Fourth-Level Digital Dharma: The Broken Heart of Television

Steven Vedro

In my book, Digital Dharma, I look at the seven core spiritual communications challenges encoded by the different technologies of the Infosphere, and relate them to the "stages of consciousness" described by the world's esoteric traditions, the work of philosophers such as Ken Wilber, and the "spiral dynamics" model of Don Beck, Christopher Cowan, and Claire Graves. An earlier excerpt on Reality Sandwich discussed our fascination with the "codes of reality." This one looks at our addiction to television, and connects it to the hunger of the heart center for authentic connection with "the other," and in failing to meet this goal, its retreat into either hard-heartedness or the self-medication of consumption.

At the fourth level of the digital dharma path comes the discovery that every wave we send out ripples across other waves, creating a hologram of interrelating life stories; that the "other" we see actually reflects a part of ourselves. Fourth level values are held at the heart chakra, the center that radiates our desire to fully love and be loved. The pivot point between the body and the mind, this center's work is to integrate the reality of life's limitations with our dreams of a world of unconditional love. The heart intuitively yearns for connection at the deepest levels of experience. Its greatest desire is to reveal our dreams, joy and sadness, beauty and light to others.

This center naturally desires to open to every one and everything. Yet, as the Buddha tells us, the world we live in is one of suffering, wounding and limitation. While mystics of all faiths tell us that it is the blows of life that awaken the heart, for most of us, openly receiving all of this can easily overwhelm. This chakra's core challenge at each and every second is to remain open and fully compassionate to whatever comes its way; and its deepest shadow behaviors are rooted in its attempt to sidestep the inconsolable grief when it looses again and again, the objects of its attachment. It may "close down" in self-defense, and reject true intimacy in favor of the defensive strategies of intolerance and cynicism. Or it may react with hypersensitive clinging codependence and the "victim syndrome," always meeting the needs of others, one's never-healed "inner child," or one's aggrieved identity group. More often, it is a combination of these responses: guilt for all the world's victims, especially oneself, mixed together with addiction to material consumption, the acting out of grand dramas, all made possible by a lack of discernment and self-discipline.[1]

Out in the Infosphere, these are the same polarities held for us by the medium of television: the caring openness of the lover and the false self of the actor/actress archetypes; the utopian hope for community and the ever-present shadow of dysfunctional family wounding.[2] TV is both a tool of addictive consumption, and the harbinger of the enlightened global village. It reflects both a new compassionate consciousness -- a projection of the world's desire for reconciliation and understanding -- as well as all of its materialism, over-stimulation, arrogance, greed and self-pity.

TV addiction starts by transferring our needs for loving connection into over-consumption, and pleasure in the humiliation of others -- sometimes the self-important and self-deluded, but often the hapless, helpless and weak. Seen through this filter, it is no surprise that critics have called TV a "plug-in drug" that "colonizes" our minds with lies and seduction. However, let us not forget that television is also the medium through which a generation discovered - and continues to discover -- the humanity of all "the others" who share Spaceship Earth.

Marshall McLuhan believed that the fuzzy pictures of early television drew viewers into their electronic reality not so much by stimulating sight, but above all, the emotionally powerful sense of touch. The viewer, he wrote, is constantly "filling in the spaces" in the flickering mosaic mesh, interacting with the picture tube in a creative dialog with the medium's vague and blurry images.[3] This "tactile" participation in completing the television image cuts two ways: we know on some level that the people we "see" on-screen are in fact our own mind-projections. But we also sense that we are engaging with an artificial world. Television, like many of our contemporary relationships, seems forever to be drawing us in to a half-full glass, yet leaving us thirsty for real connection.

Television's use of the close-up -- originally necessitated by its small, low-resolution image -- stimulates the fourth center's always-primed emotional energy receptors, creating instant empathy with its on-screen characters. TV's critics argue that the small screen is no substitute for the "big-picture" of real life. But let's not forget that the close-up is by its nature subversive of establishment power and pretense. It reveals the human face behind the false front of the politician, and "de-deifies" world leaders.

