Understanding Your Own Nature
I was back in one of the local parks in Bangkok today for some exercise. I always endeavour to find a nice quiet spot to meditate afterwards. My first choice overlooking the lake was dashed by a young university student stood in front of a phone-mounted tripod by herself, smiling like Joaquin Phoenix’s joker, attempting a complex dance routine over and over to a funky soundtrack blasting out from another device.
Disheartened, I walked further to a shaded area behind the tree line. Alas, that was a no-go. An elderly gentleman had been watching something on his phone propped up on a stand on loudspeaker, but he was now slumped in his chair asleep with the show still generating a good decibel level. Bless him.
Off I went way over to the other side of the park on a grassy knoll with a tremendous view. I sat down and assumed the lotus position, only to be shaken out of my blissful state of empty awareness by the shrill sound of screeching singing. I glanced behind me and saw a young lady stood on the footpath in front of a towering tripod, exerting her larynx to breaking point along with wild gesticulations. That recording is sure to garner her a few hundred likes and more “friends” online.
Eventually, I did find a peaceful spot with a decent view. Nothing in my pockets and just a bottle of water as my only material possession along with the clothes on my back. I took off my shoes and walked around barefoot for a while to feel the earth beneath the soles of my feet and instantaneously I felt calmer. Then I slipped between the trees and the hordes of solo phone-gazers who were thankfully using headphones, and finally I enjoyed a tranquil meditative state with the wind howling all around me and the smell of fresh cut grass wafting through the land.
When I reopened my eyes, I saw a group of sparrows hopping about foraging for food. A grey squirrel cautiously descended from the tree beside me and eyed me warily before darting off clutching a nut in his sharp claws.
I sat for a while longer, observing nature, not doing anything, not attaching to anything, just being.
People are so addicted to doing things that they truly no longer know how to relax, without a device or an activity.
They scoff at the idea of meditation being ridiculous, but have no self-awareness of how ridiculous they look glued to screens 24/7, spellbound, and alienated from themselves and everything around them.
Never before have human beings documented themselves so extensively yet achieved so little.
Nicholas Creed is a Bangkok based dissident blogger and nature lover.
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Noise pollution is real, all the way from omni-traffic roar to the scenes you describe here.
Bare feet, birdsong, ahh... beautiful!
People these days are petrified of silence. Silence forces you to live, for a brief period, alone with yourself, and maybe even come face to face with your soul.
So they are desperate to find any distraction to avoid silence, and modern technology is the perfect distraction - never-ending, always chirping and chattering, keeping people on the surface of their minds, in the constantly choppy and shifting waters of shallow thought.
Watch people you meet in coffee shops, on trains, and so on. They may put their phone away, and then, no more than 15 seconds later, they take it out again and resume their pointless search for stimulation.
As the mystic Meher Baba noted: "A mind that is fast is sick. A mind that is slow is sound. A mind that is still is divine."