Two weeks ago I heard a question posed about the Black Lives Matter Movement that has reverberated inside me ever since.
The speaker was Robert K. Rossis, and he is a physician, public health expert, and the president and chief executive officer for The California Endowment.
I heard him speaking in the context of an interview with NPR on the radio show “On Being.”
In the interview he proposed:
“OK, if black lives matter, then what does it mean for schools? If black lives matter, then what does it mean for police reform? If black lives matter, what does it mean for economic development and jobs? And so it leads to a whole host of — OK, so if that’s true, what does that mean?”
Since the start of the Black Lives Matter Movement I had listened to many interviews and new reports about it, but as a white woman, in none of them was I so impacted by such a question that felt like it reached right inside of my heart. The question seemed to shake up something inside of me, and has continued to do so ever since.
Perspective- taking has always been helpful to me. This is probably because it was introduced to me at a very young age as something of great moral importance.
I grew up encouraged to always think about how others might be feeling, thinking and living in ways that were different from my own.
Whether it be through domestic or international travel, charitable work, social activism, or just plain day-to-day living with others, an unquestionable (and omnipresent) value was perspective -taking.
But what does perspective-taking mean?
Some might call it empathy, which Wikipedia defines as: the capacity to understand or feel what another being (a human or non-human animal) is experiencing from within the other being's frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's position.
To me, perspective-taking or empathy though, is just a small step, or experience, in the direction of “Interbeing,” a much broader and nobler concept that was named and written about extensively by Vietnamese Zen Buddhist teacher and author Thich Nhat Hanh.
Interbeing is beyond empathy.
As I understand it, Interbeing is perspective-taking + interconnection.
But let’s back up for a second. What is interconnection?
Interconnection is the idea that nothing—and I mean nothing—exists in a vacuum. Everything in the universe, including you and me and the tree outside my window and the dog that lives down the street, etc, is inter-connected because I impact you, (whether I intend or know it or not) and you impact me (whether you intend to or know it or not).
Interbeing though, transcends inter-connection and empathy.
Interbeing says: I not only impact you, I am you. You not only impact me, you are me. You and I are one; you the person, you the tree, you the dog, etc. I could not exist without you. You could not exist without me.
Interbeing allows us to look at a sentient being or an inanimate object 4th dimensionally.
In Thich Nhat Hanh’s classic book Peace is Every Step, he gives the example of Interbeing as the ability to “see clearly” all that makes up a single sheet of paper. He says,
“if we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. Without sunshine, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper.”
He goes on to remind us of all the other “non-paper” elements that make up a sheet of paper such as the logger who cuts down the wood, the clouds that rain down, the mind that views the sheet of paper, the minerals in the soil that nourish the tree, etc. Then he suggests:
“Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible?...And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either.”
Internalizing the idea of Interbeing can be an awesome task that can require very regular reminders. This is in part because we human-beings continuously return to the myth of isolation- again and again and again.
I have had a few small glimpses at Interbeing.
Sometimes with me putting in a lot of effort. Other times it seemed to just spontaneously spring from the present moment.
One of those such moments came during that very same NPR radio show about the Black Lives Matter Movement with the simplicity of that one question: If Black lives matter, then what does it mean for…? For what? For you? For me? For my job? For my son’s school? For the neighborhood I live in? For the politicians I elect? For the grocery store I shop at? The list is infinite, right? See, Interbeing.
In Peace is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh shares the story behind his poem “Call Me by My True Names” which really is a poem that embodies Interbeing.
In the story he writes about a letter he received from a refugee about a traumatic experience they witnessed while trying to cross the ocean of Southeast Asia. He writes:
There are many young girls, boat people, who are raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries try to help the government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy, sea pirates continue to inflict much suffering on the refugees. One day we received a letter telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped by a Thai pirate. She was only twelve, and she jumped into the ocean and drowned herself.
When you first learn of something like that, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side of the girl. As you look more deeply you will see it differently…If you take the side of the little girl, then it is easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But we cannot do that…If you take a gun and shoot the pirate, you shoot all of us, because all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs.
After a long meditation, I wrote this poem. In it, there are three people: the twelve-year-old girl, the pirate, and me. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other?
The poem goes like this:
Please Call Me By My True Names
Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.
I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Where can you lean into Interbeing today? Where can I?
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