welcome to the 

ENLIGHTENMENT ONLINE^© PROJECT
The Spiritual Search In Cyberspace

"Online networks offer a medium to find other kindred spirits. 
We can use the opportunity well, or we can use it poorly. We are at the crossroads"

    Mitch Kapor, Chairman, the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Welcome, Fellow Wisdom Seekers!

Is There Spirituality In Cyberspace? If so, "where"? If not, can we "make it so"?

The "Global Village" predicted by 60's media philosopher Marshal McLuhan is fast becoming a reality, thanks to cable TV, satellite-relayed phone networks, computerized libraries, and the Internet, the final wiring job for the planetary electronic nervous system. While the world is shrinking our collective awareness is expanding, as the great new knowledge repository of Cyberspace mushrooms at a phenomenal rate...

Some observers feel we are witnessing an evolutionary quantum leap in human consciousness, heralding the emergence of the transpersonal level of awareness termed the "Noosphere," by French mystic Pierre Teilard de Chardin, and the Global Brain by contemporary author and theorist, Peter Russell. Whatever we call the new omni-dimension of human awareness and interaction, it seems that the salient question now is, how can we best utilize Cyberspace to serve mankind's success and enlightenment, and the Earth's sustenance? It was just this ideal that led me to begin keeping a journal of my Spiritual Search in Cyberspace and to open this ENLIGHTENMENT ON-LINE HOME PAGE on the World Wide Web.

What is the meaning, significance, and highest potential value of the new electronic omnisphere? How can the electronic global nerve network be used to communicate real wisdom, and to advance a vision of our best possibilities? My premise is that the multi-dimensional link-up we are undergoing amounts to nothing less than the next step in the evolution of human consciousness and the emerging self-awareness of the Planetary Mind. I am convinced that the Internet and the whole infobahn phenomena can be a vitally important force for personal transformation, community building, enlightened participatory democracy, environmental protection, and planetary salvation. Do you agree? How can the Internet help you in your personal quest for spiritual realization, and how can we all help make this enlightened vision of Cyberspace a reality?

Where you can go from here:

Your Comments are Welcome!     

 Send Page To a Friend

    PRAYER OF A CYBERNAUT© by Lonny J. Brown

Are You out there, Lord, just waiting for us to realize once again and in a whole new way, your absolute imminence and omnipresence?

Is your cosmic energy behind the millions of hooked-up hackers, bleary-eyed Internet addicts, students viewing cyber-porn, working single mothers getting e-mail support, buzz-cut cyberpunks publishing outrageous electronic anti-'zines from their bedrooms and basements?

How about the countless neurotic wanderers, frustrated dreamers, lost lovers, false prophets and true believers lurking just beyond my screen, wandering the endless byways of the digisphere? Is that You too, oh Great Creator, in drag, teaching us yet again how to meet and get along on another level, how to learn to love and accept and help our brothers and sisters on-line, as in that other holographic projection we call "real" life?

"The medium is the message," said the Prophet, Marshall. So what is the Internet? Will it at long last fulfill the promise of an enlightened global society, or signal only increasing commercial exploitation and the dumbing down of the mass mind? Can we really construct a modern info-super-high-way for the coming century that serves all and sets us free, or is it destined to become the next wasteland, full of needless junk, violence, high cost and mindless distractions?

If "you are that which you seek,"is the computerized planetary virtual world an extension of my mind? Where does "my" mind end and "our" mind begin, in the shared everywhere of Cyberspace? If and when we find out, what should we do about "it"?

Teach me, Lord, to see Your All-Dimensional Interface behind this flat-screen display, to hear Your multi-media message of Truth, to plug into Your divine program, to know Your timeless omnipresence within the vast, pulsating electrodynamic universe, to become a fully-conscious participant in Your earthly energy body/mind. Amen.

********************************************************************* **
from Enlightenment OnLine - Email from Spiritual Cyberspace©
By Lonny J. Brown

Go Back To TOP MENU Choices ^

  Does the Internet Have Buddha Nature?© by Lonny J. Brown

"We are merging - as a global economy, society and entity - into a Living Matrix which in many ways resembles a real-time "global neural network." This "neural network" is the marriage of global mind, body and spirit. Each of its components is working in tandem with the other to send and receive information that spans the globe through the neural-net software of the Virtual Tao"
- Alexander Besher, Pamela Engebretson & Francoise Bollerot
(Global House: A 21st Century Meditation)

True to Buddhism's long history of openness and ready adaptation to foreign cultures, the on-line Buddhist-American community has thoroughly embraced the new etheric digital network. There are probably more active Buddhist servers on the Internet than any other religious denomination.

