BG 230: The Internet is Not Your Teacher
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Episode Description:
This week’s episode comes from the recent Buddhist Geeks conference where Ethan Nichtern, a Buddhist teacher in the Shambhala tradition, speaks about ways in which the internet falls as a an aid in dharma. He uses the Tibetan teaching on co-emergence to frame the simultaneous benefits and harms of the internet, while also speaking about the limitations of a DIY (Do it Yourself) approach, especially when not being open to genuine human contact, with your community or with a teacher. And he argues that in order to go beyond a surface level dharma, which is mostly what he sees online, that one has to stay with things long enough to penetrate their true meaning. He suggests ways that we might do this and presents a very strong argument for not virtualizing Buddhist practice.
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Transcript:
Ethan Nichtern: So the title of my talk is ‘The Internet Is Not Your Teacher’ and there’s two iPads on the podium right now, which is kind of awesome. So, the first thing I’d like to say is obviously this entire gathering is a product of the internet and that’s great. On the way in here met six or seven people who I have previously only known through the Twitter, Facebook universe and I’m reading my notes off an iPad 2 so I can’t dislike the internet that much. In fact, I don’t dislike it at all. What I wanted to really say is that I think we’re at a very interesting time and a very empowering time in terms of the psychological and spiritual teachings moving further into our society through science, through community, through art, through politics. It’s also a really dangerous time. And my tradition which is a Vajrayana or Tantric tradition has this great framework for determining whether something is harmful or helpful which is called co-emergence which means when you want to figure out if something is destructive or empowering or enlightening or samsaric. It’s both. It’s always both and the internet is especially both. Like more both than anything has ever been.
So let’s talk about the samsaric side as it relates to people wanting to study and practice genuine teachings of awakening. I think there are two aspects that are important here. The first is the cheapening of knowledge and wisdom. Where in the ancient world to even learn how to follow your breath was quite a journey over mountains or requesting teachings for a long period of time. And because it was quite a journey, you took the instructions that you received as important. And that’s not so from a respect standpoint of course it’d be great if we were all respectful of teachers, etc. But the main thing is how the process of learning happens and when you think what you’re receiving is important you tend to take more time to absorb and integrate it into your experience which is the whole point of how these teachings work. This isn’t ultimately a philosophy. As my teacher has been talking about recently the point of this is reworking how a human being experiences themselves not how they talk about themselves. Although if you change the way a human being experiences themselves I think the person should also be able to talk about themselves in a more engaging and interesting manner. True. But that’s secondary.
So you can Wikipedia pretty much any Buddhist teachings you want. So I had this laughable experience where a lot of the Vajrayana teachings in the Shambhala tradition are said to be secret. There’s not a single Vajrayana teaching that I’ve ever received an empowerment for that you couldn’t Wikipedia right now. You could Wikipedia the surface of it, I mean, which is actually quite good. But if you’re doing seven other things at once and just want to find out what the word Mahamudra or Shikantaza means, and then have a conversation over Skype over what that means, or Twitter something about Mahamudra. Sorry tweet something about Mahamudra. It’s interesting. Let’s put it that way.
Here’s the second thing which I think is even more co-emerging and didn’t really exist to the extent, in my understanding, in the ancient Asian cultures where these teachings came from. Our entire society, in the words of Generation X, has become very DIY. Do-it-yourself. The interesting thing about this term is that it started as an anti-consumerist phrase but it actually means you get to consume in the way you want. So there seems to be a strand of dharma, a huge strand of dharma, where we all want to become spiritual libertarians. We want to do the teachings in the way we do them. My teacher a lot of times says if you’re going to ask a teacher for advice you should actually do what they say. Chances are they’re going to tell you to do something you didn’t want to do in some small way. That’s what doing something good for you is, right? You have to do something that’s outside of the framework of your habitual apparatus, which means it doesn’t feel immediately good.
So I always think of this conundrum of our DIY consumerist culture, especially in the United States of America which is possibly the most libertarian society on Earth today in terms of freedom is that we all really proclaim our individual freedoms. And the way we express this freedom is by doing whatever everyone else is doing. So we don’t really want to submit ourselves to a community, which is the sangha, or a teacher, which is the Buddha principle, that’s beyond our ability to control what feels good in the present moment. And this is one of the big dangers of the superficiality. And I don’t mean superficiality in a bad way. I mean in the surface way of internet dharma, of podcast dharma, and Wikipedia dharma.
