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Touching the Earth with the Heart of Enlightened Mind: The Buddhist Practice of
Mindfulness for Environmental Education

Article · January 2009

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 Touching the Earth with the Heart of Enlightened Mind:
The Buddhist Practice of Mindfulness for Environmental
Education
Heesoon Bai & Greg Scutt, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Abstract
This paper argues that the current ecological crisis arises from our dualistic
consciousness which separates mind from body and self from world. This
dualistic consciousness prevents us from experiencing the value in nature, and
therefore leads to instrumentalist treatment of nature. We explore the
Buddhist practice of mindfulness to help cultivate a nondualistic conscious-
ness. We show how this practice may lead to compassionate attitudes and con-
duct towards the other-than-human.

Résumé
On soutient que la présente crise écologique vient de la dualité de notre con-
science qui différencie l’esprit du corps et le soi du monde. Cette conscience
dualiste nous empêche d’apprécier la valeur dans la nature et pour cette rai-
son mène à une approche instrumentaliste de la nature. Nous analysons la
pratique bouddhiste appelée pleine conscience pour aider à cultiver une con-
science non-dualistique. Nous montrons comment cette pratique peut porter
à des attitudes de compassion et conduire à l’au-delà-de-l’humain (other-
than-human).

Keywords: intrinsic value, intersubjectivity, interbeing, mindfulness,

Buddhist, bodhicitta

We are the environmental crisis. The crisis is a visible manifestation of our

very being . . . . The environmental crisis is inherent in everything we believe and
do; it is inherent in the context of our lives. (Evernden, 1993, p. 128)

Prologue

I held back my surprise and dismay in a discussion with first year university stu-
dents enrolled in an introductory humanities course this past fall semester.
During the semester the students encountered a range of thinkers in the western
canon who can be viewed as taking one of two general understandings of what
it is to be human. On the one hand, some thinkers articulate an understanding
of humans as benevolent, compassionate, and sympathetic towards others. On

92 Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 14, 2009

the other, some suggest humans as essentially egocentric, violent, and con-
cerned primarily with self-preservation. I asked students first to “consider”
this pervasive dichotomy in western thought, and then invited them to voice their
own opinions on what it is to be human. I was startled when the majority of stu-
dents asserted that humans were undeniably—by nature—violent, competi-
tive, and egocentric! Do these students, beneath their moral conscience, actual-
ly feel themselves to be violent and selfish? I asked them, “How have you arrived
at such a dim and grim conclusion about the nature of the human self?” Their con-
clusion must be true, they argued, for they based it on their observation of the
social habits of other students, friends, family, and citizens around the world. Fair
enough. But could it be that we possess both parts of the dichotomy of the self?
At any rate, the important question for us educators is, which part of the self is
going to be nurtured into blooming? I am reminded of a version of an Indigenous
story I heard: that there are two hungry wolves inside us, and the one we feed is
the one who will inhabit us. If we feed the selfish and violent one, then that’s who
we will be. If we feed the good and compassionate one, we become that. While
reflecting on the students’ responses I am wondering if today the selfish and
aggressive wolf has gained the upper hand? Now, how do we access the other one?
From Greg’s Teaching Journal

Raimundo Panikkar (1992), one of the greatest contemporary philosophers

of religion and a tireless proponent of inter-religious dialogue, has masterfully
penned nine priorities for humanity, one of which is “peace with the Earth”
(p. 244). He asserts, “No ecological renewal of the world will ever succeed until
and unless we consider the Earth as our own Body and the body as our own
Self” (p. 244). We resonate deeply with Panikkar’s understanding, and this
paper is dedicated to achieving this insight. But how do we get to this place
of seeing “the Earth as our own Body and the body as our own Self”? This is
a supreme educational question. The present paper is an attempt to answer
this question with help from Buddhist thought and practice.
Central to Buddhism is the embodied understanding of interdependence
or co-dependent arising (paticcasamuppada) and the practice of compassion
(karunã) and lovingkindness (mettã). Buddhism posits that such insights
and practices are the natural part of who we (really) are. Hence, in that sense,
we do not need to learn interdependence, compassion, and so on, anew as
if these were new and foreign to us. Rather, the approach to learning them
takes the form of uncovering and undoing certain habits of mind and heart
that have denied, concealed, and marginalized these original insights and prac-
tices. Students of Buddhism are fond of repeating the metaphor that, what
we need to do in the way of education is remove the dust off the mirror. The
mirror in this Buddhist metaphor is the original human “mindheart” prior to
the socially constructed conditioning of the subject-object and self-other
dualisms. Extending the dust metaphor, education referred to in this imagery
takes the form of blowing the dust off the mirror. But often metaphors are

