Kannonji Zen Retreat - An Online Sangha in Second Life®

Daily meditation at 7am 1pm and 9pm PDT

Jeroen — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 06:36:59 +0000

Kannonji offers daily meditations with people from all over the planet @ 7am 1pm and 9pm PDT. In addition there are Meditations on Friday and Saturday at 11pm PDT. To teleport to Kannonji in Second Life®: click here.

Schedule of our regular meditations, weekly concerts and other activities can be found here.

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New York Times: Living With Less. A Lot Less.

Caspian Inglewood — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:43:30 +0000

I have come a long way from the life I had in the late ’90s, when, flush with cash from an Internet start-up sale, I had a giant house crammed with stuff — electronics and cars and appliances and gadgets. For me, it took 15 years, a great love and a lot of travel to get rid of all the inessential things I had collected and live a bigger, better, richer life with less.

Read this article by Graham Hill @ The New York Times.

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Can You Learn to Control Your Mind?

Jeroen — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 07:15:23 +0000

Many people believe that it is not necessary to learn to control one’s own mind because they think they already have such control. Others, based on casual introspection and analysis of forces constantly impinging upon our minds, believe that we will never have control of our own minds and that such control is simply an illusion, though it may well be an illusion with important adaptive consequences. The view the question invites is somewhat more nuanced. It asks whether we can learn to control our mind, and thus assumes that there is a gradient of control ranging from little to more, and that individuals may vary in where they fall along this continuum. Further, it implies that control of one’s mind is a skill and as with other skills, it can be trained.

Read the rest of this article by Richard Davidson at bigquestionsonline.com.

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16 month decline in Second Life sims

Jeroen — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 23:15:47 +0000

Iliveisl: “Last week i wrote about an apparent 200 private sim drop in a very short time period of two weeks whereas the overall last year decline was about an 800 sims. a sudden dip like that seemed worrisome because the decline of private sims in Second Life has been a slow and steady decrease.”

Read the rest of this article by iliveisl @ iliveisl.com

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Buddhism in Second Life

Jeroen — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 23:05:31 +0000

One of the things I did very early on in Second Life, was start looking for Buddhist sims. It was remarkable easy to find them, although sadly some of them (like Bodhi Island) are now long gone. But I suppose the Dharma teaches impermanence and, let’s face it, with the speed of change in SL it’s a perfect example!

Read the rest of this article by Johannus Baroque @ baroquescribbles.wordpress.com. Johannus Baroque is a Buddhist influenced Steampunk. He creates and explores in the virtual world of Second Life and had an interest in Free Software.

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Buddhism in second life: Anthropologist studies spirituality in virtual reality

Jeroen — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 06:43:21 +0000

Jessica Falcone, a Kansas State University researcher is studying how religion—particularly Buddhism—fits into new forms of virtual reality.

“For the Buddhist groups in particular, it seems there is a real effort to replicate their real-life practices, rather than innovate them. There is not much interest in doing experimental practices or trying new things because it is a virtual world.” Also, Falcone is finding that some people are discovering Buddhism for the first time on Second Life.

Read the whole article by Jennifer Tidball at phys.org. The photo’s in this article have been made in the virtual zendo of Kannonji in Second Life.

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Namasté: the 1 pm sit has ended

Jeroen — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 21:45:34 +0000

Kannonji offers daily meditations with people from all over the planet @ 7am 1pm and 9pm PDT. In addition there are Meditations on Friday and Saturday at 11pm PDT.

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NateDeMontigny explains the online simulation program, Second Life

Jeroen — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 01:37:27 +0000

NateDeMontigny, author of the Precious Metal blog, explains the online simulation program, Second Life. Turns out it actually supports his Buddhist practice — helping him to do real-world meditation, and to feel connected as a Buddhist practitioner with no formal group affiliation.

“One of the first things I did was to search out Buddhist places. I was blown away to find how many there were. There weren’t as many as there are today, but there were meditation groups meeting and discussion groups as well. I began by sitting and chatting with are the “Skeptical Buddhists” — their name says it all. The talk was peer-led and discussion was well maintained. I think there were 20+ people at this particular discussion.”

Read this article by Nate DeMontigny at shambhalasun.com.

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Kannonji needs new volunteers

Caspian Inglewood — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 20:09:52 +0000

Volunteers are the backbone of our location in Second Life®, sending out notices for events, leading meditations, hosting weekend live music and teachers, and much more. Without volunteers, we’re just a bunch of pretty pixels on your screen. Prime candidates for volunteering are folks with a lot of free time on-hand, such as retirees, the disabled, the unemployed, etc.

Kannonji is always looking for new volunteers to help out with our 7AM, 1PM and 9PM meditation times. These times are all in SLT, Second Life Time (PST or PDT, depending on the season). We also are looking for weekend live music hosts.

You can either find our application boxes at our location inworld or send a notecard regarding volunteering to Ciska Riverstone or Martie Georgia.

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THANK YOU KANNONJI!!!!!

Caspian Inglewood — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 20:08:23 +0000

For some time now, many of you have been making generous donations to the Thunderfoot Lorefield Fund Drive, a fund created by the Kannonji Leadership to assist in the purchase of a new computer.

With overwhelming gratitude, I am thrilled to report that the project has reached its fruition!

I am composing this message on a 21.5″ iMac, 2.5 ghz quad core, 512 MB VRAM 4 GB RAM (soon to be upgraded to 20 GB. It was purchased used, but with less than an hour of usage by original owner, and with Applecare warranty through April of 2015. It is the very model as spec’ed out by Caspian when he established the fund.

Your generosity will assure that, as long as Kannonji remains a viable SL concern, I will be able to serve as a sim co-manager, assured that I have the tools necessary to work for the best interest of the sangha and the sim.

The goal was L$ 340,000 – to meet the price of a new Mac. The amount reached was L$ 232905 — equal to USD 871.59. $750 was spent on the computer, and $97.50 on a RAM upgrade. The balance of 24.09 was converted back to L$,5875 which has been returned to KannonjiTreasury Ahren for the continued operation and tier of the sim.

Watch for a special Thunderfoot “Gratitude Concert” to be announced soon!

Kannonji — YOU ROCK!!

In Gassho,
Thunderfoot Lorefield

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