Cyber Zen

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

By:

Gregory Price Grieve

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Paperback / softback

Series:

Media, Religion and Culture

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Description

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.

Author Biography:

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.

Release date NZ

December 9th, 2016

Author

Gregory Price Grieve

Audiences

General (US: Trade)
Tertiary Education (US: College)

Illustrations

12 Halftones, black and white

Pages

266

Series

Media, Religion and Culture

Dimensions

156x234x18

ISBN-13

9780415628730

Product ID

23144369

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