The Ecology of the Universe: Exploring Our connection to the cosmos

I write this one day after learning of the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh’s (Thay) passing into the mystery we call death. I feel humbled in his presence and his words echo in my heart:

The future Buddha is the Sangha.

As we come to recognize his core teaching of emptiness as InterBeing, not just spiritually but ecologically, socially, globally, through physics and systems thinking–I realize the deep wisdom and compassion in his words.

Buddha is universe. We are all a part of the ecology of this living tissue that includes space and stardust, the Big Bang, rivers, mountain, soil, soul, parrot, internet, ideas, love, and on and on. Oh, behold this music of this life. Sometimes disonate, sometimes harmonious, sometimes with the power to move mountains and sometimes barely audible.

I feel drawn to speak of the ecology of the universe through the patterning of the human psyche. For there are levels to our awareness and when we are out of touch with the depths that we contain, we tend to also be out of touch with our interconnection. Our InterBeing, as Thay coined it.

Take an average day, what thoughts are given priority as one moves around, attending to basic needs (food, financial security, care-giving), attending to responsibilities and so on. What else is happening? As you move about your day? What catches your attention, what images creep into your mind?

As I write this, the sun (a rare phenomena in Portland, OR this winter) is reflecting through the trees and windows of the apartment next door and creating this beautiful pattern of light on the neighbor's adjacent house. When I take a moment and let myself be drawn into it, I feel an opening in my heart center, as I follow the sensations in the heart center, my breath deepens, my body starts to shimmer or I recognize the shimmering liveliness of this body. I see this life now reflected in the plants outside, the cactuses in my room, the light blue walls, and the patchwork quilt my grandmother made for me.

Interbeing shifts from being a concept that I am writing about, to a lived experience.

And I feel myself in touch with the creative source of life, part of the ecology of the universe, as is sun and tree, air and cactus, Thay’s consciousness and the empty potential of mind’s nature.

Ah, mind’s nature, universe’s nature–another level that for whatever reason we as humans have access to! We can release for times our particular identity, and non-abide as this infinite potential. 

Empty, lively, interconnected, whole, infinite creativity pouring through this apparent person!

What are we really? And why does this matter?

I like to say that Thich Nhat Hanh was my first teacher. I never met him. But I may never have trusted Buddhism if I had encountered it through someone else's voice. Thay’s vision of InterBeing, but also his total engagement with ecological justice inspired me to learn from this deeply contemplative tradition of Zen Buddhism.

I don’t know what human beings are evolving into. I don’t know what the universe is evolving into. I don’t know if the next 100 years will bear an extinction of our species or a shift into deeper appreciation of who and what we are. I do know that we have access to more wisdom and compassion than we usually appreciate.

That the universe speaks through us in what Process Work psychologist Arny Mindell calls flirts. These glimpses of vision, sensation, sound, movement, feeling, emotion–that appear and temporarily capture our attention. That when followed have the potential to bring us deeply into the present moment, into our truth and into interconnection. When we live closer to our essence, we are open to the source of creativity–the dreaming of the universe.

What happens when we hold the great questions of our time, closer to the universe’s dreaming? And let the universe dream through us?

What kind of courage does it take to evolve into whatever is next for us, as individuals, as a species, as a planet and as the universe? What levels of being are you consulting when you make the everyday decisions in your life, what would be different if you also consulted with, your dreams, your imagination, emptiness, Interbeing, the Universe?

We are alive together, we share consciousness, we share the earth, we share the universe, and we probably share the space of the afterlife too. So what would it take to live together in a way that appreciates our shared body, heart and mind–our shared reality?