Is Technology Evil? | Thich Nhat Hanh (short teaching video)

It looks like we are losing
our control.

Like when you are
flying an airplane,

you lose control;

or when you are driving a train,

suddenly you find that
you cannot control the train anymore;

you are driving a car...

and you cannot stop the car.

There is a Zen story...

about this person 
sitting on a horse,

galloping very quickly.

And at a crossroads...

a friend of his shouts,
"Where are you going?"

And the man said,
"I don't know, ask the horse!"

And that is our situation.

The horse is technology.

It carries us. We cannot
control technology anymore.

That is our situation.

So we have to begin with intention...

asking ourselves,
what do we want?

What do you want?

The slogan...

the unofficial slogan of Google is
"Don't be evil."

[meaning] you can make money
without being evil.

And is that practical?

Is it possible?

Can you make a lot of money
without being evil?

That's what they try to do,

but so far,
not very successful.

You want to be wealthy.

You want to be number one.

And that costs you your life, 
because...

you are carried away
by work.

You do not have the time
to take care of yourself.

You don't have the time...

to create joy and happiness
for yourself.

You do not have the time
to take care of your loved ones.

When you do not have
the time for yourself,

when you do not know
how to take care of yourself,

how can you take care
of the people you love?

So technology is...

is making us alienated...

from ourselves,
from our families...

and also from nature,

which has the power to heal
and to nourish.

And you spend so much time
with your computer...

with your...

searching for information and...

looking for feelings to forget...

to forget your real problems.

So the fact is that...

we are running away
from ourselves,

from our family,
from our Mother Earth.

And that means that...

Our civilization is going
in the wrong direction.

Even if you don't kill anyone,

or you don't rob anyone,

making money, you do not have the time
to take care of yourself,

you lose your real life.

And you don't have the time
to take care of...

your family and nature,

it means you are doing
something not good.

Even if you don't kill or rob anyone,

making money like that
costs you your life, your happiness,

and the life and happiness
of your loved ones,

and the life of nature, Mother Earth.

So that is evil.
Making money is evil.

But is there any other way
to make money...

without being evil?

You know that somehow...

you are participating
in making...

suffering.

People have suffering
within themselves.

They have loneliness,

they have despair.

They have anger,
they have fear.

And most people
are afraid of...

going home
to take care of themselves

because they think that
they will be overwhelmed

by the suffering inside.

So most of us try to cover up
the suffering inside by consuming.

We are trying to
run away from ourselves...

in order not to have to confront
the suffering within.

And technology is
helping us to do so.

So technology is evil.

The horse is supposed to carry us
to a good destination...

the train also, the plane also,
technology also.

But it is not doing that work.

And we are not in control.

And technology so far has helped 
us to run away from ourselves.

It cost us our own life and happiness,
the life and happiness of our loved ones,

and the beauty of Mother Earth.

So you cannot say that
you are not evil.

Because...

while realizing your dream
of being wealthy,

you sacrifice your life,

sacrifice the happiness
of your loved ones,

and you cause damage
to Mother Earth.

You lose the chance
to be nourished and...

and healed by her.
So...

it's not so easy
not to be evil.

But if technology can help you
to go home to yourself...

and take care of your anger,
take care of your despair,

take care of your loneliness,

if technology helps you to create...

joyful feelings, happy feelings
for yourself and your loved ones,

it's going in a good way and
you can make good use of technology.

When you are happy, when you have time
for yourself and your loved ones,

maybe you can be more successful
in your business.

You can make more money
if you are really happy,

if you have good emotional health,

if you can reduce
the amount of stress...

and despair within yourself.

So during the talk [at Google],
Thay spoke about the Four Nutriments.

In Buddhist psychology there are
five universal mental formations:

contact (xúc; 觸),

attention (tác ý; 作意),

feelings (thọ; 受),

perception (tưởng; 想),

volition (tư; 思).

These are called
[universal] mental formations,

and they are always there
at any moment...

expressing themselves
in our consciousness.

The first one is contact,

the last one is tư (volition).

These two mental formations
are considered to be...

to be food,
to be nutriments...

thực (食).

