Walking With
The edge of the Chan Hall is a bare stretch of walkway, save for the stray bottle of water or charging cell phone. Realizing that they are there for good intentions (and not to be tripped upon), I decide not to tell the participants to take them to the side. These "obstacles" become part of the flow of the natural space that the participants learn to adapt into their practice, the same as the blaring horns outside the open window on a warm July day.
I see that there are new participants in the group practice may not be familiar with how to do slow walking meditation, so I demonstrate the gesture of raising the foot and lowering the toes followed by the heel. One of the most pertinent instructions here is to immerse oneself in the simple process. It's not the same as concentration, but it's more like a simple enjoyment of the moving foot. Commenting on the difference between concentration as "forced effort" and the concentration of immersion in contemplative practice, Chan Master Guo Jun compares concentration to the evaporation of water to form dense salt crystals:
This is how the mind progresses: It's initially scattered, mixed up, all over the place. We filter; we refine; we concentrate. Our awareness also thickens like this. It becomes concentrated. The wandering and the scattered thoughts are the water evaporating. We just let them go. (p.89)
The first week of CTL5011 and its readings brings me to questions about "presence"--both physical and "virtual"--and how presence is fostered in an online environment such as a website, forum or blog. In the article "Is online learning as good as face-to-face learning?", we learn that online presence lacks the sort of monitoring that makes for better self-discipline. It is as though one's motivation were forced upon them by the influence of something or someone else--unless, of course, one were able to bring discipline upon themselves. This standpoint sees the classroom as a transaction, whereby students learn by interaction, dialogue, and exchange.
Even though it's sometimes assumed that only in person classrooms can create authentic conversational spaces for transaction learning, I see this dynamic mimicked in chat rooms,where presence takes the form of branching paths of conversations. We become present by leaving a trail somewhere in those conversations, hopefully to be picked up by someone else. We are even graded according to the trails we make: their frequency, longevity, ability to spark a flurry of other conversations, their referencing nature, their sharing nature, and so on. But all of this assumes that presence comes purely from conversations with others. This also equates presence with the ability to seek and find attention through the connections we make with the course material, as well as their shared resonance with others. In none of this discussion of physical and social presence is there the idea of being present in the way we make our steps or attend to every moment.
What if, instead of looking at presence in this way, one were to frame it as a quality of being, similar to what Guo Jun refers to as what is left behind after evaporation of scattered thoughts and anxiety? Can people use online tools to enhance the quality of their mental, spiritual presence? Where might this be contemplative?
While designing this website, I had a great many anxieties about how I want to foster an emotion of presence-that is, to create an atmosphere that is conducive to contemplation, not simply transaction. In the end, I opted for bareness and simplicity of use, using the calming color of blue to create a cool and soothing space. Perhaps I want to create a powerful silence that makes a person want to find the joyful silence in walking.This is nothing new: most Chan Halls that I have attended opt away from a "busy" aesthetic and toward something less distracting and more pointing to something that is true to one's own stillness. In the beginning, I wanted to attract people through many pictures of my walks on retreats. But then, I started to reflect that too many of my online experiences, whether it's on Facebook or in a virtual classroom, are about using excessive stimulation: audio/visual effects, photos, etc. Dale Lugenbehl laments at the absence of depth of insight, or what he refers to as "the kind of learning that alters how we feel, how we see the world, and how we behave". What anxieties prevent learners from wanting to take what they learn and really transform themselves? This is the difference between thinking about and doing which often underlies the metaphor of walking itself.
To summarize some key points I want to explore throughout this course:
a) Exploring the poetics of meditative walking as a way of looking contemplatively at technology. In the language of Brenda Laurel, seeing "the human as the environment for the computer" means that the computer becomes the path through which we walk, and how we walk that path is determined by our state of mind and presence. Walking with distraction is like using a computer with a mind that is distracted. Conversely, knowing how to walk means knowing how to navigate distractions so that they don't get the better of one's presence.
b) Constructions of spiritual authenticity: being "truly" here, invested in the present moment. Is this only a social/virtual construction, or is there such a thing as "authentic presence" online? Is the beautiful sky blue screen with meditative images a true reflection of the mind or only a passing reference, like the many memes that flit in and out of our consciousness throughout the day?
c) Technology as an aid to contemplative exploration. Can technology truly be used in the service of such an exploration, or do contemplative practices require a divestment (read: purge) of all social media and other "distracting" devices? This theme came to me a few weeks back, when I attended a three day retreat in Dunville. One of the participants had shared that the retreat was the first time he had not spent a day checking his emails or twitter accounts! We talked about the idea of how the retreat life can inspire a simpler, less complicated relationship with technology. However, I doubt that even a very long retreat can do anything more than mitigate (for a while) technology use. So there is this question of how contemplative learning and online technologies harmonize to create new possibilities for learning and growth.