The info super-highway is the modern Silk Road, posits the mission statement of the Tiger Team Buddhist Information Network (data line: 510-268-0102), and your modem is the high-tech version of the trusty camel that conveyed not only fabulous fabrics and exotic spices between Asia and the west, but religious scholars, pilgrims, holy books, rituals, and practices as well. This first-rate Bulletin Board System (BBS) is a major spiritual oasis on the highway, offering sacred text libraries, Electronic Dharma discussion groups, and a "cyber-sangha" (intentional community) out there in the great empty humming voidness.

No doubt one reason why Buddhists feel so at home in the invisible realm of the Internet is the Buddhist understanding of the ephemeral nature of the material world. Long before nuclear physicists confirmed that matter is actually energy, and that energy is in turn no thing, Buddhists were meditating on the non-substantiality of existence, also known as Sunyata, and often translated as "void."

In Buddhist cosmology there are many realms. Cyberspace is just another loka, a level of psychological incarnation, no more real or unreal, important or unimportant, than the "reality" we inhabit all the time. Just like the human and heaven and hell realms, it can delude or liberate, depending on ones insight and intent.

From a Buddhist standpoint, reality is not so different from the relationship of software to hardware. Mind creates body creates mind creates body. - Zenshin Roshi

Buddhists and modern nuclear physics hold some remarkably similar, quantumized views of creation, in which unfathomable numbers of subatomic concentrations of energy generate matter by their tendency to exist or not, in and out of the present time/space continuum. The Buddha spoke of the smallest possible discrete unit of time (astakalapa). All of manifested creation is said to be repeatedly "projected" and un-projected within this unimaginably finite period. The resulting blur from this hyper-speed oscillation is what we usually perceive as "reality." Nirvana -- the timeless, unmanifest state of pure awareness -- fully permeates and inter-exists within samsara, the illusion of objective, concrete reality. Enlightenment is the direct perception of the mind-moments between world projections.

A practiced meditator is no more surprised by the commercialization and superficiality evident in Cyberspace than she or he is about the greed and delusion rampant in the "real" world. All the predictable mind factors are present in all possible regions that human consciousness can pervade, including the modern market place and the media of TV, radio and print. Computerized communications is simply the next manifest extension of the collective mind, reflecting the worst and the best of human capacities and endeavors, our past as well as our potential. What is most intriguing is the possibility of using this new transpersonal, omni-dimensional intellisphere to swiftly facilitate large-scale improvement in the human condition. Time is of the essence.

The question of Cyberspace having Buddha nature (or spirit ) is not just a quaint koan (meditative puzzle) suitable for personal reflection. Faced with the prospects of unprecedented military and environmental destruction, it just may be the most significant issue of our time. As the 21st Century dawns, it is time for the mundane and the metaphysical to be seen as one. The prospects for the universal dissemination of truth and enlightenment transcends merely religious or political concerns. If life on earth is to survive, nothing short of a world-awakening will suffice. How can the traditional Sangha - the community of compassionate spiritual practitioners - contribute to this much needed global transformation? One way is by going on-line.

Given the Buddhist tradition of purposeful concentration, it is fitting that Buddhists choose to seize the opportunity for instant global communication presented by the Net to preserve and propagate the precious teachings (Dharma), to counter ignorance and unnecessary suffering (samsara and dukha), spread loving-kindness (metta), and contribute to the general liberation (moksa) of all sentient beings.

from Enlightenment In Our Time - The Perennial Wisdom in the New Millennium©
By Lonny J. Brown

Go Back To TOP MENU Choices ^

 Digital Inspiration

Chinese Taoist Divination Goes Hi-Tech© by Lonny J. Brown

The Chinese Book of Cyber-Changes

If you meet the Buddha on the info highway, merge! - Gary Ray, CyberSangha

For all their complexity and power, computers -- even the most sophisticated -- accomplish their invisible digital tasks through the micro-electronic alternation of only two basic functions: on or off. One or zero. Yes or no. Positive, negative. This elementary signal structure enables vast amounts of information to be squeezed through those skinny phone lines and bounced off satellites: It's all streams of pulses and pauses in the Great Energy circuit.

