Engaging Meaningfully in the Age of Social Media: Living Digitally like Nomads and Nuns Lived Naturally

Meme Tshering, an elder monk and retreatant at Lamayuru Monastery.  He said to me the other day, "Most of the people down in the village are just building houses and going about their lives. They don't think about death. The practice of Dharma, that is what is important."

I sometimes see a beautiful photo of one of my friends or family member’s child on social media, the kind of photo you would frame and put on the mantle in earlier times.  Yet, I must admit, I merely click like or love, or, perhaps leave a comment and move on. This seems to me a fundamental cheapening of the image.  Perhaps even snapping a picture, to some degree cheapens the experience of the moment.  Yet some of the pictures on our mantel can be a way of displaying and sharing what we value to others, and can serve as a reminder to ourselves of what is important.  I see no reason that pictures on the internet couldn’t do the same, if done thoughtfully and effectively.  Technology can be something which cheapens our lives and our relationships into something material, be it a picture or a post; but it can also be something which connects us: displaying what we value, reinforcing our relationships internally, and sharing our relationships externally.  Careless engagement with any technology is a recipe for major long-term problems, whereas technology meaningfully and thoughtfully can be something which enhances our relationships and our life.

So thus, I have given some consideration with how I will engage in the world of social media.  It is said that “A picture says a thousand words,” and that is true but, “The book is always better than the movie.”  I am using the later phrase as a guide, although the first still has meaning as well.  In other words, if we look at the way we engage social media I believe it is too focused on pictures and quick engagement.

I read an essay called “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in college and it really impacted how I think of media and our engagement with it.  The author, Walter Benjamin, was a German Jewish Philosopher in the Nazi era.  In his essay, he considers, among other things, how our engagement with art changes when it is mechanical. In this case he was analyzing the first movies.  The author notes that when we engage a piece of art, say the Mona Lisa, we are the active agent.  We have to actually choose to look, and engagement with art is thus an attentive process.  When we engage in modern mechanical media, engagement is a largely passive experience.  One doesn’t really have to have attention to appreciate or engage with a movie.  They largely simply passively watch.  Thus, the filmmaker has more control into the way in which a person engages, and thus, to a degree, has more control over the viewer.  Benjamin felt that this was one reason that Nazi propaganda was so effective; the viewer passively where lead into an appealing, but appalling and dangerous philosophy.

I think there is a similar passive danger to the way we are engaging social media; and thus our relationships with each other and with ideas.  Further, engagement becomes more immediate and shorter.  Think of all the political posts one saw during the most recent election, irrelative of the country or political party, most are simple statements in favor or against a party. The posts only have simple, or even, untrue facts used as a support for the statement.  One is then inclined to click like if that is the philosophy they subscribe to and unwittingly “political tribalism” is reinforced and becomes more emotional and simple.

More dangerous, perhaps even, is a similar cheapening to the way we interact with each other.  We spend our time on social media mostly merely clicking like or posting short comments with people whom we have friended.  While this is a sort of interaction and is good in many ways, it in no way compares to quality time spent with a person.  Similarly, that these interactions are confined to our friend network, and thus those we already have some connection with, can over time simplify and insulate social networks.  Thereby reducing the interaction we have with people who are just kind of random. 

Boys dancing at a "Gaston" in Lamayuru village this winter.

There is a lot to be said of seemingly random interactions.  In India, particularly in the village areas, such as where I live, we have lots of them.  Most of my friends in the village and the monastery are not people I befriended due to a perceived like-mindedness; although certainly over time I become close with those who are like minded.  I am friends with the people who sell me vegetables, the man who brings me water in retreat, and the monks I eat dinner with.  I really value these relationships and feel I have learned a lot from these people.

Part of the reason for that is because of our dissimilarity and the randomness of our relationship.  It is precisely because we would not interact except due to locational and business of life that I feel I learn so much.  It is these human interactions that really broaden the mind.

Further, the needed complexity of interaction with people you wouldn’t normally interact with exposes one to new ideas and ways of thinking.  I was considering this morning the deep complexity of the gift economy in Ladakhi culture. The giving of gifts and supplies to retreatants is a tradition that goes back to the time of the Buddha.  Without it the monks and nuns of the tradition couldn’t have survived or devoted their life full-time to mediation and study.  While there is an interesting exception of tea farms which mostly produced gifts to give in exchange for material support from patrons in East Asian Buddhism, otherwise this is how non-ordained practitioners, monks, and nuns have survived for centuries.

To complicate things a bit, Ladakh is a remote area with few resources to sustain its inhabitants.  Thus, the giving and exchange of gifts and supplies was absolutely necessary for survival of lay people as well.  Thus, there is a complex system of communication about supplies, gifts, and food.  Certain things in certain contexts need to be accepted without hesitation if they are actually needed; otherwise the person may think you don’t really need it and won’t persist in offering it many times.  Other things are refused innumerable number of times and are often given to a person without them ever accepting.  The person then takes the item without a word and enjoys it.   An example of something that is refused many times is hot food or tea.  Somethings that are accepted more quickly are supplies, help, and, in some cases, uncooked food supplies.

