the sovereignty of States over their natural resources, each State shall give effect to the provisions of the present Charter through its competent organs and in co-operation with other States.

23. All persons, in accordance with their national legislation, shall have the opportunity to participate, individually or with others, in the formulation of decisions of direct concern to their environment, and shall have access to means of redress when their environment has suffered damage or degradation.

24. Each person has a duty to act in accordance with the provisions of the present Charter; acting individually, in association with others or through participation in the political process, each person shall strive to ensure that the objectives and requirements of the present Charter are met.

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Earth Charter Initiative
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/6/20

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-- Earth Charter, by Wikipedia

The Earth Charter Initiative
Type: Non-governmental organization
Founded: 2000 [1]
Headquarters: San José, Costa Rica
Area served: Environmentalism
Website http://www.earthcharter.org

The Earth Charter Initiative is the collective name for the global network of people, organizations, and institutions who participate in promoting the Earth Charter, and in implementing its principles in practice. The Initiative is a broad-based, voluntary, civil society effort, but participants include leading international institutions, national government agencies, university associations, NGOs, cities, faith groups, and many well-known leaders in sustainable development.

Mission and goals

The stated mission of the Earth Charter Initiative is to promote the transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework that includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace.

Goals

1. To raise awareness worldwide of the Earth Charter and to promote understanding of its inclusive ethical vision.
2. To seek recognition and endorsement of the Earth Charter by individuals, organizations, and the United Nations.
3. To promote the use of the Earth Charter as an ethical guide and the implementation of its principles by civil society, business, and government.
4. To encourage and support the educational use of the Earth Charter in schools, universities, religious communities, local communities, and many other settings.
5. To promote recognition and use of the Earth Charter as a soft law document.

Strategic objectives

• To promote development of a global network of Earth Charter supporters and activists with the collaboration of advisors, affiliates, partner organizations, and task forces.
• To create and disseminate high quality communications and educational materials to different target groups that will reach millions of people.
• To translate key Earth Charter materials in all major languages of the world.
• To set up Earth Charter websites in all countries in partnership with key individuals and organizations.
• To promote the Earth Charter vision in key local, national and international events and engage individuals and organizations in applying it in their areas of activity.
• To position the Earth Charter in relation to important international initiatives and processes so that its ethical framework can be used as a guide in efforts to address urgent challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, the Millennium Development Goals, food security, and conflict resolution.
• To undertake training programmes to facilitate the uptake and application of the Earth Charter in different sectors.
• To develop the guidance and instruments to help organizations, businesses, and local communities use the Earth Charter to assess progress toward sustainable development.

Organization

A formal network of affiliates, partners, and youth groups helps to promote the Earth Charter around the world. Many of these representatives are based in prominent national-level organizations and institutions.

The Initiative is served and coordinated by Earth Charter International, which is composed by an Executive Office called the ECI Secretariat, and by the ECI Council. The Secretariat is composed by a very small staff, and it is based at the University for Peace campus in San José, Costa Rica. The Council is equivalent to a Board, they meet once a year and provide strategic guidance to the Secretariat and the EC Initiative.

Earth Charter Youth Program

The Earth Charter Youth program is a network of youth NGOs and young activists who share a common interest in sustainable development and the Earth Charter. Severn Cullis-Suzuki from Vancouver, Canada was nominated as youth representative in the Earth Charter Commission, which oversaw the drafting process. At the age of 17, Severn participated in the Earth Summit of 1997 and made sure that concerns of young people were taken seriously in the process of drafting the Earth Charter. She contributed to the inclusion of principle 12c in the final version of the Earth Charter which stresses the need to: “Honor and support the young people of our communities, enabling them to fulfill their essential role in creating sustainable societies.” The launch of the Earth Charter Youth program was inspired by this ethical principle. Today there are two youth representatives on the Earth Charter International Council.

See also

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Earth Day

References

1. FAQs - Earth Charter. (2016). Earth Charter. Retrieved 29 December 2016, from http://earthcharter.org/about-eci/faqs/

External links

• Official website
• The Earth Charter in Action blog

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Brundtland Commission [World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)] [Center For Our Common Future]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/6/20

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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Formerly known as the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), the mission of the Brundtland Commission is to unite countries to pursue sustainable development together. The Chairperson of the Commission, Gro Harlem Brundtland, was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar in December 1983. At the time, the UN General Assembly realized that there was a heavy deterioration of the human environment and natural resources. To rally countries to work and pursue sustainable development together, the UN decided to establish the Brundtland Commission. Gro Harlem Brundtland was the former Prime Minister of Norway and was chosen due to her strong background in the sciences and public health. The Brundtland Commission officially dissolved in December 1987 after releasing Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report, in October 1987. The document popularized (and defined) the term "Sustainable Development". Our Common Future won the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in 1991.[1] The organization Center for Our Common Future was started in April 1988 to take the place of the Commission.

History

Ten years after the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, a number of global environmental challenges had clearly not been adequately addressed. In several ways, these challenges had grown. Particularly, the underlying problem of how to reduce poverty in low-income countries through more productive and industrialized economy without, in the process, exacerbating the global and local environmental burdens, remained unresolved. Neither high-income countries in the North nor low-income countries in the South were willing to give up an economic development based on growth, but environmental threats, ranging from pollution, acid rain, deforestation and desertification, the destruction of the ozone layer, to early signs of climate change, were impossible to overlook and increasingly unacceptable. There was a tangible need for a developmental concept that would allow reconciling economic development with environmental protection. Views differed on several questions: were local environmental problems the result of local developments or of a global economic system that forced particularly low-income countries to destroy their environmental basis? Did environmental burdens result mainly from destructive economic growth-based development or from a lack of economic development and modernization? Would reconciling the economy and the environment require mainly technical means by using more resource-efficient technologies or mainly social and structural changes that would include political decision-making as well as changes in private consumption patterns? The 1980 World Conservation Strategy of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, was the first report that included a very brief chapter on a concept called "sustainable development". It focused on global structural changes and was not widely read. The UN initiated an independent commission, which was asked to provide an analysis of existing problems and ideas for their solution, similar to earlier commissions such as the Independent Commission on International Development Issues (Brandt Commission) and the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues (Palme Commission).[2]

In December 1983, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, asked the former Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, to create an organization independent of the UN to focus on environmental and developmental problems and solutions after an affirmation by the General Assembly resolution in the fall of 1983.[3] This new organization was the Brundtland Commission, or more formally, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). The Brundtland Commission was first headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland as Chairman and Mansour Khalid as Vice-Chairman.

The organization aimed to create a united international community with shared sustainability goals by identifying sustainability problems worldwide, raising awareness about them, and suggesting the implementation of solutions. In 1987, the Brundtland Commission published the first volume of “Our Common Future,” the organization's main report. “Our Common Future” strongly influenced the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992 and the third UN Conference on Environment and Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002. Also, it is credited with crafting the most prevalent definition of sustainability, as seen below.[4]

Events before Brundtland

During the 1980s it had been revealed that the World Bank had started to experience an expanded role in intervening with the economic and social policies of the Third World. This was most notable through the events at Bretton Woods in 1945. The ideas of neoliberalism and the institutions promoting economic globalization dominated the political agenda of the world's then leading trading nations: the United States under President Ronald Reagan and the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, both classical liberals.

The Brundtland Report was intended as a response to the conflict between the nascent order promoting globalized economic growth and the accelerating ecological degradation occurring on a global scale. The challenge posed in the 1980s was to harmonize prosperity with ecology. This postulated finding the means to continue economic growth without undue harm to the environment. To address the urgent needs of developing countries (Third World), the United Nations saw a need to strike a better balance of human and environmental well-being. This was to be achieved by redefining the concepts of "economic development" as the new idea of "sustainable development" - as it was called in the Brundtland Report.[5]

To understand this paradigm shift, we start with the meaning of the key term: development

Resolution establishing the Commission

The 1983 General Assembly passed Resolution 38/161 "Process of preparation of the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond", establishing the Commission.[6] In A/RES/38/161, the General Assembly:

"8. Suggests that the Special Commission, when established, should focus mainly on the following terms of reference for its work:

(a) To propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development to the year 2000 and beyond;

(b) To recommend ways in which concern for the environment may be translated into greater co-operation among developing countries and between countries at different stages of economic and social development and lead to the achievement of common and mutually supportive objectives which take account of the interrelationships between people, resources, environment and development;

(c) To consider ways and means by which the international community can deal more effectively with environmental concerns, in the light of the other recommendations in its report;

(d) To help to define shared perceptions of long-term environmental issues and of the appropriate efforts needed to deal successfully with the problems of protecting and enhancing the environment, a long-term agenda for action during the coming decades, and aspirational goals for the world community, taking into account the relevant resolutions of the session of a special character of the Governing Council in 1982;"[6]

Modern definition of sustainable development

Main article: Sustainable development

The Brundtland Commission draws upon several notions in its definition of sustainable development, which is the most frequently cited definition of the concept to date.

A key element in the definition is the unity of environment and development. The Brundtland Commission argues against the assertions of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment and provides an alternative perspective on sustainable development, unique from that of the 1980 World Conservation Strategy of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The Brundtland Commission pushed for the idea that while the "environment" was previously perceived as a sphere separate from human emotion or action, and while "development" was a term habitually used to describe political goals or economic progress, it is more comprehensive to understand the two terms in relation to each other (We can better understand the environment in relation to development and we can better understand development in relation to the environment, because they cannot and should not be distinguished as separate entities). Brundtland argues:

"...the "environment" is where we live; and "development" is what we all do in attempting to improve our lot within that abode. The two are inseparable."

The Brundtland Commission insists upon the environment being something beyond physicality, going beyond that traditional school of thought to include social and political atmospheres and circumstances. It also insists that development is not just about how poor countries can ameliorate their situation, but what the entire world, including developed countries, can do to ameliorate our common situation.

The term sustainable development was coined in the paper Our Common Future, released by the Brundtland Commission. Sustainable development is the kind of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The two key concepts of sustainable development are: • the concept of "needs" in particular the essential needs of the world's poorest people, to which they should be given overriding priority; and • the idea of limitations which is imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet both present and future needs.[7]

Most agree that the central idea of the Brundtland Commission's definition of "sustainable development" is that of intergenerational equity. In sum, the "needs" are basic and essential, economic growth will facilitate their fulfillment, and equity is encouraged by citizen participation. Therefore, another characteristic that really sets this definition apart from others is the element of humanity that the Brundtland Commission integrates.

The particular ambiguity and openness-to-interpretation of this definition has allowed for widespread support from diverse efforts, groups and organizations. However, this has also been a criticism; perceived by some notable commentators as "self-defeating and compromised rhetoric".[8] It nonetheless lays out a core set of guiding principles that can be enriched by an evolving global discourse. As a result of the work of the Brundtland Commission, the issue of sustainable development is on the agenda of numerous international and national institutions, as well as corporations and city efforts. The definition gave light to new perspectives on the sustainability of an ever-changing planet with an ever-changing population.

-Brundtland commission (Our Common Future) The Report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, was published by Oxford University Press in 1987, and was welcomed by the General Assembly Resolution 42/187. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, General Assembly Resolution 42/187, 11 December 1987. One version with links to cited documents Our Common Future, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987. Published as Annex to General Assembly document A/42/427, Development and International Co-operation is available.

The document was the culmination of a “900-day” international-exercise which catalogued, analysed, and synthesised written submissions and expert testimony from “senior government representatives, scientists and experts, research institutes, industrialists, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and the general public” held at public hearings throughout the world.

The Brundtland Commission's mandate was to: “[1] re-examine the critical issues of environment and development and to formulate innovative, concrete, and realistic action proposals to deal with them; [2] strengthen international cooperation on environment and development and assess and propose new forms of cooperation that can break out of existing patterns and influence policies and events in the direction of needed change; and [3] raise the level of understanding and commitment to action on the part of individuals, voluntary organizations, businesses, institutes, and governments” (1987: 347). “The Commission focused its attention on the areas of population, food security, the loss of species and genetic resources, energy, industry, and human settlements - realizing that all of these are connected and cannot be treated in isolation one from another” (1987: 27).

The Brundtland Commission Report recognised that human resource development in the form of poverty reduction, gender equity, and wealth redistribution was crucial to formulating strategies for environmental conservation, and it also recognised that environmental-limits to economic growth in industrialised and industrialising societies existed. As such, the Report offered “the analysis, the broad remedies, and the recommendations for a sustainable course of development” within such societies (1987:16). The report deals with sustainable development and the change of politics needed for achieving it. The definition of this term in the report is quite well known and often cited:

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". It contains two key concepts:

• the concept of "needs", in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
• the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs."

Structure

The Brundtland Commission was chaired by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. Politicians, civil servants, and environmental experts make up the majority of the members. Members of the commission represent 21 different nations (both developed and developing countries are included). Many of the members are important political figures in their home country. One example is William Ruckelshaus, former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. All members of the commission were appointed by both Gro Harlem Brundtland and Mansour Khalid, the Chairman and Vice Chairman.

The commission focuses on setting up networks to promote environmental stewardship. Most of these networks make connections between governments and non-government entities. One such network is Bill Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development. In this council government and business leaders come together to share ideas on how to encourage sustainable development. The Brundtland Commission has been the most successful in forming international ties between governments and multinational corporations. The 1992 and 2002 Earth Summits were the direct result of the Brundtland Commission. The international structure and scope of the Brundtland Commission allow multiple problems (such as deforestation and ozone depletion) to be looked at from a holistic approach.[9]

Sustainability efforts

The three main pillars of sustainable development include economic growth, environmental protection, and social equality. While many people agree that each of these three ideas contribute to the overall idea of sustainability, it is difficult to find evidence of equal levels of initiatives for the three pillars in countries' policies worldwide. With the overwhelming number of countries that put economic growth on the forefront of sustainable development, it is evident that the other two pillars have been suffering, especially with the overall well being of the environment in a dangerously unhealthy state. The Brundtland Commission has put forth a conceptual framework that many nations agree with and want to try to make a difference with in their countries, but it has been difficult to change these concepts about sustainability into concrete actions and programs. Implementing sustainable development globally is still a challenge, but because of the Brundtland Commission's efforts, progress has been made. After releasing their report, Our Common Future, the Brundtland Commission called for an international meeting to take place where more concrete initiatives and goals could be mapped out. This meeting was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A comprehensive plan of action, known as Agenda 21, came out of the meeting. Agenda 21 entailed actions to be taken globally, nationally, and locally in order to make life on Earth more sustainable going into the future.[10]

Economic Growth

Economic Growth is the pillar that most groups focus on when attempting to attain more sustainable efforts and development. In trying to build their economies, many countries focus their efforts on resource extraction, which leads to unsustainable efforts for environmental protection as well as economic growth sustainability. While the Commission was able to help to change the association between economic growth and resource extraction, the total worldwide consumption of resources is projected to increase in the future. So much of the natural world has already been converted into human use that the focus cannot simply remain on economic growth and omit the ever-growing problem of environmental sustainability. Agenda 21 reinforces the importance of finding ways to generate economic growth without hurting the environment. Through various trade negotiations such as improving access to markets for exports of developing countries, Agenda 21 looks to increase economic growth sustainability in countries that need it most.[11]

Environmental Protection

Environmental Protection has become more important to government and businesses over the last 20 years, leading to great improvements in the number of people willing to invest in green technologies. For the second year in a row in 2010, the United States and Europe added more power capacity from renewable sources such as wind and solar. In 2011 the efforts continue with 45 new wind energy projects beginning in 25 different states.[12] The focus on environmental protection has transpired globally as well, including a great deal of investment in renewable energy power capacity. Eco-city development occurring around the world helps to develop and implement water conservation, smart grids with renewable energy sources, LED street lights and energy efficient building. The consumption gap remains, consisting of the fact that "roughly 80 percent of the natural resources used each year are consumed by about 20 percent of the world's population". This level is striking and still needs to be addressed now and throughout the future.[13]

Social Equality

The Social Equality and Equity as pillars of sustainable development focus on the social well-being of people. The growing gap between incomes of rich and poor is evident throughout the world with the incomes of the richer households increasing relative to the incomes of middle - or lower-class households. This is attributed partly to the land distribution patterns in rural areas where majority live from land. Global inequality has been declining, but the world is still extremely unequal, with the richest 1% of the world's population owning 40% of the world's wealth and the poorest 50% owning around 1%. The Brundtland Commission made a significant impact trying to link environment and development and thus, go away from the idea of environmental protection whereby some scholars saw environment as something of its sake. The Commission has thus reduced the number of people living on less than a dollar a day to just half of what it used to be, as many can approach the environment and use it. These achievements can also be attributed to economic growth in China and India.[13]

