Alt.religion.buddhism occupied an awkward position in the Usenet Buddhist ecology. Its moderated sibling, talk.religion.buddhism, drew the more dedicated practitioners and the longer, more sustained conversations. Alt.religion.buddhism was the open door — unmoderated, unfiltered, attracting both genuine seekers and the full range of newsgroup fauna: conspiracy theorists, political polemicists, spammers, and serial cross-posters who treated every religious newsgroup as a platform for their obsessions.

The group's 28,542-post archive, spanning 2003 to 2014, reflects this uneasy balance. Much of it is noise. The "Toxic Zen Anthology" — a relentless cross-posted series connecting Zen Buddhism to Japanese militarism and American political failure — appears dozens of times in multiple versions. Conspiracy posts about the Bush administration, watch advertisements, and camera equipment spam fill its later years. Yet within this, a handful of genuine practitioners posted essays that could stand on their own — and some of them did not cross-post to talk.religion.buddhism.

The four gems preserved here represent two distinct voices: Evelyn Ruut, a longtime Karma Kagyu practitioner from Woodstock, New York, who was among the most consistent contributors to the Usenet Buddhist communities of the early 2000s; and a Singaporean lay Vajrayana practitioner who posted under the name "NotImportant" — a student of Lati Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the Vajrayogini tradition, who turned years of social persecution into intensive meditation practice and emerged with something worth reporting.

The Group and Its Ecology

Alt.religion.buddhism was created as part of the alt.* hierarchy — the unmoderated, anything-goes corner of Usenet — and its character differed from the more disciplined talk.religion.buddhism accordingly. The alt.* groups attracted both more diverse participants and more noise. Alt.religion.buddhism's archive reflects both. In its early years (2003–2007), genuine practitioners posted regularly; the later years were increasingly overrun by content that bore no relation to Buddhist practice.

The group intersected with several other Buddhist newsgroups. Alt.religion.buddhism.tibetan attracted a smaller, more focused community of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners; alt.zen served those specifically interested in the Zen traditions; alt.religion.buddhism functioned as a catchment for all of these and more. Cross-posting between the groups was common, which means that many of the genuine gems from alt.religion.buddhism also appear in talk.religion.buddhism, where they are archived under that group. The four pieces preserved here are either unique to this group or of sufficient independent value to archive separately.

The Toxic Zen Anthology

The single largest presence in alt.religion.buddhism's archive is an entity that defies easy classification. Posted under rotating names — Toxic Zen Anthology, Throbbing Zen Stories, Disbasing Zen Stories — this series of essays linked Zen Buddhism to Japanese militarism, the murder of Nanking, American political dysfunction, and the careers of artists and politicians from Brian Wilson to Alan Watts. The posts were long, heavily researched in their way, and relentlessly cross-posted across every Buddhist newsgroup in the hierarchy for years.

The essays are not preserved here. They are political commentary, not spiritual practice. But they were a defining presence in alt.religion.buddhism, shaping the conversational environment for years and driving some of the genuine practitioners toward the more controlled environment of talk.religion.buddhism.

Evelyn Ruut

Evelyn Ruut was a practitioner of more than two decades in the Karma Kagyu tradition, a student at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra in Woodstock, New York. She posted to the Usenet Buddhist newsgroups throughout the early-to-mid 2000s, and her contributions were consistently distinguished by their combination of personal practice experience and willingness to address difficult questions about teachers, authority, and the nature of the practices themselves.

Her essay preserved here — posted in November 2003 — is an explanation of Tibetan Buddhist practice for those encountering it from outside. It covers the six "tools" of Vajrayana: visualization, mantra, ritual, meditation, the intellect, and the teacher. For each, she explains both what the tool does and what it is not — insisting throughout that Vajrayana's deepest teaching is that all of these tools point toward emptiness, toward a freedom that requires the practitioner to let go of everything, including the tools themselves.

NotImportant

"NotImportant" posted to alt.religion.buddhism and its sister newsgroups in the mid-to-late 2000s. A Singaporean lay practitioner in the Vajrayogini tradition, he described himself as someone who had been systematically ostracised by his community — the subject of coordinated rumour campaigns that drove away almost everyone who knew him. His response was to meditate, five hours a day, and to report what he found.

His dharma correspondence with a prisoner on death row — two letters, both preserved here — is one of the more unusual documents in the archive. The prisoner had been exchanging letters with a senior monastic; when that teacher became unavailable, NotImportant was asked to continue. The first letter addresses the prisoner's questions about logic, reality, karma, and the nature of mind with patience and care. The second letter begins with NotImportant's own experience of persecution, using it as dharma teaching before moving to an instruction on tantric bliss practice and a Zen haiku as contemplation assignment.

His essay on meditation posture and breath awareness — "Tail Wagging the Dog" — develops a critique of how Vipassana is typically taught. The standard "noting" practice, he argues, keeps consciousness attached to its objects rather than detaching from them. True insight, in his reading of the Satipathana Sutta, requires letting breath and body move of their own accord until consciousness can disengage. The essay draws on both Theravada and Vajrayana sources to argue that body isolation and satipatthana are descriptions of the same state.

Colophon

Alt.religion.buddhism's archive spans 28,542 posts from June 2003 to July 2014. The four gems preserved here were identified through systematic survey of the archive, focusing on standalone posts by established practitioners and screening for copyright concerns. The group is assessed as substantially complete: the identifiable gem vein has been exhausted, with most genuine practitioner content either cross-posted to talk.religion.buddhism (already archived there) or represented here.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

🌲