[gregmcal]

the quote means....

Thanks very much for the sutta reference and explanation, Element.

[movlabk]

Reflecting over your post Element this thought came to my mind: Why does Thay have never quote that sutta or suttas (the Pali Canon ones) at least in his main and most popular books. Not doing that makes one to think he has coined the idea and the concept of interbeing as his own discovery.

Hi Kaarine

I can only give my opinion. What I quoted is a small part of the suttas & probably generally not taught widely.

Personally, my view is Thay should be given credit for highlighting & clearly explaining the reality of 'interbeing'.

I trust his strong belief in the importance of this reality arises from his own heartfelt realisation.

Kind regards

[Axxflcaj]

I trust his strong belief in the importance of this reality arises from his own heartfelt realisation.

Thanks Element,

[ReggieRed]

I found an article ''The Weight of Mountains" in which Thanissaro Bhikkhu uses the expression "inter-eating ".......

" - what some people call our interbeing — is, at its most basic level, inter-eating."

excerpt from the article ....


So we start the path to the end of suffering, not by trying to drop our clingings immediately, but by learning to cling more strategically. In terms of the feeding analogy, we don't try to starve the mind. We simply change its diet, weaning it away from junk food in favor of health food, developing inner qualities that will make it so strong that it won't need to feed ever again.

The canon lists these qualities as five:

conviction in the principle of karma — that our happiness depends on our own actions;
persistence in abandoning unskillful qualities and developing skillful ones in their stead;
mindfulness;
concentration; and discernment.

Of these, concentration — at the level of jhana, or intense absorption — is the strength that the Buddhist tradition most often compares to good, healthy food. A discourse in the Anguttara Nikaya (VII.63) compares the four levels of jhana to the provisions used to stock a frontier fortress. Ajaan Lee, one of the Thai forest masters, compares them to the provisions needed on a journey through a lonely, desolate forest. Or as Dhammapada 200 says about the rapture of jhana,

How very happily we live,
we who have nothing.
We will feed on rapture
like the Radiant gods

As for discernment: When the mind is strengthened with the food of good concentration, it can begin contemplating the drawbacks of having to feed.

This is the part of the Buddha's teaching that — for many of us — goes most directly against the grain, because feeding, in every sense of the word, is our primary way of relating to and enjoying the world around us. Our most cherished sense of inter-connectedness with the world — what some people call our interbeing — is, at its most basic level, inter-eating.

We feed on others, and they feed on us. Sometimes our relationships are mutually nourishing, sometimes not, but either way it's hard to imagine any lasting relationship where some kind of physical or mental nourishment wasn't being consumed. At the same time, feeding is the activity in which we experience the most intimate sense of ourselves. We define ourselves through the pleasures, people, ideas, and activities we keep returning to for nourishment.

So it's hard for us to imagine a world, any possibility of enjoyment — even our very self — where we wouldn't inter-eat. Our common resistance to the idea of no longer feeding — one of the Buddha's most radically uncommon teachings — comes largely from a failure of the imagination. We can hardly conceive of what he's trying to tell us. So he has to prescribe some strong medicine to jog our minds into new perspectives.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/a...mountains.html

[IteseFrusty]

A good read. In particular, I have been thinking of late of the danger of filling one's life with Buddhism and thinking of oneself as a Buddhist, forgetting that Buddhism is only a means to an end. We should always remember that, though we may have crossed the stream, we cannot be free if we insist on carrying the raft around on our shoulders.

I think it is useful to regularly remind ourselves that our reading and listening, etc, and the knowledge they bring, are ultimately to be abandoned.

[2swasseneons]

though we may have crossed the stream, we cannot be free if we insist on carrying the raft around on our shoulders

IMHO after crossing fully to the other shore, we will not cling to anything (including the raft). I think the teaching about the raft/stream is more for those of us who have yet to cross the stream, as we cling to the teachings and become so entangled in the words and our conceptualization of them that we prevent ourselves from progressing in the first place. We have everything we need, but are sitting still. We think we know everything already, but mistake the reflection of the moon for the moon itself.

I think that the advice is to not cling to the teachings even while we follow them.
Use them for the purpose they are intended... yes.
Attach to them as if they are more than a tool, mistake them for the truth... no.

So in my opinion we should be mindful of our attachment to our traditions/teachings, and discern a raft for a raft.

[RgtrsKfR]

IMHO after crossing fully to the other shore, we will not cling to anything (including the raft). I think the teaching about the raft/stream is more for those of us who have yet to cross the stream, as we cling to the teachings and become so entangled in the words and our conceptualization of them that we prevent ourselves from progressing in the first place. We have everything we need, but are sitting still. We think we know everything already, but mistake the reflection of the moon for the moon itself.

I think that the advice is to not cling to the teachings even while we follow them.
Use them for the purpose they are intended... yes.
Attach to them as if they are more than a tool, mistake them for the truth... no.

So in my opinion we should be mindful of our attachment to our traditions/teachings, and discern a raft for a raft.

Yep.

[courlerwele]

I found a mention of The Eightfold Path in a 'Community of Interbeing Manual of Practice'.


