I Am Not Separate From the World
the first notion of the diamond sutra
No paywalls here; but if you have the means to support, it helps pay the grocery bill and keep the lights on - thank you for your encouragement and support!
There may be spelling / grammar mistakes in my articles that make it through my editing, and that’s on purpose. I’m a recovering perfectionist (who was once VERY hard on himself) and one of the ways I’m learning to be compassionate on myself is by allowing mistakes to just … be.
Friends.
In Buddhism’s Diamond Sutra we are encouraged to throw away or release 4 different notions so that we can come to understand our True Selves … who we really are.
“Who we are?”, you might ask.
Yes, who we REALLY are beneath …
Who the world says we are.
Who the world says we SHOULD be.
Who our parents or families say we are.
Who we have come to think we are.
Who our friends say we are.
Who our employers say we are.
Who our teachers say we are.
Who our critics say we are!
Etc.
… because beneath all of that and all the many layers of thoughts and opinions about us lies our Truest Self.
Anyways.
Thich Nhat Hanh is (perhaps) one of the most well-known modern-day Buddhists. He passed away in 2022 but before he did he left us with a gold mine of writings and thoughts about Buddhism, life, and discovering our True Selves.
One of the last books he wrote (in 2021) is called “Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet” and it’s one of the most important books I’ve read in a while.
Well.
I’m only halfway through and so I suppose I should say that SO FAR it’s one of the most important books I’ve read in a while - it’s giving me A LOT to think about as I wonder about this life, our reason for being here, and our connectedness to each other and (really) everything in the universe.
Hanh says that according to the Diamond Sutra the first notion we must throw away is “the notion of self” or the idea that we have a “self” that is separated from the rest of the world …
That we are ourselves.
And.
Everyone and everything else in the entire universe is NOT us.
I don’t know about you, but this is what I grew up thinking … right? I’m me. My classmate is my classmate. My other classmate is my other classmate. My teacher is my teacher. My neighbor is my neighbor. Etc.
But then back in 2023 my father passed away.
And.
Honestly?
I think that’s the moment where a lot of my thinking about my “individual self” began to shift as I struggled to see myself as separated from my father. I remember when he passed away I was sitting at his bedside with my mom. The doctors had given him some medicine to relieve his pain and discomfort and they told us that it would only be a matter of minutes before he passed away.
What do you do with that information, right?
I remember feeling like I was holding the last grains of the sand of his life in my hands as they slowly seeped through my fingers. No matter what I did, no matter how tightly I held on … I couldn’t stop what was coming.
His breaths got shorter.
He made some noises.
He squeezed my hand.
And then … that was it.
I remember wishing that we could be connected forever and mulling over how unfair it was that he was taken from us, ripped from our lives and ripped from our arms far, far too soon.
And then it dawned on me.
A year or so beforehand I had read something by Thich Nhat Hanh in another one of his books where he said that the Universe is like a vast ocean and you, me, my dad, your mom, your dad, my classmate … we’re all like waves in that ocean.
As a wave, I rise up from the ocean - still connected to it.
As a wave, you rise up from the ocean - still connected to it.
As waves, we rise up to live our lives and go through a vast amount of experiences. Some of us rise higher than others and some of us rise up along the coastlines of the US while others in Europe, Austrailia, etc.
As waves, we’re always connected to the ocean - right? Even though the wave is a wave, it’s still the ocean. Each wave might be different, but as part of the ocean - each wave is the same.
Mind-boggling, isn’t it?
Anyways.
Regardless of where we rise up to live our lives.
Regardless of how long we soar along the ocean’s surface.
Regardless of how fast we travel.
… regardless of any of that, we all (eventually) meet the same fate - we either crash up against the sandy shore, hit up against a rock, meet an iceburg, or just slowly melt back into the ocean.
In other words.
We all die.
BUT.
When we do?
We simply fall back into the ocean from which we came in the first place, the very same ocean that we rose out of (and always remained connected to) during our wave-like-lives.
This helped me when my dad passed away because even though I (as a wave) still had more soaring to do and even though my dad had crashed up against a sandy beach to fall back into the ocean … I (as a wave) still remained connected to (and held up by!) the ocean into which my father sank back into after he took his last wave-like-breath.
In that sense we were still connected.
AND.
He wasn’t just soaring alongside of me - him a wave, and me a wave; now he would be holding me up as part of the ocean.
Do you see what I’m getting at? This, I think, is the first notion we have to let go of in regards to the Diamond Sutra - I am not a wave that is separate from other waves; instead, I am a wave that is connected to all other waves and connected to the ocean from which we all stand upon.
In other words, we are all connected - we are all one. I may be a wave and you may be a wave, but we are the ocean. I may be a wave and you may be a wave and the trees out in my woods may be waves and my cat might be a wave and the spiders in my shed might be waves and Donald Trump might be a wave … but we are all the ocean, we are all connected.
You.
Me.
My cat.
Spiders.
Donald Trump.
Your mom.
My dad.
My daughter.
Your child.
We are all one - we are all the Universe. You contain the Universe and I contain the Universe. There is no place where I stop and you begin just as there is no place where one wave ends and another begins.
The waves are waves and yet the waves are the ocean, they are one.
I am me and you are you and yet we are the Universe, we are one.
Perhaps this is why Jesus told us to “love our neighbors as ourselves” … because I (a wave) and my neighbor (another wave) are both the ocean. I am my neighbor and my neighbor is me and so whatever I do to my neighbor and whatever my neighbor does to me - we do that same thing to ourselves.
Or.
Maybe this is why Jesus said that super confusing thing in John 14:20 (that, now, maybe isn’t so confusing) - "on that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you."
Jesus is in God.
God is in Jesus.
I am in Jesus.
You are in Jesus.
My dad is in Jesus.
Donald Trump is in Jesus.
Joe Biden is in Jesus.
My neighbor is in Jesus.
Jesus is in God.
Yes, we are all connected, we are all the ocean … we all forever live in the Ocean of the Divine, we are never disconnected from it or each other - not at our highest wave-like moment or our lowest moment of crashing upon a beach.
We’re always connected.
We’re forever One.
And “on that day” in the hospital room while holding my father’s hand and feeling his breath leave his body - that’s the day I realized the depth behind Jesus’ words in John 14:20 … depth that I will ponder for the rest of my days, all the more in these days where everything and everyone feels so divided.
Much love.
Glenn || SUPPORT / ART STUDIO