Although I’m Christian, for me, as an expatriate who has been living in Thailand for a decade, Buddhism is present everywhere I go and in every aspect of my life. With absolutely no exception, I’m exposed to at least one aspect of Buddhism every day of my life in Bangkok.
In the morning, when I go to work, I always see monks doing their alms rounds and I also see Thai people waiting by the road to put food in their bowls; as I enter my school’s compound, I’m greeted by a large Buddhist shrine, a place where many Thais working at my school stop to pray and place offerings, while driving back home, I see at several intersections people selling scented flower garlands which are placed in cars on the rearview mirror next to other Buddhist representations (such as amulets, small statues, pictures, and stickers).
My interest in Buddhism has more to do with its architectural and artistic aspect rather than its ritual components, but I’ve always been interested in its meditative aspect. I use meditation / visualization in my archery practice and even though I’m not a Buddhist, I’m open to new ideas and interpretations on how to improve my concentration. Thus, Joanne Miller’s book, Buddhist Meditation and the Internet – Practices and Possibilities, published by Signal 8 Press (Hong Kong, 2012, 176 p.), was a good choice for a quiet weekend’s read.
In her book, Joanne Miller, an advanced Zen practitioner and sociologist, tried to find out if Buddhist meditative communities can exist online and if genuine meditation can be performed in front your computer while you’re connected to the Internet. Can the various online temples, Cybersangha (online Buddhist communities), and meditation websites offer the practitioner the guidance and “place” necessary for online meditation?
Miller writes that if the Buddha “were alive today, it’s entirely possible that he would use or consider using the Internet purely because it can be used positively.” And when it comes to Buddhism, it is used as such, especially by providing abundant information about Buddhism and spreading the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha), but there are very few opportunities for online meditation. In the Introduction of the book, the researcher answers this question straight away, claiming that, “a fully developed and authentic meditation, to be frank, simply cannot be done online.”
With this major spoiler in mind, the reader then pursues Buddhist Meditation and the Internet in the search of reasons and explanations to why this is the case.
The major problems with online meditation can be highlighted as follows:
– programs are offered mainly only for beginners;
– the sense of sacred cannot be created (such as worshiping and participating in religious rites);
– there’s no evidence to prove the authority of the teachers who lead the meditation sessions (especially when teachers start their own lineages without authorization);
– it’s very difficult to assess authenticity (for example, has the practitioner experienced or not enlightenment);
– technology is yet not that advanced to permit the kind of experiences offline meditation facilitates do (maybe, in the future, Star Treck’s holodecks will become a reality and then things might change);
– online communities concentrate more on disseminating information rather than ritual (mediation practice).
The book deals solely with Buddhism in the West and, because of the author’s experiences with Japanese Zen, it mainly concentrates on aspects of Zen Buddhism. Unfortunately, there is no mention of the two major recognized branches of Buddhism, Theravada (to which Thai Buddhism belongs) and Mahayana (where Zen Buddhism has its roots) and how online meditation applies to them. Still, the author makes an attempt at delineating the differences between Buddhism in the West and in the East, concluding that, “Buddhism in the West tends to be more practical and this-world oriented.”
A differentiation is also made between, “religion online” – which provides information about all aspect of religion and religious events, and “online religion” – which engages Internet users in religious practice. Joanne Miller takes almost half of the book to present the websites that have meditation features and the practices and possibilities they offer for online religious experiences. These are limited in number and some of the websites analyzed are no longer active.
The book is written in an academic style, ending with a glossary of terms, selected bibliography, and endnotes. The vast majority of the specialized words explained in the glossary are of Japanese origin and pertain to Zen Buddhism, attesting again to the fact that the main focus of Miller’s research was Zen meditation. Unfortunately, the bibliography used is mostly five to ten years old, with only four studies published in 2010 and 2011. I wonder if, in the meantime, the Internet meditation phenomenon has evolved or not.
In the author’s own word, “Meditation is a way of being aware” and knowing that possibilities, albeit small in number, exist for Internet meditation is what Buddhist Meditation and the Internet – Practices and Possibilities is all about.
