"An Excursion into the Interdependent Web of all Existance"
Rev. Dr. Joshua Snyder, August 20, 2000
The seventh principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association is Respect for the Interdependent Web of all existence of which we are all a part. Recently, this principle was brought to life for me in a rather vivid way. When I was in Boston this past week, I went for a walk with a couple of the other participants in the Extension Ministry Training. On this particular evening we went for a walk through the Boston Common and the Public Garden that are directly in front of the Unitarian Universalist Headquarters. Occasionally while walking through the garden at night, the street lights would illuminate the side walks where rats would also be taking an evening stroll. When one of my companions would see one of these rats scurrying through the public gardens, I would comment, Yeah, that is the interdependent web at work!
You will not hear me preach on the Principles and Purposes very often. I have no great disdain for them, but every time I read them I always feel like they say too little. What is the interdependent web? Where did they come up with that? This morning I wish to share with you some of what I have come up with in trying to flesh out the idea of the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part.
When I think about the interdependent web of all existence, I think of something grand and cosmic. In my opinion, this idea is at the heart of Unitarian Universalist theology. The interconnectedness of all life is at the heart of what I hold to be of ultimate concern. It is the centerpiece of much of the Unitarian and Universalist thought today. It is an idea that stretches back at least as far as our Transcendentalist forbearers of the nineteenth century. Emerson=s Oversoul is not unlike the interdependent web of existence as it is understood in such widely different fields as ecology, physics, economics, mysticism, social justice, biology, theology, and spirituality. The interdependent web, or an idea or assumption analogous to it, can be found in all of these areas of study, as well as in a number of theologies professed by Unitarian Universalists.
The Universalist theologian Clarence Skinner wrote an essay entitled AThe Unity of Universals@ in the 1920s. I like the title of the essay because he includes AUnity@ as in Unitarian, and Universals as in Universalist. In his essay, Skinner emphasizes that the universal cosmic forces of science, astronomy, and cosmology, were united in describing a universe that is grand and infinite. As today=s responsive reading said, we are the remnants of the stars. All of the elements of the Earth were created during the nuclear reactions at the core of the stars. We live, and have evolved, on a big dust ball from the remnants of stars that exploded long ago. Skinner notes that scientific observations of the universe begin to sound like the poetic or spiritual observations of people like William Blake. In Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he claimed that Heaven and Hell feed off of each other. That they are really just two aspects of the world we live in. Angels and demons are really the same thing, it just depends upon how you look upon them. Your inner demons can becomes angels of grace, and the blessings we receive may in fact be curses in disguise.
Unitarian Universalists are not the only ones to note the interdependent nature of the world. Humanists have pointed out that really it is an important discovery of modern science. Darwin described how species are able to fit into their environment. When a change occurs within the natural environment, the living organisms that are effect must either adapt to this change or go extinct. These organisms are dependent upon the food, water and air of their environment for their survival. The interdependence of our natural world on our lives is perhaps hidden to us, or taken for granted, in our everyday lives, but it is real all the same.
Native Americans are also keenly aware of the interdependent nature of their existence and that of the rest of the world. In many Native American cultures, there is the belief that all things are alive and have souls. They feel that to kill anything, even for food and shelter, is to take away the soul of the animal or tree that they are killing. In order to not incur the wrath of such spirits, they pray to the spirits for forgiveness and ask for assistance in the hunt. These prayers are a reminder to them that in order for them to exist, so too must other living beings exist. It seems obvious. It is obvious; and that is the problem. When the truth is too obvious, it becomes obvious and everyone ignores it.
Buddhists implore us to wake up to the interconnected nature of all things. The word Buddha means the one who has awakened. The Buddha woke up from the malaise of existence to see how precious and special each thing and each person is. He understood that his existence depended upon the existence of all other beings. He did not turn into a God, he did not get any magical powers. He felt deeply the pain and suffering of others as if it were his own. Kind of like Bill Clinton only more sincere! The Buddha experienced the interdependent web at the core of his being.
The interdependent web of all existence can even be found in Christianity. Despite the tendency toward dualistic thinking that divides the world into the saved and the damned, some mystically oriented Christians believe that God is very close to the interdependent web of life. Citing the scriptural passage in Corinthians that says that the Church is the Body of Christ, these mystics expanded the idea to include all of the universe. Everything, all of creation, is part of the Body of Christ. This was the idea that lead our Universalist forbearers to assert that God loved everyone and that no one would go to hell. Today, the idea that all of creation is the Body of Christ can be found in the creation spirituality of Matthew Fox.
Thich Nhat Hanh is perhaps the most eloquent writer about the interdependent web. Thich Nhat Hanh, is a Zen monk from Vietnam and a peace activist. He has written extensively on Buddhism and meditation. In a number of his books he outlines the following exercise. Take for example a piece of paper. Nhat Hanh claims that there is a cloud that floats above that piece of paper. Paper, as we all know, is made by trees. Trees require earth, sunshine, carbon dioxide, and water. The water comes from an aquifer in the ground that is fed by rain water. Rain comes from clouds. When we look at a piece of paper, we should see the tree, the water, the rain and the cloud. All of them are necessary in order for the page to printed and the sermon to be read. Without the cloud there would be no water, no tree, no paper, no page, no sermon. This is why some Buddhists texts talk of Emptiness and claim that there is no eye, no ear, no tongue, no mind etcY The Buddhists do not claim that these things do not exist, but that they do not exist as isolated, independent, and autonomous beings. In Buddhism the interdependent web that includes all of existence is called Emptiness or The Tao.
