Kati,
When I saw the references from the publisher Shambala, I had to comment. My last encounters with Shambala as a publisher were back in the days when they were the doing Tibetan Rinpoche books. Which was also a time when the counterculture started to split between those who wanted to ride the technological power of the microchip and computers because of the dramatic changes in personal empowerment that it portended, and those who fundamentally mistrusted technological advancement, and wanted to focus on “healing modalities” which often involved as you mention integrative body work of various kinds. The idea that spirituality came through being fully physically present, and whole, though disciplines such as yoga, or zazen, tai chi , meditation, holy dancing, chanting, massage, tantra etc.
Clearly there was a natural divide between those who were going with geek life styles where the knowledge machine brought about transcendent states, and those who felt that the body was the foundation of everything that could be accomplished.
Now, the differences are even more acute, as bandwidth has increased to provide ever more immersive virtual reality experiences. Clearly there’s not much room to just say well, the online world is too antithetical to the needs of the body, because it’s no longer a small off to the side part of our culture. On the other hand, it’s getting serious that huge numbers of us are turning into blobs of biomass with hours in a dark room sitting in a chair. Stats on child obesity seem to reflect a serious change in our group ability to focus on the body as our foundation for being. Among other related problems.
Clearly you are on to a continuation of this argument: are the extensions of the body, to use Mcluhan’s phrase, at war with the body, or in support of the body?
I guess it’s obvious that both points of view need to be attended to. We live in a knowledge machine world, and we also understand important parts of being human by “learning” and “studying” our bodies. So, a successful human now and in the future is one who works in both worlds of existence, the body, and the extensions of the body.
You mention this in your post, the western problem with mind/body duality. Recently you might be interested to learn that various western thinkers are coming up with another take on this problem, without abandoning the western tradition. Some recent biographers have re-examined Descartes ideas, and decided we have not really understood what he was saying accurately. They suggest that Descartes had more of an interest in placing his “duality” in a greater transcendent context, that he hinted at in various discussions about the role of God in this problem.
Here’s some references for body/mind, or it’s cousin brain/mind.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17217
http://www.nybooks.com/authors/369
Recently a very interesting article in the New Yorker, obviously a favorite source, about a couple who are philosophers studying brain/mind dualities, and looking to simply route around that problem through better understanding of neurobiology. Or “neuroscience”.
“Two Heads” by Larissa MacFarquhar, New Yorker magazine Feb. 12 2007.
The couple, Paul and Patricia Churchland propose that understanding the biology of the brain will solve the problem for us. That the brain is the mind. Which brings up an interesting point because I think we have to include the body when we speak of the mind, and also when we speak of the brain, because both are in a living connection with the other organs and the means of perception from the extend of our senses. Which extends beyond our body, in that our perceptions in the senses have their origins in phenomena beyond the limits of our body for senses such as smell, hearing, sight, and taste. Even touch, seems to generally require an outside object or phenomena to set off signals.
And if we are connected beyond our body/mind by our senses, even more so by our extensions such as the media we use. So in a real way, our brain/mind/body is situated in part beyond the borders, beyond the lines we draw using those words. And this has great import for online activities, because in a real way, our body is extended into the new electric spaces.
How do we “integrate that” and do “body work on that” and find “spiritual enlightenment in that”? You note the idea of disassociation, a kind of out of body type relation to our world. What’s odd about that, is that sometimes its when we are most aware of our body, our breathing that we find ourselves transported into that out of body space.
So, I tend to think we can carry our body along with us, in all that that implies, when we enter cyberspace. We may be in a way disassociated, but it may be that this is still a worthy and full connection to the meaningful transcendent. What we otherwise take to be the spirit, the soul, the god in us, the part of us in union with the whole….whatever the words we use, I would suggest comes along when we go online.
Now if that’s so, what is the relationship between that kind of electric transcendence into cyberspace, and the kind of transcendence of physical limits that we might experience in prayer, meditation, or enlightenment, or pure joy? If we can connect with others somehow through the power of spiritual activities, is this at all the same as the transcendence of jacking in to the web?
John