Five thousand years ago, Chinese sages recognized that nature itself (the Tao) behaves in a similar bi-polar fashion, and wrote an interactive "program" based on this knowledge, called the I-Ching, The Book of Change.

The Taoists called the opposing forces that "make the world go 'round" Yin and Yang, reflected in natural life as female and male, cold and heat, moon and sun, contraction and expansion, and every other possible set of dualities in creation. Perceiving the play of patterns in which these complimentary opposites interact leads to understanding and insight. The Book of Change reveals these universal dynamics with timeless grace, and makes them personal and practical.

In something of a historic accomplishment, this ancient psycho- spiritual self-reflection aid -- possibly the oldest recorded text in the world -- has been quite effectively transposed into the modern idiom of telecomputing. The result is a fascinating blend of old and new, Eastern and Western expertise by which an ancient source of wisdom has become virtually omnipresent and simultaneously instantly accessible to almost anyone anywhere.

Tao On a Chip

There is good reason for the durability of the I Ching as a source of guidance spanning the centuries and continents. It is a unique conduit for natural insight that is universally applicable. Anyone who has ever "cast the Ching" three times or three thousand times will tell you it always seems to be uncannily pertinent, almost eerily accurate. Which is why it is called an Oracle, a device for "divining," or mirroring the unique synchronistic confluence of all possible variables at any given moment, in any situation. It's advice accords with the ways of nature, and is therefore always correct. It is a testimonial to the book's enduring relevance that it can now be consulted electronically, via the Internet, the great global knowledge repository of the 21st Century. After all, it is called the Book of Change, and the emergence of Cyberspace may very well prove to be one of the most monumental changes in the history of human civilization.

Purists will at first be skeptical, contending that using a computer to call forth the teachings of the elders -- instead of the traditional slow tactile ritual of casting coins or meditatively sorting yarrow stalks -- would destroy the essential connection that makes the I Ching experience so personal. But the critical medium for the message is really the mind of the receiver. The act of logging in can be just as meditative, and -- considering the countless unknown forces that affect the ultimate timing of your connection -- equally as cosmic.

The on-line I Ching's host computer effectively performs the equivalent of dropping three coins, "heads-or-tails," a million times per second. Whether you use coins, yarrow sticks, or a remote random number generator on a chip, the idea is to frame your question carefully, and be as receptive as possible to the answer. It comes in the form of a Chinese pictograph, one of 64 possible hexagrams, composed of six solid or broken lines, symbolizing your particular predicament at the moment. Your "answer" is further individualized through sub- permutations, called "changing lines," and a second hexagram, reflecting the fundamental Taoist/Buddhist principle that everything is in a constant state of flux. A written interpretive commentary accompanies each reading, discussing the ways of nature and giving specific, if allegorical advice. The guidance is no more or less useful than your openness to it, but first-time consultees are often pleasantly startled by the I Ching's germaneness to their condition.

Etheric Advice

I've just had my first remote reading from the Internet I Ching < http://www.facade.com/Occult/iching/. Talk about instant gratification! Upon logging on, the server immediately generates your assessment and forecast. (Better to meditate before dialing!)

Unprepared with a question, I got hexagram #19, Lin / Approach. The Judgment: Supreme success. Perseverance furthers. When the eighth month comes, there will be misfortune.

Sounds ominous. With the accompanying text, I probably have enough advice to ponder for a while, but casting the on-line "Ching" is as easy as clicking the "Reload" button on my Web browser, so I soon have a second reading in as many minutes. It's #50, The Cauldron, which promises even more success, and no misfortune!

The cauldron serves in offering sacrifices... The highest earthly values must be sacrificed to the divine. But the truly divine does not manifest itself apart from man. The supreme revelation appears in prophets and holy men... The will of God, as revealed through them, should be accepted in humility; this brings inner enlightenment and true understanding of the world, and this leads to great good fortune and success.

