Trying to find new ways to explain what I’ve tried to explain before is always an interesting challenge. In this morning’s online class with some good friends back in Indiana, I was struck by another way to think of how we are not separate.
One of the main teachings in Buddhism is that there is no independent self, we are in actuality, all one. This is one of the most difficult principles to grasp because our eyes tell us we are separate. I’m inside my skin and the rest of you are outside of me and inside your own skin. So we certainly all appear to be separate. And we do look quite different.
But if we think down to the basic building blocks of say protons and neutrons, or even quarks, those are in each of my cells. They are also in the air around me, they are in the window I look through, in the trees beyond the window, in the clouds, and even in the stars that I know are there even if I cannot see them during the day.
The same particles that make up my body are in everything around me. They take different forms: me, the window, the trees, and the sky. But inside of me, my skin that encloses me, and the air next to my skin are all made of the same atomic particles: quarks, neutrons, and protons. So there really is no separation. What comprises me, comprises everything in the universe.
I truly am one with everything.