Our Tragic Flaw

An excerpt from Chapter 12 of Our Tragic Flaw, A Case for Nonviolence.

Any theory of nonviolence ultimately rests not only on the conviction that violence isn’t necessary but also that the universe is fundamentally— logically — nonviolent. Accordingly, violence causes misery precisely because it conflicts with the deep structure of a nonviolent universe; and, conversely, nonviolence optimizes our experience in the world because it functions in harmony with that structure. Of course, in conventional terms this view seems wildly idealistic; after all, we generally experience a world rife with violence, and we see in our history that violence has been consistently rewarded by conquest and power. As true as this may seem, I believe it is really a trick of perspective, a mirage.

Just as one might look at the two-dimensional rendering of the cube below and see two mutually exclusive interpretations in rapid alternation, so the universe can fl it back and forth rapidly between a violent and nonviolent perspective. If we look closely at the cube, we might notice that in one case the drawn lines don’t quite mesh with the perspective that our brain tries to impose on it, whereas the other provides less cognitive dissonance. In this sense, one view of the cube is logically superior to the other. The same may be said for the violent and nonviolent perspectives. While the violent perspective has been socially dominant throughout most of human history, I would suggest that the nonviolent view is logically dominant — which is to say, it’s more true.

If this is so, then radical social change reduces simply to this one thing: a shift of perspective as chimerical, and ultimately as effortless, as the one we experience while gazing at the representation of the cube. Once experienced, the psychology of violence begins to evaporate, and a new way of being in the world becomes possible. Repairing psychological damage from childhood and subsequent trauma, and developing greater powers of awareness through meditation enhance the mind’s capacity to achieve this crucial shift of perspective. Indeed, such a shift will certainly occur (although no one can predict exactly when or how) if we maintain a sincerity and persistence of practice over time.

Interbeing is the word I have taken from Thich Nhat Hanh to identify the perspective we enjoy when we see the world in its deeply nonviolent aspect, a world that supports and nurtures us, and wherein we experience ourselves to be one with everything, as well as autonomous — as I have described earlier.

This chapter considers in detail some signal aspects of interbeing, especially those relevant to my general theme of nonviolence. In what follows, I can offer only a tentative description of the experience of interbeing based on my own limited experience, and the testimony of people I find credible who claim to have a greater maturity of practice than I. I consider only those features of interbeing that are most widely reported and that are most in accord with my own experience, and leave aside any claims that seem extravagant, unusual, or sectarian.

The sense of interbeing can be felt on many different levels and at many different intensities. I am not suggesting, even remotely, that social change depends on the achievement of Buddhist enlightenment or some kind of Judeo-Christian or Islamic rapture. Those summit experiences may actually occur, and may be enormously helpful to humankind, but they lie well outside the purview of this book. I am proposing, rather, that even a glimpse of interbeing, a first conscious apprehension of that shift of perspective, is sufficient to transform our relationship to the paradox of existence and, in turn, to enable us to begin to heal the world.

Usually, a first taste of interbeing — almost always spontaneous and unbidden — draws a person into the spiritual realm. We become curious about an otherwise inexplicable experience and want to better understand it. More importantly, we want to experience it again, and we want to be able to live our lives more continuously in the wholesome, gracious way that interbeing inherently recommends. But even as we waver back and forth between the usual individualistic perspective and that of interbeing, struggling toward virtue against all the biological, cultural, and personal impediments that pull us back to our fractured selves, a direct experience of interbeing has already transformed the mind and cannot help but promote healing in ourselves and those we touch. Specifically, interbeing raises the specter of nonviolence as an actual practice in the world: It becomes not only an intellectual possibility or a utopian dream, but a way of life.

Interbeing is something that is experienced both forcefully in peak moments of catharsis and continuously as a landscape upon which our lives gradually unfold. I think it likely that most everyone has encountered peak moments (of various heights and intensities) sometime in their lives. Probably more frequently than not, particularly in these secular times, we fail to recognize what has occurred, lacking a vocabulary or conceptual framework to hold it — and most especially when it occurs in childhood (which may be quite common). But these peak moments have no lasting impact on the moral quality of our lives if their revelations are not integrated into our general landscape, becoming the very ground of our actions. So we may say that the quality of our practice is not measured by the number or altitude of our peak experiences, but by the integration of the perspective of interbeing into our everyday thought, speech, and conduct. Though there appears to be a strong correlation between peak experiences and deep and lasting shift s in behavior, it is the behavior that matters in the end, not the peaks themselves.

The somewhat complicated relationship between peak experiences and a continuous sense of interbeing accounts for much of the confusion that has persisted for millennia about the nature of religious experience. I wish to clarify here, however, that interbeing encompasses both aspects of this experience: interbeing can happen all at once, when one senses a spontaneous fusion of Self and Other; and it can happen as a much less intense but lasting shift in worldview that continues to affect our behavior over time.