Looking Away from the Screen, and Toward the Heart

Smartphones aren’t the problem. It’s how we cling to them—and other sense pleasures—that obscures the path to well-being.

May 03, 2026

By Peter Doobinin

A dharma teacher recalls how he learned that to cultivate lasting happiness, he needed to move toward his heart—not through a force of will but by listening and heeding its answers. One good way to practice, he offers, is by examining our attachment to technology.

A dharma student is someone who resolves to follow the path laid out by the Buddha. As the Buddha tells us, in an effort to know a greater happiness, the dharma student practices accordingly. If we practice accordingly, if we develop the skills the Buddha teaches, we come to know the happiness of the heart. This is the happiness the dharma student seeks to know.

In dharma practice, then, we’re making an effort to come closer to the heart. It’s a journey. At first, the heart is mostly an idea. A good idea, but an idea nonetheless. For many years, in my practice, I was intrigued by the idea of the heart. I was inspired, perhaps, by the notion. But it was mostly just an idea, a concept. Gradually, though, as I’ve developed in my practice, practicing accordingly, I’ve come, more and more, to know the heart.

The heart, we come to realize, through experience, is found inside, in the body. It’s sandittiko, to use the Pali term—the language of the earliest Buddhist texts— meaning plainly evident, something that can be known. And it’s always there, akaliko. It’s the ever-present truth. It’s our innate wisdom. It’s the place of love, compassion, joy. It’s what enables us to know what it is we have to do in this life to know true happiness—and it’s what empowers, drives, that doing.

Our ability to know true happiness depends on the degree to which we’re in touch, in tune, with the heart.

As dharma students, we come to understand that our ability to know true happiness depends on the degree to which we’re in touch, in tune, with the heart. When all is said and done, what matters is the heart.

A good question, then, for the dharma student seeking true happiness, in considering her life, her actions, is: “Is what I’m doing leading me to the heart or away from the heart?”

As the Buddha taught some 2,600 years ago, in considering our actions—what we’re doing—it’s critically important that we consider what we’re doing in terms of our intake of sensual pleasures, the so-called pleasures of the world. In these times, of course, the pleasures of the world include most prominently the various technological forms, especially our smartphones. A good question, then, for the dharma student to ask as she considers her actions on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, is this: Is what I’m doing, in using my smartphone, leading to the heart, or is it leading away from the heart?

It’s a skill—asking this question, and similar questions—one of the most profoundly important skills the dharma student learns. It’s a skill that, like other skills, we practice. We practice it again and again, as we consider what we’re doing, in engaging with the smartphone.

As the Buddha suggests, in asking this sort of question we engage in “repeated reflection.”

Most critically, in developing this skill, in asking this question, the dharma student learns to refrain from attempting to answer the question. Which is to say, she doesn’t think about the question; she doesn’t attempt to answer the question using her intellect, her intellectual resources, her academic understanding of things. She doesn’t use her “brain.” She doesn’t use her “mind.” She doesn’t try to answer the question in the same way she’s attempted to answer questions for most of her life. Instead, she lets the question be there. In the body. And, ultimately, in the heart. To that end, we could say, she asks the heart: Is what I’m doing, in using the phone, leading me to the heart, or away from the heart?

It’s a question for the heart.

It’s the heart that knows.

It’s the heart that knows what’s in the best interests of the heart.

If we’re concerned about our relationship to certain sensual pleasures, if we’re interested in tempering our involvement with, for instance, the smartphone, we’ll only get so far through an exertion of will; we’ll only get so far, and perhaps not very far, by attempting to think our way through our predicament, by intellectual exertion; and, almost certainly, we’ll only get so far by applying different psychological-based strategies.

As dharma students, we seek to change the way we live—to change our behaviors, to change our actions, to change our karma—by paying attention to our experience and asking the right questions.

Many years ago, after attending a retreat at Insight Meditation Society—it was one of the first longer retreats I sat—I was inspired to up my game with regard to the practice of renunciation. And so, in the days after the retreat, I canceled my TV cable service. This was in the day when the television was the primary technological form for receiving sensual pleasures—it was before the advent of the smartphone, before the internet. My efforts, however, proved glaringly futile. After a month or so, driven by a seemingly immutable desire to watch TV, I called the cable company and arranged to have my service reinstated.

Then, a year or so after that, I went on another retreat. And in the days that followed, seized by thoughts that I should make another effort to practice renunciation, I once again canceled my TV service. And, once again, after a few months, I had it reinstalled.

The bottom line: I wasn’t able to refrain from TV-watching through an act of will, simply because I thought it was a good idea.

