internal, external
One of my favourite chapters from Zen Digital Makeover: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Tech:
‘One of the clearest signals that something healthy is afoot is the impulse to weed out, sort through, and discard old clothes, papers, and belongings.’
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way
Just got back from the cradle of Zen: Bodhidharma’s cave. The legendary monk sat facing a wall here for nine years before introducing Zen and martial practices into the lives of the Shaolin monks.
I sat in meditation. Just me and one rather curious woman, whose face carried the ferocious stillness of a reincarnated Chögyam Trungpa.
I was transfixed as her hands weaved through a mesmerising sequence of mudras. Not usually my cup of tea, but I could sense that some legitimate sorcery was afoot.
We settled into penetrating silence. The energy built.
Until…
Abruptly, her phone rang. She looked exasperated. She answered in a hurry and hung up, looking ruffled.
The spell was broken. I was peeved.
My inner rascal chuckled: ’She could do with reading Zen Digital Makeover. Definitely using this story in the book.’
My inner monk slapped his wrist: ‘You’re in the Bodhidharma cave! You should be meditating, not planning jokes for your book!’
Alas, recalling a unanimous record of defeat at the hands of my inner rascal, my inner monk bowed down. He let the tyke chuckle itself into exhaustion until quiet returned.
I once fantasised that I could out-meditate any modern challenges. But this illusion has been vanquished by the devastation I have witnessed in temples at the wrath of the phone.
Pains me to admit it, but I see little difference in the extent of phone addiction between many martial and meditative masters, the supposed paragons of self-control, and muggles.
We cannot rely on meditation alone. We need external methods too.
Yet the inner work remains important.
I pay respects to the Western authors who inspire this book. But mostly, I sense busyness in their nervous systems. Because they’re not internally quiet, they stay wired for busyness. They use the time productivity methods save them and fill it with more busyness.
Thus, I observe four categories of people:
1. Digital Slaves: Neither internal nor external.
2. Phone-Addicted Meditators: All internal, no external.
3. Busy Productivity Hackers: All external, no internal.
4. Digital Masters: Masters of both internal and external.
In the martial world, we have internal (yin) and external (yang) practice. Meditation, Tai Chi and XinYiBa are more internal: soft and slow. Hard Kung Fu and strength training are more external: hard and fast.
If we attach to internal practice, we become yang deficient: weak and unable to cope with life’s challenges.
If we attach to external practice, we become yin deficient: rigid and unable to connect with ourselves.
Better to have range.
I like to be able to drop my resting heart rate to 32 and bring it up to 190. To sit in an ice bath for half an hour and a pitch-black dark room retreat for three weeks. To have the strength to bench press twice my weight (once upon a time) and the flexibility to drop into splits. The endurance to run up the mountain and, at the summit, the stillness to sit for hours in full lotus in the cave. The toughness to play rugby with pros and the fluidity to practise Tai Chi with Wudang masters. The precision to execute immaculate Shaolin Kung Fu forms, the wildness to out-hippy the hippies in ecstatic dance. The hardness to take blows from the Shaolin iron brush, the softness to give a heartfelt hug. Gives life more colour, you know?
My role as a coach is not to give students answers but to help them get quiet enough that they find the answers for themselves.
Click click click. ‘Ahhh’ moments pepper their lives as they get still enough to see what is under their nose.
They unblock themselves internally and suddenly something unblocks in their lives.
A decision arises. A serendipitous encounter. They spot clutter in their environment that they were blind to when internally blocked.
Yin is yang, inner is outer.
In tidying yourself, you tidy your world.
In tidying your world, you tidy yourself.
Maintain an internal tidy room, inbox zero and free calendar.
When you understand this deeply, you become attuned to the subtle ways your external environment reflects your inner state.
If disturbance is all you know, you are not aware of how it affects you. Much like those habitually under-sleeping or eating unhealthily don’t notice the effects of their lifestyle. But when your default is undisturbed, you sensitise to disturbances. You notice artefacts of inner disturbance — a cluttered inbox, notification tray or desktop, for present purposes — and tidy them before they build.
Application
Use both internal and external methods. Quieten your nervous system so it can rest in stillness and not look for new reasons to be busy. And quieten your devices with the external methods herein.
Reflection
Which category do you fall into: digital slave, phone-addicted meditator, busy productivity hacker or digital master?
Do you find yourself working more efficiently but filling the time you save with more ways to be busy, or frustrated that you still fall prey to tech temptation despite your meditative practice?