Naturally, I'm more satisfied with my second prognosis, but I do wonder if I am guilty of trivializing a time-honored contemplative tradition. Is the price we pay for instant access the inevitable dilution of the very wisdom we seek? I also ponder the irony of having the I Ching literally appear on my screen at the touch of a button, while the classic 5,000 year-old oracle remains outlawed in its native China. What a world we live in!

A visitor to the I Ching server on the Web has no idea who anonymously placed this interactive virtual holy book in Cyberspace, or even why, if not out of pure service. You can't even thank them for their efforts. And the Internet is full of such altruistic gestures: "non-profitable" programs, free gifts of digitized wisdom, selfless e-mailed missives of encouragement and compassion.

I am heartened by finding such spiritual refreshment along the info super "high way". Perhaps it will counteract the greed and aggression that is all-too-prevalent in today's world, both on-line and off. I don't know how the balance between ignorance and wisdom will tip in Cyberspace, but tonight I'm a bit more hopeful for having discovered and consulted the venerable old book in a whole new way.

from Lonny's next book, Enlightenment OnLine - Email from Spiritual Cyberspace©
To contribute, send your answer to the question, "What is Enlightenment?" to: Lonny J. Brown

Go Back To TOP MENU Choices ^

  JEWELS IN THE NET(c) -

    Best Destinations For Cyber-Pilgrims...

  GuruStu - Cyber-Support with the Highest in Mind.
His near-death-experience became a spiritual call to teach. Great guy too. 
Gurustu.com is the place to turn to in your pursuit of life, love and happiness. Questions about success in work, love, relationships, money, the future? Come up the mountain and talk to Guru Stu."

Enlightenment comes from knowing it's OK to be dumb... so enlighten up!

THE WANDERLINGS - ZEN ENLIGHTENMENT MESSAGE BOARD

Superb, Comprehensive, Coverage of Contemporary Spirituality. Enlightening Words and Images. A Superior Quality Spiritual Web Site.

Go Back To TOP MENU Choices ^

Enlightenment.com  

    Serving the spiritual and economic needs of individuals and organizations by building a living community of transformation and interaction.

An organization and website dedicated to bringing its reader-users enlightenment via the web.   Destined to be the premier commercial new media platform for New Age, alternative spirituality, peak performance, and consciousness-related tools, techniques, teachings, and teachers. Check it out!
        Go Back To TOP MENU Choices ^

     Jim Dreaver - The Way of Harmony     
          www.jimdreaver.com
   Jim Dreaver is a leading-edge thinker and teacher in the art of what it means to be a truly conscious, fulfilled, and happy human being within the social and economic realities of our times. Visit this site, a source of wisdom, inspiration, healing.

        Go Back To TOP MENU Choices ^

........ Zen Mountain Monastery

(Abbot John Daido Loori)

Ah... the beautiful on-line gateway to the venerable Zen Buddhist monastic training center in upstate New York's Catskill Mountains. Learn about Zen meditation. Ask CyberMonk a question. View Zen art. Visit the Sacred Site at Tremper Mountain. This is how the ancient contemplative tradition steps effortlessly into 21st-century cyberspace.

Go Back To TOP MENU Choices ^

   The Peaceful Warrior (Dan Millman)

Dan Millman, author of The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, No Ordinary Moments, and The Laws of Spirit, is a modern visionary grounded in the martial arts and the tradition of personal excellence through mind/body self-development. Each month, Dan shares different messages of hope, guidance, or inspiration, "perspectives, principles, or practices I've found that make life work better."

Go Back To TOP MENU Choices ^

    Daily Zen             

           Daily Zen is a "cyber sangha," or
           meeting place for netizens like
           yourself, who would reflect on these
           timeless poems, koans and quotes,
           and bring this understanding into life.

Go Back To TOP MENU Choices ^

ENLIGHTENMENT DANCE - The Dance of Eternal Bliss

"The body is lost if it does not have the spirit. The spirit is lost if it does not feel the body."

World-culture dance performances and classes for the body, mind and spirit. Enlightenment Dance can be fast of slow; sensual or playful. It teaches us to be in the moment, to live life in ecstasy, and to appreciate what we have here and now.

Go Back To TOP MENU Choices ^      

updated June 26, 2005