Connection vs. Entanglement: Our Relationship with the World

I. The Psychology of Connection: The Key to Zhuangzi’s Psychology

Connection is central to the study of the psyche and the spirit. It also extends Zhuangzi’s philosophy of the unity of humanity and heaven: a luminous connection among the person, oneself, others, society, and the cosmos is the answer to existentialism. Earlier articles in the connection series include “How Connections Break,” “We Have Always Been Searching for Connection,” “Why Connection with Nature Is Difficult,” and “Why Striving Is Already a Mistake and Applying Force Already Misses the Mark: A Perspective from Connection.”

II. The Psychology of Relationships: Kohut’s Self Psychology and the Object Relations School

These two mainstream supportive frameworks both center on relationships.

A. The object relations school: the holding environment, the good-enough mother (appropriate frustration), internalized objects, the false self, and so on. Under unhealthy conditions, internalized bad objects (a harsh superego/parents, “I am bad”) and the false self all serve to preserve relationships. A well-known saying: a toxic relationship is better than no relationship.

c. One of the core concepts of self psychology: “selfobject experience/function”

Its three main elements—“mirroring (being seen and recognized), idealization (connection with a calm, powerful, perfect source of strength), and twinship/alter ego (a fundamental similarity to others, a similar existence, a sense of connection)”—involve a healthy connection with the mother -> the development of one’s own healthy capacity for self-soothing (selfobject functioning).

Under unhealthy conditions, poor-quality relationships develop: a. poor-quality mirroring: craving others’ praise; b. poor-quality idealization: blindly worshipping or idealizing certain people, or immediately falling apart upon discovering that someone, such as a boyfriend or girlfriend, falls short of the ideal; c. poor-quality alter ego: seeking a relationship like that between twin infants, indulging without limits, and disregarding others’ boundaries.

III. The Repetition of Unhealthy Patterns

Unhealthy relationships -> unhealthy relationship patterns -> unhealthy personality patterns. This is one of the keys to the karmic obstructions addressed by the study of the psyche and the spirit. Earlier articles, “Petty-Bourgeois Malaise,” “The Small-Town Test-Taker’s Malaise,” and “The Fundamental Contradictions of University Students,” reveal the psychological roots of existential crises such as elitism, feelings of superiority, reclusiveness, and escape from freedom.

Examining the five elements of a person’s life—studies, career, social life, body, and mind—reveals two types of patterns: “Connection vs. Entanglement.”

IV. Connection Through One’s True Nature vs. Entanglement in Karmic Obstructions

Karmic entanglement consists of karmic obstructions interacting, projecting, demanding, and exerting force through fixation, rather than the natural connection arising from the luminosity of one’s true nature.

The resulting relationships are therefore superficial, restless, clouded by karmic obstructions, and marked by a sense of broken connection; people share a bed but dream different dreams, or turn their weapons on those under the same roof; inner strength is depleted, and the mind sinks into darkness,

rather than being simple, grounded, luminous, and marked by a sense of connection; people share convictions and a path, weathering difficulties together; inner strength is nourished, and the mind is clear.

A person’s healing, direction, and journal also involve examining their relationship with the five elements of life—studies, career, social life, body, and mind—to see whether it is one of connection or entanglement. If one is not in a state of connection—the luminosity of one’s true nature naturally connects—then one needs to examine how the connection broke and what one is entangled with.

Why are children so lovely? Children have fewer karmic obstructions, more luminosity, and innate wholeness. They activate fewer of our karmic obstructions and bring forth more beautiful connections. Children experience a reversal of roles: they ought to be cared for by adults, but often serve as containers for adults’ breakdowns and karmic projections.

“Screening Social Relationships” examines a relationship in terms of connection vs. entanglement.

“On Wandering”: when wandering, one can readily see people connecting naturally while also becoming entangled in many karmic obstructions.

V. Poor-Quality Relationships and Poor-Quality Entanglements

From an early age, people become accustomed to poor-quality relationships, poor-quality entanglements, and poor-quality patterns through their family of origin, initial learning environment, initial workplace environment, and the society they grow up in. This is why they cannot move toward a virtuous cycle. Yet people at the bottom of society, who make up the majority of the population, retain their simplicity, goodness, sincerity, and beauty despite harsh conditions throughout their lives. This is irrefutable evidence of innate wholeness and the luminosity of human nature.

The earlier article “How Connections Break” analyzes why everyone, despite their innate wholeness, moves toward karmic obstructions and broken connections.

With oneself:

Broken connection and entanglement with one’s past: regret and fantasies.

