Ecological Eating: Gary Snyder’s Existential Koan

Abstract

This paper investigates how Snyder forms his idea of ecological eating by successfully combining Buddhist ideas and the science of ecology. He investigates the philosophical and religious meaning behind our eating and diagnoses our eating culture within today’s consumption-oriented society as one that has degraded food only as material to be spent to satisfy our desires.Snyder thinks of our food not merely as conduits for nutrients that we must intake to sustain ourselves, but as something that carries religious and philosophical meanings, as well. By reclaiming food as one of the essential constituents of our ecological community and kissing it, Snyder demonstrates a way in which we can regard food not as an “other,”but as our “lover.” His idea of food serves as a concrete example of his “ecological eros”: the most intimate and harmonious relationship between humankind and nature.