So here’s what I want to say, and there’s many different interpretations. We already heard from my friend Kenneth one model of enlightenment. There are many different interpretations of what the purpose of Buddhism is about. We heard from Kelly the purpose is to end suffering. In my tradition what we are increasingly saying is the purpose is to create a society that is awake, that encourages people to be awake. I don’t think anybody would say that it’s about attaining a certain state of meditative absorption or jhana or Samadhi, although those are fun and those can be a tool or a method to awakening. But I think a lot of people think it is about that. Yeah, I know it’s not really about meditation but if I actually could do that that’s what it’s about. The word enlightenment is really tricky. I find that people usually just define enlightenment as whatever I’m not experiencing now, and good luck trying to attain something that you have linguistically and psychologically defined for yourself as whatever I’m not experiencing now. I would like to propose that from my point of view Buddhism is about neither of those things. It’s not about enlightenment. I like to translate the term bodhi, awake, enlightened, as just sane. The whole purpose of all of these practices is to become a more sane and decent human being. And try to do whatever we can in a world that’s pretty quickly going away from sanity to spread sanity, to model behaviors to other people and communities to other people where they can feel sanity as well.
If you want to become a sane and decent human being, this is my only point, that’s something you only learn from other human beings. Do you guys agree with that? I don’t know. I’m making a strong point. Now, you can learn that over Skype. Kenneth I think you work with students via Skype and so do I. That’s great. But you have to actually be taking the perspective that you are interested in other human beings. And so when we look at the dharma which is what everybody wants which is the truth, which is the teachings, which is the exalted understanding of how to end suffering, how to be compassionate, how to enjoy your life. That’s another way of saying these teachings are about. A lot of teachers now are just talking about happiness. When we look at that, the dharma has always been taught as interdependent with two other things. It actually doesn’t exist separately. There’s actually no such thing as internet dharma.
The teachings of this tradition relate to the dharma as one of a triad. It’s actually just one aspect of three. The others are sangha, which nobody wants to remember is actually one of them. Why the sangha is one of them is because that’s how we receive the modeling of both decent and neurotic human behavior. That’s what it was invented for. The co-emergence of this is how you’re decent, this is how you’re compassionate, this is how you’re creative, and oh that’s how you’re a little insert your adjective here from your own sangha experience.
And then there’s the Buddha, which is that we have to believe that somebody, you don’t have to believe they’re completely enlightened, and I like Kenneth’s model of being at the tipping point but not at the point of no room for improvement. But you have to believe that they know something in our DIY culture that maybe you don’t know yet or haven’t integrated fully into your experience. So this is kind of my conundrum because this year I was empowered as a senior teacher and lineage holder so I have to be a little bit more fire and brimstone. And I also have the experience of getting a lot of emails because the interdependence project has a podcast. I think it’s not quite as popular as the Buddhist Geeks podcast. But you know it’s all right. We’re less geeky. We’re the cool the kids. We’re less popular now. There’s been a switch. And then the next thing people say is, how do I study further? You know how do I find a teacher I’m in Wisconsin? How do I find the sangha? And it’s hard because we’re still at a phase where the interest is greatly outstripping I think the number of teachers who are actually saying I would like to work with people, the number of sangha that people can actually find. But the thing that we have to understand about this is what is the difference between surface dharma and depth dharma.
I love surface dharma. I am a peddler of surface dharma. All of the social networking things. Social networking is great. The fact that we can do that is amazing. I mean you don’t actually have 3,000 friends. That might be…If you actually did, you’d probably go nuts, right? So there’s a little falsehood there but the fact that you can actually experience that you’re connected to 3,000 other people that’s wonderful. The fact that you can send messages to them, the fact that people can receive in their inbox little just ‘be compassionate today’. And then people say, oh yeah, I got that quote from Sharon Salzberg in my inbox and I remembered to be compassionate when I was in traffic. That’s great. But we should understand that it’s surface. And the thing that our DIY cheap commodified information culture has a tendency to do is make the surface all there is. Because when we dwell on the surface what starts happening is you start to be a scatter-brain. And in terms of attention, depth requires you to actually not be a scatter-brain. That’s almost the definition of depth. That you would actually be able to stay with something to penetrate it and to go deeper.
