by Alan Senauke

Teach us to care and not to care,
Teach us to sit still
 – T.S. Eliot

….I often recall a sentence from one of Samuel Butler’s essays: “Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on,” and then I add that there is a drunken riot going on in the concert hall, and nobody at all is minding the music.
– Saul Bellow, from “The Distracted Public”

The Buddha’s rule of thumb regarding right speech has served me well for many years now. Before speaking -or writing – I try to ask myself are my words true, useful, and timely. Three basic principle, no one of which is sufficient for breaking silence. We think that truth is more or less objective, but it slips through one’s fingers if grasped too tightly. Useful is another matter entirely. Are my words useful to the person I speak them to? Are they useful to me? If the truth is spoken angrily, or timidly, will it get through. And then, what is timely. Even true words, spoken carefully, temperately, may not be timely. That is, the other person may not be of a mind to let them in at that particular moment. So they fall flat. 

All three conditions must be met when we speak to another. Our words represent karmic activity. They are action of a kind, and so generate a complexity of responses and effect. Considering what is true, useful, and timely, means recognizing what our own self-centered views might be. Then we try to sense if our words will help another person become free from their own self-centered views, or will they just help the self dig a deeper rut.
There are differences among the various realms of language-spoken, paper, and electronic media. Though all traffic in words, each of these takes one farther from the embodied word. Our spoken words convey nuance and inflection in sound, or, if we are physically present, with gesture, movement and expression. When we speak, there are countless subtle cues that create context for our words. The skilled poet, novelist, or writer of any sort finds techniques of voice and description, of language itself, that conveys a sense of embodiment. Even a well-filmed version of a novel usually lacks the richness of our own inner visualization of that book.
Words are like arrows or bullets. Their wounds may be healed but scars remain. Once a word has been spoken or written, there is no way to call it back. This is particularly true for email and computer-based communications. I find that emails are more hastily written and sent than a letter or a telephone call. We act as if email were somehow less personal, but its effects can be just as strong. Something about the speed of this technology itself invites reactivity rather than reflection. Not only do we lack necessary cues and context, but we are seduced into reactivity. So principles of truth, usefulness, and timeliness of language are, if anything, even more important. And the ironic reality is that by virtue of informality and speed email can also be terrifically intimate. It is just a matter of using it mindfully. My teacher, Sojun Weitsman, says to us, “Don’t treat anything like an object.” This attitude of respect extends to our computers, our email, and our selves.

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Mitch Kapor, designer of Lotus 1-2-3 and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in a 90s column for Tricycle magazine:

This is the First Noble Truth of cyberspace: We bring our baggage with us. All the ways of being that we are, as individuals and as a society, whether enthusiastic, idealistic, romantic, naive, ambitious, impatient, practical, bigoted, selfish, all will manifest themselves in the non-material reality called cyberspace. It is a non-place where people come together not in body, but through words alone. Because cyberspace strips away markers of age, sex, race, and class, all of which heavily shape our social interactions, one might think it provides a completely neutral space where we are devoid of self and can engage with each other in a wholly fresh, unmediated way. This Noble Truth is what gives the lie to this charming but naive notion….

We bring our baggage with us. When we fail to understand this, not only do we bring the baggage with us, but we replicate it countless times, playing out our lives as a kind of inverted Indra’s Net of never-to-be-satisfied-attachment. The “space where we are devoid of self” is the work of dharma practice. It is not the internet, cyberspace, or anything that can be given us by technology or by anyone. We must create this space ourselves, and recognize that in self-less-ness begins responsibility.

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In this strange era we inhabit, any single day’s edition of the New York Times contains more written information than a contemporary of Shakespeare would acquire in a lifetime. Saul Bellow’s essay on distraction, quoted above, speaks to our modern addiction to speed and information. They act as a drug that clouds our minds and siphons away our attention. The internet is a refined version of this drug, kind of like white sugar. How many of us are not simultaneously driven by the volume of email we receive, and irresistibly drawn to it?
I used to think of the world wide web as a mile wide and an inch deep. In the early 1990s this was generally true, though there were certainly exceptions to this rule of thumb. By 2002, it is less true. There are amazing resources, interconnected websites that I discover every day, as I look for text, information, and photos. My new computer has enhanced audio and video capacities, so it is easy to search out songs, listen, download, and burn them onto cds. This is incredible. But it still seems like an imitation of life.

