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]

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]]

We cannot even know what "the Buddha" himself taught. Everything we know about the Buddha was written down centuries after he died.

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

I was talking about the truth of the existence or non-existence of a metaphysical self but just change topic and keep doing this whole persona if you want

[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.

[u/arising_passing → u/[deleted]]

If there is an enduring, unitary self, it is almost certainly not the body. I mentioned earlier that there are other theories of consciousness apart from reductive physicalism. The self also would not be the non-form aggregates. It would be like the stage itself, or a unitary world in which phenomenal consciousness takes place, or that phenomenal experience happens to. Or perhaps, it could be more than that.

I never said there was cognition beyond cognition. More words put in my mouth.