Oneness

In my last blog, I talked about the Buddhist concept that all living things are like rivers--constantly changing, with nothing inside them that is exactly the same from moment to moment.  There has always been some movement in a river from moment to moment.  It looks like the same river, but all the water has moved from one blink of an eye to the next.  Similarly, from moment to moment, we look the same but new thoughts have popped into our heads, new emotions, new physical sensations, and we've become aware of new sights, sounds, and smells around us.  A Buddhist would say that, if you look within yourself in meditation, you quickly find that this is true, and that the stream of your mind and body never stops moving.

A river can also be used to illustrate another Buddhist concept about living things.  Living things are not separate from their surroundings.  It is convenient to TALK about your self and other living things as if they are fully independent and separate.  This kind of thinking helps people make plans for THEMSELVES as opposed to OTHERS.  But complete independence, just like complete permanence, is an illusion.

Where are the sharp boundaries between a river and its surroundings?  Do you "count" every stream, every trickle of water, and every raindrop that feeds into the river as "part of the river"?  Is the ocean that the river spills into part of the "river"?  Or is the river part of the ocean?  The water from the river penetrates the soil.  At what point does this water switch from "belonging" to the river to "belonging" to the ground?

Similarly, if "I" am the changing combination of thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and the changing state of my body, where can the line be drawn between "me" and my surroundings?  When you say something to me that gets me thinking or that changes my feelings, isn't this like a stream feeding a river, and therefore it is no longer clear where "you" stop and "I" start?  How about when I see or hear things around me?  Aren't these things "feeding" what then happens in my mind, the way streams "feed" the river?

If you agree that a living being's mind is fully connected with their surroundings, and that their heart is connected as well, it may seem that at least their physical body is separate and independent.  But is it?  As you inhale, the air flows into your nose.  Is it "you" yet?  It enters your lungs.  How about now?  The oxygen in the air diffuses into your blood.  Is this when it becomes "you"?  I read recently that a person has about 5 pounds of good and bad bacteria and other micro-organisms in the body helping with digestion and other functions.  Are these 5 pounds of germs "you"?

Ken Wilber wrote a great book called "No Boundary" that beautifully explores the idea that there is no such thing as fully independent existence, that it is all just one big, interconnected "now".  We divide this reality into separate "parts" in our minds and in our language just for practical purposes.  Literature about mystical experiences anywhere in the world and in any religion talk about feelings of "oneness" or "unity" with the universe.  Maybe what they have in common is that they have woken up to the reality of "oneness".  It was there all along.