I try to take a short walk every morning. That way, no matter what, I get this tiny bit of exercise in my day. While I walk, I almost always listen to Buddhist philosophy or other podcasts or books about ideas and ways of being. I am currently listening to The Art of Living by Thích Nhất Hạnh.
When Cloth in Common member Eunhee Lee gave us the prompt Cooperation & Sharing as a way to explore the Covid-19 Virus. I was stumped. What to do? Normally, an idea pops in my head and sticks, but this prompt felt very hard to translate into a quilt that would look like my work yet be related to the prompt.
My work is often abstract, so I tried googling connectivity and sharing. The most frequently shown images were about color, dots, puzzles, and hands. Maybe I can work with that?
So, I am walking and thinking and listening when Thích Nhất Hạnh begins to explain his idea of Interbeing. This quote is not in the book, but it is a great exampe to help us understand the idea.
“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are. If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.”
You can read the entire quote here.
I am not sure where I will go from here, but this is where I am at now.
Thank you so much for sharing this Maria. Much of this time in lockdown has been really challenging, especially the amount of time in physical isolation from friends and family, but this helps to give a shift in perspective on a broader scale, doesn’t it?
Thank you for this idea of interbeing. I’m alone on Mother’s Day, but with this thought I am also with my kids.
I have done a few Solent retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh in the past and have been changed as a result of time spent with him, his sangha and his books. You have captured so much in your blog and in your art of what interbeing is. And now, with our responsibility of doing what we can with our hands, including washing them, this piece of work is doubly meaningful. Thank you for a wonderful first read of mine this morning.
This work of yours is exactly what I needed on this Mother’s Day morning in the midst of a pandemic, and after weeks of sitting, long days of stitching, and days of my own long contemplative walks I have pushed to take… wondering why. Today, looking into your new work, I feel the angst and worry fading into calm and cohesive art-focused truth. Maria, you never fail to inspire and this is yourbest yet!