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Og · 07-15-2007, 06:57 AM

I just started going through the book "Living Buddha, Living Christ" by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Nhat Hanh says the following on the topic of what he calls "Interbeing."

Quote:

In the Psalms, it says, "Be still and know that I am God." "Be Still" means to become peaceful and concentrated. The Buddhist term is samatha (stopping, calming, concentrating). "Know" means to acquire wisdom, insight or understanding. The Buddhist term is vipasyana (insight, or looking deeply). "Looking deeply" means observing something or someone with so much concentration that the distinction between observer and observed disappears. The result is insight into the true nature of the object. The result is insight into the true nature of the object. When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It "inter-is" with everything else in the universe. Interbeing is a new term, but I believe it will be in the dictionary soon because it is such an important word. When we see the nature of interbeing, barriers between ourselves and others are dissolved and peace, love, and understanding are possible. Whenever there is understanding, compassion is born.

Just as a flower is made only of non-flower elements, Buddhism is made only of non-Buddhist elements, including Christian ones, and Christianity is made of non-Christian elements, including Buddhist ones. We have different roots, traditions and ways of seeing, but we share the common qualities of love, understanding, and acceptance. For our dialog to be open, we need to open our hearts, set aside our prejudices, listen deeply, and represent truthfully what we know and understand. To do this, we need a certain amount of faith. In Buddhism, faith means confidence in our and others' abilities to wake up to our deepest capacity of loving and understanding. In Christianity, faith means trust in God, the One who represents love, understanding, dignity, and truth. When we are still, looking deeply, and touching the source of our wisdom, we touch the living Buddha and the living Christ in ourselves and in each person we meet.

In this small book, I shall try to share some of my experiences of insights into two of the world's beautiful flowers, Buddhism and Christianity, so that we as a society can begin to dissolve our wrong perceptions, transcend our wrong views, and see one another in fresh, new ways. If we can enter the twenty-first century with this spirit of mutual understanding and acceptance, our children and their children will surely benefit.

To me, this is a wonderful expression of the ideas I try to convey to one another. The essence of "Tat Tvam Asi" in my signature and the communication of self as myth/illusion is EXACTLY what this author is expressing about the flower in the above passage.

Everyone is an expression of the entire realm of nature. Their minds and the way they adapt are formed by their environment just as the raw meat of their body is produced much as the above flower is produced. And every component that works to produce you and who you are is formed in an identical way, as an expression of all of the forces of the universe of which it, itself, is one.

This is the way the universe works. Its how all engineering and physics math is conceptualized. It's exactly the approach that science takes to understanding the universe. It's exactly in touch with what we observe.

The power of this realization is beyond measurement. It shows that the notion of an individual is an illusion. If there is a god that interacts with the cosmos, the we are identical with it just as we are with all other aspects of the cosmos.. There is no separation or sinful nature.. Those are just ideas in your head. All is as it should be. All is part of one process.