Abstract
Working hermeneutically with classic Zen Buddhist texts and with corresponding events of daily existence, this chapter explores the suffering generated by humans living as if separate from the rest of nature. Further, it works to cultivate an alternative ethical/relational sensibility growing from and actualized as sensitive, aware, embodied contact with others: two-legged, four-legged, winged, rooted, and otherwise. This approach—nondual (non-separate) yet inherently interreponsive—aspires to sponsor a more convivial, mutually enhancing relationship between humankind and all the other beings and presences of earth. Readers are encouraged to experiment with the following invitation, to play with and test it conceptually and (especially) experientially: What if we welcomed intimate participatory responsivity as our shared essence, calling, path, and fruition? Phenomenological, contemplative, and theoretical perspectives from Buddhist psychology serve as textual and practical supports for this inquiry: for example, “interdependent co-arising,” “no (separate) self,” nature’s “sutras,” “the bodhisattva vow,” and others. The revelatory teachings of thirteenth-century Zen master Eihei Dogen play a key role. The views and spirit of Western phenomenology imbue the present work, while remaining mostly in the background. Joining with allies in this anthology and beyond, this chapter contributes to an evolving, interdisciplinary, eco-psycho-cultural therapy. This continuous practice is devoted to fostering well-being with and for all our relations in the shared earth community.
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Notes
- 1.
I say “as if” separate, “supposed” separation, “apparent” estrangement, etc., because our sense of separation from the rest of nature is a constructed belief/fantasy/illusion. We are, inherently, participatory manifestations of the community of nature, while existing as cultural beings as well. You can never be separate from that which you always already are. However, agonizingly, you can lose contact with the ever present fact. We need to only become attuned with our next heartbeat, breath, or bite of food to know directly that we can never really be separate. Nonetheless, this “as if” makes all the difference between a fear-filled, self-aggrandizing response and an open, loving one.
- 2.
The present study grew out of an earlier journal article (Adams 2010a). I have incorporated some previous material, but this chapter is a new and distinctively different work. I had hoped to create a dialogue between hermeneutic phenomenology and Zen, but time and space led me to focus on Buddhist psychology/phenomenology. (Derrida, not a phenomenologist, surprisingly arrives as another ally.) I am grateful to Bruce Harris Roshi, my Zen teacher, for his profound guidance and inspiration. This chapter is dedicated to him. I am grateful too for the living Buddhist traditions and texts. But I want to emphasize that I have no intention of speaking in the name of Zen doctrine (not that there could even be one exclusive version/vision). Rather, influenced by Zen practice/study, I offer my current (personally–culturally–historically situated) views, aspiring to foster a more convivial relationship between us human-folk and the rest of nature’s folk. I take responsibility for any misinterpretation of the authentic heart of Zen.
- 3.
These four versions of interresponsiveness comprise a nondual, integral, coherent, dynamically interactive Gestalt. I had planned to create a subsection exploring each one. This did not work because they are inherently intertwined and ultimately identical. In the spirit of the hermeneutic circle, the chapter will play with variations of our essential interresponsivity, spiraling and re-spiraling further—freshly through its distinguishable yet indivisible forms. When encountering one of the key phenomena in the text, please allow the others to be gathered and read/thought/felt with it. The living heart of this chapter involves experimenting with embodying intimate responsivity as our shared essence-calling-path-fruition; experiencing directly that all constituents are simultaneously present or, better, dynamically presencing with and even as one another, yet appearing distinctively according to context, thereby fostering personal, interpersonal, and sociocultural responses that may serve our fellow humans and the larger natural world together.
- 4.
For example, when we do not know the other who is calling us; when the other is far from our home, say, a rainforest being destroyed, dolphins slaughtered, strangers starving on the other side of town; or when a strongly assertive stance is required. Love still applies in all of these, but I will speak mostly of responsivity.
- 5.
Given today’s postmodern, (de)constructionist sensibilities, along with precursors in Zen and other forms of apophatic mysticism (West and East), let me comment on the notion of essence and phrases such as our “inherent or true nature.” Such language might suggest a positivist, “essentialist” ontology (epistemology and ethic) positing some single, objective, substantial, independent, static, merely present, pre-given reality (otherworldly or not). However, our current inquiry should make it clear that the essence being celebrated here is co-created ceaselessly and interactively, dynamically coming into be-ing with, through, as, and for each other and all others. This nondual (transcendent–immanent) essence is never some ideal dimension, world, or substance opposed to or separate from the world of phenomenal forms. I see intimate responding as an all inclusive, shared essence, but one springing forth freshly in living (un-prescribable, un-determinable) reply to the solicitations of each singular, utterly unique other we encounter, each mysterious, indefinable, unqualifiable, ineffable other right here with us: this person, animal, plant, mountain, etc. (with every one simultaneously being a unique manifestation of the whole community of beings and presences). Essence exists and expresses itself nowhere other than in and as interresponsivity. In this approach, participatory intimacy is offered as non-positivistic, non-essentialist essence—inherently open, free, and ungraspable. It, thereby, generates metaphorical notions of itself (via mind and culture) that freely resist being co-opted by oppressive, authoritarian, prescriptive, controlling forces. The verb presencing is helpful here, intimating the dynamic, ever-changing, impermanent, revealing/concealing be-ing of phenomenal presences, in contrast to something simply, statically, superficially, objectively present. All presencing involves an infinitely deep inclusion of hidden, implicit, un- or not-fully manifested yet still intimated dimensions.
