ABSTRACT
In Buddha's collected sermons there are compassionate calls to show due care and loving kindness towards all sentient creatures. The Buddha interacted in deep empathy with people from all stratas of life, including the settled merchant classes and trading groups travelling to the region, and from his reflections developed a form of social ethics which he practised and preached. It has been argued that ontological notions such as Buddha-nature or Dharma-nature provide a basis for unifying all existent entities in a common sacred universe, even though the tradition has come to privilege human life vis-à-vis spiritual realization. While Buddha may have realized the diversity and interconnectedness of the biocommunity, his worldview was neither entirely naturalistic nor as biocentric as Buddhism in its different forms has sometimes become. The Buddhist ethic of living in harmony with the earth accordingly pervaded all aspects of Tibetan culture.
