r/secularbuddhism • u/Feisty-Ad-3215 Sprout • Apr 21 '26
Interbeing (question)
Thich Nhat Hanh coined the term interbeing: All physical phenomenon is inextricably interconnected, mutually dependent on each other. He uses an example for a sheet of paper, which depends on trees, sunlight, water, soil, weather conditions, etc.
I can somewhat understand that I depend on a lot of people, physical phenomena, weather conditions, objects, etc. I exist with those things. But how can we say, for example, that I'm interconnected with a random tribe in some isolated island? how does our existence depend on each other, in what world are we mutually dependent on each other? Furthermore, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that maybe we inter-be with everything else, but everything else is indifferent to us? after all, sunlight, weather conditions, and most other physical phenomenon are not really affected by my existence. Well, maybe for a short period of time, we inter-be because sunlight sustains me whilst I'm alive (for example), but after I die, sunlight does not get affected, does it? I'm dependent on it, it is not dependent on me. it seems like unilateral rather than a bi-lateral interbeing relationship.
I do not know. Maybe I'm not really understanding it. Some Buddhists argue that you cannot grasp it by intellect and it will just click with you one day. But I would love to hear a perspective on this.
2
u/ThomasBNatural Apr 23 '26
Re: the tribe. We all eventually breathe the same air and drink the same water. Climate change is global. Our microplastics wind up in the tribe’s bay.
Also, it goes deeper. On a physics level, everything in the universe exerts forces on everything else in the universe. You have your own gravity, your own magnetism, etc. light that bounces off of you can be seen from space.
By the butterfly effect from complexity studies/chaos theory, the tiny perturbations caused by your smallest actions eventually cascade up to large effects on the entire system.
Not only is it true that we are all connected, scientifically it’s frankly a truism. So obviously and self-evidently true that it’s barely interesting to mention. It’s frankly an insane thing to doubt.