So deep dharma is the three jewels which means teachers, like finding them, seeking them out, working with them, arguing with them, which is something since my tradition derives from Tibetan Buddhism that I think our DIY culture can bring to the table that was missing in Asia. Like you can actually debate your teacher. You should. What are you talking about Rinpoche? That would be good. I’m also a college professor so I know this. So there’s a lot of room for that.
And then sangha, sangha is really the key to the societal aspect of these teachings. And I think if we’re going to actually have something to say to the world, and especially a world that’s in the midst of profound loss in the sense of community, which is really odd that a profound loss of a sense of community is happening the same time that social networking is taking off. It’s a really weird co-emergent time. We have to participate in human sangha. We have to actually go and encourage other people to say turn off your computer for a little while, you can turn it back on later, go find other people to meditate with. Go find other people to then hang out with. When the interdependence project started developing a real group was the moment that we started taking our practice, and this is just a very simple thing, after class we would say does anybody want to go and get dinner. That’s human connection. It’s not Second Life dinner you know. You have to eat actual dinner. There’s falafel out there people until the cyborgs take over, which my father is obsessed with Ray Kurzweil so maybe they will, we have to get dinner ourselves. And that’s the key deeply understanding these teachings and making human connections with other.
So anyway I think that’s all in my ironic slightly hypocritical iPad 2 owning sense that I’d like to say. But thank you all for having me. It’s great to be amongst all the geeks. So thank you.
Author Info
I am a 57 year old woman who has taken refuge and bodhisattva vows, and have a clear love for the lineage of my teacher. And not since times when I was actually working at a meditation center, have I felt the close support and encouragement and joy of practice as that which I have developed with my facebook sangha. My friends are from around the world, and they have developed through a connection that would be impossible if I were to rely exclusively upon my geographical address.
There is an accountability in these daily, meaningful connections as well: "(they) know my joys and sorrows, and what this beggar's going through."
I somewhat agree with the statement that the Internet is not our teacher. However, the Internet is a darn good library if you know how to use it (most Buddhist rookies don't know how to use Buddhist resources on the Internet). Short of having a good academic library in your neighborhood, you cant beat the Internet. As for a qualified teacher, the Internet can help the beginner find a suitable teacher; who doesn't just repackage western self-help psychology under the name of Buddhism (Brahma knows there are plenty of them around).
I think this post is nicely summarised in the title but I'd extend it (following the logic of this article) to 'the internet isn't your teacher, sangha or dharma'. The key sense this article conveys, for me, is that the internet isn't viable as the *sole source* of refuge, practice, and teaching. It's probably not viable – in the long term – as the *primary source* of those things. It's great, for all kinds of this, but I'll take some convincing it is anything but second best at a host of things. When my wife went on pilgrimage to Nepal, her e-mails were great, but I'd rather have been there. Skype is great, but I'd rather hold her hand and smell her skin than see a poorly transmitted image of her face via my PC. Similarly this article is great, but I'd rather be in a room with the author and a small group of folk, able to ask questions, and engage, and pick up the nuances of body language and the atmosphere of the room. And so on. . .
"Similarly this article is great, but I'd rather be in a room with the author and a small group of folk, able to ask questions, and engage, and pick up the nuances of body language and the atmosphere of the room. And so on. . . "
Those nuances are so important. I listened today to this podcast, twice, and came to the site to get the link and send it to my sister. Just reading the transcript was not at all like listening to his voice. I would rather listen to the talk, but above that I would also rather be in the room with the speaker. For me, the light bulb goes off more often when I'm actually visually and verbally engaged.
Absolutely brilliant speech. It is a strange time we're in right now, while connecting though via facebook with 3000 friends, we're in a society that struggles to be a community. Imagine twenty years from now, the new generation gets there socks on in the morning, turns on facebook and messages a sick notice to work (okay, lame example). It worries me when I see younger generation interacting with eachother via xbox live or twitter with out being mindful of what life experiences they're missing out on. The same applies to adults on cell phones while driving or dating on internet sites. It's not bad we're so connected with eachother as an older generation, hey we get to listen to buddhist geeks, I tune in to the show each Saturday. The sense of community is so lost I don't hear a majority of people trying to make a conversation (hold on a minute I have a text message lol brb)
While I appreciate Ethan Nichtern's positive intentions I think that this interview demonstrates a great deal of naiveté about what extensive use of computers and the internet do to attention span, concentration and other aspects of brain function. Nicholas Carr's book "The Shallows" should be required reading for anyone who cares about this very important topic. As with television (see Jerry Mander's pioneering "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" – 1977!) uninformed people focus on reforming content without looking at the reality that it is exposure to the medium itself that is doing the real damage. Carr is not a Luddite and neither am I, but the foundational Buddhist goal of training the attention and use of the internet are at cross-purposes.
