Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology, by Badiner, Allan Hunt 

Reviewed by Richard Nilsen

Whole Earth Review
No.69
Winter 1990
p.126

COPYRIGHT Point Foundation 1990 

            The tidal wave of Earth Day books has roared in and receded, leaving 
            this jewel among the pebbles on the beach. The mindfulness and 
            concern for other beings that is central to Buddhist teaching here 
            makes a smooth transition to the environmental realm. The green 
            Buddhism" on display (in Prose, illustrations, and a little POetrY) 
            is bY writers like Joanna Macy, Bill Devall and Robert Aitken. The 
            book's title is a gentle pun on Dharmakaya "the body of truth." 
            There's some of that here too. 
            Far from the nihilism and escapism that is often imputed to the 
            Buddhist path, this liberation, this awakening puts one into the 
            world with a livelier, more caring sense of social engagement. The 
            sense of inter-connectedness that can then arise, is imaged - one of 
            the most beautiful images coming out of the Mahayana - as the 
            jeweled net of Indra. It is a vision of reality structured very much 
            like the holographic view of the universe, so that each being is at 
            each node of the net, each jewel reflects all the others, reflecting 
            back and catching the reflection, just as systems theory sees that 
            the part contains the whole. 
            Dharma Gala (A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology) Allan Hunt 
            Badiner, Editor 1990; 265 pp. $15 ($17 postpaid) from Parallax 
            Press, P.O. Box 7355, Berkeley, CA 94707; 415/548-3721 (or Whole 
            Earth Access)