Choosing Peace in a World of Distraction: What Buddhist Monks Taught Me About AI, Attention, and the Future of Human Potential

On Friday afternoon, Buddhist monks walked past my home in Apex, North Carolina. They were on day 92 of a 2,300-mile pilgrimage from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C.—walking not to protest, but as their leader Bhikkhu Pannakara put it, "to awaken the peace that already lives within each of us."

"Today is going to be my peaceful day."

-The Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara

I stood at the roadside with neighbors I'd never met, watching saffron robes move through a landscape of smartphone-wielding onlookers. Some monks wore running shoes. Several walked in stockings to feel the ground directly and stay present in each step. Their dog Aloka, a stray who followed them across India, has become a symbol of unconditional companionship in a fractured world. He was traveling inside the RV, looking out the window, recovering from a previous injury.

The juxtaposition was striking. Here were monastics who have renounced possessions, walking through a nation experiencing unprecedented levels of division, distraction, and digital dependency. One of their own lost his leg in November, when a distracted driver struck their escort vehicle near Houston. They kept walking.

What they carried into our community—and what they left behind—has not stopped reverberating through my mind.

The Metaphor That Made Me Uncomfortable

During one of their peace talks, the venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara described our relationship with our phones as that of a lover. I bristled at first. The comparison felt uncomfortable, even inappropriate.

Then I listened more carefully.

Our phones are often the first thing we reach for in the morning and the last thing we touch before sleep. They hold our memories, our banking, our social connections, and our work. We check them when we're anxious, bored, lonely, or simply when our hands need something to do. There is, quite literally, an app for every aspect of our lives.

The intimacy is undeniable. And so is the cost.

Research from the University of Texas at Austin found that even when people successfully resist checking their phones, the mere presence of these devices reduces their available cognitive capacity. Our phones don't have to ring or buzz to diminish us. They simply have to exist in our proximity, holding the promise of connection and distraction.

Professor Gloria Mark at UC Irvine has tracked how our attention spans have contracted over the past decade. In 2012, the average time spent on a single screen before switching was 75 seconds. By 2016, it had dropped to 47 seconds. The median now shows half of all observations at 40 seconds or less.

The monks named this directly: we are losing our ability to focus. And that loss has consequences far beyond productivity metrics.

The Cognitive Debt We're Accumulating

In June 2025, MIT Media Lab released a study that confirmed what the contemplatives have long intuited. Researchers led by Dr. Nataliya Kosmyna tracked 54 participants who wrote essays over four months using either ChatGPT, a search engine, or only their own minds.

The findings were sobering. Participants who regularly relied on AI showed the weakest brain connectivity, lowest memory retention, and a fading sense of ownership over their own work. The researchers introduced a concept they called "cognitive debt" which is the accumulated cost of repeatedly outsourcing our thinking to external systems.

Like financial debt, cognitive debt compounds. In the short term, AI tools offer convenience and speed. But over time, participants showed reduced critical inquiry, lower creativity, and increased susceptibility to manipulation. When those who had been using AI were asked to write independently, their neural connectivity failed to match either novice or experienced unassisted writers. The weakening effect lingered.

The inverse was equally revealing: participants who first developed their cognitive muscles without AI assistance were later able to integrate these tools actively and thoughtfully. Prior engagement strengthened their capacity to use technology as an extension rather than a replacement for their own thinking.

This is not an argument against technology. It's an argument for sequence and for building the foundation before adding the scaffolding.

Why Focus Is the Foundation of Innovation

The monks' discipline is not merely spiritual practice; it is the very foundation of creative and innovative work. And the erosion of that capacity has consequences that extend far beyond individual well-being into the heart of how businesses create value.

Cal Newport's Deep Work has become something of a touchstone for this conversation. His central argument that "deep work is the killer app of the knowledge economy" speaks to what the research confirms: the ability to focus without distraction is becoming both increasingly valuable and increasingly rare.

Consider what happens neurologically when we work deeply. The brain engages in what researchers call synchronized, harmonious activity, like a well-conducted orchestra. This happens primarily in the prefrontal cortex, the command center for decision-making and complex problem-solving. When you give your brain the space to connect ideas without interruption, working memory is heightened, leading to more creative solutions and breakthrough insights.

This isn't theory, it's neuroscience. My yoga training introduced me to neuroplasticity long before it became a business buzzword: the principle that sustained attention physically reshapes the brain, strengthening neural connections and cementing new learning pathways. But that rewiring only happens during uninterrupted focus. Every notification, every context switch, disrupts the process.

The cost of those interruptions is staggering. Research on attention residue shows that when you switch from one task to another, a portion of your attention remains stuck on the previous task. It can take upwards of 20 minutes to regain full momentum after an interruption. Check your phone twice in an hour, and you've lost two-thirds of your focus time, not to the phone itself, but to the residue it leaves behind.

