Welcome, Buddhists of SL!

Greetings to all!

The Buddhists of SL Group has really grown over the last month or so, at this point to over 30 members!

One thing I would love to see discussed here is how your practice intertwines with life in the capitalistic world of SL. Do you bring your precepts with you? Or do you use SL as a canvas for experimenting with a non-Buddhist lifestyle?

Other topics for consideration might be:

What, if anything, does your Second Life say about impermanence?
Is spiritual practice within SL easier or more difficult than in RL?
What opportunities do you see SL as offering someone on a path to awakening?

Also, suggestions for upcoming in-world topics to cover at our meetings would always be helpful.

Most of all, let's have fun here!


Peace,
Sophia

cool, i had no idea a buddhist group existed. is the group open to non-buddhists as well? i've always had a strange fascination with buddhism.

But of course! Technically, we're open to all Buddhists, friends of Buddhists, people interested in Buddhism, and people who know nothing about Buddhism. But that's it.

The group should be set to open enrollment, so please join once the grid is back up. We're going to have a meeting this Wednesday (IM me in-world for the time -- I forget), so please feel free to join us at the Zen Center in Rose (a GORGEOUS place!). They're informal gatherings, but we hope to get a little more structure as the illusion of time moves forward.

Glad you found us! What interests you about Buddhism?

Peace,
Sophia

Exactly, engaging with buddhism isn't a faith/religious requirement. As Dalai Lama says, mediatation and mindfulness teachings can be of benefit to anyone, regardless of religious persuasion or otherwise. At base, they are simply teachings and methods, and there is no agenda to convert or evangelize, so one can take whatever benefit they can from the tradition without having to decide if they're Buddhist or not.

And if they do not benefit the student, that's fine too. It is an empirical approach, trial and error, that does not require complete buy-in to full buddhist cosmology or karmic beliefs (tho this knowledge helps at times if the student advances in practice).

I am a fairly devout practitioner in RL, but I still shudder at the word "religion" -- seems antique and limiting.

Welcome to all!

Greetings!

Happy to have you as a neighbor in Zoe! Please feel free to say hello anytime. The temple on the hill is so beautiful!

Warmly,
Phaylen

thanks. Glad you like the stupa. Please make yourself at home there, everything is open.

The project is modelled after a RL site, may fave one in Tibet. Hope to have more there soon.

Hi all,

I really love the Stupa and visit it often.
I do have some qeustions, Since yesterday i am invited to live on a lovely sim and have got my own floor in a monestery. So i would like to decorate with "buddhist" artifacts.
I have checked but besides Prama designs (love the Om mani padme hum beads) i really cant find anything and surten objects in the stupa or tempels are not for sale.
Can anyone of the Buddhist of SL would like to help me with some info?

Blessings,

Menno

Im me at menno ophelia

hi, check the Milarepa HQ at Drak Yerpa. We have some freebies there. Stupas often have thankgkas and other prims that are free to copy. Item info should say if something is available to copy.

At Milarepa sites, everything is free, nothing for sale, as per our decision not to sell dharma items -- so have a looky for copyable items before you pay $50 to $200 for a thangkha that was sourced from the internet.

Or IM me if you need something specific. Tashi Delek!

One thing I would love to see discussed here is how your practice intertwines with life in the capitalistic world of SL.

What, if anything, does your Second Life say about impermanence?

Most of all, let's have fun here!

Peace,
Sophia[/QUOTE]

I'm not a practicing Buddhist in RL however the Noble Eightfold Path is the
wisdom I reach for if life causes conflict within me. I am not at all familiar
with the history and traditions. SL is a safe place to explore and tip my toe
into the waters of the Buddhist culture. Questions I've run off to Google include
stupa? dharma? and the greeting "Tashi Delek". The Tibet photographs also helped
give me a bit of insight into the past and present.
I hope that I bring my principles into SL. I sort of treat the commercialism, that is
so much of SL, as noise and hunt for the glimmers of wonderful people and places
that are scattered around.
SL is the ultimate in impermanence...electronic bits and bytes held on a server
at Linden Labs...and yet the emotions of the people connected are real, the interaction
is real, and the connections made can change lives. It all comes back to the
perceptions within each of us, and aren't they impermanent chemicals and firing
neurons? Interesting food for thought. It's what you do with it that counts.
Tai

As for the capitalist aspect of SL vis-a-vis my Buddhism...

I've found it much easier not to participate in capitalism of any kind in SL. Okay, I've bought a couple changes of clothes, but that's about it. I own no land nor any other valued possession.

In SL I can truly live out my fantasy of owning nothing, which I'm not so good at sticking to in RL. In SL, all the "work" I do is volunteer, while in RL most of my work week is for my paid job. Because I do not need to eat, support others, save for retirement, or worry about health care in SL, it makes an austere life of service much more easy to carry out.

Just thining about this makes me also want to purge all of the free stuff I've aquired over the months of residency.

~go~

That's a great way to view SL, and possibly even move toward that goal in RL.

Nate

Hi all,

I hope you will forgive me for posting this but i think this is importent.
I was reading an article today about Skype and that they are now operating in the chinese market. The chinese goverment has asked Skype to restrict words in the chat function for example Dalai lama or free tibet etc etc. And offcourse Skype agreed since they want to be in the chinese market. I simply can not believe it..

Namaste,

Menno ophelia

Ps. Cant we have protest signs somwhere, to bring this under attention

Menno -- I saw several news outlets report yesterday that Yahoo! turned over an e-mail that one of its customers had saved in his DRAFTS folder to the Chinese government for use in a man's trial. The e-mail had not even been sent.

Given the amount of growth (and profit potential) in the Chinese market, I suspect that we'll see more and more cases like Yahoo! and Skype.

It's very troubling -- especially as a Tibetan Buddhist -- to see this kind of thing go on, and it would be interesting to see if a SL "protest" of sorts would translate into some RL effect. Not to sound pessimistic, but SL is very much like RL in that people tend to focus on themselves on not on the greater good...

Just some thoughts.

Namaste,
Nate

Hiya Nate,

I mailed it to www.savetibet.org yesterday to bring it under there attentions. (since i am a member) I at least hope to will post something about it. Well a SL protest, we could gather somewhere and make protest signs. invite the herald or the new world note. Because i do believe that that a protest in SL could be interesting for papers in RL.
Maybe a silly idea , what do you think?

Menno