Choose an object that is important to you and trace as many links as you can from it to the rest of the universe. Do you agree with Thich Nhat Hanh that reality is characterized by interbeing? What are the ethical implications of this view?

Answer and explanation:

For Thich Nhat Hanh, nonviolence is a natural and necessary part of Buddhist religion. To understand his teachings, then, one must start with the most basic religious foundation: "In Buddhism the most important precept of all is to live in awareness, to know what is going on…to be aware of what we do, what we are, each minute." When we are totally mindful—in direct contact with reality, not just images of reality—we realize that "all phenomena are interdependent…endlessly interwoven." This is the foundation of Nhat Hanh’s approach, not only to nonviolence but to all of life. He calls it the principle of "interbeing." "In Buddhism there is no such thing as an individual." There is no such thing as a separate object, event, or experience, because no any part of the world can exist apart from all others. Rather, everything that looks like a separate entity is actually dependent on, and therefore interwoven with, something else. Everything (object, event, idea, experience, whatever) is made up of other things. Whatever appears to be an isolated "thing" is actually a combination of its constituent elements. These elements are the influences from the other things with which it is interwoven. And those elements, too, are made up of other combinations. The world is an endless web of combinations.

But even this description of reality is misleading, because it is too static. The elements that make up the world are patterns of dependency and interweaving. In other words, they are relationships. When we are fully aware, we see that there are only relationships. All relationships are patterns of Interaction. So they are, by definition, dynamic; they are patterns of change. There are no individual things, but only ongoing processes. These processes are made up of other, constantly changing, processes. All of reality is combinations of patterns of relationships in process.

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