This is Gen Zen

Gen Z is often dismissed as distracted, self-absorbed or too online. But look closer and a different picture emerges: one of a generation that, even after facing setbacks like being at the receiving end of police crackdowns during protests, keeps returning to exuberance, openness, and an instinct to find something worth salvaging in any situation. There's a spiritual quality to this resilience, and much we can learn from it.

Bhagvan Dattatreya is said to have had 24 gurus. Rather than learning from human teachers alone, he found lessons in the ordinary elements of nature and the beings around him: a bee teaching him to gather wisdom from many sources without attachment, a river teaching him to keep moving, a child teaching him to live without ego.

There is much to learn from a generation that wears its emotions on its sleeve, expressing itself through social media and oversized T-shirts, and its love for mochas and matcha.


Buddha was driven by a confrontation with suffering. Mahavir was defined by relentless inquiry. Swami Vivekananda spoke of an awakening beyond the self. Gen Z, in its own register, carries flashes of these same qualities of curiosity, openness and adaptability. It has built its own language of emojis and symbols; it uses that language to express itself without much guilt or apology. Whatever its contradictions, it is trying to be both conscious and compassionate. Perhaps we can take a leaf out of its playbook.