[NoZebra120vClip]

A smartphone is a device designed to distract us and hold our attention. Even with a well-behaved app on it, it's still designed and configured to constantly beep and whistle and send notifications, and fly into our hand and compel us to doomscroll something unimportant. It's fairly impossible to reconfigure a consumer device so that it doesn't do this.

Someone who is practicing contemplation should not be held prisoner by a robot voice or a glowing screen, but instead reach an inner presence of God, and His stillness encompassing all that we experience during that sacred time.

It is absolutely necessary to shut out every distraction possible. At the same time, we acknowledge that the practitioner will be distracted in some way, not through his own fault, and we must learn the proper response to fleeting distractions. But to purposely tether yourself to a created, pagan object is to invite failure from the outset.

[unmole]

> A smartphone is a device designed to distract us and hold our attention.

No it isn't.

> to distract us and hold our attention. Even with a well-behaved app on it, it's still designed and configured to constantly beep and whistle and send notifications, and fly into our hand and compel us to doomscroll something unimportant.

That doesn't match my experience in over the decade of using smartphones.

> Someone who is practicing contemplation should not be held prisoner by a robot voice or a glowing screen

A smartphone is a tool.

> but instead reach an inner presence of God, and His stillness encompassing all that we experience during that sacred time.

Buddhism is non-theistic. There is no God.

> But to purposely tether yourself to a created, pagan object is to invite failure from the outset.

Is this meant as satire? I mean, pagan? Really?

[astrange]

> Buddhism is non-theistic. There is no God.

This is a bold and untrue statement. There's every kind of Buddhism possible out there. Pure Land is pretty theistic…

[Knee_Pain]

I just put my silenced smartphone on the table and after 15 minutes it sounds a pleasant bell to remind me meditation time is over. Sometimes I want to do guided practice so I listen to the instructions of the meditation guide.

So, where is the problem here? Maybe you are arguing an uninformed strawman.

I could argue the same thing about going to a place of worship. You are surrounded by people (the thing that biologically distracts us the most since we crave social interactions) that make sounds or move about, plus sometimes there is a master guiding people in their practice.

Isn't that the textbook definition of distracting? Why can you magically ignore a whole drove of people around you but somehow a silenced smartphone is just too much to handle? Double standard much.

> instead reach an inner presence of God, and His stillness encompassing all that we experience during that sacred time

>pagan object

this is just baseless cultist talk

[NoZebra120vClip]

> You are surrounded by people

The idea of corporate worship is that the assembly is united in their purpose, there is an order observed, and the people develop discipline from this orderly worship. Also, people are not machines and that's disgusting that you draw this analogy.

People may distract, even in that situation. Many have their minds elsewhere, some don't want to be there, someone may even be actively disruptive. But corporate worship is not usually contemplative meditation.

I have been in worship sessions where silence is strictly enforced, and there is no master guiding an order of prayer. This adoration is always in a group setting. Hey, I've even used my device sometimes to look up Bible verses. It's not sterile.

But if someone is sitting at home, alone, the best practice is to shut out unnecessary distractions to the extent that it is possible. And your phone obeys its corporate master. A mobile device is not under the control of the user holding it.

[Knee_Pain]

My smartphone does exactly what I tell it to do during my meditation time. You keep arguing a strawman using religious language.

[orange_fritter]

I'm not religious but I find the commercial and unnatural connotations of the electronic device to be a barrier - meditation often focuses on primitive physical sensations, whereas digital devices seem to work in contradiction to physicality.

Meditation is a very personal experience and strangely many people are telling eachother how it "should" be done. As if their way, which works for them personally, is the only way.

I find the direct involvement of a digital device to be somewhat unnerving and distracting. I use my Apple iPhone with my paid app about 50% of the time.

[lazide]

Sounds like you’re on of the few that has managed it. I have yet to see anyone else who has - spam calls, texts, random notifications from whatever app someone forgot to include in the focus config, etc. seem more the norm.

Frankly, why not just leave it out of the room? Oh, except for the app I guess.