Bodhi contributing editor Tyler Dewar seized an opportunity on behalf of Bodhi readers this past fall to solicit the wisdom of His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa on a variety of topics relevant to contemporary dharma practitioners.

Here’s His Holiness answer on a question about the Internet and social sites:

HHK: With the Internet and other technologies, we certainly live in the midst of an information-heavy era. We can receive a lot of information in very short periods of time. For dharma practitioners, the most important thing is to examine the changes in our body, speech, and mind that occur when we receive these chunks of information, and to discern whether the way we are responding is helpful to us.

In the past, most of the information we received throughout the day was more or less directly related to our own experience, things we were perceiving in an immediate sense. These days, much of the information we engage with throughout the day is not directly related to our own experience, but we still invest a lot of our energy in it, and we see that it changes the state of our mind. For practitioners, it is important to nevertheless intentionally relax our minds and make sure that our minds have a chance to take their own seat of stability.

You can read the interview in full on Bodhionline here.