Further complicating this, particularly in my case, is the fact that Ladakhis are aware that foreigners don’t have this custom and often think refusal is sincere.  Yet, while for a foreigner it is probably not rude to accept outright, there is still quite a need to understand the customs as it relates more to the way people express appreciation of a relationship than it relates to the material itself.  In the older culture, relationships are of life and death importance, and materials are merely a way of maintaining and reinforcing relationships.

A dzo in Lamayuru village.  A dzo is a half-yak, half-cow hybrid.

Having made many mistakes in trying to bumble through these interactions over the years, I have also made many friends and learned a lot. In many ways, I feel these interactions have helped me relax about what people think and appreciate that even in our own culture we are mostly bumbling through interactions. One has to let go and trust that their good intentions won’t be misunderstood and do their best to show their reciprocal appreciation for the person as effectively as they can.  Although mistakes are often made, on both ends, over time relationships strengthen and become rewarding.

So, the question in my mind is how to engage the modern world, particularly in this case the on-line and social media world, in a way that really reflects my value system.  As I think I have explained here, for me the relationships which have mattered are not the ones where I per say share something in common with the person.  They are the ones created by life’s journey; a journey totally out of my own control.

Social media doesn’t encourage that kind of relationship; instead we have “the never-ending friendship.”  Unless you really un-friend people regularly, your friend list is a large group of people you haven’t had relationship with in years.  Actually, in my case, only a very small number of my friends are on social media actively, and even if they are I often don’t bother friending them any more as I have become less interested in the format. 

More strangely, all your interactions with these people are exactly the opposite of the ones I described in my example with Ladakhis earlier.  They are interactions which require very little of either participant.  One person posts a picture or a thought.  The other clicks like or leaves a comment. That’s it.  The entire process on both ends perhaps takes less than a minute.  And, although, there is a genuine interaction there; it really isn’t rewarding in the long term.  Further, everyone within the interaction network is familiar and physically distant.  Similarly, this is the opposite of my relationships in the village: foreign and physically close.

Recently I read that in BBC article about remote working that in 2010 a University of Michigan study, college students were shown to express forty percent less empathy than they would in studies twenty years ago.  The study measured responses to statements like, “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."  It would seem very likely that there is a relationship between these drops and more time spent in front of a screen and less time around real people.

So, actually, the best idea is just to spend more time with people, and perhaps animals, mountains and beaches, for that matter and less in front of a screen.  To do the degree anyone is able to do that, I think that is the solution.  Simply, unplug.

Lamyuru Gompa

Still, this is not to say that the format doesn’t have some upsides.  Even though I don’t interact with many people on my Facebook account, I really still value and care about all of the ones I at one point had a close relationship with.  Occasionally seeing what they are up to has been, at times, really rewarding.  Further, people have come back from the past, or kept in contact in ways that wouldn’t have been possible without the internet, and perhaps social media.  Many of these re-kindled or long distance friendships have been meaningful to me and I have learned a lot from them as well.

Yet in these cases, I am usually meeting these people in person, talking on Skype, or writing e-mails.  Often we are doing many of those things. Never is it that someone clicks like on one of my pictures and that strikes up a conversation.

Social media can also be a way to spread positive ideas.  I read an article earlier today of a pediatrician who works with terminally ill-children asked them what was most meaningful in their lives.  They gave answers like their dog, their family, ice-cream, and other things like that.  Mostly the patients talked about their family and friends and how important they are to them.  Ideas and stories like this spread across social media I think are uplifting and worthwhile.

So while I think a ninety percent unplugging is a pretty good idea, and one-hundred unplugging isn’t a bad one, either; I recognize that it is optimal for one to have a degree of engagement and that technology a positive outlet if used correctly.  Yet, the earlier model of spiritual engagement with society I see around me I think is in many ways better, and in many ways the one I aim to model in my engagement with the modern world.

I often think the brilliance of the Buddha’s teaching, and the teachings of teachers of many other religious traditions, as well, is the idea that some percentage of society disengages from producing other people or materials and instead focuses fully on the spiritual life.  The reason this is brilliant isn’t just that those people, according to the Buddhist tradition, are able to attain enlightenment, it’s also that they lay people around them have the opportunity to continually reinforce the idea that there is something more meaningful to life than merely what we see.  In setting and reinforcing a higher aspiration, it brings a peace and wisdom to all of the society that really can’t be measured.  Further, it does so in a manner that is quick and effective.

Könchog Dorje, the "gomnyer," or monastery manager, at Lamayuru Gompa.  "In my village, about forty kilometers away, there isn't electricity and there aren't good roads.  They still live the old way.  No one locks their doors.  People there seem happier."