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The screen ineluctably draws my eye. It is a physiological facts. A tv set has the same effect on my body. Charged particles carry light and energy that entice the organs of sight and perception. I remember years ago, being in bed watching tv during a transmitter failure in New York City. The screen went blank, and still my eye was drawn to watch. It was surprisingly difficult to turn away or switch it off. To cut away and attend to myself and the people in my life is a challenge. To be clear about whether one is turning or being turned. This is completely within our power.

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What are the qualities associated with email and cyber communications? On the positive side there is: convenience, speed, informality, directness, ability to bridge great distances, and economy (though once the larger environmental costs of computers, manufacturing, and infrastructure are factored in, it may not really be so cheap). The downside is more subtle-it includes the positive turned inside out: speed leans towards reactivity and haste; economy promotes wastefulness and unnecessary chatter; informality and convenience strip messages of the emotional markers we value in face to face contact and handwritten letters, markers that help one understand each other. I also note in myself the addictive draw to check email frequently, and the burden of unanswered messages filling my inbox. 

Human nature includes good and bad, strengths and weaknesses. Every silver lining has its cloud. Dharma or reality contains all of this. The challenge of dharma practice is to see through these qualities to the larger living whole. This applies to our communications as well. We are dreaming if we think we can enter just those parts of life on the internet that we prefer or value, without having to reckon with the downside. Neither can we stand aside, pretending not to be involved with the internet. Living in a metropolitan culture it is all around us. The root technologies are built into everyday work and leisure. Even in remote places in the world they are often unavoidable. Renunciation as a kind of romantic primitivism is itself a kind of privilege. We must meet technology with the same mindfullness that we apply in our meditation. We must learn to be upright in the presence of technology, make clear choices, and remember that these choices will have consequences for us and for others.

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There are some developing popular conventions for inserting feelings into your email? My favorite cyber neologism is the word “emoticon.” Let me show you….When I type 🙂 into my new iBook it cleverly translates it into :). And likewise 😦 These are emoticons for happiness and sorrow. For an extensive lexicon see http://www.angelfire.com/hi/hahakiam/emoticon.html. Then avoid them for any but the most playful encounters. This may be my own personal prejudice, but I recommend using expressive words, which have served us well for the last several thousand years.

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“Monks, All is aflame. What All is aflame? The eye is aflame. Forms are aflame. Consciousness at the eye is aflame. Contact at the eye is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye-experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain-that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging, and death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, and despairs.”
- Samyutta Nikaya XXXV.28, “Aditta-pariyaya Sutta,” “The Fire Sermon”

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“Flaming” is an all-too-frequent happening on email lists. For some reason, there are people who find it easier to speak aggressively, harshly, and reactively by email, than they would face to face or by letter or phone. This is called “flaming,” and I have seen it start wars and destroy otherwise helpful listserves. As I wrote earlier, the rules of communication are everywhere the same. But what is it about the technology-a kind of disconnect-that might lead us to speak across cyberspace in ways we would never speak elsewhere?

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Two verses from the Dhammapada: “Speak not harshly to anyone. Those thus addressed will retort. Painful, indeed, is vindictive speech. Blows in exchange may bruise you.” “If, like a cracked gong, you silence yourself, you have already attained Nibbana: no vindictiveness will be found in you.”

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When the going gets really tough, there is such a thing as a “kill file,” whereby one’s computer automatically deletes emails from particular email addresses or topics before they reach one’s inbox. The first time I read this was as a threat, wherein one angry person threatened to consign another to his “kill file.” I felt an almost visceral shock. Language is strange. The use of a word, even when calling up its opposite, seems to invoke the root meaning. “Kill” conjures violence. The first precept reads, “Transmit the life of Buddha; do not kill.”

