Buddhism in the United States
Encyclopedia
Buddhism
is one of the largest religions in the United States
behind Christianity
, Judaism
and Nonreligious, and approximate with Islam
and Hinduism
. American Buddhists include many Asian American
s, as well as a large number of converts of other ethnicities, and now their children and even grandchildren.
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, when Alexander the Great conquered most of Central Asia
. The Seleucids
and successive kingdoms established Hellenistic
influence in the area, interacting with Buddhism introduced from India
, producing Greco-Buddhism
.
The Mauryan Emperor Aśoka (273–232 BCE) converted to Buddhism after his bloody conquest of the territory of Kalinga (modern Orissa) in eastern India during the Kalinga War
. Regretting the horrors brought about by the conflict, the Emperor decided to renounce violence. He propagated the faith by building stupas and pillars urging, amongst other things, respect of all animal life and enjoining people to follow the Dharma.
Perhaps the finest example of these is the Great Stupa of Sanchi
in India. This stupa was constructed in the 3rd century BCE and later enlarged. Its carved gates, called Tohans, are considered among the finest examples of Buddhist art in India. He also built roads, hospitals, universities and irrigation systems around the country. He treated his subjects as equals regardless of their religion, politics or caste.
This period marks the first spread of Buddhism beyond India to other countries. According to the plates and pillars left by Aśoka (the edicts of Aśoka), emissaries were sent to various countries in order to spread Buddhism, as far south as Sri Lanka and as far west as the Greek kingdoms, in particular the neighboring Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and possibly even farther to the Mediterranean.
In the Christian era, Buddhist ideas periodically filtered into Europe
via the Middle East. Stories of Roman Catholic Church
saints Barlaam and Josaphat
, similar to the life of Siddhartha Gautama were translated from Persian
to Arabic
to Greek
. The first direct recorded encounter between European Christians and Buddhists was in 1253 when the king of France sent William of Rubruck
as an ambassador to the court of the Mongol Empire
. Later, in the 17th century, Mongols practicing Tibetan Buddhism
established Kalmykia
, the only Buddhist nation in Europe, at the eastern edge of the continent.
the Americas had virtually no exposure to Buddhism. This almost complete isolation would last until the 19th century, when significant numbers of immigrants from East Asia
began to arrive in the New World. In the United States, immigrants from China
entered around 1820, but began to arrive in large numbers following the 1849 California Gold Rush
.
The first Buddhist temple in America was built in 1853 in San Francisco by the Sze Yap Company, a Chinese American
fraternal society. Another society, the Ning Yeong Company, built a second in 1854; by 1875, there were eight temples, and by 1900 approximately 400 Chinese temples on the west coast of the United States, most of them containing some Buddhist elements. These temples were often the subject of suspicion and ignorance by the rest of the population, and were dismissively called joss house
s.
The Chinese Exclusion Act
of 1882 curtailed growth of the Chinese American population, but large-scale immigration from Japan
began in the late 1880s and from Korea
around 1903. In both cases, immigration was at first primarily to Hawaii
. Populations from other Asian Buddhist countries followed, and in each case, the new communities established Buddhist temples and organizations. For instance, the first Japanese temple in Hawaii was built in 1896 near Paauhau by the Honpa Hongwanji branch of Jodo Shinshu
. In 1898, Japanese missionaries and immigrants established a Young Men's Buddhist Association, and the Rev. Sōryū Kagahi was dispatched from Japan to be the first Buddhist missionary in Hawaii. The first Japanese Buddhist temple in the continental U.S. was built in San Francisco in 1899, and the first in Canada
was built at the Ishikawa Hotel in Vancouver in 1905. The first Buddhist clergy
to take up residence in the continental U.S. were Shuye Sonoda and Kakuryo Nishimjima, missionaries from Japan who arrived in 1899.
While Asian immigrants were arriving, some American intellectuals examined Buddhism, based primarily on information from British colonies in India and East Asia. The Englishmen William Jones
and Charles Wilkins
translated Sanskrit texts into English
. The American Transcendentalists
and associated persons, in particular Henry David Thoreau
took an interest in Hindu
and Buddhist philosophy. In 1844, The Dial
, a small literary publication edited by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson
, published an English version of a portion of the Lotus Sutra
; it had been translated by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody from a French version recently completed by Eugène Burnouf
. His Indian readings may have influenced his later experiments in simple living: at one point in Walden
he wrote: "I realized what the Orientals meant by contemplation and the forsaking of works." The poet Walt Whitman
also admitted to an influence of Indian religion on his writings.
An early American to publicly convert to Buddhism was Henry Steel Olcott
. Olcott, a former U.S. army colonel during the Civil War
, had grown interested in reports of supernatural phenomena that were popular in the late 19th century. In 1875, he, Helena Blavatsky, and William Quan Judge
founded the Theosophical Society
, dedicated to the study of the occult and influenced by Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. The leaders claimed to believe that they were in contact, via visions and messages, with a secret order of adept
s called the "Himalayan Brotherhood" or "the Masters". In 1879, Olcott and Blavatsky travelled to India and in 1880, to Sri Lanka
, where they were met enthusiastically by local Buddhists, who saw them as allies against an aggressive Christian missionary movement. On May 25, Olcott and Blavatsky took the pancasila vows of a lay Buddhist before a monk and a large crowd. Although most of the Theosophists appear to have counted themselves as Buddhists, they held idiosyncratic beliefs that separated them from known Buddhist traditions; only Olcott was enthusiastic about following mainstream Buddhism. He returned twice to Sri Lanka, where he promoted Buddhist education, and visited Japan and Burma. Olcott authored a Buddhist Catechism, stating his view of the basic tenets of the religion.
Several publications increased knowledge of Buddhism in 19th century America. In 1879, Edwin Arnold
, an English aristocrat, published The Light of Asia
, an epic poem he had written about the life and teachings of the Buddha
, expounded with much wealth of local color and not a little felicity of versification. The book became immensely popular in the United States, going through eighty editions and selling more than 500,000 copies. Paul Carus
, a German American philosopher and theologian
, was at work on a more scholarly prose treatment of the same subject. Carus was the director of Open Court Publishing Company
, an academic publisher specializing in philosophy
, science
, and religion
, and editor of The Monist
, a journal with a similar focus, both based in La Salle, Illinois
. In 1894, Carus published The Gospel of the Buddha, compiled from a variety of Asian texts which, true to its name, presented the Buddha's story in a form resembling the Christian Gospel
s.
A significant event of Buddhism in the US was the Parliament of the World's Religions
held in Chicago
in 1893. Although most of the delegates to the Parliament were Christians of various denominations, the Buddhist nations of China, Japan, Thailand
, and Sri Lanka sent representatives. Buddhist delegates included Soyen Shaku
, a Japanese Zen
abbott; Zenshiro Noguchi, a Japanese translator; Anagarika Dharmapala
, a Sri Lankan associate of H. S. Olcott; and Chandradat Chudhadharn, a brother of King Chulalongkorn
of Thailand. Paul Carus also attended as an observer. The Parliament provided the first major public forum from which Buddhists could address the Western public; Dharmapala was particularly effective because he spoke fluent English.
