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Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.
Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water.
-from Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen
on the evening of august 4, 2011, i visited the new "sunbeam house" of my friend Bleu. Bleu is an avatar and artist, and having been inspired by the image of a solar explosion she had seen on the NASA website, she created a house with a dazzling appearance: composed of a series of golden half-transparent beams forming a geometric structure. The house is not cozy but is dramatic, suitable for her artistic persona. One never knows how Bleu herself will show up; she changes her avatar's appearance all the time, not wishing to be pinned down to a fixed image. This time, she wears a white, tightly-fitted costume with bold and colorful flower patterns. As I take a seat on her luxurious oversized sofa, another friend arrives. Eliza has come from Florida, Bleu from Arizona, and I am visiting from Kyoto, Japan. "Welcome to my house . . . to use my line in my video," Bleu greets us, referring to her recent award-winning short video, a visual philosophical experiment on a person's internal and external experience of the self and its social recognitions.
Bleu's "sunbeam house" has been constructed entirely in the virtual world of Second Life (SL). What is it like to use alternative, threedimensional representations of self as a means for socialization with others? Such a question would have sounded like science fiction until recently. With the development of the Internet, however, the availability of personal computers and 3-D graphic virtual reality technologies, a significant portion of the population has begun to create alter egos called avatars for socialization. Bleu is one of those people; for her, virtual worlds are not games but a serious means of self-expression. Her video piece is an abstract description of her experience...