Weak Minds Are Easy to Manipulate

There is a darker dimension to our attention crisis that we must name directly: fragmented attention makes us vulnerable to manipulation.

Research from Northwestern University found that at high levels of information flow, people become less capable of sorting quality information from bad information. When given too much information, humans become "vulnerable to manipulation." Popularity had a stronger effect on whether a person shared something than quality, and that effect became more pronounced as information flow increased.

In other words, the more overwhelmed we are, the less we think. And the less we think, the more easily we can be led.

This is not accidental. The attention economy—the business model that underlies most of social media—is built on capturing and monetizing human attention. Researchers have called it "cognitive capitalism," where the maximum possible stimuli compete for our limited cognitive resources. Some have characterized it as "destructive" precisely because of the cognitive manipulation it entails.

Gloria Mark's research reveals different types of attention, and crucially, different types of vulnerability. When we're in "rote attention," engaged but unchallenged (scrolling social media, playing casual games), we are far more susceptible to distractions because we lack strong goals that can shield us. Goals, she argues, are our armor against manipulation. And the constant fragmentation of our attention systematically weakens that armor.

For businesses building products and services, this has profound implications. Are we creating tools that strengthen our users' capacity for deep work, or ones that exploit their vulnerability for engagement metrics? Are we building platforms that support human flourishing, or ones that profit from cognitive weakness?

For proptech companies and industry leaders: the most valuable innovations don't emerge from teams drowning in Slack notifications and back-to-back video calls. They come from the kind of sustained, focused thinking that our current work culture actively undermines. The deep thinking that produces breakthrough products, the insight that sees a market gap before anyone else, the strategic patience to build something that actually solves problems. None of that happens in 47-second increments.

Cognitive debt isn't just a personal liability. It's a competitive one.

Why This Matters More Than We Think

The ancient Hermetic principle teaches that the microcosm reflects the macrocosm—as within, so without. What happens in individual minds eventually manifests in collective reality.

I've been reading Paramahansa Yogananda's The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You, and a passage has stayed with me: "When sickness weakens the mind and paralyzes the will, one cannot throw off the troubling illness. Faith revives one's all-healing, all-powerful will to release the nascent life energy in the brain to effect the healing of any diseased part of the body."

If we cannot focus our own minds, we cannot heal ourselves. And if we cannot heal ourselves, we cannot heal the world.

This is the existential dimension of our attention crisis. The monks walking across America are not simply promoting peace as an abstract ideal. They are demonstrating that peace requires practice, that stillness is a skill, that the mind must be trained to transcend the noise.

We live in a world of duality, the ancient symbol of yin and yang, the binary code of ones and zeros that underlies our digital infrastructure. One thing creates its opposite. Violence awakens the longing for peace. Distraction creates the hunger for presence. The chaos of our feeds generates the need for the stillness these monks embody.

It’s time to answer this call instead of numbing ourselves against it.

The Antidote the Monks Offered

The monks practice Vipassana meditation—an ancient Indian technique meaning "to see things as they really are." It is one of India's oldest meditation practices, a method of self-transformation through mindful observation of bodily sensations and breath.

The practice cultivates deep insight into the impermanent nature of all phenomena. By observing sensations such as tingling, tension, warmth, and/or pressure throughout the body, practitioners learn to break the cycle of automatic reaction. Pleasant sensations arise; we learn not to cling. Unpleasant sensations arise; we learn not to resist. Everything passes. This insight, applied moment by moment, gradually eradicates the mental impurities of craving and aversion that cause so much suffering.

But they did not ask us to become monks. They offered something far more accessible, which are the practices that can be woven into any life, including the busiest.

Start each day with an intention: "Today is going to be my peaceful day." This is not wishful thinking—it is goal-setting for the mind. Gloria Mark's research confirms that clear, consciously held goals are our primary shield against distraction. By stating your intention each morning, you strengthen the armor.

Practice breath awareness. Find a still position—sitting comfortably with an upright posture, eyes closed. Observe your natural breath entering and leaving your nostrils, or notice the rise and fall of your abdomen. Don't try to control the breath; simply observe it. This is the foundational practice called Anapana, and even 60 seconds of it can sharpen the mind before it needs to focus. It is the beginning of training your attention to stay where you place it.

Practice the body scan. Move your attention systematically through your body, from the top of your head down to your feet, noticing sensations in each area—tingling, warmth, pressure, numbness. The goal is not to change anything, but to observe with equanimity. When thoughts arise, simply note them without judgment and return to the scan. This builds the non-reactive awareness that keeps you steady when life gets tense. Even 10-20 minutes daily can rewire habitual patterns of reaction.

Maintain equanimity. The central insight of Vipassana is impermanence—all phenomena arise and pass away. When you're frustrated in a meeting, notice where the sensation lives in your body. Tightness in the chest? Heat in the face? Observe it. It will change. It will pass. This pause—even two seconds of non-reactive observation—is often the difference between a reactive response and a wise one.

