ABSTRACT
Destroy the forests (of desires) and not trees, from the forest is fear born, by removing forest and thicket, Nibba¯na is attained, monks.
Dhammapada
An endeavour to create a picture of the Buddhist world-view that included non-human entities and human beings and at the same time agreed with Buddhist tenets was undertaken previously to truly understand how Buddhist literature provides a sense of nature. Termed as “cosmological,” this picture was drawn out of early Buddhism’s various doctrines. All these doctrines, which though not about the natural world in their original form, act as cryptic resources that subsequently reveal the status of nature in Buddhist thought. However the cosmological description simply paints a picture of how the world is and how it operates. Additional reasons are therefore needed for ensuring that human actions respond in a positive manner to the environment. The question why an individual ought to act for the sake of nature is not a new one and is often faced by moral theories trying to justify and encourage non-discriminatory and constructive action towards the natural world. Buddhist literary insights are able to respond to this challenge through their virtue-based moral theory which is woven into the very structure of its world-view and without which the cosmological picture discussed earlier remains incomplete. This and the next chapter will address the question of morality and virtue and how these extend to nature.
