This is part 2 of a 2-part series on Techno-dharma. The first part can be read here.
On the topic of moderation and living in a more balanced way, the way Techno-dharmists talk about the Buddhist middle path is also rather telling. The Buddha is said to have experienced the two extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification in his own life. The first one came from his upbringing as a prince, which is said to have been a pampered life, sheltered from all worldly suffering and misery, and deeply indulgent in luxury—and probably sexuality too let's be honest, there wasn't a whole lot to do in those times in terms of entertainment besides having sex.
This bubble eventually burst when he encountered the Four Sights: an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a monk, which showed him the reality of death and suffering outside of his palace, and led him to pursue a path towards enlightenment. This led him to swing all the way to the other extreme of self-mortification, where he would go through a gruesome journey of extreme fasts during six years, sometimes getting close to dying, a period which ultimately proved to be unsuccessful, as the Buddha realized that those two extremes weren't viable paths in living a life of virtue, and that a milder Middle path was preferable to those.
Modern people love this tale because they can project whatever they want onto this so-called "Middle" path, which means that again they can have their cake and eat it too. Even the most luxurious lifestyles of the rulers during the Buddha's times pale in comparison to the material comfort that we have access to today. Sure, most people have to go to work and do not have access to a harem of beautiful women they could constantly have sex with, but the influence of comfort and how it shapes people is still incredibly prevalent in our times.
As Darren Allen points out, we live in a painless Hell, which allows people to remain unconscious by detaching them from any discomfort whatsoever. I am not trying to imply that pain is necessarily good, but to try to remove it altogether from our lives is a disastrous idea, because it makes us numb and unable to struggle for what we might genuinely desire, instead making us weak, apathetic and lazy.
The culture of nice is not very keen on confronting us with the pain of growth and becoming more conscious, it wants to frame spirituality as a mere addition to our nice material comforts. The idea that those might be liabilities when it comes to living a more authentic life is not popular to say the least, because people want to patch their existential alienation while keeping their material safety.
This is why Techno-dharmists so rarely talk about death, as a simple reality which you cannot avoid. They might talk about reincarnation, about the eternal soul that we have and how death is merely an extension of life, but this is not the wisdom coming from someone who has pierced through the veil and has come back anew, rather it is a reassuring message presented to people who are fundamentally anxious about their own mortality, and who are looking for comfortable ideas.
Loss, grief, negation, death and pain are rarely mentioned by Techno-dharmists because fundamentally what they are interested in is management, which is why the middle class is so keen on meditation these days. Anything which diminishes the self, but could allow the conscious I to be in charge is automatically filtered from their life, and thus what they talk about. This process is not a conscious one, rather it's simply that our world has no use whatsoever for peering into the dark, feeling the pain, and making radical breaks from material comfort, because this negative direction is antithetical to that of technological progress, and the basic safety and comfort which the ego craves.
Speaking of technology, the way Techno-dharmists sometimes refer to meditation techniques is rather telling, for they label those as a form of psycho-technology. It is telling because the point of technology is to solve specific problems, meaning that they view meditation and other aspects of spirituality as a way to solve something.
I have nothing against problem-solving, we all come across problems in our lives, whether it is our finance, or health, or relationships, or some basic repair we need to do. But first of all, life is much more than a mere series of problems to solve, it can be an adventure led by our curiosity, a relationship which breaks open our heart and makes us appreciate the simple things we have taken for granted, a stroll through the woods which makes us feel part of a greater whole, and so much more.
The real problem happens when problem-solving becomes its own reality, rather than something we occasionally engage in to accomplish certain goals. When we lose sight of Life, in its fundamentally ineffable totality, and only concern ourselves with problems, we first of all constrain it to a crude, literal frame within which our ego's concepts can apply, and second of all we also start treating ourselves like machines.
Fundamentally a problem requires a frame around life, because the mind can only work with frames, concepts and ideas, not with Reality itself. This is why people who get good grades in school can be so utterly stupid when it comes to the direction of their own life, because all this time they have become good at solving problems within a frame, but they haven't spent much time on questioning the frame itself.
Likewise, you can't convey to someone who is obsessed about achievements, performing, efficiency and problem-solving the limitations of how they live. More than likely, what will be required is for life to break them open, through some health or relationship problems in the majority of cases, or them realizing that their achievements are rather hollow all things considered.
What this points to is that problems are limited because they come from a narrow perception, one which boxes in Reality, starts assigning labels to it and tries to figure out how it can improve the situation. If you start treating your entire life in such a manner, you will always lose track of the bigger picture.
Why am I mentioning all of this in regards to the subject of Techno-dharma? When someone approaches spirituality through a lens of technology, distilling it down to mere techniques such as meditation, whose purpose it is to become more functional, what they are doing is that they are dehumanizing themselves, and turning life into a grind. Rather than seeing themselves as they are, or attempting at least to do so, they are treating themselves as some type of case which needs to be managed and "improved" upon. This mindset of self-management is one which the vast majority of self-help writers have, which they then instill onto the reader and makes them feel like they need to "fix" themselves.
I am not saying that people are perfect and don't need to work on themselves. Rather I am saying that this view is contextually useful, in the sense that if you have health problems then there are measures you could take to address them, and that if you keep running into the same relationship problems, then you probably want to examine those so that you may have more loving and open relationships in the future.
