E-learning
Buddhism on the Internet
Venerable Pannyavaro
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The challenge that Buddhism faces
today is not with the dharma itself, the Buddha's teaching - as the timeless message
embedded in the Four Noble Truths maintains its validity - but how to present this ancient
teaching as a meaningful alternative to the young who have been shaped by the values of
the consumer society.
There is a new era of technological innovation sweeping
the world, which has spawned a new medium - the Internet's world wide web, a very powerful
communications network and learning environment. The Internet should not be seen as just a
new way to disseminating or repackage the Buddha's teachings but potentially as a base for
an innovative online dharma community - a Cyber Sangha, that offers alternative social and
spiritual values.
ONLINE GROWTH
On what grounds can we realisitcally predict the future of
the Internet? Well we can get some idea from the trend in the online growth. At present
about 6% of the world's population uses the Internet. Almost one billion people, or 15 per
cent of the world's population, are predicted to be using the Internet by 2005. Last year,
the US accounted for 34 per cent of Intenret users, Europe 29 per cent and Japan 10 per
cent. By 2005, web use in Europe and Asia will outpace that of the US. And according to
reports, the spread of mobile phones and other devices that link users to the Internet
will add to this increase.
In less-developed nations, the reality is that, most
people lack access or cannot afford the Internet or modem communications. Overall, about
400 million of the world's six billion use the Internet daily. Those growing up on the
Internet will one day make up the bulk of the population and there will be very few
non-users down the road.
When you look at online religion - it can be expected to
boom. Eight per cent of adults and 12 per cent of teenagers in the US use the Internet for
religious or spiritual experiences, and the number is likely to grow rapidly, according to
a study. So in spite of the drop in interest in mainstream religions and increasing
secularization, which is the view that one's life can or should be carried out without a
religious element, the age-old search for meaning has found the new medium - the net.
A GLOBALISED WORLD
The linking together of the world's population in the
globalised economy is undermining the individual's ability to function as a cooperative,
responsible member of their society. This happens because the ultimate effect of corporate
culture is to reduce the person to a mere consumer, on the assumption that happiness can
be achieved through acquisitiveness and the enjoyment of goods.
Buddhism has within it a social dimension that can address
global problems, a way to "heal the wounds of the world". This way is the
Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path. The practice of which while personal, requiring individual
effort has consequences that are deeply social. So there is a need now for the socially
engaged side of Buddhism to be combined with personal growth and the path of liberation as
the answer to the individual's alienation.
It will require radical changes before we can see any
alternative to current values and attitudes. Yet the Internet could bring about such a
social revolution in values, as the corporate world, try as it might has not yet succeeded
in dominating it.
If we creatively use the technology, the net can cater for
the religious or spiritual side of human nature and the means of offering care and
compassion in this digital world.
Buddhism with its ancient teaching and cultures must seize
the opportunity and adapt itself so that it can make a meaningful contribution to the
social and spiritual needs of the inhabitants of this blue planet via this new medium.
While Buddhism is not a religion that proselytes, that is,
seeking to win over or convert, it certainly has a sense of its own mission in spreading
its message. In the past the Buddha's Teachings spread slowly, not only due to the
limitations of ancient communications, but because it needed to make a local adaptation to
each new culture it encountered.
For example, it took the Buddha's Dharma about 500 years
to go from India to china. It is not only the time factor, but also the need to transform
itself into "Chinese Buddhism". That is, it had to accommodate itself to the
indigenous religions and philosophies. Taoism and Confucianism, before it was acceptable
locally. But in the process of accommodating itself to the local culture the Teaching is
transformed and can be very different from the original.
The different in a Globalised World is that the acceptance
of the Buddha's teachings does not depend on whether it can accommodate itself to a
particular culture or religion but the appeal of its core insights. In fact the cultural
accretion has to be differentiated from the core understandings before it can be seen to
resonate with universal truths. So, in an increasingly secular and globalised world where
technology and scientific appraisal is all pervasive, the Dharma or Truth itself stands
alone.
The challenge now is can the Sangha, that is, committed
communities of Buddhists, use the tools and acquire the skills of the Digital Age? And
further, can we find new ways and means of presenting the Buddha's teachings that are
relevant to the digital world rather than the traditional methods of sermons and ritual
that has little or no appeal to the technocratic generation.
