Volume 30, Issue 2, Summer 2008
Sung-Hae Kim
Pages 135-157
The Immortal World
The Telos of Daoist Environmental Ethics
Four Daoist texts illustrate the dynamic image of the Daoist immortal world on which a Daoist environmental ethics can be built. The first text is the Daodejing with two of the oldest commentaries. The second is Tao Hongjing’s Diagram of Rank and Functions of True Spirits. The third is the collection of poems by Immortal Changchun, titled Panxiji. The fourth is the Morning and Evening Liturgical Prayer Book of the Quanzhen Order, which represents Daoist ecological concerns for the natural world. Daoism not only accords with the impetus and spirit of environmental ethics but can also make a concrete contribution to its implementation.