Su-Chen Wu completed the doctoral program in English & American Literature at Tamkang University in Taiwan in 2009 with the thesis: ‘A Spiritual Ecology in the Lan˙kāvatāra Sūtra’. Her areas of study are Religion and Ecology, English and American Literature, and Literary Theory. Her research project on ‘The Study of the Ecological Ethics of “Self-realization to the Noble Wisdom” in the Lan˙kāvatāra Sūtra’ has been funded by the National Science Council in Taiwan. She is also interested in Western literary criticism and have studied the works of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, Roland Barthes' literary theory, Henri Lefebvre's theory of space, and Quantum theory and have published several papers on these topics in journals and for conferences. Address: Assistant Professor, Foreign Languages and Cultures Department, Fo Guang University, No.160, Linwei Rd., Jiaosi 26,247, Yilan County, Taiwan (ROC). E-mail:
關鍵詞
Anthropocentrism; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Conduct of Life; Human Behavior; Karma
摘要
Many traditional Western ethical perspectives are anthropocentric or human-centred in that they assign intrinsic value to human beings alone. It is often said that anthropocentrism is responsible for the destruction of the environment. I intend to explain how Western anthropocentrism can be seen as a form of obsession deriving from the working function of vāsanā (habit-energy) in ālayavijñāna, based on the teachings in the Lan˙kāvatāra Sūtra. All of one's karmic bījas (seeds), stored in the ālayavijñāna, are preserved in a form of energy called vāsanā with the power of perfuming or causing habitual tendency in the lives of sentient beings. This perfuming of energy is known as sowing seeds of karma and seeds of language. Since beginningless time, sentient beings have created habitual energy through inappropriate dualistic discrimination. The habitual power of vāsanā is of great importance to understanding how anthropocentrism works. What we should be worried about is our habitual thinking patterns, which might be harmful to our relationship with the natural environment.
