Togetherness

The African word ‘Ubuntu’ is often translated as “I am because we are”. In this phrase, we find a recognition of our interconnectedness with the whole world. If only more of us could realise that we are not fundamentally separate from each other. That we are all of the same source, no matter what gender we are, age we are, species we are, or what colour our skin is. If we realised this, we would not disrespect each other in the way we’ve been doing, and we would not disrespect nature. 

If only we could live in such a way that all our actions took place with the knowledge that we are of this cosmos together, and that, far from being insignificant accidents, we in fact belong to this world. If only we could all extend our reach of care beyond ourselves, to the wider world.  

These ideas might be dismissed as airy fairy, or they might be viewed as something comforting to tell ourselves because we fear dying. But that’s only because some people are misguided and, through their misguidedness, try to disempower others. These ideas are in fact obvious when you think about them. We exist because everything else exists. You wouldn’t be here, in the way you are now, without the soil of this planet, the oxygen around you, the plants you’ve been eating, the countless people who’ve shaped your culture, all your ancestors, the positioning of this planet within this solar system. You are not fundamentally disconnected from these things. You move with them, and they move with you. In Buddhist lingo, this insight is often called ‘dependent origination’. 

Some people don’t recognise the importance of ideas or worldviews. They dismiss those who deal with ideas as unrealistic or disconnected from the “real world”. They might think a lot of these ideas are abstract and unhelpful, having no practical application. But to my mind, ideas and worldviews underlie all our actions. Until we understand our cultural conditioning, until we understand the narratives we’ve been told aren’t necessarily truthful, until we become truly aware of our own thought patterns, then we won’t grow and evolve as people and as societies. This doesn't mean we should all become academics and extremely well read. But it does mean we would do well to bring awareness to the ways we think about the world.

Thich Nhat Hanh coined the term ‘interbeing’ to describe our interconnectedness with all things. As with the Buddhist phrase ‘dependent origination’, the idea of interbeing shows that we exist in connection with all the other manifold aspects of our world, including things we aren’t normally conscious of. For example, we don’t regularly reflect on how our existence depends on the right level of oxygen in our environment, the soil in which our food grows and the sun which helped grow such food. With the notion of interbeing, we learn that we cannot really disconnect our identity from that of the air, the soil and the sun. 

We would do well to integrate this interconnected way of perceiving things into our cultural worldview. If we lived in a society and culture which adopted this more truthful way of perceiving the world, in which our thoughts and ideas were more harmonious with the way the world is, then we would not suffer as much as we do. We would not need to egotistically assert ourselves all the time. We would not try to dominate, control and colonise the world.