In the time to follow, I learned to meet my experience—in this case, my experience of TV-watching—by applying the skills that the dharma student is asked to learn. I learned to pay attention and to ask the questions that the dharma students asks, questions such as, “Is what I’m doing, in watching TV, leading me to the heart or away from the heart?” I learned to understand, by paying attention, truthfully, objectively; I learned to understand the consequences of my actions. I learned, in short, to develop wisdom: the kind of wisdom we develop, as practitioners, by paying attention: the wisdom in the heart. And, gradually, I became disenchanted with my TV-watching. I lost interest in the TV, to some extent. I was no longer preoccupied with this particular sensual pleasure. To this day, I still watch, sometimes. But I’m not beholden to the TV. For the most part, I’m not attached to it.

Our problem, if you will, is not the pleasures of the world; our problem is our attachment to these pleasures.

It’s always important to remember that in developing a skillful relationship to sensual pleasures, we’re not necessarily seeking to eliminate the pleasures, like the smartphone. Rather, we’re seeking to abandon our attachment to these sensual pleasures. Our problem, if you will, is not the pleasures of the world; our problem is our attachment to these pleasures, the ways in which we hold on, grasp after these pleasurable experiences, the manner in which we become preoccupied with them. In following the Buddha’s course, we cultivate a nonattached relationship to sensual pleasures like the smartphone by developing wisdom. And we develop in wisdom by paying attention to our experience and asking questions. This is the wisdom in the heart. It’s the wisdom that will free us from the bonds that tie us down, the sort of bonds that many beings, nowadays, suffer in their relationship to the smartphone.

The skill of paying attention and asking questions is called heedfulness. As the Buddha tells us, all skillfulness is rooted in being heedful.

“Just as the footprints of all legged animals are encompassed by the footprint of the elephant, and the elephant’s footprint is reckoned the foremost among them in terms of size; in the same way, all skillful qualities are rooted in heedfulness, converge in heedfulness, and heedfulness is reckoned the foremost among them.” (AN 10.15)

It’s interesting to note, in fact, that the Buddha’s last words, “All fabrications are subject to decay. Bring about completion by being heedful” (DN 16), were offered to a group of his disciples, all of whom had attained at least the first level of awakening: what’s known as stream-entry. They still had to practice heedfulness, the Buddha told them, they still had to pay attention, to ask if they were heading in the right direction, toward the heart. There was still work to be done.

If you choose to look at your involvement with the smartphone, your practice, as a dharma student, is the same: to be heedful. Pay attention to your actions. As you consider your engagement with the phone, ask, “Is what I’m doing leading me to the heart or is it leading me away from the heart?” Ask the question, let the question be there. Let it be there, in the body, in the heart. And let the heart answer.

Your task is to keep paying attention, to keep asking the questions. From day to day, moment to moment. Your task is to continue to be heedful. And to see, for yourself, the consequences of your actions. The consequences, that is, in terms of the heart.

It’s a gradual process, the awakening of the heart. It requires patience. And one of the problems, of course, is that we’re an impatient lot. We want answers now.

Even as you’re reading this, there may be the inclination to want to do something. Motivated by these ideas, you may be inclined to want to cast aside your smartphone, to commit yourself to a significantly reduced schedule of smartphone usage. But these kinds of actions are invariably actions driven by the mind, by ideas we have, by our thinking. And, of course, by our emotional responses. And, as noted, generally they get us only so far. And perhaps not very far at all.

Most beings, of course, don’t ask the sorts of questions that the dharma student learns to ask. Most beings simply go along with the current. With the flow of the culture. Most beings follow along, do what everybody else is doing, simply because everybody else is doing it. Most beings, as Nietzsche said, go with the herd. As the Buddha put it, most beings go along with the ways of the world.

As dharma students, however, we don’t go along blindly with the ways of the world. We question. We look, see. We learn, by paying attention to our experience, what is in our best interests, what is in the best interests of the heart, what actions will lead us toward happiness of heart. Seeing clearly, knowing, we take action that’s in support of the heart.

We don’t go along blindly with the ways of the world. We question. We look, see. We learn, by paying attention to our experience.

Little by little, slowly, we know the heart. We’re less and less inclined to do anything, take any action, that’s not good for the heart.

As we move closer to the heart, we understand that there’s nothing more important than the heart; we understand that our happiness depends on the heart; we understand that the happiness of the heart is the greatest happiness there is. As understanding develops, we’re more and more apt to do what has to be done to take care of the heart. We’re less likely to do anything, take any sort of action, that might afflict the heart.

In the Metta Sutta, a discourse on loving-kindness, the Buddha tells us that we should learn to take care of the heart the way a mother would take care of her newborn child. This is love.

As dharma students, practicing heedfulness, we’re learning to take action informed by love, love for ourselves, love for all beings by asking questions such as, “Is what I’m doing leading me to the heart or away from the heart?”.

In the end, as dharma students, practicing accordingly, the decisions we make about what actions to take, what to do, in regard to the sensual pleasures, in regard to the smartphone, are an expression of love.

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