| Since the industrial civilization of 18th century, people began to search for strategies to meet challenges brought by the ecological crisis. Ecological theories appeared and spread to all levels of the relationship between human and nature. Along with the arising of modern eco-culture, the ecological awareness was fully presented by both theoretical and practical aspects. Western humanities gradually realized that ecological crisis rooted in their own instrumental rationality and mechanistic philosophy which disconnected human and nature completely, thus, they intentionally started to looking for Eastern ecological aesthetic wisdom which is a totally different cultural conception from that of Western, and tried to find out the right way to make up for a deficiency of their own world view."Ecology" is not only including natural ecology, but also psychic ecology and social ecology. Natural ecology and psychic ecology are indiscerptible and can be interacted by each. The imbalance of our internal spirit will appear necessarily in unbalanced ecological environment, it is the crisis of disconnectedness of human and nature, and is also the lost of human's internal spirit. Thus, in order to establish the benign relationship between these two factors, we should restore human's psychic ecology while we reconstruct the natural ecology. In this sense, ecology, aesthetics and literary theory are beginning to support each other. We could try to find and foster people's "Ecological Aesthetic Conceptions" by interdisciplinal attempt between Ecology and Aesthetics, that is to say, using ecological way of thinking and overall comprehension of relationship between human and world in order to build up the aesthetic lifestyle. Firstly, this "Ecological Aesthetic Conception" should commit itself to affirm and use holistic view. On the basis of concentrating on the harmony of human-ecosystem, cultivating people's holistic intuition and sensitivity, displaying the interconnectedness of human and nature, and confirming the value of "Ecological Holism", we can repair the whole relations among people, nature and society. Secondly, this "Ecological Aesthetic Conception" should transcend the subject-object dichotomy to an aesthetic "engagement" mode. This has given rise to two changes: one is that during the experience of ecological aesthetic, people begin to engage into this aesthetical discourse and become mutual subjectivity with their environment; the other is that aesthetic features of nature not only lie in the forms or the embodiment of people's essential strength, but also lie in the evolving vitality of its own. Thirdly, "Ecological Aesthetic Conception" should possess the aesthetic feeling to fully appreciate ecology on the basis of equality concept, which requires people to handle with the relations with nature by using this new ethic principle and encourages people to construct the harmonious relations with other beings on the standpoint of love, benevolence and reverence so that can combine the value of aesthetics with the good of ethics together.Chinese Buddhism as the most concentrated expression of eastern ecological wisdom is playing an important part during the course of construction of "Ecological Aesthetic Conception". Buddhism is co-prime, relatively complemented and can be proved to modern ecological thoughts, so this can supply both the reference theories to Buddhism research and the original resources to modern ecological thoughts. Although Chinese Buddhism is quite different from modern ecological aesthetics, it could be one of the basic forms and life status of chasing and reflecting the ultimate meaning together with aesthetics. Especially after Buddhism came into China, it became a fusion of Chinese traditional harmonious culture, which weakened the religious significance and strengthened the aesthetic appreciation. The religious accomplishment is the process of experiencing people's original nature and achieving the freedom of mind, is the process of transcend the finiteness of both physical and life to an infinite level, is the process of pursuing aesthetical life. This can be the particular ecological wisdom and aesthetical ideal of our nation's own, and also can be important to start a new Buddhist life style of ancient Chinese. If we combine Buddhist's cosmology, philosophy, moral outlook, epistemology together, we can find out that, in the sense of modern standard, Buddhist is trying hard to become an "Ecological Aesthetic "people. First of all, Buddhism provides holistic ecological and aesthetic perspectives. Though Buddhism is not the authentic ecology, it contains the whole ecosystem, from "Three realms" to "the boundless universe", from Buddha, human being to animals and grass, stone, Buddhist always view the eco-integration as the first priority to the liberation of themselves. In this aspect, Buddhism, ecology and aesthetics have a strong coherence, that is to say, all of them are emphasizing the dependency, relatedness and dialectical thinking, which could help them to build up harmonious aesthetic state within "Buddha-human-nature". Secondly, Buddhism could supply a more extensive and profound value of lives. Buddhist began to treat every being with humble attitude, and explored their religious belief through the compatible practices of human and nature. After influenced by the theory that man is an integral part of nature existed in Confucianism and Daoism, Buddhist deepened the theory of "perfectly fused" which is based on the "Dependent Origination" that every being has its intrinsic value. This theory could help us to expand our ethic scope. Moreover, in Buddhist's eyes, nature is not the aesthetic objective of human being any more; it becomes the part of aesthetic construction compared with its interconnectedness and equal value to human. Last but not the least; Buddhism could supply an inward transcendental therapy to cure people's psychic ecology. Influenced by