Synopsis for Buddhist Death in Second Life

Students have difficulty understanding how Buddhism can teach reincarnation while simultaneously holding the anatta, or no-soul doctrine. Their confusion is reasonable: if there is no soul, then how can reincarnation be possible? A team of faculty and instructional designers at Front Range Community College has produced a game for the Front Range Island in Second Life based on the description of the afterworld, called Bardo, in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Students from world religions and philosophy courses role-play as persons passing from death to rebirth. Instructors use avatars designed as Tibetan celestial beings to assist students or play the role of a trickster. There are multiple learning outcomes structured into this project. This presentation from the lead instructor discusses those outcomes, and demonstrates how they are achieved. An immersive experience of the moments immediately following death as depicted in the Tibetan Book of the Dead engenders vivid understanding of the way in which Buddhism explores the problem of attachment, and in particular the attachment to one's own existence.