Broken connection and entanglement with the body: as in “The Small-Town Test-Taker’s Malaise,” abusing the body, even stabbing one’s thigh with an awl to stay awake while studying.

Broken connection and entanglement with the spirit: abusing the spirit and losing connection with one’s feelings and inner life. This is also a level at which various approaches to spiritual work operate.

Entanglement with studies and career

People often pursue hollow prestige, superficial glamour, and short-term gains rather than what they love, while claiming that they are doing it for their families. They have no real connection with their studies or careers.

There is no connection in their reading either: it is merely for show, making the Six Classics serve as commentaries on oneself, hoarding knowledge, and indulging in compulsive spiritual practice and elitism.

Entanglement with others

Poor-quality, toxic relationships, fair-weather friends, and short-term mating relationships.

Many families are together every day, yet have much entanglement and little connection.

Petty bureaucrats often turn into prison bosses. Those who fawn on their superiors inevitably bully their subordinates: they are subjected to torment while also possessing the power to torment others, karmically entangled on both sides. Many people kick the cat and bully their children at home, taking abuse outside and acting like tyrants at home. A similar principle is at work.

“Petty-Bourgeois Malaise,” “The Fundamental Contradictions of University Students,” and “The Small-Town Test-Taker’s Malaise”: entanglement among peers caused by competition and involution. Peers, classmates, and colleagues ought to be fellow travelers, sharing the same predicament and finding their way out as in *The Shawshank Redemption* or Nora’s departure from home. Yet they often become instruments of involution, meritocracy, and competitive comparison, breaking connections, becoming entangled, and deepening existential nihilism.

“Other People’s Karmic Obstructions Work Through Our Own: Karmic Entanglement Among Peers and Colleagues in the Same Role as an Example”: everyone is an enemy to everyone else. For relationships among peers to cease being involutionary, we will have to wait until communism. Until then, all this remains one of the roots of the existential crises of test-takers, university students, and the petty bourgeoisie.

Entanglement with society

Entanglement with the big Other, escape from freedom, projection, prejudice, and so on.

One’s relationship with the people/society/history/the world is one of entanglement rather than connection, as in regional discrimination and discrimination against and disparagement of those at the bottom of society.

Entanglement with nature

“Conquering” nature and rejecting nature, rather than connecting with nature.

VI. A Deeper Level of Psychology, and the Core Function of Connection and Relationships: Containment and Soothing

The infant and mother move from oneness to differentiation. When the infant struggles with the frustration and pain of losing control—hunger or a wet diaper—the self’s capacity for containment and soothing is insufficient, so the infant obtains soothing from outside, through connection with the mother.

When the self’s capacity for containment and soothing is insufficient, and the self is not robust or mature enough, various pathological states arise (vertical/horizontal splitting in self psychology, and depression–splitting in the object relations school). There is also no capacity to contain others’ projections (Bion’s alpha function).

Another article, “The Most Fundamental Psychological Model,” discusses the complex of feelings, the awareness–containment complex (a. the capacity for emotional containment, b. the defense complex, c. the system of karmic obstructions, d. innate wholeness, higher feelings, and meta-feelings), the energy complex, and the libido complex.

Awareness Is the Most Important Thing

The most important things a person does each day—resting, eating, exercising and being active, controlling blood glucose, thinking deeply, stopping entanglement in karmic obstructions, and restoring connection through one’s true nature—all require a high degree of awareness rather than striving. The *Platform Sutra*: “Deluded in the preceding thought, one is an ordinary person; awakened in the following thought, one is a Buddha.”

The striving and exertion of daily life often involve things we are pushed into doing or troubles we bring upon ourselves. Awareness can lessen the state of karmic obstruction within them.

But awareness is not something people can control, which is why journaling is so important: states of high awareness connect with states of low awareness.

Connection and Seeking Truth from Facts

Seeking truth from facts is an expression of being well connected with the present, oneself, and others.

Without a good connection with oneself, there is dissociation and confusion.

Without a good connection with others, there are fantasies, greed, anger, and delusion, and one oversteps the boundaries of the affinity and circumstances currently shared.

Without a good connection with the present, there is resistance and agitation.

VII. Materialism and Class

The so-called awakened ones and those who find peace early among the petty bourgeoisie are fortunate. Yet most also struggle to eradicate petty-bourgeois karmic obstructions.

Proletarians have fewer karmic obstructions and retain their simplicity. Countless people naturally move toward awakening, demonstrating the power of innate wholeness and the luminosity of one’s true nature.

The earlier article “A New Model of Psychological Growth Levels and Needs”: the foundational level, the existential level, the awakening level, and the self-actualization level.