As a magician makes illusions of horses, oxen, carts, and other things, nothing is at it appears."

- Buddha

In Part I of this series, Religion and the Simulation Hypothesis: Is God an AI?, we looked at the implications of the Simulation Hypothesis, the theory that we are all living inside a sophisticated video game, as a model for how many things that are religious in nature might actually be implemented using science and technology. We looked briefly at the groundbreaking film, the Matrix, and how it brought this idea forward into popular consciousness with its release 20 years ago. We also looked at some of the central tenets of the Western (or more accurately, Middle Eastern or Abrahamic) religious traditions to show how they were not only consistent with this new theory, but this theory provided a way to bridge the ever-widening gap between religion and science.

In this second part of the series, we turn to the Eastern religious traditions, Hinduism and Buddhism in particular (and some of their offshoots), and look at some of its central tenets. While we had to search for ways that simulation hypothesis might be implied in some of the core beliefs of the Western religions, the simulation hypothesis (or more specifically, the video game version of the simulation hypothesis) seem almost tailor made to fit into these traditions.