Why Connection Is The Name Of The Game

Hello Friends,

In this week’s letter, I write about:

And a quick announcement: I have some online appointments still available in March for anyone who’s interested (first time or follow-up).

I am writing from Nepal, where I've spent the last month and a half attending pujas with Tibetan Buddhist lamas, traveling to small ashrams deep in the jungle, meeting wonderful folks in small rural villages, and working on some new creative endeavors. For the majority of this time I've been in the Kathmandu valley in the town of Boudhanath, home of the great Boudhanath Stupa and a pilgrimage site for Buddhists from around the world. This is truly one of my favorite places on earth, and spending an extended period here has been a real blessing. As I prepare to return to the US in a few days, I am especially grateful for this opportunity to deepen my practice and gain inspiration from the many colorful characters I've met.

I especially valued spending much of this time with my travel companion and old friend, Michael Schneeweis. After a rather bizarre and in some ways unsettling year (perhaps more on this in future newsletters), it has been wonderful to reconnect with such a dear friend. Michael and I first met when I was 18 during my freshman year of college and bonded over our shared interest in Buddhism and meditation (which, for both of us, bordered on an obsession). Over the years, we have seen each other through many different eras of life, through many ups and downs, and I have always felt deeply fortunate to have such a friend.

Reflecting on this good fortune has led me to consider friendship more generally and how it is an essential ingredient of life. It also seems to be missing for so many today, especially in the modern West. I have seen statistic after statistic about how large percentages of the US population claim to have only a few friends, and many claim to have none. These statistics are especially concerning for young men, many of whose lives are so thoroughly consumed by their computers that they have lost touch with humanity in many ways. I see this trend consistently in my work with clients; so many of us today are starved for meaningful connection, yet we live in a culture that, in many ways, does not promote it.

This problem is compounded by a pervasive confusion that is widely purveyed: strong cultural forces have taught many of us from a very early age that the key to happiness is to pursue our own narrow self-interest, often at the expense of others. Relating to others as a means to an end is common in American culture, and a self-concerned attitude is often valorized, even in self-help and so-called "spiritual" circles. In many ways, we are taught that we will find well-being through pursuing our own desires, not by supporting the well-being of others, or humanity at large. In my experience, however, this is not the case. A plethora of psychological research supports the idea that the more time we spend thinking about ourselves, the less happy we tend to be, and I have seen this repeatedly in my clinical work and my own relationships. It is no wonder that, in our habitually self-oriented states, we struggle to form meaningful bonds with others and relax enough to trust that they truly care for us. Today it seems that so many of us are being deconditioned out of the human impulses that promote the development of friendship. This is a shame, because friendships are precisely what help save us from our own anti-social tendencies; being around people who we really care for can help wake us up from our narrow, self-oriented worlds--worlds which we all have the capacity to fall into from time to time. Friendship, the love for someone other than ourselves, supports us greatly in this way.

In the Upaddha sutta, the Buddha corrects his student Ananda, when he remarks on the benefits of spiritual friendship, saying that 'surely spiritual friendship is half of the holy life.' The Buddha explains that, in actual fact, admirable friendship (kalyāṇamittatā) is the entirety of the holy life. For, when one has developed admirable friendships, they can be expected to pursue an admirable, spiritually focused life. When I first heard this teaching from the Buddha many years ago, I found it somewhat confusing. Wasn't spiritual practice, and Buddhism especially, oriented around self-sufficiency? Wasn't it focused on meditative seclusion and being an "island unto oneself" instead of depending on others for inner development? I now realize that I had set up a faulty dichotomy in my mind between spiritual self-sufficiency and the reality of interdependence. The only way anyone ever hears the Dharma, the spiritual teachings, is from the mouths of others. Even the Buddha, who is often characterized as unique in this respect because he did not develop his insights with the help of a teacher in his life, is said to have had many teachers in past incarnations. In this way, we are all woven together and dependent. We all need others to help us along the way.

Many people in America today find it hard to find solid friendships. I am not the only one to note that many people are so frantically busy, so oriented around filling their own desires and projects, and so focused on material acquisition that relationships are not high on their list of priorities. Because of this unfortunate state of affairs, I think that today it is important to remember that friendship is not something we merely consume but something we can create. Small gestures of friendliness go a long way in our world, bridging psychic boundaries to bring deeper meaning and connection to people's lives. If we look around and feel that there is a shortage of people who we would consider potential kalyāṇamittatās--admirable friends--that is, people whose way of being we feel blessed and supported by, whose presence in our lives help us on our path of spiritual development--then we are just going to have to work harder to become admirable friends for others.

At the end of the day, I sometimes think there are really only two paths in this life: the path of increasing connection and the path of increasing disconnection. The spiritual life is obviously a path of increasing connection—leading us to experience a greater sense of connection with others, including not just humanity but other forms of life, as well as developing a greater connection with the source of awareness itself. Whether one lives in a dense city or spends their days in the solitude of meditative retreat, connection is the name of the game.

Reflecting on this, I have found myself re-orienting myself in certain ways, and I hope this new orientation will be reflected in my work this year. I have a lot of big projects gestating, and in different ways they are all focused around creating more connection:

So, for all of us, here is to making 2026 a year of greater connection.

Aidan

Aidan Keeva, DACM, L. Ac.,

Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine

AidanKeeva.com