LIBERATING CONTEMPLATION

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Liberating contemplation is the essential component of the path that cuts off the deepest ties we have to the delusion that we can be completed and satisfied through the digital world. By carefully observing and contemplating the nature of the digital world and our interaction with it, we see clearly that it can never satisfy us, and this cuts off the fundamental attachment to it, leaving only the residue of habitual attachment, which is what the final stage of liberating concentration wipes away. 

Liberating contemplation is a practice that requires specific exercises and practice in everyday digital activity. The specific practices are four sets of observations and contemplations: 

• direct awareness and contemplation of digital activity, including emotions and thoughts associated with digital activity

• contemplation of the parts of the digital self

• contemplation of the elements of the digital self

• contemplation of the dissolution of the digital self

The goal of these practices is to see the internet and our interaction with it for what it is: impermanent, incapable of being a self or identity, and incapable of providing satisfaction, completion, or wholeness. 

This digital world is not you, can't be you, and never was you. It is not a possession or self or home or sustenance. You cannot have it. If you cannot have it, how can you crave it? By looking closely, you can see this, and when you see it completely, on the deepest level of your being, you will be free. This is the purpose of liberating contemplation.