To address another as Thou, Buber suggests, requires a certain self-surrender that springs from inhabiting one’s own presence while at the same time stepping outside one’s self. Only then does the other cease to be a means to one’s own ends and becomes real. The primary word I–Thou can be spoken only with the whole being. Concentration and fusion into the whole being can never take place through my agency, nor can it ever take place without me. I become through my relation to the Thou; as I become I, I say Thou.

All real living is meeting

Relationship is what makes <a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/12/08/the-songs-of-trees-david-haskell/">a forest a forest</a> and <a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/02/28/undersea-rachel-carson/">an ocean an ocean</a>. To meet the world on its own terms and respect the reality of another as an expression of that world as fundamental and inalienable as your own reality is an art immensely rewarding yet immensely difficult.How to master the orientation of heart, mind, and spirit essential for the art of sincere and honorable relationship is what philosopher Martin Buber explores in his 1923 classic <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743201337/braipick-20">I and Thou</a> — the foundation of Buber’s influential existentialist philosophy of dialogue.

Philosophy of dialogue: Relationship

<a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/01/06/alan-watts-reality/">Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others</a>.

To the man the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold, in accordance with the twofold nature of the primary words which he speaks. The primary words are not isolated words, but combined words. The one primary word is the combination I–Thou. The other primary word is the combination I–It; wherein, without a change in the primary word, one of the words He and She can replace It. Hence the I of man is also twofold. For the I of the primary word I–Thou is a different I from that of the primary word I–It.

“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you.”

I–It establishes the world of experience and sensation.I–Thou establishes the world of relationship, which asks of each person a participatory intimacy. Thou addresses another not as an object but as a presence.

I - Thou. I - It.

Relationship is the fundamental truth of this world of appearance.

Another perspective to look into relationship:  the fundamental truth of this world of appearance. 

JAPANESE ARTIST KOMAKO SAKAI

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