It's not just technical skills that are needed but the
motivation of selfless service and compassion - core values of the Buddha Dharma as
expressed in the ancient Bodhisattva ideal. It is becoming increasingly self-evident that
we have to move from the limitation of individual and national boundaries to a worldview
of a shared planet.
If such a notion as a Cyber Sangha is to come into being -
and realistically it will probably take a generational change - it will either come about
when young monks in the scholarly tradition in Buddhist countries go online or more
likely, as is happening now, the new generation of Western Buddhists, who are not on the
whole conditioned by a particular Buddhist culture, produce more appealing e-Dharma
content for its own.
For the traditionalists - hankering for the past - there
can be no going back, as it would be foolish to think that one can create some sort of
"Virtual Temple" based on ritual and ceremony. Or that one can recreate the
particular cultural customs of Buddhism on the net, which unfortunately the pure Buddha's
teachings have become so embedded in.
The role of an online Sangha is to offer a spiritual
alternative while dissemination the Dhamma through E-learning (electronic Dharma). This
would need to go hand in hand with the servicing of the needs of people who are
experiencing negative aspects of the globalised economy - the pressures and stresses it
creates.
BUDDHIST INSIGHTS AND THE INTERNET
In a rapidly changing digital world, where many are
stretched and stressed, we need to come to terms with the effects of such stress and
pressure on the human psyche. I'm not suggesting that we create some 'virtual utopia' as
the Dharma tells us that there is no certainty and that things are inherently unstable and
insecure. The experiential knowing of this insight allows us to let go and be free of
clinging to the known to blocking the flow. This acceptance of change and the ability to
work with it is in the words of Alan Watts the "Wisdom of Insecurity".
The Internet gives us many opportunities to promote
Buddhist values, understandings and insights on a global scale. Buddhism has survived
materially until now because of the practice of "Dana", which is a culture of
sharing and service, as opposed to the greed culture based on monetary values. This leads
to misuse of the technology, as the motivation is merely to make a dollar, as we have seen
in the recent collapse of the dotcoms, which views the internet as a market place it can
exploit. In contrast to this we have the example to the earlier BBS (Bulletin Board
System), which had a culture based on a genuine sharing and learning community offering a
largely free service operated by volunteers. This is the way an online dharma community
will ideally operate - as a focal point, a hub for community sharing and support.
In the spiritual vacuum called the modern world - with its
preoccupation with having it all, there is a need to make known the contribution that
Buddhist mental culture can offer. The techniques of meditation, for example, can be
explained and illustrated very well on the net through streaming audio and video, with the
student being guided by an online teacher. The characteristic of the internet is its
interconnectivity - global interdependence. This is a core Buddhist understanding ,a
universal truth. Its appreciation leads to the maturity that moves from an ego-self
preoccupation to an interconnectivity that empathizes with all suffering life.
There will be a new emphasis on lifelong learning, on
training and retraining, of development and innovation. This era of all-encompassing
change will need to be accompanied by an ability to cope with the pressures caused by the
new technologies, without becoming overextended and stressed. So we will need to have the
skills to manage our own mental health through the healing practices and insights that the
dharma can give us.
We are seeing that the psychological and healing side of
Buddhism is being utilized by modern Psychotherapy. That there has been a shift from what
was predominantly the ritual needs of lay people to a search for help and support in an
increasingly alienated world. So counselling services in the form of interactive
multimedia via the net is the way of the future, as is demonstrated by the popular
"chat culture" on the net.
It is to be hoped that a Cyber Sangha would be supported
by, or be an extension of the locally based Buddhist establishments, as it evolves into a
network of likeminded people - lay and ordained - who come together as an online community
- followers of the Buddha - living out the insight of the dharma and communicating the
Buddha's message of intelligence and compassion in this new Digital World.
E-learning or Electronic Buddhist learning can become a
tool for spiritual as well as social development, when access is improved and learning
techniques are refined. The reality is that it can never altogether replace face-to-face
teachings but has added a new delivery medium that allows for skill-enhancement and easy
accessible training. The worldwide Buddhist community will need to develop its own
e-learning content with the traditions coming together and pooling their knowledge and
skills and researching new ways of presenting the Buddha's Teachings out of compassion for
this suffering world.
INFORMATION OR KNOWLEDGE?
