07/01/2025
This is a brilliant article! Many of these exact ideas are at the core of both the Tao Te Ching and Traditional Chinese Medical theory.
Part of our growing ecological awareness is a feeling of disgust that we are literally covered in and penetrated by nonhuman beings, not just by accident but in an irreducible way, a way that is crucial to our very existence. If you didn’t have a bacterial microbiome in your digestive system, you couldn’t eat. Maybe this feeling of disgust will diminish if we become used to our immersion in the biosphere, just like our neurotic feelings diminish as we become friendlier with our thoughts—perhaps through psychotherapy or meditation. There have indeed arisen forms of ecological psychotherapy, and a branch of psychological studies some call ecopsychology. And many Buddhist meditation teachers also write about ecology, as a glance at some of the readily available magazines such as Shambhala Sun will show you.
