Interbeing

The Roots of Experience

How Things Arise and fall

The Common Ground of All Experience

Exploring the Mystery of Experience

How can we begin to explore the mystery of our experience—to come to know what lies beneath everything we see, feel, and think? Whether we look outward at the world or inward at the mind’s movements, what is the essence that remains unchanged beneath all appearances? Is there a core presence that underlies both physical objects and mental thoughts?

Two Doors: Outward and Inward

Let’s open two doors to this mystery: one that leads to the world outside, and one that turns inward.

The Life Cycle of an Apple

Imagine an apple hanging ripe on a tree. For this apple to appear, countless conditions must come together—sunlight, water, soil, warmth, the seed planted in earth. These conditions combine in perfect harmony, giving birth to the apple’s shape, color, and sweetness.

But this apple’s life is not permanent. Over time, it ripens and begins to decay. The water within its cells vibrates less and less until it dries out. Its skin wrinkles, its flesh softens and disintegrates. Bit by bit, the apple returns to the earth, fading away until nothing remains but the soil from which it grew.

When the apple disappears, what remains is not mere emptiness but a profound stillness—the silent space that was always there before the apple’s appearance and remains after its passing. This silence is not an object; it is the calm, vast presence in which the apple’s form arose and dissolved.

The Rise and Fall of a Thought

Now consider a thought. Like the apple, a thought arises from countless causes—memories, sensations, desires. It appears clearly and occupies the mind’s stage for a while. Then, just as the apple fades, the thought dissolves into silence.

This silence is not blank or lifeless. It is alive with awareness. The mind becomes still, and in that stillness, awareness recognizes itself—not as an object to be grasped, but as the very presence in which thoughts come and go.

Awareness and Silence: A Self-Recognizing Presence

We tend to mistake this silent awareness as an object, like the apple or the thought itself. But it is not. It is self-recognition—awareness knowing its own stillness, just as water recognizes itself as wetness, fire recognizes itself as warmth, and warmth recognizes itself as fire. Just as wetness cannot be separated from water, and warmth cannot be separated from fire, so too silence and awareness are inseparable aspects of the same reality. The silence that remains after the apple or the thought is the silent, knowing presence that is always here.

The Observer and the Vacuum: Science Meets Awareness

To see how the outer world and inner awareness are deeply linked, consider an experiment from physics. Scientists create a perfect vacuum—a space entirely empty of matter. They measure and confirm the emptiness. But when a conscious observer looks into this vacuum, an atom suddenly appears. When the observer looks away or leaves, the atom vanishes.

This remarkable finding reveals that the vacuum—the so-called “empty” space—is not truly independent of observation. The presence of an observer brings forth existence. Without awareness, the vacuum remains empty; with it, phenomena arise.

This shows that the observer and the observed are not separate but intertwined. The physical world’s coming into being depends on awareness, just as awareness reveals itself through the world. The silence that remains after the apple dissolves is the same silence within us, the silent awareness that witnesses all.

The Unity of Inner and Outer Silence

Whether it is the stillness left in the space where an apple once was, or the silence after a thought fades, these are not two different silences but one. The silence outside and the silence inside mingle and become one. This is the silence of being aware—the foundation of all experience.

The Space Between: Awareness, Silence, and the Gap

The silence left after all conditions disappear can be found between two thoughts, two emotions, and in the spaces between objects. This silence is inseparable from awareness—it is self-aware because it is awareness itself.

Understanding this awareness means recognizing the gap between that which is observed and the one observing. The wider this gap becomes, the less we cling to what is observed—those shifting thoughts, feelings, and forms that arise and vanish.

By expanding this distance, we rest more fully in awareness, in the stillness that cannot be pulled away by the fleeting objects of perception. We begin to see the illusion of labels and the object-subject divide and realize they cannot define who we truly are.

It is in this spacious resting place—in this mystery of observation—that the depth of our own being reveals itself.

Beyond Inside and Outside: The Ground of All Experience

So whether we look outward into the physical world or inward into the mind, the journey leads us to the same profound ground. This ground is neither inside nor outside, for it cannot be grasped or located. It is the silent presence that allows all things to appear and disappear.

In this silent, still awareness, the dance of subject and object dissolves. There is no longer “me” or “apple,” “observer” or “thought.” There is only the luminous presence—naked awareness, knowing itself beyond all duality.

🌿 The Concept of InterBeing as Interconnectivity

A World of Shared Existence and the Grace of Letting Go

In the heart of all existence lies a quiet truth: nothing exists on its own. Every object, every being, every thought, breath, and sensation arises not from itself, but from a network of causes and conditions. This is the essence of interbeing—the deep interconnection and interdependence of all things.

We tend to perceive the world through the lens of separation. A flower appears as a single, self-contained object. A tree stands distinct from the soil around it. A person seems to be an individual, moving through the world in isolation. But when we look more closely, the boundary between one thing and another begins to blur.

Take a flower. Its color, shape, and fragrance do not arise by themselves. Sunlight, rain, minerals from the soil, the work of bees, and even the passing of time—all flow into it. Without these elements, there is no flower. And when the flower fades, it returns its nutrients to the earth, its fragrance to the wind, and its seeds to future blossoms. It gives itself back to the conditions that once gave it form.

So too with us. When we breathe, we draw in the world. Oxygen enters our lungs, travels through our blood, and nourishes every cell. That air becomes us—becomes thought, movement, warmth, and life. And when we exhale, we give back. The carbon dioxide we release becomes nourishment for the trees, who in turn return oxygen for others to breathe. In every breath, we borrow from the world and offer something in return. In every moment, we are composed of what is not us.

This interbeing goes deeper than biology. Our thoughts are shaped by language we did not invent. Our emotions rise in the context of relationships and past experience. Even our sense of self—the “me” we hold onto so tightly—is a mosaic built from countless encounters, ideas, habits, and impressions. We are not self-made. We are continuously shaped by everything we are not.

And yet, we suffer when we forget this. We suffer when we grasp at things as if they were fixed and separate. We cling to our body, our possessions, our ideas, as if they could last forever. But the truth is, nothing remains unchanged. Everything moves. Everything flows. Trying to hold on to the impermanent is like trying to hold our breath forever. We can try, but it becomes uncomfortable. Painful even. The breath wants to move. It wants to be released.

This simple example teaches us everything. Just as we cannot inhale and hold the breath forever without exhaling, we cannot cling to the things of life and expect them to remain. If we try to freeze anything—our youth, our status, our relationships, even our own thoughts—they eventually find a way to change, to dissolve, to move on. That is their nature. And when we fight that, we suffer.

But from this insight comes freedom. Interbeing reveals not just how things are connected, but also why we must let go. Letting go is not loss. Letting go is recognition of what already is. It is the wisdom to stop resisting change and to flow with life, just as breath flows in and flows out.

And when we let go, something quiet happens. There is a silence—not the silence of absence, but the silence of presence. A stillness that arises when we stop grasping. In that stillness, there is awareness. Pure, gentle, clear. It was always there, but cluttered by our effort to hold on.

This is the grace of interbeing. It shows us that nothing belongs to us—not even our thoughts, our breath, or our body. But in that realization, we are not diminished. We are opened. We are returned to the vast field of being where everything touches everything else, and nothing needs to be clung to.

To live with this understanding is to live in peace. To breathe in, to breathe out, and to rest—not in possession, but in presence.