Dharma Teachings on Reestablishing Genuine Connectivity
We are deeply connected with everyone and everything around us. Simply reading these words makes a direct connection between you and me. Further, if we consider all the causes and conditions needed to let these words appear on your screen, we can see how truly everything is interconnected. Think about the electricity needed to power the device you are reading this on, the software and hardware that need to be produced and maintained, and the people who wrote, edited, designed, and published this article. Everything is interconnected.
Yet, it seems we often feel disconnected, separate, and alone. How did we lose the connection between us? To counter feelings of isolation, how do we get emotionally and mentally closer? What are some ways to cultivate genuine relationships with other living beings and the world we share?
Going Beyond the Screen
We are technologically more connected than ever before. Yet, as Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen said during his recent teachings on bodhicitta(the heart of awakening) and mahāmudrā (the great seal), we may be disconnected from our own hearts, and from reality, and from each other. He shared how everything today seems to happen on a screen, especially for younger generations. “When I observe my nieces and nephews, their world is the screen. Their parents, grandparents, friends. Everything is on a screen. The whole world is just tiny screens.”
This doesn’t mean that digital devices are bad things. However, Lama Tenpa pointed out, we can easily observe that they contribute to a distance between us. It is difficult, if not impossible, for technology to fulfill our needs as human beings. In order to have a good life, emotionally, socially, and spiritually, we need more than just screens. Otherwise, as we know from contemporary research about our well-being, we may seem to be connected with everyone and everything around the world but still feel emotionally cold and mentally lonely.
While there are ways to use technology such that it can contribute to connection, it will never be able to fully offer what we need.
His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, points to this in his book Interconnected:
We feel puzzled and saddened when our virtual connections leave us feeling emotionally disconnected, but it is hardly surprising that electronic interactions should be ultimately unsatisfying. Basically we are sitting alone with a screen, hoping to experience authentic closeness. We are carried so far away by the allure of these illusory connections that we end up trapped within our own private world of electronic illusion.
If we are not careful, a genuine life, the fullness of human contact, and authentic closeness may slip further and further away until we lose connection completely.
How Can We See and Feel What Is Already There?
To fulfill our emotional, social, and spiritual needs, we need genuine connectivity. But, as Lama Tenpa pointed out during his teaching, this is not something we need to create. “We are already connected. Everything is, somehow, already connected. We all are.”
In the Buddhist tradition, this interconnectedness is identified as simple reality. Furthermore, while beings may seem superficially different when we focus on physical and circumstantial conditions, we share a much deeper common ground. All living beings wish to be happy, and all living beings long for freedom from suffering. Focusing on this level, His Holiness writes, “can help us to access a sense of closeness and shared experience—of all being in it together.”
How do we get in touch with our own hearts and the fullness of contact with other humans and all living creatures? How do we engage with the digital world and all aspects of life in such a way that they fulfill what we are really looking for? How do we go kind?
Contemplation: Living the Connection
Whether you are reading this at home, while having a cup of tea at a café, or during a moment of travel, pause for a moment and consider the following questions, which are grounded in Buddhist teachings on interconnection:
- In which areas of my life do I feel disconnected?
- What are some of the causes that have led to this experience?
- How can I access a feeling of closeness when it is lacking?
- What am I willing to give up in order to gain this closeness?
By asking ourselves such questions, by looking closely at our life and habits, we can see, feel, and live in harmony with the reality of interconnectedness.
Lama Tenpa pointed out that cultivating a close connection is also part of the buddhadharma (Buddhist teachings) on bodhicitta and śūnyatā (emptiness). First, feeling a close connection will lead to loving kindness. This, in turn, is the cause of compassion. And compassion will bring us to bodhicitta, an altruistic spirit. In addition, when we consider our shared common ground and how we all manifest from śūnyatā and all have buddha nature, we should let go of separating the world into friends, enemies, and strangers. That only leads to disconnection and increased suffering.
In sum, by recognizing the reality of interconnectedness and cultivating a mental and emotional closeness to all beings, we can reestablish genuine connectivity and transmit the basic human warmth we all have and we all need. Acting in ways that reflect our interdependence means we can enable all life to flourish in this world we share.
Karma Ösung Gyaltsen (birth name: Fransiscus Ismaël) is a Tibetan Buddhist novice in the Karma Kagyü lineage, a Frisian philosopher, and a student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. He received his monastic vows on July 4, 2022, from His Eminence Gyaltsab Rinpoche at Rumtek Monastery. He studied Tibetan in India and now dedicates his time to assisting his direct guide and teacher, Acharya Lhakpa Tshering; studying Gampopa's works and the Vinaya teachings; and applying these teachings, mainly by serving the sangha community around the world.
For the Year of the Wood Snake, the Nalandabodhi theme is Interconnection: How to Connect the Disconnect. Karma Ösung Gyaltsen kicks off the series with this first article. Nalandabodhi Sangha members are invited to contribute and share their contemplations and offer contemplative practices for the benefit of everyone!
Deepening the Connection
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