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Subtle Agroecologies
OTHER NON-DUAL PERSPECTIVES: BUDDHIST,
ECO-FEMINIST AND INDIGENOUS
Because non-duality is inherently diffcult to comprehend, especially from within many Western
cultures which are impeded by dualistic concepts, the enterprise of encouraging a non-dual relationship to soil would beneft by highlighting other non-dual frameworks, such as Buddhism,
eco-feminism and indigenous perspectives.
Buddhism is fundamentally interested in non-duality because ‘non-duality is a concept central to
the notion of enlightenment’ (Sadakata, 1997: 79). As such, various sectors of Buddhism have created numerous ways of understanding this concept. Perhaps one of the easiest, if not one of the most
poetic, interpretations comes from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, as expressed by Kornfeld (1993):
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud foating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud
there will be no water, without water, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper.
So the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent on the existence of a cloud. Paper and
cloud are so close. Let us think of other things, like sunshine. Sunshine is very important because the
forest cannot grow without sunshine, and we as humans cannot grow without sunshine. So the logger
needs sunshine in order to cut the tree, and the tree needs sunshine in order to be a tree. Therefore, you
can see sunshine in this sheet of paper. And if you look more deeply, with the eyes of a bodhisattva,
with the eyes of those who are awake, you see not only the cloud and the sunshine in it, but that everything is here, the wheat that became the bread for the logger to eat, the logger’s father – everything is in
this sheet of paper… The presence of this tiny sheet of paper proves the presence of the whole cosmos.
Kornfeld (1993: 202)
Buddhism, like eco-psychology, is not consumed by the perspective of unity; it can also ‘honor our
individual or personal destiny, our self for this life’ (Kornfeld, 1993: 207). Here again, there is a
framework that encompasses the ideas of non-duality (i.e. humans are humus), subjectivity (i.e. a
respect for all beings) and relationship (i.e. the interaction between my personal destiny and that of
other beings).
Eco-feminism is another such framework. One of the mothers of eco-feminism, Charlene
Spretnak, does a fantastic job of delineating the seemingly ineffable in her article ‘Radical
Non-duality in Eco-feminist Philosophy’. In it, she highlights the difference between minimal and
radical non-duality, discusses non-duality’s relationship to oppression and explores non-dual conceptions of ‘self’. Her defnition of non-duality is ‘a dynamic system of relations wherein any particular manifestation functions simultaneously as a distinct part and the unbroken whole’ (Spretnak,
1997: 427). With that understanding, she notes a difference between minimal non-dualism, which
posits autonomous subjects in interdependent relationships, where this idea still partakes of scientifc materialism, and radical non-duality, which posits ‘the existence of unitive dimensions of
being, a gestalt of a subtle, unitary feld of form, motion, space, and time’ (Spretnak, 1997: 425).
This perspective takes the human/humus relationship even deeper, beyond an understanding of connection based on constituent elements across space and time. It asserts a unity that also exists on an
ontological level, thus giving even more credence to the enterprise of recognising human’s essential
relations with soil.
As important as this understanding is, Spretnak (1997) acknowledges that there can be a danger
in how it is applied. Historically, unity (or non-duality) could be used to erase difference, for the
beneft of those in power. But that is not the case here, because eco-feminism is an inherently liberationist undertaking, which understands the ‘self’ as relational and therefore constituted by interactions with ‘other’ beings and celebrates these aspects of ‘self’: ‘genetic inheritance’, ‘cognitive
functions’, ‘bodily experience…[and] the self-regulating dynamics of the body-mind’, ‘exposures
to strong and weak electromagnetic felds’, ‘other relational dynamics that lace the universe’ and
‘the infuences of landscape, weather, and “other dynamics of one’s bioregion on imagination and
Subtle Agroecologies
OTHER NON-DUAL PERSPECTIVES: BUDDHIST,
ECO-FEMINIST AND INDIGENOUS
Because non-duality is inherently diffcult to comprehend, especially from within many Western
cultures which are impeded by dualistic concepts, the enterprise of encouraging a non-dual relationship to soil would beneft by highlighting other non-dual frameworks, such as Buddhism,
eco-feminism and indigenous perspectives.
Buddhism is fundamentally interested in non-duality because ‘non-duality is a concept central to
the notion of enlightenment’ (Sadakata, 1997: 79). As such, various sectors of Buddhism have created numerous ways of understanding this concept. Perhaps one of the easiest, if not one of the most
poetic, interpretations comes from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, as expressed by Kornfeld (1993):
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud foating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud
there will be no water, without water, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper.
So the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent on the existence of a cloud. Paper and
cloud are so close. Let us think of other things, like sunshine. Sunshine is very important because the
forest cannot grow without sunshine, and we as humans cannot grow without sunshine. So the logger
needs sunshine in order to cut the tree, and the tree needs sunshine in order to be a tree. Therefore, you
can see sunshine in this sheet of paper. And if you look more deeply, with the eyes of a bodhisattva,
with the eyes of those who are awake, you see not only the cloud and the sunshine in it, but that everything is here, the wheat that became the bread for the logger to eat, the logger’s father – everything is in
this sheet of paper… The presence of this tiny sheet of paper proves the presence of the whole cosmos.
Kornfeld (1993: 202)
Buddhism, like eco-psychology, is not consumed by the perspective of unity; it can also ‘honor our
individual or personal destiny, our self for this life’ (Kornfeld, 1993: 207). Here again, there is a
framework that encompasses the ideas of non-duality (i.e. humans are humus), subjectivity (i.e. a
respect for all beings) and relationship (i.e. the interaction between my personal destiny and that of
other beings).
Eco-feminism is another such framework. One of the mothers of eco-feminism, Charlene
Spretnak, does a fantastic job of delineating the seemingly ineffable in her article ‘Radical
Non-duality in Eco-feminist Philosophy’. In it, she highlights the difference between minimal and
radical non-duality, discusses non-duality’s relationship to oppression and explores non-dual conceptions of ‘self’. Her defnition of non-duality is ‘a dynamic system of relations wherein any particular manifestation functions simultaneously as a distinct part and the unbroken whole’ (Spretnak,
1997: 427). With that understanding, she notes a difference between minimal non-dualism, which
posits autonomous subjects in interdependent relationships, where this idea still partakes of scientifc materialism, and radical non-duality, which posits ‘the existence of unitive dimensions of
being, a gestalt of a subtle, unitary feld of form, motion, space, and time’ (Spretnak, 1997: 425).
This perspective takes the human/humus relationship even deeper, beyond an understanding of connection based on constituent elements across space and time. It asserts a unity that also exists on an
ontological level, thus giving even more credence to the enterprise of recognising human’s essential
relations with soil.
As important as this understanding is, Spretnak (1997) acknowledges that there can be a danger
in how it is applied. Historically, unity (or non-duality) could be used to erase difference, for the
beneft of those in power. But that is not the case here, because eco-feminism is an inherently liberationist undertaking, which understands the ‘self’ as relational and therefore constituted by interactions with ‘other’ beings and celebrates these aspects of ‘self’: ‘genetic inheritance’, ‘cognitive
functions’, ‘bodily experience…[and] the self-regulating dynamics of the body-mind’, ‘exposures
to strong and weak electromagnetic felds’, ‘other relational dynamics that lace the universe’ and
‘the infuences of landscape, weather, and “other dynamics of one’s bioregion on imagination and