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Japan Launches 'Buddha Phone'

Posted by samzenpus on from the the-eight-immortal-numbers dept.

CNETNate writes "The Japanese Odin 99 handset isn't a regular video-enabled phone. It's geared, perhaps somewhat ironically, towards the Buddhist geek. Aside from regular cell phone features, a dedicated button loads a private, customizable, animated altar on the phone's screen. The idea is to allow Buddhists to perform their dedications conveniently on-the-go. You can simulate incense burning, purification rites and play music to help you meditate wherever you happen to be. The question is, does such a device somewhat negate the values a Buddhist would stand for?"

5 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Depends on your kind of Buddhism by Grond · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you're talking about Tibetan Buddhism, then no, this doesn't really 'negate the values a Buddhist would stand for.' To wit: "His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said that having the mantra on your computer works the same as a traditional prayer wheel. Since a computer's hard disk spins hundreds of thousands of times per hour, and can contain many copies of the mantra, anyone who wants to can turn their computer into a prayer wheel."

    A Zen Buddhist might look at it differently, though.

    1. Re:Depends on your kind of Buddhism by youngone · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Seems to me that you're just as likely to achieve enlightenment looking at porn as any other way. In the west we tend to think of Buddists as being somehow peaceful, because that nice Mr. Dalai Lama is so, well, nice. When it comes right down to it though Buddism is just as expoitative as any other religious cult. Just because lots of people believe something don't make it so. http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=52,1731,0,0,1,0 http://www.mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=559110 The above links are just a couple of cases of people being a**holes. What fairy tales they profess to believe in makes no odds.

  2. Re:Not quite by Jangchub · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We can agree that it is quite stupid and an exploit of a spiritual practice (it seems easier to me to sell snake oil and useless consumer junk to spiritual people than to more secular individuals but that's just a hunch) but the original assertion that it is against some tenet of Buddhism is a simple answer to a complex question.

  3. Re:C&E by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    hmmm.....funny, the Buddha Gautama was an atheist, too...................

  4. A Jewish version by sageres · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a Jew, I am supposed to pray three times per day, so thanks to the collections of programs like these: (http://www.pilotyid.com/hebrew-texts.php) -- I now pray from my Treo. Beats carrying a book around with me. Except for Shabboth of course, when we are not allowed to use a phone. But I found that lots and lots of people are doing it, and hey -- just like the printing press invention revolutionized publication of religious literature around the world, from Bible to Koran and Talmud, the same way the technology revolutionizes an aspect of religion, that one hundred years from now we'll look at as a standard practice... And who knows what other inventions will revolutionize it farther?