Touching the Earth with the Heart of Enlightened Mind 93

 more than just figures of speech: they can also refer to an actual practice. It
is no coincidence that the primary curriculum in Buddhism as a system of
education1 is breath work (mindfulness of breathing or Anãpãnasati).2 Our
paper addresses this breath work. But, first, where is the dust we need to blow
off? Where did the dust come from?

What is the Matter with Mind?

In his provocative essay, “What is the Matter with Mind?”, Ronald Laing (1980)
provides a brief account of the transformation of the western mind by
philosophical and scientific thinking over the last 2000 years. Laing, a mav-
erick psychiatrist and psychotherapist of significant influence in contempo-
rary thought, interrogates western philosophy and reveals in his essay a rup-
ture of a bond that we experience between ourselves (mind) and nature (mat-
ter). The experience of a bond or a relation between ourselves and nature, as
abstract as it sounds, should be somewhat familiar to all of us who profess
a dedication to, and love of, the non-human world. After all, is it not the expe-
rience we encounter with nature that motivates us to not only value nature,
but to defend it and protest on its behalf? To this end, we will begin with
Laing’s insights to help us argue that the present ecological crisis is due in large
measure to the ruptured relationship between mind and nature.3
Long before an ecological crisis loomed large in intellectual and public
conscience, the ancient architects of our scientific worldview had begun
preparing a transformation of the western mind for the value-free objective
study of nature. As Laing (1980) explains, the foundation of scientific think-
ing originated in ancient Greece with the pre-Socractics, and its aim was to
strip reality of any relationship to our senses, sensibility, values, and feelings.
The enabling of the experience of our relationship to the world, which we feel,
revere, wonder about, and express awe over, was judged by early scientists
as “valueless” (p. 16). Indeed, Laing explains, as the history of modern sci-
ence unfolded with further contributions from Galileo and Francis Bacon in
the 17th century,4 it adopted a strategy of the elimination of our “sense of real-
ity” (p. 9) from the process of discovering the reality of nature. Laing warns
that the implications of the elimination of subjective experience from knowl-
edge are significant and entail “a profound transformation of our whole
being in the world” (p. 11).
How can the exclusion of our values and experience from scientific
inquiry result in a profound transformation of our being? Laing answers the
question by pointing out that a world perceived to be void of subjective val-
ues has no meaning for the participant. When we lose the source of mean-
ing in our experience of the world, we begin to see ourselves apart from
nature instead of a part of it. As Laing warns in another essay, it is not difficult
to conclude that “[o]ur behaviour is a function of our experience. We act

94 Heesoon Bai & Greg Scutt

according to the way we see things” (as cited in Evernden, 1993, p. 51). Who
we are, how we relate to and act in the world, depends crucially on who we
think we are in relation to the world. And vice versa. If we think that human-
ity (mind) is separate and independent from nature (matter), and moreover,
that the former is superior to the latter, then it follows (psycho)logically
that humans can manipulate, control, exploit, and even destroy nature. This
central problem was taken up by Neil Evernden (1993),who places Laing’s
ponderings on mind and nature within the context of environmentalism, and
asks in effect: What is the matter with environmentalism? Is the contemporary
environmental movement falling into the same metaphysical problem that
R.D. Laing was railing against two decades ago?

What is the Matter with Environmentalism?

