Because I am a lesbian, rainbows are important symbols for me. They are also important to me because I am a Unitarian Universalist. Rainbows symbolize diversity—the beauty of diversity. Red, yellow, orange, green, blue, indigo, and violet are each different and distinct colors, but together they form an arc or bridge of light of amazing beauty. For LGBTQ+ people, the rainbow speaks of the diversity of gender expression and sexual orientation. For UUs, the rainbow also speaks of theological, racial, and all diversity. Of course, the colors of the rainbow can symbolize many other things, for example, “the soft deep blue of sensitivity and understanding; the red energy of creativity; the white heat of convictions; the risky, fragile green of new growth; the golden flashes of gratitude; [and] the warm rose of love” (Bets Wienecke).
The colors of the rainbow are infinitely suggestive of diverse things, but that they come together in this beautiful arc suggests wholeness or interdependence, especially when we know what a rainbow is scientifically. A rainbow appears to our senses when heat, light, and moisture come together in a certain manner and dissolves when those conditions change. In several ways, a rainbow offers clues about the nature of reality. Here and then gone—ephemeral—a rainbow is impermanent. We might also say illusory since the colors appear as the result of light being split into its various individual wavelengths. The fuzziness and softness of the colors, as well as the way a rainbow fades away and seems to touch down somewhere far away—all of this gives it a mystical and magical feel. It’s no wonder that a rainbow is often a sign of hope, the beauty after the storm, a pot of gold and good fortune at the rainbow’s end. For many, a rainbow carries a personal symbolic meaning–representing inclusivity and diversity, an all-embracing image of love and friendship. For others, a rainbow might not mean only good fortune and beauty, but also something far off. The pot of gold isn’t there, or the love and friendship is there for others but not for them. Somewhere over the rainbow is far, far away.
The rainbow is particularly interesting to me for what it suggests about the relationship of the individual to the whole. Buddhists believe that there is no separate, solid, permanent thing. Certainly, the fuzziness of rainbows and their blending into one another suggests their interdependence and lack of solidity, and their transitory nature confirms the impermanence of things. So while we may look at the colors of the rainbow as symbols of diverse things, looked at another way, these differences are ultimately illusory, and all the colors are really one—pure light. As a symbol, the rainbow may make it easier to grasp the paradoxical nature of reality—its apparent diversity, but actual unity as an interdependent web or as pure energy. I think this paradox is what Whitman tries to capture in “Song of Myself”: “I celebrate myself, and sing myself,/ And what I assume you shall assume,/ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” “And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,/ And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,/ And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers.”
Such suggestive and imaginative language perhaps best captures the paradox of a reality apparently diverse, but actually one. Nevertheless, I think it is still hard to wrap our heads around this paradox, especially when I recall the many people in my life who stand out in my mind, shimmering in their uniqueness. Whitman celebrates the amazing variety of humans in a second part of “Song of Myself,” with brief images of a contralto, a carpenter, married and unmarried children, a pilot, a mate, a duck-shooter, deacons, a spinning-girl, a farmer, a lunatic, and many, many more. Whitman shows that, like the colors of the rainbow, people sparkle in their beautiful differences.
Throughout his poem, Whitman moves back and forth between images of individuals and of our oneness. In doing so, he manages to convey that in all of our diversity, we are one. But he also captures the tension we experience in trying to understand that we are both individual and a reflection of the whole. In becoming a Buddhist, I have tended to stress oneness rather than the one, as my blog, fromonetooneness.com reveals in its very name. I know I have done that because of my own life journey from individualism to universalism. I lived a good part of my life driven by the pursuit of what I thought was good for “me and mine.” I never doubted that people were separate and solid, if not permanent, individuals. I modeled my life on the principles of individualism—work hard, compete with others, get ahead, make money, and I’ll be happy. But I wasn’t. Increasingly, I saw the flaws in individualism. I saw how I needed other people, how I depended on them, and how I was happiest when I was able to be helpful to others. I gave up the idea of being a dean at some university and went to seminary. There I encountered Buddhism for the first time and immediately felt the truth of its emphasis on our oneness.
The Buddha taught that there are three major characteristics of reality: 1) impermanence, 2) suffering caused by our denial of impermanence, and 3) no self. Although I am still exploring and growing in understanding of these three characteristics, I do better, I think, with the first two. I have experienced the swiftness of life’s passing away, and I know when I try to hang on or push away whatever life offers, I suffer. But like most people, I suspect, I find the idea of there not being a self difficult. There is that voice in each of our heads expressing our thoughts, emotions, sensations, wishes, fears and so forth, which most of us, mistakenly, identify as the self. One of my scientist friends came closer to defining the self when he said, ” I am aware, and that awareness is my self.” Buddhists would agree but add that this is awareness without grasping onto, craving, or pushing away—awareness without reactivity. It is awareness that sees that nothing stays and that whenever we don’t accept life’s impermanence, we suffer. It is also awareness that reveals the peace and love available when we do accept these truths. Key to such acceptance is seeing that our usual understanding of the self, like the colors of the rainbow, is an illusion. The self is not a separate, solid, permanent thing. It is more like a process, more a verb, than a noun, more energy than matter. In interactions, the self changes others, and others change the self. It is not solid, or permanent, but constantly changing. Also rather than being separate, we are thoroughly Interdependent. Even ”interdependent” is not quite the right word. Thich Nhat Hanh gets closer with his concept of “interbeing.” We literally live in each other, and would not be who we are in this minute without all those influences on us.
