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To see our own mind clearly without being caught up in its movement to watch thought, without trying to do anything with or about it, simply seeing it and letting it go. This is the way to freedom

Welcome to the imperfect Buddhist, where we discussed. Present moment awareness. Applying Zen principles to modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney and today's episode is titled Buddhism and screen addiction.

Everybody has a smartphone in their pocket. And if they don't, we wonder what's wrong with them.

The price of big. Screen TVs. They get bigger and bigger. Every year are getting cheaper and cheaper.

New iPhones come out every year with better cameras.

They make special blue blocking glasses now to help protect people's eyes from all the screen.

Increasingly, I see more and more kids at restaurants with little portable TVs that their parents bring along to help keep them distracted.

Five year olds are starting YouTube channels

and eight year olds are starting TikTok.

I'm starting to develop a hump on my neck. Bending over to look at screens too much. I used to make fun of my mom when I was 14 years old for the same thing, rubbing her neck saying, mom, how'd you get this thing?

Teenagers also have these humps on the back of their necks.

A new name is sprouted up for this condition. It's called tech.

I have been working from home for a little over a year. This means I'm on the computer for work 40 plus hours a week. I've really found it challenging to maintain a level of mindfulness

when I'm looking at the computer.

I've really found it challenging , to maintain a level of mindful awareness. I have three monitors. I the laptop screen. On the left side, a computer monitor and on the right side, a computer monitor.

wake up in the mornings and sit at 8:00 AM for about 20 minutes every morning. I try to bring that mindful presence into my Workday. But I notice after looking at the screen for even

10 or 15 minutes, this haze kind of comes over my present moment awareness and I'm sucked into. What's going on on the screens. Maybe this is its own form of flow, but I don't really feel aware of what's going on around me as a more spacious awareness. It's a very pointed area of focus, almost like daydream.

I'll tell myself, I'll say, okay, Matt, like, there's not a lot. You can do about the screen time for work right now. But when you get off work, you can not use your phone. You could not play video games or watch TV with your wife. You have a choice there sometimes I'm successful. But a lot of the times I find myself getting off work or taking a moment away.

The computer work screens to look at my phone, I'll walk away and sit on the couch for a minute and look at my phone. I noticed this dizzy

Sick feeling, but I still continue to scroll through images on Instagram or look at my friends posts.

I'll get a day off on a Saturday, beautiful sunny day. And I'm like, oh man, I have, I don't have to do, I don't have to be on the computer. I don't have to do any of that. What do I wanna do? Oh, I'll play Pokemon. Go for the day and look at my, my phone screen for six hours today while I catch digital Pokemon.

It's kind of an addiction at this point.

I've been having some success lately with present moment awareness and catching myself. Before I get pulled back into the phone or the computer or the TV. I've had moments where I'll deny. Myself that and leave it off and just sit there and listen to the birds outside and the wind running through the autumn leaves or the dog barking down the street.

And I've found moments of peace through this,

but this is still a struggle for me. I'm still finding that. At the end of my 40 hour work week on the computer, I still get on the TV and play a video game, or unfortunately, work on music on my computer. I use software called Ableton to record my music. If I wanna do music, that's gonna be done on the computer as well.

It's a bit of a challenge for me right now.

I brought this up to Cocomo during one of our Sans ends, which is a private meeting with Buddhist teacher. He mentioned to me, he says, if you can catch it before. You pick up the phone turn on the TV or open up the laptop, if you can be with whatever precedes that, like what's the feeling or what's the urge.

Can you be with what you're running away from? So what am I running away from when I open up the phone or, , turn on the TV and what I've found lately? Sometimes it's boredom. There's this level of, I want to be distracted from, whatever's not going on in my environment, working from home, it's somewhat sedentary.

I wouldn't say I get lonely. I can be pretty lone Wolf and be okay in my own space, in my own head, but I do require a level of stimulation and I think. Working from home. I don't get stimulated. Like I would, if I was working in a more in person environment. And so there's that level of wanting to stimulate my brain and have conversations with different pieces of information out there.

Back to the Cocku suggestion, , he said, what are you. Running from, or what's the feeling inside? Are you avoiding a feeling by picking up the technology? Where is it coming from? I've found multiple things through that practice. I've seen that there's a habitual pattern it's almost built in to grab the phone and look at it, an automatic process.

But there are times where I'll actually see this conscious effort I'm making. Avoid something that's going on inside of me or something that I don't wanna think about that I'm avoiding with the.

So I am gaining some traction with the technology abuse.

Sitting for longer periods in the morning for 20 minutes has helped to kickstart my present moment awareness in the day during work hours, when I'm on the computer, I notice I need to break it up into sessions of. Focused face into the computer screen work and stepping away and taking a breath, looking out the window at the trees or playing with my cat.

I've been using a a tomato timer that counts 25 minutes. That 25 minutes is dedicated to focused work. And then five minutes of rest of you can do whatever you want. You could look at your phone, but. As I mentioned, I'm trying to use that five minutes away to just rest my mind.

Rest my eyes, look outside, reconnect with the present moment. After that five minutes, the bell rings and I go back to work for another 25 minutes. You do five cycles of that, and then you take a longer rest period. I tend to just go on lunch at that time. And then I come back.

If I'm not catching myself before I get sucked into the phone or the TV, I am becoming aware as I'm sucked into it. Maybe not even like, stopping what I'm doing, but just feeling what's happening in my body. Like how my eyes are tight and sore. Maybe I have like a headache and I'm witnessing my thumb, pushing up and up and up on Instagram.

seeing that has kind of disgusted me a little bit and turned me off from doing it. In a way that present moment awareness of watching myself do this, it's , oh, wow.

So as you can tell, I'm not an expert on screen addiction. I haven't mastered it yet, but I want to go over a couple of the things that have helped me that may be helpful to.

Sitting in the mornings before you've had a chance to get pulled into the dailies of life like children or your phone or work email. If you can set aside a time in the mornings to be present and come back to the present moment and cultivate that sense of awareness, that's the biggest help I've.

For new habits, you want to attach them to current habits. You have. If you wanna start running for instance, the best way to get this and attach it to your life is to attach it like a Cabo on a train to another habit. So if you want to start running.

You decide, okay, I'm gonna run after I brush my teeth every morning. Cuz brushing your teeth is already an established habit in your life. I hope . So you wake. Maybe you brush your teeth first thing in the morning. So you brush your teeth and you say, okay, now it's time to run and you put your shoes on and you go right out the door and you do that enough times.

You start to attach that habit to the current habit that you have. It doesn't have to be brushing your teeth. It could be any habit that you have. So for me, I attached my meditation to the end of taking a shower in the morning. I wake up, you know, do my three SS. And I dry off and I, put some clothes on and then I sit down and I meditate and I've been sitting for 20 minutes in the mornings.

Some people see really good results with 10 to 12 minutes in the mornings to start.

So one of your best friends will be having a consistent time, hopefully in the mornings that you can come sit down and become present. And use the practices that are available, maybe breath, awareness. It could be mindful awareness of your body, the sensations in your body, the environment aroun...