Tibetan Buddhism in cyberspace: new information and communication technologies in the Dzogchen International Community

The article explores the impact that new communication and information technologies have had on the recreation of Buddhism in the West. Taking as a case study the Dzogchen International Community, a group of Tibetan roots with presence in Argentina for more than three decades, the paper aims to understand the role played by the use of the internet in the construction of the ritual, community, corporal, and political dimensions of the aforementioned institution. In this way, the text focuses on analyzing the way in which cyberspace fosters the construction of a transnational religious community in which ritual practices mediated by virtual interfaces are coupled with the daily routines of its members. In addition, it explores the incidence that the virtual experience of religion has in the sphere of identity and corporality as well as in the sphere of power relations. The methodological approach on which the research is based included the ethnographic fieldwork and the investigation of the multiple digital media that the Dzogchen International Community uses, in order to enable the analysis of the interrelation between the online world and the offline field.