Are We Connected In Consciousness?

[camerata]

In his book The Wise Heart, Kornfield says, "Just as we are interdependent with the earth and one another, we are also connected in consciousness." He gives as a proof an example of his wife having a dream about her brother dying, and it turns out her brother did die on that day and in the way she dreamed.

But is this a genuine Buddhist teaching? What do you think?

[RY12]

'Connected' as defined as equivalent constitutional nature and 'connected' meaning actual transplantation of thoughts or experiences between minds are not the same thing, I don't think the latter has any history in Buddhist teachings. Seems more like shamanism to me.

[Brucenkhamen]

In his book The Wise Heart, Kornfield says, "Just as we are interdependent with the earth and one another, we are also connected in consciousness." He gives as a proof an example of his wife having a dream about her brother dying, and it turns out her brother did die on that day and in the way she dreamed.

But is this a genuine Buddhist teaching? What do you think?

I think the idea is pretty common in Mahayana teachings, though not really in Theravadin teachings.

I don't have a problem with the idea. We are obviously interconnected on the physical level, so it stands to reason that that interconnection could go deeper than what is physical.

The use of the word conciousness though might be a problem, it's often used in a new age airy fairy way, and gives rise to the idea that there is a single conciousness behind all this (lets call it God).

I think his example is a bit lame on it's own but I guess illustrates the point.

I think an agnostic appreciation of these kinds of concepts is useful as a skillful means, as a way or re-orienting your view of the world, a blind belief in them however is unskillful.

[agent69]

Just take a few steps back and ask ourselves ... Is this really necessary to understand .. right now?

But being human, it is our job to question everything and try to find the answer the best way we can. Let's do it a bit more scientific way, shall we?

Let's just say that the Buddha found this truth of nature. So this would mean that everything has to follow these rules of nature whatever they are. So there is nothing 'super' natural.

Now what do we know about our physical world? We can interact with space & energy. And we can move along with the time. Now what is it that we think containing inside our bodies that we call souls or conciousness? Can it be combination or matters and energy ... and more? Human bodies has been subjected to evolution. Our senses have been tuned for our survival. Any other extra senses would probably still be there. But for the lack of use, they are hidden from our conciousness.

So in this case, can the wife extra senses be fine-tuned to her brother's signals? We will never know with our limited scientific knowledge. Anything in the atomic level would have to be estimated using probability.

So the Buddha said, the enlightenment will provide the mean to find the answer to the nature. Either we wait for scientists to catch up or we start practising what the Buddha has taught. What do we have to lose?