In The Natural Alien, Evernden (1993) elaborates at length on the meaning

and dilemma of environmentalism. For Evernden, a broad definition of a per-
son devoted to environmentalism is one who insists on defending, protest-
ing, and speaking on behalf of the significance of the value they experience
in nature. Many would support this definition, and we certainly do. Bai
(2001) has been explicit about calling this kind of value, “intrinsic value.” By
“intrinsic value” we mean valuing something not for its utility or instrumental
value to us, but for its own existential integrity and legitimacy of right to be
for itself. At the sensuous and emotional level, the intrinsic value of other
beings is most often experienced as awe, wonder, gladness, intimate know-
ing and belonging, and various nuances of appreciation. Which language do
the environmentalists speak today? Does the language they speak match their
experience of nature that inspired them to become environmentalists in the
first place?
Evernden uncovers in The Natural Alien that, like with the mind for
Laing, something is the matter with environmentalism. The environmentalist
has “come to adopt the strategy and assumptions of their opponents” (p. 10).
Evernden blames the environmentalist’s “fatal flaw” on the science of ecol-
ogy, because ecology is not interested in experiences, intrinsic values, or qual-
ity. Ecology “cannot illuminate the experience that inspires one to be an envi-
ronmentalist” (p. 22). In our own teaching in environmental education pro-
grams, we have witnessed the intense conflict between the experience that
inspired our students to become environmentalists, and the scientific para-
digm of ecology in which they were trained to become ecology majors and
environmental educators. The latter has no language and no validation for
their early formative experiences in the intrinsic value of nature.
Ecology removes the involved subject from the context of their experi-
ence and “transforms all relationships to nature into a simple subject-object
or user defined one” (Evernden, 1993, p. 24). Thus, science’s assumptions

Touching the Earth with the Heart of Enlightened Mind 95

 about the world—namely that it can be split and reduced to subjects (mind)
and objects (matter)—are adopted by environmentalists. That which is the
matter with mind for Laing, is also relevant to the state of environmentalists’
minds today.5 For example, to briefly illustrate how a subject-object dualism
prevails within modern reformist environmentalism, consider the Sierra
Club of Canada’s recommendations for minimizing climate change, which
they claim we experience “through erratic weather patterns, forest fires
and [melting] glaciers” (Sierra Club of Canada, n.d.). They explain that “we
must drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions... that trap heat in the
atmosphere ... thereby spurring climate change” (Sierra Club of Canada, n.d.).
We do not deny that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced, but the rela-
tional context that is implied with this kind of langauge is one of separation
between us and the heat, forests, glaciers, and weather.6 The weather
appears apart from us. It is an object “discursively submerged” (Seaton,
2005, ¶ 9), and only affected by our greenhouse gas emissions. As a state of
science, experienced by us as heat that we can measure, or images that we
can gaze upon and visually digest—our feelings and values about climate
change are totally absent from the Sierra Club’s description. What we want
to inspire instead is a feeling for the heat of climate change: an emotional
involvement in its relationship with us that dissolves the subject-object gap.
But “feeling nature” requires understanding with it beyond the kind of rela-
tionships we have with conceptual categories (Seaton, 2005). As Evernden
(1993) remarks, it is relationships that determine how we live in the world,
those so primary to the origins, inspirations, and commitments of environ-
mentalism. What we are critiqing here along with Evernden is a kind of rela-
tionship that prevents us from being emotionally involved in the environment,
commonly accepted to be separate from us.
But it is not only the environmentalists who have adopted a scientific and
objectivist map of reality (the one that Laing spoke of), but most of the pub-
lic has adopted this map too. Public education plays a major part in encod-
ing this map onto our minds. David Orr (1994) tells us that “much of what
has gone wrong with the world is the result of education that alienates us from
life in the name of human domination, fragments instead of unifies . . . [and]
separates feeling from intellect” (p. 17). Similarly, Orr suggests that the
map that alienates us from the world excludes those particular features of real-
ity and experience so crucial to articulating what, for example, Mick Smith
(2001) calls a “feeling for life” (p. 168). Orr is explicit about mainstream edu-
cation being the major instrument of inscribing a biophobia in the minds of
the citizens. Hence his insistence that the current environmental crisis is a
“metaphysical disorder” of the mind that inhibits biophila or love of life.
Then, what do we do? How can we dispel the metaphysical notion that
nature is simply a means, uninvolved in our Being? Is it even possible to shift
one’s metaphysics? If so, how do we go about it? In the next section, we will
argue that working directly with attention and perception has the most
potential for changing one’s metaphysics and re-wiring the mind.

