Inside Yoga 187 (12/12/2016)
Lately, I have had a lot on my plate from business matters to dealing with utility companies (which is never easy – have you ever got through to the correct person after pressing numerous option buttons?), and while that has meant I needed to check my inboxes and messages, I did realise that I was checking my phone far too often.
This new technology is all very well, delivering everything we need to our handy phone but it is causing such strange behaviour amongst most of us (or perhaps all of us, as many media stories have previously reported), and this behaviour is impulsive at best and obsessive compulsive at its worst.
There are reports which say we check our phones hundreds of times a day and we do not notice that we are doing it so often. It seems natural to check our phone just a few minutes after the previous check, even though we probably have an aural notification which lets us know that we have a new message. Mind you, my phone keeps repeating its notification sound even when I have already checked the inbox!
Now, this is not really a rant about new technology but an opportunity to highlight how our mind works with regards to not just meditation but daily life.
We are being impulsive when it comes to our phones by checking it as soon as we get the impulse instead of pausing and possibly acknowledging that we just checked the phone or that right now we are doing something else and do not need to be distracted by the phone.
One of my meditation teachers once said that the Buddha taught “appropriate response” as a primary part of his teachings. The reactive state of mind as described above regarding our phones is one without thought, pure impulse, whereas appropriate response implies that it is a mindful response based on thought and awareness being put into the action which follows. In other words, we think before we act.
Although phones might be very useful they have deepened and in many cases worsened our worst traits, like addictive behaviour and craving. We reach a point where our phone is our drug, and we keep turning to it to get another hit and another rush.
It is, however, not the “thing” at fault but our relationship with the technology and more importantly our relationship with our thoughts and actions.
The example of the phone behaviour is an exaggerated form of what we do with our mind in meditation, and to a lesser extent but importantly in life, because we keep repeating the same thoughts, especially the ones that deal with difficult topics like a problem we might currently have.
We feed our insatiable appetite for thinking, by thinking even more, by replaying a memory or thinking about something which needs to be done over and over again.
We all know this is not helpful behaviour, like constantly checking our phones, but we still do it.
When meditating be aware of the thinking, because we keep thinking and the only answer in meditation is to drop the thoughts, to refocus on the breathing and body awareness perhaps with stronger will power.
As for your phone behaviour, try the same approach, by resisting the impulse to look at the screen again to check if there is anything new there. Give yourself a break from the phone, increasing the gap between checks – like we do in meditation, we seek to increase the gaps between our thoughts.
Feel free to share this blog with others, and any thoughts, questions or comments do contact me via the blog reply panel below or email me gary@yogabristol.co.uk
