Interbeing

Thich Nhat Hanh
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Interser
--por Thich Nhat Hanh

El vacío no implica la inexistencia. Decir que estamos vací@s no significa que no existimos. No importa si algo está lleno o vacío, esa cosa claramente necesita estar allí de entrada. Cuando decimos que una copa está vacía, la copa debe estar allí para estar vacía. Cuando decimos que estamos vacíos, significa que debemos estar allí para estar vacíos de un yo permanente y separado.

Hace unos treinta años estaba buscando una palabra en inglés para describir nuestra profunda interconexión con todo lo demás. Me gustó la palabra “unidad”, pero finalmente se me ocurrió la palabra “interser”. El verbo “ser” puede ser engañoso, porque no podemos ser por nuestra cuenta, sol@s. “Ser” es siempre “inter-ser”. Si combinamos el prefijo “inter” con el verbo “ser”, tenemos un nuevo verbo, “inter-ser”. Interser y la acción de interser refleja la realidad con mayor precisión. Inter-somos un@s con otr@s y con toda la vida.

Hay un biólogo llamado Lewis Thomas, cuyo trabajo aprecio mucho. Describe cómo nuestros cuerpos humanos son "compartidos, alquilados y ocupados" por innumerables otros organismos diminutos, sin los cuales no podríamos "mover un músculo, tamborilear con un dedo o pensar un pensamiento". Nuestro cuerpo es una comunidad, y los trillones de células no humanas en nuestro cuerpo son aún más numerosas que las células humanas. Sin ellas, no podríamos estar aquí en este momento. Sin ellas, no seríamos capaces de pensar, sentir o hablar. No hay, dice, seres solitarios. El planeta entero es una célula gigante, viva, que respira, con todas sus partes activas unidas en simbiosis.

Podemos observar el vacío y el interser por todas partes en nuestra vida diaria. [...] Mirando al niñ@, podemos estar en contacto con sus padres y antepasad@s, pero igualmente, mirando al padre/madre, podemos ver al niñ@. No existimos de forma independiente. Inter-somos.

Todo depende de todo lo demás en el cosmos para manifestarse, ya sea una estrella, una nube, una flor, un árbol o tú y yo.

Cada vez que ofrezco incienso o me postro ante el altar de mi ermita, no lo hago como individuo sino como un linaje completo. Cada vez que camino, me siento, como o practico caligrafía, lo hago con la conciencia de que todos mis ancestros están dentro de mí en ese momento. Soy su continuación. Haga lo que haga, la energía de la atención plena me permite hacerlo como "nosotros", a través del ser mutuo, no como "yo". Cuando sostengo un pincel de caligrafía, sé que no puedo quitarme a mi padre de la mano. Sé que no puedo quitarme a mi madre ni a mis antepasados. Están presentes en todas mis células, en mis gestos, en mi capacidad de dibujar un hermoso círculo. Tampoco puedo quitar de mi mano a mis maestros espirituales. Están allí en la paz, la concentración y la atención que disfruto mientras hago el círculo. Todos estamos dibujando el círculo juntos.

Preguntas semilla para la reflexión: ¿Qué significa para ti Interser? ¿Puedes compartir una historia personal de un momento en el que estabas profundamente consciente de un 'todo' gigante que participaba en acción a través de ti? ¿Qué te ayuda a recordar todo el linaje que vive a través de ti?

Thich Nhat Hanh fue un maestro, poeta, erudito y activista por la paz budista zen vietnamita que fue nominado para el Premio Nobel de la Paz por el Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Extraído de El arte de vivir.

Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Buddhist Zen master, poet, scholar, and peace activist who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Excerpted from The Art of Living.

SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: What does Interbeing mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you were deeply aware of a giant 'all' participating in action through you? What helps you remember the entire lineage that lives through you?

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17 Past Reflections

On Mar 29, 2023 Kevin wrote :

I sit here in the unemployment office , I feel lost in this place, it's been more than 30 years since I have not had a job, so I'm looking for one, I keep breathing, grounding and know we are all in this boat together.

1 reply: Alan | Post Your Reply

On Mar 28, 2023 MissC wrote :

I remember the special time that I was privileged enough to learn calligraphy from a Master. It was a small community class. Together we learned how to prepare the ink, to set the paper,
to sit and breathe properly, and to hold the brush. I'll never forget learning how to hold the brush! I was so excited, while at the same time feeling a calm security. The instruction from this Master came to me as if from a whole council of ancestors, present and lovingly guiding my hand. Finally when I was ready to lower the correctly held brush to the paper, I made a perfect circle and felt an overwhelming connection to all those that have gone before me, and those that sat near me, and also those that I would show my work in the future. It was an unforgettably warm and fuzzy feeling!

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On Mar 28, 2023 Freda Karpf wrote :

We are we. That is the moving story of our lives. We were never alone or solitary. We were and are and always be connected to all that lives and moves and even to all that flows and grows. So, a great reminder that we are nature and nature is not apart from us or over there. It is here, within and without. There is no separation. We have to and should want to take care of our world. We are the earth and we live on through nature.

