The cybersangha and its place in contemporary Buddhist scholarship: A look at DhammaWheel.com

Summary: In several sermons, the Buddha said that ‘admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is the whole of the holy life’. Such spiritual friendship was typically cultivated in the monastic community of the sangha. But in contemporary contexts Buddhism is developing in various de-traditionalised and secularised forms. Individuals are able to study Buddhist texts online and practice meditation independently without associating with formal Buddhist organisations and without adopting formal religious precepts. How then does a contemporary Buddhist form such admirable companionship? In this paper, I will first suggest that the online discussion forum, DhammaWheel, functions as a sangha, or more precisely, a cybersangha. As one member puts it, ‘DhammaWheel is my community of practice. I wouldn't be taking additional precepts today were it not for the support and encouragement of this community’. Secondly, I will propose that in discussing Buddhist ideas from within the context of their everyday experience, the members of DhammaWheel are ‘doing theory’ on contemporary Buddhism and are indeed producing ideas which might contribute to contemporary Buddhist thought. I do this in order to speculate on the implications of the cybersangha on contemporary Buddhist scholarship. I will suggest that to better understand how Buddhism develops in the present age, contemporary Buddhist scholars could beneficially adopt the views and methods of communication and cultural studies to engage with the cybersangha, and perhaps even develop ‘admirable camaraderie’ with Buddhists outside the academy.