Universal Interdependence

I've been trying to figure out exactly how to describe the concepts of "emptiness" and "interdependence", two ideas which are essential to the logic behind karma and therefore, universal compassion. At the center of these concepts is the emphasis on the fact that we, along with everything else, rather than having our own independent existence, exist as part of a whole and are bound together in reliance on one another. Well, I've decided not to try to remake the wheel this time and give you the explanation that helped me.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist teacher renowned for his ability to take exceptionally complex concepts and put them into simple terms and examples. In this short explanation, titled "Interbeing", he explains the basis for these concepts, referring to them not as "emptiness"and "interdependence" but as "interbeing". Enjoy.

Interbeing

“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-“ with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. Without sunshine, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. The logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

Looking even more deeply, we can see ourselves in this sheet of paper too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, it is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. We cannot point out one thing that is not here – time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. We cannot just be by ourselves alone. We have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up lonely of “non-paper” elements. And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without non-paper elements, like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.”


Smile, breathe, and go slowly.

Karma : Logical and Universal

Karma, also known to the western world as "you reap what you sow", "what goes up must come down" or "a bitch", is one of the few concepts from eastern culture which has made its way into our repertoire of references. It will often be casually thrown into a conversation when someone finds out that, for instance, a major sports star gets caught cheating on his wife and then proceeds to lose many of his sponsorship deals (hypothetical situation, of course).

Many people understand karma through this sort of usage but very few understand exactly why and how karma works. Until I truly began studying karma, I understood very little other than the fact that if someone did something bad, something bad would happen to them, and vice versa. I couldn't tell you why, how, who/what keeps track of it, etc. as though karma were a sort of incomprehensible force that must simply be taken as is.

This is not the case.

As it turns out, karma is not only completely understandable, it's completely logical and sensible.

Where does karma come from?

Karma begins with the concept of complete interdependence, the dependence of all beings on all other beings. This is a difficult statement to swallow if you are used to the western mindset which tends to emphasize independence. Your life, your sustainability, all of your material goods lay wholly in the hands of every other being on the planet. It is because of other beings that you have everything you have:

1. The reason you're alive is because of your parents and because no one has taken it from you.
   
2. The reason you have clothes is because of the people who sold them to you, the people that made them, the people that wove the fabric, the people who picked the cotton or harvested the silk worms, and the silkworms themselves.
   
3. The reason you have food to eat is because of the farmers that grew them, the people who taught the farmers how to grow them, the indigenous people in your area who at one point learned what could be eaten and grown there, and the person who gave you money to buy it.
   
4. The reason you have a house is more than likely because someone else built it for you, and if you built it yourself, it's because someone taught you how. One can also say that you have a house because no one has burned it down.
   
5. Look around at everything else you have and think of the possible chains of people or things that have allowed you to possess it.

Your life from this point on is just as based on the actions of other people. Without the beneficial actions of others, you would not have what you have today and if others were less compassionate and acted irrationally, you would have nothing just the same. You are wholly dependent on others as they are dependent on you. This forms a vast web of dependence that spans the entire earth.

I refer to this web of dependence as karma.

When you do something harmful to someone else, you are by definition harming someone that you are dependent on. This will inevitably, in the long- or short-run, harm you in some way. Your actions towards other beings on this planet eventually determine how those beings affect you, so if you do something good, then good will follow, and if you do something harmful, then harm will follow. As such, doing significant damage to your own personal web will cause significant harm in return.

So remember to treat all others with pure compassion for they are part of your web.

I hope this was helpful.

Smile, breathe, and go slowly.