Kloncke

Loved this post from American Buddhist Perspective.  Sometime this week I think I’ll finally have a minute to offer a list of my own favorite “mindful blogging” spaces.  This entry is a prime example: a blogging praxis that creates a tight dialectical relationship between online and offline life, encouraging and enhancing mindfulness — present awareness, plus hopefully wisdom and compassion — in both.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

You Are No Longer Following Buddha

Mindfulness in a techno-buzz-twit-book world.

Thanks, Google, for simply negating my last nine years of study and practice as a so-called Buddhist. Now that I am no longer following Buddha, what will I do? No white letters in cool blue bubbles fade in from the background to tell me.

Sorry Buddha, but the Google Ads in Buzz was uncool. I don’t mind them on websites (to a degree), I don’t mind them on blogs (you can find some here and buy me coffee by clickin ’em), but in buzz, they’re uncool.

In fact I’m not really sold on Buzz as a whole. I’m told that people are following me that I didn’t even know about. My girlfriend told me it forced her to follow me. I chuckle. That’s just so wrong. Who, or what algorithm at the world’s smartest company, is making these decisions?

Twitter (follow me….) has won my heart because most of my blogosphere friends are there. It allows a nice combination of headlines for our mutual blog posts, as well as something of a community chat function for discussion and banter. Not to mention news stories hand-selected by like-minded folks for me to read. Can’t beat that. If twitter is ever clogged with ads like my Buzz today, that too may need to go.

Facebook (add me…) still gets a fair amount of my daily attention, but is growing into a sort of bloated colorful cousin to twitter. I prefer twitter more (I find myself aimlessly meandering on facebook way too often) for its compact, quickly moving aesthetic. What it has and twitter lacks is all of my real (IRL) friends from over the years which makes any annoyances more than worth it. Besides, I should take the opportunities to be mindful in the colorful environment of facebook more seriously. Limiting my daily time. Being purposeful. Focused. And when meandering, just as in meditation, to simply catch it – gently – and ‘come back’ to my main page.

at 9:48 PM Labels: buddhism, life, meditation, technology