When Bankei was preaching at Ryumon temple, a Shinshu priest, who believed in salvation through the repetition of the name of the Buddha of Love, was jealous of his large audience and wanted to debate with him.
Bankei was in the midst of talk when the priest appeared, but the fellow made such a disturbance that Bankei stopped his discourse and asked about the noise.
“The founder of our sect,” boasted the priest, “had such miraculous powers that he held a brush in his hand on one bank of the river, his attendant held up a paper on the other bank, and the teacher wrote the holy name of Amida through the air. Can you do such a wonderful thing?”
Bankei replied lightly: “Perhaps your fox can perform that trick, but that is not the manner of Zen. My miracle is that when I feel hungry I eat, and when I feel thirsty I drink.
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (p. 90-91)
This Zen story is an indictment of our technology-saturated lives. The rogue priest claimed that the founder of his sect had the ability to write through the thin air – but in our day, this feat is hardly a miracle. We transmit messages with our devices not only across river banks, but across the world. We do not merely write through thin air, we transmit photographs and movies; we converse in real time across continents and fly drones via satellite relays. Despite the technological prowess offered by our devices, Bankei’s response remains trenchant: the real miracle lies in living the ordinary moments of life with full awareness.
I recently witnessed strangers on the street, their eyes locked on their phones. Oblivious to surroundings, they cross the street without hardly lifting their gaze to check traffic. My heart skipped a beat watching them cross the road, oblivious to their surroundings. A few years ago, I watched a father accompany two toddlers at the park on a Sunday morning. The children tossed around a soccer ball, giggling and screeching with delight. All the while, the father was entranced with his phone, hardly looking up to witness the precious scene. One child brought the ball to her dad and invited him to play. The man half-heartedly tossed the ball with one hand and went right back to the screen. The children continued to play without his participation. It was a sad moment. Perhaps he was occupied by something quite important, and perhaps the matter could not wait. That said, his kids would not stay bubbly toddlers forever, and that Sunday morning would not come again.
In recognition of all days that never return, we come to cusp of a new year and reflect on how we will live the days ahead. Will we continue with our eyes fixed to the screen, bewitched by amusing dross that offer no real substance? Servitude does not always feel oppressive; it simply engulfs us in a pleasant, numbing fog of dependency. Lost and without our wits, we lose our grip on clarity, the potency of now. Hours bleed into days. Our devices deliver endless entertainment but sap our souls of real joy. Immersed in all the stultifying content that stokes envy, inadequacy, and outrage, we find our inner landscapes harsh and bleak. Anxiety and dysphoria stalk our minds.
Jonathan Haidt’s book, “The Anxious Generation,” garnered widespread attention in 2024. Teenagers are now undergoing what Haidt calls “the great rewiring,” due to their addiction to screens. Rates of anxiety and depression have risen dramatically among adolescents, as have instances of self-harm and suicide. A mental health crisis among teens raises serious concerns among parents, teachers, and health-care professionals. However, teens aside, addiction to screens harms adults as well. In my practice, I meet adult clients who are hooked on their devices. They know full well that this addiction squanders their time and diminishes their potential. The hours spent on social media do not add up to a fulfilling life, yet they feel powerless to resist. As the hours and days slip into the abyss of the screen, many people struggle with an unsettling realization: I have not lived my life well.
We cannot live well if we are not present in our own lives. Attention forms the horizon in which our actions take place, and from our actions we compose a life. Can we reclaim our attention by being fully present to each moment, and in so doing, reclaim ourselves in a culture where few people dwell in the here and now?
Here are some practical suggestions for those who wish to extricate themselves from the dominion of screens. I attribute many of these suggestions to James Clear, the author of “Atomic Habits,” a book that I recommend to anyone who wants to build the habits that accrue to a worthy life.