A few days after the Parliament, in a brief ceremony conducted by Dharmapala, Charles T. Strauss, a New York businessman of Jewish descent, became, one of the first to formally convert to Buddhism on American soil. A few fledgling attempts at establishing a Buddhism for Americans followed. One appeared prior to the Parliament with little fanfare in 1887: The Buddhist Ray, a Santa Cruz, California
-based magazine published and edited by Phillangi Dasa, born Herman Carl (or Carl Herman) Veetering (or Vettering), a recluse about whom little is known. The Rays tone was "ironic, light, saucy, self-assured ... one-hundred-percent American Buddhist". It ceased publication in 1894. In 1900 six white San Franciscans, working with Japanese Jodo Shinshu missionaries, established the Dharma Sangha of Buddha and published a bimonthly magazine, The Light of Dharma. In Illinois, Paul Carus wrote more books about Buddhism and set portions of Buddhist scripture to Western classical music.
in their home and gave regular zazen
lessons, making him the first Zen Buddhist priest to teach in North America
. This short sojourn had a lasting effect on American Buddhism. Shaku was soon followed by Nyogen Senzaki
, a young monk from Shaku's home temple in Japan
. Senzaki briefly worked for his hosts and then, wanting to stay in America, was reportedly advised by Shaku to spend seventeen years as an ordinary worker before teaching Buddhism. In 1922 Senzaki rented a hall and gave an English talk on a paper by Soyen Shaku; his periodic talks at different locations became known as the "floating zendo". In 1931, he established a permanent sitting hall in Los Angeles
, where he taught until his death in 1958.
Another Zen teacher, Sokatsu Shaku, one of Soyen Shaku's senior students, arrived in late 1906, founding a Zen meditation center called Ryomokyo-kai
. Although he stayed only a few years and had limited contact with the English-speaking public, one of his disciples, Shigetsu Sasaki, made a permanent home. Sasaki, better known under his monastic name Sokei-an, spent a few years wandering the west coast of the US, at one point living among American Indians
near Seattle, and reached New York City
in 1916. After completing his training and being ordained in 1928, he returned to New York to teach. In 1931, his small group incorporated as the Buddhist Society of America, later renamed the First Zen Institute of America. By the late 1930s, one of his most active supporters was Ruth Fuller Everett
, a British socialite and the mother-in-law of Alan Watts
. Shortly before Sokei-an's death in 1945, he and Everett would wed, at which point she took the name Ruth Fuller Sasaki
.
In 1914, under the leadership of Koyu Uchida, who succeeded Shuye Sonoda as the head of Jodo Shinshu mission in North America, several Japanese Buddhist congregations formed the Buddhist Mission of North America (BMNA). This would later form the basis of the Buddhist Churches of America
, the largest ethnic-based Buddhist organization in the US. The BMNA focused on social and cultural activities and ministering to Japanese American communities. In the late 1920s, it began to train English-speaking priests, for the growing number of American-born parishioners. In 1927, the Sōtō
sect of Japanese Zen opened its own mission with Zenshuji temple in Los Angeles
, although it did not attempt at the time to attract non-Japanese members.
One American who attempted to establish an American Buddhist movement was Dwight Goddard (1861–1939). Goddard was a Christian missionary to China when he first came in contact with Buddhism. In 1928, he spent a year living at a Zen monastery in Japan. In 1934, he founded "The Followers of Buddha, an American Brotherhood", with the goal of applying the traditional monastic structure of Buddhism more strictly than Senzaki and Sokei-an. The group was largely unsuccessful: no Americans were recruited to join as monks and attempts failed to attract a Chinese Chan
(Zen) master to come to the United States. However, Goddard's efforts as an author and publisher bore considerable fruit. In 1930, he began publishing ZEN: A Buddhist Magazine. In 1932, he collaborated with D. T. Suzuki
, on a translation of the Lankavatara Sutra
. That same year, he published the first edition of A Buddhist Bible, an anthology of Buddhist scriptures focusing on those used in Chinese and Japanese Zen.
D. T. Suzuki, another Japanese associate of Soyen Shaku's, had an even greater literary impact. At the World Parliament of Religions in 1893, Paul Carus befriended Soyen Shaku and requested his help in translating and publishing Oriental spiritual literature in the West. Shaku instead recommended Suzuki, then a young scholar and his former disciple. Starting in 1897, Suzuki worked from Carus' home in Illinois; his first projects were translations of the Tao Te Ching
and Asvaghosa
's Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana
. At the same time, Suzuki began writing Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism, published in 1907. Suzuki returned to Japan in 1909 and married an American Theosophist and Radcliffe graduate in 1911. Through English language essays and books, such as Essays in Zen Buddhism (1927), he became a visible expositor of Zen Buddhism and its unofficial ambassador to Western readers, until his death in 1966. His 1949 book, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, featured a 30-page introduction by Carl Jung
, an emblem of the deepening relationship between Buddhism and major Western thinkers.
Immigrant Buddhist congregations in North America are as diverse as the different peoples of Asian Buddhist extraction who settled there. The US is home to Chinese Buddhists
, Textual Buddhists
Japanese Buddhists, Korean Buddhists
, Sri Lankan Buddhists, Vietnamese Buddhists, Thai Buddhists
, and Buddhists with family backgrounds in most Buddhist countries
and regions. The Immigration Act of 1965 increased the number of immigrants arriving from China, Vietnam, and the Theravada
-practicing countries of southeast Asia.
and the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii are immigrant Buddhist organizations in the United States. The BCA is an affiliate of Japan's Nishi Hongwanji, a sect of Jōdo Shinshū
, which is in turn a form of Pure Land Buddhism
. Tracing its roots to the Young Men's Buddhist Association founded in San Francisco at the end of the 19th century and the Buddhist Mission of North America founded in 1899, it took its current form in 1944. All of the Buddhist Mission's leadership, along with almost the entire Japanese American population, had been interned during World War II
. The name Buddhist Churches of America
was adopted at Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah
; the word "church" was used similar to a Christian house of worship. After internment ended, some members returned to the West Coast and revitalized churches there, while a number of others moved to the Midwest and built new churches. During the 1960s and 1970s, the BCA was in a growth phase and was very successful at fund-raising. It also published two periodicals, one in Japanese
and one in English
. However, since 1980, BCA membership declined. The 36 temples in the state of Hawaii of the Honpa Hongwanji Mission have a similar history.
While a majority of the Buddhist Churches of America's membership are ethnically Japanese
, some members have non-Asian backgrounds. Thus, it has limited aspects of export Buddhism. As involvement by its ethnic community declined, internal discussions advocated attracting the broader public.
See also Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Buddhism
.
in Hacienda Heights, California
. Hsi Lai is the American headquarters of Fo Guang Shan
, a modern Buddhist group in Taiwan
. Hsi Lai was built in 1988 at a cost of $10 million and is often described as the largest Buddhist temple in the Western hemisphere. Although it caters primarily to Chinese Americans, it also has regular services and outreach programs in English. Hsi Lai was at the center of a campaign finance controversy by Vice President Al Gore
.
