Reworlding the ancient Chinese tiger in the realm of the Asian Anthropocene (original) (raw)
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A Thousand Asian Tigers: Contested Modernity and the Image of History
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The tiger occupies and embodies the spaces in between the human and the animal, between conquering and venerating nature. Furthermore, if considered such an embodiment of liminality, the tiger is in a perpetual state of becoming. Based on this proposition, the essay analyzes the works of this exhibition against the background of Asian societies in-between becoming and unraveling, with the tiger being the medium, fused with the image of resistance, valor, and nationalistic spirituality by the colonized people.
Fudo: a Buddhist Response to the Anthropocene
Sophia Journal, 2023
For many environmental philosophers, the dualisms intrinsic to Modernity that separate body from mind and nature from culture must be deconstructed in order to develop an inclusive ecology that might respond to the Anthropocene Age. In seeking alternatives to human exceptionalism and humans as exclusive owners of souls to the exclusion of other animals, many scholars have turned to Asian philosophies founded in presuppositions that are far more eco-centric. Focusing on Buddhism, this article will outline some eco-centric aspects of Buddhist dogma, focusing on the idea of co-dependent origination and the Buddhist idea that all things are empty of inherent existence and are constituted through relationality. Then we will show how such Buddhist ideas have been used to develop an ecology that instead of abstracting itself from place, as modern theories are wont to do, seeks to develop an intrinsic relationship to place, and even to locate subjectivity there. This is the Japanese theory of Fudo, developed by twentieth century philosopher Tetsuro Watsuji, a theory that is able to move beyond the dualisms of Western ideology to provide a promising response to the Anthropocene Age. If the being of being human is co-determined and co-dependent upon its milieu and upon the community of others living in such a milieu, we should be focusing on finding ways to reclaim and re-value such milieu as constitutive of human development and flourishing. In this way, we can replace Western universals and intrinsic essence with ontological specificity and the shared interdependent experience of community.
A Buddhist Perspective on the Global Environmental Crisis: Poetics of the Wild
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My thesis is about a Buddhist perspective on the global environmental crisis, including an exploration of how both ancient and modern poetry express a compassionate response to nature, a social science survey, and a creative project of my own poetry. The exploration in the rationale paper suggests that looking inward may be an important way to begin to understand individual responsibility for the global environmental crisis. In consideration of this is a discussion of ancient Buddhist wisdom and teachings about, and the relevance of, mindfulness, compassion, interdependence, and impermanence. In a creative extension of this discussion, an exploration of Buddhist-inspired nature poetry follows. Both ancient and modern poetics address the human condition and interconnection with the planet in deep, heartfelt and insightful ways. I call this Poetics of the Wild, to describe the vast, passionate art of language that captures the wildness of nature, as well as the wildness of the creativ...
Freeing Animals: Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Environmentalism and Ecological Challenges
Religions, 2023
Abstract: Buddhist environmentalism in its varieties across the world is an integral part of the global environmental discourse centered on exploring new planetary ethics for sustainable futures. While recognizing the Buddhist role in global environmental movements, the author of this article proposes that the observable strength of Buddhist environmentalism is in local and global environmental advocacy grounded in the Buddhist ethics of interdependence, even as, canonically, Buddhism does not offer what is commonly recognized by scientists and scholars as traditional ecological knowledge or religious ecology. To substantiate this, this article offers a textual assessment of the Buddhist canon’s lack of systematic ecological knowledge, and a case study of how freeing domestic animals and advocating vegetarianism among contemporary Tibetan Buddhists in China, inclusive of non‑Tibetan converts, mainly benefits human wellbeing and at the same time is entangled in social affairs that have little to do with the ecological wellbeing of the Tibetan Plateau and urban China. This debate is by no means intended to negate the successes of Buddhist environmentalism; instead, it draws fine lines between the claimed canonic basis of Buddhist ecology, the strength of Buddhist environmental advocacy, the everyday practices of Buddhism, and the aspirations for strengthening the ecological foundation of Buddhist environmental activism. Thinking in line with eco‑Buddhists, the author concludes the article by proposing an Earth Sutra, a hypothetical future canonic text as the ecological basis of Buddhist environmentalism. Keywords: freeing animals; vegetarianism; eco‑Buddhism; environmentalism; Earth Sutra
Most argue environmental movements are a novel feature of world politics. I argue that they are a durable feature of a degradative political economy. Past or present, environmental politics and scientific movements became expressed in religious change movements as oppositions to state environmental degradation using discourses available. Ecological Revolution describes characteristics why our historical states collapse and because of these characteristics are opposed predictably by religio-scientific-ecological movements. As a result, origins of our large scale humanocentric ‘axial religions' and periods of scientific advance in human history are connected to anti-systemic environmental movements. Many major religious movements of the past were ‘environmentalist’ by being health, ecological, and economic movements, rolled into one. Since ecological revolutions are endemic to a degradation based political economy, they continue today. China, Japan, and Europe are analyzed over 2,500 years showing how religio-ecological and scientific movements get paired against chosen forms of state-led environmental degradation in a predictable fashion. The book describes solutions to this durable problematic as well. It should be useful to all people seeking solutions to environmental problems.