I’m a big fan of the Buddhist Geeks podcast, because even though I don’t “identify” as a Buddhist per se, I certainly feel a deep affinity for much in Buddhist philosophy, particularly Zen.
Back in early March, there was a great interview with a guy named Soren Gordhamer about how technology, particularly social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc) and spirituality intersect.
Like I said, it was a great interview and if you want to read it, or download it into your Ipod, you can go here and do so.
I got Gordhamer’s book, Wisdom 2.0: Ancient Secrets For The Creative and Constantly Connected, after that interview, because are you kidding me? Creative and Constantly Connected?? Could there be a better description of me? I think not!
But I have a deep shame about how I am constantly connected. I am totally addicted to entranced with media: blogs, FB, Twitter, podcasts, email, you name it. I have tried controlling my online addiction through various Draconian measures, such as media fasting during the weekends (dismal failure), internet dieting (no internet after 7 PM) (hah!), and by vowing to read a book a week instead of browsing the web so there would be no time to be online, thereby replacing a good habit (reading) with a bad one (browsing). Fail.
This week I am actually reading the Gordhamer book, and it is very cool. He uses tech language to describe Zen concepts. The one that lit me up today was “Logging in to this moment.”
This idea is intimately linked to the Tollean concept of “The Now.” (It’s not really a Tollean concept, but Tolle‘s is the most current and pop culture articulation of it). Everybody knows (theoretically, intellectually) that there is only “now.” The trouble is, we keep forgetting it, and we don’t always have a quickie way to get back to it, once we’ve strayed (deeply) out of it.
And here’s where Gordhamer’s genius articulation of “logging in to the moment” comes in. Gordhamer says, “Logged out of the moment? No problem, just log back in.”
So this is what I see in my head:
This is the inner login screen:
Username:_______
Password:________
And this is how I fill it in:
Username: Kath
Password: Yoga.
Then I hit login, and I’m good to go. Back in the moment. (ahhh….)
So all day I’ve been watching myself as I’ve been tooling through my day, and whenever I catch myself “futuring” (i.e. projecting myself into imaginary future scenarios) I say to myself, “Kath, log into this moment.” And I go to the login screen in my head, and bam. Back.
And this, my friends, is what inspired me today!
(logging out of this moment.)
Inspiration Location 