Members of the Commission

• Chairman: Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway)
• Vice Chairman: Mansour Khalid (Sudan)
• Susanna Agnelli (Italy)
• Saleh A. Al-Athel (Saudi Arabia)
• Pablo Gonzalez Casanova (Mexico) (ceased to participate in August 1986 for personal reasons)
• Bernard Chidzero (Zimbabwe)
• Lamine Mohammed Fadika (Côte d'Ivoire)
• Volker Hauff (Federal Republic of Germany)
• István Láng (Hungary)
• Ma Shijun (People's Republic of China)[14]
• Margarita Marino de Botero (Colombia)
• Nagendra Singh (India)
• Paulo Nogueira Neto (Brazil)
• Saburo Okita (Japan)
• Shridath S. Ramphal (Guyana)
• William D. Ruckelshaus (USA)
• Mohamed Sahnoun (Algeria)
• Emil Salim (Indonesia)
• Bukar Shaib (Nigeria)
• Vladimir Sokolov (USSR)
• Janez Stanovnik (Yugoslavia)
• Maurice Strong (Canada)

Ex Officio

• Jim MacNeill (Canada)[15]

Staff of the Commission

In May 1984. an Organizational Meeting of the Commission was held in Geneva to adopt its rules of procedure and operation and to appoint a Secretary General to guide its work. In July 1984, a Secretariat was established in Geneva, temporarily at the Centre de Morillon and later at the Palais Wilson. Members of the Secretariat have included:[16]
Secretary General: Jim MacNeill

See also

• Agenda 21
• Our Common Future
• Sustainability
• Sustainable Development
• Nuclear power proposed as renewable energy

References

1. "1991- The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development". Archived from the original on 2013-11-03.
2. Iris Borowy, Defining Sustainable Development: the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission), Milton Park: earthscan/Routledge, 2014.
3. "History of Sustainability". epa.gov. Archived from the original on 2 May 2013. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
4. "This Norwegian's past may connect with your future". 23 June 2010. Archived from the original on 23 June 2010. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
5. "ProfWork / PreludeToBrundtland". pbworks.com. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 18 January2017.
6. Jump up to:a b United Nations. 1983. "Process of preparation of the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond."Archived 2017-07-12 at the Wayback Machine General Assembly Resolution 38/161, 19 December 1983. Retrieved: 2007-04-11.
7. Francis, Environment Magazine - Taylor and. "Environment Magazine - What Is Sustainable Development? Goals, Indicators, Values, and Practice". environmentmagazine.org. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 18 January2017.
8. Manns, .J., "Beyond Brudtland's Compromise", Town & Country Planning, August 2010, pp.337-340 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-04-16. Retrieved 2015-04-16.
9. "Wayback Machine" (PDF). archive.org. 17 April 2012. Archived from the original on 17 April 2012. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
10. "DSD :: Resources - Publications - Core Publications". 5 April 2012. Archived from the original on 5 April 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
11. "DSD :: Resources - Publications - Core Publications". 8 April 2012. Archived from the original on 8 April 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
12. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-01-18. Retrieved 2011-12-17.
13. Jump up to:a b "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-21. Retrieved 2017-06-28.
14. "Ma Shijun | University of Minnesota China Office". china.umn.edu.
15. Wikisource:Brundtland Report
16. Development, World Commission on Environment and. "Our Common Future, Annexe 2: The Commission and its Work - A/42/427 Annex, Annexe 2 - UN Documents: Gathering a body of global agreements". un-documents.net. Archived from the original on 14 April 2017. Retrieved 18 January 2017.

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Part 1 of 2

Is There a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature?
in Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Ryúken Williams, eds. Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, 1997.
by Malcolm David Eckel
1997

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-- Dictionary.com

"When there is no ego or selfishness, there is nothing that will destroy nature, nothing that will exploit and abuse nature." This is about as practical as visualizing whirled peas. Of course a planet full of egoless beings wouldn't damage anything. They would probably all just sit around and turn into a bowl of jelly. Nobody even knows what it means to be without an ego except this man. How can this be a prescription for saving the ecology of the world? Ah, he explains it here. Once we have no egos then "the external, physical aspect of nature will be able to conserve itself automatically." Right, even with 5 Billion egoless beings eating, driving cars, burning fossil fuels, and polluting the seas.

Now, for the happy close-out. "When Buddhists remember that the Buddha was born under and among trees, awaking while sitting under a tree, taught in the outdoors sitting among trees and, in the end, passed away into parinirvana beneath some trees, it is impossible not to love trees and not to want to conserve them." Very comforting, except that Nepal is a very Buddhist country, and despite all the tree lovers there, there is nary a tree to be found. The Thais started out with more trees, but will end up with just about as many as the Nepalese if they keep it up, notwithstanding their being Buddhist.

All of these problems, of course, are the outward projection of inner "defilements" that disturb the "mind's natural ecology....like evil spirits or demons that destroy the mind's natural state." Yes, but that doesn't mean that corporate executives with planet raping on their mind, and military leaders who bomb first and ask questions later are just figments of our neurotic imagination. They are real people who will not go away simply because we meditate effectively.

The speaker is comforted because he looks out and sees that "the entire cosmos is a cooperative system." He needs a bigger telescope. Looking through the Hubble, scientists have discovered the universe is a demolition derby among celestial bodies of vastly different size and speed. Tiny black holes can rape a red giant down to nothing. Every 10,000 years or so our solar system dips through part of the spiral arm of the milky way galaxy where lots of big, fast-moving stars and space junk proliferate, and we're lucky we don't have an interstellar collision every damn time it does that. The speaker suggests we "bring back the cooperative in the form of comrades sharing birth, aging, illness, and death." That's hard to argue with, but then he concludes by saying "then we will have plenty of time to create the best ecology." This seems to suggest that we can complacently wait until we get our mind and society sorted out before we tackle the problem of the world's degrading physical condition.

I would say quite the contrary. Whenever you get around to realizing the nature of the universe in your own mind, it will still be there. If we wait too many more years before addressing the ecological problems afflicting the earth, it will be too late. So what would you do first?

-- The Misuse of Western Terms by Eastern Mystics, by Charles Carreon

One of the most common and enduring stereotypes in environmental literature is the idea that Eastern religions promote a sense of harmony between human beings and nature. On the other side of the stereotype stand the religions of the West, promoting the separation of human beings and nature and encouraging acts of domination, exploitation, and control. Roderick Nash gave classic expression to this contrast when he said: "Ancient Eastern cultures are the source of respect for and religious veneration of the natural world" and "In the Far East the man-nature relationship was marked by respect, bordering on love, absent in the West."1 Y. Murota drew a similar contrast between Japanese attitudes toward nature and the attitudes he felt are operative in the West: "the Japanese view of nature is quite different from that of Westerners ... For the Japanese nature is an all-pervasive force ... Nature is at once a blessing and a friend to the Japanese people ... People in Western cultures, on the other hand, view nature as an object and, often, as an entity set in opposition to mankind."2

This contrast between the East and the West owes much of its influence in recent environmental literature to the seminal article by Lynn White, Jr., "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis."3 White depicted the Judeo-Christian tradition as anthropocentric and argued that Judeo-Christian anthropocentrism stripped nature of its sacred status and exposed it to human exploitation and control. While he did not comment at great length about the Eastern traditions, he clearly understood them as the opposite of the traditions of the West.

The beatniks and hippies, who are the basic revolutionaries of our time, show a sound instinct in their affinity for Zen Buddhism and Hinduism, which conceive of the man-nature relationship as very nearly the mirror image of the Christian view.

White's image of the contrast between East and West was taken up in the same journal seven years later, by the Japanese historian Masao Watanabe.4 Watanabe associated the Japanese people with "a refined appreciation of the beauty of nature" and said that "the art of living in harmony with nature was considered their wisdom of life." White's image continues to be reflected by some of the best known contemporary writers in the environmental movement. In a recent collection of essays, Gary Snyder, the venerable and respected survivor of Lynn White's "beatniks and hippies," drew a series of graceful connections between Henry David Thoreau's concept of the "wild," the Taoist concept of the Tao, and the Buddhist concept of Dharma:

Most of the senses of this second set of definitions [of the wild] come very close to being how the Chinese define the term Dao, the way of Great Nature: eluding analysis, beyond categories, self-organizing, self-informing, playful, surprising, impermanent, insubstantial, independent, complete, orderly, unmediated, freely manifesting, self-authenticating, self-willed, complex, quite simple. Both empty and real at the same time. In some cases we might call it sacred. It is not far from the Buddhist term Dharma with its original sense of forming and firming.5

This image of an affirmative Eastern attitude toward nature must have lurked in the minds of the environmental activists and friends of the environment who gathered at Middlebury College in the fall of 1990 to hear the 14th Dalai Lama speak on the topic of "Spirit and Nature." Tibet, like traditional Japan, has been the focus of a certain Western yearning for the East as a place to discover not only a unique sense of wisdom (what one observer called "an intimate and creative relationship with the vast and profound secrets of the human soul") but a wisdom that can insure "the future survival of Earth itself."6 There was a hush in the Middlebury field house as the Dalai Lama seated himself on the stage and began to speak.7 It must have been a surprise when he began by saying that he had nothing to offer to those who came expecting to hear about ecology or the environment, and even more surprising when he interpreted the word "nature" as a reference to "the fundamental nature of all reality" and entered into a discourse on the Buddhist concept of Emptiness. To explain the connection between nature and Emptiness, he said: "When talking about the fundamental nature of reality, one could sum up the entire understanding of that nature in a simple verse: 'Form is emptiness and emptiness is form' (The Heart Sutra). This simple line sums up the Buddhist understanding of the fundamental nature of reality."8 And he went on to explain how Tibetan philosophers use logical analysis to develop their view of Emptiness and to pursue what he said was the "expressed aim of Buddhism," namely, the purification and development of the mind.

The Dalai Lama's words were surprising not because he seemed unfriendly toward the "natural" world in the prevailing sense of the word (that is, toward ecosystems of plants, animals, the atmosphere, the ocean, rivers, mountains and so on), but because he so gently and easily shifted attention away from the natural world toward the development of human nature and the purification of the mind. The sense of surprise only became more acute when he began to develop the concept of Emptiness and indicated that it involved a denial of the reality of what he took to be "nature" itself. To say that "Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form," in the language of Mahayana philosophy, is to say that all things are "empty" of any inherent "nature" or identity.9 The purification of the mind, which the Dalai Lama called the "expressed aim of Buddhism," comes from stripping away false concepts of the "nature" of things and resting content with their Emptiness. In other words, "nature" (in one possible meaning of the word) may very well be a barrier to overcome in a quest for human development.

What should we make of the gap between the Dalai Lama's words and the conventional image of the Buddhist attitude toward nature? Does the Dali Lama see something in the Buddhist tradition that others do not? Is the image of Buddhism as an ecologically friendly tradition simply an artifact of the Western imagination?

Buddhist Theory of the Universe.

In sketching the Buddhist world-system, with its "antres vast and deserts idle," existing mostly on the map of the imagination, it is deemed advisable, in order to avoid needless repetition, to give at once the Lamaist version, even though this is slightly more "developed" than the cosmogony of Buddha's day; although it cannot be very different after all, for the Lamaist accounts of it are in close keeping with the Barhut lithic remains, and almost identical with the versions found among the Ceylonese and other Buddhists of the south, and the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists.

This, our human, world is only one of a series (the others being fabulous) which together form a universe or chiliocosm, of which there are many.

Each universe, set in unfathomable space, rests upon a warp and woof of "blue air"or wind, liked crossed thunderbolts (vajra), hard and imperishable as diamonds (vajra?), upon which is set "the body of the waters," upon which is a foundation of gold, on which is set the earth, from the axis of which towers up the great Olympus— Mt. Meru (Su-meru, Tib., Ri-rab) 84,000 miles high, surmounted by the heavens, and overlying the hills.

In the ocean around this central mountain, the axis of the universe, are set (see figures) the four great continental worlds with their satellites, all with bases of solid gold in the form of a tortoise — as this is a familiar instance to the Hindu mind of a solid floating on the waters. And the continents are separated from Mt. Meru by seven concentric rings of golden mountains, the inmost being 40,000 miles high, and named "The Yoke" (Yugandara), alternating with seven oceans, of fragrant milk, curds, butter, blood or sugar-cane juice, poison or wine, fresh water and salt water. These oceans diminish in width and depth from within outwards from 20,000 to 625 miles, and in the outer ocean lie the so-called continental worlds. And the whole system is girdled externally by a double iron-wall (Cakravata) 312-1/2 miles high and 3,602,625 miles in circumference, — for the oriental mythologist is nothing if not precise. This wall shuts out the light of the sun and moon, whose orbit is the summit of the inmost ring of mountains, along which the sun, composed of "glazed fire" enshrined in a crystal palace, is driven in a chariot with ten (seven) horses; and the moon, of "glazed water," in a silver shrine drawn by seven horses, and between these two hang the jewelled umbrella of royalty and the banner of victory, as shown in the figure. And inhabiting the air, on a level with these, are the eight angelic or fairy mothers. Outside the investing wall of the universe all is void and in perpetual darkness until another universe is reached.

Of the four "continents" all except "Jambudvipa" are fabulous. They are placed exactly one in each of the four directions, and each has a smaller satellite on either side, thus bringing the total up to twelve. And the shapes given to these continents, namely, crescentic, triangular, round, and square, are evidently symbolic of the four elements.

These continents, shown in the annexed figure, are thus described: —

On the East is Videha, or "vast body" (P). This is shaped like the crescent moon, and is white in colour. It is 9,000 miles in diameter, and the inhabitants are described as tranquil and mild, and of excellent conduct, and with faces of same shape as this continent, i.e., crescentic like the moon.

On the South is Jamudvipa (F), or our own world, and its centre is the Bodhi-tree at Budh Gaya. It is shaped like the shoulder-blade of a sheep, this idea being evidently suggested by the shape of the Indian peninsula which was the prototype of Jambudvipa, as Mt. Kailas in the Himalayas and N.E. of India was that of Mt. Meru. It is blue in colour; and it is the smallest of all, being only 7,000 miles in diameter. Here abound riches and sin as well as virtue. The inhabitants have faces of similar shape to that of their continent, i.e., somewhat triangular.

On the West is Godhanya, or "wealth of oxen" (I), which in shape is like the sun and red in colour. It is 8,000 miles in diameter. Its inhabitants are extremely powerful, and (as the name literally means, cow + ox + action) they are believed to be specially addicted to eating cattle, and their faces are round like the sun.

On the North is Uttara-Kuru, or "northern Kuru" -tribe (M), of square shape and green in colour, and the largest of all the continents, being 10,000 miles in diameter. Its inhabitants are extremely fierce and noisy. They have square faces like horses; and live on trees, which supply all their wants. They become tree-spirits on their death; and these trees afterwards emit "bad sounds " (this is evidently, like many of the other legends, due to a puerile and false interpretation of the etymology of the word).

The satellite continents resemble their parent one in shape, and each is half its size. The left satellite of Jambudvip, namely, "The ox-tail-whisk continent," is the fabulous country of the Rakshas, to which Padma-Sambhava is believed to have gone and to be still reigning there. And each of the latter presents towards Mount Meru one of the following divine objects respectively, viz., on the east (? south) the mountain of jewels, named Amo-likha, shaped like an elephant's head, and on the south, the wish-granting tree, on the west the wish-granting cow, and on the north the self-sprung crops.

In the very centre of this cosmic system stands ''The king of mountains," Mount Meru, towering erect "like the handle of a mill-stone," while half-way up its side is the great wishing tree, the prototype of our "Christmas tree," and the object of contention between the gods and the Titans. Meru has square sides of gold and jewels. Its eastern face is crystal (or silver), the south is sapphire or lapis lazuli (vaidurya) stone, the west is ruby (padmaraga), and the north is gold, and it is clothed with fragrant flowers and shrubs. It has four lower compartments before the heavens are reached. The lowest of these is inhabited by the Yaksha genii — holding wooden plates. Above this is "the region of the wreath-holders" (Skt., Srag-dhara), which seems to be a title of the bird-like, or angelic winged Garudas. Above this dwell the "eternally exalted ones," above whom are the Titans.

The Titans.

The Titans (Asura) or "ungodly spirits."

These are pictured in the "Wheel of Life" (at page 108), in the upper right section. Their leading trait is pride, and this is the world of rebirth for those who, during their human career, have boasted of being more pious than their neighbours. The Titans were originally gods; but, through their pride, they were, like Satan, expelled from heaven; hence their name, which means "not a god." And their position at the base of the Mount Meru is intermediate between heaven and earth.

