Category: Craig Smith

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Craig Smith

What is Shambhala?

A Lecture in Chulalongkorn University’s “Buddha in the 21st Century” Series, March 25, 2 pm, Room 708, Boromratchakumari Building, Faculty of Arts, 7th floor, Chulalongkorn University.

Shambhala is an ancient secular tradition with outer, inner and secret aspects — at once intended as a method of achieving a harmonious social order and a way of quelling discord in one’s mind.

Shambhala has long fascinated Westerners since it was first discovered by the British Theosophical Society more than 100 years ago. Pioneers such as Madame Blavatsky called it “shangri-la,” a romantic lost kingdom that popularized in books and films, such as “Lost Horizon” and “South Pacific”. In fact, it is a serious spiritual method, connected with Tibet’s robust folk tradition, e.g. the legend of Gesar, and Buddhist tantras, such as the Kalachakra. Though pre-Buddhist, the tradition of Shambhala is the hidden teaching of some of Tibetan Buddhism’s most significant contemporary exponents, such as the late Chogyam Trungpa and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Relevant to the “Buddha in the 21st Century” lecture Series at Chulalongkorn University, is that Shambhala does not emphasize the attainment of individual enlightenment. Rather, it fosters “enlightened society,” and it explicitly aims at using “spiritual warriorship” to achieve a radical course-correction in social systems that have lost their balance with nature.

Shambhala principles are conveyed by the organization Shambhala International, which has 175 meditation centers around the world, including one located in Bangkok. Though this organizations, teachings of Shambhala are expressed to the public by means of a series of weekend programs, called Shambhala Training, to be introduced in Bangkok for the first time April 3,4,5 http://bangkok.shambhala.info

Prof Craig Warren Smith, a Senior teacher of Shambhala Buddhism, now in residence at Chulalongkorn University’s Center for Ethics of Science and Technology will present the lecture. For more than 20 years a Shambhala training instructor, he will lead the upcoming training in Bangkok, which will include the participation of Chulalongkorn’s professor Dr. Soraj Hongladarom as guest speaker.

His lecture March 25 will overview of Shambhala teachings and suggest how and why Shambhala principles are currently being embraced as a complement to conventional Buddhist practice.

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Craig Smith public policy

Mobile Musing

MOBILE MUSINGS

By Craig Warren Smith

craigwarrensmith@hotmail.com

Founder of the international movement to close the Digital Divide and a former Harvard University professor,  Prof Craig Warren Smith is now in residence at Chulalongkorn University’s Center for Ethics in Science and Technology.  His column Mobile Musings is a regular feature of Database.

Obama Shows How Broadband Could Stimulate the Thai Economy

After using the internet to install himself as US president,  Obama’s  next step is to show how the internet can empower the rest of us.  The Kingdom of Thailand should take notice.

Soon,  ASEAN nations will announce regional economic revival plans under His Majesty’s shadow in Huahin.  As host, Thailand could bring the  transformational exuberance of Obama’s First Hundred Days to Southeast Asia.  After eight disasterous year of declining US influence, it is ok to learn from America again.

As soon as Obama was elected,  the hordes of rowdy, grassrootsy, internet-savvy Americans who were responsible for Obama’s election,  immediately went to work formulating a “New New Deal”  The term refers to a revival of President Roosevelt New Deal work relief progam of the 1930s. Just as the old New Deal built highways,  the new approach put the 21st century superhighway (broadband) into a starring role in the US stimulus package.

Of course,  the Obama broadband promoters have a lot of competition.  They must compete with fear mongers.  Like Arnold Schartzenegger,  who in movies is a bold action star but in real life he is a wimp who says California will sink into oblivion unless the feds bail them out with big bucks.  He and 19 other USA state governors ask for a $1 trillion from the feds. The US steel industry’s moguls are also holding out a tin cup, requesting another $1 trillion.  Since the too-big-to-fail argument worked so well for the auto industry,  all the other pooped-out industries are standing in line.

In contrast to the fear mongers,  the broadband-promoters rely on hope. See http://www.barackobama.com/technology.   They fit directly into the inspiring “yes we can” optimism that Obama’a  expressed in his presidential campaign,  and my guess is that they will be the voices that will be heard by US Congress who actually must approve the budget.

How Broadband Fits into American Revival

As the bailout crowd seeks to avoid the bad karma that resulted from bad policies of the past,  the broadband advocates are trying to create good karma that will ripen in the future.

