**Interbeing** is a concept introduced by Thich Nhat Hanh to describe the underlying relationships between phenomena and experiences. It represents matter as in a continuous state of transformation, between creation and decay, and thus seemingly disparate objects possess a shared identity. A cloud condenses into rain which falls onto a tree that is harvested into pulp and made into paper. In Hanh’s model, the paper is a cloud, as well as sunlight, the tree, and each of these *inter-are* together. Hanh argues that none of these things can exist without the other, that each is the sum of the relationships that contribute to its composition, and that any experience of separateness is an illusion created by the mind. Carl Sagan suggests a similar idea in *Cosmos* with his quip, “If you wish to make an apple pie, you must first invent the universe,” and his position that everyone is made of stardust.[^1] Brian Swimme makes a the same argument with his philosophy of allurement, "You take hydrogen gas, and you leave it alone, and it turns into rosebushes, giraffes, and humans."[^2] These are allegories of the anthropic principle, the proposition in physics that any theory of the universe must account for beings who are able to observe, study, and understand it. The same idea is present in the concept of the second body[^3]. Each of us possess a [[The kosha model#Annamaya Kosha|meat body]] that moves with us throughout our lives, but we also have an “[[The kosha model#Vijnanamaya kosha|ecosystems body]] [...] tethered — in ways both identifiable and mysterious — to microbes, mosquitoes, whales, ice shelves, landfills, and annual average rainfall, as well as, of course, human political and social formations.”[^4] Realizing this [[Deep Interlock|interlock]] allows us to recognize the [impermanence](https://goldenbuddha.org/2018/04/12/you-are-not-a-permanent-person-by-ajahn-sumedho/) of our personhood and cultivate compassion towards these other aspects of ourselves. Interbeing is a spiritual understanding [[Ecopsychology]], one that requires less scientific knowledge and merely the presence of mind to recognize relationships between physiological needs, emotional experience, and material phenomena. I had a fortune cookie slip that I kept in my wallet for years and years and years that read, "Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought," and informed much of how how thought about litter. Ordinarily, I throw my litter in the wastebasket, but I also know that I can just throw it in the gutter and ignore it, because Nature is going to reconstitute it somehow. Any anxiety that I feel over litter and its processes is actually demonstrating my own ignorance of how transformation occurs, the time span in which it occurs, or my attachment to who the transformation affects. [^1]: Sagan, C. (1980). Cosmos (First edition). Random House. [^2]: Bridle, Susan (2001). ["Comprehensive Compassion: An Interview with Brian Swimme"](http://www.thegreatstory.org/SwimmeWIE.pdf) (PDF). _What Is Enlightenment? Magazine_. No. 19. Retrieved 2024-08-14. [^3]: Hildyard, D. (2017). _The second body_. Fitzcarraldo Editions. [reference link](https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/31740/) [^4]: Wilk, E. (2022). _Death by landscape_. Catapult. [reference link](https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gIlLEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=death+by+landscape&ots=y3l_gOP50T&sig=J_ZHSzdJHiJsE6wIEOwG6LJ_fJ8#v=onepage&q=death%20by%20landscape&f=false)