INTERBEING TO MUTUAL POSSESSION OF THE TEN WORLDS
Lecture by Ryuei Michael McCormick on June 4, 2023
Interbeing is the way Thich Nhat Hanh talks about interdependence. This is close to the idea of the mutual possession of what we usually call the ten realms in Buddhism, but there is the broader idea that all phenomena, and all Dharmas, mutually possess one another. The concept of “mutual possession” is not that one thing holds other things in it, like a bag, or a container, rather, it is like one thing really is all those other things. So, I hope to explain this in an understandable way.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Awakening of the Heart is a collection of discourses from the Pali canon, including some particularly important discourses, for example, discourses on where the Buddha first turned the wheel of the Dharma and taught the four Noble Truths, as well as the four foundations of mindfulness practice. It also contains a translation of the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra with Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentaries. These really help people to understand emptiness in a way that is not so negative, not so mysterious, but very straightforward and ties right into interdependence.
In this book, Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “If you are a poet you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud there would be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not there, the sheet of paper cannot be there either. We can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. Interbeing is a word that is not in the dictionary yet. But, if we combine the prefix ‘inter’ with the verb ‘to be’, we have a new verb, ‘inter-be.’”
His idea is that if you try to look at all the things that go into this piece of paper, you will not find anything that is a page, or paper, in and of itself. You will find a bunch of other things that allow us to have this experience of a piece of paper. You will have the cloud, the rain, the wood, and the wood pulp, and the manufacturers and the truck drivers who bring the books to the store, etc., etc. So the whole world is involved with you having this experience of looking at a piece of paper with these words on it. Thich Nhat Hanh calls this interbeing.
How does this tie into emptiness? Empty of what? Continuing Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentary on the Heart Sutra he says, “According to Avalokita this sheet of paper is empty. But, according to our analysis, it is full of everything. There seems to be a contradiction between our observation and his. Avalokita found the five skandhas empty. But empty of what? The keyword is empty. To be empty is to be empty of something. “
The five aggregates are the five elements or components of any sentient being. They are form, feelings, perceptions, mental volitions (which are cognitive/emotional activities), and finally, consciousness. All of these are empty, and not just these elements of sentient beings, but as he explained, the piece of paper is empty of simply being a piece of paper because when you examine it closely it is a bunch of other things.
So, when you say it is empty, what is it empty of? It is empty of a separate self. Thich Nhat Hanh explains, “When Avalokita says that our sheet of paper is empty, he means it is empty of a separate, independent existence. It cannot just be by itself. It has to inter-be with the sunshine, the cloud, the forest, the logger, the mind, and everything else. It is empty of a separate self. But, empty of a separate self means full of everything. So it seems that our observation and that of Avalokita do not contradict each other after all.”
What Thich Nhat Hanh has done here is to show something that is really the key to understanding Buddhism, which is that talking about the interdependent nature of things and talking about emptiness is really talking about the same thing.
Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to talk about this in terms of the non-self element of things. He says, “Self refers to a permanent, changeless identity, but since, according to Buddhism, nothing is permanent and what we normally call self is made entirely of non-self elements, there is really no such entity as a self.” Further on he says, “The concept of a ‘person’, like the concept of self, is made only of non-person elements – clouds, sun, wheat, space, and so on. Thanks to these elements, there is something we call a person. But erecting a barrier between the idea of person and the idea of non-person is erroneous.” These are from his comments on the Diamond Sutra. In the Diamond Sutra it says that Bodhisattvas do not cling to the idea of a self, a person, a living being like a soul or a spirit, etc.
Now some of the confusion here is coming from the way Buddhists are denying that there is a self. The word they actually use is atman. In Pali, the word annata means non-self, or in Sanskrit, anatman, non-self. This word atman, at least in Buddhism, is being used in a specific philosophical way. Whereas the way we use the word ‘self’ or ‘person’ in modern English is a lot looser. What is the self? Well, most of the time we are not thinking philosophically, we are just, in a commonsense way, indicating this kind of center of subjective experience and responsibility for actions.
