Sacred space in VR — Case study (Part 1)

Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

1. Sacred space in modern society

When mentioned for the first time, sacred spaces can quickly be associated with places of religious activity, including temples, churches, pagodas, etc. However, Mazumdar and Mazumdar (1993) synthesize that sacred spaces also compass natural or human-made landscapes, homes, or with Tantric yoga: geography inside our bodies. Sacred space as religious architecture is where ‘believers gather to pray collectively or individually’ (Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 1993, p.233).

Sacred spaces compass natural or human-made landscapes, homes, or geography inside our bodies.

Nevertheless, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many changes in religious activities have been applied due to social gathering restrictions and the temporary closure of places of worship (Burke, 2020).

Consequently, religions from countries around the world have been looking into ways to digitize their traditional face-to-face services. Easter Sunday Mass, considered the most essential service towards Christians, was broadcast live by Pope Francis from Rome to Catholics worldwide (Helen, 2020). On May 07, 2020, Buddhists all over the world kicked off the first online celebration of Vesak Day, which praises Gautama Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death, together with a live international e-concert (Tai, 2020).

Fig. 1. (From left) Venerable K. Dhammika Maha Thera and Venerable T. Chandima Thera of the Singapore Buddhist Mission conducting Pali chanting for online audiences around 9 am. TNP PHOTOS: GIN TAY

Despite hardships during the lockdown time, Pew Research Center (2020) reveals it is far more likely for Americans to say the Coronavirus crisis does not weaken but strengthen their faith, as accompanied in Figure 2.

Moreover, it will fail to not mention the recent religious and faith-based activities in India in 2021 have tremendously spread the virus and made it one of the worst outbreaks of the pandemic time for the country.

Fig. 2. Pew Research Center, 2020, ‘Americans far more likely to say coronavirus crisis has strengthened their faith, rather than weakened it’, graph, America, viewed on 28 November 2020, pewresearch.org.

2. Why did I start looking into this topic?

The question I come up with regarding sacred space as a topic is: ‘How to Create a Sacred Space for Vietnamese Buddhist Devotees to Practise at Home Using Virtual Reality?”. This practice-based research question derives from some of my inspirations and my own interests involving the following:

1. I do not belong to any type of religion, even though in Vietnamese culture, we follow traditional religious practices Buddhism in the majority. This from time to time encourages me to learn more about the most popular religion in my country.
2. In addition to my readings of the news about how the novel Coronavirus is affecting and re-shaping religions, the end of 2020 is around the corner. Christmas, Lunar New Year, or other special occasions related to spiritual activities from the end of 2020 to the beginning of 2021 are coming along with celebrations, gatherings, religious site visitings, etc. I would like to produce a VR experience as a solution to reduce the spread of the virus. The experience targets Vietnamese Buddhist devotees, so they can carry out individual actions at home including chanting, taking part in retreats, as well as joining any sort of virtual gathering. The virtual reality experience will not only serve in the age of Coronavirus but also a future for Buddhism at-home practitioners who want to upgrade their experience with holy space while practicing.

How to Create a Sacred Space for Vietnamese Buddhist Devotees to Practise at Home Using Virtual Reality?

3. Insights of current virtual sacred spaces

The first example I came across while researching about similar ideas or products is Second Life — ‘a virtual world heralded by some scholars and trans-humanists as a sacred, “heavenly” space’ (Falcone, 2019, p.147). Falcone examines Buddhist’s locations in Second Life and demonstrates that activities and respectful behaviors within holy spaces in Second Life are not distinct from other spots by the advance of virtual technology but thanks to the actors who meticulously recreate the actual, material Buddhist spaces. Therefore, she comes to the conclusion that just as in reality, cyber groups are able to interpret some spaces as sacred, while others as profane (Falcone, 2019). Grieve (2017) also confirms virtual Buddhist life in Second Life is absolutely legitimate practice. Moreover, Falcone claims ‘most Second Life residents found the creativity and alternative roles opened up by the virtual world to be liberating’.