One thing I'm reminded of with this talk is my own tendency to do all the little surface things but maybe not take it to the depth necessary. As he says, "And then people say, oh yeah, I got that quote from Sharon Salzberg in my inbox and I remembered to be compassionate when I was in traffic. That’s great. But we should understand that it’s surface. And the thing that our DIY cheap commodified information culture has a tendency to do is make the surface all there is." It reminds me of some of the criticism of the "green" movement, that by making all these products "green" and doing minor recycling we think we're helping the planet, when in fact we're ignoring what we really should be doing.
hello Nate, I just happen to run across this website on Buddhism. I was rasied christain and I have christain morals. Yet here lately I have been wanting to study Buddhism. For years I have practice medation and it has always been apart of me to learn more. I no that many buddist take their belifes very seriously so please excuse my ignorants on the subject. As a beginning for someone who wants to learn more about the practice and lifestyle of Buddhist , what do you suggest I do in order to be more enlighten and gain more knowledge and understanding on the topic? What should be my very first step, and I do I related this to my christain family who have raise me and in whom I still currently live with ?
Hi Curious,
I'm only a a year-and-a-half or so into my meditation practice, but I've benefited from Gil Fronsdal's talks on Buddhist meditation at audiodharma.org (although I first heard him here). Within the large archive of talks on that site, you can find a set of Introduction to Meditation talks that he gives periodically. I found these to be a very clear, welcoming, and thoughtful introduction to meditation practice. Different people have different needs, but I've found a lot of his stuff very useful so far in my practice.
Nathan I think you're leaving out the guru of the dictates of the sugatas, as well as leaving out room for people developing "dry" understanding. Your point is taken but your delivery, as is characteristic of most of your delivery, is scolding. My question is, are you willing to do this work with fewer people? Are you willing to sacrifice head-count and the slow development of people you believe are doing it "wrong" for a population of people you yourself, subjectively, believe are doing it "right"?
I find your distinction between surface and depth cloying and protestant. A kind of barely successful tough-love. What's the take away from your talk, what do people gain? What are you offering? What are you giving to people? Anything? Or are you hoping to take something away?
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, who's not exactly a light-weight in your lineage, concedes that confusion can be clarified through studying books, that books are the "teacher that never gets mad at you." Oral story telling, books, audio and video recordings, and now, for good or ill, the internet are depositories of human knowledge. That's not changing. So what's yr plan, what's Ethan Nichtern's plan? Scold people into making contact with other people?
This is an excellent article, Ethan. One of the best I've seen here or on IDP… I am getting a little weary of the proliferation of "dharma communities" and dharma blogs and an endless barrage of "teachings" from would be gurus… it's easy to turn cynical about the Internet as a vehicle for a limited sort of transmission… and that's exactly what it is and what I think you've captured so well above.
I do hope that all of the technology and content/information helps people feel more "connected" and recognize our similarities are much more numerous than our differences. But even the greatest online experience pales by far in comparison to a real life person to person exchange… no contest there.
So, yeah… Good article.
"The necessary and welcome economic growth within our Sangha, in the form of business operations and commercial and domestic investments, has brought along as a by—product an increasing frequency of disagreements and disputes. There is a need for our society to provide resources for the sane, nonagressive resolution of such conflicts in keeping with the principles of Dharma and the Great Eastern Sun. Accordingly I have decided to institute and appoint the Upaya Council. The function of the Upaya Council shall be to mediate and/or arbitrate commercial and domestic disputes among members of the Vajradhatu community, as individuals, groups, or businesses. It shall be the initial task of the Upaya Council to propose to me and my Privy Council a set of guidelines under which it shall operate. There shall be no internal hierarchy within the Upaya Council and each member shall have an equal voice; the findings of the Council shall be arrived at by unanimous consent."
~ Vajracarya the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, Spring, 1979.
