Technology and Meditation

A computer on every desk and an i-phone in every hand: low-cost robot teachers facilitating employment replacement opportunities for eight year old children... and don't forget to put on your oxygen mask before going outside for your five minute recess... But, on the other hand...

Students can meet in the regenerated forests of the world, sit on hand-made bamboo or hemp mats, meditate to begin their day, and graduate into a world that holds out the daily promise of "Welcome Home!"

Of course, it is not an either / or situation that we are in. It is though, one of primary importance. One could go so far as to say that it is the most important question of the times in which we live. Will technology and wealth serve the full development and liberation of every person and the regeneration of this Planet, or will it serve only to benefit the few above  and before the many and the Planet? This is also the most religious or spiritual question that we could ask. It cuts to the core of every issue, opinion, or theological positioning. 

The Power-Paradigm that rules the world would have us believe that their technocrats and political operatives will successfully "innovate" and discover the means to survive the potential hazards of war, climate change, economic marginalization, and religious violence. Of course, they will ignore the simple fact that is is their centuries-long abuse and misuse of power that has disrupted all of the natural systems of the Earth and cooperative systems of the "average" Joe, Jane, and the suffering poor. They are counting on our conspicuous consumerism (with a steady supply of new and improved trinkets-for-entertainment). They are counting on a willful stupidity on our part to maintain their endless-profit designs.

One possible response to the Power-Paradigm is the renewal of our collective human spirit: the cultivation of both soul and imagination. This possible New Renaissance might just become the rEvolution that all of us desperately need! "The full development and liberation of every person" will be one essential aspect of this New Renaissance, but more, so will play, meditation, the regeneration of forests and soil, educational systems that honor and serve "the whole person" and charts pathways for art, community farming, social service, and a study of gracious systems of philosophy...

Ultimately, we all just need to want to fall in love as lovers and servants of one another and of this wonderful Sacred Planet that is home home...