Title | Cyber Zen: Imagining Authentic Buddhist Identity, Community, and Practices in the Virtual World of Second Life |
Publication Type | Book |
Year of Publication | 2016 |
Authors | Grieve, GP |
Edition | 1 |
Publisher | Routledge |
City | London |
ISBN | 978-0415628730 |
Keywords | Buddhist, cyber zen, Virtual World, Zen |
Abstract | Cyber Zen ethnographically explores Buddhist practices in the online virtual world of Second Life. Does typing at a keyboard and moving avatars around the screen, however, count as real Buddhism? If authentic practices must mimic the actual world, then Second Life Buddhism does not. In fact, a critical investigation reveals that online Buddhist practices have at best only a family resemblance to canonical Asian traditions and owe much of their methods to the late twentieth-century field of cybernetics. If, however, they are judged existentially, by how they enable users to respond to the suffering generated by living in a highly mediated consumer society, then Second Life Buddhism consists of authentic spiritual practices. |
URL | https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317293262 |