Sacred Smartphoning: How Mindful Use of Technology Can Amplify Our Lives

By Thomas McConkie, adapted from an episode of the Mindfulness+ podcast.

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We've never been so connected and had the ability to reach out and connect with people all over the planet, and yet a little bit counterintuitively, some of us feel more disconnected than we've ever felt. And there even seems to be a correlation in some studies that the more time people spend on social media, the more disconnected they feel. 

It's also common — I think we've all had this experience — where we're on our phone or we're on the computer, and we have multiple windows open, multiple apps running, and we have this experience of our mind just bouncing around from thing to thing. Our flickering screen is almost steering us rather than us doing the steering. 

So there's this kind of disturbing quality to using digital technology that makes it really difficult to settle in. Sometimes using a smartphone or a computer can represent the polar opposite of a mindful state of awareness. I think you can all relate.

The question I want to bring up today for Mindfulness Plus listeners is, How can technology become an expression of our deepest mindful awareness? How can we use this technology to amplify and spread the effects of our mindfulness practices rather than be hampered by this technology? Rather than the technology challenging us to get centered and be more mindful, how can we actually use this technology as a tool?

I want to start with a challenge. I want to challenge the assumption that technology causes symptoms that feel like ADHD and suggest that we're looking at effect rather than cause. What I mean is that in my experience when I approach technology in a place where I'm very centered and have a clear intention, the technology becomes this instrument in my hands. It magnifies my expression. It allows me to deepen my experience of mindful awareness rather than taking it from me. 

So whereas we often blame technology for contributing to the ADHD pandemic in the modern world, we blame technology for scattering us, I want to suggest that if we ourselves are centered, there's an opportunity to really use technology in a new way.

A slightly different way of saying this is that technology, in the end, is a reflection of our inner state. If we're not grounded, if we're not centered, if we're not mindful, if we are ADHD from moment to moment, then the technology is probably going to amplify that. If I'm scattered as I sit down at my computer and open up twenty different windows with my facebook and twitter-feed, and youtube videos, and email, and so forth, I'm probably going to have the experience of being even more scattered than when I first sat down. But if I come into a still point, everything changes. You can do this right now. You can take a breath. Breathe out. Allow yourself to become spacious. From this place of stillness, from this place of spaciousness and centeredness, we can use the technology to propagate mindful awareness. We can use technology to express mindful awareness.

I want to lead you in a really simple exercise that you can do many times a day throughout the rest of your life to change your relationship with technology: help it start working for your mindfulness practice.

So we're going to do a little game, here. It's a fun one that involves a mindfulness practice. To do it, I want you to have your smartphone or a computer handy. Let’s get started.

*start practice* 

Feel the ground beneath you. And just feel the way the breath naturally softens you. As the breath moves through you like a wave you can continue to let go more and more. soften more and more. Just letting the body and the mind unwind according to their natural rhythm.

Whenever we settle in this way, it's natural for there to be a settling-in process. For the first little bit, for a few minutes, for twenty or thirty minutes even, you'll notice sensations releasing through the body: tensions, thoughts in the mind. And you can just let them release. Let your awareness expand and open. Just letting things come and go. Sensations in the body, thoughts in the mind. Sounds, activities in the world, rise and pass. Meanwhile you just abide in the stillness.

Letting come, letting go. No need to do anything. No need to make anything happen. Just letting go. Relaxing into your spacious nature. And from here, I want you to open up your awareness to all of the relationships in your entire life. Friends, family, romantic partners, spouses, colleagues, classmates, teammates, plants, animals, all of it. And as you hold your awareness open to all of your relationships I want you to just make a space for an intuition to arise. Someone you feel called to reach out to and express something to, from the heart of your awareness, your practice, your love for them. Maybe it's an expression of gratitude, of love. Maybe you owe someone an apology and have waited too long to address it. Or maybe there's a genuine conflict in a relationship that you care about and you've been delaying, hiding your truth. Not offering it in service of a deeper connection with this person. Just see if anyone comes to mind. Anyone at all you feel an intuition, an impulse, to connect with in this moment.

As you’re ready, as something occurs to you, I want you to pick up your phone (if you've got a phone). If you're on a computer you can go to email, you can go to facebook — however it is you connect with people through your technology — and just offer them something very simple. I'll give you a moment to do that. As you go to send a simple text message, an email, I just invite you to stay centered, stay grounded. Let your awareness be open, your heart be open. Don't worry about evaluating the message too much, just trust the pure expression of it. Trust its simplicity. And if you're still composing you can stay with that. If you've finished the simple message you can just totally let it go and just remain in the afterglow of this practice. At the very heart of awareness is infinite and endless relationship. The more we practice mindfulness, the more we work with our awareness, the more we realize how deeply connected we are to all things. As a practice moving forward you can take time to ground, periodically. Come to stillness. Listen from this place of intuition. Something in life is calling you to connect with a certain somebody. Say something that needs to be said. Say something that, if left unsaid, would be painful and limiting. And you're invited to continue in this practice as often as you remember. As often as you’re called to it.

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