Interreligious dialogue for the earth: Ecological spirituality in the poetry of Mary Oliver and Thich Nhat Hanh

Abstract

This paper examines the poetry of two contemporary writers from divergent religious backgrounds: American poet Mary Oliver (1935–2019) and Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022). Taking a comparative approach to examine the writers’ ecological spirituality, it attempts to examine how Oliver and Nhat Hanh envision self, nature, God, and spirituality in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (2017) and Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh (1999) respectively. It demonstrates striking affinities of the two poets’ visions, arguing that they are kindred spirits despite their different religious backgrounds. It examines how each writer’s perception of self and nature is founded upon their religious ideas and how their spirituality is, in turn, enhanced by this ecological vision. While Oliver’s spirituality is based upon her belief in God’s immanence in nature and thus her view of nature as God’s body, the Buddhist notion of interbeing is the bedrock of Nhat Hanh’s perception of self in relation to other things. Both similarly emphasize the significance of contemplative practice in nature as a means to achieve an insight into divinity or interbeing. Furthermore, this paper shows how the reading of the two writers in juxtaposition with each other invites an interreligious dialogue of the Buddhist and Christian poets. It employs its comparative analysis of the two writers as a case study to reflect upon possibilities for a fruitful interfaith dialogue in our attempt to nurture our spiritual lives and foster our bonds with nature.