What things do you think you cannot live without?
I was asked to answer this question and in fact, this is an important and complex one. Upon reflection, there are many important conditions that I cannot live without.
Much of what I cannot live without are my body’s physical necessities for survival, such as oxygen, clean water, nutrients, warmth and coolness, protection from the elements, movement, sleep, etc. Without all these and other, similar factors, my life would be short and miserable. Therefore, I am careful to honor these requirements by being mindful that I include them, in the right quantities and good quality, in my life, thus allowing me to maintain sound physical health.
When my body is in a state of healthy balance, with a good physical foundation and salutary environment, my emotions and thoughts are uplifted and positive and I am much less likely to become depressed or anxious. My life will not be constricted or unhappy. Also, I cannot live well without the wisdom of maintaining a balanced perspective on life and my place in it.
And then there is the spiritual-social aspect. By this, I mean an intuitive knowing that everything is interconnected and interdependent within the mysterious universe. A quote from Albert Einstein expresses this well: ‘The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavor in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. The sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our mind can not grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me, it suffices to wonder about these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.’
This perspective prevents a feeling of alienation since I know that all the creatures on this earth are a part of the larger universal life force that we share together. All beings on all levels want to thrive; we are all intertwined in the web of life. We are all together.
This brings me to the point of how I came to know and value this experience of oneness. When I was younger, I went on many extended camping trips with friends. In the wilderness, I came to see not only the wondrousness and vastness of the universe but also my companionship, on this planet, with all other living beings including the forests, plants, animals, insects and so forth. Then, finally, after a long search to clarify this discernment for myself, first with awareness training and then the meditative and ethical Buddha’s Path and Satori, I came to clearly understand the oneness of everything with the subsequent empathy and compassion for all life in this world. This insight I cannot live well without.
So, I cannot live without the requirements of life, which means
having shelter, and other necessities that support my physical needs and provide me with the basic comfort I need to thrive. I cannot live happily and be satisfied without knowing my inherent inter-connection with everything alive on this earth. I cannot live happily without the simple expressions of my interests and activities. Finally, I cannot live well without actively expressing my feelings of connectedness and openness, on various levels, with all who share the gift of life.
Overall, besides the requirements for the survival and thriving of my physical life, the foundation of my happiness and satisfaction and my guiding principle is the spiritual aspect of feeling the affinity, interconnectedness, and interdependency of all life on this planet. This is always a feeling I know and honor through my empathic and considerate interactions in life.
Rodger R Ricketts 2021
We are all Interconnected even with the Universe 