Fig. 3. Falcone, February 2018, Meditating at the Buddha Center, photo in Second Life.

An intriguing insight of Buddhist places in Second Life is that while the spaces are gorgeously built, they are not as whimsical as one may think of a virtual sacred place (Falcone, 2019). Falcone’s study found the following:

There were no surprising mash-ups of various religious figures made manifest in virtual stone. There were no Buddha animations teaching day and night for the benefit of avatars passing through. There were no Pure Lands or celestial realms built by these dharma communities. In the Buddha Center one meditated on cushions, not inside bright, delicately opening lotus flowers. In other words, it was Second Life’s resemblances to actual life that gave it its potency, and not its divergences from it. (p. 161)

4. Questions & Feasibility

From the research and insights above, here are some conclusions towards my research question and feasibility of each aspect, including the following:

1. The question that I start with — ‘How to Create a Sacred Space for Vietnamese Buddhist Devotees to Practise at Home Using Virtual Reality?’ — is actually narrow enough as I classified it down to which religion, location, language, target users, and main activities. I can find a relatively enough amount of popular culture as well as academic resources for virtual sacred space; spatial design for Buddhism or Buddhism architecture; spatial design and non-visual design for VR in general.
2. At first, from the original ideation and the Second Life reference, I come up with another feature for my experience. Besides individual meditation and practice, users can also join community-oriented Buddhist spaces in certain time frames. However, for my own skills of coding and multi-user development, not only the one who joins but also the qualified Buddhism teacher giving lectures and interactions are the real challenges for me. The work is possible for the current technology and for a team, but it is pretty out of my reach as an individual designer like me.
3. It is possible for a simple set up in an actual space with a cushion to sit on, cool room temperature, the smell of incense, and a minor touch of lighting for the area. I want to create an immersive experience for non-visual perception where they have a comfy and familiar atmosphere like sitting inside a pagoda to pray while virtual reality can handle the visual part.
4. I am capable of building a realistic 3D space, either indoor or outdoor with Blender and simple interaction and animation in VRTK to build the VR Buddhism meditating, praying, and chanting experience.

5. Planning stage

To answer my research question, here is the plan for my practice-based project. These steps of the project are not going to process as this specific order; they can be done repeatedly during the process.

(a) Further reality & academic research in Buddhism practice in Vietnam

Firstly, I will visit pagodas in local areas to learn about general Buddhism activities during the day; collect insights how some people practice the religion at home; what are the different and overlapping rules. Since this time, I will focus on what believers or monks practice daily and individually, I should come on a normal day.

Moreover, I would like to not only search online for images of the main shrine — where I intend to build as the main space to meditate and have dharma talks — but also come feel the energy and atmosphere of the space. In terms of academic research, I have to dig deeper in two main branches of Buddhism in Vietnam which are Mahāyāna and Theravada; and the two most widely used sutras which are the Lotus Sutra and the Amitabha Sutra (Prebish & Tanaka, 1998).

From these further research in the future, I develop insights about the choice of sutras as sacred text depending on the user, suitable sacred material to apply when building a sacred space, the feeling we should have inside the virtual space, specific rules about attitude and behavior while practicing Buddhism.

(b) Physical Space Setup

My initial intention is to have a setup in real life while experiencing sacred space in virtual reality. The setup is manageable; practitioners can have at home a quiet and private space, with a cushion to sit on. The room temperature should be normal or not too warm. Before the experience, they should burn incense to give out the familiar smell within the space, to bring your mind closer to the holy world. While it is a virtual experience, basic steps before starting reading a sutra should be maintained to preserve the religion rule. For further development of space setup, I will have to compare between setup inside a pagoda for a gathering (Fig. 4) and setup of a believer at home (Fig. 5) to discover the differences and the reasons behind. Therefore, users can have more capability of setting up at home on their own.

