ABSTRACT Ecology is a major international issue of the present moment because the earth is threatened by forces beyond our control that have potential devastating consequences. This essay looks at the problem through the eyes of the Zen master Dðgen and selected postmodern philosophers. The difference between them is evident by Dðgen’s planful statement about eating a painting of a rice cake. Postmodernists perceives nature as a social construct connected to a representational mode of thinking that conflicts with the postmodern emphasis on difference, simulation, planes without depth and lack of unity. These postmodern tendencies of thinking are contrary to the philosophy of Dðgen, whose image of a painting of a rice cake can satisfy intellectual hunger and serves as a serious way to save the ecological system and overcome the representational mode of thinking.