Interconnectedness (and interbeing and interconnectedness) are concepts often used in Mahayana traditions, which have the Bodhisatva ideal. The Dalai Lama, to whom I am indebted for many powerful teachings, praises and teaches interbeing.
On the other hand, Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Ajaan Geoff), another teacher I am indebted to, shines caution on the concepts of interbeing. He links it to "Buddhist Romanticism" ( link to his talks, audio), the idea that suffering comes from separateness; something introduced circa 1700-1800's.
So how do we square these disparate views?
I want to share my experience with it.
TLDR version:
Interconnectedness in the outside world is pervasive and usually inescapable. It is skillful and important to notice. Interconnectedness in the inside (mental) world is pervasive and is escapable.
It's not easy to escape, hence the idea that the Buddhist path is "against the grain". It is a dead end (and a dangerous dead end) to consider interconnectedness in the inside world to be inescapable, which is a pitfall of Mahayana as I have seen it practiced. But, as a step on the path, getting to know (very intricately) our inside/internal interconnectedness is a useful and necessary step. So, we do want to listen to the internal interconnectedness, to become a connoisseur of our neuroses. But not to be caught up in it. It's a tool, not the goal.
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Recently, in a Tricycle newsletter, it said
At the heart of the Buddha’s teachings is the truth of interdependence—the interconnectivity of all living beings. Our joys and sorrows, happiness and suffering, are shared. (March 17, 2022, newsletter)
The idea of interdependence as foundational (here stated as "the heart of Buddha's teaching") is appealing, and has support in observations in the world. One person's actions affect another's. Especially anger or greed, or unvirtuous actions like stealing and killing. So, I think Thanissaro Bhikkhu would even agree that the law of Karma (action) suggests that things in the world are connected to other beings.
The key phrase I highlight is in the world. It's a good start, since most of us are super-enamored of our being / our mind. We believe that what we see, smell, taste, touch, hear, and think... that those are true and important and essential. Especially the last one: that our thoughts help define us.
This isn't terrible. Kids (like at school) use their minds to find patterns. Not just about reading and numbers. Patterns about how the teacher treats them and how other kids treat them. And what actions lead to what results. But the obsession in the mind is about the outside world. It's about ordering the outside world. That's an important initial task related to survival (in both a food and a social order way).
But the task of Buddhism isn't about the outside world, at least not in the Thai Forest tradition. The mind is focused inward, at the mind itself. At how the mind makes (crazy, varied, numerous) determinations and interpretations that shape how our mind itself works. And when we can start looking at the mind as a process, we start getting a bit more at how reality is perceived. And that gives us freedom.
That freedom is a freedom away from interbeing. We see that being in the world involves a lot of interbeing, a lot of mental activity related to these external phenomenon. But all those thoughts go through the mind/perception/machine. So, if we can be able to flip those switches in the mind, we can start exercising some control and expertise over our reactions. We aren't bound, like so many animals are, to want to attack when we are attacked. Or to flee when we are scared. Those "instincts" get reprogrammed, in a sense. In my own view (and in the preface to Emotions Revealed by Ekman), the first thought can't be fully controlled, even by expert meditators. That is a "biological"-based thought. But there are ways to moderate it, through very strong goodwill practices or very strong preparation (in the Boy Scout sense). If we have prepped for an injury, we don't have to panic when the injury prepares. In that way, we get the freedom of not being bewildered or thrown off by life. We get very good at preparation. Either by deliberately visiting situations like fear or pride. Or, just through the natural vicissitudes of life, we get plenty of practice facing fear, facing pride. And then, we have freedom by seeing, "oh, this is a thought (or bio-thought-reflex)". And then we learn that we don't have to be entangled.
But first, we have to get very familiar with that entangling. We don't get past entangling by wishing that we never get into situations of entangling. That is a poor training. Like a pilot who trains only to fly in good weather. We need to get good at bad weather. And we need to get good at noticing how we, metaphorically, go and seek out bad weather. How we feed our anger, impatience, greed, wishful thinking, delusion. And an exploration of interbeing in our mind is precisely a great way of exploring GAD and mind states. How they arise. How they pass away. Mahayana-ists, to the extent they do mindfulness-satipatthana and calm abiding meditation, they do get to see the arising of things and the passing away. They do get to be very familiar. And then they start to see the endless chain, the thoughts that span other thoughts, the feeding that spans other feeding.
So, in that way, to be encouraged to look at interbeing is powerful. We get very good at looking into the mind. But the dangerous element is that we start thinking the whole path is to generate wholesome interbeing. This is akin to what Thanissaro Bhikkhu calls people who have tried to take the 4 Noble Truths and turn it into the 1-fold path of metta. It fits the trend: the idea that kindness is all that is needed to take you all the way. (like in a sports show: he... could... go... all... the... ... ... WAY; it is exciting). But here, the middle way is important, to not go to the extreme of getting enamored and entangled in kindness itself. Certainly, when one must make a choice to act in the world, having an attitude of helpfulness is wonderful. But for every action in the world, I think there are a few million actions in the mind, many unseen or hard to see. But it is possible to see more when we look closer. A photo has a few million points, and we can never encode all the millions of points: but we can look more carefully and see not just the foreground or the background, but to see the "hidden indians" (old kids puzzle), and to see the grain of the film itself.
I think it was stuff related to Walter Benjamin (who I haven't read directly, but I have heard allusions to), who talked about perception. And, it might be said, it's impossible to conclude which perspective is the "true" one. We each see with some angle. We each have some hidden features, and some not. Even if you have the sharp tele-photographic lens, if everyone else has a blurry view, that is, in some way "the truth". To Benjamin, I think it was said that it is harder to see the glasses we look than the glasses sitting on the counter.
Buddhism is about "seeing". Seeing things that are hard to see, that we just don't see because they are so much in the background. Things like clinging and feeding and craving. Things like interconnectedness.
Or, maybe it should be said that Buddhism is about "listening". Closing our eyes and tuning in to those things that are hard to hear. The crickets. The hum of a fan. The beating of our own heart. The wind in our lungs.
So, this interconnectedness and interbeing; those are things that definitely are to be seen. But they aren't to be glorified. They are to be cleaned up. But our cleaning up should aim to not create more entanglements.
If your form of Buddhism is to be a socially-engaged Buddhist, then the interconnectedness is a good foundation to match the two things. But the Buddha wasn't a crusader or persuader. He was reported to have said that there are very few with little dust in their eyes. And, accordingly, it's not his job to try to wipe dust out of eyes that don't want that dust wiped away. In fact, a lot of us like the dust in our eyes. (I know I have my attachments that I haven't appreciated the drawbacks of enough to not be entangled by them.)
UUDR.
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