Now, the Buddha used the word self, or you, or he, or she in the same commonsense way in most of the discourses in the Pali canon. Even in Mahayana sutras, he uses the words like ‘self’ or ‘person’ or ‘I’ or ‘you’, in this commonsense way. But there are also times, including in the Pali canon, where he seems to deny that there is such a self or person. When that is being denied, as Thich Nhat Hanh points out, what is being denied here is a specific technical idea of self as something unchanging. That is simply itself, purely itself, and not any other thing, and has always been there, and always will be there, and cannot change. It is this idea of self that Buddhism is saying is not there. If you look for it in another person, in yourself, or in anything, you are not going to find it. In fact, the very idea of it, the idea of a fixed self, would create something that would be intolerable. Can you imagine if you never changed at all? Can you imagine if nothing about you changed? You would be unable to learn, unable to grow, and what part of you would be unchanging? The part that’s an infant? The part of you that’s an old person on their deathbed? Some ideal image of you that you have actually never experienced in real life? Which part is the unchanging part?
It is this idea of self that is actually being denied. What is not being denied is the common sense idea that you are here and are responsible for your actions and are having these experiences.
There are three ways in which Buddhism, at least East Asian Buddhism, talks about this provisional existence of ourselves and in fact of all things. The three ideas about provisional existence comes from the Three Treatise School, from one of their early teachers, Jizang. Tiantai took these into his Great Calming and Contemplation and used them in various talks he gave. I want to go over these three because they not only demonstrate how things provisionally exist, but at the very same time, they show that things are empty of this fixed, unchanging, independent idea itself. I’m not sure if I want to say they prove anything. I do want to say that these three ideas of Jizang demonstrate the provisionality and emptiness of phenomena.
Provisionality as Composite Existence
What part of this chariot is the chariot? What chariot is there apart from the parts? Is there a chariot here at all or just a label? If you are looking at a picture of a chariot, you are also looking at a bunch of parts functioning in a particular way. We have the yoke, the wheel, the joints, the cockpit, the axle, etc. We can break all of those down. For example, we can break the wheel into the hub and the rim, etc. So when you look at anything, like this chariot, for example, you have to ask what part of this chariot is the chariot itself? Or, you could ask what chariot is there apart from all the parts? Can there be a chariot at all? Maybe you can have the idea of a chariot, but is that really a chariot you can ride around in? Is there a chariot here at all or is it just a label that we put on a bunch of non-chariot things that are functioning in a particular way when they are put together in a particular way,
As Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of this, the chariot only has inter-being and the interbeing is with the joints, and the wheel, and the yoke, and each of those parts has inter-being with the wood and the loggers, and the sun, the soil, the air and the rain and everything else apart from the parts and their parts and so on, coming together in a certain way and functioning in a certain way. There is nothing here that you can get ahold of as a simple, independent, unchanging object. That is provisionality’s composite existence.
Provisionality as the Continuity of Movement
What particular moment of movement is the dance? What dance is there apart from the momentary movements? Is there a dance here at all or just a label? What is a dance apart from a flow of movements? What particular moment of movement is the dance itself? This is impossible. There is no dance. You are looking at a dance, but this picture is a freeze frame, there’s no real dance going on here. We look at this and say it is a dance because it presents a dance. We presume that there was some movement going on before and that there will be more after this picture was taken. But just this freeze frame itself is not a dance. It is a picture of a moment in a dance. So what dance is there apart from the momentary movements? Again, is there a dance here at all, or is it just a label? A label not on parts, but only a stream of movements in time. So, this demonstrates provisionality as the continuity of moments.
Provisionality as Relative Perspective
Is it a duck or a rabbit? Is it both or neither? Is it the creation of our mind?
There are two different ways of viewing this. Is it a duck or a rabbit? Do you have a hard time seeing one or the other or does it switch back and forth easily for you? But you really can’t see them both at the same time. Is it both or neither? Or is this a creation of your mind? Our minds are trained to understand that this represents one or the other or both.
This is provisionality as relative perspective. It is that one of the components, or a major component of what anything is, or what we are, or what we are to each other, or what we are to ourselves is how we think about it. It is how we frame it. It’s been pointed out that not just these kinds of images are ambiguous, but really everything is ambiguous in this sense. Everything can be read or re-read in different ways depending on how things are framed from different perspectives and from moment to moment.
So, these are the three kinds of provisional existence, which are also a demonstration that things are empty of a set, independent, simple entity.
