American Buddhist Perspectives
Henry David Thoreau famously wrote, “in Wildness is the preservation of the World.”[1] Thoreau, a lifelong New Englander, pointed West when he spoke of the Wildness in which our preservation could be found. Yet now, scarcely 100 years hence, America’s great destiny is manifest and Wildness must be rediscovered. But where? No longer, it would seem, is there a land ‘out there’ to which we may point to as a reminder of who we are, as natural beings living in a world of culture.
[1] Walking, p. 37.
This was the first paragraph of a paper I wrote last winter titled, “In Relationship is the Preservation of the World.” It was hastily and thus poorly written, but many of the ideas will be coming through in my current work. Here is my Sartre Paper (equally hasty).
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