1 00:00:14,890 --> 00:00:22,480 Okay. I'm usually someone who, like, walks around and is very sort of dynamic when presenting, but for the sake of time, 2 00:00:22,630 --> 00:00:28,930 in order to keep this to 45 minutes, I'm going to have to be pretty stationary and sort of script bound. 3 00:00:29,830 --> 00:00:39,310 So let's go ahead and dive in before we go into the strange and wonderful world of Tibetan nature spirits or eco demonology. 4 00:00:39,550 --> 00:00:42,700 I want to touch a moment on this idea of unseen beings. 5 00:00:43,450 --> 00:00:48,400 This is, of course, a reference to my book, Unseen Beings How we Figure out the World is more than human, 6 00:00:48,760 --> 00:00:57,129 in which I present a kind of clinical ecology, an approach to the climate crisis that's rooted in what we might call a more holistic approach, 7 00:00:57,130 --> 00:01:01,930 paying really close attention to the root causes and conditions of our planetary 8 00:01:01,930 --> 00:01:06,100 disease so that we can more effectively find a suitable path of treatment. 9 00:01:06,610 --> 00:01:10,989 The book is divided into four main sections, which might be familiar to a lot of you, 10 00:01:10,990 --> 00:01:15,460 since this is the model that was used by the Buddha for the teachings on the Four Noble Truths, 11 00:01:15,940 --> 00:01:21,849 his assessment of our universal diagnosis of suffering was itself quite clinical in approach, 12 00:01:21,850 --> 00:01:27,190 complete with an explanation of a diagnosis, its aetiology, a prognosis and a path of treatment. 13 00:01:27,730 --> 00:01:33,070 In the case of unseen beings, I take the Anthropocene as our planetary diagnosis, 14 00:01:33,070 --> 00:01:40,000 even though this term admittedly has some really significant problems, which I do talk about in the book and its fundamental cause, 15 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:47,560 in my view is anthropocentric from the conception that the world should and indeed naturally does revolve around human beings 16 00:01:47,830 --> 00:01:54,670 that only we are intrinsically valuable and that the pursuit of human flourishing supersedes any other moral considerations. 17 00:01:55,270 --> 00:02:02,649 Our disease is unfortunately both chronic and most likely terminal, and our prognosis is incredibly dire. 18 00:02:02,650 --> 00:02:10,930 I argued that it is in fact an apocalypse of sorts, but we need to really critically analyse what apocalypse truly means and acknowledge 19 00:02:10,930 --> 00:02:16,360 that the ending of One World isn't necessarily the ending of all worlds for treatment. 20 00:02:16,360 --> 00:02:24,820 I propose that we need to go beyond the idea of a quick fix pill that's going to cure us or save the Earth, and instead focus on recovery, 21 00:02:25,090 --> 00:02:30,940 both in the sense of a return of planetary health and also a recovery of a clear view of ourselves, 22 00:02:30,940 --> 00:02:34,360 of others, and what it means to be human in a more than human world. 23 00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:38,260 Our anthropocentric world is crumbling. We can't really avoid that. 24 00:02:38,680 --> 00:02:42,880 But there's still space for new life and new ways of being to emerge from the cracks. 25 00:02:45,100 --> 00:02:51,339 So what our unseen beings, when I first started writing the book, I had really intended to primarily talk about nature of spirits, 26 00:02:51,340 --> 00:02:56,950 especially Tibetan nature spirits, and to explore what eco demonology might offer. 27 00:02:56,950 --> 00:03:00,790 Our modern discussions on climate change. But unseen can mean many things. 28 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:07,420 We, of course, have the more conventional, unseen beings, those that are at least usually invisible to the naked eye. 29 00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:14,200 This includes beings like ghosts and spirits, gods and demons, but also beings like microbes and viruses. 30 00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:17,530 These are all unseen beings of a rather literal sort. 31 00:03:17,920 --> 00:03:24,460 But there's a very different application of this word as well, which became sort of increasingly prominent as I was writing the book. 32 00:03:24,820 --> 00:03:28,809 And these are the beings who aren't necessarily invisible or imperceptible, 33 00:03:28,810 --> 00:03:35,380 but rather unseen as a function of our disregard, those that we have actively unseen as beings. 34 00:03:35,860 --> 00:03:40,780 This can include plants and fungi, both of whom we are often blind to. 35 00:03:41,200 --> 00:03:44,140 They're pushed into the background as a kind of painted scenery. 36 00:03:44,680 --> 00:03:49,060 Some animals have also been unseen, especially those that we regard as objects are stuck. 37 00:03:49,540 --> 00:03:52,899 In fact, a lot of humans have been comprehensively unseen, 38 00:03:52,900 --> 00:03:58,150 usually in order to justify oppression and exploitation landscapes themselves often 39 00:03:58,300 --> 00:04:03,340 regarded as a kind of being in many cultures around the world are now mere stages. 40 00:04:03,340 --> 00:04:05,800 They're backdrops for our human centred trauma. 41 00:04:06,520 --> 00:04:12,069 There are some beings who lie somewhere in the centre of this, and these are beings that I'm quite interested in. 42 00:04:12,070 --> 00:04:16,690 Notably nature spirits were at once conventionally regarded as invisible, 43 00:04:17,080 --> 00:04:23,560 but at the same time they're deeply connected to a lot of those disregarded beings like animals, plants and landscapes. 44 00:04:23,860 --> 00:04:30,520 I would argue that their invisibility is itself a function of the very same disregard that pushes us to unsee trees. 45 00:04:30,850 --> 00:04:36,040 A tree spirit might in some cases inhabit a tree, much like we inhabit a house. 46 00:04:36,310 --> 00:04:40,060 The trees are not buildings, they're our own biological kin. 47 00:04:40,330 --> 00:04:43,690 Perhaps trees are simply the physical bodies of tree spirits. 48 00:04:43,900 --> 00:04:48,580 Perhaps the powerful spirits of mountains, lakes and trees are not invisible at all. 49 00:04:48,580 --> 00:04:50,860 We've simply learned not to recognise them. 50 00:04:51,910 --> 00:05:00,430 Admittedly, this book is largely Eurocentric and not because European cultures or sciences are the most important or the most valuable, 51 00:05:00,430 --> 00:05:06,190 but because they have quite unnaturally come to dominate the world through centuries of colonisation, 52 00:05:06,190 --> 00:05:09,370 forced conversion and the pursuit of absolute control. 53 00:05:09,670 --> 00:05:15,100 If we want to understand the causes of a crisis primarily orchestrated by Western powers and institutions, 54 00:05:15,400 --> 00:05:19,090 we have to critically analyse Western philosophical and cultural traditions. 55 00:05:19,780 --> 00:05:24,040 But in today's talk we're going to be looking primarily at Asia and the Buddhist world, 56 00:05:24,250 --> 00:05:27,490 starting with the question Is there a Buddhist approach to nature? 57 00:05:28,030 --> 00:05:34,479 Now, the nature of Buddhist environmental ethics have been a hotbed of debate for a long time. 58 00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:41,020 Many have argued that Buddhism, and specifically Tibetan Buddhism, isn't quite as green as we might think that it is. 59 00:05:41,020 --> 00:05:45,280 Or rather its modern greenness is a lot younger than you might care to admit. 60 00:05:45,940 --> 00:05:51,009 David Cooper and Simon James have argued that Buddhism is actually distinctly non ecological 61 00:05:51,010 --> 00:05:56,350 in outlook because of due in part to its primary concern with individual liberation, 62 00:05:56,350 --> 00:06:01,570 individual sentient beings, which they claim precludes a moral concern for species. 63 00:06:01,810 --> 00:06:07,390 To be fair, there are others who would argue that this is actually an asset, but this is something worth considering nonetheless. 64 00:06:07,840 --> 00:06:09,579 Others, including Lambert Schmidt Housing, 65 00:06:09,580 --> 00:06:16,390 have argued that Buddhism or Buddhist forms of anthropocentric ism actually idealised a human dominated world, 66 00:06:16,870 --> 00:06:22,660 since nonhuman beings like animals are usually regarded as lesser or at least more miserable than humans. 67 00:06:23,260 --> 00:06:28,090 One could then conclude that if all animals were to suddenly disappear and human populations were to spike, 68 00:06:28,330 --> 00:06:32,650 then that would be a good thing because everyone's working their way up the existential ladder. 