96 Heesoon Bai & Greg Scutt

 Learning to See the World Intrinsically

Central to what both Evernden and Laing emphasize as a problem in the

development of the western conception of self—what we have singled out as
a metaphysical disorder—is the predominance of a dualistic mode of per-
ception. Dualistic perception disrupts the subject’s consciousness from inter-
mingling with the world she experiences. Instead it fosters a mode of con-
sciousness that denies the self a “gradient of involvement” (Evernden, 1993,
p. 64) in the phenomenal world that she feels (and perceives) is significant,
value laden, sensuous, and loveable. And when she, the subject, does not per-
ceive being involved-in-the-world, she finds it difficult to readily encounter the
value that so many of us experience in it.
But if experiencing value in nature is so crucial to our relationship with
it, then why not treat the existence of (intrinsic) value in nature theoretical-
ly (instead of confronting our dualistic mode of perception head on), and con-
sequently derive axiological moral “oughts” from knowledge of its exis-
tence? Could moral theory not provide a solution to our metaphysical disorder
with perception? Indeed the environmental philosopher J. Baird Callicott
expressed as early as 1985 that the most important “theoretical problem of
environmental ethics [is] the problem of intrinsic value in nature” (1985,
p. 271). However the proof of intrinsic value, the necessity for it, and its prac-
tical consequences (Fox 1990) are not so easily resolved, as can be witnessed
by heated and lively debate on this topic over the last 25 years.7 Nevertheless
we would like to refer to some of the recent history in environmental ethics
that concerns such questions. These questions are important for us to con-
sider because our motivation for a Buddhist mindful practice, which we
will consider later, is not a naïve suggestion that serves only to skirt around
the complex domain of eco-philosophy and ethics, but instead is informed
and motivated by the recent debates and contributions extending from
that discourse.
Extending moral consideration to non-human life forms has often
focused on a shared natural property between the non-human and the
human. For example Paul Taylor (1986) attaches the property of a “good of
its own” to another life form that is capable of being disturbed (by human
intervention) from its own species-specific goals. But doesn’t every species
have a goal and therefore equal worth? How do we deal with a biological egal-
itarianism whereby every living thing—bacteria, insect, elephant, human—
receives equivalent “inherent worth” (Smith, 2001, p. 33)? But more impor-
tantly, these moral judgments, based upon a single natural attribute, are eval-
uated by a separate judgmental, discursive self (Fox, 1990). Respecting
nature in this shared-attribute way becomes a conceptually discursive,
“acontextual” activity (Smith, 2001, p. 34). This kind of biocentric morality,
it seems, does not provide a new path for experiencing the value in nature
or for treating our dualistic mode of perception.

Touching the Earth with the Heart of Enlightened Mind 97

 A more eco-holistic approach, such as that taken by Callicott (1985),
avoids the naturalistic fallacy that plagues Taylor’s approach. Instead of
assuming an isolated self outside of nature, Callicott postulates a self that is
embedded and interconnected to the web of life by using the insights
offered by quantum physics. For Callicott, quantum physics undermines
the Cartesian dualism and allows for a new sensibility of the self that over-
comes its separation and distance from nature. This new “I” interpene-
trates with the fabric of reality and makes “nature intrinsically valuable to the
extent that the self is intrinsically valuable” (p. 274-275). But as Smith
(2001) points out, quantum mechanics cannot provide us any ethical direc-
tion since we do not experience value in nature on the peculiar quantum scale
but instead on a human scale. We value flora, fauna, rivers, and mountain
ranges on the scale at which we experience them with our senses. Knowing
that on the quantum scale we interpenetrate and merge with other life and
objects does not give us the necessary experiential insight to move us beyond
a dualistic mode of perception towards a nondualistic experience
(Zimmerman, 1988).
Something then is absent from theoretical accounts that propose to
help us consider things morally. A wider, more expansive context that
includes our emotional experiences with other sentient life, wild spaces, and
cherished places is excluded in the previous two examples. We must, how-
ever, concede that in considering these attempts to rationalize the exis-
tence of intrinsic value, our intentions are sincere and coherent with search-
ing for and reclaiming what Evernden and Laing refer to as “value in nature.”
Yet we must also conclude that theorizing is not helping us locate it, expe-
rience it, or feel it!
Locating value in nature is a very contested proposition. Indeed nature
itself—its ontological status—is contested terrain. If nature is what culture is
not, then where is such nature, and what relevance is it for us cultural
beings? It makes little sense to look for and theorize about value per se in
nature, whose very essence and reality is in doubt. Smith (2001) eloquently
summarizes this complex debate to conclude that values are “transitory” and
“shifting” (p. 126) qualities dependent upon a culture that is often in rapid
change, and that even our values about nature can be shown to be constructed
from our changing social and cultural circumstances (p. 109-129). For Smith
it is more important to pay attention to where values are produced and
mediated rather than focus on their ontology. Thus, Smith argues, we should
be paying attention to nature as a medium that has “constitutive values”
(p. 129),8 and we can only experience and participate in their constitution if
we are careful and attentive to the circumstances in which they arise. We
would suggest that careful “attentiveness” to these circumstances presupposes
and requires a very attuned consciousness. Our perception of, and attention
to, the circumstances is always, lastly, mediated by our psychological state of
consciousness. Therefore, to pay attention to the natural and social mediums

