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Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 7.1 (2024): 1–36; https://dx.doi.org/10.15239/hijbs.07.01.01
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Buddhism and Science, Transmission of Buddhism: Locality and Globality)
Meditating Online ‘Alone Together’: Two Case Studies of Digital Buddhist Practice
Jessica FALCONE
Kansas State University
jfalcone@ksu.edu
Abstract: As a wide array of social and religious activities have moved online in recent decades, Buddhist communities and individuals have had to make choices about the nature of their digital presence. This article will compare the online meditation and community practices of two different Buddhist groups who show that meditation and religious practice can be effective online: one, a saṅgha in a virtual world, exists only online, while the other is a saṅgha that primarily functions in person and has only recently extended itself into the digital sphere. Based on several years of ethnographic research with both communities, this piece discusses the particular contours of the digital Buddhist practices embraced by these subcultures, as well as the ways that technology has served to both expand and constrain participation in the Buddhist meditations, rituals, and teachings they offer.
Keywords: digital Buddhism, virtual Buddhism, online religion, Soto Zen, nonheritage Buddhism
About the Author: Dr. Jessica Marie Falcone is a professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University. With a research orientation toward contemporary transnational Asian religious cultures, she has done fieldwork across Asia and its diasporas. Her first book, Battling the Buddha of Love: the Greatest Statue Never Built, about a controversial giant statue project in India, was published in 2018 by Cornell University Press. She is currently working on a monograph about the rich contemporary ritual and social life of a Soto Zen Buddhist temple in Hawai‘i that was founded by Japanese migrants over a hundred years ago.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
