Interbeingness*
By gartenfische | November 28, 2007
Reynolds Price is a fascinating man. I recently heard a replay of a 2006 Terry Gross interview with him on Fresh Air (listen, oh listen, it’s great).
Personal experience germinated his faith. As you know, that’s my story, too—not having been raised with religion, I suspect if I’d not had certain experiences, I’d be agonizing over whether or not God exists, rather than living in faith. And indeed, Thomas Keating, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, says that people are often given visions or other experiences because they need them, not because they’re specially favored or spiritually advanced (I believe him—I am definitely not advanced and how can a person believe God favors one human being over another?).
So. Onward. Price shared two experiences that he also recounts in the book. One was a healing vision of Jesus that occurred when he was struggling with spinal cancer; the other occurred during childhood when he was shown that the earth and everything in it are one:
I had this vision which was really of a great wheel of nature in which I saw and realized that everything that was—that is everything that I was aware of at the age of five or six or seven—was all one thing. It was a vision of the sort of unity of nature, and that somehow that one thing was in constant motion and was impelled by some sort of creative power.
Following the publication last year of Letter to a Godchild: Concerning Faith, people wrote him to to say that as children, they had had almost identical visions. Accounts of visions of this sort are surprisingly prevalent (it must be the most common spiritual experience). Those who have near death experiences often report gaining a deep understanding that all living things are interconnected. Plus, the world’s religions try to get it through our skulls: We are all one. One. One. One.
One with the earth. One with all created beings. One with one another.
Of course, this oneness extends to religion itself. We do worship one God, whatever name we use for that.
On his beautiful blog, Sadiq Alam wrote about dialog between religions. Here is one of the quotes from his post:
To every nation God has appointed acts of devotion which they observe, therefore let there be no dispute about the matter.
The Quran 22.67
Which reminded me of Thomas Keating’s remarks at a recent retreat (I was taking quick notes, but he was talking quicker, so forgive the lack of graceful segue):
We should learn how to love every religion, not just tolerate it. Every religion leads to transformation. God is calling us to collaboration, respect, understanding. . . . The future of the world depends on establishing the means for peace and religions should be leading the way. What we need is a communion among religions. . . . We have to open our hearts to absolutely everyone in the world.
It also brings to mind the Dalai Lama’s oft-repeated advice about sticking to your own religion. As Robert Thurman explains: “He says don’t be a Buddhist, be a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, however you were brought up. Use Buddhist meditation, but keep it within the framework of your original faith.” (The Dalai Lama, incidentally, helped me to leap toward Christianity when I was straddling the fence—if he values Christianity, I thought, there must be more there than I thought. Of course, I wasn’t raised a Christian, but Christianity is in my blood and bones—and now my soul and heart.)
And Gandhi said (thanks again to Sadiq): “The purpose of dialogue between faiths is not to change the other, but rather to deepen the experience of one’s own faith. Through greater understanding and appreciation of each other’s faith, the Hindu becomes a better Hindu, the Muslim becomes a better Muslim, the Christian becomes a better Christian, the Jew a better Jew and the Buddhist a better Buddhist.”
Amen.
And that, not surprisingly, echoes another Keating statement: “We don’t have to judge the effectiveness of the other religions. . . .” Instead, we should ask ourselves how well we are “following the movement of the Spirit in our own lives.”
Judge not, that ye be not judged.
Why is the vision of all-as-one so common? Because it is True, of course, and because it is probably the most important Truth. Jesus’s one commandment was to love one another. Our interconnectedness—our one-ness—underlies this commandment. We are not separate. We are one.
It is not simply that what we do impacts one another (the “butterfly effect”)—of course it does—but it is more than that, it is that we truly are one.
And ending with a contribution from Hinduism:
He alone sees truly who sees the Lord the same in every creature . . . seeing the same Lord everywhere, he does not harm himself or others.
- The Bhagavad Gita
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* Interbeing is a term coined by Thich Nhat Hanh to represent the Buddhist belief in the interconnectedness of all.
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Here is a Sharon Salzberg article on interconnectedness from the Shambhala Sun.
Trent has a great post up right now about peace and how we all are “profoundly connected to everything.”