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On Mar 28, 2023 sue wrote :

Even though people think about DNA as a measure of uniqueness, we have DNA that is found in other animals and even plants

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On Mar 28, 2023 Kevin wrote :

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On Mar 28, 2023 Bruce H wrote :

Sharon — I found this very well expressed— I hope you are well, warm, and happy…Bruce

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On Mar 28, 2023 Sigurd Andersen wrote :

Closely related to "interbeing" is the concept of "dependent co-arising". All that happens is from a mix of all the factors that make up the present moment.

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On Mar 28, 2023 Doe wrote :

This is so huge for me. In my daily struggles with food addiction, I’ve searched for a bigger reason to love & honor this amazing body of mine. This is it. Thank you🙏♥️

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On Mar 28, 2023 Craig wrote :

Stewart was nineteen years old when it happened. It was mid August, 1990, and he was staying at his parents' home on a break from college, where he had just written a paper for a final exam in a Philosophy of Mind course at UCDavis. He had just finished reading "Lord of the Flies" that morning, and turned on the radio before stepping into the shower. Once in the shower, he heard the sound of the water falling, but also could hear the radio, as if they were two completely different sounds. But then he realized that his eardrums don't differentiate between the sound of the music and talk on the radio and the sounds of the shower water raining down on him—but that that differentiation had to come from his understanding after his eardrums registered the vibrations; it was some sort of conditioned differentiation. He wondered whether, as a baby or a very young child, if he could "hear" the difference of the sounds as coming from two different sources, and reasoned that he likely would not... [View Full Comment] Stewart was nineteen years old when it happened. It was mid August, 1990, and he was staying at his parents' home on a break from college, where he had just written a paper for a final exam in a Philosophy of Mind course at UCDavis. He had just finished reading "Lord of the Flies" that morning, and turned on the radio before stepping into the shower. Once in the shower, he heard the sound of the water falling, but also could hear the radio, as if they were two completely different sounds. But then he realized that his eardrums don't differentiate between the sound of the music and talk on the radio and the sounds of the shower water raining down on him—but that that differentiation had to come from his understanding after his eardrums registered the vibrations; it was some sort of conditioned differentiation. He wondered whether, as a baby or a very young child, if he could "hear" the difference of the sounds as coming from two different sources, and reasoned that he likely would not be able to differentiate as a very young child, because then, he would just hear the truth of the sounds, and not edit them, not sort them. He sat down in the shower, closed his eyes, plugged his ears, and tried to re-hear the sounds about him as one sound, whole and undifferentiated. He felt that if he tried hard enough, he might just be able to do it. After awhile, he emerged from the shower and dried himself off with a towel in the bathroom, and while doing so, he began to feel that he was a tremendous community of millions of little cells, each with a tiny bit of consciousness. He felt that his whole experience of self—of "I-ness" was only an emergent property of these millions of cells, working together in their community, and that if he really was only those cells, then why didn't he feel himself as those cells—those myriad individuals. Suddenly, he felt that his "I-ness" was, in a way, a convenient disservice to those cells, some of whom had been and were currently working very hard to make the whole organism called "Stewart" work. So he wondered if he could surrender that overlordship—in a way, give back his consciousness to all of the individual cells that created it, acknowledge and thank them for their service, and let them be honored each and independently. As he tried to do this, something happened, and for the first time, he fell into a tingling state of bliss—a kind of ecstasy—where his normal chatty mind dissolved, and he became only that community. His body felt like a hive of buzzing bees, humming, each little part alive and independent, but all working together. And those bees had, at last, been seen, recognized for what they really were and had always been, and took joy in this recognition. And the image of an hourglass came to Stewart—with the feeling that "we are all the living sands of an hourglass," as time passes though us, and cells are born, live, and die, and yet the continuity of the whole organism seems to hold together. But, like differentiating the music on the radio from the sounds of the shower raining down, the wholeness and the partitions were, both, in a way, illusions. In this altered state, he returned to his old bedroom, pulled out a bottle of ink and a sumi brush, and began to paint the phrase that came to him on his bedroom wall. Suddenly, his parents entered his room, and saw him painting writing on the wall, and they panicked, pulled the ink and brush from his hands, where it spilled over his fingers in the process, and they dragged him back to the bathroom and washed his hands, looking into his eyes, and asking him repeatedly, "What drug are you on?" But Stewart hadn't taken any drugs. In fact, he had never taken any mind-altering drugs before. What was happening just was happening on its own. And in his state of surrendering to the microorganisms of his being, he began to see that his parents were also made of myriad consciousnesses, but that in their state, they could not see this. His mother, yelling to his father that their son had "gone crazy," in an act of desperation, grabbed a pair of scissors, grabbed the lock of hair on his forehead, and cut his hair off at the scalp. In his state of mind, Stewart could see that there was no other way that his mother could be. That she was scared and confused, and could not see or understand who her son really was: a community of cells, just like she was. And so he did not flinch, and did not resent her, because there was nothing else to do but let it be as it was, as it unfolded. And as she removed the lock of hair from his head, he left their house through the front door, and walked slowly to the neighboring field. And as he walked, he began to realize that just as all of the little cells that created the community that was his body, his being did not have an awareness of "Stewart"—that is, before Stewart became aware of those parts of which he was made—so the individual human beings on the planet did not realize that they were participating in greater minds—corporate minds, and national minds, and even a mind that emerged from the whole of humanity. And the more he gave over his own mind to the cells within him, like a beautiful communist revolution, where every cell became recognized for who it was and could have its say, so, simultaneously, Stewart's cells realized that they were participants in these greater minds, and ultimately, a mind that incorporated all of the plants, all of the animals, all of the minerals that flowed within all of those cells and the body of the Earth itself. None of this is easy to put into words, and unless you have had the experience yourself, you cannot imagine it. But then something else happened: Stewart felt his being disintegrating and merging with the entire planet Earth—and the living, sentient mind of the Earth touched the mind of all of the cells and bacterium and minerals in the thing that some once called "Stewart," and, like being struck by a lightning bolt, he felt open, and opened, and overwhelmed with the intensity of energy that was flowing through him, to him, from him, and around him. It felt to him like a toaster had been plugged into a nuclear power plant, and all the circuits were burning up, frying with the sheer power and vastness of the experience. And those around Stewart felt something too, as he sat down next to that field, merged with the Soul of the World (what he would later learn was called by ancient Romans as the "anima mundi.") His sister and her friend had followed him out of the house, and the friend burst out into tears. His parents dragged him back inside their home, placed him on a bed in their study, and tried to reason with him. But Stewart knew their thoughts form in their minds, before they spoke them, and felt their fears and their self-imposed and self-enforced limited-ness, which seemed all so unnecessary. He began to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but, at the same time, sob at the pain of it all—and, laughing and crying, writhing on the guest room bed, both hysterical and heart-wrenching at once—he cried out, "All I've ever really wanted was the Truth, and now I have a taste of it." It took him several hours to return to a state where he could speak, walk, and eat again. But he would never be the same person he was before that day. The experience changed the course of his life from that day forward, and he knew then that everything except that truth was but a different flavor of illusion, of forgetfulness of what and who we really are. He tried to explain the experience to his friends back in college; one told him that it was like a good acid trip. He passionately tried to describe it to other students in his Philosophy courses; they though he was mad, or that he was trying to start a cult. Hegel, Nietzsche, and even Plato all had different meanings to him than to his peers in school. Even many of his teachers felt that his interpretations were too "mystical." And for a long time, he felt very much alone among his fellow human beings. Without having had that experience themselves, how might anyone understand it? How might anyone even believe that it was possible? It was the most profound experience of his life, but anyone he told just laughed or rolled their eyes at him, and so, for another thirty years, Stewart kept his experience a secret. But this little piece of writing by Thich Nhat Hanh showed Stewart that he was not the only one who has experienced such things. Our world is far more alive than we usually remember or give it credit. We are legion, and as we surrender to that legion and let that legion come alive within us, we open ourselves up to a more intimate participation in the far vaster community, the greater song, of which the millions of tiny souls within us play a part: the microcosm reflects the macrocosm, and at all levels, there is mindstuff, awareness, and sentience. Thank you for sharing this this reading with us.[Hide Full Comment]

