Pico Iyer has a lovely article out in the latest New York Times focusing on "The Joy of Quiet". It’s a great read and has a few lovely gems:
In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.
A good point. I’ve actually increased going outside, with trips up the Great Wall or down the Grand Canyon, after starting to use social media more actively. And Iyer wrote this:
Thomas Merton struck a chord with millions, by not just noting that “Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest,” but by also acting on it, and stepping out of the rat race and into a Cistercian cloister.
Which got me thinking about the time I did spend in a cloister. Not a Cistercian one, but a Zen one. After devoting three weeks non-stop on the phone and Internet and running around Gwangju for the Gwangju Design Biennale, I knew it was time for a short retreat. I linked up with Haeinsa, a Seon temple (Korean Zen) up in the mountains near Daegu, in the middle of Korea.
"Time to disconnect?" friends asked.
"Yes," I’d say. "I’m really looking forward to it. I think they might even take my cell phone away for the duration of my stay."
Though I hear some monasteries do hold visitors’ cell phones (willfully, of course), Haeinsa did not. In fact, as soon as I arrived, I found that my room was outfitted with wifi. ("Welcome to Korea," they said) I even downloaded the Korean Temple Stay app onto my iPhone to help me learn about the nationwide temple stay program. And when I was in the center of the monastery complex, I raised my phone to take a photo–only to see it ask if I wanted to join the wifi network there.
Cultural context is important. Korea is one of the most wired countries on earth, and so a few QR codes and a weak wifi signal may be extreme already. In general, I’ve found that the advance of communications technology is more readily accepted in Asia, a continent famous for shanzhai phones, keitai culture and sprawling Internet cafes. But my experience at Haeinsa points to something I’ve been meaning to write about since my time there.
During my stay, I remember reading about a concept called "Not Two" (不二), a kind of yin-and-yang idea that suggests that dualities and differences are unproductive. To talk about a digital world and a non-digital world is a fallacy. The digital world is a part of our lives now, whether we like it or not. To completely cut ourselves out of email and even social media often means disconnecting from a good slice of our social lives, not to mention all the other amazing opportunities for learning and work afforded by the Internet. At the same time, as Pico Iyer notes, stillness is important. It’s good to be fully present, fully alive to the moment without a camera screen mediating the experience.
So how did I spend my time up in the mountains by Haeinsa? To be honest, I mostly did disconnect. I wandered the temple grounds (not all of which is outfitted with wifi) and climbed up to the top of Gayasan mountain. But I didn’t hesitate to post a few photos and tweet about it. "Not Two", as they say. The digital and physical worlds can coexist. What’s important is balance.
