Interbeing — Thich Nhat Hanh's Teaching on Mutual Arising
Interbeing — Thich Nhat Hanh's contemporary articulation of the Buddhist Pratītyasamutpāda — expresses the profound ecological and spiritual recognition that no being has a separate, independent existence: we 'inter-are' with all that is.
Thich Nhat Hanh's concept of 'interbeing' (French: 'interêtre') makes the Buddhist teaching of interdependence accessible in terms of contemporary ecology: '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.' This poetic analysis extends to include the lumberjack, the wheat that fed him, the logger's parents, the sun, the earth — everything in the universe co-creates this sheet of paper. If we look deeply into anything, we find everything. This profound ecological interconnection is simultaneously a philosophical insight (nothing has independent self-existence), an ethical framework (harming anything harms all), and a contemplative practice (perceiving interbeing transforms the practitioner's relationship to every moment of experience).
The cloud does not die; it becomes rain. We do not die; we transform.
Systems ecologist Fritjof Capra's work documenting the network nature of all living systems provides a rigorous scientific framework for Thich Nhat Hanh's interbeing teaching: every organism is constituted by its relationships with other organisms, and the health of any organism is inseparable from the health of its network of relationships.
Universal Wisdom