Television favors not objective facts or reason, but in-close, emotional involvement. Television is best when it touches the emotional body, relying on the more feminine forms of expression, such as narratives and self-disclosure.[4] Leonard Shlain, in the Alphabet Versus the Goddess, tells us that it was primarily the flickering electronic hearth of television that derailed centuries of masculine linear text, bringing the return of the more feminine mode of image pattern-recognition, and with it, massive changes in social consciousness.[5] Television has always challenged the establishment by directly appealing to its audience's fourth chakra intelligence, and its self-reflective awareness that there is "more between the lines."

While radio's earliest critics and promoters saw it as an extension of centralized knowledge, artistry and political power, television was almost immediately recognized as a visitor that would bring the outside world in all of its diversity into the viewer's home. And indeed, it was television's right brain orientation that first brought us face-to-face (and heart-to-heart) with the world's and our own community's "foreigners." Despite a predominance of cowboys and Indians, violent crime shows and cartoons, TV also introduced the boomer generation to outsiders of differing classes, gender, color, language, tribes and nations.[6] The movements that nurtured the first generation of the new culture -- the Civil Rights, feminist, peace and the environmental and holistic health movements of the 1960's -- had their roots in television's way of seeing the world.[7]

Telling compassionate stories is what drives the best television programming. Previously disenfranchised people -- the poor and homeless, even endangered species like whales and dolphins -- have all found a place in TV's all-embracing portrait of the global family. Throughout the 1970's and 1980's, Sesame Street and the early versions of Star Trek embodied television's heart-softening magic, connecting us with other families, neighborhoods, cultures and even distant galaxies. Captains James Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard taught us overcome intolerance and injustice without violence; Mister Rogers was there to guide families into the dark corners of their childhood closets, and a generation raised on Lassie and Flipper, began to insist on "dolphin-safe" tuna.

This medium not only brings the ugliness of war "home;" it tends to humanize the "enemy." In the 70's, television coverage of the Vietnam War helped turn the tide of public opinion against this otherwise remote conflict. This subversion of military victories by TV's coverage of its consequences on "regular citizens" continues today. The horrific images of American soldiers humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraid Prison shown on television in the summer of 2004 did more to turn the world against the Iraq war than dozens of street protests.

In the Balkans, television is now reuniting people separated by the (radio-driven) ethnic wars of the 1990's. Nashe Maalo, a children's program in Macedonia, is bringing together Albanians, Turks, Roma, and Serbs. Encouraged by UNICEF, Children's Television Workshop created Rruga Sesam (Albanian language) and Ulica Sezam (Serbian language) in 2004. The programs, in addition to teaching literacy and numbers, include locally produced live actions segments developed in collaboration with both ethnic Albanian and Serbian content advisors that emphasize respect and understanding.[8]

Television's emotional hook however, has its downside. It can ignite compassion, but also seduce and beguile. "At its very best," Christian essayist, David Dark tells us, "television can function as a kind of Trojan Horse that ambushes our minds with the lives of individuals and cultures to whom we might not otherwise be inclined to connect ourselves." It encourages us, he says, to cultivate the quality of empathy. Yet, at the same time, it taps our most base emotions, "driving us to base our identity on what we able to purchase, hijacking our hopes with the emptiest of slogans and scenarios, and wasting our sympathies on tales that are devastatingly shallow and sentimental."[9]

Why is this? I believe that television is reflecting the heart's challenge of responding to a world of limitation: of the frightened ego and its ever-present personal and global "pain body."[10] Yes, it offers us real emotional connection with the fellow inhabitants of our small planet, showcasing liberal values of tolerance and self-esteem; but it also enables us to avoid experiencing all of the consequences of our actions (and inaction) -- the suffering we ourselves cause other humans, other species, and our environment. Clear television viewing demands that we look deeply into all of the pain we hold in our own energy field and in all of mass consciousness. It asks the heart to break open in compassion. But for most of us, this is too much to ask. Without a strong grounding in the lower chakras and without the connections to the divine self held by the higher centers, the ego-mind turns away from all the painful data TV brings from the outside world, and quite naturally searches for some kind of "jamming signal."