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A recent cartoon in the New Yorker depicts a man sitting at a desk, writing on his laptop computer. The caption reads: “Thank you for your recent email. I appreciate your concern. However, I am, at this time, completely satisfied with the size of my penis.” What’s funny here? Aside from just seeing the word “penis” in a cartoon, everyone I know was amused to see this piece of ubiquitous “spam” brought out into the light of day. Brad Templeton, internet pioneer and board chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, defines “spam” as, “unsolicited bulk email from somebody who is a stranger. And there’s a lot of it going around.” I’ll say!
Templeton has done some useful digging into etymology of spam. ( It is well worth taking a look at his online essays about all aspects of slam: http://www.templetons.com/br d/spume/.)

“Much to the chagrin of Hormel Foods, maker of the canned ﾔShoulder Pork and ham’/’spiced ham’ luncheon meat, the term ﾔspam’ has today come to mean network abuse, particularly junk email and massive junk postings to USENET. Most people have some vague awareness that it came from at first from the spam skit by Monty Python’s Flying Circus. In the sketch, a restaurant serves all its food with lots of spam, and the waitress repeats the word several times in describing how much spam is in the items. When she does this, a group of Vikings (don’t ask) in the corner start a song: ﾔSpam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, lovely spam! Wonderful spam!’ Until told to shut up. Thus the meaning of the term at least: something that keeps repeating and repeating to great annoyance.”

Other invasive, irrelevant messages turn up unbidden with great regularity. Our times call for gender balance, so we get: “Double your breast size! Guaranteed.” There are frequent offers to refinance my house at rock bottom rates. I don’t own a house. My favorite spam con seems to come from Nigeria. It reads something like this (sic):

“Very urgant! I humbly wish to seek your assistance in matter that is very important and needs utmost trust and confidence in order to transfer out $26,000,000 from our bank. I have the courage to ask your cooperation to handle this important business believing that you will never let me down either now or in the future. 
I am Mr. Johnson Chukwu, the chief auditor of United Bank for Africa PLC (UBA). There is an account opened in this bank in 1980 and since 1990 nobody has operated on this account again. After going through some old files in the records I discovered that if I do not remitt this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing ….”
How can one practice or deal with spam? It is like so much else in our lives, just adding to the vast body of distraction and irrelevance. The shear volume of junk mail weighs me down. This is a new kind of toxic waste. Aversion arises from the burdensome weight of these messages, and the wheel of becoming turns through another cycle of birth and death. It irritates me to find my address has been added unbidden to some well-meaning organization’s list, providing information that is certainly important, but that I have not asked for an cannot deal with. Along with irritation I usually detect a small pang of guilt. Perhaps their cause is something I should support, their product is something I might want to buy….

And of course, as a pork product, Spam is neither Kosher, Halal, nor suitable for vegetarian Buddhists to consume.
Still mistakes are made. Just the other day an old friend chided me for sending out a mass announcement without using my browser’s “blind cc” function, which would have hidden all the addresses I mailed to. He wrote: “By choosing ﾔto’ or ﾔcc’ you are handing each recipient a copy of your mailing list and potentially fostering more unwanted junk email.” Even though I have freely borrowed addresses from other people’s lists, I simply had not considered I might be promoting potential spam myself.

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My dharma sister Maylie Scott was diagnosed with an untreatable late-stage cancer last April. She was first in a hospital in Arcata, northern California, then at home at the Arcata Zen Center, where she had lived for the previous two years. Her community, those of us whose lives she had brightened, was scattered across California and the U.S., with large clusters in Berkeley and the Bay Area. Experience with online lists enabled me to set up a way that her friends and family could communicate to Maylie, with each other, and get frequent reports from those who were at her bedside. (Two free group lists I have worked with are: Topica (www.topica.com) and YahooGroups http://www.yahoogroups.com. See these websites for instructions. This is not an endorsement of Yahoo or Topica as such. I do feel a bit squeamish putting them forward here. One caveat is that “free” means putting up with advertising banners or footers. Annoying but bearable.)
We were able to do all this very quickly, yet the quality of communications was deep, with little of the annoying chatter I have seen on other listserves. In this case, the depth of our sorrow and concern kept our words focused. It was a revelation to me how vital these cyber tools can be when they are really needed; how they clearly are tools to be valued, wisely and mindfully used….When they are not the province of people with too much time on their hands.
In this case and in others I could cite, the technology is relevant because we have chosen to make it so. In Zen practice we ask if you are turning or being turned. In other words, if one is subject to our views and actions, or whether one is in fact one’s own master. This is a matter of Right Intention, the second element of the Eightfold Path. Right Intention leads us to look at technology from a dharma perspective, from the position of ending suffering, rather than playing into the hands of available technology.
One correspondent wrote to the point:

