According to Zen teaching, everything in the universe exists
interdependently, so valuing the welfare of one being over
another, or of humans over the planet, makes no sense at all.
This teaching, which can empower us to care passionately about
the earth and its future, is not only a Zen principle, it’s
something that comes up for anyone who carefully investigates
the nature of reality. It’s a lesson found everywhere we look in
nature. And the idea is also found in writings by figures as
diverse as Lao Tzu, Walt Whitman, Hermann Hesse, and Henry David
Thoreau. John Daido Loori reveals the underlying environmental
ethic animating these teachings and shows how it can be a
wellspring for our appreciation of the earth in the new
millennium.