Confucianism and Daoism, Buddhism was developing into a religious system focusing on inwardness. Chinese Buddhism has resolved the contradiction between inner freedom pursuance of human being and realistic restriction, tried to restore the completeness of people's internal mind through inward meditation. Furthermore, it guides people to use meditation in order to obtain our original nature, to release the depression, to eliminate the dissimilation and to live on an aesthetic and comfortable life. This can be achieved by using "Sudden Revelation" which will lead us to the instant identity of object and self experience, and to the highly free and liberation of ourselves. Therefore, Buddhist Zen practice and Dhyaha wisdom can combine their view of standing aloof from worldly affairs with the survival value of human being, and becoming closer to both ecology and ecological aesthetics currently.The purpose of this dissertation is to speculate those conceptions and doctrines related to ecological thoughts which existed in Chinese Buddhist scriptures and sutra; analyze how the Buddhism influenced people's attitude and the way of thinking co-existed with Confucianism and Daoism in the ancient Chinese history; and find out the thoughts relevant to ecology and aesthetics to explore the interconnectedness of Chinese Buddhism and modern ecological aesthetics. Then, it tries to compare these conceptions with ecological philosophy, ecological ethics and environmental aesthetics, in order to display its own characteristic. As to the research method, this dissertation attempts to use interdisciplinary method including ecology, ethics, cultural theory and aesthetics to view "Ecology" as the integration of natural ecology, psychic ecology and social ecology, and to analyze them in this ecosystem. This outcome can be used to enrich the theoretical implication of modern ecological thoughts and increase people's ecological awareness, as a result, can encourage the progress of Chinese ecological modernization.Buddhist tried their effort to acknowledge the nature of the planet and achieve the final liberation of their own by using Buddhist philosophy, Ethic, Cosmology, Inward meditation and Dharma practice. According to this, this dissertation attempts to disscuss the ecological aesthetic conceptions of Chinese Buddhism from those five aspects.The first chapter mainly introduces Chinese Buddhist philosophy of the ecological approach. The Buddhist philosophy is the theoretical basis for the Chinese Buddhists to pursue pressure relief of life, and an innovative explanation and conceptual extension of essential philosophical theory of Indian Buddhism.The proposal and development of "Dependent Origination" is an argument against the previous "No Cause" theory, fortuitism theory, and fatalism theory. It presents a more reasonable explanation for the generation of the universe and its interrelationship of the whole picture, by utilizing the methodology of universal connection. At the same time, it also contains multi-essence of ecological thinking as follows: firstly, the holism theory of dependent origination and perfect integration; secondly, the process theory of impermanence and unpredictability; thirdly, the "denial entity" theory of entity concept rejection. Thus, it demonstrates a brilliant ecological wisdom which can be used to correctly understand the integrative relationship between human beings and the nature. The "middle-way" theory serves as the theoretical and thinking methodology and the religious standpoint in Buddhism, which is different from the "mean" theory in Confucianism, which proposes "A but not over A" in its way of thinking. It is a non-positive, non-negative dialectic method proposing "neither A nor B" and it argues against the theory of "binary opposition". Therefore, it provides provocative theoretical guidance for the people living in modern societies to achieve a physical and spiritual combination and a negotiation between reality and ideal, so they will neither lose the subject independence due to obsession in possessions, nor make unpractical efforts to pursue void. The "middle-way" theory exerted a tremendous impact on ecological conception in ancient China, not only proposing the theory of "middle-way poetry", but also generating a unique expression of "neither A nor B" concept. In comparison, the "no-self theory demonstrates that all human beings and the nature are both in the circle of life, and thus there are no absolute dominants and unique unchangeable "self. Human beings are supposed to overcome the perseverance of self and all things in nature in order to relieve themselves from all the troubles in life, and thus reach the final Nirvanr state and realize a true "Self". Such a true "Self is the most original state of complete combination of individuals and society, nature and rationality, life and universe. At some point, the Buddhist "no-self theory has a lot in common with the "ecological Self in deep ecology. From an aesthetical point of view, it obtains the purity and liberty of aesthetical activities due to the elimination of the difference between the subject and the object. To sum up, the ecological philosophical methodology of Buddhism focuses on the "dependent origination" and is characterized by the "middle-way" theory and the "no-self theory, the general principles of which can be widely utilized in the contemporary ecological philosophy and environmental aesthetics. So on one hand it highlights the theoretical values of Buddhism conception in modern societies, and still on the other, it also provides new conceptual resources for the development of contemporary ecological theory and civilization.Chapter two explores the ecological aesthetic sentiments in Buddhist ethics. It selects three core categories which are "Karma", "good and evil" and "all flesh is equal" and tries to analyze the influential affects on ancient Chinese and the theoretical contribution to modern