541
Worldwide, an estimated “200 million tons” or more of human waste goes untreated
each year.
16
In 2018, Bhutan’s own southernmost industrial hub, the town of
Pasakha, was ranked by the World Health Organization as one of “the most polluted
cities” in the world, second only to Muzaffarpur, in India, “with around 150 micrograms per cubic meter of fine particle emissions.”
17
While Bhutanese governance has made globally significant strides to become
carbon negative, stem the flow of human waste, protect her primary forest canopies,
and maintain robust conservation practices and an extensive network of protected
areas and corridors, Buddhist philosophies offer largely theoretical models for perceiving paradox and contradiction, like those involving human traffic at Taktsang or
pollution at Pasakh. Or, for that matter, the rapid growth of Bhutan’s capital,
Thimphu, or of Paro itself. The Middle Path Madhyamaka system, having first
emerged around 150 CE in the commentaries of the great Indian interpreter of
Buddhist thought, Nāgārjuna, falls impractically in tow with at least one major thesis that holds that in Buddhism there is a conspicuous absence of “any knowledge
of the world because they [Buddhas] do not have epistemic processes and warrants
to perceive the world.” In other words, Buddha was a “global agnostic, on the
ground of the nonexistence of mind and mental processes for those who have
attained fully awakening.” Alternative “no-mind” premises have also been
advanced.
18
But such interpretive umbrellas of an advanced consciousness too easily translate into parking lots and waste dumps. The ecological remains of the day.
A very different, worldly, ecological, and ethical approach than no-mind, would
be, among others, the advocacy of “personhood” and “sovereignty” for every living
being in any given habitat—an attribution to every sentient being of an overflowing
mind. This philosophical heresy would connote a duty (which Bhutanese have
partly embraced) to safeguard the physical realities of earthbound corollaries of
enlightened mind, and all those Others who are inherently enlightened. This is precisely what has been proposed for Beings like the orangutans of Borneo, “simian
forest sovereignty [that] is critical to conservation efforts.”
19
Across Bhutan, any
16 “How Much Do You Poop in Your Lifetime?” By Mindy Weisberger, LiveScience, March 21,
2018, https://www.livescience.com/61966-how-much-you-poop-in-lifetime.html, Accessed May
30, 2020.
17 See “Pasakha, Bhutan’s industrial hub, symbolizes the struggle at the heart of Bhutan’s development model,” by Tej Parikh, May 16, 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/bhutans-happinessfaces-the-growing-pains-of-development/. Accessed May 30, 2020.
18 See “Madhyamaka Philosophy of No-Mind: Taktsang Lotsãwa’s On Prãsangika, Pramana,
Buddhahood and a Defense of No-Mind Thesis,” by Sonam Thakchoe and Julien Tempone
Wiltshire, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 47, 453–487, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-01909388-z, Issued 15 July 2019, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10781-019-09388z#citeas, Accessed May 30, 2020
19 See “An Ape Ethic and the Question of Personhood,” by Gregory F. Tague. Rowan and Littlefield,
Lexington Books, https://sites.google.com/site/gftague/an-ape-ethic; See also Tague’s interview
with Marc Bekoff, Psychology Today, March 14 2020, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/
blog/animal-emotions/202003/ape-ethic-and-the-question-personhood; and MAHB overview,
https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/an-ape-ethic-and-the-question-of-personhood/; see https://
www.amazon.com/Ape-Ethic-Question-Personhood/dp/1793619700
57.2 The Mount Everest Base Camp Syndrome
Worldwide, an estimated “200 million tons” or more of human waste goes untreated
each year.
16
In 2018, Bhutan’s own southernmost industrial hub, the town of
Pasakha, was ranked by the World Health Organization as one of “the most polluted
cities” in the world, second only to Muzaffarpur, in India, “with around 150 micrograms per cubic meter of fine particle emissions.”
17
While Bhutanese governance has made globally significant strides to become
carbon negative, stem the flow of human waste, protect her primary forest canopies,
and maintain robust conservation practices and an extensive network of protected
areas and corridors, Buddhist philosophies offer largely theoretical models for perceiving paradox and contradiction, like those involving human traffic at Taktsang or
pollution at Pasakh. Or, for that matter, the rapid growth of Bhutan’s capital,
Thimphu, or of Paro itself. The Middle Path Madhyamaka system, having first
emerged around 150 CE in the commentaries of the great Indian interpreter of
Buddhist thought, Nāgārjuna, falls impractically in tow with at least one major thesis that holds that in Buddhism there is a conspicuous absence of “any knowledge
of the world because they [Buddhas] do not have epistemic processes and warrants
to perceive the world.” In other words, Buddha was a “global agnostic, on the
ground of the nonexistence of mind and mental processes for those who have
attained fully awakening.” Alternative “no-mind” premises have also been
advanced.
18
But such interpretive umbrellas of an advanced consciousness too easily translate into parking lots and waste dumps. The ecological remains of the day.
A very different, worldly, ecological, and ethical approach than no-mind, would
be, among others, the advocacy of “personhood” and “sovereignty” for every living
being in any given habitat—an attribution to every sentient being of an overflowing
mind. This philosophical heresy would connote a duty (which Bhutanese have
partly embraced) to safeguard the physical realities of earthbound corollaries of
enlightened mind, and all those Others who are inherently enlightened. This is precisely what has been proposed for Beings like the orangutans of Borneo, “simian
forest sovereignty [that] is critical to conservation efforts.”
19
Across Bhutan, any
16 “How Much Do You Poop in Your Lifetime?” By Mindy Weisberger, LiveScience, March 21,
2018, https://www.livescience.com/61966-how-much-you-poop-in-lifetime.html, Accessed May
30, 2020.
17 See “Pasakha, Bhutan’s industrial hub, symbolizes the struggle at the heart of Bhutan’s development model,” by Tej Parikh, May 16, 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/bhutans-happinessfaces-the-growing-pains-of-development/. Accessed May 30, 2020.
18 See “Madhyamaka Philosophy of No-Mind: Taktsang Lotsãwa’s On Prãsangika, Pramana,
Buddhahood and a Defense of No-Mind Thesis,” by Sonam Thakchoe and Julien Tempone
Wiltshire, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 47, 453–487, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-01909388-z, Issued 15 July 2019, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10781-019-09388z#citeas, Accessed May 30, 2020
19 See “An Ape Ethic and the Question of Personhood,” by Gregory F. Tague. Rowan and Littlefield,
Lexington Books, https://sites.google.com/site/gftague/an-ape-ethic; See also Tague’s interview
with Marc Bekoff, Psychology Today, March 14 2020, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/
blog/animal-emotions/202003/ape-ethic-and-the-question-personhood; and MAHB overview,
https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/an-ape-ethic-and-the-question-of-personhood/; see https://
www.amazon.com/Ape-Ethic-Question-Personhood/dp/1793619700
57.2 The Mount Everest Base Camp Syndrome