This essay aims to contribute to the ongoing discussions and debates regarding the nature of ecocriticism through a preliminary and preparatory consideration of the classical Chinese and Japanese Zen eco-ethical-aesthetics of what the Japanese Zen Master Dōgen Eihei called "the great earth," beyond all national,cultural,and other kinds of political boundaries.The clouds do not take note that they are passing from India into China.This is not,however,to evacuate differences,but to radicalize and cherish them from the perspective of the shared earth as the oneness(but not sameness) in and through which we come to experience differences not as liabilities,but as assets.Such a standpoint,however,demands that we think beyond the great ego investments of the globalized earth(my self,my nation,my culture,etc.) that mobilize differences as inherently antagonistic.The Great Earth is the co-originating interdependence that is our shared ecology.A contemporary Buddhist eco-critical sense of self is a self awakened from its unconscious and tyrannical prejudice that it is the master point of reference for all that is valuable into the awakening of its shared being with the earth.