69 00:06:33,190 --> 00:06:40,660 Nevertheless, it is possible to find some form of environmental ethics in Buddhism, including in Tibetan Buddhism. 70 00:06:40,990 --> 00:06:48,700 But as many have noted, this will usually require a certain degree of renegotiation in order to align with especially modern green, 71 00:06:48,700 --> 00:06:54,880 or what Patrick Murray calls light green environmentalism, aligning with movements like eco modernism. 72 00:06:55,900 --> 00:07:01,960 But to really have this conversation, we have to break down some of the basic terms and ideas being discussed. 73 00:07:02,440 --> 00:07:10,450 Issues of paradigmatic translation across philosophical contexts are rarely addressed in these kinds of discussions. 74 00:07:10,810 --> 00:07:13,900 For instance, what is ecology? What is nature? 75 00:07:14,380 --> 00:07:23,470 These are actually rather important questions. Ian Harris writes The evolution of the modern ecological definition of nature and the natural 76 00:07:23,470 --> 00:07:29,320 can only be fully understood against the background of the history of Western thought itself. 77 00:07:29,860 --> 00:07:36,339 This is important for us to wrap our heads around. This idea of nature are what Lorraine Duston calls local nature's. 78 00:07:36,340 --> 00:07:44,140 That place out there, the undifferentiated abode of non-human beings situated across and apart from humanity, this is. 79 00:07:44,150 --> 00:07:52,610 It's a very distinctly European cosmological model, partly rooted in the classical era, but expanded upon substantially in the Enlightenment. 80 00:07:53,240 --> 00:08:02,600 This nature is a domain of objects, resources devoid of agency who are inert, or which are inert and unaware, mechanical, much like a clock. 81 00:08:03,140 --> 00:08:06,800 They're driven by instinct and the rules set in place by the Creator. 82 00:08:07,370 --> 00:08:11,930 This nature is devoid of intrinsic value beyond its utility to humans. 83 00:08:12,350 --> 00:08:17,750 It's also quite devoid of individuality. It's monolithic, universal, undifferentiated. 84 00:08:18,110 --> 00:08:23,690 Importantly, it's not a moral dimension at all unless dynamics of human ownership get involved. 85 00:08:24,290 --> 00:08:27,550 Most importantly, nature is a disenchanted domain. 86 00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:34,040 It's not a magical place. It's a strictly material, scientific place governed by mathematics and natural laws. 87 00:08:34,490 --> 00:08:39,530 On the other side, we have this idea of human culture, which is quite distinct from nature, 88 00:08:39,830 --> 00:08:44,380 and the two are thought to rarely coincide, at least until recent times. 89 00:08:44,390 --> 00:08:49,070 So we're told humanity, in contrast in nature, is a domain of subjects. 90 00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:55,580 Unlike nature, we have agency. Supposedly free will driven by our rational human souls. 91 00:08:55,880 --> 00:09:00,260 We have a neat value, and we're both bound and impacted by morality. 92 00:09:00,740 --> 00:09:09,860 It intrinsically matters how we treat other humans, whereas with nature, this is a largely secondary operation, and humanity notably is enchanted. 93 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:18,110 In fact, even in especially in scientific contexts, all of the magic and wonder of the world is seen to be merely a function of the human mind. 94 00:09:18,770 --> 00:09:23,600 Now it's from this basis that discussions of ecology emerge. 95 00:09:23,870 --> 00:09:30,530 This was actually originally termed economy, which is now a separate but very closely interconnected idea. 96 00:09:30,830 --> 00:09:36,410 Ecology also emerged in the Enlightenment, focussed on the study use and management of the Oikos. 97 00:09:36,890 --> 00:09:42,500 This is the root of of eco Greek oikos, meaning the house or our household resources. 98 00:09:43,190 --> 00:09:47,290 This, of course, is a fundamentally anthropocentric ontology. 99 00:09:47,300 --> 00:09:53,390 This is an anthropocentric approach built around the human as both the centre and the apex of existence, 100 00:09:53,540 --> 00:09:59,270 with nature conceived as a stage or a storehouse of resources designed to support our existence. 101 00:09:59,750 --> 00:10:04,430 Importantly, there is no native equivalent to this idea of nature, 102 00:10:04,430 --> 00:10:10,400 this term nature in Buddhist cultures or indeed in most non-Western cultural and linguistic traditions. 103 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:18,170 As Philippe Escola notes, for most non and non modern and pre-modern peoples quote plants and animals, rivers and rocks, 104 00:10:18,170 --> 00:10:25,940 meteors and the seasons do not exist all together in an ontological niche defined by the absence of human beings. 105 00:10:26,540 --> 00:10:35,240 Of course, the original meaning of the word in nature based on Latin natuna, which means that the nature of a thing or that which is inborn. 106 00:10:35,270 --> 00:10:42,350 This does have correlates in many different global traditions, including in Sanskrit, Svalbard, the Tibetan religion. 107 00:10:42,890 --> 00:10:50,810 But there's no equivalent term for that place out there, that monolithic natural world that is outside of and apart from humanity. 108 00:10:54,730 --> 00:11:02,450 Great in Buddhism. Nature spirits are in fact a very pragmatic medium through which the experiences 109 00:11:02,450 --> 00:11:06,870 and perspectives of non-human and non-biological phenomena can be negotiated. 110 00:11:06,890 --> 00:11:13,520 But due to a lot of factors, some of which we'll talk about tonight, some of which we can't, including modernist pragmatism, 111 00:11:14,210 --> 00:11:20,030 because of these discussions of environmental ethics, often ignored the topic of so-called nature spirits. 112 00:11:20,390 --> 00:11:26,930 In haunting the Buddha, Robert Crowley demonstrates that spirit is played a central role in the development and 113 00:11:26,930 --> 00:11:32,420 growth of Buddhism in all of its contexts and in all of its forms throughout history. 114 00:11:32,720 --> 00:11:38,210 They've always been there in Buddhist cosmology, philosophy, ethics, ritual arts, and beyond. 115 00:11:38,780 --> 00:11:46,400 Only Tidwell argues that at least in Tibetan society's spirit, paradigms act as a kind of potent trans cultural affordances. 116 00:11:47,090 --> 00:11:54,470 They're a cultural affordances because they afford a particular range of possibilities for action in the cultural sphere. 117 00:11:54,710 --> 00:12:01,880 And they're trans cultural because they actually have this a strange ability to transcend social and cultural barriers. 118 00:12:02,210 --> 00:12:05,990 In her field work at a hospital in Ondo, she's a Tibetan doctor. 119 00:12:06,470 --> 00:12:12,980 She notes that weaker Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists may very well agree on the existence of particular spirits, 120 00:12:12,980 --> 00:12:18,710 even engaging with them in very similar manners while disagreeing on their social or existential nature. 121 00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:25,960 This can be seen far beyond Tibet. But these aren't just sociological or anthropological phenomena. 122 00:12:25,970 --> 00:12:30,920 Spirits are often distinctly, ecologically and environmentally embodied. 123 00:12:31,400 --> 00:12:40,190 They truly exist at the crossroads, at the intersections of cultures and geographies, and indeed also at the crossroads of human and nonhuman worlds. 124 00:12:41,680 --> 00:12:48,850 Given the complexity of these beings, it's obviously rather difficult for us to come to sensible terminologies. 125 00:12:49,420 --> 00:12:51,310 We could call these being spirits, 126 00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:58,660 but this is perhaps a bit too sprightly and it bears a lot of baggage from Western cultural notions about spirits and souls. 127 00:12:59,260 --> 00:13:02,500 We could use the term demons, which I personally like. 128 00:13:02,680 --> 00:13:10,180 This comes from the Greek tradition, referring to powerful spirits, usually lesser than gods who are associated with particular localities. 129 00:13:10,690 --> 00:13:16,179 I tend to use this as a sort of step away from demons, which is a lot more prominent. 130 00:13:16,180 --> 00:13:20,530 We'll come to that in a second, but we'll touch on this later. 