98 Heesoon Bai & Greg Scutt

we live in, where value is constituted, requires us to see and feel ourselves as
part of it, and this, we propose, requires a wider sense of self—a nondualistic
sense of self.9
Finally, before we introduce our practice, we would like to acknowl-
edge that it is not as though eco-philosophy has nothing to offer when it
comes to overcoming a dualistic mode of consciousness. In fact much of what
we have talked about here, with respect to consciousness, concerns the
philosophy of deep ecology. Warwick Fox (1990), in Towards a Transpersonal
Ecology, points to the distinctive philosophical feature of deep ecology as that
of the transpersonal. He argues for psychological methods (and practices)
opposed to axiological methods of self-realization. Transpersonal ecology, as
articulated by Fox, emphasizes that the (psycho)logical connections between
an ego-less self, interconnected with nature, leads to a disposition and con-
duct of care for the expanded self. These psychological connections are
not theorized. They are, as Fox comments, “referred to as experiential invi-
tations” where participants are encouraged to experience the feeling of being
interconnected and bound up with the surrounding world (p. 244). As Fox
admits this is not easy to explain. Language does not help us communicate
interconnected experience, which is why it “belongs to the realm of the train-
ing of consciousness (or perception) that is associated with…Zen Buddhism”
(p. 250). It is to this practice in training the consciousness that we now shift
out attention.

Mindfulness: The Buddhist Contribution to Keeping the Earth in Mind

For the rest of this paper, we will introduce and examine a well-known
attentional practice called “mindfulness,” which is central and fundamental
to the enlightenment work in Buddhism.10 Buddhist mindfulness has been
practiced for over 2500 years, and its roots go back into prehistory. In the way
we understand and practice Buddhism, we see it as an educational philosophy
and practice-framework for working with consciousness. Robert Thurman
(personal communication, 2008), renowned historian of Buddhism, is most
emphatic in communicating that Buddhism is a system of education and that
its educational objective is to change the mind-and-heart of our civilization.
Specifically, the desired change aimed at is to go from the dualistic
consciousness of subject-object dichotomy that precedes and precipitates
instrumentalism, to the nondualistic consciousness that experiences
intersubjectivity or “interbeing,” as Thich Nhat Hahn (1998) calls it. In the way
we understand “intersubjectivity,” it means a sense of knowing the other as
a “fellow being” whose identity and welfare are bound up in some ways with
one’s own. That is to say, there is a sense of consanguinity. The relevance of
this educational objective to the issues and concerns surrounding
environmentalism that we have presented in this paper should be apparent

Touching the Earth with the Heart of Enlightened Mind 99

 to the reader. We see mindfulness practice as an effective way to cultivate a
sense of interbeing or consanguinity between ourselves as human beings and
all other beings that make up the ecological community that we call earth.
Mindfulness practice cultivates subject-object integration and bonding, rather
than subject-object dichotomy and alienation. From this integration and
bonding flows love of life (biophilia) and deep appreciation of other beings’
sacred existence. How does mindfulness work? And how do we integrate it into
education?

