Say your virtual prayers

Staring at your computer screen, you click on the offering you want to make - will it be a bouquet of flowers, or a more expensive gold ingot? More importantly, which Buddha are you worshipping today?

After you have dispensed with the pleasantries, you can also note down your wishes or cherished scriptures, click submit, and in theory, Buddha will feel your sincerity.

Buddhism has gone online, with "virtual temples" now open for business. These "temples" are equipped with everything you would expect from a normal temple, including chanting, blessings, sacrifices and confessions, to name a few services, but aside from doubts over whether the click of a mouse is a genuine form of worship, there are concerns about whether they exist to make a profit, given the existence of donation buttons. Not to mention the fact that these temples present an ideal way to commit fraud.

Real worship?

A lay-Buddhist monk from Jiangsu Province, whose monastic name is Yihong, launched an online temple in 2006 in conjunction with a Buddhist website.

Yihong's site is split into various sections; each dedicated to a particular service, and on each section thousands of prayers have been left by Net users. Yihong told the Global Times that he launched the temple to help Buddhists maintain their faith, and that the Internet was the best way to do this.

"It's a way to remind people to practice their beliefs more often in their daily lives, as the Internet is easily accessible," Yihong said. "It can also help to build and strengthen one's faith."

However, Yihong does stress that the online temple can't replace real-world temples. "The real treasures of Buddhism are located in temples, not on the Internet," he said, noting that the key elements of the religion, namely Buddha, Buddhist sutras and monks, are in temples, and Buddhists need to show respect to them by visiting temples.

Despite Yihong's desire to reinforce worship in traditional temples, some Buddhists have simply replaced physical temples with an online version.

A 31-year-old Buddhist with the Web name Qingjing Suiyuan, who often prays online, said that he doesn't think praying online is connected with laziness. He said that people live fast-paced city lifestyles, and that the online prayers will be heard by Buddha as long as the prayers are sincere.

In contrast, another Buddhist, surnamed Liu, who has been studying Buddhism for more than ten years, said she believes that conducting rituals online will never replace visiting real temples. "Learning the knowledge of Buddhism through face-to-face communication with Buddhist masters is a totally different experience from just reading materials on the Web," she said. "Also, temples have had the role of enlightening people, as far back as ancient times," Liu said. "They are located in places distant from the secular world and try to purify visitors' minds and make them treasure the rituals. Praying at home just weakens people's respect for the solemnity of the act."

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