One of the great things about working out, is that part of how I do it helps my mind as well as my body.
Often when I swim, I listen to philosophy lectures. Today it was an Alan Watts lecture on the wisdom of the ridiculous, a lecture about Chuang-tzu.
A big point that Watts made has to do with the boundaries we see between ourselves. What he said was "all boundaries are held in common." What that means is that part of how I know who I am, is because I'm not you. However at the same time, boundaries are where we meet, where we join.
The example that he gave for this was sitting outside at night, looking up at the stars, and feeling how very far away they are. Millions of miles from here, and billions of years ago, that light shone forth that we're only seeing now.
But that's us, too. The light that comes from our world shines in a multitude of night skies elsewhere.
In a manner of speaking we are everywhere. We are everyone. We are everything.
If you need a little more down to earth example of that, I've got one from this morning.
When you're swimming laps in a pool, and you've got one of those plastic divider ropes, separating your lane from the one next to you, whose divider is that? Is it yours? Does it belong to the person in the next lane?
Yes.