Talk:interbeing

Hello,

I am interested in developing the definition of interbeing and including the translation of the Sanskrit term sahabhu, which could also be translated as co-being. I'm new to Wiktionary so I would appreciate any help from more experienced users.

As far as I am aware, the term is never used in the plural.

Here is a page which demonstrates to some extent how the word is used:

The idea of “Interbeing” – introduced by Thich Nhat Hanh into the North American Buddhist vocabulary – may be viewed as a formulation of the doctrine of ”dependant co-arising” in the Paticca-samuppada-vibhanga Sutta.

In the Heart of Understanding – Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentary on the Heart of the Prajnaparamita Sutra – he writes:

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 have a new verb, inter-be.

We might also say that the word describes the simultaneous co-arising of many pairs of opposites. For example left and right - we cannot say that there is the left before the right or the right before the left, they appear together and depend on each other for their existence - they interare. Similarly with above and below, light and dark, life and death and so on.

Many thanks to anyone willing to help with this.