Think about meditation or other spiritual practices.  Psychology Today reported a 2014 Harvard study put inexperienced meditators in an eight week training course where they spent an average of twenty-seven minutes a day doing mindfulness meditation.  Before and after the study they measured brain changes in participants.  The participants saw large gray matter increases in the hippocampus, a brain region associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.  Also, the participants saw decreases in activity in the amygdala which is an area of the brain associated with anxiety and stress.   In more experienced meditators much larger changes are observed, with a 2012 study recognizing a rewired resting state of the brain which would suggest, according to the authors, “strengthened present-moment awareness.”   If even small amounts of consistent mediation can create such benefit and if we know that there are even more profound changes in experienced meditators, think of what a lifetime of consistent engagement can do.

Then think of a society, or even a village, like a person.  Ten percent of the people in the village are one-hundred percent engaged in spiritual practice and the others live their lives normally, more or less.  Much like the time spent in reflection by an individual provides insight, calm, and new ideas, which creep and soon deeply impact their busy lives; when a percentage of society makes this full-time work, their insight, calm and new ideas creep into and deeply impact society in much the same way. 

The backside of Lamayuru Gompa

Similarly, as the lay people in village make small material offerings to the monks and nuns, their engagement and interest in the practice increases.  Just a parent who raises their child, feeding them, taking care of them, and guiding them into their adult life becomes  very invested in the child, so too, does a village who makes offerings to their monastery or nunnery become very invested and interested in the practice.

If one thinks about it they will see that this is very efficient.  The lay people have no time for meditation or study; but to offer a small amount of food is no problem.  Similarly, if one person offers everything this could be a problem and only one person gets the benefit.  If everyone offers a small amount, there is little burden and everyone becomes invested.  I actually think this is a very modern way of doing things for people with little time.

Another skillful method of engaging in the spiritual tradition for busy lay people is exemplified in Lamayuru around four o’clock.  At that time some of the village will come up and circle the monastery and say prayers.  This is said to be a way to further increase devotion and train the mind, bringing it back to virtuous thoughts.  Similarly, it serves as a meeting place, where people see friends and chat; but everyone is united by a simple aspiration for a more compassionate and wise life.  Over years of habituation I really feel this makes an incredible difference in people’s hearts and minds, with very little effort into things that we would normally consider meditation.

I have now spent many years living in societies where traditions of intense meditation are still practiced, and where it is still supported and used an object of veneration by the laity; and I am absolutely convinced of its efficacy. I sometimes think it is quite amazing that I, a well-educated westerner from a wealthy background, found the most logical, scientific, and well-thought out answers to life’s deep questions in a nomadic, largely illiterate society in the remote mountain ranges.  Yet, the reason this society, I feel, was able to reach and preserve such powerful insights was due to the fact that a very large percentage of the population was involved in intense study and practice, most of whom were ordained as monks and nuns. Wikipedia cites Melvyn Goldstein’s A History of Modern Tibet: Volume 2 The Calm before the Storm, 1951–1955 as estimating that between ten to twenty percent of males in Tibet were ordained before the Chinese invasion.  The lay and monastic investment in this tradition I feel were very effective in training their own minds and the habits of a society in a more enlightened way.  It is exactly this model of societal structure, relationships, social engagement and reflective practice I feel we have a lot to learn from.  It stands in stark contrast with the modern engagement in a superficial media world.

The "kora" at Lamayuru gompa.  This is the place the monks and lay people circle, mostly in the mornings and evenings.

As I right now have the ability to be fully engaged in study and practice, I recognize as my contribution back to society and with the hope of encouraging other people, especially younger people, to do the same, I should somehow engage in the world.  Further, whether I like it or not, people spend large amounts of their time in front of screens and on social media.  So, while, I personally would love to limit this time, and encourage others to do the same, I also recognize there is a need to engage somewhat, but to do so meaningfully and thoughtfully.

Considering this, I thought starting a blog may give me more control of what I post and allow me to post things of much greater depth and thought.  The idea is that I will run my blog like a sort of newsletter or article in a magazine and hopefully will put the time into each post that would be similar.  I will focus more on stories, ideas, and analysis and less on things like trips to Varanasi and such.   I may still post other things on Facebook, but the idea is that they are ideas that can be expressed briefly effectively and which are intended for a wider, less engaged audience.  Even then, I am aspiring for more things of meaning and to reduce to superficiality.  I will try to link here and I will have a few pictures and, mostly, more writing. Hopefully in this way I can balance remaining engaged in the modern world, while doing so in a way that promotes a value system and a way of treating people I am comfortable with.  Mush as I said of the older Ladakhi value system before: people and other living creatures first, great ideas and great mind-states secondly, and everything else in order to simply stay alive and healthy.