Chapter 6: You Are What You Download

Diana Winston

Let's imagine the Buddha on foot, traversing dusty northern India a few hundred years before the birth of Christ. Wandering and spreading the word from village to village, stopping only during the rainy season, he is followed by a retinue of shaved-head men and women, all of whom see him as the Holy One, the Enlightened, the World Knower. Each word from his mouth is like nectar to the disciples, quenching their thirst for knowledge, leading them to the supreme happiness. The great sage carries a begging bowl, a razor, a second set of robes, and a worn-out but functioning laptop with an extra set of batteries. Even the Buddha needed to check his e-mail.

This image may not work for you. Never mind the anachronism. In truth it's hard to imagine the Buddha surfing the Web. He was an oral tradition kind of guy, for starters. If the Buddha were around these days, I bet he would have a lot to say about Internet technology and its effect on our minds. Does the Internet oppose his teachings of moderation, restraint, nonconfusion, and nongreed? What about the Buddhist precept against clouding or confusing the mind with intoxicants? Is the Internet an intoxicant, sending us further into the delusion of separateness, wanting, control, and self? To answer these questions, the Buddha would point us computer-age denizens directly to our own minds. It's all there, in this fathom-long body, so he said.

He might ask us: Does it matter what you fill your head with? From the Buddha's perspective, the answer is unquestionably yes. Everything affects us. The law of karma reminds us that each action—no matter how tiny—has an effect. And effects are cumulative: "With single drops of water, the water bucket fills." What kind of mental habitat do we want to create? What kind of self (to use Buddhist language) gets constructed each time we add another drop of water, possibly from a questionable source, into our mind? And might the accumulation of those drops drive us into activity we might not be too happy about later, such as Web shopping for antique dinnerware?

The popular belief, so I hear, is that we don't need to worry about what goes into our heads. We forget everything. Watching violence on television does not necessarily reproduce violent acts in the real world, the theory goes. After all, we have natural filters, we humans are infinitely adaptable, and smart to boot. We'll forget the unimportant or awful stuff and retain what really matters, like which cable station is which number on the channel changer.

My own experience as a meditator, spending hours and hours observing my mind, has shown me without a shadow of doubt that we are affected by what enters our minds, although we don't always see it right away. If we feed our minds with greed-inducing information, we are certain to get more greedy. The Internet, once hailed as a revolutionary, time-saving communication technology, has turned out for the most part to be a time-wasting, greed inducing, glorified shopping channel. As with most things in America, consumerism reigns. And our poor minds pay the cost.

The Clouded Mind

I'm a bit of a meditation junkie. I gravitate toward long periods of structured silent retreat, say, three months at a time. I practice vipassana, or insight meditation, where I observe the moment-to-moment experience in my mind and body: my breath, body sensations, thoughts, and emotions. On these retreats I meditate in silence for sometimes fourteen hours a day, every day, no break. I am not supposed to talk to anyone, read, write, watch TV, open a newspaper, or go online. The point is to clear the mind of the usual distractions of everyday life in order to see where my mind is clinging or creating a sense of "self," and then to find freedom through letting go. So on retreat I empty out my mind, and in all that residual mental space, everything I ever ingested floats to the surface. Yes, it is still in there although it's hard to say where.

On long retreats I remember the tiniest supposedly insignificant experiences, like the time I fought with my friend Karen when we were four because she wanted to color the entire coloring book red and I protested for variety's sake; or my dad teaching me to listen to rain; or the wallpaper in my bedroom and the way the light shone in between the tree leaves and created moving shadow puppets on the wall; the smells and views of the little hill town in India where I lived for six months; and the time I first kissed someone, who shall remain nameless.

While meditating, my mind has yielded at all hours of the day, without relief, unending rounds of seventies commercials, television jingles, Broadway musicals, "The Brady Bunch" and other TV theme songs, monologues from acting class, bad rock and roll, previous discussions, good rock and roll, songs from summer camp . . . the ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah. . . . They have not gone away. Worse, when I try to sit still to find peace and calm, they come back to haunt me. (I will say, however, that in all these years of meditating, quantitative algebra has yet to materialize.)

No, this mind has not forgotten. It is all in there, especially strong and violent stuff. An avid fan of Salman Rushdie, I once snatched up the first novel of his former wife, Marianne Wiggins, with anticipation, assuming great minds must think alike. Before long I found myself unable to put down an oeuvre on cannibalism. The plot chronicled a group of young girls, who shipwrecked on a desert island, resort to dining on each other. I have scarcely encountered in literature anything as horrific as the little girls gleefully roasting the forearms of the ship captain and devouring the ghastly morsels. I quickly put it out of my mind. Or so I thought. A few years later, in the midst of another long meditation retreat, graphic replays from Wiggins's book tortured me. For a week I walked the halls of the meditation center like a wraith, tormented by images I couldn't exorcise. Ultimately they played themselves out, thanks to vigilant mindfulness. I followed the experience with a heartfelt vow: From this day on I will never take anything into my poor mind that I don't want to see later.

