Kamma is intention! We have a choice. Often people don't believe they have any choice. We have a choice whether we read the newspaper, to turn the TV on, or go into the internet. We have a choice of what we expose our mind to. If we are going to use these things it can be very important to look at our intentions behind using them and to make them more in line with compassion for ourselves and compassion for others.
Often people turn on the TV not through compassion for themselves or for others, but through restlessness and desire. They could probably do something more skillful with their life and their time.
People can spend a lot of time on these things, so it's quite important to know for what reasons are you spending time in your life doing these things? I do read newspapers, I don't watch TV. I do use computers and the internet. When I read newspapers it's more like a D/D-meditation for me. My intention is actually to open out to the rest of the world and understand what is happening in the human life for others. The intention is also to lessen the idea that my problems are so big, and to increase the power of compassion.
Computers and the internet, these are very helpful for us where we live. It allows a lot more people to get in touch with us. So it's not so much the media, it's how we use the media. It would probably be a lot more difficult for me and Steve to live in Thailand if we didn't have some of these things. They make it easier.
We have to be very careful about TV, because it is so easy to turn it on and, from what I have seen, most of it is unfortunately rubbish. I can't say TV is totally bad because Steve and I actually became interested in Buddhism a long time ago because of a TV show. So maybe we need more screenwriters that have Buddhist and meditation-type subjects. Writing scripts like that could help get more people interested, because a lot of people are not going to stop watching TV. But if we are meditators we do have to be very careful to limit our exposure to this so we have enough time for developing the mind. And most of you actually are already interested in Buddhism so you don't have to get interested by seeing Buddhist programs! It's better to come to retreats.