The duration of their life is infinitely greater than the human, and they have great luxury and enjoyment; but in pride they envy the greater bliss of the gods, and die prematurely, fighting vainly against the gods for the fruits of the heavenly tree and the divine nectar.

Their region is represented in the picture, of an almost colourless atmosphere. They live in fortified houses. The ground, both inside and outside the fort, is carpeted with flowers of which the inhabitants, male and female, make the wreaths and garlands which they wear. They are dressed in silk; and when the heroes are not engaged in fighting they spend their time in all sorts of gaiety with their wives. In the right-hand corner is shown their birth from a lotus-flower and their obtaining a wish-granting tree and cow. The rest of the picture is devoted to their misery, which consists in their hopeless struggle and fatal conflict with the gods. The commander of the forces is seen in conclave with his leaders, horses are being saddled and the "heroes" are arming themselves with coats of mail and weapons. Another scene shows the battle raging along the border separating their county from heaven, and the general mounted with his staff as spectators in the background. The warriors of the first line are all killed or horribly mangled by the thunderbolts and adamantine weapons hurled at them by the gods. One of the weapons possessed alike by gods and Titans is a spiked disc.

The ultimate fate of every Titan is to die painfully warring against the gods with whom they are in constant conflict, and they have no access to the ambrosia with which a wounded god obtains instant recovery. Another scene (see picture on page 102) depicts the womenfolk gathered round "The Reflecting Lake of Perfect Clearness" after the departure of their lords to the battle. In this lake are mirrored forth all the doings and ultimate fate of their absent spouses, and there is also shown the region of re-birth of themselves, which is nearly always hell, owing to the passionate life which they lead in the Asura world. And while their lovers die painful and passionate deaths, the misery of the womanfolk of this world is to look into this fascinating lake and experience the horror of such hideous spectacles. In the picture some women are shown peering into the lake, and others on the banks are giving vent to their grief.  

The Heavens and the Gods.

Above the region of the Titans, at a distance of 168,000 miles, are the bright realms of the gods. In the lowest compartment of the heavens are the four "great guardian kings of the quarters" (Tib.,rgyal-c'en de-z'i; Skt., Catur-Maharaja)...

These great celestial kings guard the heavens from the attacks of the outer demons; and have to be distinguished from a more extended category of guardian gods, the ten Lokpals who guard the world from its ten directions; namely, Indra on the east, Agni (the fire-god) on the south-east, Yama (the death-god) on the south, Rakshas (? Sura) on the south-west, Varuna (the water-god) on the west, Vayu (the wind-god) on the north-west, Yakshas on the north, Soma (the moon) on the north-east, Brahma, above; Bhupati, below....

In the centre of this paradise is the great city of Belle-vue (Sudarsana), within which is the celestial palace of Vaijayanta (Amaravati) the residence of Indra (Jupiter), the king of the gods. It is invested by a wall and pierced by four gates, which are guarded by the four divine kings of the quarters. It is a three-storied building; Indra occupying the basement, Brahma the middle, and the indigenous Tibetan war-god — the dGra-lha — as a gross form of Mara, the god of Desire, the uppermost story. This curious perversion of the old Buddhist order of the heavens is typical of the more sordid devil-worship of the Lamas who, as victory was the chief object of the Tibetans, elevated the war-god to the highest rank in their pantheon, as did the Vikings with Odin where Thor, the thunder-god, had reigned supreme. The passionate war-god of the Tibetans is held to be superior even to the divinely meditative state of the Brahma.

War with the Titans.  

The gods wage war with the Titans, who, as we have seen, are constantly trying to seize some of the precious fruit of the great Yon-du sa-tol (Skt., Parijata) tree, or "tree of the concentrated essence of earth's products," whose branches are in heaven, but whose roots are in their country. The climber which encircles this tree is called the Jambuti tree, and is the medium by which the quintessence of the most rare delicacies of Jambudvip are instilled into the larger tree And the war-god directs the divine army.

To account for the high position thus given to the war-god, it is related that he owes it to the signal assistance rendered by him to the gods in opposing the Asuras.

The misery of the gods.

The god enjoys bliss for almost incalculable time; but when his merit is exhausted then his lake of nectar dries up; his wish-granting tree, cow and horse die; his splendid dress and ornaments grow dim and disappear; his palace gets dilapidated; his flowers and garden fade; his body, no longer bathed by nectar, loses its lustre and sweats like mortals, so that his person becomes loathsome to his goddess-companions and the other gods, who shun him, and so the poor god dies miserably. If he has led a virtuous life during his existence as a god then he may be re-born in heaven, otherwise he goes to a lower region and may even be sent to hell. Buddha was born twenty times as the god Sakra or Indra (Jupiter) and four times as Brahma.

The Buddhist Hell.

The antithesis to heaven is hell, which with its awful lessons looms large on the horizon of the Buddhists. For according to their ethical doctrine of retribution, and in the case of the more theistic developments, their conception of God as the supreme type of right-doing, they picture him like a human judge trying and punishing the evil-doers; although, with truly Buddhist idealism, these tortures are believed by the more philosophical Lamas to be morbid creations of the individual's own ideas, a sort of hellish nightmare. The majority of the Lamas, however, and the laity, believe in the real material character of these hells and their torture.

The Buddhist hell (Naraka) is a true inferno situated in the bowels of the human earth like Hades, and presided over by the Indian Pluto, Yama, the king and judge of the dead, who however is himself finite and periodically tortured. Every day he is forced to swallow molten metal. So, as the shade of Achilles says, "it is better to live on earth as the poorest peasant than to rule as a prince of the dead."...

Hell is divided into numerous compartments, each with a special sort of torture devised to suit the sins to be expiated. Only eight hells are mentioned in the older Buddhist books, but the Lamas and other "northern" Buddhists describe and figure eight hot and eight cold hells and also an outer hell (Pratyeka naraka), through which all those escaping from hell must pass without a guide. The Brahmanical hells are multiples of seven instead of eight; some of them bear the same names as the Buddhists, but they are not systematically arranged, and as the extant lists date no earlier than Manu, about 400 A.D., they are probably in great part borrowed from the Buddhists...

In addition to the hot and cold hells are eighty-four thousand external hells (Ne-ts'e-wa, Skt. ? Lokantarika) situated mostly on the earth, in mountains, deserts, hot springs, and lakes.

Another state of existence, little better than that of hell, is the Preta (Tib., Yi-dag) or Manes, a sort of tantalized ghoul or ghost. This world is placed above hell and below the Sitavan forest, near Rajgriha, in the modern district of Patna in Bengal.

These wretched starvelings are in constant distress through the pangs of hunger and thirst. This is pictured in the Wheel of Life, also in the annexed figure. This is the special torment for those who, in their earthly career, were miserly, covetous, uncharitable, or gluttonous. Jewels, food, and drink are found in plenty, but the Pretas have mouths no bigger than the eye of a needle, and gullets no thicker in diameter than a hair, through which they can never ingest a satisfying amount of food for their huge bodies. And when any food is taken it becomes burning hot, and changes in the stomach into sharp knives, saws, and other weapons, which lacerate their way out from the bowels to the surface, making large painful wounds. They are constantly crying "water, water, give water!" And the thirst is expressed in the picture by a name which is seen to issue from their parched mouths, and whenever they attempt to touch water it changes to liquid fire. Avalokita is frequently figured in the act of giving water to these Pretas to relieve their misery. And a famous story of Buddha credits the great Maudgalyayana, the right-hand disciple of "the Blessed One," with having descended into the Preta-world to relieve his mother. As this story, the Avalambana Sutra, dating to before the third century A.D., gives a very vivid picture of this tantalizing purgatory, and also illustrates the rites for extricating the starveling ghosts,76 it is here appended.

***

The Yoga doctrine of ecstatic union of the individual with the Universal Spirit had been introduced into Hinduism about 150 B.C. by Patanjali... It taught spiritual advancement by means of a self-hypnotizing to be learned by rules. By moral consecration of the individual to Isvara or the Supreme Soul, and mental concentration upon one point with a view to annihilate thought, there resulted the eight great Siddhi or magical powers, namely (1) "the ability to make one's body lighter, or (2) heavier, or (3) smaller, (4) or larger than anything in the world, and (5) to reach any place, or (6) to assume any shape, and (7) control all natural laws, and (8) to make everything depend upon oneself, all at pleasure of will — Iddhi or Riddi." On this basis Asanga, importing Patanjali's doctrine into Buddhism and abusing it, taught that by means of mystic formulas — dharanis (extracts from Mahayana sutras and other scriptures) and mantra (short prayers to deities) — as spells, "the reciting of which should be accompanied by music and certain distortion of the fingers (mudra), a state of mental fixity (samadhi) might be reached characterized by neither thought nor annihilation of thoughts, and consisting of six-fold bodily and mental happiness (Yogi), whence would result endowment with supernatural miracle-working power." These miraculous powers were alleged to be far more efficacious than mere moral virtue, and may be used for exorcism and sorcery, and for purely secular and selfish objects. Those who mastered these practices were called Yogacarya.

***

Even the purest of all the Lamaist sects — the Ge-lug-pa — are thorough-paced devil-worshippers, and value Buddhism chiefly because it gives them the whip-hand over the devils which everywhere vex humanity with disease and disaster, and whose ferocity weighs heavily upon all. The purest Ge-lug-pa Lama on awaking every morning, and before venturing outside his room, fortifies himself against assault by the demons by first of all assuming the spiritual guise of his fearful tutelary, the king of the demons, named Vajrabhairava or Samvara, as figured in the chapter on the pantheon. The Lama, by uttering certain mantras culled from the legendary sayings of Buddha in the Mahayana Tantras, coerces this demon-king into investing the Lama's person with his own awful aspect. Thus when the Lama emerges from his room in the morning, and wherever he travels during the day, he presents spiritually the appearance of the demon-king, and the smaller malignant demons, his would-be assailants, ever on the outlook to harm humanity, being deluded into the belief that the Lama is indeed their own vindictive king, they flee from his presence, leaving the Lama unharmed....

***

LAMAIST mythology is a fascinating field for exploring the primitive conceptions of life, and the way in which the great forces of nature become deified. It also shows the gradual growth of legend and idolatry, with its diagrams of the unknown and fetishes; and how Buddhism with its creative touch bodied forth in concrete shape the abstract conceptions of the learned, and, while incorporating into its pantheon the local gods of the country, it gave milder meanings to the popular myths and legends.

The pantheon is perhaps the largest in the world. It is peopled by a bizarre crowd of aboriginal gods and hydra-headed demons, who are almost jostled off the stage by their still more numerous Buddhist rivals and counterfeits. The mythology, being largely of Buddhist authorship, is full of the awkward forms of Hindu fancy and lacks much of the point, force, and picturesqueness of the myths of Europe. Yet it still contains cruder forms of many of these western myths, and a wealth of imagery...

[T]he earliest Buddhist mythology known to us gives the gods of the Hindus a very prominent place in the system. And while rendering them finite and subject to the general law of metempsychosis, yet so far accepts or tolerates the current beliefs in regard to their influence over human affairs as to render these gods objects of fear and respect, if not of actual adoration by the primitive Buddhists....

In addition to the worship of Buddha, in a variety of forms, the Mahayana school created innumerable metaphysical Buddhas and Bodhisats whom it soon reduced from ideal abstractness to idolatrous form. And it promoted to immortal rank many of the demons of the Sivaist pantheon; and others specially invented by itself as defensores fidei; and to all of these it gave characteristic forms. It also incorporated most of the local deities and demons of those new nations it sought to convert. There is, however, as already noted, reason for believing that many of the current forms of Brahmanical gods were suggested to the Brahmans by antecedent Buddhist forms. And the images have come to be of the most idolatrous kind, for the majority of the Lamas and almost all the laity worship the image as a sort of fetish, holy in itself and not merely as a diagram or symbol of the infinite or unknown.

The Lamaist pantheon, thus derived from so many different sources, is, as may be expected, extremely large and complex. Indeed, so chaotic is its crowd that even the Lamas themselves do not appear to have reduced its members to any generally recognized order, nor even to have attempted complete lists of their motley deities. Though this is probably in part owing to many gods being tacitly tolerated without being specially recognized by the more orthodox Lamas...

Many of the more celebrated idols are believed by the people and the more credulous Lamas to be altogether miraculous in origin— "self-formed," or fallen from heaven ready fashioned...

***

The truly "local gods" or Genii loci, the "foundation owners" of the Tibetans, are located to a particular fixed place, and seldom conceived of as separate from their places. In appearance they are mostly Caliban-like sprites, ill-tempered and spiteful, or demoniacal...

***

[T]he commonest use of sacred symbols is as talismans to ward off the evils of those malignant planets and demons who cause disease and disaster, as well as for inflicting harm on one's enemy. The symbols here are used in a mystical and magic sense as spells and as fetishes, and usually consist of formulas in corrupt and often unintelligible Sanskrit, extracted from the Mahayana and Tantrik scriptures, and called dharani, as they are believed to "hold" divine powers, and are also used as incantations...

The eating of the paper on which a charm has been written is an ordinary way of curing disease, as indeed it had been in Europe till not so many centuries ago, for the mystic Rx heading our prescriptions is generally admitted to have had its origin in the symbol of Saturn, whom it invoked, and the paper on which the symbol and several other mystic signs were inscribed constituted the medicine, and was itself actually eaten by the patient. The spells which the Lamas use in this way as medicine are shown in the annexed print, and are called "the edible letters" (za-yig).

A still more mystical way of applying these remedies is by the washings of the reflection of the writing in a mirror, a practice not without its parallels in other quarters of the globe. Thus to cure the evil eye as shown by symptoms of mind-wandering and dementia condition — called "byad-'grol" — it is ordered as follows: Write with Chinese ink on a piece of wood the particular letters and smear the writing over with myrobalams and saffron as varnish, and every twenty-nine days reflect this inscribed wood in a mirror, and during reflection wash the face of the mirror with beer, and collect a cupful of such beer and drink it in nine sips.

But most of the charms are worn on the person as amulets. Every individual always wears around the neck one or more of these amulets, which are folded up into little cloth-covered packets, bound with coloured threads in a geometrical pattern. Others are kept in small metallic cases of brass, silver, or gold, set with turquoise stones as amulets, and called "Ga-u." These amulets are fastened to the girdle or sash, and the smaller ones are worn as lockets, and with each are put relics of holy men — a few threads or fragments of cast-off robes of saints or idols, peacock feathers, sacred Kusa grass, and occasionally images and holy pills. Other large charms are affixed overhead in the house or tent to ward off lightning, hail, etc., and for cattle special charms are chanted, or sometimes pasted on the walls of the stalls, etc...

***

Kon-ch'og-chi-du, or "sacrifice to the whole assembly of Rare Ones" ... This feast is observed by Lamas of all sects, and is an interesting sample of devil-worship. The old fashion is here detailed, but it differs from that of the reformed or high church only in providing for a slightly larger party of demoniacal guests; the Ge-lug-pa inviting only the following, to wit, their chief Lama, St. Tson-K'a-pa, their tutelary deity Vajra-bhairava, Vajrasattva Buddha, the deified heroes, the fairies, the guardian demons of the Ge-lug-pa creed, the god of wealth, the guardian demons of the caves where the undiscovered revelations are deposited, the five sister sprites of mount Everest, the twelve aerial fiendesses (Tan-ma), who sow disease, and the more important local gods.

***

LIKE most primitive people, the Tibetans believe that the planets and spiritual powers, good and bad, directly exercise a potent influence upon man's welfare and destiny, and that the portending machinations of these powers are only to be foreseen, discerned, and counteracted by the priests.

Such beliefs have been zealously fostered by the Lamas, who have led the laity to understand that it is necessary for each individual to have recourse to the astrologer-Lama or Tsi-pa on each of the three great epochs of life, to wit, birth, marriage, and death: and also at the beginning of each year to have a forecast of the year's ill-fortune and its remedies drawn out for them.

These remedies are all of the nature of rampant demonolatry for the appeasing or coercion of the demons of the air, the earth, the locality, house, the death-demon, etc.

Indeed, the Lamas are themselves the real supporters of the demonolatry. They prescribe it wholesale, and derive from it their chief means of livelihood at the expense of the laity...

The astrologer-Lamas have always a constant stream of persons coming to them for prescriptions as to what deities and demons require appeasing and the remedies necessary to neutralize these portending evils....

