The essence of things here is the earth.
The essence of the earth is water.
The essence of water is plants.
The essence of plants is a person (puruÓsa).
Ch ̄and. Up. 1:1.2Agnior ‘fire,’ the transformative energy of the life process, exists not just
in the human being but throughout living nature. In the plant kingdom,
photosynthesis is one of agni’smanifestations. The plants we consume as
food and medicine transmit agnito us. When digestive agniis strong,
food affords maximal nourishment, but when agniis weak, compro-
mised digestion can contribute to disease. Plants in Åyurvedic pharma-
cology and dietetics have both medical and religious significance:
Herbs can transmit that agnito us, their capacity to digest and trans-
form, and this may augment our own power of digestion, or give us the
capacity to digest substances we normally cannot. The agniof plants
can feed our agni. Through this interconnection, we join ourselves with
the cosmic agni, the creative force of life and healing.^1Frawley and Lad invoke this UpaniÓsadic view in examining connections
between plant medicines and mantras. Both regulate pr ̄aÓna:similar to a
mantra’stransmitting the seed-energies of consciousness into the mind,
medicinal plants transmit the seed-energies of nature into the body to re-
store well-being.
Traditions such as Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism, and indigenous
religions of the Americas and other continents show the importance of
community—ecological, social, and spiritual. The religious potential of
human relationality with nature emerges in David Kalupahana’s exam-
ination of the Buddhist understanding of freedom or nirv ̄aÓnain terms of
health or ease (sukha). Freedom is attainable by overcoming egoism, so
that passion, hatred, and confusion can be eliminated. “Living in sur-
roundings where one can realize the interdependence of human life and
nature” can support the gaining of knowledge that destroys egoism.^2 Ka-
lupahana conveys that natural surroundings—the forest grove, the empty
abode—provide a retreat from “the attractions and repulsions generated
by artificial forms of life.” Physical and mental health are better sustained
in unpolluted, natural environments, thus early Buddhist aramasor mon-
asteries were generally simple residences surrounded by woods or or-
chards.^3 Beyond nature’s supporting human well-being, the natural world
itself possesses Buddhahood, according to some Chinese and Japanese
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