ABSTRACT

This chapter analyzes the practice of convert Zen Buddhism on Second Life. 1 Many critics argue that digital religion technology “leaves no mystery,” and authentic spirituality and virtual worlds are thus inherently antagonistic. 2 Numerous others assume that real religion and the market place are never compatible, and it seems obvious that digital media is opposed to mindfulness and that meditation is the means to counter society’s high-tech thirst for networked consumerism. As the psychologist Philip Novak writes in “The Buddha and the Computer: Meditation in an Age of Information,” meditation is a “tool for balance and sanity in an electronically over stimulated civilization, and perhaps the ultimate high-touch complement to our high-tech world.” 3 Such blanket proclamations, however, do not adequately address the lived reality of everyday practice at the Hoben Mountain Zen Retreat. My research team found that for many adherents on Second Life, online Zen practice proved an authentic and meaningful part of their spiritual lives.