Cyber Zen

Imagining Authentic Buddhist Identity, Community, and Practices in the Virtual World of Second Life

Gregory Price Grieve (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

266 Seiten

2016
Routledge (Verlag)
978-0-415-62871-6 (ISBN)

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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.

Cyber Zen explores how Second Life Buddhist enthusiasts form communities, identities, locations, and practices that are both products of and authentic responses to contemporary Network Consumer Society. Gregory Price Grieve illustrates that to some extent all religion has always been virtual and gives a glimpse of possible future alternative forms of religion.

Gregory Price Grieve is Professor and Head of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He researches and teaches at the intersection of digital media, Buddhism, and the theories and methods for the study of religion.

I. Introduction: "Logging on". Part One: "The Play between Creativity and Desire". II. Chapter One: "Liquid Salvation: A Walkthrough of Second Life Religion". III. Chapter Two: "Second Life Buddhism: The Desire for 'Real Buddhism in a Virtual World". Part Two: "Three Virtual Jewels: Self, Practice and Community". IV. Chapter Three:"Virtual Robes of Enlightenment: Fashioning a Buddhist Self in Second Life". V. Chapter Four: "Sitting on a Virtual Cushio: Second Life Buddhist Practice". VI. Chapter Five: "The Virtual Sangha: A Buddhist Cloud Community". VII. Conclusion: "Awakening in the Virtual World".

Erscheint lt. Verlag	12.12.2016
Reihe/Serie	Media, Religion and Culture
Zusatzinfo	12 Halftones, black and white
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	670 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Buddhismus
	Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik ► Web / Internet
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
ISBN-10	0-415-62871-7 / 0415628717
ISBN-13	978-0-415-62871-6 / 9780415628716
Zustand	Neuware