One Person, One Tree, One Planet – One and the Same

One Person, One Tree, One Planet – One and the Same

Discussion date: Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at our weekly Thursday evening practice

Dear Still Water Friends,

 

One Person, One Tree, One Planet – One and the Same
Thursday, June 18, 2009

 

Dear Friends,

In Thich Nhat Hanh’s book The World We Have chapters seven and eight are Caring for the Environmentalist and The City With One Tree. In these chapters Thay is asking us to think about interconnectedness and interdependence from two perspectives. First he asks us to consider that to be engaged and to influence the future of our world we need the power that comes from insight. We have to be present and taking care of ourselves, by taking care of the environmentalist we are taking care of the environment. I appreciate this notion because it frees me when I get caught up worrying about the scale of our global issues and wondering what I can do that might actually be helpful.

Then Thay zooms out and asks us to consider the heart beating in our bodies and to think about the sun – if the heart in our bodies stops beating we die – and if the sun explodes or stops functioning we also die. If we take care of ourselves, if we are present and true to ourselves then we realize we are the trees, the rivers, the animals, the air and the minerals. The sun is our heart, the trees are the lungs outside our bodies – micro – macro – it’s all connected and all the same.

This Thursday we will share our reflections on these chapters.

Smiles,

Abbie

 


“… Nothing has a separate self, and nothing exists by itself. If we examine things carefully we see that all phenomena, including ourselves, are composites. We are made up of other parts. We are made up of our mother and father, our grandmothers and grandfathers, our body, our feelings, our perceptions, our mental formations, the earth, the sun and innumerable non-self elements. All these parts depend on causes and conditions. We see that all that has existed, exists or will exist is interconnected and interdependent.…“

Thich Nhat Hanh from No Death, No Fear

For more great images of Earth check out:

http://www.visibleearth.nasa.gov/

Discussion Date: Thu, Jun 18, 2009


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