ABSTRACT
The second point to be discussed relates to the way in which ascetic or meditational virtual realities differ from technologically generated ones and asks what (if anything) the meditating monk has in common with the teenager in the video arcade. Ascetic practices such as meditation play an important part in the process of spiritual development in Buddhism. Meditation may be thought of as one of the earliest techniques for the creation of virtual reality. It is a spiritual technology of considerable power and sophistication, allowing control and mastery of the internal modes of representation (auditory, visual, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gustatory). The chapter concludes with some reflections on the morally significant differences between reality and virtual reality.
