☰ Recordings

Knowing and Caring of Nature – An Islamic and Buddhist View

Description

Islam Perspective
“Behold! In the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds; and the clouds which they trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth – (here) indeed are Signs for a people that are wise.” The Quran (2:168)

“In Islam the inseparable link between man and nature, and also between the sciences of nature and religion, is to be found the Quran itself, the Divine Book which is the Logos or the Word of God. As such it is both the source of the revelation which is the basis of religion and that macrocosmic revelation which is the Universe. It is both the recorded Quran (al-Qur’an al-tadwini) and the ‘Quran of creation’ (al-Qur’an al-takwini) which contains the “ideas” or archetypes of all things. That is why the term used to signify the verses of the Quran or ayah also means events occurring within the souls of men and phenomena in the world of nature.” S. H. Nasr, Man and Nature, pp. 94-95.

Buddhist Perspective
The relationship between Buddhism and nature stems from the Buddha's life. The Buddha spent all of the major events of his life amidst the natural forest and the tree became the most sacred symbol throughout the Buddhist world – e.g. the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya where Buddha attained enlightenment. He then gave his first teaching in Sarnath, a place popularly called the deer park, itself a highly symbolic gesture of the non-animosity or peace between man and animals. When the Buddha passed away, it was between two huge sal trees in Kushinara. The first Buddhist communities were also forest dwellers and Buddhist monks initially lived under trees in natural surroundings.

When shall I come to dwell in forests
Amongst the deer, the birds and the trees,
That say nothing unpleasant
And are delightful to associate with.
(Śāntideva, Bodhicaryāvatāra)

"Intentionally damaging or destroying a living plant is an offence.”
Pacittiya 11, Patimokkha.

Notes