论文总字数：44133字

摘 要

加里·斯奈德（1930- ）是20世纪美国著名诗人，也是“垮掉的一代”的重要代表人物，但与其他代表人物，如艾伦·金斯伯格、乔治·克鲁亚克不同的是，作为一个环保主义者，加里·斯奈德对生态诗歌的发展有着重要影响，特别是他后来的作品中，大多都涉及人与自然的关系，致力于环境保护。他的作品很大程度上受到佛教思想的影响，将佛教观点与生态学理论结合并运用诗歌创作中，把自己对自然、人生的禅悟体验巧妙地融合为一体，形成独特的佛教生态观。

本文将从佛教生态观的角度出发，对加里·斯奈德诗歌，如《龟岛》、《山河无尽》等进行文本分析，研究其诗歌中的人与自然的关系，从而探究如何更好地维持人与自然的和谐关系。

论文的主体部分分别对应佛教生态观的三个主要方面：整体观，无我论，生命观。第一章通过对于《阿那萨齐》等诗歌的文本分析，具体论证佛教生态观中的整体论，探讨整体与个体之间存在的联系，个体之间相互影响，而个体的变化又会导致整体的变化。第二章从无我论的角度指出造成环境问题的根源是传统西方生态观中的人类中心主义，并提出无我论中强调的“空”可以让人们放弃物质追求，从而保护环境。第三章围绕加里·斯奈德诗歌中展现的生命观，分析斯奈德如何将生态思想付诸实践，并倡导人们尊重生命，关爱生命。

因为人们逐渐认识到保护环境的重要性，所以如何保护环境自然而然地成为了国际社会关心的重要问题。本文通过分析加里·斯奈德诗歌中对人与自然的描写，从整体观，无我论，生命观三个方面具体分析其诗歌中的佛教生态观，展现加里·斯奈德生态思想中西方环境伦理思想与东方佛教思想的充分融合，体现出了人与自然的一体关系与平等关系。人们可以从中得到更多关于环境保护问题的启示，尤其对于发展中的中国来说，生态思想与佛教禅宗思想的结合，对于中国现今的环境问题有着更加本地化的解读，从而建立和谐平等的人与自然关系。

关键词：佛教生态观，加里·斯奈德，生态批评

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

摘要 iv

Introduction 1

Chapter one Holism in Gary Snyder’s Poetry 7

1.1 The Whole And The Individual: Indra’s Net in “Anasazi” 7

1.2 Interaction ：The law of Cause and Effect 10

Chapter Two Non-self as the Solution to Environmental Issues 12

2.1 Anthropocentrism Represented in “LMFBR” 12

2.2 Sunyata in “The Hump-backed Flute Player” 14

Chapter Three Respect and Care for Life 17

3.1 Equality of All Beings in “Mother Earth: Her Whales” 17

3.2 Compassion in “Hunting” 19

Conclusion 21

Works cited 23

Introduction

Gary Snyder

In 1995, at a poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, Gary Snyder read his poem “A Berry Feast”, in which he condemned the deforestation in both Shang Dynasty of China and north-west of America in the 20^th century. This was the beginning of Snyder’s involvement in the Beat Generation Movement. Different from other beats with urban backgrounds, Snyder is more interested in nature and Lawrence Ferlinghetti once referred to Snyder as “the Thoreau of the Beat Generation”.

Gary Snyder spent his childhood in the farm and adopted a frugal life with his wife in the mountain area in California after 1969. His love for nature and concern about the global environmental crisis has formed the theme of his poetry: human and nature. He has been described as the “Poet Laureate of Deep Ecology”. However, Snyder put Buddhist philosophy into his poem, making his poems differ from other ecological literature. During the Beat era, some representatives of the Beat Generation, including Allen Ginsburg, were interested in Zen Buddhism, among which Snyder was one of the pioneers. He is a key figure in the history of American Buddhism as an excellent translator who translated Cold Mountain’s poems into English. His commitment to Buddhism also drove him to move to Japan where Snyder learned more about Zen Buddhism and developed his special Buddhist ecological philosophy, which combines western ecological thoughts and Buddhist philosophy together to reflect the relationship between human and nature.

Gary Snyder’s book Turtle Island is a good example of his Buddhist ecological philosophy. This book won Gary Snyder the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1975, in which Snyder points out environmental problems in the industrial age and tries to work out some solutions with his Buddhist ecological philosophy, thus expressing his vision for humans to live in harmony with the environment and all other living creatures.

Though the Beat Generation and the hippies have become a thing of the past, Gary Snyder is still under the spotlight as an environmental activist and his poem gained wider attention of more people. Unlike other Beat literature labeled as wild，howling and cynical，his writing style appears to be solemn and quiet. His attention to nature and Buddhism is also the transcendence at that time. In other words, Snyder brought a compelling style of writing to the California ferment—a style clearly marked by subtle intelligence，compassion for nature and a keenly felt spiritual reality.