Reeling from the overpowering experience of true grief, psychologists tell us that many people respond by either hardening their hearts, retreating to other levels of consciousness, or translating the uncomfortable message to something less scary. Television reflects all three of these defense strategies: cynicism, avoidance, and self-numbing addiction. Television's shadow side destroys our peace and tranquility because we demand it! We empower this industry to use all of its artistic power to cover the possibility of confronting global grief with attention grabbing, but essentially empty, mini-dramas. We self-medicate, but of course, the cure is worse than the disease.

At its worst, contemporary TV programming perpetuates a kind of addictive emotionalism; the medium's potential for opening the heart has been subverted by its glorification of desire. Soap operas and reality shows offer psychological gratification at bargain closeout prices. Politics becomes spectacle; news becomes fashion reporting, and "media relations" passes for leadership. Instead of promoting real compassion, which requires a truly vulnerable heart center, and can only come when one has faced one's own pain, television offers a chance to feel only pity or distain for the parade of losers brought to our screens, leaving us in spiritual depression.

Television's shadow reflects addictive personal consciousness played out in public space: a nightmare place where the self is defined wholly by want, wish and the capacity to consume; where avarice, gluttony and lust are disguised as infomercials and the pretend intimacy of the tell-it-all talk show. For many, stuffing ourselves with junk media and junk food has become an obsession that no diet can cure. Commercial television's world is a place where nothing interferes with desire: a perfect consumer society, a dream world where, in A.P. reporter Erin Texeira's words, "black and white kids play softball together, where biracial families email photos online and where Asians and blacks dance in the same nightclub," (all) united by a shared love for consumer products.[11]

The recent proliferation of new cable and satellite channels has multiplied the number of programs both inspiring and disappointing. On the plus side, Oprah continues to promote feminine values of service and sharing. The Discovery Channel airs numerous documentaries on the health of the planet; even the conservative Fox network agreed to carry Morgan Spurlock's "Thirty Days," a "reality" series featuring such empathetic situations as a homophobic military man living with a gay roommate in San Francisco, and a southern Christian staying with a Muslim family -- for thirty days.[12] But for the most part, it's more of the same self-absorption and "junk food for the wounded heart." Women's channels promise to fill the inner void with fantasies. Food channels offer extreme close-ups of sensuous vegetables -- "food porn" -- for a society that has forgotten its connection to the soil. Men get twenty-four-hour soft-core sex, "extreme sports" and sensationalism disguised as news, while the young get heartless cartoon programs delivering post-modern "slacker" cynicism and juvenile dirty jokes.[13]

Living in Full Fourth-level Teleconsciousness

How can we cope with such a diet? I suggest that we embrace small doses of television as our opportunity to see the other as self. The embarrassing excesses of "reality" television, the advertisements promising us security through consumption, and the parade of shallow, escapist comedies, can become the lenses through which we see humanity struggle with its denied and repressed responsibility for suffering in the world. We can use the medium spiritually, to better perceive reality, as it is, warts and all. We can hold the broken heart of humanity in compassion, but not become stuck in our own well-worn melodramas. The flickering, incomplete mosaic can be the portal to loving mindfulness, a state where, in the words of Buddhist eco-philosopher Richard Grossinger, "instead of wanting to cache and horde, we want to share. Instead of trying to liberate only ourselves, we mean to set everyone and everything free."[14]

Perceiving that we are indeed "all one family" is the challenge of the new Millennium. The global proliferation of cable and satellite TV has projected this challenge onto tens of millions of glowing screens. By revealing that which we have pushed out of our field of vision, television can become the doorway to social and spiritual transformation. Instead of a "hundred-channel universe," might this technology enable each of us to become a channel of a hundred universes, appreciating the beauty and the imperfections in all of Creation? Letting each retrace line remind us that we can begin again, that we can forgive those that hurt us, that we can forgive ourselves?

