I am still thinking about Nikita Gill’s poem and these very particular times we live in. Times when we are called to think clearly about who we are as humans and how live together in this world. I want to say these are tumultuous times. The COVID-19 pandemic, political polarization, and passionate calls for justice have shaken us, maybe awakened some of us, and created fractures and shifts in our perspectives and lives. I want to say these are tumultuous times, but I also want to say that the turbulence is potentially transformative and positive. Good for us all. Needed.
In my last “random” I was rambling about my strong sense of humans as both elementally the same and entirely different, each one of us unique but not—all tied together in our shared humanity. I can’t stop thinking about how we as humans have known this for so long. How great thinkers, philosophers, theologians, writers, and leaders have known this. Yet, it is so difficult to see in practice. Those who have lived out this belief have often suffered greatly for doing so—King, Bonhoeffer, Ghandi, Jesus Christ, Joan of Arc, Mandela, Malcolm K, and many more.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about this inescapable human connection in his Letter from Birmingham Jail. He said, “In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men [humans] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…This is the inter-related structure of reality.” This has always been one of my favorite quotes by Dr. King. He so eloquently captures the essence of our human connections, amid the disconnection, suffering, and severity of the Birmingham jail. Centuries before Dr. King wrote this down, Chinese Buddhists described this kind of “network” in metaphysical terms–as Indra’s net.
“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions…the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each ‘eye’ of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars…If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.” –Francis Cook
In this way, Hua-yen Buddhists believe that despite outward appearances, everything is essentially the same and inevitably connected. Each jewel, each human, can only be seen in and through the others. I first learned about Indra’s net more than 25 years ago when in a Southern Lit class we read Ellen Gilchrist’s Net of Jewels. I can still remember being stirred by her reference to the Buddhist idea and the beauty and possibility in this conception of our interrelated humanity. I remember going to my college library and looking for information on the net of jewels after finishing the book, and 25 years later I still come back to it. I feel something in my soul—that this is the essence of our humanity and our human journey. A recognition and realization that we are part of an interconnected and interrelated network, a never-ending cycle of life made from stars. All the same, despite our outward differences in appearance. Unique because of the place we hold in the net and because of the reflections and refractions of light from all that surround us. A jewel always looks different depending on the light and where one stands when observing it.
Archbishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela describe our interconnectedness in terms of the African understanding and philosophy of ubuntu. In its simplest form, this is the belief that “I am, because of you.” Mandela said, “In Africa there is a concept known as ‘ubuntu’ – the profound sense that we are human only through the humanity of others; that if we are to accomplish anything in this world it will in equal measure be due to the work and achievement of others.”
Desmond Tutu explained, “A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are.”
So, what do we do with this knowing? We have knowledge, but by and large are not putting it into practice. As a collective we—we seem to know, at a surface level, but we still don’t understand. Don’t live out our daily lives as if we know deeply in our bones that we only exist because of the others around us. If we can believe in our interconnectedness and accept that we are part of one greater whole, living a life that affirms the value of each human and our shared humanity, then there is hope for change and for a better future. I hope that these unsettling and unstable times, bring at least some of the change we need and remind us that we are all stardust and jewels.
life of practice 