They say that broadband is the precondition for a massive plan for retraining displaced workers,  re-establishing a competitive national work force, creating a new wave of entrepreneurship and milions of new jobs — reversing those wiped out by George W’s disasterous polices.  At least a dozen plans for broadband-promotion have been advanced.  Some of them involve direct subsidies to the telecommunications industry itself,  such as $40 bilion for Internet Service Providers.  Others are clearly anti-industry and seek to fund nonprofit community networks,  support plans for shifting to less carbon intensive workforce,  or simply try to get more broadband-enabled services beamed into schools, hospitals and rural health clinics.

The most persuasive and expensive plan has been put forward in a report by a group called EDUCAUSE.   It argues for putting about $100 billion into “fat” broadband infrastructures that will beam 24/7 distanced learning into every household.  “The total cost of broadband-enabled economic renewal could be paid for just 19 days of what we spend on the Iraqi war,” says the author of the report, John Windhausen.

The Thai government should take note of four aspects of the way broadband has been integrated into economic revival in the US:

DEMOCRACY 2.0 Prime minister Abhisit should not just concentrate on communicating with the Thai public through one-way SMS messaging,  but turn himself into an expression of Democracy 2.0, a term that refers to the way in which the internet era can foster citizen participation. Just as Obama is turning his campaign web site into a web constituency for formulating and implementing of his policies,  so should the new PM.  His party may not have been elected with the majority, but now that he is their leader he can engage Thai citizens in the solutions for low-income Thais and, in that way, steal the thunder from Thaksin and, perhaps, win the heart of the people.

HR COULD DRIVE ECONOMIC REVIVAL:  In fact, the clear focus of the broadband approach to revival is educational.  Note that the US approach does not  assume that investments in human resources development is a luxury that will pay off in the next generation.  Rather,  the American broadband advocates “crunch the numbers” to show that investments made now in broadband-assisted education and job-creation would be the least expensive and quickest path to US economic renewal.  The same would be true for Thailand. This is the can-do approach that, so far, is missing from Prime Minister Abhisit’s stimulus package which does not get to the heart of how to generate a competitive workforce.

TAPPING THE PRIVATE SECTOR:  In the US, the private sector is a full partner in the stimulus package.  All the broadband proposals involve giving the private sector the incentives to devote its talents and resources to economic revival, including the creation of jobs that lighten the earth’s carbon footprint.   In a similar way,  could bargain with the private sector.  For example, rather than concentrate on excluding offensive web sites, the new Thai ICT ministry could create a sophisticated mix of incentives, subsidies and tax credits that encourage web applications that positively support His Majesty the King’s ethical principles of sufficiency economy and gross national happiness.  In fact,  rather than pour finds into a black hole of educational subsidies, the new government could get a “bigger bang for the baht” by challenging Thai ICT industries to work through their own commercial channels to generate the skills need for low-income Thais to create millions of new jobs.

GOING GLOBAL:  The next factor has to do with the spillover from domestic into international perspectives.  Obama had to bow to protectionist sentiments during his election campaign, but as US Senator last year he authored a bill that increases the impact of US international development assistance via public private partnerships,  entrepreneurships and small business development.  This is the approach to international affairs that the Thai government itself should advance.   As an open society surrounded by more authoritarian Asian governments (including some well-represented as ASEAN),  the Kingdom of Thailand could promote HR-driven bottoms-up economic development in its foreign policy,  and turn Thailand itself into a showcase for this approach.

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Craig Warren Smith, PhD Senior Advisor Human Interface Technology Laboratory Craigwarrensmith.com Hitl.washington.edu DigitalDivide.org SpiritualComputing.org USA mobile phone: 206 245 9970
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Buddhism Craig Smith information technology

Buddha in the Twenty First Century


An Occasional Seminar Series by Craig Warren Smith, PhD

Initial Lecture: “An Overview of Contemporary Buddhism and its Meaning for Asia”

Monday, January 26, 2009
Room 707, Boromratchakumari Bldg., Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, 1 – 3 pm

Center for Ethics of Science and Technology,
Chulalongkorn University

Just 40 years after its embrace by Westerners, a secularized approach to Buddhism – stripped of its affiliations with cultures in Asia – has become a dominant factor in the intellectual life of the West. Today, Buddhist principles are integrated into international reform strategies in education, business management and health care. Buddhist principles dare to challenge modern definitions of “scientific method,” and they are even entering into the design of next-generation digital technologies. Buddhism also causes Westerners to discover practical applications of their own humanistic philosophies, which had become increasingly marginalized under the impact of scientific materialism.

Though these reforms emanate from the West, they are having a “kick-back” in Asia. Seeing their own Buddhist traditions through Western eyes, many Asians now see new ways to draw upon their own indigenous spiritual traditions to achieve long-sought domestic reforms.