Last June, an interesting article in Discover magazine touched on: the soul, NDEs, reincarnation (there’s even a disappearing Tibetan monk, and David Steindl-Rast made an appearance).
The beautiful photo of the whirling dervishes came from here. The wheel image is by Hildegard of Bingen.
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In another interview, Price called himself an “outlaw Christian,” which those of you who’ve been reading me for a bit might suspect I can relate to. (Some of us seem to be born—or is it borne?—on the edge; I wrote about my own edgy-ness not long ago.)
And here’s a Price quote that struck me because of Painter’s recent posts about pain/suffering/spirituality: “. . . if we’re ever to arrive at the state of anything called wisdom, pain seems to be the way we get there.” Of course, he is speaking as a person who has suffered a lot—it is obviously true for him, but I don’t know if it can be extrapolated. I have wondered myself about the connection between suffering and spirituality, but I’ll leave it for now. . . .
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I’m doing the meme-thing over at wyrdbyrd (Jan is my most recent tagger, for a gift meme).
Topics: religion, God, Christianity |
November 28th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Unbelievable. I was just listening to that Reynolds Price interview today driving to and from school and thought, “I wonder if GF has read that book.” I should have known. I love that you took his vision and ran with it…as it were…
November 28th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
YM, cool! Wasn’t it a great interview? I was lucky to catch it–I just happened to be in the car when it was on.
November 28th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Yes! That Dalai Lama quote is from The Art of Happiness. I just read that book last week. Isn’t it fantastic? It totally validated Buddhist practice within my Christian framework for me. Ah, lovely.
I’ll listen to the Price interview this evening–promise!
November 28th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
so true what you said about the Dalai Lama telling people to stick with their own religion. I heard him say that when I saw him in May…..
but when I saw the so-called Christians demonstrating against him, handing out leaflets saying that the Dalai Lama is going to hell unless he accepts Jesus and that Buddhists (i.e., me) don’t know right from wrong because we never talk about God…
I remembered the words that the Dalai Lama spoke and shook my head….
November 28th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Another amazing post, dear Gartenfische. You have been given a real gift with your ability to write and also to present such graphics.
I will listen to this interview. I am familiar with the Dalai Lama’s take on this and I agree. It strikes me as a sort macro-biotic think global act local thing… We should be sustained on what is around us but add to our nourishment with things from faraway from time to time. That does not make as much sense when I write it as when I thought it, but I am leaving it.
Your own conversion story is so fascinating to me. You are really blessed.
And whatever paths we walk down in whatever tradition, yes we should (as we do here) just be able to accept and love no matter what.
November 28th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
I have been thinking a lot about visions lately and what there meaning a purpose is. Thank you for this post. It helps me…
November 28th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
I’ve always been fascinated by how other people come to faith… as someone who “grew up” in a christian home but still also had some “conversion type” experiences…I find his story fascinating.
November 28th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
“but add to our nourishment with things from faraway from time to time.”
when I saw HHDL and he talked about people sticking with their religion, he also mentioned that we should learn about and from other religions…
for the precise reason of what this post is all about — interbeing.
November 29th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Charlotte, I have The Art of Happiness, too. It’s been quite a while since I read it, but I remember loving it. I love the wisdom of Buddhism.
Linda, so sad about people demonstrating against the Dalai Lama. Ignorance, I guess (and maybe a little arrogance). I also love what Fr. Keating said about loving the other religions, not just tolerating.
Fran, thank you—yes, I think we all have a lot to learn from one another and that nourishment truly is nourishing (again, loving, not simply tolerating).
Painter, I am glad this post helped in some way!
Diane, I love stories about other peoples’ spiritual experiences, conversion stories, etc–it’s all so interesting.
November 29th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Amazing links and, um, connections in this post, G. Thank you.
I listened to the interview. I didn’t quite understand him until I paused and considered his Southernness, his affinity for Eudora Welty….
Mmmm…. the soulful subversiveness of talking that way in academia. Wonderful.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:21 am
We should learn how to love every religion, not just tolerate it. Every religion leads to transformation. God is calling us to collaboration, respect, understanding. . . . The future of the world depends on establishing the means for peace and religions should be leading the way. What we need is a communion among religions. . . . We have to open our hearts to absolutely everyone in the world.
Thanks so much for your notes and research… timeless post.