In the last century, numbers of Asian Buddhist masters and teachers have imigrated to the U.S. in order to propagate their beliefs and practices. Most have belonged to three major Buddhist traditions or cultures: Zen, Tibetan, and Theravadin
.
's invitation to San Francisco and the ministries of Nyogen Senzaki
and Sokei-an
, Zen Buddhism was the first import Buddhist trend to put down roots in North America. In the late 1940s and 1950s, writers associated with the Beat Movement, including Gary Snyder
, Jack Kerouac
, Allen Ginsberg
, Philip Whalen
, and Kenneth Rexroth
took a serious interest in Zen, which increased its visibility. In 1951, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
returned to the United States to take a visiting professorship at Columbia University
, where his open lectures attracted many members of the literary, artistic, and cultural elite.
Soyu Matsuoka
-roshi established the Chicago Buddhist Temple in 1949 (now the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago) and provided Soto Zen training and lectures in both America and Japan. Matsuoka-roshi also served as superintendent and abbot of the Long Beach Zen Buddhist Temple and Zen Center. Matsuoka-Roshi was born in Japan into a family of Zen priests dating back six hundred years. In the 1930s he was sent to America by Sotoshu, the Soto Zen Buddhist authority in Japan to establish the Soto Zen tradition in the United States. He founded Soto Zen temples both in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He also furthered his graduate work at Columbia University with D.T. Suzuki. He relocated from Chicago to establish a temple at Long Beach in 1971 after leaving the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago to his dharma heir Kongo Richard Langlois, Roshi. He returned to Chicago in 1995, where he died in 1998.
Sanbo Kyodan
is a contemporary Japanese Zen lineage which had an impact in the West disproportionate to its size in Japan. It is rooted in the reformist teachings of Harada Daiun Sogaku
(1871–1961) and his disciple Yasutani Hakuun
(1885–1971), who argued that the existing Zen institutions of Japan (Sōtō
and Rinzai sects) had become complacent and were generally unable to convey real Dharma
. Harada had studied with both Soto and Rinzai teachers, and Yasutani founded Sanbo Kyodan in 1954 to preserve what he saw as the vital core of teachings from both schools. Sanbo Kyodan's first American member was Philip Kapleau
, who first traveled to Japan in 1945 as a court reporter for the war crimes trials. In 1947, Kapleau visited D. T. Suzuki at Engaku-ji in Japan and in the early 1950s was a frequent attendee of Suzuki's Columbia lectures. In 1953, he returned to Japan, where he met with Nakagawa Soen
, a protégé of Nyogen Senzaki
. At Nakagawa's recommendation, he began to study with Harada and later with Yasutani. In 1965, he published a book, The Three Pillars of Zen, which recorded a set of talks by Yasutani outlining his approach to practice, along with transcripts of dokusan interviews and some additional texts.
The book and Sanbo Kyodan's approach became popular in America and Europe. In 1965 Kapleau returned to America and, in 1966, established the Rochester Zen Center
in Rochester, New York
, making him the first American-born Zen priest to found a training temple. In 1967, Kapleau had a falling-out with Yasutani over Kapleau's moves to Americanize his temple, after which it became independent of Sanbo Kyodan. This created questions regarding lineage since Kapleau never officially was granted transmission from Yasutani. The Rochester Zen Center is now part of a network of related centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, and New Zealand, referred to collectively as the Cloud Water Sangha. One of Kapleau's early disciples was Toni Packer
, who left Rochester in 1981 to found a nonsectarian meditation center, not specifically Buddhist or Zen.
Robert Aitken
is another American member of Sanbo Kyodan. He was introduced to Zen as a prisoner in Japan during World War II. After returning to the United States, he studied with Nyogen Senzaki in Los Angeles
in the early 1950s. In 1959, while still a Zen student, he founded the Diamond Sangha, a zendo in Honolulu, Hawaii
. Three years later the Diamond Sangha hosted the first US visit by Yasutani Hakuun, who visited the US six more times before 1969. Aitken traveled frequently to Japan and became a disciple of Yamada Koun
, Yasutani's successor as head of the Sanbo Kyodan. Aitken and the Diamond Sangha first hosted Eido Tai Shimano's immigration to the U.S., encouraged by Soen Nakagawa. Aitken became a dharma heir of Yamada's, authored more than ten books, and developed the Diamond Sangha into an international network with temples in the United States, Argentina, Germany, and Australia. In 1995, he and his organization split with Sanbo Kyodan in response to reorganization of the latter following Yamada's death. The Diamond Sangha network includes a number of practice centers in the U.S. and abroad. The Diamond Sangha Teachers' Circle, an international group of Aitken Roshi's successors (1st and 2nd generation), meets every 18 months. The Pacific Zen Institute
led by John Tarrant
, Aitken's first Dharma successor, continues as an independent Zen line.
Sōtō
Zen Priest Shunryu Suzuki
(no relation to D.T. Suzuki) arrived in San Francisco in 1959 to lead an established Japanese congregation. He soon attracted American students and "beatniks", who formed a core of students who would go on to create the San Francisco Zen Center
and its eventual network of Zen centers across the country, including the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center
, the first Buddhist monastery in the Western world. His low-key teaching style was described in the popular book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
, a compilation of his talks.
Another Japanese Zen teacher was Taizan Maezumi
, who arrived as a young priest to serve at Zenshuji, the North American Sōtō
sect headquarters in Los Angeles, in 1956. Like Shunryu Suzuki, he showed considerable interest in teaching Zen to Americans of various backgrounds and, by the mid-1960s, had formed a regular zazen group. In 1967, he and his supporters founded the Zen Center of Los Angeles
. He was later instrumental in establishing the Kuroda Institute and the Soto Zen Buddhist Association
, the latter an organization of American teachers with ties to the Soto tradition. In addition to his membership in Soto, Maezumi was recognized as an heir by a Rinzai teacher and by Yasutani Hakuun
of the Sanbo Kyodan. Maezumi, in turn, had several American dharma heirs, such as Bernie Glassman
, John Daido Loori
, Charlotte Joko Beck
, and Dennis Genpo Merzel
. His successors and their network of centers became the White Plum Sangha.
Other Rinzai Zen teachers in United States include Kyozan Joshu Sasaki
Roshi, Eido Tai Shimano
Roshi, and Omori Sogen
Roshi. Sasaki founded the Mount Baldy Zen Center
and its branches after coming to Los Angeles from Japan in 1962. One of his students is the Canadian poet and musician Leonard Cohen
. Eido Roshi founded Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji
, a training center in New York
state. Omori Roshi founded Daihonzan Chozen-ji, the first Rinzai headquarters temple established outside of Japan, in Honolulu; under his students Tenshin Tanouye Roshi and Dogen Hosokawa Roshi, several other training centers were established including Daiyuzenji
in Chicago
.
Not all successful Zen teachers in the United States have been from Japanese traditions. Some were teachers of Chinese Zen (known as Chán), Korean Zen (or Seon), and Vietnamese Zen (or Thien).