Guo Jun (2013). Essential Chan Buddhism: The Character and Spirit of Chinese Zen. Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish.
I see that there are new participants in the group practice may not be familiar with how to do slow walking meditation, so I demonstrate the gesture of raising the foot and lowering the toes followed by the heel. One of the most pertinent instructions here is to immerse oneself in the simple process. It's not the same as concentration, but it's more like a simple enjoyment of the moving foot. Commenting on the difference between concentration as "forced effort" and the concentration of immersion in contemplative practice, Chan Master Guo Jun compares concentration to the evaporation of water to form dense salt crystals:
This is how the mind progresses: It's initially scattered, mixed up, all over the place. We filter; we refine; we concentrate. Our awareness also thickens like this. It becomes concentrated. The wandering and the scattered thoughts are the water evaporating. We just let them go. (p.89)
The first week of CTL5011 and its readings brings me to questions about "presence"--both physical and "virtual"--and how presence is fostered in an online environment such as a website, forum or blog. In the article "Is online learning as good as face-to-face learning?", we learn that online presence lacks the sort of monitoring that makes for better self-discipline. It is as though one's motivation were forced upon them by the influence of something or someone else--unless, of course, one were able to bring discipline upon themselves. This standpoint sees the classroom as a transaction, whereby students learn by interaction, dialogue, and exchange.
Even though it's sometimes assumed that only in person classrooms can create authentic conversational spaces for transaction learning, I see this dynamic mimicked in chat rooms,where presence takes the form of branching paths of conversations. We become present by leaving a trail somewhere in those conversations, hopefully to be picked up by someone else. We are even graded according to the trails we make: their frequency, longevity, ability to spark a flurry of other conversations, their referencing nature, their sharing nature, and so on. But all of this assumes that presence comes purely from conversations with others. This also equates presence with the ability to seek and find attention through the connections we make with the course material, as well as their shared resonance with others. In none of this discussion of physical and social presence is there the idea of being present in the way we make our steps or attend to every moment.
What if, instead of looking at presence in this way, one were to frame it as a quality of being, similar to what Guo Jun refers to as what is left behind after evaporation of scattered thoughts and anxiety? Can people use online tools to enhance the quality of their mental, spiritual presence? Where might this be contemplative?
While designing this website, I had a great many anxieties about how I want to foster an emotion of presence-that is, to create an atmosphere that is conducive to contemplation, not simply transaction. In the end, I opted for bareness and simplicity of use, using the calming color of blue to create a cool and soothing space. Perhaps I want to create a powerful silence that makes a person want to find the joyful silence in walking.This is nothing new: most Chan Halls that I have attended opt away from a "busy" aesthetic and toward something less distracting and more pointing to something that is true to one's own stillness. In the beginning, I wanted to attract people through many pictures of my walks on retreats. But then, I started to reflect that too many of my online experiences, whether it's on Facebook or in a virtual classroom, are about using excessive stimulation: audio/visual effects, photos, etc. Dale Lugenbehl laments at the absence of depth of insight, or what he refers to as "the kind of learning that alters how we feel, how we see the world, and how we behave". What anxieties prevent learners from wanting to take what they learn and really transform themselves? This is the difference between thinking about and doing which often underlies the metaphor of walking itself.
To summarize some key points I want to explore throughout this course:
a) Exploring the poetics of meditative walking as a way of looking contemplatively at technology. In the language of Brenda Laurel, seeing "the human as the environment for the computer" means that the computer becomes the path through which we walk, and how we walk that path is determined by our state of mind and presence. Walking with distraction is like using a computer with a mind that is distracted. Conversely, knowing how to walk means knowing how to navigate distractions so that they don't get the better of one's presence.
b) Constructions of spiritual authenticity: being "truly" here, invested in the present moment. Is this only a social/virtual construction, or is there such a thing as "authentic presence" online? Is the beautiful sky blue screen with meditative images a true reflection of the mind or only a passing reference, like the many memes that flit in and out of our consciousness throughout the day?
c) Technology as an aid to contemplative exploration. Can technology truly be used in the service of such an exploration, or do contemplative practices require a divestment (read: purge) of all social media and other "distracting" devices? This theme came to me a few weeks back, when I attended a three day retreat in Dunville. One of the participants had shared that the retreat was the first time he had not spent a day checking his emails or twitter accounts! We talked about the idea of how the retreat life can inspire a simpler, less complicated relationship with technology. However, I doubt that even a very long retreat can do anything more than mitigate (for a while) technology use. So there is this question of how contemplative learning and online technologies harmonize to create new possibilities for learning and growth.
Guo Jun (2013). Essential Chan Buddhism: The Character and Spirit of Chinese Zen. Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish.
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