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On Mar 28, 2023 Genoveva Dimcheva wrote :

You touch me deapley because i haven't children. My womb never give childbirth this make empty. Al so i feel disconnected with my grandparents because nobody gont happy for me in 1981 when i was born like baby girl. I feel disconnected with life religioun everything. I wish this could be deferent. I don't know how to connect with love.

2 replies: Barbara, David | Post Your Reply

On Mar 27, 2023 Mamta Nanda wrote :

With pluto (symbolising transformation) in the sign of Aquarius (symbolising community) being reminded of 'interbeing' feels profound. Thank you for this beautiful reminder.
I am not alone, I am always accompanied :) I do not have to struggle alone seems very uplifting in this moment.

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On Mar 25, 2023 David Doane wrote :

To me, interbeing means what Thich Nhat Hanh says, that we cannot be by ourselves alone and separate from everything else. I agree that every thing is linked and that every thing relies on every thing else. I agree that each person is a continuation of his ancestors, and we are all together. There is no individual without the whole. How one is depends on all the rest. I wouldn't be me without everyone and everything that makes up the whole of which I am part. My awareness has grown that existence is a giant all that participates in action through me and each of us. I occasionally approach being deeply aware of that, and I am awed. One strong and sometimes shocking reminder of the entire lineage that I am continuous with is when I see physical or behavioral or personality features that are like my ancestors.