The first Chinese Buddhist priest to teach Westerners in America was Hsuan Hua
, a disciple of the 20th century Chan master, Hsu Yun
. In 1962, Hsuan Hua moved to San Francisco's Chinatown, where, in addition to Zen, he taught Chinese Pure Land, Tiantai
, Vinaya
, and Vajrayana
Buddhism. Initially, his students were mostly ethnic Chinese, but he eventually attracted a range of followers. In 1970, Hsuan Hua founded Gold Mountain Monastery in San Francisco and in 1976 he established a retreat center, the City Of Ten Thousand Buddhas
, on a 237 acre (959,000 m²) property in Talmage, California
. These monasteries closely adhere to the vinaya
, the austere traditional Buddhist monastic code. Hsuan Hua also founded the Buddhist Text Translation Society, which translates scriptures into English.
Another Chinese Chán teacher with a Western following was Sheng-yen
, trained in both the Caodong
and Linji
schools (equivalent to the Japanese Soto and Rinzai, respectively). He first visited the United States in 1978 under the sponsorship of the Buddhist Association of the United States, an organization of Chinese American Buddhists. In 1980, he founded the Chán Mediation Society in Queens, New York. In 1985, he founded the Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies in Taiwan, which sponsors Chinese Zen activities in the United States.
In 1992, Shi Yan Ming
, a 34th Generation Shaolin monk of the Caodong
lineage, came to America and founded the USA Shaolin Temple in New York City. Construction has recently begun on a full-size Shaolin temple in Fleischmanns, New York
.
Seung Sahn
was an influential Korean Zen teacher in America. He was a temple abbot in Seoul
and after living in Hong Kong
and Japan
, he moved to the US in 1972, not speaking any English. On the flight to Los Angeles, a Korean American passenger offered him a job at a laundry in Providence, Rhode Island
, which became headquarters of Seung Sahn's Kwan Um School of Zen
. Shortly after arriving in Providence, he attracted students and founded the Providence Zen Center
. The Kwan Um School has more than 100 Zen centers on six continents.
Another Korean Zen teacher, Samu Sunim
, founded Toronto's Zen Buddhist Temple in 1971. He is head of the Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom, which has temples in Ann Arbor, Chicago
, Mexico City
, and New York City
.
In the early 20th century, Master Kyong Ho
(1849–1912), renergized Korean Seon. At the end of World War II, his disciple, Master Mann Gong (1871–1946), proclaimed that lineage Dharma should be transmitted worldwide to encourage peace through enlightenment. Consequently, his Dharma successor, Hye Am (1884–1985) brought lineage Dharma to the United States. Hye Am's Dharma successor, Myo Vong founded the Western Son Academy (1976), and his Korean disciple, Pohwa Sunim, founded World Zen Fellowship (1994) which includes various Zen centers in the United States, such as the Potomac Zen Sangha, the Patriarchal Zen Society and the Baltimore Zen Center.
Vietnamese Zen teachers in America include Thich Thien-An
and Thich Nhat Hanh
. Thich Thien-An
came to America in 1966 as a visiting professor at UCLA
and taught traditional Thien meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh
was a monk in Vietnam during the Vietnam War
. He was a peace activist nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1967 by Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1966, he left Vietnam in exile for Plum Village
, a monastery in France
. He has written more than one hundred books about Buddhism, which have made him a popular Buddhist author in the West. In his books and talks, Thich Nhat Hanh emphasizes mindfulness (sati) as the most important practice in daily life. His monastic students live and practice at three centers in the United States: Deer Park Monastery
in Escondido, California
, Blue Cliff Monastery
in Pine Bush, New York
, and Magnolia Grove Monastery in Batesville, Mississippi
.
, who first visited the United States in 1979. As the exiled political leader of Tibet
, he has become a popular cause célèbre. His early life was depicted in Hollywood films such as Kundun
and Seven Years in Tibet
. He has attracted celebrity religious followers such as Richard Gere
and Adam Yauch
. The first Western-born Tibetan Buddhist monk was Robert A. F. Thurman, now an academic supporter of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama maintains a North American headquarters at Namgyal Monastery
in Ithaca, New York
.
The first Tibetan Buddhist lama to come to the United States was Geshe Ngawang Wangyal, a Kalmyk-Mongolian of the Gelug
lineage, who came to the United States in 1955 and founded the "Lamaist Buddhist Monastery of America" in New Jersey
in 1958. Among his students were the future western scholars Robert Thurman
, Jeffrey Hopkins, Alexander Berzin and Anne C. Klein
. Other early arrivals included Deshung Rinpoche, a Sakya
lama who settled in Seattle, in 1960, and Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, the first Nyingma
teacher in America, who arrived in the US in 1968 and established the "Tibetan Nyingma Meditation Center" in Berkeley, California
in 1969.
The best-known Tibetan Buddhist lama to live in the United States was Chögyam Trungpa
. Trungpa, part of the Kagyu
school of Tibetan Buddhism, moved to England
in 1963, founded a temple in Scotland
, and then relocated to Barnet, Vermont
, and then Boulder, Colorado
by 1970. He established what he named Dharmadhatu meditation centers, eventually organized under a national umbrella group called Vajradhatu
(later to become Shambhala International). He developed a series of secular techniques he called Shambhala Training
. Following Trungpa's death, his followers at the Shambhala Mountain Center
built the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya
, a traditional reliquary monument, near Red Feather Lakes, Colorado
consecrated in 2001.
There are four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism: the Gelug, the Kagyu
, the Nyingma, and the Sakya
. Of these, the greatest impact in the West was made by the Gelug, led by the Dalai Lama, and the Kagyu, specifically its Karma Kagyu
branch, led by the Karmapa
. As of the early 1990s, there were several significant strands of Kagyu practice in the United States: Chögyam Trungpa's Shambhala movement; Karma Triyana Dharmachakra
, a network of centers affiliated directly with the Karmapa's North American seat in Woodstock, New York
; a network of centers founded by Kalu
Rinpoche.
In the 21st century, the Nyingma lineage is increasingly represented in the West by both Western and Tibetan teachers. Lama Surya Das is a Western-born teacher carrying on the "great rimé", a non-sectarian form of Tibetan Buddhism
. The late Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche
founded centers in Seattle and Brazil
. Khandro Rinpoche
is a female Tibetan teacher who has a presence in America. Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
is the first Western woman to be enthroned as a Tulku
, and established Nyingma Kunzang Palyul Choling
centers in Sedona, Arizona
and Poolesville, Maryland
.
The Gelug
tradition is represented in America by the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition
(FPMT), founded by Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa. Gelugpa teacher Geshe Michael Roach, the first American to be awarded a Geshe
degree, established centers in New York and at Diamond Mountain University
in Arizona
.
New Kadampa Tradition
(NKT) was established by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. An offshoot of the Gelug school founded in the 1990s in the UK, the NKT has over 50 Kadampa (NKT) Buddhist Centers and branches in the United States. Most members of the organization are Westerners or in the far east, principally in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Diamond Way Buddhism
founded by Ole Nydahl
is also active in the US.