Thây emphasises smiling, friendship, the beauty of nature, warmth, hugging, and identifying the positive qualities in ourselves, our friends and our lives.

The mind is full of habits: sometimes we are unhappy because our mind is focused on unhappy experiences or fears about the future. We fail to see that suffering is often the result of wrong perception. By focusing on and practising positive states of mind, we encourage our own mind to make new habits and transform our lives. Buddhist practice provides a form of fitness for the mind: if, when you are running to catch the post, you find yourself out of breath, you might decide to undertake a programme of exercises to give yourself the sort of body you want to have.

This fitness programme teaches us the skills to limit the damage of negative energies, and to have the sort of mind that we want to have. In short, to free ourselves from the prison of negative habits. Thây teaches us to regard words merely as useful conventions rather than getting caught up in the dogma of concepts and notions, and that rather than generalising and abstracting, it is better to speak from our own direct experience.

These teachings do not imply that it is possible to be happy all the time. Thây gives the analogy of a flowerbed: even the most skilled gardener cannot keep flowers blooming all the time. At some stage we have to go through a composting period. This understanding allows us to accept periods of dullness and depression and not give any another significance to them other than that they are our composting periods. The winter of our discontent is a natural part of the cycle.

The Buddhist Path

The most commonly known formulation of the Buddhist way is the Eightfold Path. Thây also often refers to a threefold path of prajna (wisdom), samadhi (meditation or mindfulness) and sila (ethics). The relationship between this and the Eightfold Path is laid out in the table below.

This does not imply that the three sections are separate from each other: rather, they are mutually dependent and accessible. A practice which does not embrace all three components is not a complete practice. To gain deep understanding of the teachings it is necessary to practise both mindfulness and ethics, and to have insight into the meaning of wisdom in Buddhism. Thây has even renamed the Precepts as Mindfulness Trainings to illustrate this inter-dependence. See chart at the link below.....

http://interbeing.org.uk/manual/

.

[AdSuiteAdobe]

It reminds me a lot of the Salistamba Sutra's presentation - not necessarily something easily teased out that is at odds with the Dhamma, it's simply a matter of the presentation being more imprecise as compared to the Nikayas/Agamas. For example, at no point in studying or describing or explaining paticcasamuppada do I find it necessary or useful to use the phrase "interconnectedness of the universe" - quite the opposite, I in fact find such a phrase to cause misunderstanding more often than understanding of such a complex, difficult-to-see subject.

[casinobonusa]

A logical conclusion of "interbeing" is that as I hold a new born baby or bathe in the glow of a stunning sunset, I am at the same time time connected to the atrocities occurring in Libya or the ones that happened in the holocaust. What a horrible idea. I know its not a Buddhist right view but I would rather be me,me,me! Than be interme.

[Maserati]

"Interbeing" is T.N.H.'s easy approach to understanding the concepts of emptiness, combined with a grasp of the idea of dependent arising of phenomena, both the focus of (Mahayana) Prajnaparamita teachings. I don't know if there are similar teachings in the Pali Canon.

[steevytraunse]

"Interbeing" is T.N.H.'s easy approach to understanding the concepts of emptiness, combined with a grasp of the idea of dependent arising of phenomena, both the focus of (Mahayana) Prajnaparamita teachings. I don't know if there are similar teachings in the Pali Canon.

There are quite a number of references to emptiness and dependent origination in the Pali Canon.

Its also worth noting that Nagarjuna refers to Samyutta Nikaya 12.15 in his lengthy Mulamadhyamakakarika.

[Hdzcxqoi]

There's also an excellent example of how Dependent Origination operates in daily life by Ven P.A.Payutto at the link here:

http://www.buddhanet.net/cmdsg/coarise5.htm

[GenManagerS]

Aloka-D: I believe he was saying he that he doesn't know if there are teachings in the Pali canon which espouse the value of compassion for others in reaction to an understanding of interdependence brought up by the Prajnaparamita of Mahayana teachings.

[SinyugiN]

Aloka-D: I believe he was saying he that he doesn't know if there are teachings in the Pali canon which espouse the value of compassion for others in reaction to an understanding of interdependence brought up by the Prajnaparamita of Mahayana teachings.

Hi inshun,

Sorry but I'm not at all clear if you're refering to fojiou2 or to TNH, because fojiou2 didn't mention anything about teachings in the Pali Canon "which espouse the value of compassion for others" .....

Kind regards,

A-D

[zlZ95pjt]

You are correct. I misread what he had typed. My apologies.

[wrbwrbwrb]

this might be redundant but Aj. Geoff calls "interbeing" inter-FEEDING, and often (in dhamma talks) contrasts it to TNH's interbeing by saying you will not find the concept in the Pali Canon...

[xtrslots]

this might be redundant but Aj. Geoff calls "interbeing" inter-FEEDING, and often (in dhamma talks) contrasts it to TNH's interbeing by saying you will not find the concept in the Pali Canon...

This is similar to the term " inter eating " used by Thanissaro Bhikkhu - see #24

[IACJdKfU]

Ajaan Geoff is Thanissaro Bhikkhu