Spiritual Seeking and the World Wide Web
How Information Technology Can Unleash Human Potential
Oct 11, 2008
For example, in his book Techgnosis (New York: Crown Publishers, 1998), Erik Davis advocates developing an awareness of the internet that extends beyond what one sees on the screen, and even beyond the virtual world of cyberspace, the hardware and the electrical grid that holds it all together.
"Where does 'the network' end"? Davis asks. As in essence people are shaping their social and spiritual lives to the technology, a wider view is important. That is, they may wish to research its development, "the Jacquard looms and American war machines that loosed the historical dynamic" leading to the advent of linked personal computers. In addition, Davis argues that ownership and control issues are worth contemplating, such as capital flows between corporations and developing nations that provide machine-making labour. Possibly "this imminent infinity, with its impossible ethical [questions], makes up the real world-wide web".
A Mindful Approach to Technology
Another way of using the internet to expand rather than reduce conscious awareness is to adopt the Buddhist practice of "mindfulness" when interfacing with it. In the view of Davis, the practice (which cultivates and sharpens attention) could help people become less vulnerable to "mechanical habits and programmed phantasms, not to mention the dangerous attractions that lurk, as they always have, in virtual space, waiting to draw our bodyminds into downward spirals".
A third contemplative technique involves employing the metaphor of information technology to help one reflect on personal machine-like characteristics and tendencies (from "programmed" genetic and environmental influences to patterns of thinking and behaviour).
Isolation, Connection and the Internet
Advocates of the internet and its societal benefits stress the web's decentralisation, what Davis calls the "matrix of communication webs, cognitive neural nets, interlinked computers, parallel processes, complex institutional frameworks, [and] transnational circuits of production and trade". In theory, this complexity should permit freedom of expression (at least among those who have access to the technology) and the formation of global links among diverse people.
The metaphor of Indra's net in Mahayana Buddhist philosophy would symbolise this perspective. The net is bestowed with an infinite number of jewels, in each of which is reflected all the other jewels, so that it "dances" and is in a state of constant mutual change. The notion of respect for the "interdependent web of all existence" is also important in the Unitarian Universalist religious tradition.
In building spirituality through "technological connection", religious thinkers caution one to avoid the dangers of superficial connection. The internet can, of course, be used to avoid meaningful links with other people, or in fact, with ideas. For example, an apparently limitless array of psychological tools and advice on practices such is yoga (much of the information removed from its historical context or otherwise modified) is available to the spiritual seeker. The Tibetan Buddhist master Chogyam Trungpa warned against dabbling in such a "spiritual supermarket", advising that such an approach could get in the way of genuine progress towards truth.
Partnering the Spirit with Information Technology
Despite his warnings on the spiritual hazards of technology, Davis points to the creative opportunities it presents, and considers that humankind's spiritual imagination can survive. He describes the "cosmopedia" concept of Pierre Levy, a "kaleidoscopic space of knowledge that provides new ways of understanding and being in the world". This knowledge space is seen as based on the "collective knowledge of the thinking community" which includes people and machines.
In Buddhism, the self or ego is not regarded as a separate entity, and must be transcended or "seen through" for awakening or personal development to occur. Davis appears to advocate a similar "selfless" or at least open approach when pursuing personal development through technology. The network path does not offer salvation, but celebrates people's "common groundlessness". Rather than attempting to banish network noise, the seeker must "attend to the chaos that comes until something unexpected blooms".
The theme of "religious" seeking in the information technology age, when even cultural and social institutions seem to have acquired machine-like aspects, is further explored in the Suite 101 article Technology and Spirit.