, roughly translated as "insight meditation", is an ancient meditative practice described in the Pali Canon
of the Theravada
school of Buddhism and similar scriptures. Vipassana also refers to a distinct movement which was begun in the 20th century by reformers such as Mahāsi Sayādaw
, a Burmese monk. Mahāsi Sayādaw was a Theravada bhikkhu
and Vipassana is rooted in the Theravada teachings, but its goal is to simplify ritual and other peripheral activities in order to make meditative practice more effective and available both to monks and to laypeople. This openness to lay involvement is unusual in Theravada, which normally focused on monasticism.
In 1965, monks from Sri Lanka
established the Washington Buddhist Vihara in Washington, DC, the first Theravada monastic community in the United States. The Vihara was accessible to English-speakers with Vipassana meditation part of it activities. However, the direct influence of the Vipassana movement would not reach the U.S. until a group of Americans returned there in the early 1970s after studying with Vipassana masters in Asia. Joseph Goldstein
, after journeying to Southeast Asia with the Peace Corps
, lived in Bodhgaya as a student of Anagarika Munindra
, the head monk of Mahabodhi Temple
and himself a student of Māhāsai Sayādaw. Jack Kornfield
also worked for the Peace Corps in Southeast Asia, and then studied and ordained in the Thai Forest Tradition
under Ajahn Chah
, a major figure in 20th century Thai Buddhism
. Sharon Salzberg
went to India in 1971 and studied with Dipa Ma
, a former Calcutta housewife trained in vipassana by Māhāsai Sayādaw.
Goldstein and Kornfield met in 1974 while teaching at the Naropa Institute in Colorado
. The next year, Goldstein, Kornfield, and Salzberg, who had very recently returned from Calcutta, along with Jacqueline Schwarz, founded the Insight Meditation Society
on an 80 acre (324,000 m²) property near Barre, Massachusetts
. IMS hosted visits by Māhāsi Sayādaw, Munindra, Ajahn Chah, and Dipa Ma. In 1981, Kornfield moved to California
, where he founded another Vipassana center, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, in Marin County
. In 1985, Larry Rosenberg
founded the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts
. Another Vipassana center is the Vipassana Metta Foundation, located on Maui
.
In 1989, the Insight Meditation Center established the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies near the IMS headquarters, to promote scholarly investigation of Buddhism. Its director is Mu Seong, a former Korean Zen monk.
S. N. Goenka
is a Burmese-born meditation teacher of the Vipassana movement. His teacher, Sayagyi U Ba Khin
of Burma, was a contemporary of Māhāsi Sayādaw's, and taught a style of Buddhism with similar emphasis on simplicity and accessibility to laypeople. Goenka established a method of instruction popular in Asia and throughout the world. In 1981, he established the Vipassana Research Institute in Igatpuri, India
and his students built several centers in North America.
, a minor sect of Nichiren Buddhism. It was perhaps the most successful of Japan's new religious movements, which grew after the end of the World War II
. During the occupation of Japan, some American soldiers became aware of it, and Japanese wives of veterans became the first active Sōka Gakkai members in the West. A US branch was formally organized on October 13, 1960. Its Korean-Japanese leader took the name George M. Williams to emphasize reaching the English-speaking public. Sōka Gakkai expanded rapidly in the US, attracting non-Asian minority converts, chiefly African American
and Latino, to Buddhism. It also attracted the support of celebrities, such as Tina Turner
, Herbie Hancock
, and Orlando Bloom
.
Sōka Gakkai has no priests of its own. The United States branch was originally named Nichiren Shoshu America (NSA). In 1991, Sōka Gakkai split from Nichiren Shoshu and became a separate organization; at that time, the U.S. branch changed its name to Sōka Gakkai International—United States of America (SGI-USA). Nichiren Shoshu proper maintains six temples of its own in the U.S. and another Nichiren group exists which is primarily the domain of ethnic Japanese.
The main religious practice of Sōka Gakkai, like other Nichiren Buddhists, is chanting the mantra Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō
and sections of the Lotus Sutra
. Unlike import Buddhist trends such as Zen, Vipassana, and Tibetan Buddhism, Sōka Gakkai does not teach meditative techniques other than chanting.
In a 2007 Pew Research Center
survey, at 0.7% Buddhism was the fourth largest religion in the US after Christianity
(78.4%), no religion (10.3%) and Judaism
(1.7%).
However, the cultural divide should not necessarily be seen as pernicious. It is often argued that the differences between Buddhist groups arise benignly from the differing needs and interests of those involved. Convert Buddhists tend to be interested in meditation
and philosophy
, in some cases eschewing the trappings of religiosity altogether. On the other hand, for immigrants and their descendants, preserving tradition and maintaining a social framework assume a much greater relative importance, making their approach to religion naturally more conservative. Further, based on a survey of Asian-American Buddhists in San Francisco, "many Asian-American Buddhists view non-Asian Buddhism as still in a formative, experimental stage" and yet they believe that it "could eventually mature into a religious expression of exceptional quality".
Additional questions come from the demographics within import Buddhism. The majority of American converts practicing at Buddhist centers are white, often from Christian
or Jewish
backgrounds. Only Sōka Gakkai has attracted significant numbers of African-American or Latino members. A variety of ideas have been broached regarding the nature, causes, and significance of this racial uniformity. Journalist Clark Strand noted
Strand, writing for Tricycle (an American Buddhist journal) in 2004, notes that SGI has specifically targeted African-Americans, Latinos and Asians, and other writers have noted that this approach has begun to spread, with Vipassana and Theravada retreats aimed at non-white practitioners led by a handful of specific teachers.
A question is the degree of importance ascribed to discrimination, which is suggested to be mostly unconscious, on the part of white converts toward potential minority converts. To some extent, the racial divide indicates a class divide, because convert Buddhists tend to be more educated. Among African American Buddhists who commented on the dynamics of the racial divide in convert Buddhism are Jan Willis
and Charles R. Johnson
.
has developed in Buddhism in the West. While some critics assert the term is redundant, as it is mistaken to believe that Buddhism in the past has not affected and been affected by the surrounding society, others have suggested that Buddhism is sometimes seen as too passive toward public life. This is particularly true in the West, where almost all converts to Buddhism come to it outside of an existing family or community tradition. Engaged Buddhism is an attempt to apply Buddhist values to larger social problems, including war
and environmental concerns
. The term was coined by Thich Nhat Hanh
, during his years as a peace activist in Vietnam
. The Buddhist Peace Fellowship
was founded in 1978 by Robert Aitken
, Anne Aitken, Nelson Foster, and others and received early assistance from Gary Snyder
, Jack Kornfield
, and Joanna Macy. Another engaged Buddhist group is the Zen Peacemaker Order
, founded in 1996 by Bernie Glassman
and Sandra Jishu Holmes.
, a four-year Buddhist college in the US (now Naropa University) in 1974. Allen Ginsberg
was an initial faculty member, christening the Institute's poetry department the "Jack Kerouac School
of Disembodied Poetics". Now Naropa University, the school offers accredited degrees in a number of subjects, many not directly related to Buddhism.
