Written by: Bill O'Brien, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Thich Nhat Hanh died on January 22, 2022. He was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who was exiled from his homeland for advocating peace during the Vietnam War. His home government did not want peace; they wanted victory. He established himself in southern France at a spiritual community he founded called Plum Village. For decades he travelled to the United States to help heal the wounded psyches of American veterans of the war.
In 2014 he suffered a stroke which rendered him an invalid for the remaining eight years of his life. His students created a book called “Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet”, just published in 2021. In the book, the students gathered Thay’s thoughts and then provided commentary. (“Thay” means teacher and it’s what his students call him.)
The centerpiece of Thay’s solution for saving the Earth is the pursuit of mysticism. (Keep readingJ). Mysticism is the experience of direct connection with our Source, often referred to by the name “God”. The reason that mysticism can help to save Mother Earth is that it encourages the experience of non-duality. This in turn means the felt awareness that all is One. “One” here means that we are one with all of the universe: the minerals, the plants, the animals, the stars, all that exists.
A beginning step toward all this is to understand a Buddhist concept called Interbeing. Imagine you are holding a pencil in your hand. The pencil is made of wood. The wood came from a tree. So the tree is in the pencil. The tree was nurtured by the sun and the soil, so the sun and soil are also in the pencil. Woodsmen came and chopped down the tree and prepared it for the trip to the market. Others came and transported the wood to the plant where it would be planned. So the woodsmen and all those involved so far are in the pencil.
Now the woodsmen, etc., would not be involved if they were not alive. This means that their parents who gave them life are in the pencil. In turn, the parents of those parents are in the pencil. We can continue this process until all people and everything that exists is to be found in the pencil.
This is the concept of Interbeing. Buddhism sees our Source in everything so if a Buddhist turns within he or she does not invoke the Other but sees it all, and ourselves, as part and parcel of the One. This is the concept of Non-duality. In other words “God” is not some Other but inseparable from all that is. That which Christians call “God” is, in Buddhism, the life force. Does this sound similar to the teaching of Jesus that he had to go so that the Spirit would come?
Once we experience and integrate Interbeing and Non-duality, we come to see all that is as one with ourselves and we in turn as one with all that is. This awareness dramatically increases our concern to save Mother Earth because She is Us.
Several times a week, Bill publishes an educational/inspirational message called "Wisdomkeepers".
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Bill O'Brien, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Bill O'Brien has decades of experience helping individuals and groups expand their awareness of the capacities of their inner selves, their full, or divine, potential. He utilizes a range of methods to expand consciousness from meditation to self-knowledge techniques to guided imagery to shamanic healing methodologies such as Illumination and Soul Retrieval. With his Consciousness Coaching, experience is the touchstone. The goal is drawing up into conscious awareness the infinite contents of the individual unconscious. Bill spent twenty years in the Jesuit Order before launching out on the great adventure of the discovery of the Self. His Wisdomkeepers reach a worldwide audience. He is the author of "Wise Guyde: The First Forty-Five Columns" available on Amazon. His mission: feeding the spiritual hunger of the world by healing and elevating human consciousness.
