“When we look deeply into a sheet of paper, we see that it’s full of everything in the cosmos: the sunshine, the trees, the clouds, the earth, the minerals, everything—except for one thing. It’s empty of one thing only: a separate self. The sheet of paper cannot be by itself alone. That is why the word inter-be can be more helpful than the word be. In fact, to be means to inter-be. The sheet of paper cannot be without the sunshine, cannot be without the forest. The sheet of paper has to inter-be with the sunshine, to inter-be with the forest.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh from Fear

When we look deeply enough, we can see everything.

Take a single leaf of romaine lettuce bought from the store. What do you see?

The seed, the earth, the minerals, the sunshine, the clouds, the rain.

Look deeper and we see the farmers; the merchants who sold it; the people who built the roads for the trucks; the people who built the trucks; the people who built the parts to the truck and the people who gathered the raw materials for those parts. Then there are the people who supported those people….

Then there’s the transport you take to get there. Who built it? Who made the clothes and shoes you wear to the store? Where did you get the money to purchase all that? And on and on and on.

All in a single leaf of romaine lettuce.

As Nhat Hanh describes, the only thing we *don’t* see is a separate self.

Everything truly is connected. Everything.

Here’s to embracing interbeing more and more in our day to day lives.