BUDDHIST ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

Namen diplomskega dela je bilo ugotoviti dvoje: 1) kakšen odnos zavzema budizem do okolja, 2) empirično raziskati na primeru konkretnih držav, ki so tradicionalno (vsaj delno) budistične, ali pripadniki budizma izražajo višjo stopnjo ekološke usmerjenosti v primerjavi s pripadniki drugih veroizpovedi oziroma v primerjavi s takšnimi, ki se ne prištevajo k nobeni veroizpovedi. V ta namen smo diplomsko delo razdelili na teoretični in empirični del. V teoretičnem delu smo na osnovi študija dostopne literature odgovorili na dve zastavljeni raziskovalni vprašanji. Sklenili smo, 1) da so budistične vrline (nenasilje, sočutje, prijaznost, odgovornost ...) že po svoji naravi okoljevarstvene. Na tej osnovi smo zaključili, da je budizem okolju prijazna religija. 2) Glede na to da so okoljski problemi stvar modernega časa, je nemogoče pričakovati, da bi zgodnja budistična besedila vsebovala ekološko etiko, kot jo razumemo danes. Vseeno pa lahko govorimo o njenih zametkih, čeprav ni bila motivirana z okoljevarstvenimi vzgibi, ampak je sledila budističnim vrlinam. Na podlagi sklepov, izpeljanih iz teoretičnega dela, smo postavili hipotezo, da so pripadniki budizma ekološko bolj usmerjeni v primerjavi s pripadniki drugih veroizpovedi oziroma v primerjavi s takšnimi, ki se ne prištevajo k nobeni veroizpovedi. V empiričnem delu smo jo s pomočjo metode sekundarne analize podatkov Svetovne raziskave vrednot testirali. Analizo smo opravili na primerih sledečih držav: Tajska, Japonska, Hong Kong, Južna Koreja, Kitajska, Tajvan, Vietnam, Malezija in Singapur. Rezultati so pokazali, da glede ekološke usmerjenosti v nobeni izmed obravnavanih držav med budisti, ostalimi afiliati in neafiliati ni omembe vrednih razlik. Na tej osnovi smo hipotezo zavrgli. Hkrati smo opazili, da so razlike glede ekološke usmerjenosti znatno večje med obravnavanimi državami. Po nadaljnjih analizah smo prišli do končnega sklepa, da na ekološko usmerjenost obravnavanih držav ne vpliva pripadnost oz. nepripadnost veroizpovedim niti vrsta veroizpovedi, ugotovili pa smo signifikanten vpliv gospodarske razvitosti.The purpose of diploma thesis was to discover: 1) what is the relationship of Buddhism towards the environment, 2) make the empiric research on the example of specific countries – traditionally Buddhist (at least partially) whether the Buddhist show higher level of ecological awareness in comparison to other religion members or atheists. To this purpose we separated the diploma work into the theoretical and empirical part. In the theoretical part we used the appropriate available literature and answered two questions. We determined that 1) Buddhist’s virtues (non-violence, compassion, kindness, responsibility, etc.) are by its source environmentally friendly. On the basis of that we have concluded that Buddhism is environmentally friendly religion. 2) According to the notion that environmental problems arose with the development of the modern world is impossible to expect that early Buddhist texts would describe the ecological ethics, as it is understood today. Nevertheless we can say about its beginnings, although it was not motivated by the environmental issues but it simply followed Buddhist’s virtues. On the basis of the decisions taken from the theoretical parts, we have made the hypothesis, that the Buddhists are ecologically more aware in comparison to other religion members or atheists. In the empirical part we have tested our hypothesis by the method of secondary analysis from the data of World Values Survey. Analysis was made on the examples of the following countries: Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore. Results have shown that on the level of the ecological awareness there is no specific difference between the buddhists, other affiliates and no affiliates. On this basis we have rejected our hypothesis. Meanwhile we have noticed that the differences in ecological awareness are way bigger between the specific countries. Additional analyses gave us the final conclusion, that ecological awareness of mentioned countries is not determined by the belonging to the certain religion, neither the type of religion nor atheism are the causes of the ecological awareness. But significant meaning to ecological awareness has countries economic development