“¡Quieren un dios!”: sobre el budismo y su perversión tecnológica en Zen’nō de Karen Andrea Reyes

Abstract

Abstract

This paper proposes a reading of Zen’nō (2020), the first novel of Colombian writer Karen Andrea Reyes, focusing on the analysis of the religion presented in the work. The novel incorporates elements of classic science fiction within a world whose functioning is explained through concepts of Tibetan Buddhism. In this context, the Zen’nō is portrayed as a being who, after multiple reincarnations, rises as the first artificial god. The religion it offers, based on technological promises, will be analyzed in relation to Buddhist teachings, using both classical introductory texts and the work of authors who have previously explored the relationship between Buddhism and technology. After a brief introduction to the relationship between religion and scientific progress, the paper will explore on the one hand, the elements of the Zen’nō's religion that seek to substitute or continue Buddhism. On the other hand, it will demonstrate how these same elements ultimately manifest as an inversion of Buddhist teachings, which can be understood as a critique of consumer society. Following this dynamic, the paper will examine the relationship between the promise of immortality offered by the Zen’nō and the impossibility of escaping the wheel of samsara, the false alternatives to transcendence —which according to Buddhism should be understood as the dissolution of the “self”—, and how the relationship between desire and illusion, explored by Buddhism, is manipulated by the Zen’nō to divert its followers from any form of liberation.