ecological ethics. Chinese Buddhist ethics contains abundant and potential ecological consciousness: first of all, it discourses the retribution of one's bad behaviors so that can encourage people avoid this automatically; Karma throws all things in nature into something like "Ecological circle" which is full of simple ecological cycle implications; it remains the moral freedom of individual, and could be a good way to maintain moral autonomy. Secondly, Chinese Buddhism leads people to develop their benevolence of all beings, and persuades people give up their centric position, that could developed into aesthetic experience based on the love and benevolence. Thirdly, Chinese Buddhism demonstrates that "all flesh is equal", and enlarges the "all flesh" from human being to all beings, which will definitely extend the scope of traditional ethics. The ecological ethic thoughts of Chinese Buddhism played an important part in protecting the environment of ancient China, and will also become the intellectual support of ecological civilization and environmental ethics.Chapter three emphasizes on Buddhist inwardness and ecological awakening. The primary feature of Chinese Buddhism is turning its aesthetic mode from sensual experience into the heart inspiration and advocates one's inward transcendence. Thus, the aesthetic way of Chinese Buddhist supplies different aspects from binary opposition, and remolds Chinese aesthetic experience: not viewing the nature as entity or noumenon, but as the emptiness reflected by pure heart, thus, beauty is becoming the illusion of heart; using holistic thought to survey the relationship between human and nature, and leading the value direction into one's deeper conscious structure while increasing the reflection of subject and combine nature, human, subject, object, heart, environment together; as to the ecological wisdom , it concentrates on the ecological conception which is making our heart clean while purifying the environment.Chapter four focuses on the perfectly fused phenomenal and ideal aesthetic world of Chinese Buddhism. Each systemic aesthetic view will embody in its aesthetic ideal, and Buddhism is no exception. Both the theory of Tian'tai Buddhism and Hua'yan Buddhism, are the embodiments of "perfectly fused" theory. This particularity contains three levels: firstly, perfectly fused phenomenal world is at the natural aesthetic level, everything is the appearance of Buddha nature so that is able to be integrated; secondly, Quiet and round Nirvana is at the freely aesthetic level, Chinese Buddhist Nirvana is different from India's which goes for Death To Nonexistent forever, it is the state that "being-toward-death", it is the world that without any differentiation, and it is the realm that without any boundary and highly free, all of those characteristic convey the aesthetic ideal and transcendent of life state. Thirdly, the elegant and idealized design of Buddha center is the ecological state level. It contains the design of "The Boundless Universe", "Pure Land", and "Lotus World", which is full of ecological elements and aesthetical implications reflecting the desire of supreme ecological environment. Meanwhile, those designs could be the starting point and destination of aesthetics and the instrument to call for religious belief.Chapter five mainly discusses the deep contemplation of life during the Zen practice, and the remedy of one's psychic ecology. "Dhyaha" can get rid of all the bondages among the whole universe and implement the liberation of all beings through using inward adjustment of mood, concentrating on the essence of the universe and balance the mind so that can rethinking the original nature of ourselves. This "Dhyaha" wisdom is totally different from the normal "wisdom" which is used to using logical and analytic methods. It gets rid of the feeling, logic and concept with indiscriminate principle, thus it can transcend from individual experiential standpoint and escape from the persistent state. On the one hand, we could restore our original nature and fulfill the survival clearance by using continuing Zen practice; on the other hand, this Dhyaha wisdom requires "sudden revelation" which can give the experience of integrity of both nature and individual, and can enlarge the experience of space as well. "Sudden Revelation" is the particular way that Zen Buddhist incorporates the aesthetic and religious experiences into the most supreme artistic conception, and tries to free ourselves from dissimilation so that we can keep our aesthetic mood.Chapter six inspects the Chinese Buddhist activism associated with the ecological aesthetic conception. The most powerful contribution of Chinese Buddhism is utilizing the ecological wisdom as the daily life standard and forming the environmental ethic while protecting ancient Chinese environment as a result of this. Therefore, we mustn't ignore its achievement of ecological practice. This chapter tries to combine the environmental history of ancient China with the utilization of Buddhist ecological wisdom, from this perspective, we can find out the interconnectedness of ecological aesthetic practice and changes of environment. It emphases this issue from Chinese Buddhist ethical practice: ahimsa, free captive animals and protect animals; from the change of lifestyle: cherish good luck, thrift, and economic of consumption; and from ecological aesthetic construction of environment.In the conclusion, it evaluates the modern value of the ecological aesthetic wisdom in Chinese Buddhism. During this evaluation, it refers to the different cultural context of Chinese Buddhism, modern ecology and ecological aesthetics, refers to the discussion of "intrinsic value", "anthropocentrism" or "ecocentrism". All of these discussions indicate that only by modernistic transformation process, the value of Chinese Buddhism could be used properly and thoroughly.
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