Michael Heim - The Virtual Reality of the Tea Ceremony

Michael Heim surprises with a very spiritual and poetic view of VR. "The Virtual Reality of the Tea Ceremony" from 1998.

He sees "Cyberspace" as a tool to actually re-discover our relationship with reality - and does he does so by making suggestions for adding more subtle, poetic features to it. Though at least one has to be aware of them to implement them.

"One day a young man observes an old sage fetching water from the village well. The old man lowered a wooden bucket on a rope and pulled water up, hand over hand. The youth disappeared and returned with a wooden pulley. He approached the old man and showed him how the device works ... 'If I use a device like this, my mind will think itself clever. With a cunning mind, I will no longer put my heart into what I am doing. Soon my wrist alone will do the work, turning the handle. If my heart and whole body is not in my work, my work will become joyless. When my work is joyless, how do you think the water will taste?'

Heim refers to parts of the Tea Ceremony ritual as described by D T Suzuki. Here the subtle qualities are refered to as "psychosphere" a psychic atmosphere or "inner field of consciousness."

"We need more tea ceremonies" more wind in the trees, teaching us to appreciate nature. Does radiomap do that?

HERE'S a link to the full article