Are meditators encouraged to hold to a basic level of ethics because you might not like what you see otherwise? If you are morally in good shape, maybe you don't spend hours on the cushion engaged in remorse, regret, and guilt. But what if you're not? I shouldn't have told her that story, but it was just too good to keep to myself, or I should never have shoplifted the Bonne Bell lip gloss from CVS; the ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah. Ethics gives us a framework to abide by. As part of our personal ethics, we lean toward simplicity, renunciation, and generosity rather than complication, gaining, and consuming. Thich Nhat Hanh's interpretation of the fifth precept invites us not to cloud our mind with any kind of intoxicant, including TV and the Internet, in addition to the usual drugs and alcohol listed in the Buddhist texts. If we try to follow this precept, we may try to avoid online stimulants and the apparatus of shopping in order to maintain some peace of mind. We can create a life infinitely less cluttered with stuff—internally and externally.

But if we do find ourselves inexorably drawn to the Internet, what happens when we deliberately imbibe excessive, violent, stupid, pointless, titillating, and prodigious information in a direct link from our computer to our brain? As an Internet user, my already full mind is privy to vast new fields of information, stories, poems, bad jokes, sites, commentary, porn, pet projects, hoaxes, dating opportunities, music, chat rooms, sweepstakes offers, commercials, products, advertisements. Do I need more stuff in there? I have hundreds of books I haven't yet read. I have interesting friends whose brains I haven't picked, countries I've never visited, films still to see—and libraries, remember them?

Now I cannot help but think Internet thoughts. My everyday discussions refer to links and URLs and sites. Once I commented to a friend that our conversations had become a Web site. We headed in one direction and a tangent sent us off in another, which led to another, and so on. We were clicking conversational links. "Would you hit Back?" he asked me. "I'm lost."

What do we want in our minds? More junk? If so, log on. Do we really want to keep jamming in this useless, vaguely entertaining, often not even true, never-ending information? It will stay in there, I guarantee. And it will come out to haunt us. The question is, will it make us better people? Yes, yes, I know, we can learn very important things from the Internet. Alternative press has flourished, as has alternative political campaigning. I have access to new media studies, hip peace events in Bangladesh and Colombia, left-wing critiques of the war of the month. They used it in Chiapas. They organized with it in Seattle. I am not denying any of this. If you think I'm only complaining, you are missing my point.

But what kind of karma is being created from daily, less-inspired use of the World Wide Web? What sort of self is being constructed? Will the Internet make us ethical, kind, generous, or compassionate? Will it make our minds and lives more spacious and relaxed? Or will it inflame our greed, leading us to consume? With all that ingested junk, and access to much, much more, how does the Internet affect our basic ability to free our minds? Is it a tool for enslavement or for liberation?

Dependent (or not) Origination

On the day I realized that I could have anything I wanted over the Internet, I bought ten new books, a subscription to a simple-living magazine, and a pair of black leather boots, and sent myself the daily quotes of the Buddha. The Buddha sent me an e-mail about the law of karma. He said actions have results. If I plant a plum pit, I will get a plum tree. If I practice greed, Iwill be more greedy. If I practice generosity, I will be more generous. Buddhism 101.

The Buddhist teachings explain on a microscopic, almost neurological level how attachment works and the self gets created. We encounter, for example, a desirable object. At the moment of visual, aural, or touch contact with that object, a pleasant feeling arises in our minds or bodies. This pleasant feeling comes from a variety of places—past habit, training, media, standards of cool, socioeconomics, karma, and so on. With this contact, we associate the pleasant feeling with the object. The feeling itself is wonderful. In order to sustain the feeling, we think we need to get the object. We cling to the feeling and then to the object itself that we think has produced the feeling. We get attached, and voilà, the "self" is born.

Another way of saying this is, we feel something nice (pleasant feeling), we reach out for it (craving), grasp our hand tightly around it and don't let go (clinging), and then there is a birth of the self (becoming). It works in reverse too: an unpleasant feeling results in not wanting and ultimately pushing away (aversion). In Buddhist philosophy, this chain of events is called dependent origination—nothing is independently produced. This chain is happening continuously at such a rapid rate that we are seldom aware of this process. They say it is the driving force by which we live our lives. We are unconsciously responding to pleasant or unpleasant stimuli, but all we know is that we have to have the new DVD player.

