Crisis of Attention and Restoration in the Digital Age: Yogācāric Theories and Zen Kōan Practice

Tuesdays, 22 April, 29 April, 13 May, 6 June, R.120.02.11

Chia-ju Chang

We are living in an age marked by deep anxiety and uncertainty. Political systems are in upheaval, economic progress is slowing, and climate change is becoming more volatile and unpredictable. Simultaneously, the rapid rise of digital technologies and artificial intelligence is transforming our world at an extraordinary rate, shaking our understanding of reality and making the future seem more fragile and uncertain than ever before. To navigate anxiety and uncertainty, we must cultivate a resilient and awakened mind—one that can endure pressure, adapt to change, and nurture compassion or empathy (“vibration with”) for others.

Here, the mind plays a crucial role in shaping our lived reality and in community building. If we embrace the concept of "mind ecology" (Gregory Bateson) or “inner ecology” (Paul Wapner), which views the mind as an integral part of a broader ecosystem or “integral ecology” (to borrow Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim’s term), we can easily recognize that the importance of attention to the projects of ecological restoration as well as consciousness transfromation.

As a result of this so-called “attention crisis,” our attention—the capacity to concentrate and to become fully absorbed—has become an “endangered species,” as our focus has been continuously hijacked by algorithm-driven feeds, endless notifications, and the ceaseless demands on our mental energy. In a Time magazine, an article, “You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish,” Kevin Mcspadden tells us about the impacts of an digitalized lifestyle on the brain and writes, “people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds.” Therefore, attention either disappears or becomes the most fragile and rare of “species” within both external and internal ecologies, urgently in need of preservation.

This meditation workshop concerns the central question: How does Zen meditation prevent our attention from being “hijacked”?

This approach rejects commercialized meditation practices such as mindfulness, which is the by-product of, if not complicit with, the attention economy. Instead, I understand meditation to be a critical method rather than an unreflective coping strategy. This workshop turns to the Zen approach and uses śūnyatā as a tool for critical examination and the therapeutic reconstruction of the individual, society, and external ecology. Immersion in the Zen method allows us to create a space or emptiness between our awareness and the objects our attention (thoughts, images, etc.). The discovery of that space gives us an opportunity to redefine our relationship to the “world of form.” We now realize that we don’t have to embrace all thoughts and emotions as ours or as who or what we are. We don’t have to cling to them compulsively. As we practice more frequently, they stop generating compulsive reactions. We can then choose what to focus on and what to ignore. We can become more aware of our interconnectedness, and that can allow us to explore new ways of interacting with others and with the natural world.

This workshop can be envisioned as a "mind conservation and rehabilitation project." In addition to Zen methodology such as the use of koan, it incorporates insights from the Yogācāra school to cultivate a dynamic balance between cognitive transformation and direct experiential practice. Using the Yogācāra school’s "three natures theory" (constructed, relational, and non- discursive/transcendental) as an epistemological framework for attention training, it serves as a guiding rubric for shifting consciousness from a dualistic, self-centric orientation to a non-dualistic, ecocentric awareness.

Our current attention economy that preys on human attention, maintaining a dualistic worldview that prioritizes individualism and competition. It thrives on distraction, pulling usaway from sustained, holistic awareness into a fragmented, stimulus-response cycle on which capitalism thrives. The echo chambers of social media and digital platforms encourage a false sense of self identity and image and deepen self-centric validation loops. This further reinforcing separation between self and other, and lures away from the awarenss and immersion in the natural world.

Working with Yogācāra's "ladder of three natures," participants recognize and unlearn mental habits (vāsanā) that contribute the objectification of the ecological other as the result of screen-based lifestyle. Zen koan practice helps cultivate engaged attention (awareness) through direct, embodied experience. Koan training further delves into themes such as deep boredom (e.g., encountering śūnyatā as void), deep listening, and ultimately, non-dualistic and paradoxical thinking. These are essential capacities for a resilient and awakened mind, enabling it to navigate uncertainty with clarity, openness, and compassion.

This workshop combines presentations with meditation practices, including zazen (seated meditation) and possibly other activities such as Zen calligraphy.