You can discern whether the bite of food you are eating in “the next bite” by paying attention to your body. Notice whether you feel an urge or impulse to eat. Notice how quickly you are taking bites. Note whether you are really tasting and smelling the food. Pay attention to your speech as it can often reveal how you are thinking about the experience as opposed to experiencing the moment.

To simply move into the bite, and find release from the “next bite,” close your eyes and bring awareness to your breathing. Notice the energy circulating through your body. Is it “next bite” energy? You can tell if it is. It has an urgency and impatience associated with it.

Notice as you move into “this bite.” To experience “this bite” is to be at greater ease in the moment, just as it is. The bite need not be taken. But we take it as an expression of what is responsive to the moment. We enjoy. We appreciate. From time to time ask yourself, “which bite am I eating?”

While we tend to consider “our” brain when answering this question, we are learning that “other” people’s brains may not be as distinct from ours as we think.  What we are learning about the interactive contexts that stimulate neural activation suggest that our brain truly interact and engage one another much as if they were connected. Mindful awareness of this phenomenon as we experience reactive thoughts, feelings, and actions in social settings can be helpful.

In this blog I ask you to consider how technology — like smart phones — also may be integrated into our neural architecture.  And, if this is the case, how being mindful of it may be crucial to not just well-being and focus, but survival.  I will focus on the example of phone use while driving because it is so prevalent and so dangerous.

While many are intrigued by the ways we might begin to use nanotechnology to incorporate silicon chips into our brains, I think it is worth considering the extent to which we are already doing just that — but without awareness. I think it is entirely possible that our brain cannot distinguish its activity from the activity of the smart phone in our hand or on the seat next to us while we are driving.

Don;t you think it is all too eery how instinctively we reach for the phone when it sounds the arrival of a text message or e-mail, and how seamlessly we respond to it, both with internal reactions and external replies.  I am particularly taken by the often non-conscious quality to this phenomena. It is as if the text message is a thought — one the brain is hungry to digest. It isn’t long before someone given a phone will begin to spontaneously check again and again for e-mail or text messages.

This is of course a familiar experience to anyone who has a computer and checks for e-mail throughout the day. And so too the PC computer is yet another instance of the extended nervous system — one we’re so familiar with — and addicted to — that we are rarely without. Notice how computers started big and have become progressively smaller and smaller. Soon, we will have devices that we activate and manipulate directly with thoughts. And soon enough the technology will be embedded in our neuroanatomy.

When that happens, it will become increasingly obvious that this technology is a part of our nervous system. And perhaps as such we will practice mindfulness with insight into the ways that the activity it generates is so closely integrated with our own that we identify with it as if they were one and the same.

Today, it may be the same thing — but because the technology stands alone — an external hard drive or CPU, we tend to see it as something “outside” ourself.  And, as a result, we are not aware how much we identify with its activity.

Here is an example:  It used to be you would be driving in your car, your mind would wander, and you would get lost in distraction. That has never been too good for safe driving but so common and so subtle that it has been regarded as simply being human and no one really takes too much note of it.  Today, however, when the cell phone rings or you receive a text message, you may find it almost impossible to not reach for it. You may not even be aware that you are. In both cases — lost in the wandering mind or the text message —  you are likely engaging in activity you would choose not to for safety reasons, but can’t seem to help yourself from doing.

As a result, tragedies connected with people distracted by technology — especially while driving — are on the rise.

I strongly suspect that this is the case because we do not fully appreciate the extent to which we identify with the activity of our computer and smart phones. The smart phone activates and that activity is treated as a thought. It leads to other thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Without awareness that this may be the case, I suspect people will continue to agree that using smart phones while driving is not safe and, at the same time, not be able to help themselves when the part of their brain lying on the dashboard makes a sound as it begins to think.

So, from a mindfulness perspective, consider treating these technologies as parts of the brain.  And, much as we endeavor to bring awareness to a task at hand and sustain that awareness so that we may be productive, attentive, and healthy, recognize how these technologies, like the wandering mind, interfere with this intention.

But, unlike the wandering mind that cannot easily be switched off, you can switch off the technology.  So give that a try and see what happens.  You may be surprised by just how much you resist.  And also how, in a short period of time, you find yourself less distracted and better able to concentrate as you bring awareness to and master your wandering e-mind.