The Meditation for Avatars community network is based on an online database that allocates tasks to network members, and audits and stores the tasks completed. Not unlike SETI@home (wikisource), it is a form of distributed computing.

Community Network

By entering a name and password, participants in Meditation for Avatars log themselves – or their computers – into the central community server. The server administers these user log-ins, distributes the Mantras to be processed to the network users/computers, and checks the proper function of the individual clients. The server compiles statistics on the individual clients – the Mantras they have already processed, the quantity, the number of repetitions necessary in order to complete a Purascharana sequence, and the prospective duration in minutes, hours, days and months. Community statistics are compiled on the basis of the data delivered by the clients, and indicate the number of users/avatars online at any given time, the Mantras to which they are meditating, and the total number of Mantras processed in the network since the time the server first went online.

The users are provided with the community statistics in the form of a graphic representation based on the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. Each arm of this Bodhisattva (which can possess up to 1,000 arms), represents one computer/avatar in the network.

Advanced users are logged in via a screensaver which automatically hooks up with the network whenever the user is inactive. Mantras are transferred between client and server by means of XML files. Whenever a client has repeated a unit of 108 Mantras (this total corresponds to the number of beads in a mala), these Mantras are copied to a XML file and relayed to the server. The server verifies the file content, then stores it in the database.