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Open AccessArticle

Monks, Blogs and Three Media Cases: Russian-Speaking Buddhist Communities in the Era of Social Media

by Elena Ostrovskaya and Timur Badmatsyrenov

Religions 2024, 15(10), 1186; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15101186 - 29 Sep 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2995

This paper focuses on the problem of how Buddhism was reinstitutionalized in Russia in the frame of the meta process of mediatization. The empirical part of this study included two stages and was conducted during 2020–2024. In this paper, the authors focused mainly on the peculiarities of constructing strategies in the Internet and new media via traditional Gelug ethnic offline organizations, the Russian branches of the International Karma Kagyu Community, International Dzogchen Community and Russian-speaking community of Theravada converts. The methodological framework of the research included the institutional perspective developed by the Danish media scholar Stig Hjarvard for studying the mediatization of religion and the concept of “mediatized public religion” by Mia Lövheim and Marta Axner, as well as the concept of “digital religious innovators” by Heidi Campbell. The authors revealed that the processes of digitalization and mediatization have resulted in the emergence of Russian mediatized Buddhism. Various trends in modern Russian Buddhism are disproportionally represented in the public sphere of media; representation directly correlates with the strategies that Digital Buddhist creatives of different streams—Gelugpa traditional, Dzogchen, Theravada or Karma Kagyu—have chosen in relation to the Internet and new media. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Buddhism, Science and Technology: Challenges to Religions from a Digitalized World)

19 pages, 1619 KB

Open AccessArticle

Russian-Speaking Digital Buddhism: Neither Cyber, nor Sangha

by Elena Ostrovskaya, Timur Badmatsyrenov, Fyodor Khandarov and Innokentii Aktamov

Religions 2021, 12(6), 449; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12060449 - 17 Jun 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 5190

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a study that implemented a mixed methods approach to explore the question of correlation between online and offline activities of Buddhist organizations and communities in Russia. The research was carried out in 2019–2020 and addressed the following key issues: How do Buddhist websites and social media communities actually interact with offline organizations and Russian-speaking Buddhist communities? How do the ideological specifics of Buddhist organizations and communities influence their negotiations with the Internet and strategies towards new media technologies? Within the methodological frame of the religious–social shaping of technology approach by Heidi Campbell, we used the typology of religious digital creatives to reveal the strategies created by the Russian-speaking Buddhist communities developing their own identity, authority, and boundaries by means of digital technologies. In the first stage, we used quantitative software non-reactive methods to collect data from social media with the application of mathematical modeling techniques to build a graph model of Buddhist online communities in the vk.com social network and identify and describe its clusters. The second stage of the research combined biographical narratives of Buddhist digital creatives and expert interviews. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion in the Contemporary Transformation Society)

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11 pages, 178 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Mirror: Advice on Presence and Awareness (dran pa dang shes bzhin gyi gdams pa me long ma)

by Chögyal Namkhai Norbu

Religions 2013, 4(3), 412-422; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel4030412 - 9 Sep 2013

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 13457

Abstract

“The Mirror: Advice on the Presence of Awareness” (dran pa dang shes bzhin gyi gdams pa me long ma) is a short text that describes the essence of the Dzogchen teaching (rdzogs chen, total perfection). Concerning the way to establish this point of view (lta ba), the main point is to have a direct understanding through the experience of our primordial state of pure presence, beyond any mental or intellectual construction. With regard to meditation (sgom pa), this involves practicing in order to be sure to understand our own true nature, the non-dual condition of the calm state (the essence of the mind) and movement (its natural energy). Behavior (spyod pa) is the integration of meditation in all our daily activities, continuing in the state of pure presence in every circumstance of life. This is the total realization. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dzogchen)

7 pages, 90 KB

Open AccessArticle

On Dealing with Destructive Emotions through the “Path of Self-Liberation”

by Costantino M. Albini

Religions 2013, 4(2), 306-312; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel4020306 - 20 Jun 2013

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 8434

Abstract

In the majority of Buddhist systems and traditions, destructive emotions—hatred, craving and delusion—are considered as the main obstacle to enlightenment and dealt with as such through various methods of counteracting and neutralizing. In the supreme teaching of Dzogchen, however, they are but one of the infinite aspects of the primordially self-perfected dimension of the true nature of mind. Thus they are allowed to show their utterly harmless essence—non-ego, beyond-good-and-evil, empty and luminous—through the path of self-liberation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dzogchen)

10 pages, 57 KB

Open AccessReview

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu — The Master Who Revealed Dzogchen to the Western World

by Paolo Roberti di Sarsina, Alfredo Colitto and Fabio Maria Risolo

Religions 2013, 4(2), 230-239; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel4020230 - 18 Apr 2013

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 20668

Abstract

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu is one of the last great masters of Dzogchen to have been born and fully educated in Tibet, before the Chinese takeover. He was soon recognized as a great reincarnated lama. This short biography is divided in two parts: the first retraces his steps from his birth in the Tibetan region of Kham until his flight from Tibet to Sikkim, reporting also teachings and initiations he received from his Masters. The second part starts when he arrived in Italy in 1960, invited by Professor Giuseppe Tucci, the greatest Italian Orientalist of his time, to work at the IsMeO, now the Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient (IsIAO). In the 70s Chögyal Namkhai Norbu began to teach Dzogchen to his first students. Interest soon became widespread and having received invitations from all continents, he began to travel and teach throughout the world, founding the worldwide Dzogchen Community, whose main objective is to preserve and develop an understanding of Dzogchen, as well as preserving Tibet's extraordinary cultural patrimony. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dzogchen)

20 pages, 484 KB

Open AccessArticle

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche: Dzogchen and Tibetan Tradition. From Shang Shung to the West

by Paolo Roberti di Sarsina

Religions 2012, 3(2), 163-182; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3020163 - 23 Mar 2012

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 19174

Abstract

In July 2011 the International Dzogchen Community celebrated its 30th Anniversary. In 1981, near Arcidosso in Tuscany (Italy), Master Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche founded the first community or Gar of the International Dzogchen Community. He named it “Meri-gar”, the “Community of the Mountain-of-Fire”. In the 70s Chögyal Namkhai Norbu began to teach Dzogchen to his first students. Interest soon became widespread and having received invitations from all continents, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche began to travel and teach throughout the world. These last thirty years the Dzogchen Community has grown and now has thousands of members in over 40 countries and all continents. The main objective of the Community is to preserve and develop understanding of Dzogchen, as well as preserving Tibet's extraordinary cultural patrimony. The International Shang Shung Institute for Tibetan Studies was founded by Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche with this aim and it was inaugurated by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in 1990. It has a rich collections of Tibetan books and manuscripts and publishes the teachings of Chögyal Namkhai Norbu. This article draws on Chögyal Namkhai Norbu’s work and legacy to describe the Dzogchen Lineage and Tibetan Tradition from the very origin of the Shang Shung Culture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spiritual Exemplars)

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