Irony in Second Life's Buddhism

I find it terribly ironic that we have in places, such as Second Life, virtual reality Buddhist temples, when in fact the whole point of Buddhism is to remove the individual from the trappings of mentally projected virtual realities—typically emanating, in the literature, from ‘self.’

Similarly, physical meatspace Buddhist temples are guilty of the same crime. In their proximity one falls into the trap of the architecturally generated/encouraged virtual reality of Buddhist culture, rather than Buddha-mind, which is by definition, outside of culture (more or less). The VR temples in Second Life and the temples in physical space, both encourage the projection of the VR of Buddhist culture, and in this irony I’m reminded of my all time favorite Buddhist koan: “At the end of the day a real Buddhist knows there is no such thing as a real Buddhist.” This seemingly contradictory teaching is an effort to illustrate that even the ‘real Buddhist’ is in fact also a VR self, a VR ego, only wearing Buddhist garb. Zen is supposed to be an anywhere, anytime kind of thing. It has no location and is all location simultaneously—that’s the classic point of it in many respects. Given this, a temple is not just meaningless, it’s gaudy, schticky, exploitive, and backward. At their worst, a total distraction.

Furthermore, there’s nothing pretty about the history of Buddhist temples. If you read Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber, you’ll learn that one of the primary functions of the Buddhist temple was a monetary function. They were the local banks. Many folks would give up their crops and life savings in an effort to remove themselves from the terror of samsara and karmic debt (instead of doing the really hard work). These temples acted very similarly in this regard to the later Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, or Pope Leo the X, who issued his famous Indulgences, wherein peasants would pay for documents that claimed the value of a transcendental pardon, in effort to avoid hellish damnation. This of course went on to spark the Reformation. Also the foundation of Buddhist temples often involved the ritualistic self-immolation of a monk—in essence, a human sacrifice (the material body is an evil illusion, a prison, and it’s destruction, the ultimate tribute and likewise realization).

On page 261, Graeber writes “…Building projects hollowed out whole mountains to create bodhisattvas and giant states of the Buddha; and pageants where monks and devotees ritually burned their heads and hands or, in some instances, set themselves on fire. By the mid-fifth century, there were dozens of such spectacular suicides, they became, as one historian put it, ‘a macabre kind of fashion.’” Graeber goes on to quote Jacques Gernet, “…A pyre was erected on a mountain. The suicide took place in the presence of a large crowd uttering lamentations and bringing forward rich offerings…After the fire had burned out, the ashes of the monk were collected and a stupa, a new place of worship, was created to house them.”

Meanwhile, during the same ceremonies, “Festivals often led to vast outpourings of contributions, with wealthy adherents vying with one another in generosity, often driving their entire fortunes to the monasteries, in the forms of oxcarts laden with millions of strings of cash—a kind of economic self-immolation that paralleled the spectacular monastic suicides. Their contributions swelled the Inexhaustible Treasuries.”

I’m far more attracted to Zen masters like Ikkyū Sōjun, who famously lived outside the broken Buddhist establishment of the time, and in a more Buddha-like way, removed himself from the bureaucratic dogma. He harshly criticized their claim to spontaneity, when in reality that acted more like political drones trapped in a hierarchy, and jabbed at many other aspects of the vogue Buddhist ideological culture; such as his statement, “Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind.”

We could also discuss the value of sanghas as being an interesting contradiction as well. In one breath the Buddha claims that the sangaha is foundational, yet in another breath a teaching along the lines that one cannot rely on anyone other than themselves to attain ‘awakening,’ leaves his cool grin. Only you can wake up yourself, but get together to do it.

Once again, Ikkyū Sōjun says it best, “Yesterday’s clarity is today’s stupidity.”

[Source] ~ http://anti-teachings.tumblr.com/post/17058070896/irony-in-second-lifes-...