Is the Interdependence We Have the Interdependence We Need?

I get nervous — ornery, even — when I hear a boatload of Buddhist sweet talk about "interdependence." From what I've seen, interdependence has gained currency as a feel-good word, associated with a pleasant subjective experience of expansiveness, connection, and love. But it can be incredibly misleading when disconnected from an understanding of power.Maybe that's why I find myself intrigued by this video by Al Jazeera, which, in its own way, discusses interdependence (or interconnection) in relation to the global food crisis.FACTS ABOUT RISING FOOD PRICES:

• The World Bank says global food prices rose by 10 per cent from June to July
• According to the World Bank corn and wheat prices have gone up by 25 per cent
• Food prices are now one per cent higher than they were at their previous peak in February 2011
• The US heat wave and drought in eastern Europe has been blamed for the rising costs
• The last 12 months in the US were the warmest on record
• The US provides up to 60 per cent of the world's food aid
• Seventy per cent of the US' corn growing region is in drought
• High corn prices also affect meat and livestock prices
• The World Bank says that countries that import grains are particularly vulnerable
• Haiti, Sudan, Somalia and Chad are among the countries most at risk of food shortage
• A UN official says the US should suspend its bio-fuel programme
• The US has diverted about 40 million tonnes of maize to produce ethanol

Source: Al JazeeraThough the segment begins by focusing on market speculation (financial betting), it can't stay there: quickly broadening to drought and climate change ("we have toasted this planet," as one analyst puts it), inflation, deficit spending, and programs that use human-edible food for biofuel or animal feed instead of direct human consumption. We even hear mentions of what I might call macro-macro-economics, or the political economy governing macroeconomics: i.e., money concentrated in the hands of very few, while the vast majority of the world bears the consequences of those people's decisions.Many complex forces acting on one another, interdependent. Start with a wheat field, follow a thread, and you're caught in an Indra's net of economic and social power.On one hand, the video reminds me of Thich Nhat Hanh's famous discussions of interbeing.

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. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we ha vea new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. Now the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.

At the same time, I feel a dissonance (perhaps useful, perhaps not) with this description of interbeing. Maybe it's because this particular spiritual medicine is meant to engender a sense of wonder and appreciation. No sharp edges in this interbeing: no mention of power, oppression, starvation, profit-driven economic systems serving a global 1%, and planetary crisis for human and non-human beings. Look at a withered cornstalk in Iowa, and yes, we can see the sun, the rain, the worms. But what beautiful interpretations often miss are the financial markets, neoliberal policies, and the faces of millions of hungry, angry, revolutionary people. For me the dissonance sharpens with the line of reasoning that culminates in: "Without 'non-paper elements,' like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper." This rubs uneasily against my understanding of how loggers are treated in our economic system: as dispensable, replaceable objects; as commodities of labor-power. Without a certain logger, you may not wind up with the same exact piece of paper.  But does this matter enough for a global community to defend this particular logger's existence? How about 20 loggers? 20,000? Indigenous people and ecosystems on the land being deforested? How often do we as Buddhists explore this harsher dimension of interbeing?My point isn't to rail against Thich Nhat Hanh's version of the teaching. Not at all.  This warm, friendly take may be just the dharma door that some of us, in certain times and places, need. And in its way it truthfully describes ultimate reality. But for my community, in our time and place, perhaps we need a different twist.  As we try to reclaim and renew our revolutionary dreams, connecting them with positive revolutionary movements around the world, past and present, I'm looking for a version of interbeing that helps us analyze power. That helps us act in global solidarity for a fairer and more loving society. Otherwise, if we always stop at the warm and friendly version, I fear we may more to reinforce the status quo than to challenge it in favor of something better.Am I missing the point of interbeing? Distorting the teaching? Reading your mind and taking the words right out of your mouth? Feel free to go to town in comments; that's what discussion's all about.