Cyberspace

Tracy and I wanted to explore moments of spiritual transformation not just through the historical record but in the lives of contemporary men and women....Going online seemed an ideal way to do this. Not only would it allow us to reach many people at once, but online communication, as I had gathered from reading about it, can lead to a peculiar sort of intimacy--an intimacy that we hoped would allow people to reveal moments that they might not talk about on questionnaires....On the other hand, I wondered whether something would be lost by communicating with others only through a computer screen.

I was aware that scattered around the country were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of smaller electronic services, many of them real virtual communities in that their members spoke with each other each day via modem, forming deep bonds of friendship, and sometimes of enmity. Happily, one online service with a reputation for being lively and smart, ECHO, was not only located right in New York City but had been founded by my former wife, Stacy Horn. ECHO, which Stacy opened to the public in 1990, was also of interest because Tracy and I wanted to contact women as well as men, and few online services in the country approach ECHO's rate--38%--of female subscribers.

After getting Stacy's okay to post a query on ECHO, Tracy and I visited her in the West Village apartment where the service was then headquartered. In a room that was a pleasingly quirky blend of old and new, with dozens of gleaming modems and several laptop, desktop, and floor-standing computers competing for space with a huge antique armoire, Stacy set up our ECHO account and instructed us on how to connect to the service. That evening, I logged on to ECHO and connected to its eclectic membership, the majority of which lives in the New York area but which also draws from locations as far away as California, Rome, and even New Zealand. I posted my query and soon I was privy to some extraordinary stories:....

Posted by "Sne'ers-so-well ":

"In the summer of 1986, I entered into a lucid dream one night. I was in a dark chamber, it felt like rock or something, with fog shifting about, and high, eerie, angelic voices singing in discord (listen to Lou Reed's "Berlin"--I can't remember the song at the moment, but those voices are there). And there was the stereotypical BRIGHT WHITE LIGHT, coming at medium intensity through the fog.
"At that moment, I knew I was at what I call the Way Station. I felt very drawn toward the light. I knew if I went into it, I would die, and enter another dimension. This knowledge made me very calm, and happy. Yet I had a nagging sense it was not time--sort of like checking out dessert before you've eaten the main meal. It wasn't going anywhere, and it just wasn't time yet.
"So I exercised my will, forced myself awake to the point where I could speak. I was stuck in one of those states where you are mentally awake, but physically paralyzed. I managed to wake my girlfriend, asking her to wake me up, because I was having 'visions of death.' She freaked, and woke me up damn quick.
"Since that night, I do not fear death."

Posted by "Knarf":

"I remember when I was very young, probably around 9 or 10, I had a dream that I'd fallen off a cliff and died. It was weird because it felt so real. I see myself floating away from the body. All my friends formed a circle around my body. I felt myself getting higher and higher, until I was above the clouds. There was a short arched bridge made of brick. Just above it around the middle sitting was what i perceived as God and Jesus Christ. I walked across the bridge and stopped in the middle. I was being judged. As I looked at the other side of the bridge, I could make out all the people that I know that have died. Most prominent was my father. He was calling out to me. I wanted to run over to him, but somehow, I just couldn't. I heard a voice that said I wasn't ready yet and everything became a blur after that.
"This dream made a big impact on how I looked at death from that point on. Death isn't painful. You won't miss anyone you leave behind. And you get to see the people you love that you have not seen in a long time."

As fascinating as these ECHO postings and messages were, as they grew in number I looked in vain for any that mentioned an awakening or transformation that had occurred to someone because they were online, or while they were online--possibilities that I had asked about in my query. I wondered whether the silence indicated that something about cyberspace and the way we travel through it impedes the ability to awaken.

