Thanks to the great blog Dharmacore for posting about an interesting intersection of traditional ceremony with our modern digital culture. Jundo Cohen, founder of Treeleaf Zendo has been creating an online sangha via several methods of communication and collaboration.
As mentioned on Dharmacore:
“Complete with samu (work practice), sanzen (video chat meetings with the teacher) and a forum for communication among members, the sangha has grown steadily. Now, a small group of us have joined Jundo in his latest experiment of an online Jukai ceremony. What is Jukai? This is an ancient Zen ceremony where a Buddhist student receives the precepts and takes refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. It usually involves sewing a rakusu, a traditional Zen garment that my non-Buddhist friends have lovingly taken to calling a “Buddha bib,” and getting a Buddhist name from the teacher.”
I’d love to see collection of such initiatives all located in one area where sangha-less folk could view online activities going on in the digital world. Anyone up for collaborating on a wiki to collect all of the Buddhist podcasts, videocasts, online sanghas among other ‘digi-Buddhist’ activities and happenings?
Check out the full blog post with more details on this via this link.
2 Responses
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Digital Jukai? Well, interesting idea, but… my opinion is that receiving the Precepts via Internet sounds quite… strange and absurd. Whole idea feels like… cybersex or something. Real but not real, not even close as the real communication and feeling with other living person.
With palms together,
Uku
No, Uku, the people taking Jukai with Jundo have been sitting Zazen in his Sangha and studying Precepts, sewing the Rakusu for months. The people there are tight. Check it out.
http://www.treeleaf.org/forum/
He sits Zazen online daily for folks at home.
http://treeleafzen.blogspot.com/