Needing Each Other

"I need you," is not something we hear too often these days. When we do hear it, however, it touches a very deep chord in the depths of our being. To be needed, to be necessary and important means so much, because as human beings, we will always need each other.

When we are not needed, when we become old or disabled and no longer seem relevant in a fast world, there can a great sense of loss . . . of significance if we can't see at a deeper level, which few can. Gratefully, growing old happens slowly, almost imperceptibly as we lose our capacity to compete in a very competitive society, which is all important now, making way for our kids to take over and see what they can do with this remarkable place in which we find ourselves.

But the fact is, many will eventually come to a point in their lives when they don't hear "I need you," very often or at all. They might even become liabilities to those who they raised to be so independent and self-assured, and who are now so busy keeping their own heads above water. And it's okay, that's how it is.

One day, in 1981, I was walking through a village in northeast Thailand. The villagers were very poor, living in small huts and barely making a living by farming rice. They lived in family groups with the kids rarely leaving the villages that they were born in, living out their lives much the same as their parents and grandparents. And I noticed a palpable love among the generations - they were happy to be born, live, and die together in the rice fields. It was warm and natural, and death was not something feared, only the next step along a fascinating journey.

The old folks were genuinely loved and respected for their past labors and nurturing of the younger people, and for their wisdom, or maybe just for their love. The old folks always had something to do, depending on how well they could get around. Some would actually be out in the fields planting and harvesting well into their 80's, while others that couldn't get around so well would be cooking food or watching kids. Or the sick ones would just be hanging out, always along with everyone else, sometimes even carried out into the rice fields where they spent their days in makeshift shelters close to their families. This was their nursing homes, their hospitals.

In the near-by monastery, the monks and nuns knew no generation gaps either, or understood such a thing as self-sufficiency except in their solitary meditation practice. For there was no "self" as far as the monks and nuns were conce
ed. There was only the other, but without a feeling of attachment, without dependency, only unconditional love and an awareness of the interconnectedness of all beings as they helped each other with what life presented.

The Buddhist Sangha," or the community of monks and nuns, has been around for 2500 years, unchanged since the times of the Buddha, and the Sangha has always been taken care of by the villagers, who understand how unusual a person must be to live their ideals completely, courageously and uncompromisingly. The monasteries, the villages, the tropical climate and the peace that the entire package presented to a westerner were quite unforgettable.

Today it is different in Thailand. Not better, but different. The Sangha remains the same, but now the villager's kids go to Bangkok to find jobs and the rice fields are being sold to make way for condos. The old folks remain in the local villages, and the kids visit whenever they can get away from the city for a day or two. The culture is changing, a distancing being felt.

Maybe that's the way we progress in industrialized societies, becoming ever more estranged and self sufficient, independent, relying on no one but ourselves. We really don't seem to need anyone anymore, only our careers and our homes, which can become our prisons. We are beginning to competitively fear each other instead of love each other, as the human necessity of unconditional love falls prey to ambition. Fear has replaced our natural instincts of pulling together; and I'm afraid that sometimes we tear ourselves apart.

The politician that says, "I need you to help me with our problems," is looked upon as weak, a compromiser, someone who will be left in the dust by more aggressiveness and ambitious candidates. And the rice fields in Thailand will soon be gone as well, never again to feed a generation, never again to feel the bare feet of happy villagers. Only lonely condos now . . . and silent streets. n