Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth: Reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen in an Age of Ecological Crisis

SUNY Series in Environmental Philosophy and Ethics

by Jason M. Wirth

Meditating on the work of American poet and environmental activist Gary Snyder and thirteenth-century Japanese Zen Master Eihei Dōgen, Jason M. Wirth draws out insights for understanding our relation to the planet's ongoing ecological crisis. He discusses what Dōgen calls "the Great Earth" and what Snyder calls "the Wild" as being comprised of the play of waters and mountains, emptiness and form, and then considers how these ideas can illuminate the spiritual and ethical dimensions of place. The book culminates in a discussion of earth democracy, a place-based sense of communion where all beings are interconnected and all beings matter. This radical rethinking of what it means to inhabit the earth will inspire lovers of Snyder's poetry, Zen practitioners, environmental philosophers, and anyone concerned about the global ecological crisis.

Genres: Buddhism

174 pages, Hardcover

Published July 1, 2017

Reviews

[Corey Schuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

“When the ten thousand things come forward and verify you, that is enlightenment but when you go forward and verify the ten thousand things, that is delusion.”

Solid book that gives a great overview of Zen, Dogen, Snyder and modern ecological thought. Aside from doing this very well, it also gives great advice for policy making:

"As Snyder put it in his own way, we do not need to rediscover Turtle Island. There was never a time that we had discovered it. In a different sense, we need to “dis-cover” it, that is, to remove the cover of our own nonseeing, to see where and thereby who we are with the true Dharma eye. “People live on it without knowing what it is or where they are. They live on it literally like invaders”

"What we must find a way to do, then, is incorporate the other people - what the Sioux Indians called the creeping people, and the standing people, and the flying people, and the swimming people - into the councils of government."

"This cannot come from “thinking about” nature; it must come from being within nature."

"If we don’t do it, they will revolt against us. They will submit non-negotiable demands about our stay on the earth. We are beginning to get non-negotiable demands right now from the air, the water, the soil."

"This brings us to the paradox of the Great Earth and its many bioregions: the Great Earth can only be affirmed within a bioregion and as a bioregion. Only by becoming mindful of ourselves as our place do we also participate in earth democracy."

“This is Zen. To give hundred percent and know it doesn’t matter"

[Skylar Jon Izzard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hope I can learn to write this eloquently and clearly. Such a wonderful book.