Of course a crank like myself would naturally love Edward Abbey. Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" is surely one of the great books of the 20th century. Abbey doesn't worship nature, but he knows that it is a place where man can be free. Humans become trapped by their possessions, goals and comfort. Nature, with its solitude and isolation, offers hope for whatever realization you may seek.

Abbey would certainly never identify himself as a Buddhist (or any other religion), but his work often revels in passages that show man as one with the universe. Such as:

"Looking out on this panorama of light, space, rock and silence I am inclined to congratulate the dead man on his choice of jumping-off place; he had good taste. He had good luck -- I envy him the manner of his going: to die alone, on rock under sun at the brink of the unknown, like a wolf, like a great bird, seems to me very good fortune indeed. To die in the open, under the sky, far from the insolent interference of leech and priest, before this desert vastness opening like a window onto eternity -- that surely was an overwhelming stroke of rare good luck."

Desert Solitaire, from the chapter "The Dead Man at Grandview Point"