It has never been consider that the Buddha's teachings are
to be found only in the text, actually in the past the dharma was transmitted as much
through oral teachings. There is a temptation to merely dump data (facts) online rather
than exploit the new ways of presenting information that the technology provides Data and
information do not necessarily translate into knowledge.
The temple approach in teaching the dharma is through
sermons with the teacher or the content being unchallenged. The new way is through group
learning via discussion. On the net its chat groups where the teacher or moderator acts as
a facilitator for an ongoing debate or discussion.
The benefit of internet learning is that you have access
to information, and you also have access to other people, students or experts. It's the
combination of the two that provides an extra dimension than most other technologies. In
fact what is happening now is that students are looking for resources themselves and then
interacting with them.
Learning from animated characters that act as virtual
teachers, could be the future of online learning. Experts predict that successful
electronic learning computer programs will become more sensitive to human nuances and
motivation - software that initiate human interaction.
THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
Until recently exaggerated publicity or hype in the news
media about the internet was common, but with the collapse of the dotcoms we can take a
more sober view of the situation. The reality was and is more of a digital divide, which
is a term for the difficulties some groups in society face in even getting access to
computers and the internet.
This especially applies to the economically disadvantaged
Buddhist countries in the Theravada tradition. Cambodia, Myanmar and here in Sri Lanka.
Online technology is unequally distributed because access to and use of computers and the
Internet mirror the socioeconomic divide between rich and poor individuals and nations.
Another factor is that the English language dominates cyberspace so students and other
with little or no understanding of English are often denied access to online learning.
Although this is changing as the net is becoming more multi-lingual.
TRUE BUDDHA'S TEACHING OR NOT?
Another matter that we will have to face is how can we
know that what is posted on the internet is an authentic Buddhist Teaching or not? The way
to judge this is to match what is posted with the Four Noble Truths as all Buddhist
traditions accept the Four Noble Truths as the structure for their practice in one form or
another. But there have been individuals who make extravagant even bizarre claims to some
special knowledge or enlightenment. I can suggest at least one way to judge this. The
transmission of knowledge in Buddhism is essentially based on lineage, which is the
verification of the students understanding by a lineage teacher or master. While there is
a purely text based teachings, the scholarly tradition, the practice of mental culture is
based on experiential learning which can be checked by a lineage holder. So whether the
postings on the internet claiming to be the Buddha's Dharma is authentic Buddhist Teaching
or not, or whether it is just the concoction of a cult - could be checked through its
lineage, or lack of it.
WHAT OF THE FUTURE?
While for some it may seen rather futuristic, broadband
and interactive technology promises an enormous expansion of the potential of the
worldwide web to create a true online community and enhance online learning. On the other
hand, we have to work with the current limitations until the interactive technology
matures. And especially we will have to come to terms with the realities in Buddhist
countries that are being left behind in the information revolution.
One way to address this problem is the use of hybrid
technology. To this end we are developing ways to deliver e-learning content via the
text-based material on the web or through intranets using CD-ROM. For example, BuddhaNet
has produced a CD-ROM on "Buddhist Studies for primary and secondary students"
that can be use on an intranet in schools or dharma centres. The CDs is actually a web
page (HTML files) that includes Adobe PDF (Portable Document Files) documents of all of
the material,which when printed can then be photocopied. Also we have produced a
multimedia CD that interfaces with our web site, and includes over sixty Buddhist e-books.
The traditional temples and bricks and mortar centres will
continue to service people needs for the dharma, yet this can be expanded and enhance, and
may I say possibly made more relevant, if the evolving Cyber Sangha, who need resources,
is supported in its aim to develop the dharma online using the latest technology that is
available.
Because a teaching is ancient that doesn't mean that it
cannot sit comfortably with the new technology. If the Buddha were alive today, he would
surely be at ease in the digital world. There is a new generation growing up with the
Internet's technology, who regard it as the natural place to find information, for online
learning and for spiritual and emotional support. Can we hope that it will be a place that
one goes to have a meaningful experience of the Buddha's dharma as well - it's the future!
-ooOoo-
Venerable Pannyavaro is the Webmaster of
Buddhanet.net, President of the Buddha Dharma Education Association and Vice-President of
the Buddhist Federation of Australia.
-ooOoo-
Source: Daily News, Sri Lanka, Saturday, 25 August 2001, http://www.dailynews.lk/
Update: 01-10-2001
