In short, it would appear that there is a great deal more consistency between the
thoughts of Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu than is often claimed. In general, both
Mahāyāna schools agree on the ineffability of ultimate truth, the need to relinquish views,and the nonduality of reality. In the rest of this chapter, I will examine the consequences of these Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrines on environmental philosophy, and in particular, on the difficulties for green Buddhism that were identified in chapter 1.
Mahāyāna Environmentalism; a Preliminary Discussion
Clearly, we cannot expect to find material in Nāgārjuna and other ancient Buddhist
philosophers, which is directly related to environmental issues, since these are a relatively recent Western concern. Nevertheless, the Mahāyāna worldview will have bearing on the possibility of establishing a green Buddhism, to the extent that it either supports or contradicts the assumptions of environmentalism. At the start of this chapter, it was argued that the key difference in the Mahāyāna is its identification of nirvana with saṃsāra. As we have seen, the Madhyamaka regards these as two different ways of perceiving reality, and yet, even this characterization suggests a modicum of dualism that Nāgārjuna would have rejected.
It was said that the Buddha perceives conventional reality—that is, he perceives the samsaric world itself and not anything different from it—and yet he perceives it as a conventional reality, and in this way, he perceives its emptiness.
It would seem, then, that the Mahāyāna has the resources to respond to some of the main problems for green Buddhism identified in chapter 1; namely, that Buddhism is world-rejecting, that it attributes negative value to the natural world, and conceives of
happiness and well-being in a completely different way from environmentalists. If the
ordinary world of saṃsāra does not need to be abandoned entirely in order to reach
nirvana, then it seems clear that these criticisms no longer apply.
In order to attain nondual awareness, and to go beyond regarding nirvana and saṃsāra as opposed to each other, the status of saṃsāra as conventional reality needs to be reconsidered. This is because nirvana is reached precisely through the conventional world of dependent coorigination,and it is nothing different from that. In Mādhyamika terms, ultimate reality is the conventional nature of the conventional, or, as the Yogācārins would say, it is the same world of the dependent co-origination, seen without the duality we mistakenly attribute to it. Thus, the conventional realm would seem to be indispensable for the realization of the ultimate truth and the bodhisattva must experience the emptiness of ordinary phenomena in the world of nature, in order to attain enlightenment.
Therefore, it cannot be correct to say that Buddhism is world-rejecting, or that it ascribes a negative value to nature.