But fundamentally, trying to "fix" yourself, or the world, through spirituality is a losing game, because it comes from a self which labels narrow aspects of Reality as good or bad. The way out is not through an inversion, by trying to psych yourself into believing that everything and everyone is beautiful or good. Rather, the way out is to recognize the limits of the self which is obsessed with labelling things, and recognize that Life, as a whole, simply is beyond labels.
It's useful to identify some things you struggle with and work on those, but your life as a whole is so much more than that. It's not just more quantitatively "good", it's simply beyond the frame of "good" and "bad", it simply is. The obsession with problem-solving cannot tolerate the simple, miraculous reality of mere being. It gets stuck in a perpetual loop of doing, accomplishing, feeling good, and then identifying more problems, feeling bad about those, and drawing more energy to fix those. Problem-solving is a useful tool, but without any conscious master, it becomes an addiction.
And this is perhaps the most fundamental flaw of the Techno-dharma worldview, which is their confusion between the self, the sense of separation we experience, the vehicle we use to navigate the world as a finite human being, and the conscious I, the eternal, acausal "me" who is in contact with everything and everyone else, which allows "me" to read those words, and be touched by what surrounds me. Again, there is nothing wrong with the self, as long as it is able to step away when something greater than it needs to be in charge. If it's unable to do so, it becomes self-informed, or we could say egoic, in which case it violently rejects anything which could diminish it.
In such a situation, people turn to "spirituality" for guidance, for techniques to soften the self and allow the conscious I to be in charge. But what happens more often than not is that the ego manages to co-opt those, and merely becomes an addition of techniques and concepts. The flavor has changed, the language, tone of speech and attitude might have changed, but the fundamental dynamic of addition remains the same.
People talk about "becoming more conscious", but this can be misinterpreted. Consciousness simply is, there is nothing you can do to change it. But your self might be a better vehicle in your own life, and might be better at allowing this consciousness to pervade through your life. Egos are rigid shells which don't allow the light of consciousness to peer into their life, which is why they run away form pain, rejection, difficulty and ultimately death. Softer, more loving selves recognize the limitations of this unconscious approach, and allow all of Life to affect them, even what they might not like, which can rightfully be called more conscious.
As a result, we can indeed say that there are ways to become more conscious, which we can try to codify into methods and systems, but we should be careful not to let the conceptualizing, systematizing self to take charge of our lives.
When someone only has methods, they become a machine, in their conversations, in how they eat, in how they work, and even in how they meditate. Spirituality is not magically exempt from the grasping nature of the self, even the ineffable and the divine can be turned into simulacra.
This is something that the Techno-dharmists do not realize, or at least do not take very seriously, because they benefit too much from selling ideas, methods and reassurance. They want to maintain the fantasy that spirituality is simply a very predictable path to follow, that even if it requires a lot of time and commitment, it is still fundamentally linear, a quest of quantitative self-augmentation towards some "higher" state.
People in our anesthesized times tend to run away from hard work and difficulties, but those are significantly more preferable than some fundamental Unknown, which is why people are so keen on latching onto a path. Perhaps one of the greatest tell of how conscious someone is is their response to uncertainty. Do they immediately reach out to some answer in their mind, whether it comes from their own investigations, or more likely than not, someone else's ideas? Do they start building a narrative inside their head in order to give them reassurance, an achor to feel safe? Do they run away from the uncertainty, afraid that they won't be able to handle it, and ask someone else to take care of it?
Or do they simply allow the uncertainty to reach into their awareness, feeling it deep in their belly, before making a decision? Do they allow their playful curiosity to take the lead, typical of children who didn't have their aliveness beaten out of them by years of schooling? And are they able to laugh in the face of uncertainty? Not the desperate, tense and ironic laugh of someone trying to push away their pain, but rather the simple, full-hearted laugh of someone who is completely relaxed, a laugh which reaches all the way down to the pit of the belly, with the unique quirks found in everyone's laugh, for we are all a bit special when we get to laugh sincerely.
These qualities of radical acceptance, curiosity, and playfulness in the face of uncertainty are rather absent in the Techno-dharmists in my experience, especially the last two. They reach out for answers, and learn methods and systems, but they don't seem very interested in approaching Life, in its totality and mind-boggling actuality, head-on. They want to shield themselves with what they call "spirituality", but what they don't realize is that we all stand naked in front of Death. Nothing that you accumulated matters, including all the "higher" states you have reached and hours spent meditating. You simply are, right in front of Death. Can you face it? Can you face your life?
When I think about those questions when it comes to the Techno-dharmists, the answer I get is a resounding "no", these people lead trivial, safe and predictable lives. They are not interested in living and dying gracefully, they merely want to manage their life a little bit better.
Which is also why, as the technological system as a whole is dying, perhaps not quickly, perhaps not visibly for those of us who are more privileged, they too will engage in more management. They will sell hope about the future of the system, they will sell ways for people to manage their anxiety, or depression, or apathy, but they will never seriously allow death, of the system or the self, into their writing, their speech, or their life, because those cannot be managed.
Only a fool tries to manage Life as a whole, but when billions of fools come together and attempt to do so in a coordinate manner, we call this society, and then we end up thinking of this project as sane, normal, or even inevitable in its success. This is an illusion. The ego is bound to die, and so is the world it attempts to build and maintain. There is no use crying over spilled civilizations however, Death and limitations are the basic reality of incarnate life, and this is perhaps going to be the greatest lesson of our technology-obsessed times.
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Chimera Mimetics Plasticspirituality Technology Gender Essence
2025-11-10