To Be Means to Inter-Be

In this short teaching, Thay gives a lesson on interconnectedness and impermanence by considering the Buddhist concept of emptiness. Emptiness doesn’t mean non-existence, he says, and gives us as an example, the paradox of a flower: a flower is full of the whole cosmos (the clouds, the rain, the sunshine, the earth), and yet she is empty of a separate existence; a flower cannot be by herself alone, yet she is full of everything else. We therefore learn that in the Buddhist tradition being means inter-being and existing means co-existing.

Excerpt from: "The River of Mind" Dharma Talk, 2011.09.08 (Deer Park Monastery)