I remember one of the most powerful religious experiences I ever had about the interdependent web. I have found that talking about religious experiences can be very difficult. The experience cannot be put readily into words. It can only be felt. I cannot make you fell what I did, so this story is not particularly amazing to hear. There was no blinding light and a vision on the road to Damascus. I was simply walking to church. It was in the Fall when I was in college, I lived within walking distance to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Ann Arbor. I walked past a maple tree whose leaves were turning colors when the wind picked up slightly. I saw some leaves begin to fall from the tree to the ground. I felt like I was watching the circle of life complete itself. The leaf falls to the ground, decays and becomes dirt and feeds the tree the next spring. Nothing is created or destroyed, just put back into the cosmic recycling bin to be reborn as something else. I saw a little bit of that interdependence experienced so fully by the Buddha and other great religious leaders.
The interdependent web effects not only physical relationships such as trees and leaves and paper, but psychological and emotional states are also dependent upon other things in our environment. I know I am because of the food I eat and the air I breath. But my mind and personality are likewise shaped by interactions with others. Psychoanalysts point out that trauma or love in early childhood reverberates throughout the rest of our lives. Hitler was abused as a child. Mother Theresa was dearly loved by her large Albanian family. We understand the world through our minds, influenced by the languages we speak. How might I see the world differently if I spoke Swahili instead of English? Or Navaho?
Perhaps the most interesting area where I have seen the interdependent web is in the field of economics. Economics is not usually regarded as the most spiritual of disciplines, but I think there can be important lessons learned from all fields of human interest. Interdependence is well understood by economists. A drop in the stock markets in Asia a few years ago caused anxiety among investors here in America. Everyone keeps an eye on what is going on in Germany, England, Japan, and Hong Kong to get some idea as to how to invest here in America. I remember a few years ago I was doing some meditation in the afternoon. After I finished I turned on the TV to watch the evening news while I was cooking dinner. I only had one ear on the news while I was boiling some water in the other room. Then I heard Tom Brokaw say that the Dow had gone up twenty-five points. It is funny sometimes right after you have done some meditation how common simple phrases take on metaphysical significance. The Tao has gone up twenty-five points. It is odd to think that the Tao, the Mother of all Things, the Ground of Being, had gone up by twenty-five points.
It made me wonder about similarities between the Tao and the Dow. Both are mysterious and unpredictable. Yet in spite of this unpredictability, both Taoists and stockbrokers employ esoteric signs in order to interpret the future. But it is not all by the numbers. There is some quasi-mystical underpinning to it all. Everyone controls the Dow through buying and selling, and yet it is larger than any one person. Alan Greenspan is almost like the Pope. Everyone listens to what he is going to say. Every word and inflection is interpreted for its nuance of meaning. I am always impressed by how much the stock market is influenced by feelings, anxiety over inflation, excitement over quarterly earnings. Of course the financial Dow is not the interconnected web of all existence, just a part of existence. But we can see how interdependence effects even our money and our financial future.
To experience the interdependence of the web of life is to have a small taste of enlightenment. But this experience is relatively rare. The true practice of religion is not only the attempt to have a mystical experience of the oneness of everything. In fact I would argue that those mystical experiences are but only a part of the larger task of living our lives in light of the feeling of intimate connection. Our true religious task is to go forth from the place in which we have had a mystical experience and to go out and apply that experience to the world.
To me the most impressive moment in the history of Buddhism was not the enlightenment of the Buddha. Rather the most impressive moment in Buddhism is when the Buddha left the place where he experienced the interdependent web, and went out to help others who were suffering. This is the religious life. To go out into the world, to engage in the problems, pain, suffering, and hurt of the world and try to be some comfort to others.
This makes sense from an ethical standpoint. The experience of connection and dependence, that my existence and well being is dependent upon your existence and well being, leads to an ethic of mutual concern. This of course leads to a widening of the notion of self. I am able to identify with others more deeply when the interdependent web is understood at a gut level. Martin Buber, the Jewish mystic and philosopher, described this as an I-Thou relationship. The experience of God for Buber comes in the form of interconnection when the line between I and Thou narrows, and the two come together. I and Thou are interconnected and interdependent. The Indian writer Shantideva, sounding an awful lot like the Apostle Paul, once noted that his hand would not refuse to protect his foot simply because they are different. His hand and his foot are both connected to the body of Shantideva. If one of them is wounded, the whole body could die. Recognizing their interdependent relationship, the hand and the foot protect each other.
The interconnection between I and Thou lay at the heart of Unitarian Universalist theology. That means I will be returning to this idea again and again in the month and year ahead. I think that one of the reasons that Unitarian Universalists emphasize community and relationality so much is because we understand that whatever the sacred may be, it thrives when we are in a mutually healthy relationship. Those relationships are the strands that run along the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part. To know that inter-relatedness of all to all is to have understanding. To experience it is to have enlightenment. To live it is to radiate compassion and a reverence for all life. May we all be able to accomplish all three. Amen Blessed Be.