The days of the month in their numerical order are unlucky per se in this order. The first is unlucky for starting any undertaking, journey, etc. The second is very bad to travel. Third is good provided no bad combination otherwise. Fourth is bad for sickness and accident (Ch'u-'jag). Eighth bad. The dates counted on fingers, beginning from thumb and counting second in the hollow between thumb and index finger, the hollow always comes out bad, thus second, eighth, fourteenth, etc. Ninth is good for long journeys but not for short (Kut-da). Fourteenth and twenty-fourth are like fourth. The others are fairly good coeteris paribus. In accounts, etc., unlucky days are often omitted altogether and the dates counted by duplicating the preceding day...

The spirits of the seasons also powerfully influence the luckiness or unluckiness of the days. It is necessary to know which spirit has arrived at the particular place and time when an event has happened or an undertaking is entertained. And the very frequent and complicated migrations of these aerial spirits, good and bad, can only be ascertained by the Lamas...

***

Dwelling in an atmosphere of superstition, the Lamas, like the alchemists of old, do not recognize the limitation to their powers over Nature. They believe that the hermits in the mountains, and the monks in their cloisters, can readily become adepts in the black art, and can banish drought, and control the sun, and stay the storm; and many of their necromantic performances recall the scene of the "witches' cauldron" in Macbeth.

***

Barring the Door against the Earth-Demons.

The local earth-spirits are named "Master Earth'' or "Earth-Masters,"' and are comparable to the terrestrial Nagas of the Hindus. The most malignant are the "gnan" who infest certain trees and rocks, which are always studiously shunned and respected, and usually daubed with paint in adoration...

The ceremony of "closing the door of the earth," so frequently referred to in the Lamaist prescriptions, is addressed to her.

In this rite is prepared an elaborate arrangement of masts, and amongst the mystic objects of the emblem the strings, etc.; most prominent is a ram's skull with its attached horns, and it is directed downwards to the earth...

The whole erection is now fixed to the outside of the house above the door; the object of these figures of a man, wife and house is to deceive the demons should they still come in spite of this offering, and to mislead them into the belief that the foregoing pictures are the inmates of the house, so that they may wreak their wrath on these bits of wood and so save the real human occupants....

Demons of the Sky.

The demons who produce disease, short of actual death, are called She, and are exorcised by an elaborate ceremony in which a variety of images and offerings are made. The officiating Lama invokes his tutelary fiend, and thereby assuming spiritually the dread guise of this king evil, he orders out the disease-demon under threat of getting himself eaten up by the awful tutelary who now possesses the Lama. The demons are stabbed by the mystic dagger purba...

***

Their inveterate craving for material protection against those malignant gods and demons has caused them to pin their faith on charms and amulets, which are to be seen everywhere dangling from the dress of every man, woman, and child.

***

The people live in an atmosphere of the marvellous. No story is too absurd for them to credit, if only it be told by Lamas. They are ever on the outlook for omens, and the every-day affairs of life are governed, as we have seen, by a superstitious regard for lucky and unlucky days...

***

Prayers ever hang upon the people's lips. The prayers are chiefly directed to the devils, imploring them for freedom or release from their cruel inflictions, or they are plain naive requests for aid towards obtaining the good things of this life, the loaves and the fishes. At all spare times, day and night, the people ply their prayer-wheels, and tell their beads, and mutter the mystic six syllables — Om ma-ni pad-me Hum! "Om! the Jewel in the Lotus, Hum!" — the sentence which gains them their great goal, the glorious heaven of eternal bliss, the paradise of the fabulous Buddha of boundless Light — Amitabha.

Still, with all their strivings and the costly services of their priests, the Tibetans never attain peace of mind. They have fallen under the double ban of menacing demons and despotic priests. So it will be a happy day, indeed, for Tibet when its sturdy over-credulous people are freed from the intolerable tyranny of the Lamas, and delivered from the devils whose ferocity and exacting worship weigh like a nightmare upon all.

-- The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism With Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and in its Relation to Indian Buddhism, by Laurence Austine Waddell, M.B., F.L.S., F.R.G.S.

Or is it possible that the Buddhist tradition is a complex combination of ideas and aspirations, some of which are positively disposed toward the environment and some of which are not? If so, is it possible to reconcile the Dalai Lama's approach to the concept of nature with the image of a tradition that seeks to establish harmony between human beings and the natural world? The purpose of this essay is to explore the incongruity in the Dalai Lama's words, to ask where the incongruity comes from, and to ask whether it is possible to identify a "Buddhist philosophy of nature," a philosophy that is genuinely affirmative of what we have come to think of as the "natural" world and, at the same time, true to the complex impulses that shape the Buddhist quest for the purification and development of the mind.

To start with, where do we get the stereotype of Buddhist reverence for the natural world? Masao Watanabe began his account of the Japanese attitude toward nature by telling a story about the nineteenth-century art historian Lafcadio Hearn and the genesis of Western perceptions of Japan. Watanabe said that he read Lafcadio Hearn's account of his first visit to Japan to a group of American students. (It was the trip that led to Hearn's fascination with Japan and to his decision to make Japan his permanent residence.) Watanabe asked his students what they first noticed about Hearn's account of his visit. The answer was Hearn's image of the Japanese love of nature, symbolized in Hearn's story of a Japanese warrior who arranged vases of chrysanthemums to welcome his brother home from a journey. The students' answer then elicited Watanabe's own comments about the sense of natural beauty in Japanese landscape design, flower arrangement, the tea ceremony, poetry, and cuisine.

Watanabe is right to suggest that Western people first approach Japanese views of nature through an aesthetic medium. When Japan opened to the West in the early 1850's, Japanese art flooded into Western markets and had significant effect on the stylistic vision of Western artists as different as James McNeill Whistler and Vincent Van Gogh.10 There are few more powerful and suggestive icons of the Japanese vision of nature than the gnarled rocks and empty spaces of a Zen garden like the one at Ryoan-ji in Kyoto, and few poets of the natural world can match the grace and intensity that is so evident in the wroks of the Japanese poet Basho. It is sometimes said that to grasp the significance of Basho's poem,

Old pond--
Frog jumps in --
Sound of water!

is to grasp the whole meaning of Buddhism.11 Certainly, the "meaning" of this poem must have something to do with the condensed appreciation of a single moment in the flow of the natural world, a moment in which the minds of the poet and the reader become absorbed in the natural event itself.

Basho's poetic appreciation of nature has strong antecedents in Chinese literature, as in the work of the shadowy T'ang Dynasty poet whose identity is known simply by the name Cold Mountain. In the lines of the Cold Mountain poet, the Buddhist "way" takes on a distinctly naturalistic flavor.

As for me, I delight in the everyday Way,
Among mist-wrapped vines and rocky caves.
Here in the wilderness I am completely free,
With my friends, the white clouds, idling forever.
There are roads, but they do not reach the world;
Since I am mindless, who can rouse my thoughts?
On a bed of stone I sit, alone in the night,
While the round moon climbs up Cold Mountain.12

This verse displays a distinctive sensitivity to the rough, unhewn aspects of nature, to mists, rocks and trees -- all the aspects of nature that Gary Snyder associated with Henry David Thoreau's concept of the "wild."13 But it also expresses important Buddhist values. The lines reflect the traditional theme of the Middle Way, leading from the experience of suffering and ignorance in the world of ordinary people to the wisdom of a solitary and enlightened sage, and they map the contrast between these two realms of experience in a series of standard images. The ordinary world is one of entanglement, obscurity, and darkness, with "mist-wrapped vines," and "idling clouds." The world of enlightenment is one of detachment, coolness, and clarity, where the round moon that symbolizes the Buddha's awareness climbs up Cold Mountain.

I delight in the everyday Way

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Part 2 of 2

"Cold Mountain" is not merely the setting for the poems and a reference to the poet's own identity; it also expresses the path a sage has to tread to reach enlightenment and symbolizes enlightenment itself. To combine all of these meanings in a single, concrete image is to suggest that enlightenment involves a sense of fusion between the self and the natural world.

Overinterpret: to read too much into (something): to attribute to (something) a meaning or importance that does not seem likely or reasonable.

-- Merriam Webster

William R. LaFleur has shown that Basho's poetry is the result of a long process of doctrinal reflection in East Asia about the religious significance of nature.14 When one of Basho's predecessors, the poet Saigyo (twelfth century), for example, depicts movement along the road to enlightenment as involving "just a brief stop" to linger in the shade of a willow, he raises a question about the nature of the way itself. Is it better to walk the road like a diligent pilgrim with your eyes fixed firmly on a distant goal or to step off the road and allow your consciousness to merge with some part of the natural world?

"Just a brief stop"
I said when stepping off the road
into a willow's shade
Where a bubbling stream flows by
As has time since my "brief stop" began.

Here it is the shade of the willow rather than the pilgrim's road that stops consciousness of the passage of time, and this "stopping" reflects the "cessation" of the Buddha's nirvana. But why associate nirvana with a willow rather than some other element of the natural world? LaFleur has shown that these lines reflect a complex doctrinal discussion about whether plants in particular can have "Buddha-nature," in other words, whether they can embody the stage of enlightenment that the pilgrim is seeking. In China this question was first raised as part of the general discussion of the relationship between Emptiness and ordinary reality. The question then became focused as a specific question about vegetation. Did plants have Buddha-nature? Some Buddhist thinkers found an affirmative answer to this question in the chapter on "Plants" in The Lotus Sutra, where it is said that the rain of the Buddha's teaching falls equally on all forms of vegetation, and each plant grows up and is nourished according to its own capacity.15 In Japan this view evolved into the position represented by Saigyo's "brief stop." The natural world was treated as having special significance as a setting for the experience of enlightenment -- enough significance to invite the poet to turn off the path and disappear in the shade of the willow.

Saigyo was not the only one, and his was not the only way, to explore the relationship between the natural world and the experience of enlightenment. Allan G. Grapard has shown that the concept of enlightenment can be mapped onto the physical landscape in even more complex ways.16 The volcano Futagoyama on the Kunisaki peninsula, for example, was treated as a physical manifestation of the text of The Lotus Sutra; its twenty-eight valleys were treated as equivalent to the twenty-eight chapters of The Lotus Sutra; and its paths were lined with more than sixty thousand statues representing the total number of ideograms in the text. Here the landscape itself is the text, and the text is the Dharma. To walk the paths on the mountain and read its valleys as visual representations of the Dharma is to experience the relationship between nature and text, path and goal, and cessation and movement in a way that goes far beyond the simplicity of Saigyo's lines.

When the Guru, after passing through Nepal, reached Man-yul, the enemy-god (dgra-lha) of Z'an-z'un, named Dsa-mun, tried to destroy him by squeezing him between two mountains, but he overcame her by his irdhi-power of soaring in the sky. He then received her submission and her promise to become a guardian of Lamaism under the religious name of rDo-rje Gyu-bun-ma.

E-ka-dsa-ti.— When the Guru reached gNam-t'an-mk'ar-nag, the white fiendess of that place showered thunderbolts upon him, without, however, harming him. The Guru retaliated by melting her snow-dwelling into a lake; and the discomfited fury fled into the lake T'an-dpal-mo-dpal, which the Guru then caused to boil. But though her flesh boiled off her bones, still she did not emerge; so the Guru threw in his thunderbolt, piercing her right eye. Then came she forth and offered up to him her life-essence, and was thereon named Gans-dkar-sha-med-rDo-rje-sPyan-gcig-ma, or "The Snow-white, Fleshless, One-eyed Ogress of the Vajra."

The twelve Tan-ma Furies.— Then the Guru marched onward, and readied U-yug-bre- mo-snar, where the twelve bstan-ma (see figure, page 27) furies hurled thunderbolts at him, and tried to crush him between mountains; but the Guru evaded them by flying into the sky, and with his "pointing-finger" charmed their thunderbolts into cinders. And by his pointing-finger he cast the hills and mountains upon their snowy dwellings. Thereupon the twelve bstan-ma, with all their retinue thwarted and subdued, offered him their life-essence, and so were brought under his control.

Dam-c'an-r Dor-legs.— Then the Guru, pushing onward, reached the fort of U-yug-bye- tshan'-rdson, where he was opposed by dGe-bsnen rDo-rje-legs-pa (see figure, p. 26) with his three hundred and sixty followers, who all were subjected and the leader appointed a guardian (bsrung-ma) of the Lamaist doctrine.

Yar-lha-sham-po. — Then the Guru, going forward, reached Sham-po-lun, where the demon Yar-lha-sham-po transformed himself into a huge mountain-like white yak, whose breath belched forth like great clouds, and whose grunting sounded like thunder. Bu-yug gathered at his nose, and he rained thunderbolts and hail. Then the Guru caught the demon's nose by "the iron-hook gesture," bound his neck by "the rope gesture,'' bound his feet by "the fetter-gesture"; and the yak, maddened by the super-added "bell-gesture," transformed himself into a young boy dressed in white silk, who offered up to the Guru his life-essence; and so this adversary was subjected.

Tan'-lha the great gNan. — Then the Guru proceeded to Phya-than-la pass, where the demon gNan-ch'en-t'an-lha, transformed himself into a great white snake, with his head in the country of Gru-gu, and his tail in gYer-mo-than country, drained by the Mongolian river Sok-Ch'u, and thus seeming like a chain of mountains he tried to bar the Guru's progress. But the Guru threw the lin-gyi over the snake. Then the T'an'-lha, in fury, rained thunderbolts, which the Guru turned to fishes, frogs, and snakes, which fled to a neighbouring lake. Then the Guru melted his snowy dwelling, and the god, transforming himself into a young boy dressed in white silk, with a turquoise diadem, offered up his life-essence, together with that of all his retinue, and so he was subjected.

The Injurers. — Then the Guru, proceeding onwards, arrived at the northern Phan- yul-thang, where the three Injurers — sTing-lo-sman of the north, sTing-sman-zor gdon-ma, and sTing-sman-ston— sent hurricanes to bar the Guru's progress. On which the Guru circled "the wheel of fire" with his pointing-finger, and thus arrested the wind, and melted the snowy mountains like butter before a red hot iron. Then the three gNod-sbyin, being discomfited, offered up their life-essence and so were subjected.

The Black Devils.— Then the Guru, going onward, reached gNam-gyi-shug-mthon- glang-sgrom, where he opened the magic circle or Mandate of the Five Families (of the Buddhas) for seven days, after which all the commanders of the host of bDud-Devil offered their life-essence and so were subjected.

The-u-ran. — Then the Guru went to the country of gLar-wa-rkan-c'ig-ma, where he brought all the The-u-ran demons under subjection.

The Mi-ma-yin Devils. — When the Guru was sitting in the cave of Senge-brag-phug, the demon Ma-sans-gyah-spang-skyes-shig, desiring to destroy him, came into his presence in the form of an old woman with a turquoise cap, and rested her head on the Guru's lap and extended her feet towards Gye-wo-than and her hands towards the white snowy mountain Ti-si. Then many thousands of Mi-ma-yin surrounded the Guru menacingly; but he caused the Five Fierce Demons to appear, and so he subjected the Mi-ma-yin.

Ma-mo, etc.— Then he subjected all the Ma-mo and bSemo of Ch'u-bo-ri and Kha-rak, and going to Sil-ma, in the province of Tsang, he subjected all the sMan-mo. And going to the country of Hori he subjected all the Dam-sri, And going to Rong-lung-nag-po he subjected all the Srin-po. And going to central Tibet (dbUs) towards the country of the lake Manasarova (mal-dro), he subjected all the Nagas of the mal-dro lake, who offered him seven thousand golden coins. And going to Gyu-'dsin-phug-mo, he subjected all the Pho-rgyud. And going to Dung-mdog-brag-dmar, he subjected all the smell eating Driza (? Gandharva). And going to Gan-pa-ch'u-mig, he subjected all the dGe-snen. And going to Bye-ma-rab-khar, he subjected all the eight classes of Lha-srin. And going to the snowy mountain Ti-si, he subjected all the twenty- eight Nakshetras. And going to Lha-rgod-gans, he subjected the eight planets. And going to Bu-le-gans, he subjected all the 'dre of the peaks, the country, and the dwelling-sites, all of whom offered him every sort of worldly wealth.

-- The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism With Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and in its Relation to Indian Buddhism, by Laurence Austine Waddell, M.B., F.L.S., F.R.G.S.