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Literature review

Though Gary Snyder’s ecological thought in his poetry is a major focus of academic researches, Alex Bateman makes remarks that “Snyder’s poem is rooted deeply in traditional American literary, but you will not appreciate his poem well without Buddhism philosophy”( Dictionary of Literary Biography,597). At the same time, Snyder's translation of Cold Mountain’s poems was a success in the 1990s, thus making Buddhist philosophy a hit in America. This brings about many studies on his poetry from the perspective of Buddhist ecological philosophy.

Gary Snyder’s ecological thought in his poetry got much attention in western countries in the early 20^th century. In 1992, “Practising Emptiness: Gary Snyder’s Playful Ecological Work” written by Julia Martin examined the relationship between Buddhist philosophy and ecological theories in Snyder’s poems and concluded that his poetry is the combination of Buddhist philosophy and ecological theories. Waltraud Mitgutsh points out in “Gary Snyder’s Poetry: a Fusion of East and West” that though Snyder’s poems have various elements including Romanticism, the stream of counter-culture, American Indian culture etc., among which Buddhist philosophy plays a rather important part . In addition, Takahashi Ayako published “The Shaping of Gary Snyder’s Ecological Consciousness” in which the author argues that Snyder’s ecological thoughts are affected by Buddhist philosophy to great extent, compared to Ezra Pound who was also interested in Asian culture and translated some ancient Chinese poems.

Apart from that, many domestic scholars develop academic interests in Snyder and do a considerable number of researches. Most studies discussed about Snyder’s ecological thoughts or Chinese culture in his poetry.

In 2006, Chen Xiaohong was the first one to propose Snyder’s concept of “ecological civilization view” and she emphasizes that the value of Snyder’s poetry is to encourage people to get back to nature again from urban areas, namely reinhabitory. She also published the book A Study of Gary Snyder’s Eco-ethic Thoughts which analyzes Snyder’s ecological thoughts that are expressed in his poetry.

In 2007， Lin Chung published Snyder and Chinese Culture and she analyzed the relationship between Snyder and Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism．It seems to her that Snyder is the first one among American writers who can have a good understanding of Chinese culture and integrate it into their works．

The first Chinese version of Snyder’s Mountains and Rivers without End in China mainland is translated by Joan Qionglin Tan. In 2009, she published the essay “Han Shan, Chan Buddhism and Gary Snyder's Ecopoetic Way”, which does a comparative study on Gary Snyder and Han Shan, an ancient Chinese poet. It aims to figure out how Snyder achieves the fusion of Chinese culture and Western thoughts.

However, there are a few studies that interpret his ecological thoughts with the traditional Buddhist philosophy and elaborate Gary Snyder’s Buddhist ecological philosophy in his poems.

The book A Study of Eco-poet Gary Snyder co-written by Gao Ge and Wang Nuo have analyzed Snyder’s poetry and concluded that Snyder’s understanding and opinion about ecological crisis at that time. Their book points out that Gary Snyder’s ecological thought is inspired by different kinds of factors, like native American culture and Buddhist philosophy. Apart from that, they discuss Snyder’s ecological practice for the purpose of achieving the balance between nature and human activities.

In the essay “Poem, Buddhism, Ecology”, Geng Yongji analyzes Gary Snyder’s poems and Snyder’s Buddhist ecological philosophy. He also argues that some scholars ignore the important influence of Buddhist philosophy on the shaping of Snyder’s ecological thoughts.

Actually, Gary Snyder’s Buddhist ecological thought can be found in many of his works while few domestic scholars analyze this ecological thought and many of them tend to use Snyder’s most famous book Turtle Island to do text analysis. This thesis aims to do a deeper research on Gary Snyder’s Buddhist ecological philosophy by analyzing his poems.

Buddhist ecological philosophy

Buddhist ecological philosophy is an ecological thought that combines Buddhist philosophy and western ecological theories.

In general, ecological philosophy can be divided into many schools including social ecology, spiritual ecology, deep ecology，ecology of the earth，eco-feminism．Among these, Gary Snyder is greatly affected by deep ecology. “Deep ecology” was coined by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess in 1973. In “The Shallow and Deep, Long Range Ecology Movement”, Arne Naess mentions two different forms of environmentalism, the “long-range deep ecology movement” and the “shallow ecology movement.” He introduced the phrase “deep ecology” to environmental literature and claimed that all forms of life have the equal right to live with human beings in order to cope with environmental problems．

Deep ecology mainly consists of two concepts: holism and biocentric egalitarianism. In Buddhist principles, there are similar concepts, namely, Indra’s Net and non-self. Many famous ecological philosophers, like Arthur Schopenhauer and Julian Sorell Huxley, agreed that Buddhist philosophy plays an important role in the development of deep ecology. As Naess commented that: “Buddhism provides the related background of the birth of deep ecology” (The Shallow and Deep, Long Range Ecology Movement, 24). However, the group of deep ecology looks for not only the improvement in reality, but also people’s reflection. That’s why many scholars referred to Buddhist philosophy again to enrich the theory of deep ecology and tried to create a new ecological insight that could break the traditional foundation.