Question: Is there something that doesn’t change? Something that is immutable?
Answer: Buddhism would say no. That is what is interesting about the Diamond Sutra. The Diamond Sutra goes to great lengths to say that even nirvana, even the Buddha, even the Dharma, is not this absolute unchanging entity. Also, that is the difference between Buddhism and non-dual forms of Hinduism. Buddhism really comes down to process thought. Process thought is about flow and process. It is not trying to say that there is some absolute, real entity and everything else is just changing. Hindu philosophy argues that all of the changes are just illusions and that there is only one absolute existence that we are misperceiving as changing things. So, these are two rhetorical ways of talking about reality and delusion. Once you get to a certain point maybe it’s just rhetoric. However, Buddhism, at least the strain of Buddhism that comes down to us from Nichiren and Tiantai and Nagarjuna is much more in line with process thought. Buddhism is much more in line with the idea that we are not going to try to claim that there is some entity that is unchanging and independent behind everything that we experience. Let’s just stay with that reality of experience and stop trying to project some other reality.
When we stay with our experience and contemplate our actual experience, what we find is these three things that I just said. Every experience breaks down into other things. Every experience inter-is, everything flows from moment to moment, and everything is what it is because of how it is being framed, and how it is functioning in that particular setting and context.
Question: So, does emptiness really exist?
Answer: No, it doesn’t. I will get to that very soon. Here are two verses from Nagarjuna's Root Verses of the Middle Way:
“Because of emptiness, all things can be accomplished. If there is no emptiness, nothing can be accomplished.”
“Everything arising by dependent origination we explain as none other than emptiness. It is also a nominal designation. This is also the meaning of the Middle Way.”
Here is where the idea of emptiness, provisional existence, and the Middle Way come together. The verses of Nagarjuna do not necessarily mean what Tiantai meant, but these verses are the sources for what Tiantai developed as the Threefold Truth of the empty, the provisional, and the Middle Way.
Earlier, In the 24th chapter of the Root Verses of the Middle Way, Nagarjuna has someone say to him, “Well, if everything is empty then you have just gotten rid of the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the Middle Way. There is nothing. There is no practice, no goal, no nirvana, there’s not even any suffering to get away from. You destroyed everything.” Nagarjuna responds by saying, “If things weren’t empty the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Middle Way, and everything would be useless. Why? Because everything would be fixed, there would be no relationships, no change. There would just be a solid block of what is real that could not relate, that could not change, that could not move, so you could not have any practice of Buddhism or anything else. That is not the way we experience reality. We experience reality as a flow of interdependent relationships. Because of emptiness, all things can be accomplished. If there is no emptiness, nothing can be accomplished.” Further on Nagarjuna says, “Everything that arises, all the phenomena we experience, including ourselves, arise by dependent origination.”
If you talk about things as interdependent, or as Thich Naht Hanh does, as ‘interbeing,’ that means they are empty. They exist provisionally, but they are empty of any fixed, independent self. That is why you can say everything is a ‘nominal designation,’ which means they are labels, they are names, but there is no fixed entity in anything that can be found. Emptiness is not a ‘thing.’ It is just a way of talking about the way things are.
Let's talk about how this relates to the Lotus Sutra.
I think that the key to the Threefold Truth of the Lotus Sutra is from this paragraph in Chapter 16. It is in the middle of the prose part. We’ve gotten out of the habit of reciting Chapter 16, but it is a good thing to recite all of Chapter 16, not just the verses, particularly because of this essential paragraph.
“Everything I teach is true and not false. Why is this? The Tathagata sees the mark of the Triple World as it really is. Birth and death do not leave it or appear in it. Also, there is no one who lives and then reaches extinction. It is not real and not false, not thus and not otherwise. I do not see the Triple World as those in the Triple World do. These things the Tathagata sees clearly and without mistake.”
Now this is amazing! I think a week or so ago we talked about koans, a case study. This should be the primary koan for the Nichiren and Tiantai tradition, especially the part that says, “....not thus and not otherwise.” This is a very literal translation. Senchu Murano translates this as, “things are not as they seem nor are they otherwise.”