Dependent origination teaches how we automatically grab for an object to stop the aching and sustain the pleasantness. In effect, we are trying to put an end to our suffering, which is certainly understandable. The chain can seem hopeless—we are controlled by an unconscious process, running toward pleasant experience and away from what is unpleasant. But this is where mindful awareness comes in, which is really the key. Mindfulness is the part of our mind that knows exactly what is happening when it is happening. It is present, aware, and connected to the moment. It has a liberating power in that it can help us to see clearly. Through the power of mindfulness, it is possible to short-circuit the cycle and prevent the automatic response. If at any moment we apply mindful awareness to the cycle of contact, pleasant feelings, wanting, and clinging, we need not move on to the next link of the chain.

We can notice Wow I want a pair of boots. We can feel the feeling of desire in our bodies (aching in the chest or gut area, pounding heart) and notice the accompanying thoughts (they're perfect, I can't live without them). Then we can apply mindfulness to these sensations or thoughts. When we see them clearly for what they are—merely thoughts and sensations, not truths about ourselves—the mind may let go. We may relax some, soften the belly, notice: "Hey, it's just a thought." By seeing it clearly, the mind can go and stop the forward thrust into attachment, purchase, and the boot-addicted self.

The revolutionary insight brought to us by the Buddha is that actually it is painful to want. Letting go of wanting stops the pain. Getting what we want only temporarily soothes the wound. Buddhist wisdom teaches us that a desire doesn't have to be fulfilled to make it go away. We can recognize and let go of the desire. We can break the chain. All we have to do is catch a single point on the cycle. Oh look, there's pleasant contact with a desirable pair of boots! Oh, I feel body sensations of longing for them, hmm. Oh, I feel myself wanting! If we can bring mindfulness here, we can break the chain. It is up to us; we are not slaves to an automatic process. We don't have to buy the boots. The desire for them may fade through the power of mindfully witnessing dependent origination.

Part of breaking the chain depends on our ability to have some space for reflection. But what happens when our reflection time is limited? What happens when we throw the speed of the Internet into this equation? Over the last decade, the space between a desire and the satisfaction of that desire has almost disappeared. Back in the Stone Age (before 1994, when the Internet was just a toy for computer geeks and the military), if you wanted something, there was a process. You could think about it, visualize the item, research the product, save money, compare the item at several shops, ask your friends for advice. Yes, there were mail-order catalogs, and I suppose even the shopping channel existed back then, but there was some consideration in the process to get something you wanted. Not that this would necessarily deter you, but in those halcyon days, purchasing an object required work.

On the day of the planned purchase, perhaps you asked a friend to join you, drove to the shop, found parking, discovered the desired object was or wasn't there, or they didn't have your size, browsed other things, talked with a salesperson, stopped for a late lunch, and finally, when descending upon your desired object, perhaps reneged—"Well this may not be exactly what I want after all." Today you peruse the Internet and log on to a shopping Web site. You want something—anything, really. It's the CD you never realized you needed, but now you will die without it. There it is. Great. How much? No problem, it's on sale! You type in your credit card number (or your computer—in true Orwellian fashion—remembers it), hit a control key, and it is yours.

Pleasant feeling, wanting feeling, and instantaneous action—all in just a few seconds. There is no time for mindfulness to prevent the inevitable purchase. We have no time to get free. It is easy to act quickly when there are no obstacles. We don't have to go anywhere, talk to anyone, discuss, debate, consider, or compare. We merely have to press a button.

What happens when space and distance are removed in the buying process? What happens when every possible desire can (appear to) be fulfilled at the click of a mouse? When getting an object is taken for granted in the wanting? When millions of young minds are taught that they can have anything they want whenever they want it? What are they taking into their minds, nonstop, with no filters whatsoever? What happens when these children grow up? What will happen to those sweet Buddhist values of non-greed, compassion, and generosity? We may be in for some trouble. In the new millennium, thanks to the Internet, the process is so sped up that we have no built-in physical moment to break the cycle. Could the Internet and its rapacious commerce be contributing to the breakdown of the social fabric? It seems we have become slaves to an even quicker version of dependent origination. The profusion of objects is endless; we attain them at lightning speed. This is not good news, contrary to all the press.

Go Reality

There must be an antidote to this proliferation. There must be a way out of the constructed self that has been birthed through a field of never-ending consumer desires nestled among prodigious and useless information. There has to be a way to circumvent the nasty effects and the not-so-desirable self that now has been born. It will require some work. I'm not discounting the difficulties of swimming upstream in a culture addicted to speed and greed, but we have to start somewhere.