Make it Difficult
A habit is hard to break if it integrates seamlessly into our lives. This goes for all habits, good and bad. To break a bad habit, we need to make it more difficult to do. Procrastination is likely if the source of distraction is always within reach. Instead, put your phone in a different room, away from where you work, away from any activity that requires your undivided attention. I am less likely to turn to distraction if I must get up and walk to a different room to check my phone. Similarly, if I have a habit of checking my phone in bed every morning when I wake up, I can put my phone outside my bedroom. If I am tempted to check my phone upon waking, I have to get up, dress, and walk to another room before I scroll the screen. By the time I do all that, I am more likely to brush my teeth than pick up the phone. By making a bad habit slightly more difficult, I have given myself more wiggle room to opt for a better habit.
Make it Visible
Most smartphones have built-in features that allow users to track their usage. iPhones have Screentime and Android phones have Digital Wellbeing. By tracking screen usage, I can see the number of minutes I spend on my phone each day. More specifically, I can see how much time I spend on each app. This data allows me to make some goals about decreasing my use of certain apps, and my screentime in general. Over the course of weeks, I can compare data regarding my screentime. There is satisfaction when I see my total screentime decrease over the course of weeks. The downward trend is a visual indication of progress, which compels me to sustain my efforts.
Make it Intentional
Most of us subscribe to content without a principle in mind. We subscribe to influencers, friends, family, and content that catches our fancy. As a result, we get a mash of content in our feed. After an hour of scrolling, the incoherent stimuli – cute cats followed by footage of war in Ukraine, followed by clips from a stand-up comedian, followed by photos from a cousin’s vacation – leaves our minds frazzled, our attention dissipated. Instead of this haphazard subscription, we can try a more intentional approach to our social media. Imagine that your Instagram feed is the gallery of your mind. What you curate for this gallery becomes the stuff of your interiority. What do you wish to populate this gallery with? Do you want to learn more about architecture? Inspirational quotes from sages past and present? By identifying what I value and the content that I want to be exposed to, I engage more carefully with social media . Who you follow on social media is how you program your mind.
Make it Mindful
Indulge in screentime. . . but do it mindfully. This suggestion might seem counter-intuitive. How do we extricate ourselves from our screens if we indulge in them? By mindful use of the phone, I mean a clear-eyed awareness of what we are doing, and a lucid choice to engage in an activity. In other words, we choose screentime from the wholeness of our agency rather than ingrained habit. Most people use their phones in compulsion: they watch the screen when they are bored waiting in line, or when they feel awkward in a social setting. The screen facilitates aversion by offering a reliable escape. The more we escape, we become less able to face the reality of each moment. By setting aside time to scroll our phones, we counteract the mindless compulsion. This is not mindless scrolling, but mindful scrolling. Two provisos: One, in mindful screentime, we are only scrolling our phones, nothing else. Single-tasking, not multi-tasking. Two, this is a time-limited act. We may schedule 15 minutes at a desk, looking through the latest feeds on LinkedIn or Instagram. During this time, consistently check in with yourself: What am I feeling? How am I affected by this content? After the scheduled time has passed, put the phone down. Check in again: How am I feeling after this activity? Was this worthwhile? Was this healthy? Be honest with yourself and meet your answers with a warm, non-judgemental awareness.
Judging from the number of people with their eyes locked on their screens, a person who is truly present in each moment seems rare indeed. Imagine someone who walks while walking, rides the bus while riding the bus, and eats when eating? It might seem banal that someone would be deeply engaged in the mundane tasks of everyday life, but in an age when our minds are devastated by weapons of mass distraction, the ability to be present stands salient. It is not a marvel that text messages can be transmitted through thin air, but that the sun shines, the wind swirls, and that we are alive to witness it all. Bankei’s assertion that the real miracle lies in eating when hungry and drinking when thirsty, brings us back to the essence of life. This fleeting moment, this human experience. Whether we have the calibre of awareness to meet the sacredness of life is an ongoing challenge. As we step into the freshness of a new year, the invitation to be present looms large.