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Abstract
The inclusion of ‘consciousness’ in Michael Bonnett’s paper signals to me that the right place for examination of the ongoing and deepening environmental disasters that humans face is human consciousness itself: the way we think, perceive, and feel, which flows into the way we relate to and act towards nature. Against the still prevailing way of thinking about environmental disaster and crisis, namely locating these problems out there in the environment, I, like Bonnett, and a growing number of others, point to the problematic ‘metaphysics’ of how we humans conceive and perceive nature. Our current ‘environmental problems’ are metaphysical. In support of Bonnett’s paper, I examine the problematic metaphysics (namely, The Mechanical Universe), trace its psycho-neurobiological origin to the authoritarian structure that disempowers human beings to play out domination-submission programming, and suggest learning the way of mutual participation and collaboration characteristic of our immersive experience in nature. In further support of Bonnett’s characterization of nature as ‘self-arising,’ which incidentally is the literal meaning of nature in Chinese (自然), I introduce the Way of Zen as practice of ‘interbeing.’ Interbeing, when practiced, would lead us to experiencing awe and wonder, as in our encounter with nature, restoring a sense of immediacy, presence, and non-discursivity: all central to Zen experience.
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Disclosure statement
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