Photography as Meditation

6

Eastern and Western Thought

While technology has homogenized our world culture to some extent, the classic generalizations of “Eastern” thought and “Western” thought can still be used to some extent to illustrate how Zen and meditative practices, while still considered by some to be exotic or foreign, can be a tempering influence on the technology-driven lifestyles of people in the developed world.

In recent decades in the developed world (what we can, for the sake of this discussion, characterize as the “West”), the influence of science and technology has taken hold of society. We have, at our fingertips, larger compilations of information with greater attention to precision. This flood of detailed knowledge is so vast that a stronger presence ...