Buddist Text: The Heart of Understanding Thich Nhat Hanh - Essay Example

We may be able to see a figurative “sunshine” on the paper after a poet or a writer has written something that will move us but not the literal sunshine. The definition of the word interbeing in itself is confusing and in fact, can even be contradictory in terms. Especially when Thich Nhat Hanh mentioned that “you cannot just be by yourself alone” (10). Dissecting the terms and their meaning in his text, he seemed to contradict himself of what he meant by being alone because being alone is being without anyone else and how could I not be alone with myself when nobody is no longer around?

Of course, I am already alone by myself then. (b) Defend his argument by adding additional evidence or crafting an additional logical proof  Thich Nhat Hanh’s Interbeing has to be read in the greater context of the belief system in which it operates which is Buddhism. Reading it by itself without inferring to a greater context of which it has to serve a purpose, the text will render the reader confused, with the author’s work becoming pointless because the text cannot be understood as it is full of contradictions and stretched-out connections.

It will also be very difficult to understand because the allegory does not make any sense. In the text, Thich Nhat Hanh’s mentioned that it is just not possible that “you cannot just be by yourself alone” but I already am when nobody is around. And we cannot see the paper at the same time (Thich Nhat Hanh 9) because you are not here with me looking at the same text that I am reading. You may be looking at the same text but it would be another copy of the text, not the exact paper that I am reading.

But in Thich Nhat Hanh’s perspective, we can be looking at the same paper even without your physical presence. To appreciate Thich Nhat Hanh's text, we have to understand the theology of the Bhavat Gita that motivated the meaning of Interbeing. While Bhagavad Gita is as common to the Buddhist as the Bible to the Christian, it is still a strange idea to a non-Buddhist especially if the reader’s perspective is oriented towards western philosophy and using it as a yardstick for understanding the text.

The text is reflective of Bhavat Gita’s concept of karma that everything is just a cycle and interrelated including life and death. This process of karma is ever continuing to improve one’s karma until enlightenment and vijnana are achieved. So everything in this world is in a continuum and nothing exists by itself because all is subjected to the law of karma which is cyclical and interrelated. When Thich Nhat Hanh mentioned that “you just cannot be alone by yourself” it was logical when viewed from the perspective of a Buddhist.

“To be” is to be “internet” because nature’s natural order of things is for us to be in commune with everything around us that there is no such thing as “just yourself”. To be “yourself” meant “to be with” because the natural order of the “self” is to serve karma which necessitates being “internet”. Under this lens, seeing the parents of the logger or the sunshine on the paper is no longer improbable or illogical.