A Quiet Watercourse

Well, I had an interesting experience in Secondlife last night, at a sim called “The Buddha Center” they showed a BBC video on the life of the Buddha.  As aide from the odd technical hiccup it was an enjoyable experience and when I found the video on YouTube, I thought I’d share it with everybody!

It’s 50 minutes in length, so be sure you have a cup of Tea when you click play, and the DVD purchase notice will vanish after the first 30 seconds or so. 

If you read me regularly, you’ll know I’m a Secondlifer.  I’m happy being involved in the Metaverse, and I think it can make positive changes in the way we communicate and interact.

What interests me recently, is the amount of people who absolutely seperate “Second Life” (SL) from “Real Life” (RL).  In short, the total denial of the outside world.

I think that we can, due to this seperation, risk losing sight of our ethics in SL.  That’s a thought, does the Dharma go with us into the virtual?  In my mind the answer is a firm yes, as even though you have a virtual representation (an “Avatar”) it’s the same mind doing the piloting, you’re still you.  Regardless of whether behaviour is virtual or not, it can still be unskillful in the Buddhist sense.

SL is a very complex, flexible, powerful platform.  There’s a lot of potential for both good and bad in there.    It’s easy to get lost and to deny the outside world, but also to start neglecting our real needs and those of our nearest and dearest.  It’s also possible to hurt them very deeply, romantic affairs in SL do happen and there have been some that have hit the media when they ended in divorces.

I think that other worlds (e.g. World of Warcraft) are like application software, but SL is like an operating system, you can build worlds and applications within it.  I’ve explored virtual landscapes and cities and seen entire imaginary worlds inside SL, I’ve attended meetings of more than one virtual Buddhist group.  I’ve also created things in there, I have an idea of what it could do and that’s far more than any mere game.

It’s very important that we approach this whole thing carefully, this virtual universe is not seperate, wishful thinking won’t change that and using it to “escape” our real world issues is very ill advised.  I know that SL can be used to raise awareness of world issues and I do believe that SL is at it’s best when used to enhance our Real World communication ability especially in Education.

But to simply use it as a fantasist escape and to try to enforce some sort of schizophrenic seperation from reality?  I think that misses out a huge amount of it’s potential and opens some very dangerous doors indeed.

I came across this Youtube video over the weekend.  It’s just under an hour long and is a very interesting and worthwhile lecture on the spread of Buddhism.

For me, questioning is a large part of spirituality, I feel that an unexamined belief is not worth holding.  That’s a large part of what I like about Buddhism, that spirit of enquiry and examination, in fact I was pleasantly surprised to find a virtual Sangha in Second Life which feels exactly the same way.

The Skeptical Buddhists Sangha is a place for Buddhists (and anyone else who wants to drop in and talk on the subject) to meet in Second Life.   I have to say it’s very useful to have them there, I’m finding that Second Life is a very useful tool for allowing communities to form and interact in a new way that I’ve not quite seen anywhere else.  I’ve been involved in some truly stimulating discussion meetings in the Sangha and have to say it’s certainly helped me along the path.

As an aside, I’m finding Second Life to be more useful when viewed as an enhancement to my Real Life and given a balance with that as appropriate.  I try not to spend more time there than I feel appropriate and always try to bear in mind my reasons for being there.

I was reading an interesting article by Cory Doctorow and as I know a few folks on Facebook and other such sites, I thought I’d link to the article here.

It’s an interesting read and I have to say I can certainly see his point, though he doesn’t cover the use of Facebook and other social sites for spamming.  I know I had to deal with spam friend requests on MySpace, and I expect to have to do the same with Facebook in the fullness of time.

It makes you question, as I have been, the exact amount of quality Facebook adds to a persons experience in cyberspace.

I’ve had a little time off from work this week, so as well as my favourite holiday pastime of not getting out of bed. I spent a little time asking and maybe answering a question. What good is Second Life and can a person who is interested in spiritual awakening make any use of it? I think the answer is a definite yes. Read on…..