So let us tread gently into fourth-level digital dharma, imagining that we are walking behind all those enlightened souls that preceded us, and all those that will follow. Start your journey with an examination of what you fondly consider to be your "heart-centered" relationships. The question is: are they wrapped in codependence and attachment? Are you living the archetype of the radiant Lover, or avoiding vulnerability by treating love as a mental exercise? Are you grounded in spirit or full of emotions and self-pity? Or do you "love" so much that you're incapacitated by the world's pain? The following visualizations and meditation exercise are invitations to step into the compassionate vibration of fourth-level digital dharma.

Watch commercials as tales of longing. Ask yourself, "What unfulfilled need is this message appealing to?" Allow in to your very being the true experience of the broken heart of humanity. From your heart center, emanate love to all victims of commercial exploitation, and to all beings in general.

Use TV to discover your heart's hidden desires, lost memories. When you feel a deep emotional response, turn down the volume and stay with the feeling in your body. Let it become stronger. Where is it located? What is its color or sound? Ask your heart center to embrace the feeling completely. Stay with the experience for a few minutes. Ask your higher self to take you to the time you first felt this way. Watch the story as it plays out on your inner TV monitor. If it is painful, send forgiveness to all involved. If it is a happy moment, thank all present for giving you this gift.

Clear the Infosphere. Visualize yourself joining together with others to form a field of Universal Love around all TV satellites. Envision Spaceship Earth being displayed on everyone's TV set all around the world. Radiate love, compassion and forgiveness to the hearts of all watching.

Excerpted from Digital Dharma: A Users Guide to Expanding Consciousness in the Infosphere, ©2007 Quest Books.

[1] Anodea Judith, Eastern Body Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to Self, Berkeley: Celestial Arts (1996), p.278-79; See also Donna Seaman's Booklist review of Ken Wilber's Boomeritis. Boston: Shambahla (2002), at http://archive.ala.org/booklist/v98/je1/31wilber.html.

[2] On the chakra archetypes, see Ambika Wauters, Chakras and their Archetypes: Uniting Energy Awareness and Spiritual Growth, Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press (1997), p.91.

[3] "The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan", Playboy Magazine, March 1969.

[4] Steven D. Stark, Glued to the Set: The 60 Television Shows and Events that Made Us Who We Are Today. New York: Free Press (1997), p.31.

[5] Leonard Shlain, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image. New York: Viking-Penguin (1998), p.408-409.

[6] Duane Elgin, Awakening Earth: Exploring The Evolution of Human Culture & Consciousness. New York: William Morrow (1993), p.140.

[7] Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson, The Cultural Creatives. New York: Harmony Books (2000).

[8] Arie Farnam, "TV Show Helps Macedonia Heal," The Christian Science Monitor Online, October 9, 2003. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1009/p06s01-woeu.html. On Sesame Street, see http://www.participate.net/sesamestreet/kosovo; this program was featured on Independent Lens on many public television stations in October 2006, http://www.itvs.org/pressroom/pressRelease.htm?pressId=329. Another version of Sesame Street created in South Africa features a puppet character with HIV/AIDS.

[9] David Dark, Everyday Apocalypse. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press (2002), p.43.

[10] On "the pain body," see Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now. Novato CA: New World Library (1999), and A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. New York: Dutton/Penguin (2005).

[11] Bill McKibben, The Age of Missing Information. New York: Random House (1992), p.183. Erin Texeira, "Racial Unrealties," Associated Press report, published in The Capital Times (Madison WI), February 17 2005. E1. Detroit News carried same story online at www.detnews.com/2005/nation/0502/17/A09-91078.htm.

[12] On "Thirty Days," see http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/30days/main.html.

[13] Bill Buford, "TV Dinners: The rise of food television," New Yorker, October 2, 2006. 42. In mid-2006, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd observed, "As the administration has gotten more hypermasculine and martial (when will Dick Cheney order us to change all our clocks to military time?), prime time is getting more feminine and seductive." "From McBeal to McDreamy," May 17, 2006.

[14] Richard Grossinger, On the Integration of Nature: Post 9/11 Biopolitical Notes, Berkeley: North Atlantic Books (2005), p.209.