[ Sitting Practice ]
My Computer
This is a vipassana exercise.
I think it is a fair inference that the majority of those who are reading this are using computers. The computer has a great many similarities to the mind. It has hardware "The Being Human", an operating system (strings (suttas) of instructions about what to do with information it receives, i.e., identify it, classify it, multiply it, divide it, turn it into a colored pixel, stream of pixels, or a sound, check its spelling, and so forth based on a number of choices that were programmed into it and using a series of databases that are also stored on board), and sensors capable of receiving data: the keyboard, a microphone, a video camera, a telephone line. ...
Almost from the outset this computer interface with the world that we use begins to reflect the state of our mind.
Mine gets scanned every evening and defragmented.
I run without a Crash Guard because I have found that it doesn't guard against the kind of crashes that I experience most frequently, that it doesn't save me any grief when it does crash in a way that it can recognize, and it uses up system resources, both at start-up and while running.
I empty the trash, purge the Internet Cache, clean out the Temp files, Empty the Recent Folder (on the track of tracklessness) and the log of the personal firewall, and I have disabled those parts of all the other programs that retain a history of my activities that goes back further than one day (and I do not fool myself into thinking that there are not those who are able to find this information even after a vigorous effort to erase it from my memory).
My computer is fast (but within the short year or so of its existence the speed of fast PCs have doubled and even tripled), it has a very large memory (both short term and long term) (but here, again, there are computers that have evolved to such a degree as to dwarf this one by comparison), and is partitioned by major function groups: Operating System, Swap File and Personal Files, Business Programs, Arty Programs, and a hidden disk that nobody can find that is totally encrypted ... in it I keep my "Recapitulation", my personal memories and thoughts of everyone I have ever known.
Icons and the Desktop have begun to develop individualities.
My Spelling Dictionary begins to include more and more Pāḷi words.
How much of a percentage of my computer reflects my Buddhist pre-occupation?
If I were to die today, and someone were to come along and look at my computer and ask himself: "What sort of being owned this computer?" What would they think?
What would they think of your computer?
References:
For more on this: The First Rule
TheMozone's own 'ome today.