131 00:13:21,340 --> 00:13:26,980 Personally, I quite like terms like fairies and elves for a number of reasons, most of them Tolkien, Ian, 132 00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:32,020 but these are arguably unusable due to their specific cultural context and also 133 00:13:32,020 --> 00:13:37,540 because of popular modern conceptions of them as little winged pixies and so on. 134 00:13:38,350 --> 00:13:44,680 We could of course just call them nature spirits, but this has two problems the problem with nature and the problem of spirits embedded within it. 135 00:13:44,690 --> 00:13:50,560 Nevertheless, I do use this term because I think it's useful to highlight the ecological embeddedness 136 00:13:50,770 --> 00:13:56,140 of these beings and to counteract movements towards the so-called supernatural. 137 00:13:57,220 --> 00:14:04,630 I, of course, also use unseen beings quite a bit, but mostly to capture this dual meaning of unseen as invisible and unseen as disregarded. 138 00:14:05,230 --> 00:14:11,740 And I would say that the most charged terminology that we could possibly use for these beings is, in fact, gods and demons. 139 00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:15,580 This taxonomy is not only problematic in a modern sense. 140 00:14:15,580 --> 00:14:22,180 There are even Tibetan system advisors and thinkers from 900 years ago that disagreed with the use of this terminology. 141 00:14:23,350 --> 00:14:27,459 I don't have a solution for this, and I think that that's actually a bit of the point. 142 00:14:27,460 --> 00:14:33,460 We need to resist the urge to collapse complexity in lieu of a universalising taxonomy. 143 00:14:33,970 --> 00:14:37,720 The ambiguity may actually be an asset, but more on that later. 144 00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:46,569 In my research, I think it's really important to go beyond doctrine and religious texts in order to get to the nature of these nature. 145 00:14:46,570 --> 00:14:48,850 Spirits. Oftentimes folkloric mythic, 146 00:14:48,850 --> 00:14:57,730 historical and even medical materials speak much more directly to the lived experiences of Tibetans living in relation with these beings. 147 00:14:58,360 --> 00:15:02,409 Some underexplored sources that I use in my research derive from Tibetan medicine, 148 00:15:02,410 --> 00:15:06,800 especially the sections on the publication Disorders of the Denisova, 149 00:15:07,300 --> 00:15:13,780 which is from the Magnum view, or the oral instruction tantra of the U.S., The four countries the locus classic is of Tibetan medicine. 150 00:15:14,500 --> 00:15:20,020 Another rather important source for indigenous daimon a logical knowledge, arguably is the Indian boom, 151 00:15:20,470 --> 00:15:25,930 the Indian collection, which comes from the blend angular, but it also exists in other contexts. 152 00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:33,370 These four collections are a mythic and ritual corpus that deal primarily with four types of nature spirits. 153 00:15:34,210 --> 00:15:40,900 I'm also really interested in whether control rituals like the Cha Boon Yanga or the oral tradition of summoning rain in the tradition, 154 00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:46,870 and how the evolution of rituals like these intersect with climatic shifts on the Tibetan Plateau. 155 00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:55,200 So when talking about Buddhism and the more than human world, it's I think a good place to start are the so-called six realms. 156 00:15:55,440 --> 00:15:58,290 Most of us are very familiar with these. 157 00:15:58,500 --> 00:16:05,100 But I want to deconstruct this idea a little bit and demonstrate demonstrate its limitations when dealing with the topic of spirits. 158 00:16:05,790 --> 00:16:10,920 We all know these realms. These are the realms of the devil's assumed as humans, animals, protectors and the [INAUDIBLE] beings. 159 00:16:11,430 --> 00:16:15,030 And this is straightforward enough. Sometimes there's only five realms. 160 00:16:15,030 --> 00:16:22,830 But some copper's preference for a divide between the Davids and the students leaves us the six fold model as a little bit more orthodox. 161 00:16:23,490 --> 00:16:30,930 But once we're once we begin trying to project nature spirit onto this, this scheme, it becomes a bit more complicated. 162 00:16:31,470 --> 00:16:37,350 For instance, we're often told that beings like in darkness are lesser kinds of gods, lesser kinds of devils. 163 00:16:37,800 --> 00:16:41,600 Sometimes Nagas are also regarded as a kind of lesser form of danger, 164 00:16:42,030 --> 00:16:47,340 but sometimes Nagas are also regarded as a kind of Asura, and in other cases they're regarded as animals. 165 00:16:47,730 --> 00:16:51,389 So I would argue their caste based social system and their obsession with 166 00:16:51,390 --> 00:16:55,620 jewels and so on makes them a little bit more similar to humans specifically. 167 00:16:56,490 --> 00:17:03,440 Sometimes Nagas are in the picture, look usually predicated upon the assumption that creatures can be divided into two categories. 168 00:17:03,450 --> 00:17:05,130 We find this really prominently in Tibet. 169 00:17:05,640 --> 00:17:12,030 In one group we have the proper hungry ghosts in their miserable realm of existence, where they're sort of fixed in that place. 170 00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:17,070 But on the other side we have the so-called eight classes of gods and demons. 171 00:17:17,610 --> 00:17:25,140 But then we've got another problem, because this suggests that we would find gods devils in the pit to look at, which doesn't make a lot of sense. 172 00:17:25,320 --> 00:17:30,629 And then, of course, there's the question of demons. Who are the ones that are stirring the cauldrons in the [INAUDIBLE] rooms? 173 00:17:30,630 --> 00:17:39,030 Are those also demons? In short, it's quite complicated, and it, in fact, becomes even more complicated when you consider, 174 00:17:39,030 --> 00:17:45,300 for instance, the fact that humans are certainly animals. Where do we draw that line, or are apes a part of the human realm or the animal realm? 175 00:17:45,310 --> 00:17:49,860 What about Denisovans or Neanderthals? There's a lot of a lot of questions here. 176 00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:57,090 For me personally, anyone that's read my book will know that I'm particularly concerned about the omission of plants from this scheme, 177 00:17:57,540 --> 00:18:06,600 despite the fact that they are immensely complex multisensory beings who can see, hear, smell, taste, touch, communicate, learn and respond to pain. 178 00:18:06,930 --> 00:18:12,270 Sounds like a sentient being to me. They are not actively embraced as sentient beings in Buddhism. 179 00:18:12,270 --> 00:18:16,919 They are in Jainism. But that's a different day. Fungi are much the same. 180 00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:21,300 Where do they go? Even though they're genetically closer to us as animals than they are to plants? 181 00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:23,490 And what about micro-organisms? 182 00:18:23,910 --> 00:18:30,150 It's worth noting that in some circles microorganisms are actually placed in the press to look as part of these eight classes. 183 00:18:30,840 --> 00:18:35,650 A lot of Tibetan doctors hold this this belief, especially with the dual connotations of sin. 184 00:18:37,560 --> 00:18:41,700 It's important, essentially that this model is not an absolutist paradigm, 185 00:18:41,970 --> 00:18:46,920 and it speaks rather poorly to the spatial placement of beings who in Buddhist cosmology are 186 00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:53,070 in fact arrayed across 31 different or more than 31 potentially different realms of existence. 187 00:18:53,610 --> 00:19:00,839 Jungian control hits. It hints at the fluidity of this construct when he says that, quote, Even the mountains, cliffs, trees, 188 00:19:00,840 --> 00:19:08,590 temples and homes of this human realm, wherever suitable, may serve as the habitat or environment for any of these forms of life. 189 00:19:10,040 --> 00:19:12,680 Now, of course, before Buddhism came to Tibet, 190 00:19:13,190 --> 00:19:19,280 there was already a well-established continuum of traditions negotiating the nature of non-human beings. 191 00:19:19,610 --> 00:19:27,680 In his comparative study of Siberian and Tibetan shamanic traditions, Dmitri Armacost notes that in ancestral, Himalayan and Siberian traditions, 192 00:19:27,890 --> 00:19:37,640 lakes and mountains were regarded as actual living beings in and of themselves, and they often still are in Siberian and variety in contexts. 193 00:19:38,390 --> 00:19:42,200 It's likely that it was only with increasing Indian influence that these spirited 194 00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:47,120 locations were reduced to the mere abodes of spirits rather than their physical forms. 