There are several groups of Buddhists in Second Life, I joined “SL Buddhists” and later “Skeptical Buddhists”. A quick search turned up some meditation gardens and even a whole island devoted to dharma. I’ll write about Bodhi Island first.

Bodhi Island is run by a non profit group, it’s an entire island in Second Life (hereafter SL) devoted to Buddhist teachings, as a quick aside, SL is made up of large islands, which are subdivided into plots so residents can own and/or rent property of their own. teleported straight to the island and was deposited on a Lotus flower amid some trees. After taking in my surroundings and touching a few landmarks for more information, I started to explore. As I wandered the island, I found gems embedded in the landscape which when touched gave me snippets of Buddhist teachings in the Theravada tradition. As I reached one point in the landscape, a Dharma talk started streaming, i found it pleasing to just sit and listen for a while.

There are hidden areas all over the island for the determined visitor to find, which made my subsequent visits very enjoyable, as I found more hidden nooks that I’d missed. I think that this island just shows what can be achieved when someone thinks creatively, further, there are examples of architecture on this island that most visitors will probably never get to see up close. I’ve illustrated two of these in the screenshots, but there are more. Second Life has been criticised for being frivolous and of little value, but I’m finding that it can provide new and interesting ways of putting information across. I would never have had the chance to walk round and examine the buildings and structures I’ve seen faithfully reproduced on Bodhi island with using Second Life.

While wandering in SL I had the  good fortune to find a Buddhist sangha, The Skeptical Buddhists,  that meets regulary for both discussion and meditation and was able to join them for a discussion meeting.  Once again this brought home the fact that SL is a new angle on communication, reference notes were distributed quickly and effectively and we were able to review the history of what had been said. I found it particularly gratifying, given my sometime unreliable memory, to be able to copy and paste the chat into a text document so I can reread it later!

I think this has been a good start, I’m looking forward to seeing where this journey leads me!

Well, I’ve made a second visit to Second Life, I completed the orientation area and seem to be getting along quite well. The system is not the fastest or most stable thing and as the content is streamed from Linden Labs servers, the look can often leave a bit to be desired as things play catch up. I can’t help thinking they might’ve been better off using the Quake 3 engine.

It seems that a number of educational institutions (e.g. the Open University) and companies (e.g. IBM) already have a presence in Second Life, there is also an economy of sorts. The currency is called “Linden Dollars” and apparently can be changed for US Dollars, there are people who actually earn a living through working in Second Life.

There seem to be areas catering to all sorts of pursuits, from adventure, to education and even more adult pursuits.

The whole thing seems to be very open ended to me, and I feel that if you go in thinking it’s a goal oriented game, you’ll be disappointed, free exploration seems to be the order of the day.

OK, this could get interesting. I downloaded the Linux Client for Second Life last night. It’s been a while since I last wandered into SL, and that was only a brief trip right before Duran Duran did a concert in there.

As my system is a bit meatier than the last one I tried this with, I decided to give it another go. As it turns out there are Buddhists in there and I’m sure there are many places of interest to visit.

It seems that Second Life is aiming to be a 3d complement to the 2d web, admittedly my limited experience so far is the orientation island, but so far I’m finding it easier than previously and I have to say it’s growing on me a lot more this time than it did last time.

Let the journey begin…..

DRM is a fairly hot issue in the geek community. The notion that you can’t have any control over something you’ve already paid for is a thorny one. Does your cash buy you a copy of the music or video, or does it only buy you the right to watch it? Frankly, this could be covered by an essay, never mind a blog entry!

Lao Tzu warns us about too much regulation and control, he believed that it was better to let people be, rather than seeking to bind them. Too many laws make criminals out of people who aren’t really doing much wrong, they also threaten to make a complete ass of the law. For example, the RIAA recently prosecuted a family for music downloading, the problem is that the family doesn’t even own a computer!

I personally, consider the Creative Commons to be much better aligned with The Watercourse Way, simply let people use your art or create derivative works with the only provisio that it remains in the commons.