The Buddha's Round World

I started going to a weekly Buddhist meditation group at one point in my life. And I remember being extremely confused. The meditation was a gift, but the Koans and lessons read after the meditation time did not make sense to me. From what I could tell, Buddhism meant a lifestyle of passivity – just accept everything; let thoughts come and go without judgment; be at peace. The translation to me was – nothing matters; stop trying; striving won't get you anywhere. Where's the excitement in that, I wondered? I want to get better, not accept that I'm not.

But over years of practicing meditation and reading more deeply, I find myself loving Buddha's discovery because the Buddha believes in a round world. If you draw a circle, you can't tell where it begins or where it ends, where it is born or where it dies, which side is taller, which side is thinner. There's no disconnection. And that is the beauty Buddhism shows us – it coaxes us to be aware of what's around us, to not be afraid, to come out of our holes because we aren't in competition with the world. Everything is essential to everything else.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes a piece on enlightenment where he describes how the paper from which the reader is reading his words has a cloud in it – because, without the cloud, there'd be no rain; without the rain, no forest; without the forest, no paper. Every piece of the process is essential for the paper to be there in order for the reader to read his ideas. He describes this relationship as "inter-being."

"Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it [the paper] 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 in 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 coexists with this sheet of paper."

There's another Buddhist concept shared by Thai master, Achaan Chaa, where he describes the beauty and effectiveness of a glass of water sitting by him. He admires how the sun plays through the glass, how the cup holds the water so well. But whenever the wind knocks the glass or it is accidentally knocked from the table and shatters, Achaan Chaa simply replies with, "Of course." He says, "When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious."

This idea of "the glass is already broken" along with inter-being sum up the marriage of awareness, appreciation, and acceptance that Buddhism masters. Buddhism is not fatalistic or passive – completely the opposite. It attempts to ensure that every moment alive is brimful with appreciation. One should pay attention to everything around one because all is connected and crucial; one should appreciate everything around one because it is all teaching and interacting and advising so as to make one learn and become better; and one should accept because everything that happens is following its path and one should be careful to foreshorten a lifespan.

Such ideas are magnificent! They take drudgery and fear of worthlessness out of the picture, release us from wasting energy on wondering if we're "doing enough," and turn us toward the reality that we are critical to everything else being as it is. The planets pull on us, gravity holds us down while the moon lifts us up, a person you talked to today has a new thought in their mind, you got a new perception today from a book because an author lived and a tree died. It's remarkable, and it frees us from the hierarchical war that kills us every day.

Present-mindedness and meditation help allow our minds to clear and to recognize a beauty and significance that simultaneously lie outside of us and inherent in us. Let's stop trying to be "better" for the sake of besting because the philosophical beauty of Buddhism allows us to realize that I'm crucial, you're crucial, the grass is crucial, the animals are crucial, the planets are crucial – always. We'll try to be better because we live in a round world and, if we're not trying to be better, it'll make it that much harder for everyone, everything, else.