195 00:19:47,510 --> 00:19:51,920 In some modern approaches to burn, they still maintain and maintain a kind of dual status. 196 00:19:52,550 --> 00:19:56,960 Once perceived as a living sentient being and also as a spirit residence. 197 00:19:57,590 --> 00:20:00,799 Now, because both India and Tibet had very complex, 198 00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:06,230 arguably animistic systems and demon logical cosmologies a new hybridised 199 00:20:06,230 --> 00:20:10,970 approach had to be very carefully negotiated and it did have to be negotiated. 200 00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:12,530 For Tibetan peoples, 201 00:20:12,530 --> 00:20:19,760 the spirits that they had known and lived with for arguably thousands of years weren't just beliefs that could be replaced by other beliefs. 202 00:20:20,030 --> 00:20:22,700 They were members of a more than human society, 203 00:20:22,850 --> 00:20:29,420 and their presence needed to be acknowledged and dealt with by Buddhism for it to really be applicable to Tibetan Lifeways. 204 00:20:29,930 --> 00:20:36,680 In demonology, this took three major forms. In some cases, Tibetan Buddhist spirits or Tibetan do. 205 00:20:36,680 --> 00:20:43,570 The spirits that we know today were adopted from India and they were equipped with account a literal translation. 206 00:20:43,580 --> 00:20:51,680 This includes beings like the slum in the slum in that word is very clearly based on the late in life of Asura, 207 00:20:51,830 --> 00:20:55,070 which eventually came to be understood to mean non God. 208 00:20:55,940 --> 00:21:03,020 There's other examples. Trees off or again, Dava, perhaps even Mamo came from this, but this is needs more investigation. 209 00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:08,690 Another approach was that some indigenous Tibetan spirits were retained. 210 00:21:09,500 --> 00:21:14,719 This includes beings like the Union, the Tend, the Tao Dong, etc. These were not a part of Indian tradition at all. 211 00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:19,430 They don't appear in Indian Buddhist texts, but they retained their place in the tradition. 212 00:21:19,820 --> 00:21:24,080 And then there are others who are assimilated and combined into a common class. 213 00:21:24,560 --> 00:21:31,879 This includes beings like the Naga and Lee, the Yorkshire and Nugent, the Deva and Flor in both of their respective contexts. 214 00:21:31,880 --> 00:21:36,200 These beings existed in their own cultural spheres for a very long time, 215 00:21:36,350 --> 00:21:40,640 and it was only in the Buddhist era in Tibet that they were collapsed into a single category, 216 00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:47,540 presumably based on the premise that this was a kind of mutual discovery by different groups of people of the same type of being. 217 00:21:48,660 --> 00:21:54,360 Now, of course, the most common classification that we encounter when we talk about spirits in Tibet are the 218 00:21:54,360 --> 00:22:00,950 so-called eight classes variably presented as passing de guerre La Rue de Guerre or Dray de Guerre. 219 00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:07,859 There are probably some others as well, and there are some early references to these eight classes in the Dunhuang materials, 220 00:22:07,860 --> 00:22:11,130 but they don't provide a listing of who they actually are. 221 00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:17,160 The first descriptive use that we can find is a 19th century translation of the Golden Light Sutra, 222 00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:24,899 where it uses this term Sun Day to translate off into which are the eight legions. 223 00:22:24,900 --> 00:22:31,650 And in this context, these were eight specific groups of spirits that sought teachings from the Buddha and became protectors. 224 00:22:32,190 --> 00:22:41,100 But over time in Tibet, these eight classes came to be a rather universal paradigm for describing all of the spirits that exist in the world. 225 00:22:41,580 --> 00:22:50,980 But this obviously only works symbolically because there are, in fact, obviously many more than just eight variations in the eight classes abound. 226 00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:56,310 There are countless variations. You can see an early listenings like this one from the Golden Light Sutra. 227 00:22:56,880 --> 00:23:00,060 These are mostly Indic spirits or these are all index spirits. 228 00:23:00,060 --> 00:23:06,240 In fact, as we progressed through time, more and more indigenous Tibetan spirits make their way into the mix. 229 00:23:06,420 --> 00:23:11,730 And you may have encountered this yourselves. It is very difficult to find the same list twice. 230 00:23:11,910 --> 00:23:18,059 There are countless variations of this in this 14th century listing Oregon length even employs 231 00:23:18,060 --> 00:23:24,450 the classic outer inner secret device to squeeze 24 types of beings into an eight fold rubric. 232 00:23:25,020 --> 00:23:33,329 Pascal also notes that in his fieldwork, most Himalayan lay people found this idea of eight classes to be a kind of stuffy doctrinal 233 00:23:33,330 --> 00:23:38,670 construct with not a lot of applicability to people's real on the ground experience with spirits. 234 00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:44,850 On the other side, he found that even very seasoned ritualist would often struggle to give you the same list twice, 235 00:23:45,270 --> 00:23:48,989 or even to keep it within eight individual spirits. 236 00:23:48,990 --> 00:23:54,300 They would often provide many more than that in their attempt to explain who they are. 237 00:23:55,540 --> 00:24:04,990 This really points to the fact that taxonomies are often slippery at best, even when we're dealing with empirical phenomena like biological species. 238 00:24:05,260 --> 00:24:08,680 But for spirits, they're almost useless. Christopher Bell notes. 239 00:24:08,890 --> 00:24:13,110 Spirit taxonomies consistently lack uniformity and system opposition, 240 00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:18,970 despite attempts over the centuries by numerous religious authorities to establish such consistency. 241 00:24:19,210 --> 00:24:24,370 This indicates that Tibetan spirit types their traits and their values are context 242 00:24:24,370 --> 00:24:29,020 specific and relative to the regional communities in which they are encountered. 243 00:24:30,550 --> 00:24:37,090 So given the complexities of these beings and understanding that there's no single way of viewing them, classifying them or engaging with them. 244 00:24:37,570 --> 00:24:40,690 Let's turn to this idea of engagement itself. 245 00:24:41,500 --> 00:24:48,850 Many will be familiar with the core Tibetan charter myths dealing with spirit stories like the popular symbol, the myths, 246 00:24:49,090 --> 00:24:52,540 and something Gogol's famous Taming of the Cinema of Tibet, 247 00:24:53,050 --> 00:24:59,500 which arguably represent rather polarised and often oppressive narratives of Buddhist conquest. 248 00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:06,070 This became, of course, very prominent trope in later Tibetan Buddhist myths and and ritual arts, 249 00:25:06,070 --> 00:25:12,580 which often employ ritual violence to quell spirit obstacles standing in the way of Buddhist institutional authority. 250 00:25:12,820 --> 00:25:16,330 But importantly, this was never the only approach. 251 00:25:16,360 --> 00:25:21,370 Tibetan Buddhism is not universal because no religion is universal. 252 00:25:21,670 --> 00:25:27,820 We can, for instance, look to the teachings of Magic Latrine and the tradition dating to the 11th and 12th centuries. 253 00:25:28,300 --> 00:25:36,550 Many will be familiar with Magic's teachings on the four Martyrs or the four Devils for Demons, if you prefer, in which she explains. 254 00:25:36,550 --> 00:25:40,950 And for the second time not going to read it. I might read another one, but we'll just do this. 255 00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:49,270 Translation That which is called Devil Dude is not some actual great big black thing that scares and petrified whomever sees it. 256 00:25:49,450 --> 00:25:52,820 A devil is anything that obstructs the achievement of freedom. 257 00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:54,400 That's Sarah Harding's translation. 258 00:25:54,700 --> 00:26:01,899 Now, this is, of course, taken directly from the teachings of the Buddha on the topic of moderates indicating that they are not external, 259 00:26:01,900 --> 00:26:07,570 demonic, devilish beings, but rather the afflicted mental states that hinder our experience of liberation. 