More examples could be cited as the relationship between Buddhist values and Japanese appreciation of the natural world, but these should be sufficient to show that Watanabe certainly had reason to say that reverence for nature plays a special part in Japanese culture, including its Buddhist dimension. There also are good reasons to think, however, that this is not the whole picture. In a remarkable article entitled "Concepts of Nature East and West," Stephen R. Kellert has given clear statistical shape to the suspicion that Eastern cultures are just as capable of showing disrespect for nature as their Western counterparts.17 "In contrast," Kellert says, "to the foregoing descriptions of highly positive Eastern attitudes toward nature, modern Japan and China have been cited for their poor conservation record -- including widespread temperate and tropical deforestation, excessive exploitation of wildlife products, indiscriminate and damaging fishing practices, and widespread pollution."18 Kellert prepared a questionnaire to investigate and compare Japanese and American attitudes toward the natural world. He found that the most common approach to wildlife in both cultures, Japanese and American, was the one that Kellert called "humanistic": both cultures showed "primary interest and strong affection for individual animals such as pets or large wild animals with strong anthropomorphic associations." The percentage of people who held this opinion was 37% for Japan and 38% for the United States. The second most common attitude in the United States was the "moralistic": 27.5% of the American respondents showed what Kellert called a "primary concern for right and wrong treatment of animals and strong opposition to overexploitation and cruelty toward animals." The second most common attitude in Japan, with 31%, was the attitude that Kellert called "negativistic": a "primary orientation [toward] an active avoidance of animals due to dislike or fear." The third most common Japanese attitude was one that he called "dominionistic" (28%): involving "primary interest in the mastery and control of animals." In other words, more than 50% of Kellert's Japanese respondents feared or disliked animals or were primarily concerned with their mastery or control. Kellert's findings received statistical confirmation from a 1989 survey by the United Nations Environmental Program: the survey found that Japan rated "lowest in environmental concern and awareness" of the 14 countries surveyed.

Kellert pursued his investigations with a series of detailed interviews to elicit explanations of the Japanese attitudes. Many of the people interviewed "indicated that the Japanese tend to place greatest emphasis on the experience and enjoyment of nature in highly structured circumstances." The reasons for this emphasis were diverse but quite revealing. One person referred to "a Japanese love of 'seminature,' somewhat domesticated and tame." Another said that the Japanese "isolate favored environmental features and 'freeze or put walls around them.'" For all of Kellert's informants, the stress fell on the cultural transformation of nature, in which natural elements were refined and abstracted in such a way that they could serve as symbols of harmony, order, and balance. The stress on the cultural transformation of nature rather than nature in its pure, unrefined state has also been noted by Donald Ritchie who has said that "the Japanese attitude to nature is essentially possessive ... Nature is not natural ... until the hand of man ... has properly shaped it."19

How can we explain the contradiction between Kellert's findings and the stereotype of the nature-loving Buddhist? How can the Japanese tradition appear to show such deep reverence for nature and yet tolerate or even encourage such pervasive attitudes of cultural domination? One possible explanation is that the Japanese have so thoroughly absorbed a Western preference for the domination and exploitation of nature that the indigenous tradition has simply been overwhelmed in a rush for Western-style economic development. Kellert points out, however, that it is too simplistic to attribute this contradiction merely to the influence of the West. As W. Montgomery Watt noted in his account of alleged external influences on the formation of early Islam, it is difficult for one culture to "influence" another in a deep or significant way unless there are already tendencies or predispositions in the receiving culture that make such influence possible.20 Could there be predispositions within the Buddhist traditions of Japan that tend to favor this "cultural transformation" of nature? Could Buddhism itself have contributed to such an attitude? The way to explore these questions at the most basic level is to move back to India, the homeland of the Buddhist tradition, and interrogate the tradition in its original setting.

How does the religious literature of India picture the natural world? India is a complex civilization, of course, and it is as complex in its approach to nature as any of the traditions of East Asia or the West, but it does not seem an oversimplification to say that there is a deep and abiding preoccupation in Indian civilization with the distinction between the "human" and the "natural." One of the best sources to use in reflecting on this distinction is the text of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the best known and most beloved of Hindu scriptural texts. The text consists of a dialogue between two figures, the warrior Arjuna who is on the verge of a climactic battle, and his charioteer Krsna who reveals himself to be a manifestation of God. At the beginning of the story, Arjuna shrinks in grief as he contemplates the destruction to be wrought by the battle. Krsna counsels him to pick himself up and do his duty as a warrior without feeling fear or grief about the consequences of his actions. The reasoning behind Krsna's counsel reflects a fundamental feature of Hindu attitudes toward nature. Krsna counsels Arjuna to distinguish between his "soul" (purusa), which is eternal and cannot die, and his "body," which is mortal, changeable, and destined eventually to be discarded as the soul makes its passage into another life.

These bodies are said to end, but the embodied self is eternal,
indestructable, and immeasurable,
therefore, you should fight, O Bharata. (2:18)

If Arjuna knows that his true identity is equated with the "soul" and not the "body," he does not need to be affected by grief or fear.

As the text develops the distinction between "soul" and "body," we find that the "body" is spoken of as prakrti, a concept that is commonly translated as "nature." The distinction between soul and body is a reflection, in the microcosm of the personality, of the distinction in the cosmos at large between the principle of "spirit" and the principle of "nature." What does it mean to say that prakriti is "nature"? The semantic range of the word prakrti might seem at first to be considerably wider than the one that normally is mapped by the English word "nature." Prakrti includes not only the material aspects of the cosmos but also the aspects of the personality called "mind" (manas) and "intellect" (buddhi). The basic distinction is not between body on one side and mind or spirit on the other, but between the complex of changeable elements in the personality (including body, mind, and intellect) and the eternal, unchangeable soul. The distinction between purusa and prakrti comes close, however, to the distinction marked by the title of the symposium in which the Dalai Lama gave his Middlebury address: purusa is "spirit" and prakrti "nature," in the sense that purusa is conscious, transcendent, and attainable through discipline (yoga) or reason while prakrti merely reflects or obscures the consciousness of purusa and is subject to change and decay. The challenge for human beings in Arjuna's position, caught in the web of confusion spun by the strands of prakrti, is to recognize their true identities as immortal souls and escape the bonds of nature.

In a technical sense, the distinction between purusa and prakrti belongs to only two of the classic Hindu philosophical traditions, the Samkhya and the Yoga, and these two traditions do not by any means serve as the dominant framework for the interpretation of reality in the Indian tradition. But the distinction has wide influence in Indian culture. When visitors make a journey, for example, to the great ruined temple of Elephanta in Bombay harbor, they travel across the waters of the harbor to a small island, climb a long line of stairs up to the rocky outcropping in the center of the island, then enter a cave where the central shrine has been cut out of the living rock. The journey across the water is a symbolic expression of a journey through the changeable, distracting world of "nature," and entry into the darkness and quiet of the temple represent an approach to the immovable center of "the soul." The religious drama of the journey depends on a basic cultural image of contrast between the world of prakrti and the world of soul. Even in nondualistic traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta, where the goal is to dissolve the distinction between self and world, the journey of enlightenment is still based on an initial insistence on the "distinction" (viveka) between the eternal self and all that is not-self.21 One can argue with considerable force that the Hindu tradition is driven, even in its nondualistic dimension, by a conviction that eternal things have ultimate value and changeable things do not. "Nature" encompasses the things that change and pass away.

Buddhists do not share the Hindu conviction about the permanence of the individual soul, but they also are suspicious of the difficulties and dangers of the "natural" world. Lambert Schmithausen has noted that, in classical Buddhist sources, Buddhist peasants, townspeople, and even monks preferred the tamed and civilized world of the village and city to the virgin forest or the jungle.22 The jungle and forest were symbols of death and rebirth (as was the ocean that the worshipper had to cross to reach the temple at Elephanta), and nirvana, the cessation of death and rebirth, was represented as a city.23 Images of Buddhist paradises, when they appear in Indian sources, are generally landscapes in which the "wild" aspects of nature have been thoroughly tamed. With trees laid out in symmetrical grids, rectangular ponds, golden lines, and shiny blue-black surface, the paradise of Sukhavati in the Indian Sukhavativyuha is more reminiscent of a parking lot than it is of an untamed wilderness.24 Schmithausen notes quite correctly that a significant number of Buddhist monks chose not to live in cities or towns. In the "hermit strand" of monastic life, one visualized the forest as useful for the practice of meditation. In the forest a monk can avoid the distractions of society and contemplate the impermanence of reality by observing the passage of the seasons. But even here the focus is on the natural world as a locus and a guide for the spiritual transformation of the monk himself, as it was in Grapard's account of the mapping of The Lotus Sutra onto the ridges and valleys of Futagoyama.

Buddhism in common with most religions had its hermits who retired like John the Baptist into the wilderness. And such periodical retirement for a time, corresponding to the Buddhist Lent (the rainy season of India, or Varsha, colloq. "barsat"), when travelling was difficult and unhealthy, was an essential part of the routine of the Indian Buddhist. Tson K'apa enforced the observance of this practice, but it has now fallen much into abeyance...

Theoretically it is part of the training of every young Lama to spend in hermitage a period of three years, three months, and three days, in order to accustom himself to ascetic rites. But this practice is very rarely observed for any period, and when it is observed, a period of three months and three days is considered sufficient.

-- The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism With Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and in its Relation to Indian Buddhism, by Laurence Austine Waddell, M.B., F.L.S., F.R.G.S.

It is important to be clear that this early strand in the Buddhist tradition is not hostile to nature as such: one does not attempt to dominate or destroy nature (in the form of either animals or plants) in order to seek a human good. But neither is the wild and untamed aspect of nature to be encouraged or cultivated. The natural world functions as a locus and an example of the impermanence and unsatisfactoriness of death and rebirth. The goal to be cultivated is not wilderness in its own right, but a state of awareness in which a practitioner can let go of the "natural" -- of all that is impermanent and unsatisfactory -- and achieve the sense of peace and freedom that is represented by the state of nirvana. One might say that nature is not to be dominated but to be relinquished in order to become free.

In this context the significance of the Dalai Lama's approach to the topic of "spirit and nature" becomes clearer. He was not hostile to nature, but he had other important topics in mind, not the least of which was the purification of the mind itself. When he took up the question of nature in the philosophical style that was appropriate to his tradition (linking it to the concept of Emptiness), his first step was not unlike Krsna's first step in the Bhagavad Gita: he distinguished between the realm of appearance or "nature" and the realm of ultimate reality or Emptiness. He said: "When talking about the fundamental nature of reality, one could sum up the entire understanding of that nature in a simple verse: 'Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form' (The Heart Sutra.)25 The concept of "fundamental nature" might seem to function differently than the concept of prakrti in the Bhagavad Gita, and in a sense it does. It refers to the imagined "essence" or "identity" that a person imposes on reality (the reality of Emptiness) rather than to the distracting and alluring play of "material nature," but it performs the same discriminative function when it comes to the purification of the mind. In the Madhyamaka tradition, out of which the Dalai Lama speaks, the idea of "fundamental nature" (whether it is understood as the Tibetan ngo bo nyid, and Sanskrit svabhava or as the Tibetan rang bzhin and Sanskrit prakrti) has to be stripped away in order to develop a purified awareness of Emptiness. The term "Emptiness" itself can refer either to the absence of such a "fundamental nature" in all things or to the purified awareness that perceives all things as empty in this way. For the Dalai Lama, the concept of "nature" elicits an image of Emptiness and suggests a practice of purification in which the illusions of "nature" are left behind.

Against this intellectual background, it is not surprising to find that Indian Buddhist literature contains very little of the reverence for the wild and "natural" world that one associates with the tradition of East Asia. Indian poetic accounts of insight or enlightenment often reflect a rhetorical distinction in which the teaching of the Buddha is "greater than" or "in contrast to" the possibilities of the natural world, as in the philosopher Dharmakirti's exploration of the poetic relationship between the Buddha's teaching and the cooling rays of the moon.

Were not a drop from the Moon of Sages,
better than a flood of cooling moonlight,
mixed within the vessel of its thought,
how would this heart find happiness
and, though it stood within a cold Himalayan cave,
how would it endure the unendurable
fire of separation from its love?26

When one puts Dharmakirti's image of the superiority of the "Moon of Sages" (the Buddha) next to a comparable passage by the Chinese poet Li Po (701-762),

Moonlight in front of my bed
I took it for frost on the ground!
I lift my eyes to watch the mountain moon,
lower them and dream of home.

one clearly sees the aesthetic and ideological transformation that took place when the wine of the Indian Buddhist tradition was poured into its Chinese bottles. "Nature" in the Indian tradition was a world to be transcended, while in East Asia it took on the capacity to symbolize transcendence itself.

How then should we read the affirmative images of the natural world in the poetry of Saigyo and Basho? Has the Japanese tradition been so thoroughly infused by Chinese attitudes toward the natural world that it has taken leave entirely from the Indian tradition? Certainly there is a striking contrast between the two traditions, but it is possible to see Indian Buddhism (including the Tibetan tradition of the Dalai Lama) in a way that gives us new eyes for the Buddhist dimension of the Japanese poetic tradition. Basho's "Old pond/frog jumps in/sound of water" can be read as an expression of immersion in the flow of natural processes: a frog jumps into a pond and the mind fuses with the event in a moment of intense perception. But the poem is not, strictly speaking, an expression of the frog or the water in themselves; it is an expression of a moment of perception. The force of the poem lies in the mind of the observer, not to the exclusion of nature, but in the mind's awareness of nature.

When Stephen R. Kellert probed the stereotype of Japanese attitudes toward nature, he found what one of his informants called an "emphasis on the experience and enjoyment of nature in highly structured circumstances." The stress fell less on nature in its raw form than on the cultural transformation of nature: natural elements were refined and abstracted so that they could serve as symbols of harmony, order, or balance. Allan G. Grapard captured the ambiguity and complexity of the same point when he suggested that

what has been termed "the Japanese love of nature" is actually the "Japanese love of cultural transformation and purification of a world which, if left alone, simply decays." So that the love of culture takes in Japan the form of a love of nature.27

Nature may not need to be transformed in an overt, physical fashion to be significant, although the design of a "natural" garden is certainly a refined cultural act, but the significance of the natural setting for the human observer lies principally in the act of perception, and it may be appropriate or even necessary for nature to be fashioned and controlled to make this "natural" mode of perception become clear.

Then is there a "Buddhist" philosophy of nature? If the intention of the question is to identify a simple, unified vision of the sanctity of the natural world, the answer must be no. If anything, there is the opposite. Beneath the evident differences between the Indian and East Asian tradition lies a commitment to the view that human beings work out their fates through the development and purification of their own minds. Riccardo Venturini had something like this in mind, no doubt, when he said that the Buddhist tradition develops its attitude toward nature in the context of an "ecology of the mind" and aims at a "purified" world with man as its steward.28 Could it be that the Buddhist tradition, which has seemed so promising as a model to escape the destructive consequences of the Western anthropocentric vision of nature, is as much compromised by the flaws of anthropocentrism as its Western counterpart? The question is crucial for understanding the possibility of a Buddhist response to the ecological crisis, and much depends on the meaning of the word "anthropocentrism."

In the summer of 1981, the Dalai Lama gave a series of lectures on Buddhist philosophy in Emerson Hall at Harvard University.29 At the beginning of the lectures a member of the Harvard community welcomed the Dalai Lama to Emerson Hall by referring to an inscription over the portal of the building. "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" He gave a Tibetan translation of the inscription that related it to one of the key issues of Buddhist philosophy ("What are you referring to when you use the word 'man'?") and said that it seemed particularly appropriate to hear the Dalai Lama's words in a setting where the very issue of human identity had such a rich and controversial history. "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" In the Tibetan and Sanskrit traditions, the word "man" recalls a long controversy about the status of the pudgala (commonly translated as "person," but literally "man"). An ancient Indian Buddhist school known as the Personalists (pudgalavadin) took the position that a person's identity consisted in a pudgala that continued from one moment to the next.30 This pudgala was related ambiguously to the momentary psycho-physical constituents (skandha) of the mind and body. The constituents changed at every moment while the pudgala continued, and the pudgala was neither identical to nor different from the constituents. It seems that the pudgala was considered to be something like the "shape" or "configuration" of the personality, so that one could say that a person retained the same "shape" even when all the individual constituents of the personality had changed, perhaps like a car in which all the individual parts have been replaced but which still retains the "shape" of the original car.

The Personalists have long since gone out of existence as an identifiable school, and the controversy about the pudgala could be relegated to the status of an obscure historical curiosity if it had not become a symbol for Buddhists of the classic mistake to be avoided when thinking about the nature of the self. One of the most basic themes in Buddhist philosophy is the claim that there is no "self," and by "no-self" is meant at least that there is no continuous pudgala that ties together the stream of the personality from one moment to the next. The pudgalavada, the doctrine of the "man" or "person" is, as it were, the fundamental Buddhist heresy from which the tradition now chooses to distinguish itself. To ask, "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" or "What are you referring to when you use the word 'man'"? is to probe the foundations of the Buddhist view of the self as its most sensitive point. What is the most basic error that has to be avoided if one is to make progress toward the goal of enlightenment?

