DOGEN, DEEP ECOLOGY, AND THE ECOLOGICAL SELF

A core project for deep ecologists is the reformulation of the concept of self. In searching for a more inclusive understanding of self, deep ecologists often look to Buddhist philosophy, and to the Japanese Buddhist philosopher Dogen in particular, for inspiration. I argue that, while Dogen does share a nondualist, nonanthropocentric framework with deep ecology, his phenomenology of the self is fundamentally at odds with the expanded Self found in the deep ecology literature. I suggest, though I do not fully argue for it, that Dogen's account of the self is more sympathetic to one version of ecofeminism than to deep ecology.