Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth: Reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen in an Age of Ecological Crisis

175 Pages·2017·4.872 MB·English

by  Jason M. Wirth

Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth
SUNY series in Environmental Philosophy and Ethics
J. Baird Callicott and John van Buren, editors
Mountains, Rivers,
and the
Great Earth
Reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen
in an Age of Ecological Crisis
Jason M. Wirth
SUNY
P R E SS
Cover image courtesy of Nathan Wirth.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2017 State University of New York
All rights reserved
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Production, Jenn Bennett
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Wirth, Jason M., 1963– author.
Title: Mountains, rivers, and the great earth : reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen
in an age of ecological crisis / by Jason M. Wirth.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2017. | Series:
SUNY series in environmental philosophy and ethics | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016031502 (print) | LCCN 2016050289 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781438465432 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438465449 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Snyder, Gary, 1930—Criticism and interpretation. | Dōgen,
1200–1253—Criticism and interpretation. | Ecocriticism.
Classification: LCC PS3569.N88 Z965 2017 (print) | LCC PS3569.N88 (ebook) |
DDC 811/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031502
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
山河大地
[senga daichi—mountains, rivers, great earth]
Here, everywhere, right now is mountains, river, and earth.
—Dōgen, “Baika [Plum Blossoms]” (S, 585)
The mountains, rivers, and the great earth are all the ocean of buddha nature.
—Dōgen, “Busshō [Buddha Nature]” (S, 238)
Clear and bright are mountains, rivers, and earth—an eyeball.
—Dōgen, “Ganzei [Eyeball]” (S, 616)
Ancient masters [Yangshan and Guishan] said to each other, “What is the wondrous
clear mind?” “I say it is mountains, rivers, and the earth; it is the sun, the moon,
and stars.”
— Dōgen, “Sokushin Zebutsu [The Mind Itself
is Buddha]” (S, 46)
When you move mountains, rivers, and earth, as well as the sun, the moon, and stars
to practice, they in turn move you to practice. This is not the open eye of just one
time, but the vital eye of all times.
— Dōgen, “Shoaku Makusa [Refrain from
Unwholesome Action]” (S, 97)
Saying that the self returns to the self is not contradicted by saying that the self is
mountains, rivers, and the great earth.
— Dōgen, “Keisei Sanshoku [Valley Sounds,
Mountain Colors]” (S, 89)
Avalokiteśvaras . . . all work together with buddhas, mountains, rivers, and earth.
—Dōgen, “Avalokiteśvara” (S, 403)
Walking on walking,
   under foot  earth turns.
Streams and mountains never stay the same.
—Gary Snyder (MR, 9, 145–146, 154)
great
earth
saṅgha
—Gary Snyder (“O Waters,” TI, 73)
For Elizabeth Myōen Sikes,
embodiment of the emptiness of the three wheels:
giver, receiver, and gift
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Preface (Milarepa’s Stone Tower) xiii
Part I The Great Earth
1 Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth 3
2 Geology (Poetic Word) 25
Part II Turtle Island
3 Place (Land and Sea, Earth and Sky) 57
4 Bears (The Many Palaces of the Earth) 71
Part III Earth Democracy
5 The Great Potlatch 87
6 Seeds of Earth Democracy 103
Notes 117
Bibliography 133
Index 143

Acknowledgments
I would like first of all to thank Gary Snyder who, despite the countless de-
mands upon his schedule, made the time to read this manuscript and to offer
generous words of encouragement and support. I would also like to extend
my whole- hearted gratitude to my brother Nathan Wirth, whose photogra-
phy is a great inspiration and teacher; to my Dharma brother Carl Kakuzen
Mountain who early on read the manuscript and shared his wisdom with me;
to my Sōtō Zen teacher Kōshō Itagaki, abbot of the Eishoji Zen training and
practice facility in South Seattle; to my beloved Dharma sisters and brothers
of CoZen, especially Brian Shūdō Schroeder, Bret Kanpū Davis, and Erin Jien
McCarthy; to my companions at PACT (The Pacific Association for the Con-
tinental Tradition), especially Gerard Kuperus, Marjolein Oele, Tim Freeman,
Chris Lauer, and Brian Treanor, all of whom have offered much support and
guidance on this project; to my companions at CCPC (The Comparative and
Continental Philosophy Circle), especially David Jones, Michael Schwartz,
and Andrew Whitehead, all of whom teach me both with their wisdom and
their friendship; to my friend Josh Hayes, whose own work on Gary Snyder has
been instructive; to the poet Samuel Green, who teaches me with both word
and deed from his home on Waldron Island; to the incomparable Bill Porter
(Red Pine); to the many members of the Seattle University EcoSangha; to my
friends Don Castro and Mark Unno, who manifest the Pure Land in deed and
word; to Andrew Kenyon, my thoughtful and gracious acquisitions editor; and
to my former students and current friends Jennifer Luo, Caity Orellana, Maura
McCreight, Sonya Ekstrom, Emily Ingram, Brigid Scannell, Lia Perroud, and
Dominique Walmsley. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Elizabeth Myōen
Sikes, the great alchemist who turns each day of our life together into gold.
Some parts of the first chapter appeared in a much different and shorter
form as “Painting Mountains and Rivers: Gary Snyder, Dōgen, and the El-
emental Sutra of the Wild,” Research in Phenomenology, vol. 44 (2014),
240–261. Some parts of the second chapter appeared in a much different