The University of the West
is affiliated with Hsi Lai Temple and was previously Hsi Lai University. Soka University of America
, in Aliso Viejo California, was founded by the Sōka Gakkai as a secular school committed to philosophic Buddhism. The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas is the site of Dharma Realm Buddhist University, a four-year college teaching courses primarily related to Buddhism but including some general-interest subjects. The Institute of Buddhist Studies
in Berkeley, California, in addition to offering a Masters Degree in Buddhist Studies acts as the ministerial training arm of the Buddhist Churches of America and is affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union
. The school moved into the Jodo Shinshu Center in Berkeley.
The first Buddhist high school
in the United States, Developing Virtue Secondary School
, was founded in 1981 by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association
at their branch monastery in the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas
in Ukiah, California
. In 1997, the Purple Lotus Buddhist School offered elementary-level classes in Union City, California
, affiliated with the True Buddha School
; it added a middle school in 1999 and a high school in 2001. Another Buddhist high school, Tinicum Art and Science, which combines Zen practice and traditional liberal arts, opened in Ottsville, Pennsylvania in 1998. It is associated informally with the World Shim Gum Do Association in Boston. The Pacific Buddhist Academy
opened in Honolulu, Hawaii
in 2003. It shares a campus with the Hongwanji Mission School
, an elementary and middle school; both schools affiliated with the Honpa Hongwanji Jodo Shinshu mission.
Juniper Foundation
, founded in 2003, holds that Buddhist methods must become integrated into modern culture just as they were in other cultures. Juniper Foundation calls its approach "Buddhist training for modern life" and it emphasizes meditation, balancing emotions, cultivating compassion and developing insight as four building blocks of Buddhist training.
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
is one of the largest religions in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
behind Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and Nonreligious, and approximate with Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
and Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
. American Buddhists include many Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
s, as well as a large number of converts of other ethnicities, and now their children and even grandchildren.
Early history
Buddhism and the West
The Western and Buddhist worlds have occasionally intersected since the distant past. It was possible that the earliest encounter was in 334 BCE, early in the history of BuddhismHistory of Buddhism
The History of Buddhism spans the 6th century BCE to the present, starting with the birth of Buddha Siddhartha Gautama on the Indian subcontinent, in what is now Lumbini, Nepal. This makes it one of the oldest religions practiced today. The religion evolved as it spread from the northeastern region...
, when Alexander the Great conquered most of Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
. The Seleucids
Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire was a Greek-Macedonian state that was created out of the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan.The Seleucid Empire was a major centre...
and successive kingdoms established Hellenistic
Hellenistic civilization
Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE...
influence in the area, interacting with Buddhism introduced from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, producing Greco-Buddhism
Greco-Buddhism
Greco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Graeco-Buddhism, refers to the cultural syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE in the area covered by the Indian sub-continent, and modern Afghanistan, Pakistan and north-western...
.
The Mauryan Emperor Aśoka (273–232 BCE) converted to Buddhism after his bloody conquest of the territory of Kalinga (modern Orissa) in eastern India during the Kalinga War
Kalinga War
The Kalinga War was a war fought between the Mauryan Empire under Ashoka the Great and the state of Kalinga, a feudal republic located on the coast of the present-day Indian state of Orissa. The Kalinga war is one of the major battles in the History of India. Kalinga put up a stiff resistance,...
. Regretting the horrors brought about by the conflict, the Emperor decided to renounce violence. He propagated the faith by building stupas and pillars urging, amongst other things, respect of all animal life and enjoining people to follow the Dharma.
Perhaps the finest example of these is the Great Stupa of Sanchi
Sanchi
Sanchi is a small village in Raisen District of the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, it is located 46 km north east of Bhopal, and 10 km from Besnagar and Vidisha in the central part of the state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the location of several Buddhist monuments dating from the 3rd...
in India. This stupa was constructed in the 3rd century BCE and later enlarged. Its carved gates, called Tohans, are considered among the finest examples of Buddhist art in India. He also built roads, hospitals, universities and irrigation systems around the country. He treated his subjects as equals regardless of their religion, politics or caste.
In the Christian era, Buddhist ideas periodically filtered into Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
via the Middle East. Stories of Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
saints Barlaam and Josaphat
Saint Josaphat
Barlaam and Josaphat or Joasaph is a Christianized version of the story of Siddharta Gautama, who became the Buddha.. In the Middle Ages the two were treated as Christian saints, being entered in the Greek Orthodox calendar on 26 August, and in the Roman Martyrology in the Western Church as...
, similar to the life of Siddhartha Gautama were translated from Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
to Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
to Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
. The first direct recorded encounter between European Christians and Buddhists was in 1253 when the king of France sent William of Rubruck
William of Rubruck
William of Rubruck was a Flemish Franciscan missionary and explorer. His account is one of the masterpieces of medieval geographical literature comparable to that of Marco Polo....
as an ambassador to the court of the Mongol Empire
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...
. Later, in the 17th century, Mongols practicing Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India . It is the state religion of Bhutan...
established Kalmykia
Kalmykia
The Republic of Kalmykia is a federal subject of Russia . Population: It is the only Buddhist region in Europe. It has also become well-known as an international chess mecca because its former President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is the head of the International Chess Federation .-Geography:*Area:...
, the only Buddhist nation in Europe, at the eastern edge of the continent.
Buddhism in the New World
Because these examples produced little real religious interaction, the European settlers who came to colonizeEuropean colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
the Americas had virtually no exposure to Buddhism. This almost complete isolation would last until the 19th century, when significant numbers of immigrants from East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
began to arrive in the New World. In the United States, immigrants from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
entered around 1820, but began to arrive in large numbers following the 1849 California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
.
The first Buddhist temple in America was built in 1853 in San Francisco by the Sze Yap Company, a Chinese American
Chinese American
Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...
fraternal society. Another society, the Ning Yeong Company, built a second in 1854; by 1875, there were eight temples, and by 1900 approximately 400 Chinese temples on the west coast of the United States, most of them containing some Buddhist elements. These temples were often the subject of suspicion and ignorance by the rest of the population, and were dismissively called joss house
Joss house
A Shenist temple or Chinese folk temple is a place for worshiping the variety of indigenous Chinese shen from Chinese folk religion and Chinese mythology....
s.
The Chinese Exclusion Act
Chinese Exclusion Act (United States)
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by Chester A. Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of...
of 1882 curtailed growth of the Chinese American population, but large-scale immigration from Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
began in the late 1880s and from Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
around 1903. In both cases, immigration was at first primarily to Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
. Populations from other Asian Buddhist countries followed, and in each case, the new communities established Buddhist temples and organizations. For instance, the first Japanese temple in Hawaii was built in 1896 near Paauhau by the Honpa Hongwanji branch of Jodo Shinshu
Jodo Shinshu
, also known as Shin Buddhism, is a school of Pure Land Buddhism. It was founded by the former Tendai Japanese monk Shinran. Today, Shin Buddhism is considered the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan.-Shinran :...