A former Harvard professor of Science and Technology Policy, Dr. Smith is now Senior Advisor to the University of Washington Human Interface Technology Laboratory. He has taught Buddhism since 1974 when he was a founding faculty member of Naropa University and has since become an advisor to leaders of “engaged Buddhism” such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the actor Richard Gere. He is a Senior Teacher of Shambhala Buddhism, the major international organization of Tibetan Buddhism for Westerners. Today, he lives in Asia where he teachers meditation to Asian business leaders in an annual month-long retreat at Borobodur, Indonesia and is in residence in 2009 at Center for Ethics in Science and Technology at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

Each lecture will be preceded by a 15 minute period of guided mindfulness meditation, conducted as participants are seated in chairs.

For more information, please call 02 218 4756 or email parkpume@gmail.com

Feeds from the Center for Ethics of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University.
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Craig Smith Spiritual Computing

Spiritual Computing

PUBLIC TALK ANNOUNCEMENT

SPIRITUAL COMPUTING

How spiritual principles are being integrated into the design of next-generation technologies…and what does this mean for Thailand?

By Craig Warren Smith, PhD
Senior Advisor, Human Interactive Technology Laboratory, University of Washington

Room 708, Boromratchakumari Bldg., Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thursday, September 4, 2008, 2 – 4 pm (*please note the new time*)

Organized by the Center for Ethics of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University

What is Spiritual Computing?
Spiritual computing refers to technologies that further the spiritual experiences of users. In this case, “spirituality” refers to cultivation of compassion, wisdom, openness and other ethical qualities cultivated for thousands of years by spiritual disciplines, which are both religious and secular, theistic and non-theistic. Still an embryonic notion, Prof Smith predicts that spiritual computing will emerge as a key design principle in software fields such as computer search, home technologies, health care,. education, computer games and in “social marketing” campaigns such as efforts to stop cigarette smoking.
He claims that Spiritual Computing will also become a factor in religions, as religious reformers use next-generation technologies to enhance ritual observances and spiritual realizations of their members. “Spiritual computing will have a disrupting effect on some organized religions, just technology has revealed and disrupted corrupt practices in government,” he says.

Who is Craig Warren Smith?
Professor Smith, one of the founders of the worldwide movement to close the Digital Divide, also is a longtime teacher of meditation in the Buddhist tradition. In his role as Senior Advisor to the University of Washington’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory, he is exploring a new paradigm in which spirituality and technology could converge to produce innovative new technologies that convey ethical principles. In Thailand, he is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Ethics of Science and Technology at Chulalongkorn University where he has collaborated with its director, Prof. Soraj Hongladarom, on a lecture series regarding “Happiness, Public Policy and Technology.”

What will the lecture consist of?
In the Bangkok lecture, he will report on his 2007 Spiritual Computing world lecture tour of research labs of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM, Electronic Arts and various universities such as Stanford and MIT. (See SpiritualComputing.com) In these lectures he conveyed operational definitions for spiritual experience and opened discussions on how spiritual realization could add value to Microsoft’s concept of the “digital home of the future,” Google Earth’s home page, and Electronic Arts’ genres of computer games.
He will also introduce the idea that, as the digital economy spreads in Asia, spiritual themes that are imbedded in Asia’s cultures will be expressed in technology design – causing Asian cultures to turn away from fantasies of Western materialistic lifestyles. He will suggest a theoretic framework, measurement concepts, and criteria that technologies designers can use to support the spread of ethical behavior in the general populous.

How can Spiritual Principles be Integrated into Next-Generation Technologies?
According to Prof. Smith, in the Spiritual Computing framework, technology designers must fit the following criteria:

  • Satisfy the ethical concerns of governments and dominant religions, whether these are expressed explicitly (as in telecommunications regulation regarding children’s access to video games) or implicitly as in Syariah.
  • Draw insights from the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) which looks beyond “use of use” to more fundamental and ethical ways of affecting the behavior of users.
  • Gain measurement tools from neuroscience fields such as “neuroengineering,” and other cognitive sciences.
  • Become adaptable to the practical needs and economic realities faced by low income users.
  • Draw insight from the most robust spiritual and mindfulness traditions imbedded in Asian cultures,
  • Lessen the “carbon footprint” of current technologies, so that they are environmentally appropriate.
  • Engender participatory engagement by users.

What could Spiritual Computing Mean for Thailand?

Following the presentation, participants will respond offering commentary on the possible application of spiritual computing to Thailand, to Buddhist practice, and other themes.

Feeds from the Center for Ethics of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University.