In The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings, Thich Nhat Hahn explains interbeing using a table as an example:
For a table to exist we need wood, a carpenter, time, skillfulness, and many other causes. And each of these causes needs other causes to be. The wood needs the forest, the sunshine, the rain, and so on. The carpenter needs his parents, breakfast, fresh air, and so on. And each of those things in turn has to be brought about by other conditions. If we continue to look in this way we’ll see that nothing has been left out. Everything in the cosmos has come together to bring us this table. Looking deeply at the sunshine, the leaves of the tree, and the clouds, we can see the table. The one can be seen in the all, and the all can be seen in the one.”
I understand that the Buddha’s teaching about no self can be extraordinarily confusing. Of course, there is a self, but this self is not at all what we commonly think of when we use the word. In fact, it is so different that I can understand why Buddhists teach that there is no self. Since we are all inextricably connected, there is no one, only oneness. There is no other. There’s only us. As Soka Gakkai points out, Buddhism comes down on the side of wholeness. In their words, “The starting point for Buddhism is the value and sanctity of life.” But they see human life as “a rare privilege with special responsibilities.” They consider it lucky to be born human for several reasons. First, in comparison to all the numberless other species, humans are few on the Earth. Second is the scale of our choice, the degree to which we are able to choose to help or to harm. Third is our enormous capacities for compassion and cruelty. Fourth is our ability to awaken to the true nature of reality and to escape repeated reincarnations. And fifth, some of us, those called Bodhisattvas, choose not to be liberated, but to come back as many times as it takes until all are enlightened. Modern examples of Bodhisattvas might be the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh.
Here again we see a focus on the individual, rather than the whole or on the individual in relationship to the whole. Here again we see the paradox of one and oneness. Part of the problem, surely, is that our language, which is our vehicle for thinking, is dualistic. Interestingly, it is only when we shut down the thinking mind, that we experience oneness—in the flow of running, for example, or while meditating or praying, or while rocking a baby. The adult mind’s usual function is to divide this from that. Before their minds develop, young children tend to live in oneness. The best way to express this paradox in language is with symbols and images, like the rainbow or Whitman’s body containing everyone’s atoms, or his listing a massive number of examples of individual behavior. Even the Buddha provided a poetic version of this paradox in his Heart Sutra:
Body is nothing more than emptiness,
emptiness is nothing more than body.
The body is exactly empty,
and emptiness is exactly body.
. . .
All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing is pure, nothing is stained,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.
Emptiness here might be better translated as everything. It is the potential from which everything arises and into which everything returns. One way we in 2024 might better understand emptiness is as energy, which under the right circumstances can become matter. We need think only of Einstein’s E=mc2, or Energy equals mass times the speed of light. Nothing is lost, only changed. Even quantum physics speaks to the uncertainty of whether there is matter or energy. At quantum (very small) levels, there is a wave of potentialities. When we look at it, it becomes something definite, a particle.
Why are the implications of this paradox for how we live our live? First of all, we must treasure every living thing as a particular expression of the whole—each shimmering and beautiful thing. I think of the faces of all the people who have come into my life, especially of those who have taught me to love by their loving, but even of those who have harmed me and thereby taught me valuable lessons. But I also think of individual plants (especially flowers) and animals (especially my dogs) and places (especially my various homes). I treasure the beauty of specific things as does Whitman. I treasure their sensory, emotional, and mental impact on me. Equally important, we must not get lost in specificity, but recognize that despite apparent differences, everything reflects the whole; the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet of the rainbow are really the various wavelengths of pure light. In our interdependence, interbeing, or wholeness, we find comfort, connection, and meaning. We are not alone. We exist to help others, and they to help us. Separation leads not only to loneliness, but also to suffering. When we think of ourselves as separate beings, we must be fearful of what others might do—anxious that they might get what we want or take what we have. And when our fears are realized, we are angry. Feeling separate is painful and chaotic. Even when we are winners, we can never be at ease as we must guard our winnings and stay geared up for the next battle. The more we realize that each of us is a reflection of the whole, the more we feel compassion for those (including ourselves) who are caught up in a sense of separation as we realize that this is only a painful illusion.
Finally, let’s speculate about what this paradox might reveal about the deepest nature of reality. If this oneness is energy, it is always moving and, therefore, changing. Does it have a direction? Certainly, evolution moved life from single-cell organisms with minimal functions to multicellular humans with numerous and complex functions. But who’s to say that this is the final stage of evolution? We may exterminate our species. Or we may evolve as a species. All we can really determine from multidisciplinary studies of life is that there is an energy toward separation and one toward connection, the former being destructive and the latter beneficial. We are the product of many connections, and we have the abilities to be of great benefit to life. To the extent that we stress separation, on the other hand, we are destructive of life. I firmly believe that if enough of us follow the path of separation, we will eventually destroy most if not all, of our species. Should this happen, I have faith in life to recover and to evolve another species that might do a better job.
This faith is not, however, comforting. My hope is that enough of us will wake up and see each living being as a reflection of the whole and, therefore, as worthy of being treasured as oneself. I hope many of us make “the rainbow connection,” in the words of the song, “the lovers, the dreamers, and me.” As the song says, if the rainbow is an “illusion,” it can also be a “vision.” I’m suggesting a vision of life as a whole, multiple things arriving, some separating from the whole, but most moving toward greater connectedness. In order for this vision to be realized, there needs to be a shift in consciousness—a new understanding of the nature of reality. It is only “a dog-eat-dog world to the extent that we see each of us as separate. If we want to preserve our species, we must believe in and find ways to nurture our connections. May it be so.