Practice forgiveness—of others and of ourselves. The resentments we carry fragment our attention as surely as any notification. They are loops of thought that pull us out of the present moment again and again. Forgiveness is not about condoning harm; it is about releasing the mental burden that keeps us tied to the past.

Return to the breath. When we notice our minds have wandered—to our phones, to our worries, to the endless stream of input—we simply come back. No judgment. Just return. This is the practice. The monks have walked 1,800 miles. Step by step. That's the teaching.

These practices sound simple because they are. Their power lies not in complexity but in consistency. The monks remind us that the path begins with a single breath, a single step, a single moment of presence reclaimed.

What This Means for Those of Us Building Businesses

I teach entrepreneurship at Meredith College, and I work with impact-driven business owners who are trying to build something meaningful in an increasingly noisy world. For us, this research and this wisdom carry particular weight.

We are in the business of creating value, solving problems, serving communities. That work requires exactly the cognitive capacities that mindless technology use erodes: deep thinking, creative insight, the ability to hold complexity, and the patience to build trust over time.

The Trust Economy that's emerging rewards authenticity, genuine connection, and the kind of wisdom that only comes from integration, not from outsourcing our thinking to algorithms.

This doesn't mean abandoning AI or becoming Luddites. The MIT research showed that those who first built cognitive strength could then use AI tools as extensions of their capability. The key is sequence: develop the muscle before you add the machine.

As entrepreneurs, we can ask ourselves: Am I using this technology from a place of strength, or from a place of avoidance? Am I building my capacity or borrowing against it? Does this tool serve my deeper purpose, or distract me from it?

And for those leading teams or building platforms: What kind of attention are we designing for? Are we creating products that strengthen human capacity, or ones that exploit human weakness? The answer to that question may determine not just market success, but the kind of world we're building.

The Choice Point

The monks will reach Washington, D.C., before Valentine's Day. They will have walked through ten states, met hundreds of thousands of people, and demonstrated something that cannot be taught in any other way: peace is a practice, and presence is possible. Follow their journey here.

Meanwhile, our phones will keep buzzing. AI will keep advancing. The algorithms that profit from our attention will continue to refine their methods.

We stand at a choice point—as individuals, as entrepreneurs, as a society. We can continue accumulating cognitive debt, trading our focus for convenience until we no longer remember what deep attention feels like. Or we can begin the slower work of rebuilding our capacity for presence, using technology mindfully rather than being used by it.

The monks remind us that this choice is available in every moment. Not once, but again and again. Every time we reach for our phones, we can pause. Every time we notice our attention has scattered, we can return to our breath. Every morning, we can set the intention: Today is going to be my peaceful day.

The violence and division in our world will not be healed by weak minds. The problems we face as entrepreneurs, as communities, as a species require the full power of human consciousness—creative, focused, integrated, awake.

That power is still within us. It just needs to be reclaimed.

Step by step.

About the Author: Molly McKinley is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Meredith College and is a professor teaching Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Social Impact. She is the founder of Redtail Creative, where she helps build trust and authority for humans and AI, as well as a certified yoga instructor (RYT500) and lifelong student of wisdom traditions.

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Q: What is cognitive debt?A: Cognitive debt is the accumulated cost of repeatedly outsourcing thinking to external systems like AI tools. Like financial debt, it compounds over time, resulting in reduced critical thinking, lower creativity, and increased susceptibility to manipulation. The term was introduced by MIT Media Lab researchers in their 2025 study on AI and brain function.

Q: What is Vipassana meditation? A: Vipassana is one of India's oldest meditation techniques, meaning "to see things as they really are." It involves systematic observation of breath and bodily sensations to develop non-reactive awareness. The practice cultivates insight into impermanence and helps practitioners break cycles of automatic emotional reaction.

Q: What is the Walk for Peace?A: The Walk for Peace is a 2,300-mile pilgrimage by Buddhist monks from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., running from October 2025 to February 2026. Led by Bhikkhu Pannakara, 18 monks are walking to "awaken the peace that already lives within each of us."

Q: How does focus affect innovation and creativity?A: Deep focus enables the brain to form new neural connections and engage in complex problem-solving. Research shows that concentrated attention activates the prefrontal cortex and allows working memory to function optimally, leading to breakthrough insights. Fragmented attention—such as checking phones every few minutes—prevents this neural rewiring and reduces creative capacity.

Q: What did the MIT study find about AI and cognitive function?A: The June 2025 MIT Media Lab study found that participants who regularly used ChatGPT for writing tasks showed weaker brain connectivity, lower memory retention, and reduced sense of ownership over their work compared to those who wrote without AI assistance. Importantly, the study also found that people who built cognitive strength first could later use AI tools more effectively.