Apple Vision Pro and the Promise of Technological Enlightenment
Or the Problem of Meditation as a Consumer Product
Apple unveiled this week their Apple Vision Pro, an AR (augmented reality) headset with a price tag of, wait for it, $3,500! A lot has been said already about what it is, what it can be, and if Apple might be able to pull it off when Meta seems to be pulling back from their efforts in the VR space. I am not an expert on this topic, so I will not speak about the technological marvel that this gadget might be (I don’t know and, at that price, I might never know!), still, there was something in the video unveiling the product that, as someone interested in the intersection of religion and popular culture, really caught my attention. It is only 20 seconds long… take a look (from minute 2:20-2:40):
Can you See Enlightenment?
As I said, it is not a very long segment, and most people might not even think much about it, but the idea that with the help of the Apple Vision Pro and its Mindfulness app “you can create a moment of calmness” really made me think. On the surface, it is a pretty harmless claim, I mean, who doesn’t want a moment of calmness in the middle of a stressful day? I can use that. But it is the way Apple seems to promise that this device can deliver “a moment of calmness,” without any effort on the part of the user that really made me think about what Mindfulness and meditation have become in America (and at this point probably most of the world): a product that can be delivered to you as a consumer. Ronald Purser, in his book McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality, offers a critique of this understanding of mindfulness as it has been coopted by corporations. In the case of Apple, mindfulness is seen as another product that can be purchased. There is no effort required on your part. You deserve it. You can have it. As long as you pay $3,500 to Apple!
Don’t get me wrong, there is a long history in religious contemplative traditions of seeing and visualizing deities as well as heaven-like places. In some Buddhist traditions, for example, the practitioner is supposed to see the Buddha, and even identify with one as a way to achieve enlightenment. Buddhist practitioners also visualize Buddha fields, called Pure Lands, a magnificent heaven-like place that anyone can reach after death as long as they recite the Nianfo (called Nembutsu in Japanese), the prayer dedicated to Amitābha, the Buddha that inhabits that realm. The prayer is short and simple: “Nāmó Āmítuófó” in Chinese and “Namu Amida Butsu” in Japanese. Although there have been many schools over time of the Pure Land tradition, the promise is simple: you recite the prayer, and you get to the Pure Land after death. This Pure Land, according to the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra, the central scripture of this tradition, looks something like this:
In a way, the Apple Vision Pro could deliver a magnificent rendering of this Pure Land for practitioners to see, to almost inhabit, and this could strengthen their practice. The problem is that there would be no effort on the part of the practitioner. It is delivered to you as a product, as a service, with no effort at all.
Meditation without Effort
I find a similar issue when it comes to the practice of Mindfulness using this type of device. Jon Kabat-Zin defined Mindfulness as the awareness that arises through “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” to which he sometimes adds “in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.”
In the most basic and popular form of Mindfulness practice, paying attention is usually focused on your breathing, thoughts, and body, and sometimes it expands to your eating, walking, and eventually to everything in your daily life. But this is active attention, it requires an intention and some effort (until it becomes effortless… but that’s an issue for another post). The Apple Vision Pro, at least as presented in this video, seems to promise that all of that can be delivered to you without any effort on your part. You just sit down, put on the device, turn on the app, and watch it, as it is delivered to you while you receive it passively, as if it were a movie. So as far as I am concerned that is not Mindfulness. It might look like it, it might even feel like it, but without any effort, it surely is not Mindfulness. I mean, you can watch all the soccer you want (I like soccer), but it surely does not make you a soccer player.