. In 1898, Japanese missionaries and immigrants established a Young Men's Buddhist Association, and the Rev. Sōryū Kagahi was dispatched from Japan to be the first Buddhist missionary in Hawaii. The first Japanese Buddhist temple in the continental U.S. was built in San Francisco in 1899, and the first in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
was built at the Ishikawa Hotel in Vancouver in 1905. The first Buddhist clergy
Buddhist monasticism
Monasticism is one of the most fundamental institutions of Buddhism. Monks and nuns are responsible for preserving and teaching Buddhist teachings and guiding Buddhist lay followers. Earlier Buddhist monks were enlightened...
to take up residence in the continental U.S. were Shuye Sonoda and Kakuryo Nishimjima, missionaries from Japan who arrived in 1899.
William Jones (philologist)
Sir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages...
and Charles Wilkins
Charles Wilkins
Sir Charles Wilkins, KH, FRS , was an English typographer and Orientalist, notable as the first translator of Bhagavad Gita into English, and as the creator of the first Devanagari typeface....
translated Sanskrit texts into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. The American Transcendentalists
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s in the New England region of the United States as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian...
and associated persons, in particular Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
took an interest in Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
and Buddhist philosophy. In 1844, The Dial
The Dial
The Dial was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. In the 1880s it was revived as a political magazine...
, a small literary publication edited by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
, published an English version of a portion of the Lotus Sutra
Lotus Sutra
The Lotus Sūtra is one of the most popular and influential Mahāyāna sūtras, and the basis on which the Tiantai and Nichiren sects of Buddhism were established.-Title:...
; it had been translated by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody from a French version recently completed by Eugène Burnouf
Eugène Burnouf
Eugène Burnouf was an eminent French scholar and orientalist who made significant contributions to the deciphering of Old Persian cuneiform....
. His Indian readings may have influenced his later experiments in simple living: at one point in Walden
Walden
Walden is an American book written by noted Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau...
he wrote: "I realized what the Orientals meant by contemplation and the forsaking of works." The poet Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
also admitted to an influence of Indian religion on his writings.
An early American to publicly convert to Buddhism was Henry Steel Olcott
Henry Steel Olcott
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer and the co-founder and first President of the Theosophical Society....
. Olcott, a former U.S. army colonel during the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, had grown interested in reports of supernatural phenomena that were popular in the late 19th century. In 1875, he, Helena Blavatsky, and William Quan Judge
William Quan Judge
William Quan Judge was a mystic, esotericist, and occultist, and one of the founders of the original Theosophical Society. He was born in Dublin, Ireland. When he was 13 years old, his family emigrated to the United States...
founded the Theosophical Society
Theosophical Society
The Theosophical Society is an organization formed in 1875 to advance the spiritual principles and search for Truth known as Theosophy. The original organization, after splits and realignments has several successors...
, dedicated to the study of the occult and influenced by Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. The leaders claimed to believe that they were in contact, via visions and messages, with a secret order of adept
Adept
An adept is an individual identified as having attained a specific level of knowledge, skill, or aptitude in doctrines relevant to a particular author or organization.-H. P. Blavatsky:...
s called the "Himalayan Brotherhood" or "the Masters". In 1879, Olcott and Blavatsky travelled to India and in 1880, to Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, where they were met enthusiastically by local Buddhists, who saw them as allies against an aggressive Christian missionary movement. On May 25, Olcott and Blavatsky took the pancasila vows of a lay Buddhist before a monk and a large crowd. Although most of the Theosophists appear to have counted themselves as Buddhists, they held idiosyncratic beliefs that separated them from known Buddhist traditions; only Olcott was enthusiastic about following mainstream Buddhism. He returned twice to Sri Lanka, where he promoted Buddhist education, and visited Japan and Burma. Olcott authored a Buddhist Catechism, stating his view of the basic tenets of the religion.
Edwin Arnold
Sir Edwin Arnold CSI CIE was an English poet and journalist, who is most known for his work, The Light of Asia.-Biography:...
, an English aristocrat, published The Light of Asia
The Light of Asia
The Light of Asia, subtitled The Great Renunciation, is a book by Edwin Arnold. The first edition of the book was published in London in July 1879....
, an epic poem he had written about the life and teachings of the Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
, expounded with much wealth of local color and not a little felicity of versification. The book became immensely popular in the United States, going through eighty editions and selling more than 500,000 copies. Paul Carus
Paul Carus
Paul Carus, Ph.D. was a German-American author, editor, a student of comparative religion, and professor of philosophy.-Life and education:...
, a German American philosopher and theologian
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, was at work on a more scholarly prose treatment of the same subject. Carus was the director of Open Court Publishing Company
Open Court Publishing Company
The Open Court Publishing Company is a publisher with offices in Chicago and La Salle, Illinois. It is part of the Carus Publishing Company of Peru, Illinois.-History:...
, an academic publisher specializing in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, and religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, and editor of The Monist
The Monist
The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry is an American academic journal in the field of philosophy. It was founded in October 1890 by Edward C. Hegeler, making it one of the longest-established journals in philosophy...
, a journal with a similar focus, both based in La Salle, Illinois
La Salle, Illinois
LaSalle is a city in LaSalle County, Illinois, United States, located at the intersection of Interstates 39 and 80. It is part of the Ottawa–Streator Micropolitan Statistical Area. Originally platted in 1837 over one square mile, the city has grown to...
. In 1894, Carus published The Gospel of the Buddha, compiled from a variety of Asian texts which, true to its name, presented the Buddha's story in a form resembling the Christian Gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
s.
A significant event of Buddhism in the US was the Parliament of the World's Religions
Parliament of the World's Religions
There have been several meetings referred to as a Parliament of the World’s Religions, most notably the World's Parliament of Religions of 1893, the first attempt to create a global dialogue of faiths. The event was celebrated by another conference on its centenary in 1993...
held in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in 1893. Although most of the delegates to the Parliament were Christians of various denominations, the Buddhist nations of China, Japan, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, and Sri Lanka sent representatives. Buddhist delegates included Soyen Shaku
Soyen Shaku
Soyen Shaku was the first Zen Buddhist master to teach in the United States. He was a Roshi of the Rinzai school and was abbot of both Kencho-ji and Engaku-ji temples in Kamakura, Japan...
, a Japanese Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
abbott; Zenshiro Noguchi, a Japanese translator; Anagarika Dharmapala
Anagarika Dharmapala
Anagarika Dharmapala was a leading figure of Buddhism in the twentieth century. He was one of the founding contributors of Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalism and Protestant Buddhism...
, a Sri Lankan associate of H. S. Olcott; and Chandradat Chudhadharn, a brother of King Chulalongkorn
Chulalongkorn
Phra Bat Somdet Phra Poramintharamaha Chulalongkorn Phra Chunla Chom Klao Chao Yu Hua , or Rama V was the fifth monarch of Siam under the House of Chakri. He was known to the Siamese of his time as Phra Phuttha Chao Luang . He is considered one of the greatest kings of Siam...
of Thailand. Paul Carus also attended as an observer. The Parliament provided the first major public forum from which Buddhists could address the Western public; Dharmapala was particularly effective because he spoke fluent English.
A few days after the Parliament, in a brief ceremony conducted by Dharmapala, Charles T. Strauss, a New York businessman of Jewish descent, became, one of the first to formally convert to Buddhism on American soil. A few fledgling attempts at establishing a Buddhism for Americans followed. One appeared prior to the Parliament with little fanfare in 1887: The Buddhist Ray, a Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...