260 00:26:07,750 --> 00:26:11,950 They are indeed devils in a philosophical and a theoretical sense. 261 00:26:12,430 --> 00:26:14,830 Now, this is it's important to understand. 262 00:26:14,860 --> 00:26:22,720 Many have interpreted this to mean that those great big black things don't exist according to magic, that they are entirely imaginary. 263 00:26:23,170 --> 00:26:30,280 But this is almost certainly a misreading. It's clear that from much further teachings on the so-called six paradigms of gods and demons, 264 00:26:30,460 --> 00:26:34,750 that unseen spirits do exist in much the same way that you and I exist. 265 00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:39,430 They simply aren't absolute good gods or absolute bad demons. 266 00:26:39,700 --> 00:26:42,130 This is the point. They're just other sentient beings. 267 00:26:42,310 --> 00:26:48,640 She may as well be talking about diabolical humans in this regard, saying that cruel and scary people are not devils. 268 00:26:48,850 --> 00:26:53,490 That doesn't mean that the cruel and scary people don't exist, nor that they're not cruel and scary. 269 00:26:53,500 --> 00:26:57,310 They're just not demons or gods or devils. They're sentient beings. 270 00:26:57,970 --> 00:27:04,420 When it comes to the real devil's magic, advises that Buddhist practitioners should cut through them through spiritual practice. 271 00:27:04,660 --> 00:27:11,710 That's what is cut in church. But her advice regarding the non devil spirits is quite distinct. 272 00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,040 A set of ten obligations that she provides to her students. 273 00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:22,329 She explicitly says not to beat down, dried out or torture other beings by instigating harm on a hostile, 274 00:27:22,330 --> 00:27:28,750 non-human sentient beings through charm substances, wrathful mantras, or doing wrathful practice. 275 00:27:29,050 --> 00:27:30,700 The method to tame demons. 276 00:27:30,700 --> 00:27:39,130 In this case, referring to spirits, is to give up your cherishing fixation on the body and give your life and limb to those demons without hesitation. 277 00:27:39,700 --> 00:27:46,059 She goes on to say in what's probably the most famous quote attributed to her with a loving mind cherished more than a child, 278 00:27:46,060 --> 00:27:54,340 the hostile gods and demons of apparent existence. This is specifically referring to spirit beings and tenderly surround yourself with them, 279 00:27:54,550 --> 00:27:59,709 nourish them always with your warm flesh and blood, with the hook of compassion, of loving compassion. 280 00:27:59,710 --> 00:28:08,860 Befriend them and never dismiss them. This is a very different approach to spirit engagement than we find in some of the more orthodox materials. 281 00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:16,480 And while I would agree with the general scholarly consensus that the tradition is not shamanic, it is absolutely animistic. 282 00:28:16,990 --> 00:28:20,649 I would argue that it represents a somewhat more compelling application of 283 00:28:20,650 --> 00:28:25,990 Buddhist Mahayana philosophy and the ethic of compassion in an animistic context. 284 00:28:27,190 --> 00:28:32,950 Now, let's take a look at a couple of specific examples, starting with weather control and rainmaking in the Tibetan tradition. 285 00:28:33,340 --> 00:28:39,250 Some have argued that it was primarily due to inability rather than unwillingness 286 00:28:39,430 --> 00:28:44,110 that small scale pre-modern societies have a less destructive impact on the planet, 287 00:28:44,470 --> 00:28:47,710 especially compared with our own industrial societies. 288 00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:54,460 Cathy Cantwell, who I believe is here and Tony Huber, have suggested that this was also the case in pre-modern Tibet. 289 00:28:54,970 --> 00:28:57,970 Cantwell says if pre-modern Tibet was ecologically sustainable, 290 00:28:57,970 --> 00:29:03,910 purely a because it was too sparsely populated to make much environmental impact and B because its culture, 291 00:29:03,910 --> 00:29:08,740 although anthropocentric at least did not actively encourage environmental exploitation, 292 00:29:08,980 --> 00:29:14,260 then any attempts to build an ecological ethics on the basis of Tibetan ideology 293 00:29:14,260 --> 00:29:18,820 would seem to involve a complete reinterpretation of Tibetan cultural symbolism. 294 00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:27,550 Now, it is, of course, true that pre-modern Tibetan societies had a far less destructive impact on the environment than modern industrial societies. 295 00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:33,070 And it's reasonable to question how much of an. Intact cultural values really had in that. 296 00:29:33,430 --> 00:29:38,770 I would also concede that pre-modern Tibetan societies weren't some eco friendly green utopia. 297 00:29:39,220 --> 00:29:43,900 The building of monasteries alone often involved significant amounts of deforestation. 298 00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:47,950 But I think that the terms of this argument missed an important point. 299 00:29:48,220 --> 00:29:54,549 From a Tibet Tibetan perspective, we have to ask whether or not they perceived their actions as being ecologically 300 00:29:54,550 --> 00:29:59,560 inconsequential or otherwise disconnected from environmental and climatic processes. 301 00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:10,440 I would say no. Tibetans were no strangers to climatic disaster and human behaviour was very much regarded as one of its root causes. 302 00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:17,040 Humans were also seem to have a potential role in remediation with the ability to protect against drought, 303 00:30:17,190 --> 00:30:21,720 hail, etc., regarded as a tremendously valuable magical skill. 304 00:30:22,110 --> 00:30:30,480 The earliest mentions of Padma Simba's identify him as primarily an itinerant water specialist with expertise in water engineering and magic. 305 00:30:30,810 --> 00:30:33,840 Indeed, weather control has continued into the present day. 306 00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:41,100 Luckily, actually, Dorji was the chief weather maker for the Dalai Lama for many decades, and numerous miraculous stories abound about him. 307 00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,970 These kinds of services weren't just a display of magical prowess. 308 00:30:45,990 --> 00:30:53,309 Droughts have been recorded in Tibet for as long as written records have been kept both historical and paleo climatic data support, 309 00:30:53,310 --> 00:31:01,710 for instance, the instance of extensive famines and droughts in central Tibetan river valleys between the late 13th and the mid 15th centuries. 310 00:31:01,980 --> 00:31:05,820 In the 1327 account from the third Karmapa, Ranjan Gorge, he says. 311 00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:11,610 Rain does not fall, the harvest are poor, and what little it does grow is carried away by frost and hail. 312 00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:16,830 He notes that people were crying out as they died on the road. A few people ate the flesh of others. 313 00:31:16,980 --> 00:31:21,780 A few sold their children for food. Others, wracked with hunger, jumped into the river. 314 00:31:21,780 --> 00:31:25,380 Their skeletons were barely covered, but the skin that hung off them. 315 00:31:26,770 --> 00:31:33,670 For ranging torture. These calamities were specifically a consequence of human behaviour as well as political corruption. 316 00:31:34,030 --> 00:31:37,210 Humans were not uninvolved in climatic processes. 317 00:31:37,390 --> 00:31:40,810 To Tibetans, they believed that they could impact the climate. 318 00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:45,310 Even if we believe that humans have only recently stumbled upon that power. 319 00:31:45,970 --> 00:31:51,370 We can also find indications of severe drought in the 17th century connected to the large scale, 320 00:31:51,370 --> 00:31:55,120 cold and dry period that encompassed much of the Northern hemisphere, 321 00:31:55,510 --> 00:32:00,640 contributing to a lot of global crises, including the fall of the GU gay kingdom in Western Tibet. 322 00:32:01,210 --> 00:32:06,700 This was the era in which climate check made the famed Ritualist and Buddhist system advisor, 323 00:32:06,700 --> 00:32:13,060 who was also the chief protector of the rich and triangular trade corpus known as much IX oral tradition. 