‘To be’ is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. – Thich Nhat Hanh.
The concept of interbeing refers to our connection and balance with life, the Earth, the Universe, and all of its contents. It is a phrase coined by Thich Naht Hanh (pronounced Tik-nat-han) a Zen Buddhist monk and peace activist. A beautiful man and a beautiful place to start on this discovery.
He often used a flower to explain this concept of interbeing and while we may be familiar with the concept - to allow it to sink deeply into our way of being requires we feel it, not just think it.
Find a comfortable position and read the following passage by Thich Naht Hanh slowly.
“In your mind’s eye, think about a sunflower. When you think about a flower, you tend to see only the flower, but when you look more closely, you can see that this flower is actually made up of the entire universe. It’s made up of the rain, which is connected to the clouds and oceans and other large bodies of water.
It’s made up of soil, which is connected with all the elements that came together over time to make up that soil, including countless years of plants, animals and smaller insects that decomposed in that soil providing nutrients for the earth to become fertile enough to hold space for the manifestation of a beautiful flower.
Each of these causes had other causes, and, in turn, these causes had causes, extending out to encompass all the elements in the universe. The flower does not exist alone, in isolation. If you were to take away all these elements, you would no longer have a flower; it would cease to exist.
The same holds true for us as humans, for animals, for our food and everything else in the universe, making this one large, interconnected co-dependent web that we call life.”
As another modern sage Sadhguru suggests, “..if you think you’re separate from the universe, try holding your breath and see how long you last”. Of course, our breath is a readily noticeable conduit between us and the earth, the trees and plants and the energy in our body - as is the food we eat. These connections can be seen all over the natural world in cycles of life from bacteria up to blue whales and back to bacteria. These cycles are in constant tuning and continuous flow of balance.
This kind of balance refers to the way of nature, from elements to cells, from the individual to the collective. We can consider the same philosophy when we look at our lives, how to be in harmony with our minds and bodies and our environment.
When we take the time to recognise this connection, we become grounded, we settle and an appreciation of ourselves and life naturally flows.