According to “Buddhist Ecological Philosophy” written by Wei Dedong, Buddhist ecological philosophy contains three major aspects: holism, non-self and the view of life. This theory elaborates the relationship of human beings and nature, aiming to achieve the harmony between nature and beings.

Thesis Arrangement

This paper is composed of three parts: the introduction, main body and conclusion. And the main body is divided into three chapters.

Chapter One discusses the relationship between whole and individual and how different forms of life impact each other in Snyder’s poetry. On the one hand, Snyder puts forward that there is always a connection among different individuals in the complex system of the world in order to explain people’s dependence on nature. On the one hand, he also points out that the change of one part may lead to other changes, according to the law of cause and effect

Chapter Two explores the fact that because of the anthropocentrism that formed in the industrial age, selfish people exploit natural resources excessively driven by the benefit. In this way, the greed is the major reason of today’s pollution and waste. In order to ease the crisis, Snyder proposes his solution — non-self, which educates people to forget the benefit of them, reaching the highest level of “Sunyata”.

Chapter Three focuses on Gary Snyder’s attitude towards other forms of life. Snyder shows respect for nature because each living creature has the equal right with human in the world. But the difference is that he holds the view that killing with respect, such as hunting, is acceptable because this kind of killing is to meet the basic necessity of human. In addition, he always shows his care for animals and plants in his work, such as “Control the Fire”.

In a conclusion, Snyder’s poems reflect his Buddhist ecological thought, which reveals the relationship between human and nature and his ecological practice to protect environment. His Buddhist ecological thought is a significant part of the development of ecological theories. To great extent, Snyder’s poetry makes great contribution to environmental literature and that’s helpful to raise people’s awareness of protecting environment.

Chapter One Holism in Gary Snyder’s Poetry

In Gary Snyder’s view, the universe is like a holistic net which consists of different inseparable part. This is a significant characteristic of his Buddhist ecological philosophy. In Snyder’s poetry, he depicts different kinds of subjects, like rivers, birds, plants, among which there are different kinds of relationships even if they are separate individuals. It seems that everything is in a net and this “net” appears in Buddhism principles, which is called Indra’s net. The image of “Indra's net” is created by the Hua-yen Buddhism, a school of Chinese Buddhism. This image can be applied to describe the interconnection of the universe. Francis H Cook describes Indra's net that:

In the heavenly area of the ancient god Indra, a wonderful net is created and it has been hung in such a way that it stretches out infinitely in different directions. According to the different kinds of deities, a single shining jewel has been in each "eye" of the net and it is noticed that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. In addition, each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring. (Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra, 59)

In western ecological thoughts, land ethics also defines the boundary of community to include not only human beings but also animals, plants or even the earth. In the net of world, Snyder thinks that the change of one thing could affect another. According to The Practice of The Wild, Gary Snyder regards Ecology as the scientific study of relationships. These relationships involves with energy transfers, mutualities within natural system.

1.1 The Whole and The Individual: Indra’s Net in “Anasazi”

The basic of Buddhist ecological philosophy is pratitya—samutpada in Sanskrit language, which western ecologists named “dependent origination”. In Gary Snyder’s poems, he uses this Buddhist philosophy to prove that human beings and nature are in connection and influence each other. Buddhism uses the Mustard Seed^[1], the seed of a plant, as a metaphor to explain the relationship of individual and whole: you can know the universe through a Sinapis Semen because it contains everything. Sinapis Semen is viewed as the whole world, or as a part of the world. Indra’s net is also a metaphor to illustrate the holism in Buddhist philosophy by Hua-yen Buddhism. Indra’s Net is applied to Snyder’s poem and the poem “The Use of Light” goes that,

It warms my bones

Say the stones

I take it into me and grow

Say the trees

Draws me out of the night

Says the moth in his flight

Some things I smell

And I see things move

Says the deer— (Snyder, Turtle Island, 71)

On the one hand, the light illuminates the stone, the trees, the moth and the deer as the whole. All things are regarded as a unity and affected by the sun. On the other hand, Snyder writes their own feelings about the light: the stones feel warm; the trees grow; the moth was led by the light; the deer can see things with the light. In this way, the light is different from various species since every species is independent from each other. Different things have different feelings because of their individual characteristics. The light is a necessary element for the growth of trees so the tree “take it into me and grow”. The moth is always attracted by the light and to the moth, the light is “A vast vague white draws me out of the night”. In this poem, the light lighted up the whole system while the poet also uses “light” to highlight the difference among various individuals. The light works to connect all things together and form a net.

In addition, the relationship of humans and nonhuman is also important in Snyder’s poems. Taking “Anasazi” in Turtle Island for example, which is a poem to emphasize the harmony between the Anasazi people and their surroundings.

Anasazi,

Anasazi,

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