Buddhist ecology begins with interdependence — nothing exists independently, everything arises in relation to everything else — and follows the thread to its conclusion: that harm to the environment is harm to the self, because the self is not located where you think it is. This is not poetry; it is the most rigorous kind of systems thinking, dressed in the robes it deserves. Nasreddin reached the same conclusion by a shorter route: 'I am made of everything I have eaten, breathed, and loved — so I should be more careful about what I treat as disposable.'
Each step builds on the last.