Herein lies the paradox of Buddhist "anthropocentrism." The tradition is genuinely concerned with the human achievement of human goals. At a deep historical and conceptual level, the tradition defends an ideal of self-reliance, as in the oft-quoted verse from the Dhammapada: "One is one's own Lord (or God or Protector). What other Lord can there be"? But the achievement of self-interest is tied in an equally fundamental way to the decentering of the self. On the intellectual level, the quest for nirvana is tied up with a quest for an understanding of "no-self" as both a doctrine and a mode of awareness. On a more practical level, Buddhist discipline is built up of choices, both large and small, that challenge the naive patterns of self-centeredness from which the fabric of ordinary life is woven. In traditional Buddhist societies in Southeast Asia, Buddhist monks go out each morning to beg their food from lay people, meditating as they go on their "friendliness" or concern for all beings. Lay people prepare the food and enact a model in which their own spiritual benefit is tied to a gesture of renunciation, of giving away the food that sustains the life of a monk. Moral precepts, particularly the prohibition against killing (which is extended not just to human beings but in theory to all sentient beings), cultivate a fundamental respect for life in all its forms.

I observed during my subsequent residence at Lhasa that more than fifty thousand sheep, goats and yaks were slaughtered there during the three months ending in December every year.....

At the side of the road below this monastery is a place where yaks, sheep, and goats are killed for the table of the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetans have so superstitious a regard for the sheep (seven in number) the meat of which is offered to the Dalai Lama daily, that they ask for such things as the wool and other parts of the animal as keepsakes. Besides sheep, the Dalai Lama eats other kinds of meat, which is also sent from the same place.

-- Three Years in Tibet, by Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi

These ideals are realized with greater and lesser degrees of consistency in the Buddhist communities of Southeast Asia, but the theoretical connection between the self-interested decentering of the self and respect for life lies deep in the culture. One could paraphrase Grapard's claim that in Japan the love of culture takes the form of a love of nature by saying that in Buddhist culture at large the cultivation of the self takes the form of decentering of the self and a concern for a wider network of life.

Steven C. Rockefeller has remarked about the way anthropocentric and utilitarian approaches to environmental ethics take on a more biocentric character when they are combined with a scientific appreciation of ecological interdependence.31 This conceptual development has its counterpart in the Buddhist tradition as well. To say that one's self-interest is served by realizing and enacting an ideal of no-self is to say that one's own self-interest is best understood by realizing one's location in a network of interdependence or "interdependent co-origination" (pratitya-samutpada). The formulas that express the understanding of no-self in different versions of the Buddhist tradition often equate no-self (or its Mahayana counterpart, the doctrine of Emptiness) with interdependent co-origination. A famous verse in Nagarjuna's root verses of the Madhyamaka school says: "We call interdependent co-origination Emptiness; this is a metaphorical designation, and it is the Middle Path." Other textual sources simply equate interdependent co-origination with the Dharma or with the Buddha himself, as in the common scriptural phrase, "He who sees interdependent co-origination sees the Buddha."

Primitive Lamaism may therefore be defined as a priestly mixture of Sivaite mysticism, magic, and Indo-Tibetan demonolatry, overlaid by a thin varnish of Mahayana Buddhism. And to the present day Lamaism still retains this character.

-- The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism With Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and in its Relation to Indian Buddhism, by Laurence Austine Waddell, M.B., F.L.S., F.R.G.S.

Whether one can interpret the concept of interdependent co-origination as genuinely "biocentric," however, is open to question. If a biocentric approach means recognizing "the intrinsic value of animals, plants, rivers, mountains and ecosystems rather than simply ... their utilitarian value of benefit to humans,"32 then the word "intrinsic" presents a barrier. It seems to suggest precisely the substantial, permanent identity that the ideas of no-self and interdependent co-origination are meant to undermine. But the practical force of an "other-centered" position emerges quite clearly in different kinds of Buddhist meditative traditions. When the Dalai Lama teaches about Buddhist practice he emphasizes the importance of compassion, as is customary in the tradition of the Mahayana, and one of his favorite sources for a meditation on compassion is the teaching about the "exchange of self and other" in the 8th chapter of Santideva's "Introduction to the Practice of Enlightenment.33 Imagine, Santideva says, that on one side of a divide stands your own needy self and on the other side stand fifty or a hundred needy beings. Whose advantage is best to seek? Should you care just for yourself and cater just to your own limitations and fears? Or should you seek the benefit of the larger group? And what if the larger group is not just fifty or a hundred living beings but all the living beings in the cosmos? Santideva says that the answer should be clear. The self's greatest benefit comes from seeking the widest possible benefit for the network of all living beings. Santideva's point can be construed as a practical centering of one's concern on others (on the network of bios or "life") in order to decenter the self (in the self's own interest).

Anyone who has practiced Tibetan Buddhism intensively is familiar with the offerings of barley-butter cakes (tormas) simulating heaps of blood and fat that are given to the oath-bound protectors and wrathful deities to satisfy their bloodlust and incite them to protect the lineage from the damage that comes from samaya breakage. These rituals, that originated in the practice of propitiating local deities believed to inhabit mountains and other natural features of the land in Tibet, are practiced by credulous Americans in temples all over the United States, while chanting maledictions like "Kill those who break samaya! Burst their hearts! Spill their blood! Crush their heads!"

-- -- Against Hell: A Refutation of the Buddhist Hell Realms, Based on Their Historic Origins, Political Purpose, Psychological Destructiveness, Irrationality, and Demonstrable Inconsistency With the Original Buddhist Teachings, Framed as A Searching Review of Sam Bercholz’s After-Death Memoir, "A Guided Tour of Hell", by Charles Carreon

Here lies another reason why the Dalai Lama was hesitant to address directly the themes and expectations of the Middlebury conference on "Spirit and Nature" and why he shifted attention so gracefully away from the natural world toward the purification of the mind. He was not insensitive to the claims of the natural world, but he felt that there was more important conceptual work to be done before its claims could be made clear. He had to begin with his own understanding of no-self (as expressed in the doctrine of Emptiness) before he could sketch the outline of an ethical response to the natural world, and the response continued to move in the orbit of "interdependence" and "compassion." One moves naturally, as it were, in a series of ever-widening, concentric circles, beginning with the impulse to purify the mind and cultivate one's own sense of self, through the sense of the self's interdependence with a network of all other beings, to a sense of affection and love for all existence. As the circles widen, the center comes under pressure, and the network of existence takes on the appearance of a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

Some of the most forceful and perspicacious Buddhist writing about the environment explores the implication of this basic Buddhist conceptual movement from no-self, to interdependence, to compassion. In his reconstruction of E.F. Schumacher's famous concept of "Buddhist Economics," Stephen Batchelor points out that Buddhist economics has to start from a standpoint of nonduality and Emptiness, and from this point of view the concept of an ethical "center" comes increasingly into question. "In the West we are still caught in a struggle between theocentric and anthropocentric visions, which some Greens now seek to resolve through a notion of biocentrism. Such thoughts are alien to the Buddhist experience of reality which, if anything, has tended to be 'acentric.'"34 Joanna Macy has charted the same movement from the point of view of the Theravada tradition, beginning with a sense of "the pathogenic character of the reification of the self," moving on to the concept of interdependence (paticca samuppada), and then developing a sense of what might best be called universal "self-interest," in which the world is visualized as one's own body.35 With the words of Arne Naess and the concept of "deep ecology" in mind, she turns the ethical argument about altruistic motives from one of "duties" rendered by the self to another into an argument about one's own "being." One protects nature in order to protect one's self, and the circle of self encompasses the totality of the natural order.

The service, which is done by the priest who represents the saint Padma-sambhava, is here summarized. It is called "The Expelling Oblation of the hidden Fierce Ones"...

Hum! Through the blessing of the blood-drinking Fierce One, let the injuring demons and evil spirits be kept at bay. I pierce their hearts with this hook; I bind their hands with this snare of rope; I bind their body with this powerful chain; I keep them down with this tinkling bell. Now, O! blood-drinking Angry One, take your sublime seat upon them. Vajor-Agu-cha-dsa! vajora-pasha-hum! vajora-spo-da- va! vajora-ghan-dhi-ho!"

Then chant the following for destroying the evil spirits: —

"Salutation to Heruka, the owner of the noble Fierce Ones! The evil spirits have tricked you and have tried to injure Buddha's doctrine, so extinguish them .... Tear out the hearts of the injuring evil spirits and utterly exterminate them."

Then the supposed corpse of the linka should be dipped in Rakta (blood), and the following should be chanted:

"Hum! O! ye hosts of gods of the magic-circle! Open your mouths as wide as the earth and sky, clench your fangs like rocky mountains, and prepare to eat up the entire bones, blood, and the entrails of all the injuring evil spirits. Ma-ha mam-sa-la kha hi! Ma-ha tsitta-kha hi! maha-rakta kha-hi! maha-go ro-tsa-na-kha-hi! Maha-bah su-ta kha hi! Maha-keng-ni ri ti kha hi!"

Then chant the following for upsetting the evil spirits...

"Bhyo! Bhyo! On the angry enemies! On the injuring demon spirits! On the voracious demons! turn them all to ashes!

"Mah-ra-ya-rbad bhyo! Upset them all! Upset! Upset!...

-- The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism With Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and in its Relation to Indian Buddhism, by Laurence Austine Waddell, M.B., F.L.S., F.R.G.S.

Certainly the sense of interdependence that is such a crucial part of Buddhist ethical theory gives good reason to be skeptical of any form of "centrism" whether it begins in the theos, the anthropos, or even more benignly in the bios. But do images of the "center" need to be entirely abandoned? Buddhist environmental literature abounds with metaphors of interconnection, from the jeweled "Net of Indra," in which every individual jewel is pictured as reflecting every other, to images of the "web" of existence.

But there is another, relatively unexplored body of metaphor that has to do with a sense of "place" or "home." Buddhist sources speak from a very early period about a tradition of pilgrimage in which people visited sites that had been important in the life of the Buddha, "saw" them, and were moved by them. The sites of the Buddha's birth, his enlightenment, his first sermon, and his death were held in special reverence, and traditional sources speak of the throne of the Buddha's enlightenment, under the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya, as the center of the cosmos. Some Mahayana texts pass on a tradition that every Buddha, of every era, is enlightened at exactly the same site, and beneath the spot where the Buddhas are enlightened sits a throne that is anchored at the center of the cosmos.36 If there were a "center" in Buddhist ethical thinking about the environment, perhaps this is where it should be located, at the site where Buddhas attain their enlightenment.

But where is this site? Northern India is one possibility. But the tradition has a distinct aversion to literal conceptions of the Buddha. Embedded in Buddhist tradition is the idea that one finds the Buddha not in his physical form but by understanding the Dharma ("What is there, O Vakkali, in seeing this vile body? He who sees the Dharma sees the Buddha. He who sees the Buddha sees the Dharma.") Then where is the "throne of enlightenment" where one understands the Dharma? One possible answer would be the mind itself. It is in the mind that one understands the nature of Emptiness. But the mind is located in a particular body, and the body is located in a particular place. While Emptiness, in a sense, is everywhere, it is realized only in this moment, this place, and this body. In a fine meditation on "Zen Practice and a Sense of Place," Doug Cochida quotes a reference by the Zen Master Dogen to the Earth as the "true human body."

The meaning of "true" in "the entire Earth is the true human body" is the actual body. You should know that the entire Earth is not our temporary appearances, but our genuine human body.37

The earth is not, as it were, a mere illusion. It is the body of an enlightened sage, and it is as much worthy of reverence as throne of the Buddha.

In his essays on "The Practice of the Wild," Gary Snyder said: "In some cases we might call [nature] sacred."38 To say only "in some cases" shows an appropriate Buddhist reticence toward attributing sacrality to nature in and of itself. But it is not completely implausible to use the language of "holiness" in speaking of the natural order. The natural world can function as a teacher when one meditates about impermanence. In some strands of the Buddhist tradition it can be thought of as possessing Buddha-nature. But most importantly of all, it is the place that is made holy by the quest for enlightenment. Enlightenment is made present in this body and this earth. To speak of the earth as the throne of enlightenment is a metaphor, of course, and it is not by any means a common metaphor in Buddhist writings. But it is one that resonates deeply with the theistic language of Erazim Kohak, the man to whom this essay is dedicated. Kohak's great meditation on the moral sense of nature, The Embers and the Stars, is alive with a sense of the holy or, as Kohak himself says, "the presence of God in the very fact of the world."19 The Buddhist tradition has problems with the language of classic theism, but a sense of the presence of the holy is hardly unknown in Buddhist experience or imagination. It does not come, however, from the outside, not is it ready-made. It has to be fashioned and developed by the application of human discipline, imagination, compassion, and awareness. This I take to be the force of the Dalai Lama's Middlebury address, as it is of the tradition more generally. Human beings have to take responsibility themselves for the harmony, the health, and the well being of the setting in which the quest for enlightenment takes place.

In keeping, however, with the legendary accounts of his visit, it is alleged by Sikhimite Lamas that their Lord St. Padma entered the country by the "Lordly pass" Jo-la (Ang., Cho-la) and on the east side of the pass is pointed out a rock on which he sat down, called Z'u-ti, or throne,95 and near the pass a spot named Sinmoi gyip-tsu,96 where he surprised a party of female devils preparing to cook their food: here are pointed out two masses of columnar rock alleged to be two of the stones of the tripod used to support the cooking-pot of these demons. And he is said to have returned to Tibet by way of the Je-lep pass, resting en route on the Ku-phu and creating the Tuko La by "tearing" up the rock to crush an obnoxious demon.

-- The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism With Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and in its Relation to Indian Buddhism, by Laurence Austine Waddell, M.B., F.L.S., F.R.G.S.

Division of Religious Studies, Boston University

_______________

Notes:

1. Roderick Frazier Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967): 20–21, 192–193.

2. Y. Murota, `Culture and Environment in Japan,’ Environmental Management, 9 (1986): 105112.

3. Lynn White, Jr., `The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis,’ Science 155 (1967): 1203–7. Reprinted in Machina Ex Deo: Essays on the Dynamism of Western Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1968): 75–94.

4. Masao Watanabe, `The Conception of Nature in Japanese Culture,’ Science 183 (1974): 279–82.

5. Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990): 10.

6. The words belong to Richard Gere, the Founding Chairman of Tibet House in New York, and appear in Marylin M. Rhie and Robert A.F. Thurman, eds., Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet (New York: Harry N Abrams, 1991): 8. The image of Tibet as the “lifeboat of civilization” has been widely remarked upon in Asian studies, notably by Peter Bishop in The Myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, Travel Writing, and the Western Creation of the Sacred Landscape (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).

7. The Dalai Lama’s speech appears in Steven C. Rockefeller and John C. Elder, eds., Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992).

8. Rockefeller and Elder, Spirit and Nature: 114.

9. This formula for the expression of Emptiness comes from the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana philosophy, the school within which the Dalai Lama himself speaks. For a more extensive account of this concept and for references to further literature, see Malcolm David Eckel, To See the Buddha: A Philosopher’s Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992; reprint ed., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

10. See, for example, Gabriel P. Weisberg et al., eds. Japonisme: Japanese Influence on French Art 1854–1910 ( London: Robert G. Sawyers, 1975 ).

11. Robert S. Ellwood and Richard Pilgrim, Japanese Religion: A Cultural Perspective (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985): 55.

12. Burton Watson, trans., Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the Tang Poet Han-shan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970): 67.

13. Gary Snyder has produced some of the most powerful translations of the Cold Mountain poems. See his Rip Rap and Other Poems (San Francisco: Grey Fox Press, 1982).

14. William R. LaFleur, `Saigy6 and the Buddhist Value of Nature,’ in Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought,ed. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989): 183–209.

15. The Lotus Sutra,trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), chapter 5.

16. Allan G. Grapard, `Nature and Culture in Japan,’ in Deep Ecology,ed. Michael Tobias (San Diego: Avant Books, 1985): 240–55.

17. Stephen R. Kellert, `Japanese Perceptions of Wildlife,’ Conservation Biology 5 (1991): 297–308; `Concepts of Nature East and West,’ in Reinventing Nature? Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction,ed. Michael E. Soulé and Gary Lease (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995): 103–121. See also Yi-Fu Tuan, `Discrepancies Between Environmental Attitude and Behaviour: Examples from Europe and China,’ Canadian Geographer 12 (1968): 175–91.

18. Kellert, `Concepts of Nature East and West’: 107.

19. D. Ritchie, The Inland Sea (Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1971): 13, quoted in Kellert, `Concepts of Nature East and West’: 115.

20. W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961).

21. “Distinction” (viveka) is one of the four “qualifications” for the knowledge of Brahman See Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1969), 105.

