Cyber Zen

<p><em>Cyber Zen</em> 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. </p><p><em>Cyber Zen</em> 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. </p>