デジタル時代の禅：仏教、仮想世界とオンライン瞑想 Cyber Zen : Imagining Authentic Buddhist Identity, Community, and Practices in the Virtual World of Second Life (Media, Religion and Culture)

Grieve, Gregory Price

Routledge（2016/12発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 266 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780415628716
• DDC分類 294.3927

Full 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.

Contents

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".