22. Lambert Schmithausen, `Buddhism and Nature,’ Studia Philologica Buddhica: Occasional Paper Series 7 (Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1991).

23. For sources see Schmithausen: 15. The references to the “city of nirvana” come from texts that are somewhat late. An interesting echo of the metaphor in an early source is a reference to Suttanipata 3.109 to nirvana as a level piece of land (samo bhúmibhago).

24. Buddhist Mahayana Texts,trans. Max Müller, Sacred Books of the East, 49 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894; reprint ed., New York: Dover Publications, 1969).

25. Rockefeller and Elder, Spirit and Nature: 114.

26. Daniel H.H. Ingalls, An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965): 438.

27. Grapard, `Nature and Culture in Japan’: 243.

28. Riccardo Venturini, `A Buddhist View on Ecological Balance,’ Dharma World 17 (March—April, 1990): 19–23; quoted in Schmithausen, `Buddhism and Nature’: 17.

29. The lectures have been published in His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso, The Dalai Lama at Harvard,trans. and ed. Jeffrey Hopkins (Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1988).

30. The classic account of the theory of pudgalavada is found in the Abhidharmakosa,trans. L. de La Vallée Poussin, Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 16 (1971). A useful English translation of the section from the Abhidharmakoia that deals with this theory can be found in Edward Conze, Buddhist Scriptures (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1959): 192–197.

31. Steven C. Rockefeller, `Faith and Community in an Ecological Age,’ in Rockefeller and Elder, Spirit and Nature: 139–171. For further commentary on the issues of “anthropocentrism,” see J. Baird Callicott, Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory and Environmental Ethics,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984).

32. Rockefeller: 143.

33. See chapters 8 and 9 of The Dalai Lama at Harvard. Sântideva’s own text is available in a number of translations, notably Stephen Batchelor, A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1979).

34. Stephen Batchelor, `Buddhist Economics Reconsidered,’ in Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology, ed. Allan Hunter Badiner (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1990 ): 178–182.

35. Joanna Macy, `The Greening of the Self,’ in Badiner, ed., Dharma Gaia: 53–63.

36. Etienne Lamotte summarizes Mahâyâna traditions about the throne of enlightenment (bodhimanda) in The Teaching of Vimalakirti (Virmalakirtinirdesa), trans. Sara Boin (London: Pali Text Society, 1976), 94–99.

37. Doug Cochida, `Zen Practice and a Sense of Place,’ in Badiner, ed., Dharma Gaia: 106–111.

38. Erazim Kohâk, The Embers and the Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Moral Sense of Nature ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984 ): 188.

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Lafcadio Hearn
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/7/20


Lafcadio Hearn
Koizumi Yakumo (小泉八雲)
Lafcadio Hearn in 1889 by Frederick Gutekunst
Born Patrick Lafcadio Hearn; Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χερν, 27 June 1850, Lefkada, United States of the Ionian Islands (present-day Greece)
Died: 26 September 1904 (aged 54), Tokyo, Empire of Japan
Resting place: Zōshigaya Cemetery
Pen name: Koizumi Yakumo
Language: English, Greek, Japanese, French
Spouse: Alethea ("Mattie") Foley; Koizumi Setsu
Japanese name: Kanji 小泉 八雲; Hiragana こいずみ やくも

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (/hɜːrn/; Greek: Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χερν; 27 June 1850 – 26 September 1904), known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo (小泉 八雲), was a writer, known best for his books about Japan, especially his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. In the United States, Hearn is also known for his writings about the city of New Orleans based on his ten-year stay in that city.

Born in Greece to a Greek mother and an Anglo-Irish father, a complex series of conflicts and events led to young Lafcadio Hearn being moved to Ireland, where he was abandoned first by his mother (leaving him in the care of her husband's aunt), then his father and finally by his father's aunt, who had been appointed his official guardian. At the age of nineteen he was put on a boat to the United States, where he found work as a newspaper reporter, first in Cincinnati, Ohio, and later in New Orleans. From there he was sent as a correspondent, first to the French West Indies, where he stayed for two years, and then to Japan, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

In Japan he married a Japanese woman with whom he had four children, and became a naturalized Japanese citizen. His writings about Japan offered the Western world a glimpse into a largely unknown but fascinating culture.

Life

Early life

Hearn was born in and named after the island of Lefkada, one of the Greek Ionian Islands, on 27 June 1850.[1]:p. 3 He was the son of British Army surgeon Charles Bush Hearn (of County Offaly, Ireland) and Rosa Antoniou Kassimatis, a Greek woman of noble Kytheran lineage through her father, Anthony Kassimatis.[citation needed] His father was stationed in Lefkada during the British proctectorate of the United States of the Ionian Islands. Lafcadio was baptized Patrikios Lefcadios Hearn (Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χερν) in the Greek Orthodox Church, but he seems to have been called "Patrick Lefcadio Kassimati Charles Hearn" in English.[2] Hearn's parents were married in a Greek Orthodox ceremony on 25 November 1849, several months after his mother had given birth to the couple's first child, Hearn's older brother, George Robert Hearn, on 24 July 1849. George Hearn died on 17 August 1850, two months after Lafcadio's birth.[3]: p. 11

Emigration to Ireland, abandonment


Plaque on Hearn's home on Gardiner Street, Dublin

Hearn's father was promoted to Staff Surgeon Second Class and in 1850 was reassigned from Lefkada to the British West Indies. Since his family did not approve of the marriage, and worried that his relationship might harm his career prospects, Charles Hearn did not inform his superiors of his son or pregnant wife and left his family behind. In 1852, he arranged to send his son and wife to live with his family in Dublin, Ireland, where they received a cool reception. Charles Hearn's Protestant mother, Elizabeth Holmes Hearn, had difficulty accepting Rosa Hearn's Orthodoxy and lack of education (she was illiterate and spoke no English). Rosa found it difficult to adapt to a foreign culture and the Protestantism of her husband's family, and was eventually taken under the wing of Elizabeth's sister, Sarah Holmes Brenane, a widow who had converted to Catholicism.

Despite Sarah Brenane's efforts, Rosa suffered from homesickness. When her husband returned to Ireland on medical leave in 1853, it became clear that the couple had become estranged. Charles Hearn was assigned to the Crimean Peninsula, again leaving his pregnant wife and child in Ireland. When he came back in 1856, severely wounded and traumatized, Rosa had returned to her home island of Cerigo in Greece, where she gave birth to their third son, Daniel James Hearn. Lafcadio had been left in the care of Sarah Brenane.

Charles Hearn petitioned to have the marriage with Rosa annulled, on the basis of her lack of signature on the marriage contract, which made it invalid under English law. After being informed of the annulment, Rosa almost immediately married Giovanni Cavallini, a Greek citizen of Italian ancestry who was later appointed by the British as governor of Cerigotto. Cavallini required as a condition of the marriage that Rosa give up custody of both Lafcadio and James. As a result, James was sent to his father in Dublin and Lafcadio remained in the care of Sarah Brenane (Brenane had disinherited Charles Hearn because of the annulment). Neither Lafcadio nor James saw their mother again, who had four children with her second husband. Rosa was eventually committed to the National Mental Asylum on Corfu, where she died in 1882.[3]:pp. 14–15

Charles Hearn, who had left Lafcadio in the care of Sarah Brenane for the past four years, now appointed her as Lafcadio's permanent guardian. He married his childhood sweetheart, Alicia Goslin, in July 1857, and left with his new wife for a posting in Secunderabad, where they had three daughters prior to Alicia's death in 1861.[citation needed] Lafcadio never saw his father again: Charles Hearn died of malaria in the Gulf of Suez in 1866.[3]:pp. 17–18

In 1857, at age seven and despite the fact that both his parents were still alive, Hearn became the permanent ward of his great aunt, Sarah Brenane. She divided her residency between Dublin in the winter months, her husband's estate at Tramore, County Waterford on the southern Irish coast, and a house at Bangor, North Wales. Brenane also engaged a tutor during the school year to provide basic instruction and the rudiments of Catholic dogma. Hearn began exploring Brenane's library and read extensively in Greek literature, especially myths.[3]:pp. 20–22

Catholic education, abandonment

In 1861, Hearn's aunt, aware that Hearn was turning away from Catholicism, and at the urging of Henry Hearn Molyneux, a relative of her late husband and a distant cousin of Hearn, enrolled him at the Institution Ecclésiastique, a Catholic church school in Yvetot, France. Hearn's experiences at the school confirmed his lifelong conviction that Catholic education consisted of "conventional dreariness and ugliness and dirty austerities and long faces and Jesuitry and infamous distortion of children's brains."[3]:p. 25 Hearn became fluent in French and would later translate into English the works of Guy de Maupassant.

In 1863, again at the suggestion of Molyneux, Hearn was enrolled at St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, a Catholic seminary at what is now the University of Durham. In this environment, Hearn adopted the nickname "Paddy" to try to fit in better, and was the top student in English composition for three years.[3]:p. 26 At age 16, while at Ushaw, Hearn injured his left eye in a schoolyard mishap. The eye became infected and, despite consultations with specialists in Dublin and London, and a year spent out of school convalescing, went blind. Hearn also suffered from severe myopia, so his injury left him permanently with poor vision, requiring him to carry a magnifying glass for close work and a pocket telescope to see anything beyond a short distance (Hearn avoided eyeglasses, believing they would gradually weaken his vision further). The iris was permanently discolored, and left Hearn self-conscious about his appearance for the rest of his life, causing him to cover his left eye while conversing and always posing for the camera in profile so that the left eye was not visible.[1]:p. 35

In 1867, Henry Molyneux, who had become Sarah Brenane's financial manager, went bankrupt, along with Brenane. There was no money for tuition, and Hearn was sent to London's East End to live with Brenane's former maid. She and her husband had little time or money for Hearn, who wandered the streets, spent time in workhouses, and generally lived an aimless, rootless existence. His main intellectual activities consisted of visits to libraries and the British Museum.[3]:pp. 29–30

Emigration to Cincinnati

By 1869, Henry Molyneux had recovered some financial stability and Brenane, now 75, was infirm. Resolving to end his expenditures on the 19-year-old Hearn, he purchased a one-way ticket to New York and instructed Hearn to find his way to Cincinnati, to locate Molyneux's sister and her husband, Thomas Cullinan, and to obtain their assistance in making a living. Upon meeting Hearn in Cincinnati, the family had little assistance to offer: Cullinan gave him $5 and wished him luck in seeking his fortune. As Hearn would later write, "I was dropped moneyless on the pavement of an American city to begin life."[4]:p. 818

For a time, he was impoverished, living in stables or store rooms in exchange for menial labor.[5] He eventually befriended the English printer and communalist Henry Watkin, who employed him in his printing business, helped find him various odd jobs, lent him books from his library, including utopianists Fourier, Dixon and Noyes, and gave Hearn a nickname which stuck with him for the rest of his life, The Raven, from the Poe poem. Hearn also frequented the Cincinnati Public Library, which at that time had an estimated 50,000 volumes. In the spring of 1871 a letter from Henry Molyneux informed him of Sarah Brenane's death and Molyneux's appointment as sole executor. Despite Brenane having named him as the beneficiary of an annuity when she became his guardian, Hearn received nothing from the estate and never heard from Molyneux again.[3]:pp. 36–37

Newspaper and literary work

By the strength of his talent as a writer, Hearn obtained a job as a reporter for the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, working for the newspaper from 1872 to 1875. Writing with creative freedom in one of Cincinnati's largest circulating newspapers, he became known for his lurid accounts of local murders, developing a reputation as the paper's premier sensational journalist, as well as the author of sensitive accounts of some of the disadvantaged people of Cincinnati. The Library of America selected one of these murder accounts, Gibbeted, for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime, published in 2008.[6] After one of his murder stories, the Tanyard Murder, had run for several months in 1874, Hearn established his reputation as Cincinnati's most audacious journalist, and the Enquirer raised his salary from $10 to $25 per week.[3]:p. 54


Cover page of first issue of Ye Giglampz, a satirical weekly published in 1874 by Lafcadio Hearn and Henry Farny

In 1874, Hearn and the young Henry Farny, later a renowned painter of the American West, wrote, illustrated, and published an 8-page weekly journal of art, literature and satire entitled Ye Giglampz. The Cincinnati Public Library reprinted a facsimile of all nine issues in 1983. The work was considered by a twentieth century critic to be "Perhaps the most fascinating sustained project he undertook as an editor."[7]

Marriage, firing by the Enquirer

On 14 June 1874, Hearn, aged 23, married Alethea ("Mattie") Foley, a 20-year-old African American woman, an action in violation of Ohio's anti-miscegenation law at that time. In August 1875, in response to complaints from local clergyman about his anti-religious views and pressure from local politicians embarrassed by some of his satirical writing in Ye Giglampz, the Enquirer fired him, citing as its reason his illegal marriage. He went to work for the rival newspaper The Cincinnati Commercial. The Enquirer offered to re-hire him after his stories began appearing in the Commercial and its circulation began increasing, but Hearn, incensed at the paper's behavior, refused. Hearn and Foley separated, but attempted reconciliation several times before divorcing in 1877. Foley remarried in 1880.[3]:pp. 82, 89

While working for the Commercial Hearn agreed to be carried to the top of Cincinnati's tallest building on the back of a famous steeplejack, Joseph Roderiguez Weston, and wrote a half-terrified, half-comic account of the experience. It was also during this time that Hearn wrote a series of accounts of the Bucktown and Levee neighborhoods of Cincinnati, "...one of the few depictions we have of black life in a border city during the post-Civil War period."[3]:p. 98 He also wrote about local black song lyrics from the era, including a song titled "Shiloh" that was dedicated to a Bucktown resident named "Limber Jim."[8] In addition, Hearn had printed in the Commercial a stanza he had overheard when listening to the songs of the roustabouts, working on the city's levee waterfront. Similar stanzas were recorded in song by Julius Daniels in 1926 and Tommy McClennan in his version of "Bottle Up and Go" (1939).[9]

New Orleans


Char-Coal: Cartoon published in New Orleans Daily Item on 25 August 1880

During the autumn of 1877, recently divorced from Mattie Foley and restless, Hearn had begun neglecting his newspaper work in favor of translating into English works of the French author Gautier. He had also grown increasingly disenchanted with Cincinnati, writing to Henry Watkin, "It is time for a fellow to get out of Cincinnati when they begin to call it the Paris of America." With the support of Watkin and Cincinnati Commercial publisher Murat Halstead, Hearn left Cincinnati for New Orleans, where he initially wrote dispatches on the "Gateway to the Tropics" for the Commercial.

Hearn lived in New Orleans for nearly a decade, writing first for the newspaper Daily City Item beginning in June 1878, and later for the Times Democrat. Since the Item was a 4-page publication, Hearn's editorial work changed the character of the newspaper dramatically. He began at the Item as a news editor, expanding to include book reviews of Bret Harte and Émile Zola, summaries of pieces in national magazines such as Harper's, and editorial pieces introducing Buddhism and Sanskrit writings. As editor, Hearn created and published nearly two hundred woodcuts of daily life and people in New Orleans, making the Item the first Southern newspaper to introduce cartoons and giving the paper an immediate boost in circulation. Hearn gave up carving the woodcuts after six months when he found the strain was too great for his eye.[3]:p. 134


Alligators: Cartoon published in New Orleans Daily Item on 13 September 1880

At the end of 1881, Hearn took an editorial position with the New Orleans Times Democrat and was employed translating items from French and Spanish newspapers as well as writing editorials and cultural reviews on topics of his choice. He also continued his work translating French authors into English: Gérard de Nerval, Anatole France, and most notably Pierre Loti, an author who influenced Hearn's own writing style.[3]: pp. 130–131 Milton Bronner, who edited Hearn's letters to Henry Watkin, wrote: "[T]he Hearn of New Orleans was the father of the Hearn of the West Indies and of Japan," and this view was endorsed by Norman Foerster.[10] During his tenure at the Times Democrat, Hearn also developed a friendship with editor Page Baker, who went on to champion Hearn's literary career; their correspondence is archived at the Loyola University New Orleans Special Collections & Archives.[11]

The vast number of his writings about New Orleans and its environs, many of which have not been collected, include the city's Creole population and distinctive cuisine, the French Opera, and Louisiana Voodoo. Hearn wrote enthusiastically of New Orleans, but also wrote of the city's decay, "a dead bride crowned with orange flowers".[3]:p. 118

Hearn's writings for national publications, such as Harper's Weekly and Scribner's Magazine, helped create the popular reputation of New Orleans as a place with a distinct culture more akin to that of Europe and the Caribbean than to the rest of North America. Hearn's best-known Louisiana works include:

• Gombo zhèbes: Little dictionary of Creole proverbs (1885)
• La Cuisine Créole (1885), a collection of culinary recipes from leading chefs and noted Creole housewives who helped make New Orleans famous for its cuisine
• Chita: A Memory of Last Island (1889), a novella based on the hurricane of 1856 first published in Harper's Monthly in 1888

Hearn also published in Harper's Weekly the first known written article (1883) about Filipinos in the United States, the Manilamen or Tagalogs, one of whose villages he had visited at Saint Malo, southeast of Lake Borgne in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.


