From Indra S Net To Internet
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From Indra’s Net to Internet
Author: Daniel Veidlinger
language: en
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Release Date: 2018-08-31
In this sweeping and ambitious intellectual history, Daniel Veidlinger traces the affinity between Buddhist ideas and communications media back to the efflorescence of Buddhism in the Axial Age of the mid-first millennium BCE. He uses both communications theory and the idea of convergent evolution to show how Buddhism arose in the largely urban milieu of Axial Age northeastern India and spread rapidly along the transportation and trading nodes of the Silk Road, where it appealed to merchants and traders from a variety of backgrounds. Throughout, he compares early phases of Buddhism with contemporary developments in which rapid changes in patterns of social interaction were also experienced and brought about by large-scale urbanization and growth in communication and transportation. In both cases, such changes supported the expansive consciousness needed to allow Buddhism to germinate. Veidlinger argues that Buddhist ideas tend to fare well in certain media environments; through a careful analysis of communications used in these contexts, he finds persuasive parallels with modern advances in communications technology that amplify the conditions and effects found along ancient trade routes. From Indra’s Net to Internet incorporates historical research as well as data collected using computer-based analysis of user-generated web content to demonstrate that robust communication networks, which allow for relatively easy contact among a variety of people, support a de-centered understanding of the self, greater compassion for others, an appreciation of interdependence, a universal outlook, and a reduction in emphasis on the efficacy of ritual—all of which lie at the heart of the Buddha’s teachings. The book’s interdisciplinary approach should appeal to those interested in not only Buddhism, media studies and history, but also computer science, cognitive science, and cultural evolution.
From Indra's Net to Internet
Author: Daniel Veidlinger
language: en
Publisher: Contemporary Buddhism
Release Date: 2021-07
In this sweeping and ambitious intellectual history, Daniel Veidlinger traces the affinity between Buddhist ideas and communications media back to the efflorescence of Buddhism in the Axial Age of the mid-first millennium BCE. He uses both communications theory and the idea of convergent evolution to show how Buddhism arose in the largely urban milieu of Axial Age northeastern India and spread rapidly along the transportation and trading nodes of the Silk Road, where it appealed to merchants and traders from a variety of backgrounds. Throughout, he compares early phases of Buddhism with contemporary developments in which rapid changes in patterns of social interaction were also experienced and brought about by large-scale urbanization and growth in communication and transportation. In both cases, such changes supported the expansive consciousness needed to allow Buddhism to germinate. Veidlinger argues that Buddhist ideas tend to fare well in certain media environments; through a careful analysis of communications used in these contexts, he finds persuasive parallels with modern advances in communications technology that amplify the conditions and effects found along ancient trade routes. From Indra's Net to Internet incorporates historical research as well as data collected using computer-based analysis of user-generated web content to demonstrate that robust communication networks, which allow for relatively easy contact among a variety of people, support a de-centered understanding of the self, greater compassion for others, an appreciation of interdependence, a universal outlook, and a reduction in emphasis on the efficacy of ritual--all of which lie at the heart of the Buddha's teachings. The book's interdisciplinary approach should appeal to those interested in not only Buddhism, media studies and history, but also computer science, cognitive science, and cultural evolution.
Cyber Zen
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.