Fig. 5. A setup of Buddhism devotee at home, photo retrieved from https://phatgiao.org.vn/chua-co-ban-tho-phat-tung-kinh-co-duoc-khong-d10510.html, viewed on 28 November 2020.

Fig. 4. A setup of Buddhism devotees in the pagoda, photo retrieved from https://phatgiao.org.vn/thai-do-can-co-khi-doc-kinh-phat-d40679.html, viewed on 28 November 2020.

(c) Virtual Spacial Design

Pay attention to the creation of holy objects, sacred material, the entrance to the sacred space, the location of the space, and sacred text. Wagner (2012) shows that sacred text when digitized is not only a physical object but it now transforms into shapeable streams, especially when the text here is lessons from the above. Since Lotus sutra is originally in old Chinese and Sanskrit, only has the translation in Chinese or Western languages so most of the practitioners in Vietnam cannot understand. Therefore, I would like to have a Vietnamese translated Lotus sutra to the believers in the experience.

(d) Interaction & Sound

The experience is mainly about chanting, reading sutras, or meditating and your hand will be holding rosary so the interactions are rather limited. The sound will include the small reading sounds together during the process, zen meditating sound, the sound of knocking the bell, and sometimes Buddhism songs.

(e) MVP Stage & User Feedback

At this stage, the app will be brought to several Buddhist devotees who are practicing at home as well as those who live in the pagoda themselves, so that I can receive feedbacks on the precision of the experience and do they think it will be useful for at-home practitioners during this pandemic and in the future. From these interviews and user feedback, I can realise if my experience is better or worse than the traditional way, then I can realise the answer to ‘How to Create a Sacred Space for Vietnamese Buddhist Devotees to Practise at Home Using Virtual Reality?’

Part 2: Sacred VR insights applied, information architecture breakdown, pre-production plan & competitive landscape. (Stay tuned)

References

Burke, D. (2020, March 14). What churches, mosques and temples are doing to fight the spread of coronavirus. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/14/world/churches-mosques-temples-coronavirus-spread/index.html.

Falcone, J. M. (2019). Sacred realms in virtual worlds: The making of Buddhist spaces in Second Life. Critical Research on Religion, 7(2), 147–167. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050303219848039

Grieve, G. P., Veidlinger, D. M., & Accardo, C. (2015). Buddhism, the internet, and digital media : the pixel in the lotus. Routledge.

Grieve, G. P. (2017). Cyber Zen: Imagining authentic Buddhist Identity, Community, and Practices in the Virtual World of Second Life. Routledge.

Heren, K. (2020, April 12). Pope Francis livestreams Easter Mass from deserted St Peter’s Basilica to Catholics around world. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/pope-francis-livestreams-easter-mass-from-deserted-st-peters-basilica-to-catholics-around-world/ar-BB12vZvS.

Hutchings, T. (2017). Creating Church Online: Ritual, Community and New Media (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203111093

Kilde, J. H. (2008). Sacred power, sacred space : an introduction to Christian architecture and worship. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195314694.001.0001

Mazumdar, S., & Mazumdar, S. (1993). Sacred space and place attachment. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 13(3), 231–242. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0272-4944(05)80175-6

Pew Research Center. (2020, April 30). Americans far more likely to say coronavirus crisis has strengthened their faith, rather than weakened it. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/30/few-americans-say-their-house-of-worship-is-open-but-a-quarter-say-their-religious-faith-has-grown-amid-pandemic/ft_2020-04-30_covidworship_01/.

Prebish, C., & Tanaka, K., K. (1998). The Faces of Buddism in America. University of Califortnia Press.

Tai, J., & Correspondent, S. A. (2020, May 7). Buddhists mark Vesak Day with virtual celebrations. https://www.tnp.sg/news/singapore/buddhists-mark-vesak-day-virtual-celebrations.

Wagner, R. (2012). Godwired: religion, ritual and virtual reality. Routledge.