Hearn's former home on Cleveland Avenue in New Orleans is preserved as a registered historic place.

At the time he lived there, Hearn was little known, and even now he is little known for his writing about New Orleans, except by local cultural devotees. However, more books have been written about him than any former resident of New Orleans except Louis Armstrong.[12]

Hearn's writings for the New Orleans newspapers included impressionistic descriptions of places and characters and many editorials denouncing political corruption, street crime, violence, intolerance, and the failures of public health and hygiene officials. Despite the fact that he is credited with "inventing" New Orleans as an exotic and mysterious place, his obituaries of the vodou leaders Marie Laveau and Doctor John Montenet are matter-of-fact and debunking. Selections of Hearn's New Orleans writings have been collected and published in several works, starting with Creole Sketches[13] in 1924, and more recently in Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn.[14]

Two Years in the French West Indies

Harper's sent Hearn to the West Indies as a correspondent in 1887. He spent two years in Martinique and in addition to his writings for the magazine, produced two books: Two Years in the French West Indies and Youma, The Story of a West-Indian Slave, both published in 1890.[15][16]

Later life in Japan


Lafcadio Hearn, shown with Koizumi Setsu; note the way he is facing—he always preferred to be photographed so that his left eye could not be seen

In 1890, Hearn went to Japan with a commission as a newspaper correspondent, which was quickly terminated. It was in Japan, however, that he found a home and his greatest inspiration. Through the goodwill of Basil Hall Chamberlain, Hearn gained a teaching position during the summer of 1890 at the Shimane Prefectural Common Middle School and Normal School in Matsue, a town in western Japan on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum and his old residence are still two of Matsue's most popular tourist attractions. During his fifteen-month stay in Matsue, Hearn married Koizumi Setsu, the daughter of a local samurai family, with whom he had four children.[17] He became a naturalized Japanese, assuming the name Koizumi Yakumo, in 1896 after accepting a teaching position in Tokyo. After having been Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and, later on, Spencerian, he became Buddhist.[18]


Kazuo, Hearn's son, aged about seventeen

During late 1891, Hearn obtained another teaching position in Kumamoto, Kyūshū, at the Fifth Higher Middle School, where he spent the next three years and completed his book Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894). In October 1894, he secured a journalism job with the English-language newspaper Kobe Chronicle, and in 1896, with some assistance from Chamberlain, he began teaching English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, a job he had until 1903. In 1904, he was a professor at Waseda University.

While in Japan he encountered the art of ju-jutsu which made a deep impression upon him:[19]

Hearn, who encountered judo in Japan at the end of the nineteenth century, contemplated its concepts with the awed tones of an explorer staring about him in an extraordinary and undiscovered land. "What Western brain could have elaborated this strange teaching, never to oppose force by force, but only direct and utilize the power of attack; to overthrow the enemy solely through his own strength, to vanquish him solely by his own efforts? Surely none! The Western mind appears to work in straight lines; the Oriental, in wonderful curves and circles.

On 26 September 1904, he died of heart failure at the age of 54 years. His grave is at the Zōshigaya Cemetery in Toshima, Tokyo.[20]

In the late 19th century, Japan was still largely unknown and exotic to Westerners. However, with the introduction of Japanese aesthetics, particularly at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, Japanese styles became fashionable in Western countries. Consequently, Hearn became known to the world by his writings concerning Japan. In later years, some critics would accuse Hearn of exoticizing Japan, but because he offered the West some of its first descriptions of pre-industrial and Meiji Era Japan, his work is generally regarded as having historical value.[21][22][23]

Legacy


Hearn's grave, in Zōshigaya Cemetery

Admirers of Hearn's work have included Ben Hecht,[24] John Erskine, and Malcolm Cowley.[25]

The Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi adapted four Hearn tales into his 1964 film, Kwaidan. Some of his stories have been adapted by Ping Chong into his puppet theatre, including the 1999 Kwaidan and the 2002 OBON: Tales of Moonlight and Rain.

Yone Noguchi is quoted as saying about Hearn, "His Greek temperament and French culture became frost-bitten as a flower in the North."[26]

There is also a cultural center named after Hearn at the University of Durham.

Hearn was a major translator of the short stories of Guy de Maupassant.[27]

The first museum in Europe for Lafcadio Hearn was inaugurated in Lefkada, Greece, his birthplace, on 4 July 2014, as Lefcadio Hearn Historical Center. It contains early editions, rare books and Japanese collectibles. The visitors, through photos, texts and exhibits, can wander in the significant events of Lafcadio Hearn's life, but also in the civilizations of Europe, America and Japan of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through his lectures, writings and tales. The municipalities of Kumamoto, Matsue, Shinjuku, Yaizu, Toyama University, the Koizumi family and other people from Japan and Greece contributed to the establishment of Lefcadio Hearn Historical Center.[28]

He is also depicted as the main inspiration for Yukari Yakumo and Maribel Hearn in Touhou Project games and audio CDs[29]

Works


Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, 1895

Books written by Hearn on Japanese subjects

Source:

• Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894)
• Out of the East: Reveries and Studies in New Japan (1895)
• Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life (1896)
• Gleanings in Buddha-Fields: Studies of Hand and Soul in the Far East (1897)
• The Boy who Drew Cats, (1897)
• Exotics and Retrospectives (1898)
• Japanese Fairy Tales (1898, and sequels)
• In Ghostly Japan (1899)
• Shadowings (1900)
• Japanese Lyrics (1900)
• A Japanese Miscellany (1901)
• Kottō: Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs (1902)
• Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904, later made into the movie Kwaidan by Masaki Kobayashi)
• Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (1904)
• The Romance of the Milky Way and other studies and stories (1905)

Books written by Hearn on Louisiana subjects

• La Cuisine Creole: A Collection of Culinary Recipes (1885)
• Gombo Zhèbes": A Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs, Selected from Six Creole Dialects. (1885)
• Chita: A Memory of Last Island (1889)
• Creole Sketches (1924, Houghton Mifflin)

Posthumous anthologies

• Letters from the Raven; being the correspondence of Lafcadio Hearn with Henry Watkin (1907)
• Includes Letters from the Raven, Letters to a Lady, Letters of Ozias Midwinter
• Leaves from the Diary of an Impressionist (1911, Houghton Mifflin Company)
• Interpretations of Literature (1915, Dodd, Mead and Company)
• Karma (1918)
• On Reading in Relation to Literature (1921, The Atlantic Monthly Press, Inc.)
• Lectures on Shakespeare (1928, Hokuseido Press)
• Insect-musicians and other stories and sketches (1929)
• Japan's Religions: Shinto and Buddhism (1966)
• Books and Habits; from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn (1968, Books for Libraries Press)
• Writings from Japan: An Anthology (1984, Penguin Books)
• Lafcadio Hearn's America: Ethnographic Sketches and Editorials (2002, University Press of Kentucky)
• Lafcadio Hearn's Japan: An Anthology of His Writings on the Country and Its People (2007, Tuttle)
• American Writings (2009, Library of America)
• Insect Literature (2015, Swan River Press; for details, see Insects in literature)
• Japanese Ghost Stories. Murray, Paul, ed. 2019 London: Penguin. ISBN 9780241381274
• Japanese Tales of Lafcadio Hearn. Andrei Codrescu, ed. 2019. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. 2019. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9781911604983

Translations

• One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances by Théophile Gautier (1882)
• Tales from Theophile Gautier (1888)
• The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard by Anatole France (1890)
• The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert (1910)
• Stories from Emile Zola (1935)
• The tales of Guy de Maupassant(1964)

Other

• Stray Leaves From Strange Literature; Stories Reconstructed from the Anvari-Soheili, Baital Pachisi, Mahabharata, Pantchantra, Gulistan, Talmud, Kalewala, etc. (1884, James R. Osgood and Company)
• Some Chinese Ghosts (1887)
• Youma, the Story of a West-Indian Slave (1889)
• Two Years in the French West Indies (1890)

See also

• Ireland portal
• Japan portal
• Biography portal
• Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum
• Goryo Hamaguchi

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hearn, Lafcadio". Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 128.
1. Bisland, Elizabeth (1906). The life and letters of Lafcadio Hearn. 1. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin.
2. According to one of his biographers, a family Bible records 'Patricio Lafcadio Tessima Carlos Hearn, August 1850.' Kennard, Nina H. (1912). Lafcadio Hearn. New York: D. Appleton and Co.
3. Cott, Jonathan (1990). Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn. New York: Knopf.
4. Christopher Benfey, ed. (2008). Lafcadio Hearn: American Writings. New York: Library of America. ISBN 978-1-59853-039-1.
5. Grace, Kevin (4 January 2012). Legendary Locals of Cincinnati. Arcadia Publishing. p. 25. ISBN 9781467100021. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
6. Harold Schechter, ed. (2008). True Crime: An American Anthology. Library of America. pp. 117–130. ISBN 978-1-59853-031-5.
7. Jon Christopher Hughes (Autumn 1982). ""Ye Giglampz" and the Apprenticeship of Lafcadio Hearn". American Literary Realism, 1870–1910. University of Illinois Press. 15 (2): 182–194. JSTOR 27746052.
8. Gale, Robert (2002). A Lafcadio Hearn Companion. Greenwood Press. pp. 179–180. ISBN 0-313-31737-2.
9. Giles Oakley (1997). The Devil's Music. Da Capo Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-306-80743-5.
10. Norman Foerster (1934), American Poetry and Prose, Revised and Enlarged Edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, p. 1149; Hearn, Lafcadio (1907), Letters from the Raven: Being the Correspondence of Lafcadio Hearn with Henry Watkin, ed., Milton Bronner, New York: Brentano's.
11. "Lafcadio Hearn Correspondence Finding Aid" (PDF). J. Edgar & Louise S. Monroe Library, Loyola University New Orleans. Retrieved 16 July 2018.
12. Peggy Grodinsky (14 February 2007). "A chronicle of Creole cuisine". Chronicle. Houston..
13. Lafcadio Hearn (1924). Charles Woodward Hutson (ed.). Creole Sketches. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. OCLC 2403347.
14. Starr, S. Frederick (2001). Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-353-1.
15. "Two Years in the French West Indies". World Digital Library. 1890. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
16. Hearn, Lafcadio (1890). Youma: Story of a Western Indian Slave. New York: Harper & Brothers.
17. Kazuo, Iwao, Kiyoshi, and Suzuko: Katharine Chubbuck, 'Hearn, (Patricio) Lafcadio Carlos (1850–1904)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
18. Norman Foerster (1934), American Poetry and Prose, Revised and Enlarged Edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, p. 1149.
19. Law, Mark (2007). The Pyjama Game: A Journey Into Judo(2008 ed.). London: Aurum Press Ltd. p. 41.
20. Japan Times
21. Komakichi, Nohara, The True Face of Japan, (1936, 1st ed.)
22. Guo, Nanyang (2000), Interpreting Japan's interpreters: the problem of Lafcadio Hearn, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 3 (1), 106–118
23. Askew, Rie (2009), The Critical Reception of Lafcadio Hearn outside Japan, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 11 (2), 44–71
24. MacAdams, William (1995), Ben Hecht, Barricade, p. 34, ISBN 1-56980-028-6.
25. Cowley, Malcolm (1949), "Introduction", in Goodman, Henry (ed.), The Selected Writings of Lafcadio Hearn, Citadel.
26. Noguchi, Yone (1910), Lafcadio Hearn in Japan, New York: Mitchell Kennerley.
27. "Bibliography", Lafcadio Hearn, Trussel.
28. "Lafcadio Hearn Japanese Gardens". Lafcadiohearngardens.com. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
29. "Doujin Barrier: The Work Called Touhou and the Fantasy of Game Creation". Touhouwiki.net. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
30. "Lafcadio Hearn Bibliography". Trussel.com.

Further reading

• Amenomori, Nobushige (1905). "Lafcadio Hearn, the Man," The Atlantic Monthly, October 1905.
• Bisland, Elizabeth (1906). The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn, Vol. II, New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Company.
• Bronner, Simon J. 2002. Lafcadio Hearn's America: Ethnographic Sketches and Editorials. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
• Cott, Jonathan (1992), Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn, Kodansha International.
• Dawson, Carl (1992). Lafcadio Hearn and the Vision of Japan, Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Hearn, Lafcadio (2001), Starr, S Frederick (ed.), Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn, University Press of Mississippi.
• Hirakawa, Sukehiro and Yoko Makino (2018), What is Shintō? Japan, a Country of Gods, as Seen by Lafcadio Hearn, Tokyo: Kinseisha.
• Kennard, Nina H (1912), Lafcadio Hearn, New York: D. Appleton & Co.
• Kunst, Arthur E. (1969). Lafcadio Hearn, Twayne Publishers.
• Langton, D. H. (1912). "Lafcadio Hearn: Journalist and Writer on Japan," The Manchester Quarterly, Vol. XXXI.
• Lurie, David (2005), "Orientomology: The Insect Literature of Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904)", in Pflugfelder, Gregory M; Walker, Brett L (eds.), JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan's Animal Life, University of Michigan Press.
• Mais, S. P. B. (1920). "Lafcadio Hearn." In Books and their Writers, Grant Richards, Ltd.
• McWilliams, Vera (1946). Lafcadio Hearn, Houghton Mifflin Company.
• Miner, Earl Roy (1958). The Japanese Tradition in British and American Literature, Princeton University Press.
• Monaham, Michael (1922). "Lafcadio Hearn," An Attic Dreamer, Mitchell Kennerley.
• More, Paul Elmer (1905). "Lafcadio Hearn." In Shelburne Essays, Second Series, G. P. Putnam's Sons.
• Noguchi, Yone (1905). "Lafcadio Hearn, A Dreamer," National Magazine, Vol. XXII, No. 1.
• Noguchi, Yone (1910), Lafcadio Hearn in Japan, New York: Mitchell Kennerley.
• Pulvers, Roger (19 January 2000), "Lafcadio Hearn: Interpreter of Two Disparate Worlds", Japan Times, Trussel.
• Rexroth, Kenneth (1977), The Buddhist Writings of Lafcadio Hearn.
• Rothman, Adam (2008), "Lafcadio Hearn in New Orleans and the Caribbean", Atlantic Studies, 5 (2): 265–283, doi:10.1080/14788810802149766; republished in New Orleans in the Atlantic World: Between Land and Sea, Routledge, 2013.
• Setsu, Koizumi (1918). Reminiscences of Lafcadio Hearn, Houghton Mifflin Company.
• Starrs, Roy (2006), "Lafcadio Hearn as Japanese Nationalist" (PDF), Nichibunken Japan Review: Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (essay), JP: Nichibun (18): 181–213.
• Thomas, Edward (1912). Lafcadio Hearn, Houghton Mifflin Company.
• Murray, Paul, ed. 2019. Japanese Ghost Stories. Lafcadio Hearn. London: Penguin. ISBN 9780241381274
• Hearn, Lafcadio. 2019. Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. By.
2019. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9781911604983 (soft cover).
• Bronner, Simon J. 2002. Lafcadio Hearn's America: Ethnographic Sketches and Editorials. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

External links

• Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum Matsue city in Japan
• Lafcadio Hearn Gardens Tramore in Ireland
• Hearn's Works, by T Russel
• Works by Lafcadio Hearn at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Lafcadio Hearn at Internet Archive
• Works by or about Koizumi Yakumo at Internet Archive
• Works by Lafcadio Hearn at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Works by Lafcadio Hearn, at Unz.org
• Works by Lafcadio Hearn, at Hathi Trust
• "Lafcadio Hearn and Haiku", Modern haiku (essay).
• Hearn's influence in literature
• Dirda, Michael, "The Ghost Stories of Lafcadio Hearn", Library without walls (review), Barnes & Noble.
• Lafcadio Hearn's papers at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
• Japan and the Japanese as Seen by Foreigners
• Lafcadio Hearn
• Two Years in the French West Indies From the Collections at the Library of Congress
• Lafcadio Hearn Correspondence digitized by Loyola University New Orleans
• Lafcadio Hearn at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Lafcadio Hearn at Library of Congress Authorities, with 281 catalogue records
• Newspaper clippings about Lafcadio Hearn in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW