The suggested replacement word for the
verb "to be," coined by Vietnamese Buddhist
Monk and scholar Thich Nhat Hanh. It means to inter-dependently co-exist. The meaning of interbeing recognizes the dependence of any one person or
thing as to all other people and objects.
Not only is no
man an island, but rather his interbeing is shared with the plants and animals he eats, the people who make his clothes and
food, the people who populate his home, country and the very world he percieves, the insects that pollinate the trees that yeild his fruit, shade him from the
sun, and provide lumber for his house.