The triple world means the world of desire, comprising the desire realms from the hells up to the lower heavens. The form realm is comprised of the middle heavens, and the formless realm is comprised of the highest heavens – this is the triple world. They are basically talking about all the six realms, which are the six lower worlds.
“Things are not as they seem, nor are they otherwise.” The Buddha can say this because all things are empty. We look at things and take for granted that they are what they are, but, for example:
Is this a flower or is it a dress? Which is it? It could be a lotus flower superimposed over a ballet dress, but, it could also be a dress made to look like a lotus flower. So which is it? But it is not otherwise. So, things are what they are at least provisionally. Provisionally when we look at this picture it is functioning as a dress. Or, if we change our frame of reference it is functioning as a flower. It’s definitely functioning as something.
So it’s not what it seems, but it is not some other functioning reality that we can’t see either. We just can’t fix what the reality is that it is. Being empty is part of how it is provisional and vice versa. This is the Middle Way. Things not being thus and not being otherwise is how everything is. It is being thus is also not being otherwise, it’s not being otherwise is being thus.
Being what it is from its perspective, any particular object, such as this flower dress, allows all other things and their perspectives. It provides a setup in context for everything else. It is in that sense that anything, any object, any phenomenon is also the middle or center. One might even say each thing we are focused on is the centerpiece, at least provisionally, in an ungraspable manner, as are all other phenomena if they are made the centerpiece or central focus.
This really is not that radical a concept. If you go back to even the pre-Mahayana forms of Buddhism, they say that anything that appears is caused and conditioned, and all other things that seem to be are related to that causality, even if the causality is not getting in the way of the thing we are experiencing. So even just not getting in the way is a cause and condition for something to exist. So that really means that anything, a paperclip, a cup, you, your father, your mother, your sister, your brother, your children, your spouse, your lover, whoever, whatever, trucks, cars, planets, solar systems – anything – no matter how large or small, involves every other thing. And, because it involves every other thing, it is not simply what it is. It inter-is, or has inter-being with all else. So it is not as it seems, but on the other hand, all those other things are allowing it to be this thing that is experienced here and now, so it is not anything else either.
This is a tricky point, but it is what the Threefold Truth is getting at. This is what the teachings of emptiness are getting at when you really think about them.
What is Provisionally Existent?
The Five Aggregates, Living Beings as a Whole, The Environment
In this section, we are getting into mutual possession from the Tiantai perspective. Here we are going to get into the three thousand realms in a single thought-moment (ichinen sanzen) and mutual possession. There are three categories of existence that express the three thousand realms in a single thought-moment.
What else is Provisionally Existent?
Appearances, Natures, Functions, Causes, Conditions, Effects, Recompense and Consistency. These are the Ten Suchnesses from Chapter 2 at the beginning of the Lotus Sutra that we recite. These are labels for other things, processes, and volitional perspectives. None of these things make sense without the five aggregates, living beings, and the environment, or vice versa. We cannot talk about beings, aggregates, and environments without talking about their appearance, nature, entity, powers, and functions. So, this is a way of talking about things that are all aspects of what simply is prior to any labels.
We have the mutual possession of the ten realms – so that is the ten realms times the ten realms (because each contains the other ten) and that gives us 100. You multiply that by the 10 suchnesses, that’s 1,000 and then multiply that by the three categories, and that gives us 3,000.
So the ten are made up of the six realms of re-birth, the two vehicles, bodhisattvas, and Buddhas. The six realms of rebirth are the hells, hungry ghosts, the animals, fighting demons (asuras), the human realms, and the heavenly realm.
The other two vehicles are the voice-hearers, who hear the Buddha’s teachings, learn the Buddha’s teachings, and put them into practice; and the privately-awakened ones, those who realize enlightenment on their own through the contemplation of causality. Finally, there are the Bodhisattvas and the Buddhas.
Each of these ten realms is a particular take on the aggregates, beings, and their environments and is composed of particular natures, appearances, etc. But they are also composed of each other. They are a flow of activities involving the other realms and have a particular relationship with the other realms that make them what they are. Therefore, no one can be in the realm that it is without the other realms. The hell realm cannot be hell without disparaging heaven and total alienation from Buddhahood. The voice-hearers and privately-awakened ones are confined by their fear of the six lower realms and their lack of aspiration to be Bodhisattvas who seek Buddhahood. The Bodhisattvas would not be Bodhisattvas without their compassionate involvement or engagement with the six lower realms, their disdain for the two vehicles, and their aspiration for Buddhahood. The Buddha realm is defined as being awake to the reality of the other realms and spontaneously and compassionately involved, conspicuously and inconspicuously, with them.