A Mindfulness Primer

The basic practice of mindfulness is simple enough to explain in terms of

instruction. You do not dwell on your thoughts (sensations, percepts, feelings,
mental objects), but just pay attention to them rising and vanishing, all the
while anchoring your attention to your in-breaths and out-breaths.11 The prac-
tice of not dwelling on the content of consciousness (thoughts, percepts, feel-
ings, sensations), but letting it come and go, brings about a profound change
to our consciousness. Basically what happens is a shift of attention from focus-
ing on what is in the consciousness (content) to the consciousness itself (con-
tainer). A common everyday experience that suggests what this shift in
attention is like is when one shifts focus from looking at the clutter of
objects in a room to the room itself and noticing how spacious the room is.
It is this spaciousness of consciousness that we are after when we meditate.
(Paradoxically, when we pursue spaciousness as a narrow-focused goal, it
becomes a self-defeating and a counterproductive effort because the mind-
set of intense pursuit is anything but spacious! Mindfulness is simple enough
to understand but difficult to practice.)
Experientially speaking, whenever we direct and fix our attention on men-
tal objects—the details of the content of consciousness—our focus becomes
narrow, delineated and rigid. We see objects as bounded (or discontinuous
from their surrounding) and as categories (subject to identity). For example
a narrow and categorical attention would see a tea mug as not the table on
which it sits, and not continuous with the table and the sky that shows up in
the background. Compare that mode of perceptual consciousness to anoth-
er kind, namely, seeing first of all, the boundless space that holds all objects,
and moreover, seeing the relatedness and sensing a kind of continuity and
flow among objects. A tea mug, table, and the sky, along with everything else
within view, show up in the limitless space with a sense of somehow being
held together and flowing through vast space and time. This latter mode of
perceptual consciousness typifies mindfulness experience. In Zen and other
meditation communities, this mode of perceptual experience is characterized
as “soft gaze” or “soft eye,” which is achieved by half-closing the eyes,
relaxing the eye muscles, and slightly blurring the focus so as to encourage
greater peripheral vision.

100 Heesoon Bai & Greg Scutt

 There are two more pieces to add here to the mindful experience: a sense
of self and biophilia (feeling for life). The sense of continuity in the world of
objects that we mention above applies equally to the experiencing self. In
mindfulness, the self does not sense and feel itself separate from everything
else that enters its consciousness. Typically, in the ordinary everyday con-
sciousness we practice, this self-other separation and discontinuity is very
strong. This is the consciousness that objectifies everything, turning them into
an “other” that the subject—the self—regards from without and acts on. Here,
one experiences, “Of course, I’m not the tree. The earth is not ‘me.’ I am not
that homeless person on the street.” But mindfulness which is opposed to
such an objectifying consciousness, is a mode of consciousness that connects,
integrates, and transfuses everything, whereby we can experience varying
degrees of the self-other continuity and unity or integrity. One experiences
“interbeing” and resonance with all beings without losing the sense of dis-
tinct individuality. In mindful experiences there is this sense that self and world
phenomenologically arise together moment by moment.
Another important aspect of mindfulness experience is the charged
sense of and appreciation for life. How does this happen? Consider how the
narrow and bound attention (that sees objects as separate from the perceiving
self and from each other) would modify the feel of consciousness. This
results in a lessening of the “warmth” and “radiance” that typically charac-
terize blissful experience. In the way we work and live in the contemporary
world, most of our attention is this kind of narrow and bound focusing. No
wonder bliss is not an everyday experience for most people! But when we look
at the world in a state of mindfulness, it glows with a degree of radiance and
vividness that is usually missing or diminished in dualistic perception. Awe,
wonder, and gratitude fill our hearts naturally and easily when we see the
world through mindfulness. In other words, we appreciate and love the
world for its intrinsic value, and not just for its utility or instrumental value.
The biophilia that Orr (2004) speaks of turns out to be a feature of mind-
fulness. In the Buddhist tradition, the term that is used to talk about this radi-
ant and loving quality of consciousness is bodhicitta—enlightened or awak-
ened mind-heart. Bodhicitta is the source of compassion and wisdom.12 In the
teachings of this tradition, bodhicitta is said to be inherent in all human beings,
and in that sense, bodhicitta is everyone’s birthright. It is also understood as
the primordial layer of our psyche, and is always there to be accessed.
Mindfulness as a practice is about accessing this bodhicitta.
The difficulty of accessing bodhicitta stems from the conditions of objec-
tified consciousness, which is the same concern raised by Laing and others
that this paper began with. Mindfulness practice is a way of “blowing the dust”
(of objectification) off one’s consciousness so as to recover the underlying inte-
grative consciousness, whereby one feels the continuity of self and other. Here,
continuity must not be understood as a total identification. It is not as
though a mindfulness practitioner cannot distinguish his or her self from other

Touching the Earth with the Heart of Enlightened Mind 101

 beings! Rather, we are talking about a sense of openness and receptivity to,
and resonance with, the other. In other words, intersubjectivity is what we
mean. Incidentally, there is now enough brain and consciousness research to
support the explanation of what mindfulness practice does in terms of
changing one’s disposition and conduct, and how everything we have dis-
cussed above is a function of our brain and body.13