324 00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:18,160 I always found it very interesting that if you look at the call often for the totally sodden, 325 00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:23,559 which is the central thread sodden in the wrench and Triangle Corpus, he can't talk. 326 00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:30,460 May writes hold this soap play ritual and the rainmaking ritual as the most important practices. 327 00:32:30,820 --> 00:32:37,480 Now, the practice that he's referring to is the chisel sharpening, which is the oral tradition for summoning rain in the tradition. 328 00:32:38,290 --> 00:32:48,489 And we'll talk about that in a minute. But why would and Truck may be advising people to associate the totally sodden to this very lofty and 329 00:32:48,490 --> 00:32:55,000 advanced sadhana centred on spiritual liberation with a seemingly mundane ritual like weather control. 330 00:32:55,480 --> 00:33:02,650 And before we get into that. It's important to note that whether control has actually been a mainstay in Buddhism for a very long time, 331 00:33:02,650 --> 00:33:08,380 the Locus classic is of this kind of magical endeavour is the Mega Sutra or the Great Cloud Sutra, 332 00:33:08,830 --> 00:33:13,270 which predominantly focuses on interactions with Nagas as Rain Lords. 333 00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:20,320 Nagas have themselves been associated with rain and weather since at least the early Vatican period first discussed in me at Harvard later, 334 00:33:20,890 --> 00:33:27,230 but this was elaborated upon substantially in Pharaonic materials composed between 301,000 seeds. 335 00:33:27,730 --> 00:33:31,540 In the Buddhist tradition, the Great South structure was incredibly popular. 336 00:33:31,990 --> 00:33:37,690 It spread widely across Asia, including to Tibet, were inspired a number of rainmaking rituals, 337 00:33:38,140 --> 00:33:45,130 including one that's found in a spell book from June one, which Sam Landscape translates in his excellent book, Buddhist Mat Magic. 338 00:33:45,940 --> 00:33:51,010 This ritual is itself quite fascinating. It follows a multi-stage process of engagement, 339 00:33:51,430 --> 00:33:57,280 starting with a more peaceful approach where you just make offerings to the Nagas and appeal to their kindness and hopes that they'll provide rain. 340 00:33:57,460 --> 00:34:02,320 But if they don't do that within 3 to 5 days, then you start applying a bit more pressure. 341 00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:08,860 They'll press down the rituals, presses down on the nuggets, heads with mantras and sprinkles holy water on them. 342 00:34:08,950 --> 00:34:12,760 And if that doesn't work, then you take it a step further and they'll beat them with sticks. 343 00:34:12,940 --> 00:34:17,229 And if that still doesn't work, then the Ritualist digs a pit, builds a ritual fire, 344 00:34:17,230 --> 00:34:22,480 and incinerates the entire Naga loka for their impertinence from a chalk maze. 345 00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:27,550 Text is also definitely based on the Great Cloud Sutra, as well as the teachings of Magic doctrine. 346 00:34:27,580 --> 00:34:36,220 This is in the tradition and also the writings of ranking Dorjee, who was personally very familiar with the consequences of drought. 347 00:34:37,060 --> 00:34:39,160 This text hasn't been translated. 348 00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:44,800 I'm working on it, and I haven't seen any sort of academic discussion of it, but it basically has four main sections. 349 00:34:45,220 --> 00:34:51,070 There's preliminary preparations which talk about specific places where weather control is more or less effective, 350 00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:53,380 auspicious signs and dreams and so on. 351 00:34:53,950 --> 00:35:01,120 There's an overwhelming with splendour or zeal none section where the practitioner arises is from a namo and subjugates the Nagas. 352 00:35:01,690 --> 00:35:08,560 There's the main practice which has a lot of components, including interestingly, an appeal to the compassion of the Nagas, 353 00:35:08,740 --> 00:35:14,620 trying to inspire them to have pity on the humans and animals that are suffering as a consequence of drought. 354 00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:22,480 And then there's the feasts, there's the banquets, the body offering feasts which range again from peaceful to wrathful approaches. 355 00:35:23,020 --> 00:35:29,530 Notably, a part of this is also a common practice. The giving and receiving practice specifically for spirits, 356 00:35:29,770 --> 00:35:34,810 specifically dedicated on taking away their suffering and sending them love and compassion. 357 00:35:35,860 --> 00:35:40,510 The Buddhist weather wizard does not summon rain merely by willing it, 358 00:35:41,020 --> 00:35:47,710 nor by casting spells or petitioning supreme rain gods like thorn or zoo or something to provide rain. 359 00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:56,170 It's with these relatively mundane nature spirits that this is enacted by inviting them, perpetuating them, healing them diplomatically, 360 00:35:56,170 --> 00:36:05,260 negotiating with them, and even threatening them, which all actually speak to their highly personable kinds of characteristics, 361 00:36:05,650 --> 00:36:11,709 their highly social character, rather than seeking to improve systems of anthropocentric exploitation, 362 00:36:11,710 --> 00:36:18,070 Tibetan approaches to dealing with climate change rely on not always friendly forms of relationship. 363 00:36:18,310 --> 00:36:26,080 And while indeed these methods might differ in substantial ways from modern green environmentalism, they offer a fundamentally. 364 00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:30,059 Different starting point for environmental discussions as opposed to the 365 00:36:30,060 --> 00:36:34,350 Western empirical approach which regards nature as disenchanted and non agent, 366 00:36:34,350 --> 00:36:40,860 is it takes the agency of non-human beings and environments even the climate itself as it as a given, 367 00:36:41,490 --> 00:36:50,160 allowing for genuine relationship with all of its complexity to occur now outside of the ritual and religious sphere. 368 00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:55,110 Another really important source of Tibetan daimon a logical knowledge is the Tibetan medical tradition. 369 00:36:55,530 --> 00:36:59,310 In the U.S., there is a specific section known as the domain. 370 00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:03,060 So the treatment of provocation and these are found in the manga. 371 00:37:03,090 --> 00:37:08,250 Yu The oral instruction tantra, which deals with all of the nitty gritty of pathology. 372 00:37:09,150 --> 00:37:14,370 This section consists of five main chapters, including one on gentle provocation, 373 00:37:14,820 --> 00:37:19,080 which is really spirit possession, which is largely based on the Ashtanga. 374 00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,710 She daya samhita, which is one of the core diabetic texts. 375 00:37:23,220 --> 00:37:30,170 There's also chapters on yoga and JJ roughly psychosis and amnesia, also largely based on Havana. 376 00:37:30,720 --> 00:37:39,240 And then there's these chapters on Zordon and Lou Dutton, which are sometimes translated as like provocation and provocation. 377 00:37:39,450 --> 00:37:45,930 But I would argue that that might be a bit hasty. Unlike the others, these chapters have very little to do with either video. 378 00:37:46,170 --> 00:37:52,110 They also have very little to do with psychology or mental health, which we'll come back to in a second. 379 00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,319 This term Dun is itself quite interesting. 380 00:37:55,320 --> 00:38:03,270 I tend to follow not often order in pitches approach to translating it as provocation or based on the verb done to provoke, 381 00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:09,209 but that can in fact take many losses and in many things. Malcolm Smith is another Tibetan doctor. 382 00:38:09,210 --> 00:38:15,750 He once said to me, You know, when we use this word done to refer to the spirits themselves as a noun, we should really call them provocateurs. 383 00:38:16,050 --> 00:38:19,800 But in that I think that is a hasty jump. 384 00:38:19,980 --> 00:38:27,060 I think it's a lot more valuable for us to sit with the question, who is the real provocateur in these dynamics? 