They could not be what they are without each other. Their inter-being is such that each realm is composed of all the others. None of them could be itself without the others, but also, each realm expresses the whole in its own unique way. You could say, “Well maybe the Buddha realm really isn’t its own realm.” In a way that’s true. But it is also true of each of the other realms. They aren’t simply what they are without all the other realms functioning in a certain way. At the same time, each realm has its own unique take on the whole situation so that is why it is listed as its own particular realm. The Buddha realm has its own unique take on the ten realms that none of the other nine have. At the same time, the Buddha realm cannot be itself without them, it does not make any sense without them. Therefore, each of the ten has interbeing with the others.
I am just going to throw these questions out without an answer or response to them, but there is something really to think about in terms of the mutual possession of the ten realms and the 3,000 realms, and interbeing, and the fact that the empty and the provisional are the same things. The fact that things are not thus, but not otherwise.
Can there be anything that is just purely one realm?
- Is there a person, an institution, situation, or event, that is just the hell realm or just the Buddha realm?
Can we absolutely praise or blame anyone or anything?
Especially if you think about the provisionality of relativity. Things are what they are, or seem to be what they are, based on how they are framed and the particular relationship that one has with them. The subjective point of view. But there are so many subjective points of view, and perspective is always changing constantly from moment to moment.
How can we judge or decide when we must always suspect there is more to things than we can think or imagine?
Remember I said every phenomenon is involved with all other phenomena as to its causes and conditions, and there is no way that a finite human can know all the causes and conditions. There’s always opening up, opening up, even if you freeze-frame the moment. But things can’t be freeze-framed. There are also additional perspectives that are added from moment to moment.
How can judgment ever escape ignorance of the whole and bias of the little that we know?
How can compassion, understanding, and patience avoid complicity?
Sometimes we are too quick to judge, but then sometimes we are too quick to understand, and sometimes a decision has to be made. We cannot constantly second guess ourselves because things are empty and inter-are. But, at the same time, we should never be too sure of ourselves.
If there is no such thing as “you can’t get there from here,” then why not start anywhere?
If even hell opens up and contains Buddhahood, then what does it matter what we do? Right? If you think about Chapter 20 of the Lotus Sutra, the people who tormented Bodhisattva Never Despise were able to finally hear the Lotus Sutra. And why? Because they formed a connection to it by abusing him, which created a casual affinity and it did land them in hell for a long time, but they got out of it. Nichiren argues with the analogy of the “The Poison Drum” from the Nirvana Sutra, that it is better to have a negative connection than no connection at all. So if you can get anywhere from anywhere among the ten realms because of their mutual possession, then why start from any particular place? This is where it comes back to how we discern what we really want to be doing in this moment for ourselves and for each other.
How can we keep ourselves from rushing to judgment, but how can we also keep ourselves from second-guessing ourselves into paralysis and irresponsibility? With that, I’ll open the lecture up for questions.
Member Question: Is there an intent behind it all that we don’t know?
Michael: But see, if there was, that would also be just a relative perspective. That would also inter-be with all the other intentions. This is where monotheism comes in. The idea is that there is one God, or one true entity who has it all planned and is consciously putting things into motion. The most I can say about Buddhism is that the Buddha is posited as the one who has the biggest perspective. The one whose intention takes into account all the other intentions and is trying to liberate them all. That is the most that can be said. But, even then, Buddha’s intention empties out into all the Bodhisattva activities and all the lower nine worlds, which is much more limited and has more limited intentions. Right? So one kind of intention winds into the others and then winds back out again.
Member Question: How do we know that we know, and does it matter?
Michael: It does matter, I think. I think that as people are striving to be responsible, mature individuals, and you could even say that enlightenment is sort of this ultimate point of maturity, and responsibility and compassion, we just have to be attentive to what is in front of us, and try to think through responsibly what we are confronted with and make the best decision we can given the circumstances we are in. Part of this process of responsible discernment and judgment and acting on that is figuring out what is relevant and what is irrelevant. You know the entire universe may be involved in a personal decision you have right at this moment, but not everything in the universe is immediately relevant to your problem.
