[Note: This is the final installment in a multi-part series reflecting on how a shift in our personal and collective perspectives can do wonders for achieving a new sense of balance within ourselves and the world. Read Part 1 (Perspective: Why a Shift is Needed and How You Can Do It). Read Part 2 (Consumption Junction: 5 Steps Towards Reclaiming the Lost Art of Moderation). Read Part 3 (Imagining a World Without Labels).]

“When the sense of the earth unites with the sense of one’s body, one becomes earth of the earth, a plant among plants, an animal born from the soil and fertilizing it. In this union, the body is confirmed in its pantheism.” — Dag Hammarskjöld

Since starting the week off with the Oneness With the Earth meditation from Thich Nhat Hahn, it makes sense to conclude this series on perspectives with the concept of interbeing.

The essence of interbeing is that we are all made of the same elemental stuff – from carbon to oxygen to hydrogen to the energy that holds it all together. It’s just the combinations and resulting forms that are different. When you look at it this way, these elemental commonalities should serve to bind us more than divide. As we all know, that is far from the case.

Thay (as Thich Nhat Hahn’s students call him) uses the wonderful example of a cloud to help illustrate this. After the rain falls from a cloud it does not disappear. Rather the water – which was the cloud – is now taken in by everything from trees to the wheat that makes your bread to you and I. Thus, while the ‘cloud’ is no longer visible in the sky, it lives on in and through us. Eventually, all living things give up this water and its elements are returned to the eco-sphere in various shapes and forms. The cloud lives on.

Granted, this concept takes a bit of work to grab hold of. We’re conditioned to live and think in the concreteness of material things. Thing X is only Thing X and nothing else. This is because we only see what is on the outside, failing to dive deeper and perceive what lies beneath the surface. Maybe that’s why we are so hell-bent on labels. Everything must fit within a nice little defined box. How limiting.

But when we begin to change our perspective and see the inter-being of all things, we can begin take amazing steps towards living more deeply each and every day. We begin to truly appreciate the interdependence of ALL life and see ourselves not as above or apart from it, but rather an integral part of the mix. The collective Whole is much happier when all its parts are balanced.

Realizing this oneness is a necessary step in seeing our day-to-day in a new way: A way that allows us to view our problems – whether with society, the environment or within ourselves – AND their solutions in a new light. Embracing the interbeing of all life causes us to slow down, to appreciate, to begin to understand that big question of WHY a bit more.

Breaking down the barriers between people, the planet and the collective Life we all live is a noble pursuit. More and more people are challenging long-held perceptions and beliefs; seizing the power of creation over the complacency and mundane life of being just another cog in the created-follower wheel; shedding the unnecessary elements in life and focusing on what brings true happiness.

It starts with each one of us and spreads from there. How will you change your perspective today?

Be well,
Bill

[I hope you enjoyed this series on perspectives. If you found value in any of it, please consider re-tweeting if you're on Twitter or sharing using one of the other social media tools below. Many thanks. Image: Paul Bradley via flickr.]