today is martin buber's birthday: thoughts in celebration

the principal idea in martin buber's understanding of human life is that the presence of god in us is always enacted as the presence of god between us. there is no god outside of the relationship between i and thou. in the-between of i and thou we create the god that creates us. god is actualized by us in the dialogical practices of i and thou. i and thou is a practice, in other words, it's a deed we do. this idea can also be called the sacrament of the neighbor. the most basic buberian insight is that god is not in heaven nor on earth. god is not above nor below. not within and not without. not in the soul or in the flesh. god is not an entity anywhere: god is the between of an i and a thou.

Dialogical-Ecology is the place of encounter between two philosophic-poetries: the Dialogical philosophy of Martin Buber, and the Bodhisattva Practices of Zen Buddhism. Dialogical Ecology argues that God, or Buddha, or any practice related to the source of being, is the between of an I and a Thou. the principal idea in martin buber's understanding of human life, is that the presence of god in us is always enacted as the presence of god between us. god is actualized in the dialogical practices of the sacrament of the neighbor. god is not in heaven nor on earth. god is not above nor below. not within and not without. not in the soul or in the flesh. god is not an entity anywhere: god is the between of an i and a thou. Many aspects of the underlying teachings of both Martin Buber's Dialogical philosophy, and those of Zen Buddhism, are similar in terms of their actualization as Existential practices. This is so in three general areas: 1. Zen's understanding of the social practices of the Bodhisattva is similar to Buber's understandings of the social practices of Hasidism and the Dialogical Life. 2. Zen's practices of mindfulness-meditation are similar in essence to Buber's practices of mindfulness-relationships. 3. in some respects, Engaged Buddhism, a Zen term, and Dhammic Socialism, a Theravada concept, are very clearly the same as Buber's concept of Religious Socialism. Both buber and Zen similarly regard the scope and reach of their practices in similar terms. Meditation and Dialogue are not construed as practices that narrowly apply to only specific and circumscribed activities, such as zazen in zen, or language-usage in dialogue. Meditation and Dialogue are to be applied across all realms of life, both personal and social. Therefore, to speak of Buber's in-between of I and Thou as a form of social meditative-mindfulness, is consistent with Zen's understandings of Dharma as the ten thousand things of ordinary everyday-life. In other words, since the relationship between people is largely mediated through objects and enacted in the market place, it is essential for the actualization of the dialogical life and the life of the Boddhisatvah, that the social and economic structures of society be transformed from I-It interactions to I-Thou relationships. It is on this issue that Dialogical Ecology argues that the point of confluence between Buber and Zen is at its most fruitful. Zen begins where Buber does not fully enter, and Buber begins where Zen is not fully committed.