We might try a few guidelines for support. We could limit the time we spend on the Web and do our best to stick to it. I like to ask myself, do I really need to read the thirty-fifth analysis of the Patriot Act, or could I live without it? Or we might decide that for every hour we spend online, we spend two hours in nature or with friends. A one-to-two ratio, while arbitrary, seems appropriate, or at least a place to start. Another practice would be to pay close attention to how our mind feels upon unplugging. For me the aftermath is increasingly unpleasant and the groggy spaced-out feeling is becoming less and less desirable. Sometimes after a protracted, riveting session on eBay, I log off only to find I can barely tie my shoes. Oh, right, I have a body. A neighbor stops by and it takes about fifteen minutes before I connect with the actual experience of talking. I am stumbling as if I'm drunk, and my eyes are itchy, as if I've been in a sandstorm. Ultimately I normalize, but the transition period is definitely not fun. I now ask myself on a regular basis, would I rather take a walk or surf the Web? (Don't get me wrong, sometimes the Web wins.)

There is a host of potential practices we could try. We can program our computer so a "mindfulness bell" rings randomly, and the monitor goes blank temporarily, helping us stop in that moment, breathe, and sense the body. We can put little awareness reminders stickered to our computer. We could answer e-mails only on alternate days. If we work in an office, we could invite friends to stop by to remind us to breathe while we are on the computer. In that dreadful endless space between Web pages being loaded, we could perceive it not as a tragedy but as a moment for coming back to ourselves.

As for the consumer end, we might agree with ourselves that we will make no impulse buys on the Internet—everything must be considered within a day. Or if we're really addicted, no Internet shopping, period. But I'm skeptical of the cold-turkey approach. If we really want to get radical and work at it, developing mindfulness will go a long way toward subverting the greed-inducing effects of the Internet. Learn to meditate, attend retreats, practice, practice, practice seeing the mind getting caught in craving, and learn to let go. Observe dependent origination at work in your life as frequently as you can. Notice pleasant sensations. Notice wanting. Notice clinging, notice self. Ultimately, develop mindfulness that's sharp and subtle enough to catch the pleasant sensations while online. That's the advanced practice, of course.

One of my friends, a computer expert for a meditation center, decided to try a personal "computer retreat." For several weeks he meditated five to six hours daily, and when he wasn't sitting he went online, answered e-mail, and attended to his computer responsibilities.

"Were you able to be mindful?" I asked incredulously.

"Well, not to the details of typing and reading, not each finger," he replied. "Of course my mind got sucked in. But in that retreat space, I was able to have a general sense of awareness. I could feel the presence of my body and watch myself when I got sucked in, and I could come back to the bodily experience."

How extraordinary: it may be possible to find freedom while interfacing with the machine. I suppose we need strong framing devices to override the force of habit.

On the ethical level, we have to ask ourselves what kind of person we want to be. Greedy and addicted, or generous and free? It is possible to cultivate the second set of qualities. We actually have the capability to develop our character through practice. We can generate the self we want to be. Who we become depends on each little action we take, one choice or one mouse click at a time. Whenever I fall in love with something I just have to buy—a new sweater, a fancy toaster, or even a doorstop—I ask myself this question: Ten minutes ago, did you even know the item existed? Somehow this simple reminder helps me to let go of the wanting.

In the end it may come down to that Buddhist value of contentment. Being with things exactly as they are and being perfectly content. Not needing anything other than what you already possess within you to be happy. Contentment isn't valued in this high-speed and high-greed culture. If people were content with what they have and who they are, why would they go shopping? Learning to cultivate and acknowledge your own contentment is a revolutionary act in these times. Every time you feel contentment—in a conversation, a meal, a sunset—really sense the contentment. What do your body and mind feel like? For me contentment holds a subtle quality of well-being, a peace or quiet happiness. My body feels fully present, relaxed. I could be smiling, but I don't have to be. Everything is simply enough. Nothing more is needed to be happy. We can train our minds to settle for less. Just this.

To address the systemic impacts of cyberspace, I thought it might be useful to start an advertising campaign called "Go Reality." It would remind people through television spots, print media, and flashing Internet ads that ordinary life, exactly as it is, is actually better than the virtual world. Posters would display zoned-out kids staring glassy-eyed at computer screens contrasted with other kids romping cheerfully through the woods. Celebrity spots could broadcast: "When was the last time you spoke to your child?" or "Real sex is better" or "Try nature, it's the real thing."

The Go Reality campaign could invade the Internet and promote disruption. Those horrible hijacking ads—the ones for dating and for loans that pop onto your screen when you hit the Web—could be rivaled with hijacking ads of our own. Whenever you go on a shopping Web site, a message could pop up: "Do you really need that?" "Save for your kids' education." "C'mon, you're wasting your money." We could buy banner ads on all the major commerce sites shouting the criminality of excessive shopping. Reality, we could proudly display, means being okay with things as they are!

It's a great idea. And I promise to get to work on it right away. But I just heard about a new discount Web site, and, well, sitting back and shopping is a heck of a lot easier than changing the world.