Indra’s Net and the Cosmic Christ

Thich Nhat Hanh needs no introduction. He is my favorite Zen master, who has a talent for expressing very complicated ideas in simple, poetic form. In a short piece called Paper and Clouds, he wrote:

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.

Yes, if we look deep enough, we can see the cloud, the rain, the forest, and the entire cosmos on a simple piece of paper. This is possible because all things in the universe are necessarily related. In just a short paragraph, Thich Naht Hanh manages to spell out the intricate Hua Yen philosophy of All in one and one in all — in a piece of paper we can see the cosmos, and the cosmos cannot exist without the piece of paper. The individual a reflection of the whole and the whole is a reflection of the individuals. In our daily lives, we tend to think of different things and different events as separate and not connected. Yet, on a deep level, all things have subtle connections. Spirituality has much to do with developing this deeper vision so that we can see the unity in all things.

Interconnectedness is a universal truth. This truth can be seen in nature, in the sciences, and in the economy. In my book, The Zen Teachings of Jesus, I have a chapter on love. I wrote that compassion is not a matter of charity, pity, or sympathy. Rather, compassion is a result of “seeing the interconnectedness in all things and recognizing that this is a participatory universe in which we are all one.” Thich Nhat Hanh wrote beautifully on interconnectedness by taking a look at the reality of prostitution in Manila and other big cities. Typically, there are many young women who are forced into the skin trade due to poverty. There are actually documentaries made to shed light on how many young women become prostitutes because their families are too poor. They are despised by society and they feel ashamed of themselves. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote:

But if (the young prostitute) could look deeply at herself and at the whole situation, she would see…