Buddhism Unbundled

The Buddhist Geeks project is an online Buddhist media platform launched in 2007 by two self-identified millennials who wanted to combine their passion for Buddhism with their “geeky skills.” It quickly gained a wide audience for its pioneering explorations into the convergence of Buddhism, technology, and global culture. Through an analysis of the Buddhist Geeks project and a consideration of its replacement, Meditate.io., this chapter explores the impact of technology and digital culture on American convert Buddhism. It draws on discourse analysis, formal interviews with some of the main players of the Buddhist Geeks project, informal interaction with multiple Buddhist Geeks participants, and participant observation at three annual Buddhist Geeks conferences from 2012 to 2015.

Sex, Scandal, and the Shadow of the Roshi

Through a focus on the Zen sex scandals, this chapter redirects attention to practice communities to provide a more nuanced consideration of intersections between American Buddhism and psychotherapy. The scandals provide a useful focus for a number of reasons. First, they reveal under what particular conditions psychotherapy has been incorporated into certain Zen communities. Second, they show which psychotherapeutic discourses have become dominant and the specific ways they have been adopted. Third, they illustrate how the introduction of psychotherapy has been legitimated within a wider Buddhist hermeneutic, which has produced new Buddhist discourses, practices, authorities, organizational structures, and even soteriological models.