There are thus two reasons why reaffirming the vertical dimension of Buddhism is so important. First because it is central to the integrity of the tradition. And second because it is precisely that part of the tradition that has something useful to add to contemporary environmental ethics. But this latter point may seem less than clear, even if one is prepared to concede the former. Could we not do as well or even better with just the circle of ultimate interrelatedness, even if it does seem a bit flat or one-dimensional? Is the loss of the vertical dimension not a relatively small price to pay at this particular moment in history, in order to thoroughly secure the long-neglected horizontal axis of relationship? Why, after all, should Buddhism need to assert, as it does, that we all too often perfidious human beings are somehow a 'higher form of consciousness' than the loyal and faithful dog, for example, or even than a banana slug for that matter? The slug, at least, is content to mind his own business.

Given the dire situation of the environment, and given the human role in bringing about that crisis, the position suggested by these last few questions is indeed attractive, beguilingly so. Nonetheless I do see this newly emerging, uni-dimensionally horizontal form of Green Buddhism to be fundamentally flawed, flawed not just in that it misrepresents the actual nature of the Buddhist tradition, but even more seriously flawed in that it abdicates, however unwittingly and unintentionally, both the ethical responsibility and the ethical potential that might actually be just what we need to solve the predicament we find ourselves in. If we deny the vertical dimension of the Dharma, we are denying the possibility of developing precisely the higher ethical sensibility that we are currently so manifestly lacking. And in denying that potential, we consign ourselves to wait helplessly, watching as the forces of human greed, hatred and delusion proceed to destroy the ecosphere, watching either in disempowered rage and despair, or perhaps in hope that some higher being will step in to save us from our sins.

Without an explicit recognition of the vertical challenge fundamental to Buddhist practice, the developmental quest for Enlightenment with its concomitant increase in ethical sensibility is lost in favour of a view suggesting that there is really nothing we need do-indeed nothing we can do beyond trusting in providence. This is not a Buddhist environmental ethic. What Buddhism offers is in fact quite a different message. And it is not just a message that the Dharma offers, it is a method. Herein lies the crucial difference. If we adopt only the relational teaching of the Buddha, then insight into the interrelatedness of all existence becomes simply an article of faith, something in which one is ardently to believe. The implicit message, one well embedded in our own cultural history, is that if one just believes in the right revelation faithfully enough, then all will turn out just fine-through the agency of some benign higher power. Stripped of the old theocentric 'God-talk', this updated gospel of grace may seem both comfortable and familiar, but this must not obscure the fact that it is not the Buddhadharma. For Buddhism, the relational dimension of existence is not an article of faith, it is a reality to be experienced directly though the active cultivation of higher states of consciousness. Simply to affirm the interrelatedness of all things, whether as an article of faith or as an intellectual inference, has in the Buddhist perspective no transformative power. It is only through undertaking the ethical and meditative practice charted in the developmental dimension of the tradition that one's actual behaviour begins to change to conform with the insight of interrelatedness.

Western ecology has given us an adequate model for understanding the ethical implications of how all things are interrelated. It is nice that Buddhism confirms that insight, but we gain little from Buddhism if that is all we see in the tradition. And we gain even less if we feel that by simply affirming this view interrelatedness will, of itself, be sufficient to bring about the necessary changes in our ethical practice. Thus the real value of Buddhism for us today lies not so much in its clear articulation of interrelatedness as in its other crucial dimension, in its conception of the ethical life as a path of practice coupled with its practical techniques for actually cultivating compassionate activity. The tendency in Green Buddhism to focus exclusively on the horizontal circle of interrelatedness thus endangers the very part of the tradition that we are most sorely lacking. What Green Buddhism needs to explore more thoroughly is the Buddhist principle that meaningful change in our environmental practice can come about only as part of a more comprehensive program of developing higher states of meditative awareness along with the increased ethical sensibility which this evolution of consciousness entails. Otherwise, it seems, we are simply spinning our wheels.