Become a Global Citizen...

April 19, 2022

May all beings be happy. May they live in safety and joy.... As a mother watches over her child, willing to risk her own life to protect her only child, so with a boundless heart... cherish all living beings, suffusing the whole world with unobstructed loving kindness... During all your waking hours, may you remain mindful of this heart and this way of living that is the best in the world. - Shakyamuni Buddha

STUDY BUDDHISM - The world we live in is increasingly complex, global and interdependent. The challenges that face the current and future generations are expansive and far-reaching in nature. Their solutions most certainly require a new way of thinking and problem-solving that is collaborative, interdisciplinary and global-oriented. Compassion alone isn’t enough for engagement with the world. We need to complement compassion with responsible decision-making based on an understanding of the wider systems within which we live.

The Global Domain can seem daunting at first, but it is built upon the same knowledge and skills explored in the Personal and Social domains, just expanded to our communities, societies and the global community. Indications are that, in the same way we can understand our own behavior and that of others, the capacity to understand how systems operate is also innate. By deepening this awareness and applying critical thinking to complex situations, ethical engagement can emerge. Problem-solving becomes a more holistic process, avoiding our tendency to fragment issues into small, disconnected pieces.

The Global Domain is explored through the following topics:

Appreciating Interdependence
Recognizing Common Humanity
Community and Global Engagement

Appreciating Interdependence

Interdependence is the concept that things and events do not arise without a context, but instead depend on an array of other things and events for their existence. A simple meal that we eat, for example, comes from a wide array of sources and individuals if we trace the ingredients back in time and out in area. Interdependence also means that changes in one area lead to changes elsewhere. Effects have causes, and in fact may arise due to a diversity of causes and conditions.

The purpose of reflecting on interdependence isn’t to develop a dry understanding of how our global systems work, but to relate the knowledge to our concerns for ourselves, others and the planet. We can explore interdependence from two perspectives:

Understanding Interdependent Systems
Individuals Within a Systems Context

Understanding interdependent systems relates to moving from an “inner” and “other” focus to an “outer” focus on wider systems. We direct our awareness to understanding the principles of interdependence and global systems, such as cause and effect. With individuals within a systems context, we recognize how our existence, as that of others around us, is intricately related to a vast array of events, causes and people around the world.

Understanding Interdependent Systems

Interdependence is both a law of nature and a fundamental reality of human life. No one is able to sustain life, much less flourish, without the support of innumerable others who work to provide basic necessities of food, water and shelter, as well as the supporting infrastructure of countless institutions responsible for education, law enforcement, government, agriculture, transportation, health care, and so on. Major and well-publicized crises, such as the international recession of 2007–2009 and the mounting concerns about climate change and global violent conflict, demonstrate this kind of economic and ecological interdependence on a global level.

In traditional societies, a sense of connection with others was embedded far more deeply into everyday life. Survival often depended on sharing and exchanging resources and on other types of social cooperation, from harvesting crops to building structures and fighting off predators. Since the Industrial Revolution, with the desire to improve economic status, we have become more mobile and disconnected from the community. This has given rise to an illusion of independence, making it easy to believe that, upon reaching adulthood, we no longer need others. This false sense of self-sufficiency contributes to a growing sense of psychological and social isolation. We are intensely social creatures whose very survival, as well as psychological well-being, depend on relationships with others.

Individuals within a Systems Context

In order to make our understanding of interdependent systems meaningful, we need to complement it by looking at how we all fit into the larger picture. This helps to counter the tendency to mistakenly view ourselves as unconnected to others, or somehow independent of the larger system. Here, we explore our relationships with other human beings and the complexity of these relationships. The outcomes are threefold:

A genuine sense of gratitude for others on a systemic level
A deeper awareness of the potential we have to shape the lives of others
A growing aspiration to take actions that ensure wider well-being

We start by seeing how our behavior affects others and vice versa. We then explore the different ways that others contribute to our well-being. We can do this by making a list and going over it again and again. Rather than just focusing on the people we know as in the Social Domain, here we include a much broader spectrum: individuals, communities and systems we may not personally know. Understanding that we cannot thrive – let alone survive – without the support of countless individuals is thus essential to developing a genuine appreciation of others.

Everyone plays a part in the vast network of people who support our lives. When we realize this, we develop a feeling of reciprocity. We no longer need to see exactly how other people benefit us before we accept that most likely in some way there is benefit. As this awareness increases, the reciprocal, mutually beneficial nature of relationships slowly becomes prioritized over a narrowly self-focused or competitive view. This increased sense of connection to others works directly to counter loneliness by increasing our capacity for sympathetic joy. It allows for vicarious pleasure in the accomplishments of others, and provides an antidote to envy and jealousy, as well as to harsh self-criticism or unrealistic comparisons to others.

Recognizing Common Humanity

A richer understanding of interdependence, especially when combined with the skills cultivated in the Social Domain of empathic concern, should lead to a greater sense of concern for others and a recognition of the ways in which we are all interrelated. This can then be strengthened, expanded and reinforced by cultivating explicitly a recognition of common humanity. Here, we engage in critical thinking to recognize how, at a fundamental level, all human beings share certain commonalities with regard to their inner lives and the conditions of their lives. In this way, we can cultivate a degree of appreciation, empathy and compassion to any individual anywhere, even those who are far away or appear quite different to ourselves. We explore our common humanity through two topics:

Appreciating the Fundamental Equality of All
Appreciating How Systems Affect Well-Being

Appreciating the fundamental equality of all is where we realize that everyone – from our friends and family to strangers on the other side of the planet – is fundamentally equal in their aspiration for happiness and well-being, and their wish to avoid suffering. Appreciating how systems affect well-being is to recognize that global systems can either promote or compromise well-being through adopting positive values or perpetuating problematic beliefs.