We have "xúc thực (觸食)"...

And we have...

[Vietnamese].

"xúc thực" is the kind of food...

we consume
not with our mouth.

The food we consume with our mouth
is called "edible food."

[xúc thực] is a sensory impressions.

and that is a kind of food.

And those of us
who want to consume...

in order to forget
the suffering in us...

use technology.

We want to consume.

We consume
not because we need to consume.

We consume
with the purpose to...

to forget about
the suffering inside of us.

Like when we are
lonely, fearful,

we go and...

search for something to eat
in the refrigerator.

We are looking for something 
to eat or to drink...

not because we need the food,
or we need to drink,

but we are doing that

because we want to forget
for some time the suffering in us.

So many people are addicted to eating,

and become fat,

and suffer from
many kinds of diseases...

just because we are looking
for food for consumption...

in order to forget our suffering.

And that is "edible food."

But the food here is 
"sensory Impressions"...

We want to have a sensation.

We pick up a book,
and read,

expecting to have a sensation.

We go to the internet...

we look for pictures
and songs and music...

to have certain kinds of
feelings and sensations.

And the purpose is just to
run away from ourselves...

to avoid ourselves,
or to cover up the suffering in us.

That is the second source of nutriment
talked about by the Buddha...

sensory impressions.

When you listen to music,
when you read a book,

when you pick up
a newspaper to read,

it's not exactly because
you need these things.

You do that like a machine.

Because we are
used to doing that,

you do it
in order not to have...

the chance to encounter yourself...

you are afraid of
going home to yourself.

That is true to many of us...

we are afraid of 
going home to ourselves

because we don't know how
to handle the suffering inside of us.

That is why we are looking for
sensory impressions in order to...

to consume.

And technology, the internet...

is helping us to do so.

So many young people...

are doing that.

A teenager confessed to us
in a retreat...

that he spends at least eight hours
with electronic games...

and he cannot abandon that.

In the beginning he was looking
for games in order to forget,

now he's addicted to it

because in real life
he does not feel...

any love, any understanding,
anything like that.

in his family, school, or society.

So many young people
are trying to...

fill up the loneliness,
the emptiness inside by...

looking for "sensory impressions."

That is the second source of nutriment.

Now as a Buddhist monk
or Buddhist nun,

are we doing the same?

If the young people in the world
doing so,

they are running
away from themselves,

they are looking for sensory impressions
to forget their suffering,

are we, monastics,
supposed to do the same?

If you go to the internet and download
a film and a song to enjoy,

you are doing the same.

You have to do what the Buddha
prescribed you to do:

going home to yourself
without fear.

Breathe and walk...

to generate the energy of mindfulness,
concentration and insight,

and go home and take care 
of the loneliness inside...

of the suffering inside.

We do not have the time to go
and look for sensory impressions...

sense impressions

to fill up the loneliness,
the vacuum in us.

If we do that,
we are not really monastics,

we are just doing exactly what
the people in the world are doing...

trying to cover up the loneliness,
the suffering inside.

That is why...

in this Winter Retreat
we have to...

to practice it with our own choice because...

not because Thay tell us to do it,
that we do it,

but we do it because there is an enlightenment,
there is an awakening,

that we want to do differently
than the people in the world...

in order to help
the people in the world.

If we are acting exactly like the people
in the world, we cannot help them.

we have to learn to go home to ourselves 
and take care of the suffering inside...

and get the peace, the joy that we need,

so that we can help people.

That is why having
no email address...

no internet,
no Facebook

is not something that makes you suffer,

but it's a kind of...

a practice that helps you...

to become a real practitioner.

And if you do it,

if you are awake,

if you wake up 
to that kind of truth,

you will do it with joy
and not...

not like people try
to deprive you of...

Facebook, email address
and things like that.

There are many people who check
their email several times a day,

and find nothing new.

Because you are empty inside,
you are looking for something new.

But something new...
nothing new in the world except suffering.

And you have to be able to generate
something really new:

a feeling of joy,
a feeling of happiness.

And that is possible 
with the practice of mindfulness.