Despite my reservations about cybercommunications, I had noted in many of the more conversational postings on ECHO an unusual freedom of expression. I knew that Stacy was writing a book, The Electronic Mask, that would deal with this phenomenon, so I asked her about it.
"Some masks conceal," she said, "and some masks reveal. People at Carnivale are famous for being completely free, when they wouldn't be normally, because the mask liberates them. Something happens online. There, you get just enough anonymity to feel safe to reveal your inner self. You feel like you're invisible.
"Psychologists say that unburdening the soul and opening up is a positive experience. I tend to be the same way online that I am in person, and I'm very private. But I've seen people opening up online, saying such intensely personal things, that it almost makes me uncomfortable. When they talk to me at the Art Bar [where ECHO members meet face-to-face every other week], though, they always say that they are glad that they did."
As Stacy and I got into our own conversation, I found myself comparing our communication in person, or face-to-face (or "f2f," as it is referred to by veteran cybernauts), rich in prana, to our communication online. Sending messages back and forth to each other on ECHO, our exchanges had been fast and crisp and to the point. But in person, I noted that, at least on my part, a certain hesitancy set in. Though we'd split up over ten years ago, I felt our shared history sitting at the table with us like a third party--in the real world, real-world memories intruded. Seated across the small wooden table from Stacy, the richness and ambiguity of face-to-face communication became clear: the impact of a glance away or a direct stare, the subtle play of body language, the shadings of tone and pitch of voice, the wordless messages of smiles and laughs and frowns--all missing in cybercommunication, as was the most important element of all, the simple organic presence of another's body.
I asked Stacy what it was like to finally meet someone face-to-face after a long-standing relationship with them online.
"It's very awkward," she said. "It's awkward to have an incredible intimacy of the heart and mind and to have no knowledge of the flesh. You're embarrassed. 'Oh, god,' you might think, 'I said too much. This person is a stranger.' You literally have to get reacquainted in the flesh. This happens a lot faster as a result of the online experience but you still can't bypass the face-to-face experience." In addition to the emotional openness I had noticed on ECHO, I'd also been impressed by a generosity of spirit, of people wanting to help one another. What did she think about this?
"It demonstrates dramatically how people are aching for this kind of connection," Stacy replied. "I've discovered in my own life, for instance, that people want to do good, that they want to do nice things, but that they don't really know where or how to start. But if you go up to them and say, 'Do this, this is a good thing,' they will always say, 'Yes.' Or if you ask, 'Can you do this for me?' they always say, 'yes.' It's as if people are waiting to be asked. Online, there are endless opportunities to be kind. On the other hand, people can be just as vicious. When you break down inhibitions, you see equal amounts of kindness and viciousness. It liberates both.
"Regarding your question about the spiritual implications of online communication, people often want the big story, the big answer. But the important story, the important answer, is usually so simple, so small, like the fact that people can talk together every day. That may end up as being the important element in online communities. That's what people come back to....."

...It occurs to me that while awakening to the presence of my body and the living world isn't possible for me when I am online and lost in my head, I find myself in the same situation in the "real" world, where I am nearly always asleep to the sacred in and around me. While cyberspace may reinforce the rule of what Buddhists call "the monkey mind," that rule need not be absolute, in cyberspace or out of it. Prana may not exist in cyberspace but, then, I never do either, not really. My body always rests in the natural world, breathing in and breathing out; it's only that I tend to forget that it exists. But it is possible, if very difficult, to remember that the body exists, even while playing Rebel Assault or typing words onto a screen--being attentive to the breath can help. Right now, as I type these words into my computer, I am sensing my breath flowing in and out. I am sensing the upward suck of my dreaming mind as well, and I know from past experience that in a moment my attention will be lost to that mind. But I also know that my attention can return to my breath, and so to my body, and that I can begin anew to experience the world, moment to moment.
Moreover...learning and giving instruction come easily in cyberspace, secondarily because of its vast databases but primarily because of the willingness of most people online to share and to help out. Each of us moves along the spiritual path in fits and starts, stumbling here, falling there. By sharing our experiences, we can learn from one another--from those who are ahead of us on the path, from those behind, and from those alongside--and perhaps pick up our pace. In Buddhism, the community of people dedicated to following the Buddha's path is known as a sangha. In a way, at its best, an online community can be a kind of sangha. I fear the hypnotic lure of cyberspace, but I cherish the moments of heart-to-heart opening that have come to me there.

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