Touching the Earth, Mindfully

We are interested in mindfulness practice in the present context because we

see the possibility of its vital contribution to our goal of helping ourselves to
discover a better intersubjective connection with nature and hence being able
to appreciate its intrinsic value. If we can feel this deep inter-being and res-
onance with the earth and its myriad sentient beings, and can regard the earth
as continuous with one’s body, then most naturally we would be the kind of
environmentalist that Evernden valorizes: one who can defend, protest,
and speak on behalf of the significance of the value they experience in
nature. In this final section, we wish to explore a variation of mindfulness prac-
tice that is specifically designed by us, the authors of this paper, to cultivate
a sense of inter-being and resonance with nature or earth. This exploration
aims at seeing how we may introduce and integrate mindfulness practice into
curriculum. Believing as we do that environmental education should not be
a separate subject matter for study (for it is too central and critical), nor a spe-
cial interest for citizens, we propose that mindfulness awareness towards all
beings be broadly and essentially infused into all that we teach and learn.

Being One-bodied with the Earth

Here we would like to offer a short embodiment meditation session that we
have devised for our reader:

• Take the basic meditation posture.14 That is, sit comfortably but with your
spine naturally straight and tall. Relax all your muscles, half-close and
soften your gaze, or close your eyes, and anchor your attention on your
in-breaths and out-breaths. If your attention wanders off, thinking about
this or that, gently bring it back to your breaths. Neither resist nor dwell
on whatever thoughts, feelings, sensations, sounds, and sights come to you.
Let them come and let them go. Become intimately and sensuously
involved with your breathing.
• When you are established in the basic mindfulness process as above, for
say, five to ten minutes, you then attend, in a natural and relaxed manner,
to sensing all kinds of fluid in your body (saliva, blood, sweat, tears…)
running their course. In each instance of noticing the presence of liquid
activity, note to yourself that you are water: “I am water.” Imagistically feel

102 Heesoon Bai & Greg Scutt

 your self being one with the oceans, rivers, lakes, streams, waterfalls,
clouds, and rain in the sky. “I am a stream . . . a river . . . a waterfall…”
• Repeat the above with the three other elements: air, fire, and earth. For
air, pay attention to the air that goes in and out of you and any other
gaseous presence in your body. Use your imagination to feel yourself being
one with all kinds of wind—small, large, soft, or fierce—blowing across
the land and over the ocean: “I am air.” For fire, you feel the presence of
heat in your body here and there, and then again envisage feeling your
self being one with volcano, lightening, forest fire, and summer sun. For
earth, you feel the solidity of your bones and flesh, and envisage feeling
your self being one with rocks, soil, mountains, trees, flowers, and
animals—all that is solid and “fleshy.” “I am a mountain…a riverbed…”

Coda: Educating with Earth in Mind

Education is a supreme means by which each generation is prepared to meet

the particular challenges that they will have to face in an ever-changing
world. Today, there is no dispute that the relationship between humanity and
nature (i.e., our environmental problems) is possibly the most critical chal-
lenge that faces us. However, it would be entirely delusionary to think that
these challenges are problems in the environment, and hence we need to do
something to the environment. Raimundo Panikkar (1999), with whose
inspiring insight we began this paper, wisely observes: “Peace with the
Earth excludes victory over the Earth, submission or exploitation of the
Earth to our exclusive needs. It requires collaboration, synergy, a new aware-
ness” (p. 244, emphasis added). In this paper, we have attempted to blow
away the thick dust of ideologies that normalize domination, violence, and
exploitation of the earth, and to show how, beneath all the dust, there exists
the layer of human consciousness that naturally connects to and integrates
with the earth. Call it the bodhicitta, the wild mind, the Aboriginal mind, the
ancestral mind, the primordial mind, or what have you. Regardless what it
is called, education today must teach us to access this layer of consciousness
and release in us the spirit of “collaboration, synergy, a new awareness.” Our
survival, let alone the survival of the entire biotic order, may crucially
depend on a shift in consciousness. What more urgent task is there in edu-
cation than this?

