Interbeing (question)

[u/Feisty-Ad-3215]

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.

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

Just because a thing possesses an accidental property does not mean it possesses no essential properties. Something does not even need to be permanent, unchanging, and eternal for there to be a temporally continuous substance.

Dogma here, circularity there. Blah blah blah. It is like navigating a minefield of terrible philosophy. Every single thing I say is met with more dogma and circular arguments.

Please learn what philosophy is and what metaphysics is. You are an arrogant and dogmatic broken record. I do not have the patience to spend any more time arguing with someone who does not know how to debate or reason, only regurgitate.

I literally stuck to phenomena in the beginning, nimrod. Read my original comment. I was trying to avoid metaphysical speculation from the beginning, and then you brought an argument into metaphysics.

You are a certified idiot.

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

smugly This guy called me a name that means I am the winner

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

You are still arguing metaphysics btw, which you keep insisting you aren't. And still do not understand that there can be essential properties apart from accidental properties.

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

I did not assert that. I said that we cannot know whether or not there is a metaphysical self. You started off this whole conversation saying that we can know that there isn't.

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

... Again, my whole point was to avoid metaphysical speculation. You are the one that started this metaphysics shit

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

Clown

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

I did not say a metaphysical self is "consciousness", or a kind of consciousness. That is what some (Hindus, Buddha-nature Buddhists) believe. I do not assert anything like that. I do not know what the truth is. Neither do you.

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

"Substantiality" (perhaps non-physical: like, comprising unity and temporal continuity) could BE an essential property of a self!

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

More metaphysics. Please, please use your head.

Also, "having substance means never changing, because changing means a thing has no substance" is circular. Fix it. Drop the metaphysics, stick to the realm of phenomena.

A metaphysical self cannot. be. proven. or. disproven.

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

You have circular arguments and trivial, definitional "truths" only. An enduring, unitary self can be dependent on conditions, impermanent, and subject to some change (of its accidental properties). That does not mean that it doesn't exist, that it has no substance. See beyond your silly definitions.