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Four Truths to a Fifth Idea—Transcending Suffering Through Interbeing
Ideas give rise to feelings, and without touching the ideas at their root, we cannot fully transform recurring pain. An idea (what we call bhutakoti or reality in itself, tathatā/suchness) transcends all our conceptual “four boxes” – to be, not to be, both or neither. Like trying to describe a kiwi or God, concepts fail us: we can only point and say neti neti (not this, not this).
Every word or teaching—even “Buddha”—can become a prison if clung to. The Buddha warned that notions are like snakes: they may bite if we take them as absolute. His teaching of the Four Noble Truths illustrates both the power and danger of ideas:
- Ill-being (suffering)
- The ignoble path leading to ill-being
- Well-being (happiness)
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The noble path leading to well-being
Each idea helps undo the previous one, drawing us closer to reality but remaining itself a concept.
From practice arises a fifth idea: interbeing. Unlike interpenetration (which still implies two separate entities), interbeing reveals that nothing exists independently. Concepts can collide—like matter and antimatter or wave and particle—and give birth to something beyond both. We learn to receive ideas with intelligence, extract their essence, and leave behind their form.