385 00:38:27,240 --> 00:38:31,380 Is it the spirits or is it the humans that incur the wrath, the doesn't? 386 00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:37,920 So I provide some interesting perspectives on this. Looking for just a second of the history of the DNA. 387 00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:45,840 So this is it's largely influenced by invented by the time history dies samhita The first chapter comes 388 00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:50,250 almost entirely from the fourth and fifth chapters of the sixth section of the strongest Judaism Meta, 389 00:38:51,450 --> 00:38:56,310 which deals with Bhutta. Vidya This is the idea of ethnic study of spirit illness. 390 00:38:56,850 --> 00:39:01,409 Some might be surprised to learn that I read that it has such a discipline because 391 00:39:01,410 --> 00:39:05,760 it's usually marginalised or completely ignored in modern diabetic colleges, 392 00:39:06,180 --> 00:39:10,980 much like Spirit matters in Chinese medicine. But it's very much there in both cases. 393 00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:14,999 M.J. and JJ also are based on the strongest Udaya samhita. 394 00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:19,500 But interestingly, in either case, these diseases have nothing to do with spirits. 395 00:39:19,710 --> 00:39:28,470 And even in the U.S., YouTube only mentions one out of all of the types of each of those those classes of disease as being spirit related. 396 00:39:28,470 --> 00:39:32,400 The rest of them have very mundane, non demon illogical causes. 397 00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:40,560 The last two chapters are the most interesting younger children who's probably the foremost scholar on the sources of the U.S. today. 398 00:39:41,190 --> 00:39:44,909 He wasn't able to identify where you got these materials. 399 00:39:44,910 --> 00:39:49,680 They certainly aren't derived from either DNA, and they may in fact have indigenous influence. 400 00:39:49,860 --> 00:39:52,610 I'll talk more about one of these chapters in a moment. 401 00:39:52,620 --> 00:40:01,110 It's another place in the U.S. where we find a lot of provocation, discussion and spirit influence is in relation to epidemic infections. 402 00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:07,680 These are seem to primarily arise due to provocation of various naked, dark or disease lords spirits. 403 00:40:08,340 --> 00:40:11,910 But once they arise in a primary case having been provoked, 404 00:40:12,150 --> 00:40:16,740 these diseases can then pass from person to person through a process of contagion or rhyme. 405 00:40:17,490 --> 00:40:25,709 Given all of this, it's clear that DNA is not a form of Tibetan medical psychiatry, as some have suggested. 406 00:40:25,710 --> 00:40:31,710 A lot of the illnesses discussed in the DNA so have absolutely nothing to do with psychological afflictions. 407 00:40:31,890 --> 00:40:35,910 There are distinctly physiological and even epidemiological in nature. 408 00:40:36,450 --> 00:40:43,560 Furthermore, there's an obvious direct link between environmental disturbance, spirit, provocation and illness. 409 00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:50,580 Nevertheless, there has been a long history of repackaging DNA as a form of Tibetan psychiatry. 410 00:40:51,060 --> 00:40:54,870 In Terry Clifford's book, The Tibetan Buddhist Medicine and Psychiatry, 411 00:40:55,110 --> 00:41:03,509 she characterises Tibetan spirits as primarily a psychological phenomenon associated with the multitude of mental and emotional observations, 412 00:41:03,510 --> 00:41:07,410 obviously observations experienced by humans specifically. 413 00:41:07,710 --> 00:41:13,410 She even goes so far as to call them the ID trying to obstruct the super egos higher promptings. 414 00:41:13,950 --> 00:41:19,230 This may have more relevance to the concept of martyrs than it does to actual spirit beings. 415 00:41:19,590 --> 00:41:24,870 While she concedes that these spirits are often perceived as having some kind of an outer existence. 416 00:41:25,740 --> 00:41:33,690 They remain little more than an external projection of the forces of human life and emotion that can drive the mind insane. 417 00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:38,490 She even quotes Theodore Boot on highly questionable source. 418 00:41:38,500 --> 00:41:46,690 Don't know why she would have quoted him in saying that for learned Tibetans spirits are strictly regarded as mental entities or projections, 419 00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:50,230 mostly of a lower order or as psychic fields of force. 420 00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:58,509 Now, I would argue that this has a lot more to do with Western ideas of poltergeists and psychical phenomena than with Tibetan demonology. 421 00:41:58,510 --> 00:42:03,730 And this reduction of DNA to psychiatric is itself, I think, very problematic, 422 00:42:03,970 --> 00:42:13,210 in part because it precludes a non anthropocentric approach to these beings and an acknowledgement of their ecological and environmental embeddedness. 423 00:42:13,900 --> 00:42:19,210 When we look at the Gucci itself, we can easily see that this aspect is very much front and centre. 424 00:42:19,660 --> 00:42:26,020 There's a very interesting section of delusion. So on the treatment of provocation chapter or treatment of Lou Provocation chapter, 425 00:42:26,530 --> 00:42:34,929 where you took list some of the factors that can lead to an outbreak of zany, which is specifically usually translated as leprosy. 426 00:42:34,930 --> 00:42:41,410 It's not just leprosy, it's a category of disease that includes leprosy and a number of other lymphatic and cutaneous conditions. 427 00:42:42,010 --> 00:42:46,360 But I think there's good reason to believe that this section actually represents 428 00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:51,160 a far more in general indigenous model of the ideology of provocation. 429 00:42:51,970 --> 00:42:56,200 Again, for the sake of time, sorry I could read it, but it'll take a second. 430 00:42:57,010 --> 00:43:02,470 He says the Earth Union will be attacked in the fields will be ploughed, the water will be stirred up in the meadows, 431 00:43:02,890 --> 00:43:07,900 flooded the tree and will be cut down and the stone in will be uprooted. 432 00:43:08,110 --> 00:43:13,210 The hearth will be contaminated by impure substances and the blood of wild animals will be spilled. 433 00:43:13,420 --> 00:43:20,650 Buddhist sand dune posts. A hastily gained power will disturb the sensitive places the Nyanza to subdue their enemies. 434 00:43:20,890 --> 00:43:25,750 At that time, the union Starbucks flower in sin will be in turmoil. 435 00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:32,950 Poison will spread through touch sight, the vapour of their breath and recollection, ushering in an aeon of blazing city. 436 00:43:32,980 --> 00:43:38,260 Zola again younger, doesn't identify a source for this text, 437 00:43:38,500 --> 00:43:46,240 but it's self-evident that at least the discussion of men can't come from Indian tradition, since genera specifically an indigenous Tibetan spirit. 438 00:43:46,780 --> 00:43:53,860 So looking to potential indigenous influences, I naturally think it's valuable to look at the Indian boom or the Indian collection, 439 00:43:54,250 --> 00:43:58,330 which has been chiefly investigated by something Kami and Daniel Burtynsky. 440 00:43:58,900 --> 00:44:03,040 This is one of the four collections or Gucci of the Boone tradition to look boom, boom, 441 00:44:03,380 --> 00:44:09,610 boom and boom, all of which present mythic and ritual materials relevant to those spirit classes. 442 00:44:10,180 --> 00:44:14,140 Kami considers the Indian boom to have been probably codified around the 10th century, 443 00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:19,690 and Burtynsky believes that this probably took place around the Cumbre Mountains in eastern Tibet. 444 00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:25,990 Many sections of this text very closely match materials from Dune Wong further attesting to its antiquity. 445 00:44:26,170 --> 00:44:34,150 And in general, there's a much stronger case to be made for the indignity of the mining boom than the other more popular loop. 446 00:44:34,270 --> 00:44:40,810 The Naga collection, which has very clear and pervasive Indian influence in the Indian boom. 447 00:44:41,050 --> 00:44:49,540 There is a particularly interesting story, the story of Meet Senator, which something Kami translates in Holy Cow Designs Tibetan Ritual. 