རྣམ་པར་སྣང་མཛད
Upaya Council
Just letting you know I featured this post and your blog on my list of best buddhism blogs: http://www.allconsidering.com/2011/best-buddhist-blogs/
I am a member of a far-flung international sangha that connects mainly through the Internet and webinars with our teacher, It's a huge challenge to provide a sense of community in this large group of disparate people who are unable to meet in person. To me, the blessing of the digital age is that people can connect and have access to their fellow sangha members and their teachers in ways that were not possible prior to the advent of the Internet. Does it replace in-person contact? I don't think so. We're still human and still have that need to connect in a more visceral way. And it definitely requires a great deal of skill to navigate and make the most of this new way of connecting. My experience, however, is that the Internet, if used skillfully, can be a great way to bring together sanghas and create a sense of connection and support when in-person contact is not possible. Just another opinion to add to the mix… thanks to Buddhist Geeks for the always interesting podcasts.
Some of what's said here certainly rings true, but I have to admit that most of it rubs me the wrong way.
First, aside from the content itself, I can't say I enjoyed the tone, which seems a little too serious/condescending/authoritative. In a sense though, what I didn't like about the tone bleeds into what I didn't like about parts of the message — the definitively stated notion that you have such a firm grip on which practices/traditions are right, and which are foolish. Where's your evidence? And generally, aren't these conversations and topics are best approached from the lens of curiosity and openness? These are such mysterious and fascinating topics — somehow it never rings true when people don't see that.
I agree. It smelled superior, sanctimonious. Buddhism is a big tent to begin with, so there are myriad schools, practices. Beware of the schools teaching that everybody else is doing it wrong… SGI, NKT, the Nichirenites, even some of the Sri/Burmese fundies get a bit high handed with the "righteous mother church" routine…
I completely agree! Don't get me wrong; the Internet is a wonderful resource and while I think I owe more for my practice to karma than the Internet (*grin*), it certainly was a major piece of the puzzle. That being said, nothing in my experience has been more meaningful than making a cross country pilgrimage to see the Dalai Lama speak publicly (and for free!) on world peace through inner peace.
The sensation of being in his presence, hearing his voice with these two ears was simply incredible and transformative. Of all the parts of the talk, what struck me most was how he cheerfully and effortlessly answered a question shouted rather gruffly by someone in the crowd, almost as though he knew it were coming and had planned his answer accordingly. It was a beautifully direct and complete answer that took a minute or two to voice. And yet there was the palpable sensation that the event was entirely spontaneous in any conventional sense. Truly the bodhicitta of a Buddha on display in that moment of potential tension.
The crowd applauded his response, which leads me to believe that I was not the only one who felt the especially-special nature of what had happened. I could not hear the question or the response as it happened off mic. All I could make out was the tone of the question and the tone and completeness of the response. That's not what I was meant to hear that day. I was simply meant to witness something that would build my faith in real, living, breathing, speaking, teaching Buddhas so that I would have the nerve to reach out to a teacher with the requisite trust and skepticism necessary to find a good one and go from there. The time is ripe!
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You're foisting a dualism here. Not all sanghas are created equal, and in the West a good sangha isn't always convenient.
I've done the OL sangha effort, was able to go much further, deeper in studied & applied dhamma than any physical sangha I walked into. But that is also b/c I had some excellent teachers in the OL community I joined. It's full of knowledgeable & experienced Buddhists (in good standing…) who were very well versed in many aspects of the Tathagata. Some were conferred transmission status, others were self-described lay clerics, or deacons, all were quite good.
And what of DIY? Who's doing the work here? The votary is. This is like saying that Jesus does the work of the praying Christian. It's *always* DIY, no matter what the faith.
Which is to say, can you please hone your argument a bit more before taking the stand? You're not doing OL Buddhists any favors by casting aspersions, making them feel diminished about whether their OL sanghas measure up to some standard. Where's this standard coming from? A hint of fundamentalism perhaps?
For many, we've had no other real option but to seek & build OL sanghas. And in my experience the sanghas in my local community were weak, personality-dominated, full of quasi-theistic baggage, met only twice a month, sometimes overrun with hairshirt krishnas trying to act enlightened.
Community's great, don't get me wrong, but really advancing one's own dharmic practice is best facilitated by a good teacher and self-directed work. If a good teacher can't be had in person then one can be found in a book, or from some kind of written correspondence or internet fora (the Usenet Buddhist groups used to be quite good….).
Encouraging community is valid, Buddhism will have truly come to the West when our real-world sanghas become further developed, and when a fully Western variant of Buddhism finds itself. And freed from face-to-face peer pressure, I think perhaps the place where Western Buddhism is going to mature will be online, where so many more voices and POVs can be considered and weighed in the public venue.