….I find myself so touched by all that has been written to and about Maylie…I have not wanted to write to the e-group previously, but I think I have worked through what is necessary privately and want to acknowledge publicly my love and gratitude to Maylie. I have already done much work, feeling, talking, and sitting with others who have loved Maylie as I have. Still, I marvel at the breadth and depth of her touch to all of us in so many settings, and our response is so clearly unalloyed love. No ambivalence, much clarity.

There was a further irony to the way these events and technology seemed to unfold together. A week after Maylie died and we returned from Arcata, I was myself hospitalized with a dangerous septic infection. By the time the ambulance came I was in septic shock, and halfway out of this world. The “Maylie” list morphed into a group supporting me and each other. Reading these messages on my recovery, I was deeply touched.

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Buddhist Peace Fellowship has had an email group list for interested members since 1994. It has been hosted on a variety of ISPs, but the content and tone has been consistent over the last eight years. The list population has grown slowly but steadily, mirroring BPF’s own growth, though at a much lower level. There are about 275 people signed up for the list, while BPF’s membership is over 7000.
One purpose all along has been to channel information about BPF’s programs and events. But the list has been much more a kind of informal place where people can talk about their social action work, ask questions, or just share what is happening in their lives. There are a small number of very active participants, and quite a few lurkers, who read (or not) in silence.
From time to time emotions flare, just as in our lives in the world. My own role as group facilitator has been low key. When the heat rises, I usually sit back and wait for people to take care of each other. From time to time I post the communication agreements below, as a reminder of the practice and cultural boundaries of this particular list. Often that is enough. Occasionally I have written to a person directly, outside the list, to suggest how they might consider what is being said, or how they might respond in a way that doesn’t further conflict. But this is rarely needed. And rarely do members leave in anger or disappointment. When people leave, it is more often because the volume of emails and the matters under discussion are not what they signed up for. 

It is interesting to speculate on why this list has been relatively free of flaming. I think this is because we have shared principles of Dharma practice, and people resonate with the language guidelines. But deeper than this, the BPF list is made up of people who practice in community or sangha, so the list itself is a kind of community. Those of us who have lived in real community understand the effects of language and the practicality of kindness and straight talk. Our lives in community teach us how to harmonize newer modes of communication.
The simple guidelines here have proved extremely useful. I have shared them with other list facilitators and group leaders, as a Buddhist context for online communication.

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COMMUNICATION AGREEMENTS: THE DHARMA OF BENEFICIAL SPEECH


(Please note: this section is directly reprinting guidelines from the BPF list.)


Our Engaged Buddhist subscription list – <bpf@yahoo.com> – is dependent on a community understanding of Right Speech, the third point of Shakyamuni Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. Here in the West, we have discovered that matters of conduct and speech often need to be set out in terms that further explicate the straightforward language of the central precepts. We recommend Thich Nhat Hanh’s version of the precepts and his commentary in For A Future To Be Possible, which offer real guidance about how we can live and say our piece/peace in this tangled world, and how to be “kalyana mitta,” spiritual friends to each other.
If you wish to join this discussion list, we ask the following:

1. Please read and consider the sections below from Thich Nhat Hanh and from the Majhima Nikaya.

2. Agree to avoid all speech that is intentionally hurtful. If we all speak from this place then we create safety, knowing that any hurt we may experience is a matter of misunderstanding or ignorance, not intention.

3. Agree not to use harsh language, which includes name-calling and ad-hominem attacks.

4. Agree that if we are hurt or angry, we will wait before we respond and think about the impact and usefulness of our words, much in the Buddha’s terms set out in the sutta below.

5. As a community, however tenuous this cyberspace may be, we will try to be helpful and truthful to our dharma sisters and brothers. If we can’t be helpful, we can at least be silent.

