In this heartfelt talk, Sensei Monshin Nannette Overley examines the Buddha’s foundational teaching of dependent co-arising in light of our deep responsibility towards our beautiful and fragile earth, and our fellow human beings.

The essential question she takes up is this: How can we come to see the teaching of inter-being, not as a doctrine or a philosophy, but as an insight that can help us live life more deeply, suffer less, and live in joyful, dynamic collaboration with all beings? Evoking the deep ecology teachings of Joanna Macy and Robin Wall Kimmerer, she encourages us to practice what Thich Nhat Hahn calls “looking deeply.”

“When we look deeply into any one thing we see that everything else is contained in it. Seeing through the clear and loving eyes of inter-being, our compassionate response naturally arises. To see through these eyes, we have to remember to remember who we really are. It is hard to remember who we are when in our modern world we are so isolated and exiled from the rhythms, the heartbeat, of the great earth.”

Seeing through the eyes of inter-being, we naturally begin to care for things, and as we care for things, including other human beings, we feel less isolated, less vulnerable, part of a web and held in this web.

Our precious planet urgently needs us to engage in what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls “the moral covenant of reciprocity.” In conclusion, Monshin asks us each to consider what we each need to do to restore our relationship to the world, what gifts we can give, and how we might serve.

“What will melt the walls of your heart? What helps you remember to remember who you are?”