- 6.
I use the word “beings” for biological organisms and “presences” for other (differently animate) forms of nature, for example, presences/presencings that are airy (sky, wind, breath), rocky (soil, stone, bone), watery (rain, rivers, tears), fiery (sun, lightening, synapses firing), etc. I happily acknowledge that these categories are arbitrary and overlapping.
- 7.
I want to take back what I have written. (What have we gotten into here?) Anything I say regarding essence is not our essence itself (except insofar as the saying is one phenomenal manifestation of it). So too regarding calling, path, and fruition. There are practices that can help along the way: conversation, walking in the woods, meditation, love making, psychotherapy, art, ecopsychology, dance, reading, gardening, etc. However, it is impossible to know our true self as a namable objective thing or to define what our ineffable essential nature is. We can only really know it by being it. Nonetheless, just as in authentic dialogue with a friend or a face-to-face encounter with a Zen teacher (dokusan), one has to present something. For the time being, hoping to carry the conversation further (in a more or less rational form that also honors the transrational), this chapter is my best gesture of saying/unsaying the unsayable.
- 8.
It is no accident that contemporary ecology offers a perspective that is similar, though not quite the same.
- 9.
The Heart Sutra tells us that this great teaching emerges from the meditative inquiry and nondual knowing (prajna) of Avalokitesvara/Guanyin/Kanzeon: the bodhisattva of infinite compassion, infinite heart, the one who lovingly-wisely-hears-the-cries-of-the-world, and responds accordingly. See, later, our exploration of the bodhisattva path.
- 10.
This is what happened for the young man who was to become the Buddha. Painful encounters (with an old man, a sick man, and a dead man) led Siddhartha Gautama to embark on his transformative path.
- 11.
There are many versions of the bodhisattva vow. The aforementioned one is adapted from my Zen training with Bruce Harris. Note that the last line invokes not the Buddhist Way, but the Buddha Way—the Great Way not limited to any tradition (nor limited at all, for that matter). We will explore the third line a bit later.
- 12.
I use the felicitous expression “the time being” as in conventional discourse, yet also following Dogen’s (1985, pp. 76–83) nondual appreciation that our time is our very being, our being our time.
- 13.
This passage is frequently cited by experts on Buddhist psychology such as Jack Kornfield and Mark Epstein, teachers for whom I have great respect. However, I have not been able to locate this exact phrasing in Dogen’s original (translated) writings. I suspect it was adapted from the “Genjokoan” fascicle/essay in Dogen’s Shobogenzo (see Dogen 1985, and immediately below in the present chapter). Nonetheless, for me this formulation comes through as a revealing articulation of the heart of being human: awakening–enlightenment–realization as devoted responsive/responsible intimacy with and for others. Therefore, I presented the passage to esteemed Buddhist authorities David Loy and Bruce Harris. I asked if the teaching (put in this way) conveyed the true spirit of Zen. They each answered affirmatively (Loy, personal communication, November 2005; Harris, personal communication, October 2006).
- 14.
Myriad things means all things, phenomena, encounters. In different translations: “To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe” (Dogen in Kim 2004, p. 104). “To forget oneself is to be enlightened by the myriad dharmas” (Dogen in Yasutani 1996, p. 102). “To forget the self is to be verified by all things” (Dogen in Okumura 2010, p. 1).
- 15.
Note that Dogen’s alternative approach is far from a mandate for passivity. At times, we are called to respond in strongly assertive ways, but only in accordance with the current circumstances (rather than leading with self-aggrandizing force). To cite just one example, confronted with violence against nature, nonviolent civil disobedience can be a creatively powerful (and still loving) response.
- 16.
Ultimately, for Zen, there is no other, that is, no separate other: There is nothing other than our shared true essential nature—nondual, seamless, all-inclusive. Thus, I—my/our true self—am not other than others. At the same time, I (irreplaceably) vow to assist all (uniquely other) beings.
- 17.
Tatagatha, literally “the one thus coming forth,” is a Sanskrit word referring to the Buddha. It derives from the word tathata, meaning the dynamic unqualifiable suchness or as-it-is-ness of reality, the thusness of our true or essential or Buddha nature—never other than the very encounter currently transpiring.
- 18.
I say “apparent” because, ultimately, there can be no real rift in the flesh of be-ing. At the same time, in daily existence, self/other, mind/body, human/nature ruptures are insidiously severe. In this regard, since we are exploring contemplative/spiritual/religious (eco)psychology, it is worth noting a contested but significant etymology (with parenthetical gloss on its present relevance): religion as re- + legere, to read again (for us, to re-read nature’s sutras, thus moving from a superficial interpretation/experience of separation to one of intimate nonduality); religion as re- + ligare, to bind fast or bind again (what seems to be separate), to make a bond (between humans and god[s], humankind and the rest of nature), to bandage (our dissociative wound), to unite, also with linguistic (and ethical) connections to rely, to place an obligation upon (to answer the other’s call); and from religiens, to care, in contrast with negligens (to neglect our shared nondual intimacy and the corresponding ethical summons).
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Adams, W. (2014). Intimate Responsivity as Essence-Calling-Path-Fruition: Eco(psycho)logical Ethics Via Zen Buddhist Phenomenology. In: Vakoch, D., Castrillón, F. (eds) Ecopsychology, Phenomenology, and the Environment. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9619-9_5
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