Nondualism after Fukushima?

Humans and environment form a single continuum, part of a larger cosmic life. This, however, seems to imply that we are continuous even with the radioactive waste produced by the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima. There is nothing surprising about this, since in Buddhism no substance is considered to have intrinsic self-nature such as “clean” or “dirty”—indeed radioactive waste is Buddha-nature in Dōgen’s worldview. On the other hand, there remains a clear distinction between purifying and nonpurifying acts, if Dōgen’s view of human agency in relation to the environment is correctly applied in our present-day context. Taking Fukushima as an example and scrutinizing Dōgen’s many passages on Buddha-nature, washing, and wrongdoing reveal our responsibility to participate in nature’s self-purifying process rather than making questionable appeals to “nondualism.”