We really have to educate ourselves, not just to notice what’s around us, and to think through what we are confronted with, but to figure out what is relevant and what is not, and how this is going to play out down the line. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers from the Buddhist point of view. We have the ten causes of wholesome conduct, but there are no commandments. There is no instruction book on every little thing and that’s part of the transition from Hinayana to Mahayana. In Hinayana, you can say, “Well, I’ve got my Eightfold Path, my 257 precepts and I know what to do in each moment because Buddha told me what’s good and what is not.”
As you transition into Bodhisattva practice, the six perfections, it falls on you to figure out what is the best skillful means in each moment. It’s not just to see the emptiness of things, but also to know how to apply that to each situation. To realize things aren’t just empty, they also have this provisional existence, which means that a provisional decision has to be made. I think that is part of the key to it. Make your provisional decision based on being responsible to the provisional circumstances you are in, but always realize that things may change, or you may learn more information, and the perspective will open up. Keep your heart open. Keep your mind open and do what you can.
Member Comment: One of the earliest teachings of the Buddhas was, “Do good and do no harm.” That is pretty broad. Definitely, as an intention, we should be seeking to do good. That was one of my favorite things about SGI – value creation in the world. We don’t want to get into this relativism and everything is everything and it doesn’t matter what we do. It does matter what we do and we use our practice to develop that wisdom into seeing things as they really are so we can apply compassion and skillful means to make the world a better place.
Michael: Nichiren’s approach to Ichinen Sanzen was to ask how are the three thousand realms playing out in this moment, in this context and what do I do here and now in 13th century Japan. We should chant the Daimoku and try to make this into a pure land. This makes Nichiren’s Buddhism almost inherently more socially active than other forms of Buddhism because we don’t fall too much on the emptiness side and we realize the importance of the provisional side.
Member Question: Does the Buddha know all causes and conditions?
Michael: Yes, there is a claim the Buddha does know all causes and conditions, that the Buddha is omniscient. That’s what tradition says. Does that mean Shakyamuni knew nuclear physics? I don’t think so. I take these claims that the Buddha knew all causes and conditions to be hyperbolic, in mythologizing the historical Buddha. I think what is really meant is the Buddha knew, or had awakened to what was really important, just the principle of causality itself. There is also the idea, going beyond the historical Buddha, that there is the Dharma-body Buddha, in which case all causes and conditions can also be viewed as the mind that knows all causes and conditions, that the universe, reality itself, is the storehouse of information of its own workings. But that is very heady.
Member Comment: The idea, as I remember it, is the Buddha remembered all his past lives and then was able to draw conclusions to see the abstract principles of causality, dependent origination, and all that from all those memories.
Michael’s Conclusion: A mid-century Catholic theologian named Bernard Lonergan authored a book entitled Insight. In that book, he addressed the idea of “How do we know what we know?” There are a couple of things I want to share from his book. How do we really know what is going on? How do we get authentic objectivity of what is happening and what we can do about it? He said the way you do it is through authentic subjectivity. If you really know yourself. If you really know your own biases. If you really know your own point of view, you will be able to account for the way you are seeing things. You may not be able to see things purely objectively because there may not be such a thing, but you will at least know why you are seeing things and experiencing things the way you are.
He suggested people follow four transcendental precepts. These are: 1) Be attentive. Really pay attention and be mindful of what you are experiencing. 2) Be intelligent. Think things through. Think about what these things really mean. What have you learned about the things you are experiencing? What more can you learn about them and their actual relations and functions? 3) Be reasonable. Decide based on the best of what you know and what you have been able to discern and figure out that is relevant in this moment. 4) Be responsible. Do not just decide from afar and go “Well, I wish that’s the way things could be.” Do something about it. Actually follow through on what you know to be, as best you can in this moment, the right thing to do given the situation you are in. That way you can gain authentic subjectivity to get at least an approximate authentic objectivity so you will be able to act in a responsible, mature, caring, and helpful way in all the circumstances you are faced with.