Unity is not something we are called to create; it’s something we are called to recognize.

~ William Sloan Coffin

when we stub our toe, do our hands immediately without even thinking, move to bring comfort to that toe? or do they chop it off? our body acts as one body, one interdependent system. a unity.

when we live under an illusion of separateness, we are not aligned with reality and we reinforce that separateness through our words and actions. we act out of fear, greed, aggression, we marginalize, dehumanize and oppress the “other”, building walls and going on the attack.

this thinking and behavior becomes habit and patterns. the cycle feeds into itself and we have difficulty seeing clearly or breaking away. this illusion of separateness is our underlying neurosis.

so much harm and suffering comes from this illusion of separateness. when we get a glimpse of the basis of reality – that we are not separate beings, that we are interdependent with all life – we call that, waking up.

we recognize life as interdependent co-arising of phenomena. nothing exists alone. existence itself is unity. this is good news! we don’t have to manufacture what is already manifest. we just have to recognize it. we just have to wake up.

~j

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