448 00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:56,080 And this is a story of a prehistoric Tibetan man who commits what Kami calls actions against nature, 449 00:44:56,230 --> 00:44:59,500 including cutting down trees, digging up stones, polluting lakes, 450 00:44:59,500 --> 00:45:04,960 springs and rivers and hunting wild animals meets and rather dramatically proclaims, 451 00:45:05,050 --> 00:45:08,680 I will kill hundreds of thousands of the beasts of the white snow mountain. 452 00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:12,580 I will kill hundreds of thousands of snow cocks. And the grouse, the blue slate mountain. 453 00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,790 I will kill hundreds of thousands of beavers and otters of the river. 454 00:45:15,940 --> 00:45:21,610 I will cut the trees of the onion, dig up the stones of India, and I will allow the land of the Nyet is my field. 455 00:45:21,730 --> 00:45:25,080 I will irrigate my homeland with the water of the Indians. 456 00:45:25,720 --> 00:45:31,360 There are clear similarities here to what you took rights in the four countries, and much like you'd hope, 457 00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:37,840 warns this has grave consequences for medicine and also for his livestock, who are afflicted with illness. 458 00:45:37,930 --> 00:45:45,010 And they all have their souls, their loss stolen by the union and concealed with these nine concentric walled enclosures 459 00:45:45,430 --> 00:45:51,010 unlocked with a padlock meets and then has to call in a shaman or a Zen priest to help. 460 00:45:51,460 --> 00:45:56,320 He gives them a list of objects and sacrifices that he has to procure in order to unlock all of the padlocks. 461 00:45:56,320 --> 00:46:00,220 And he does this, but not without great cost to himself. 462 00:46:00,990 --> 00:46:05,129 Another place where we can find some similar kind of language is in Karnataka. 463 00:46:05,130 --> 00:46:11,610 In his own prayer of apology to the Earth Lords or the Sonic Shotgun Dupa, which he composed in the 17th century. 464 00:46:12,210 --> 00:46:16,200 It's notable that Kami Chutney was specifically a master of toad rituals. 465 00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:25,620 These are distinctly non-Indian ritual procedures, likely Sino Tibetan in origin, often associated with the bun tradition. 466 00:46:26,550 --> 00:46:29,610 I've always found this prayer to be quite inspiring, 467 00:46:29,610 --> 00:46:36,809 but the section that really caught my eye is where he discusses specific kinds of transgressions, namely digging up the spirits here, 468 00:46:36,810 --> 00:46:41,910 specifically Men of the Earth, Raising Canyon of Stones during the Union of Water, 469 00:46:41,910 --> 00:46:46,140 cutting the end of trees, disturbing burial ground and funeral rites and the like. 470 00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:51,510 In this prayer, the practitioner apologises quite directly to the spirits themselves, 471 00:46:51,930 --> 00:46:57,720 including for the past transgressions of one's ancestors and the future transgressions of one's descendants. 472 00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:00,900 The apology factor here I think, is really important. 473 00:47:00,930 --> 00:47:06,300 This isn't a confession where we're petitioning the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to cleanse us of our bad karma. 474 00:47:06,540 --> 00:47:12,960 This is an apology and an attempt to restore a healthy relationship between humans and spirit beings. 475 00:47:13,950 --> 00:47:17,609 Now, there's a lot more that can be said about all of this. 476 00:47:17,610 --> 00:47:21,600 But again, for the sake of time, I want to start turning to some potential conclusions. 477 00:47:22,230 --> 00:47:28,950 I want to start by pointing out something else that Cathy Campbell writes in her paper, Reflections on Ecological Ethics in the Tibetan Earth Ritual. 478 00:47:29,220 --> 00:47:30,780 Excellent paper. I highly recommend reading it. 479 00:47:31,500 --> 00:47:39,240 She writes, It is conceivable that fear of the vengeance of Earth that is could be integrated into an explicitly ecological ethics. 480 00:47:39,510 --> 00:47:43,649 And she says that this could motivate ecological thinking and behaviour which 481 00:47:43,650 --> 00:47:48,150 could potentially align with contemporary green ideas about nature striking back. 482 00:47:48,570 --> 00:47:54,120 But she concludes that it would seem extremely unlikely that any modern form of Buddhist 483 00:47:54,120 --> 00:48:01,140 environmentalism would choose to encourage an ideology of angry earth deities taking revenge. 484 00:48:01,590 --> 00:48:08,610 Now, I certainly agree that it would seem quite unlikely for modern Buddhist environmentalism to take this approach. 485 00:48:08,790 --> 00:48:14,760 And I would also concede that a paradigm based in vengeance and a fear of retribution has major limitations. 486 00:48:15,060 --> 00:48:20,520 But is there a place for so-called nature spirits in ecological conversations? 487 00:48:20,730 --> 00:48:29,790 I would argue yes. I think the hesitancy to discuss and involve them really arises from a concession to scientific empirical disenchantment. 488 00:48:30,030 --> 00:48:37,110 The presupposition that the other than human world is in fact devoid of magic and agency and subjects, 489 00:48:37,290 --> 00:48:40,350 that it's simply a domain of inert objects and resources. 490 00:48:40,590 --> 00:48:45,420 Thus to play to buddhism's rational reputation, which a lot of folks like to do. 491 00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:50,310 There may be a temptation to pretend that Buddhists actually understood that all along. 492 00:48:50,820 --> 00:48:55,290 As Bruno Latour brilliantly states, animation is the essential phenomenon, 493 00:48:55,500 --> 00:49:01,560 and de animation is the superficial, auxiliary, polemical and often defensive phenomenon. 494 00:49:01,890 --> 00:49:07,590 One of the great enigmas of Western history is not that there are still people naive enough to believe in animism, 495 00:49:07,740 --> 00:49:14,160 but that many people still hold the rather naive belief in the supposedly animated material world. 496 00:49:14,970 --> 00:49:19,200 In effect, I argue that we need to take an eco in a logical turn. 497 00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:26,730 To do so involves taking indigenous knowledge seriously as a form of knowledge and not merely a relic of culture. 498 00:49:27,030 --> 00:49:35,280 We need to adopt a more critical approach to ecology and more than human relations, especially from our position in the bowels of the Anthropocene. 499 00:49:35,820 --> 00:49:43,350 Eco demonology is not only reasonable, given all that we now know about the intelligence of non-human beings, including plants, 500 00:49:43,590 --> 00:49:51,870 unicellular organisms, viruses and even hollow basins like old growth forests connected under the forest floor through MYCORRHIZAL networks. 501 00:49:52,440 --> 00:50:00,030 But this eco demonology is also a particularly valuable tool for making sense of their perspectives and needs. 502 00:50:00,390 --> 00:50:06,060 I would argue that this is the single greatest asset afforded by nature spirit paradigms the capacity 503 00:50:06,240 --> 00:50:13,660 to inspire genuine care for a tremendously vast array of being seen and unseen through them. 504 00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:15,329 We can transcend theoretical, 505 00:50:15,330 --> 00:50:24,690 moral and legal frameworks as our only tool for inspiring change and environmental ethics and instead draw upon personal experiences of relationship. 506 00:50:24,990 --> 00:50:30,380 But to do this effectively, we need to move beyond both entropy centrism and super naturalism. 507 00:50:30,390 --> 00:50:38,730 We need to stop thinking about spirits as psychological or psychical phenomena and begin to embrace them as ecologically embedded beings. 508 00:50:39,690 --> 00:50:47,970 In closing, and to nobody's surprise, who knows me since I certainly couldn't have done a presentation at Oxford without mentioning J.R.R. Tolkien. 509 00:50:48,720 --> 00:50:53,910 I want to share a quote from the Professor that I find quite relevant to this discussion from his essay on fairy stories. 510 00:50:53,910 --> 00:51:01,470 One of my favourite works in the entire world in which he says Supernatural is a dangerous and difficult word in any of its senses, 511 00:51:01,650 --> 00:51:09,060 looser or stricter. But to fairies it can hardly be applied unless super is taken merely as a superlative prefix. 512 00:51:09,330 --> 00:51:17,460 For it is man who is in contrast to fairies supernatural, whereas they are natural, far more natural than sheep such as their doom. 513 00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:24,230 Ex if you want to get in sources. That's it.