I am curious how my students would respond if next time I ask them not to “con-
sider” but to “contemplate” the nature of the human self. Of course, “contem-
plation” too is not quite the right word, and the students will rely on analysis
again. Contemplation mingles too closely with our discursive habits. I want them
to experience what they “feel” the self is like. A tricky task though, especially in
the academic context of university coursework. My request of them to “feel” their

Touching the Earth with the Heart of Enlightened Mind 103

 self will still tempt them to theorize about the self, as if the self is some abstract
concept, separate from their bodies and minds, etc. Yikes. What can I do to help
them to find a way into the layer of consciousness that senses and feels the inter-
beingness of the world—their interbeingness with the world? Okay, I will ask them
to: “Quietly close your books, gently sit up straight, slowly close or half-close your
eyes. . . deep breaths, in . . and out. . . feel your warm and cool breaths, feel the
vast and radiant emptiness that fills you…”
From Greg’s Teaching Journal

Notes
1 In this paper, Buddhism is understood and presented as a system of education,
rather than a religion or even spirituality, whose primary aim is to shift the
matrix of consciousness from a dualistic base to a nondualistic base.
2 Anãpãnasati (mindfulness of breathing) is a fundamental form of Buddhist
meditation taught by the Buddha, and is presented in the Anãpãnasati Sutta.
3 For the sake of scholarship, we must mention that another very important
thinker who critiqued the mind/nature dichotomy and argued for their
seamless integration is Gregory Bateson (1979).
4 Laing continues in his essay to elaborate on the contributions to the modern
scientific worldview made by Galileo and Francis Bacon (Laing, 1980).
Indeed we acknowledge that we are skirting around and skipping over the vast
domain of the history of science (not the least Descartes’ contribution to the
split between mind and matter). For more detail on the role science has played
in our ecological crisis and relationship between humanity and nature see Leiss
(1994), Chapter 2 in Merchant (2005) and chapters 1 and 2 in Plumwood
(2002).
5 We refer to most environmentalists as those who support shallow
environmentalism or rationalize environmental values. See Zimmerman
(1994) and Chapter 1 in Smith (2001).
6 Our goal here is only to use the Sierra Club as an example of the kind of
scientific language that describes climate change. We want to illustrate what
we have been referring to as a lack of experiential relationship in the
language of environmentalists. We are not suggesting that the Sierra Club’s
efforts are insincere, miscalculated, or ineffective at confronting climate
change. We simply want to exemplify the pervading dualism present in
environmentalism’s language.
7 These debates are widely discussed in the journal Environmental Ethics. See
McShane (2007) for a recent defense of its significance.
8 Evernden (1993, p. 74) also talks about the constitution of values as a
property of consciousness.
9 Evernden (1993, pp. 129-137) is also very much keyed in on the importance
of context.

104 Heesoon Bai & Greg Scutt

10 “Mindfulness” is a translation from the Pali word “satipatthana” which
means “establishment in awareness.” Here, “awareness” or “mindfulness” (sati)
refers to the quality of our consciousness that does not see the world in terms
of self-other dichotomy (“me” and “not me”), but in terms of self-other
unity within the field of unified consciousness. The experience of self-other
unity under mindfulness is seeing the co-arising or simultaneity of self and
other, which generates a sense of “we.”
11 Again, the classic canon detailing this practice is Anãpãnasati Sutta. To note,
there has developed over the long history of Buddhism an inexhaustible array
of methods and techniques for achieving this simple objective, which creates
a rich variety of schools and traditions of Buddhist contemplative practices.
In this paper, we will not be exploring this historical and cultural richness of
Buddhist practices. We are focused instead on the essential practice of
mindfulness.
12 Quality books and articles abound on this topic. We refer the interested
reader to Das (1997).
13 For example, we refer the reader to Siegel’s (2007) highly acclaimed work that
integrates mindfulness meditation with contemporary brain research.

Notes on Contributors

Heesoon Bai is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon

Fraser University (SFU) in Canada. She coordinates a new doctoral program
in Philosophy of Education (http://www.educ.sfu.ca/gradprogs/doctoral/cur-
riculum_philosophy/). She has published widely in academic journals and edit-
ed volumes on topics including directions for philosophy of education,
teacher education, ecology and environmental education, social responsibility
and moral agency, and art education and zen aesthetics. She is the Editor of
Paideusis, the journal of the Canadian Philosophy of Education Society
(http://journals.sfu.ca/paideusis). Contact: [email protected]

Greg Scutt lives in Vancouver where he is completing his MA in the

Department of Humanities at SFU. His research interests are in radical eco-
logical thought and its application to environmental and humanities educa-
tion. He is currently completing his MA thesis on the eco-philosophy of
Michel Serres. Contact: [email protected]

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