Deconstructing the Centric Way of Thinking and Ecological Practices in Korean Buddhist Communities

Abstract

Today's environmental crisis is not a simple problem to be resolved by an engineering marble or policy switch, but a fundamental problem which will never be able to be resolved without entire change of thought and value system. In placing humans endowed with reason at the center of the world, and relegating nature that lacks reason to a peripheral position subordinate to humans, modern thought essentially shared the same anthropocentric outlook as Christianity. The ecological crisis, the foremost challenge we face today, calls for a radical departure from this anthropocentric way of thinking. This article will examine the Buddhist notion of no‐self and the doctrine of dependent‐arising as a prime way to overcome anthropocentrism by deconstructing the substantive notion of self and other forms of the centric way of thinking. I will then conclude this article by examining how this Buddhist approach to ecological ethics is actually being put into practice by those engaged in Buddhist ecological movements in Korea today. Through the insights provided by wisdom and through the practice of great compassion, Buddhist ecological ethics seeks to overcome the anthropocentrism that is deeply rooted in our way of thinking and lives by freeing us from the dichotomous view of reality that divides the world into subject and object, center and periphery, and humans and nature.