We offer these agreements for you to think about and welcome any comments you might have. As facilitators for the list, we also reserve the right to ask people to leave the list if they cannot keep this spirit. Please know that such a step will not be taken without consulting with BPF board members. Meanwhile, we look forward to your participation, your news and thoughts.
The Fourth Precept: Deep Listening & Loving Speech
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create suffering or happiness, I vow to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.
- Thich Nhat Hanh, For A Future To Be Possible

. . . So to, prince, such speech as the Tathagata knows to be untrue, incorrect, and unbeneficial, and which is also unwelcome and disagreeable to others: such speech the Tathagata does not utter. Such speech as the Tathagata knows to be true and correct but unbeneficial, and which is also unwelcome and disagreeable to others: such speech the Tathagata does not utter. Such speech as the Tathagata knows to be true, correct, and beneficial, but which is unwelcome and disagreeable to others: the Tathagata knows the time to use such speech. Such speech as the Tathagata knows to be untrue, incorrect, and unbeneficial, but which is welcome and agreeable to others: such speech the Tathagata does not utter. Such speech as the Tathagata knows to be true and correct but unbeneficial, and which is welcome and agreeable to others: such speech the Tathagata does not utter. Such speech as the Tathagata knows to be true, correct, and beneficial, and which is welcome and agreeable to others: the Tathagata knows the time to use such speech. Why is that? Because the Tathagata has compassion for beings.

– Abhayarajakumarsa Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya

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Engaged Buddhism is not Entangled Buddhism is not Exhausted Buddhism. Some months ago I was writing to a monk friend, Santikaro Bhikkhu, complaining about fatigue, my perceived lack of time and the difficulty of sustaining relationships while seeing oneself entangled in tasks, projects, idle talk, and email.
Santikaro Bhikkhu wrote back:

“One thing about Dhamma relationships is that they are more nurturing than demanding. We all give what we can, receive what we get….We don’t ask any more of you, simply appreciate what you share & provide. Upadana, clinging, is what entangles. We don’t want entangled Buddhism! What is it about us Socially Engaged Buddhists & activists in general that we are so often churning up more things to do? I’ve reflected on this in terms of productivity — the socially conditioned sense of worth & self based on what we do, make, or produce. All keep us entangled in greed, hatred, and delusion. What entangles you the most?”

What entangles me most is the ongoing project of ego construction. Santikaro Bhikkhu is right on the mark when he warns against “the socially conditioned sense of worth & self based on what we do, make, or produce.” The addictive quality of technology, the flash of computer screens, the speed of access and contact only strengthens and accelerates delusion. And will keep doing so. It simultaneously draws us into the illusion of communication, while holding out real opportunities to connect. The question is, who is in control? Is it ourselves, seeking to complete what will always be incomplete? Is it the hi-tech corporations who profit by our habitual hunger self and our ongoing projects of ego construction? Or is it actually the technology itself, innocent, but so alluring? Who is turning and who is being turned.
The gift of Dharma is the understanding that one can always find freedom in each moment. We may not be able to alter external circumstances, or to avoid the many kinds of pain we face. But we can use our body-mind and our understanding so as not to attach ourselves to what is painful. Looking at technology it may be impossible to separate wholesome and unwholesome. We are only partially in control of our computers and the other technology we depend on. But we can avoid believing that they are in control of us.
Before meals at our Zen center we chant a verse that begins, “Innumerable labors brought us this food. We should know how it comes to us.” This goes for everything. As we use our computers, as we write to friends and colleagues, as we explore the internet, we need to remember that we are only seeing this web through a very small window. Countless hands have created this brave new world for better and worse. If we are to use it wisely and keep turning the Dharma, each of us will have to tread lightly and speak with care and respect.

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Hozan Alan Senauke is a Soto Zen priest and teacher in the tradition of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, head of practice at Berkeley Zen Center in California. He lives with his wife, Laurie, and their two children at BZC. From 1991 to the end of 2001 he was Executive Director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. In another realm, Alan has been a student and performer of American traditional music for more than thirty years.

ReVision – A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation
Spring 2002 Volume 24, Number 4
Reprinted with permission of the Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation.
Published by Heldref Publications, 1319 18th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036-1802.
http://www.heldref.org/html/rev.html
Copyright ｩ 2002