The Wider Context
Growing up in the 1950s in the South Bronx, the local community was strong, even in the midst of a huge city. Its center was a shopping area whose shopkeepers knew all the local families children by first name. Older brothers and sisters looked out for the younger ones in the streets; the local school was a focal point in the neighborhood; religion was a theme in everyday life; and a sense of cohesiveness prevailed. One had a clear sense of place and belonging, of one’s particular part in it all.
Today, many of us are experiencing a breakdown in our families and communities, even in smaller towns, along with a loss of any sense of connection to each other, to the culture we are part of, and to the world at large. This alienation is amplified by our disconnection from the earth we live on that sustains all our lives, yet is at risk of being destroyed by our neglect and abuses. When any such critical structures break down, a shift occurs from being-to-being relatedness to self-defensiveness, with vast implications for life in all forms.
If the wider holding field for mother and other primary caregivers breaks down, this disharmony will be directly mirrored in the more local field they provide prenates, infants, and children. If the community, the family situation, or the holding field provided by primary caregivers to the infant in early life is fragmented, not cohesive, non-responsive, or inconsistent, or worse, rejecting, then self will form in fragmentation, in defended and defensive forms.
The breakdown of community and family, the growing isolation of individuals, the loss of cohesion seen in many cultures, and the loss of connection to the earth we live on have pervasive effects, which might include, for example, the increase we’re seeing in autism and divorce rates, as well as the general sense of cultural malaise. Here we look at this malaise from a particular vantage point, one which considers the nature of being, the importance of the early holding environment, and the creation and dynamics of selfhood.
In order to heal the alienation in our culture, each of us must embark on our own healing journey, asking such questions as these: How do I generate suffering, both for myself and others? How do I contribute to the fragmentation and disconnection that I sense within me, in my immediate surroundings, and in the world at large?
And then the individual’s healing journey must be considered in a wider context. The wider holding field and mutual interdependence of family, community, and culture plays a critical role in any inquiry into the nature of selfhood. Our personal journeys thus interrelate with and contribute to a larger healing process in the world around us. Within a Buddhist framework, we all “interbe”. We are all mutually interdependent, and all processes, even our self-self interactions, co-arise on a vast scale.
I hope that this book, in its own way, can help orient its readers to the possibility of the inherent freedom that is present in the midst of all of these seemingly intransigent conditions that surround us.
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