-based magazine published and edited by Phillangi Dasa, born Herman Carl (or Carl Herman) Veetering (or Vettering), a recluse about whom little is known. The Rays tone was "ironic, light, saucy, self-assured ... one-hundred-percent American Buddhist". It ceased publication in 1894. In 1900 six white San Franciscans, working with Japanese Jodo Shinshu missionaries, established the Dharma Sangha of Buddha and published a bimonthly magazine, The Light of Dharma. In Illinois, Paul Carus wrote more books about Buddhism and set portions of Buddhist scripture to Western classical music.
Early 20th century
In the first half of the 20th century, Buddhist teachers from Japan actively disseminated Buddhism to the American public, perhaps because Japan was the most developed and self-confident Buddhist country at the time. In 1905, Soyen Shaku was invited to stay in the United States by a wealthy American couple. He lived for nine months near San Francisco, where he established a small zendoZendo
or is a Japanese term translating roughly as "meditation hall". In Zen Buddhism, the zen-dō is a spiritual dōjō where zazen is practiced...
in their home and gave regular zazen
Zazen
In Zen Buddhism, zazen is a meditative discipline practitioners perform to calm the body and the mind, and be able to concentrate enough to experience insight into the nature of existence and thereby gain enlightenment .- Significance :Zazen is considered the heart of Zen Buddhist practice...
lessons, making him the first Zen Buddhist priest to teach in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. This short sojourn had a lasting effect on American Buddhism. Shaku was soon followed by Nyogen Senzaki
Nyogen Senzaki
Nyogen Senzaki was a Rinzai Zen monk who was one of the 20th century's leading proponents of Zen Buddhism in the United States.-Early life:...
, a young monk from Shaku's home temple in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Senzaki briefly worked for his hosts and then, wanting to stay in America, was reportedly advised by Shaku to spend seventeen years as an ordinary worker before teaching Buddhism. In 1922 Senzaki rented a hall and gave an English talk on a paper by Soyen Shaku; his periodic talks at different locations became known as the "floating zendo". In 1931, he established a permanent sitting hall in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, where he taught until his death in 1958.
Another Zen teacher, Sokatsu Shaku, one of Soyen Shaku's senior students, arrived in late 1906, founding a Zen meditation center called Ryomokyo-kai
Ryomokyo-kai
Ryōmō Kyōkai was a lay Rinzai Zen Buddhist practice center located in Tokyo, Japan, founded in 1875 by Okunomiya Zōsai , a student of Satō Issai...
. Although he stayed only a few years and had limited contact with the English-speaking public, one of his disciples, Shigetsu Sasaki, made a permanent home. Sasaki, better known under his monastic name Sokei-an, spent a few years wandering the west coast of the US, at one point living among American Indians
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
near Seattle, and reached New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1916. After completing his training and being ordained in 1928, he returned to New York to teach. In 1931, his small group incorporated as the Buddhist Society of America, later renamed the First Zen Institute of America. By the late 1930s, one of his most active supporters was Ruth Fuller Everett
Ruth Fuller Sasaki
Ruth Fuller Sasaki , born Ruth Fuller, was an important figure in the development of Buddhism in the United States. As Ruth Fuller Everett , she met and studied with Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki in Japan in 1930...
, a British socialite and the mother-in-law of Alan Watts
Alan Watts
Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York...
. Shortly before Sokei-an's death in 1945, he and Everett would wed, at which point she took the name Ruth Fuller Sasaki
Ruth Fuller Sasaki
Ruth Fuller Sasaki , born Ruth Fuller, was an important figure in the development of Buddhism in the United States. As Ruth Fuller Everett , she met and studied with Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki in Japan in 1930...
.
In 1914, under the leadership of Koyu Uchida, who succeeded Shuye Sonoda as the head of Jodo Shinshu mission in North America, several Japanese Buddhist congregations formed the Buddhist Mission of North America (BMNA). This would later form the basis of the Buddhist Churches of America
Buddhist Churches of America
The is the United States branch of the Honpa Hongan-ji sub-sect of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism. Jodo Shinshu is also popularly known as Shin Buddhism. The B.C.A. is one of several overseas kyodan belonging to the Nishi Hongwan-ji...
, the largest ethnic-based Buddhist organization in the US. The BMNA focused on social and cultural activities and ministering to Japanese American communities. In the late 1920s, it began to train English-speaking priests, for the growing number of American-born parishioners. In 1927, the Sōtō
Soto
Sōtō Zen , or is, with Rinzai and Ōbaku, one of the three most populous sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism.The Sōtō sect was first established as the Caodong sect during the Tang Dynasty in China by Dongshan Liangjie in the 9th century, which Dōgen Zenji then brought to Japan in the 13th century...
sect of Japanese Zen opened its own mission with Zenshuji temple in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, although it did not attempt at the time to attract non-Japanese members.
One American who attempted to establish an American Buddhist movement was Dwight Goddard (1861–1939). Goddard was a Christian missionary to China when he first came in contact with Buddhism. In 1928, he spent a year living at a Zen monastery in Japan. In 1934, he founded "The Followers of Buddha, an American Brotherhood", with the goal of applying the traditional monastic structure of Buddhism more strictly than Senzaki and Sokei-an. The group was largely unsuccessful: no Americans were recruited to join as monks and attempts failed to attract a Chinese Chan
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
(Zen) master to come to the United States. However, Goddard's efforts as an author and publisher bore considerable fruit. In 1930, he began publishing ZEN: A Buddhist Magazine. In 1932, he collaborated with D. T. Suzuki
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki was a Japanese author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in spreading interest in both Zen and Shin to the West. Suzuki was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit literature...
, on a translation of the Lankavatara Sutra
Lankavatara Sutra
The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra is a sutra of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The sūtra recounts a teaching primarily between the Buddha and a bodhisattva named Mahāmati...
. That same year, he published the first edition of A Buddhist Bible, an anthology of Buddhist scriptures focusing on those used in Chinese and Japanese Zen.
D. T. Suzuki, another Japanese associate of Soyen Shaku's, had an even greater literary impact. At the World Parliament of Religions in 1893, Paul Carus befriended Soyen Shaku and requested his help in translating and publishing Oriental spiritual literature in the West. Shaku instead recommended Suzuki, then a young scholar and his former disciple. Starting in 1897, Suzuki worked from Carus' home in Illinois; his first projects were translations of the Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching
The Tao Te Ching, Dao De Jing, or Daodejing , also simply referred to as the Laozi, whose authorship has been attributed to Laozi, is a Chinese classic text...
and Asvaghosa
Asvaghosa
' was an Indian philosopher-poet, born in Saketa in northern India to a Brahmin family. He is believed to have been the first Sanskrit dramatist, and is considered the greatest Indian poet prior to Kālidāsa. He was the most famous in a group of Buddhist court writers, whose epics rivaled the...
's Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana
Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana
Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna is a text of the Mahāyāna branch of Buddhism.-Origin and History:...
. At the same time, Suzuki began writing Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism, published in 1907. Suzuki returned to Japan in 1909 and married an American Theosophist and Radcliffe graduate in 1911. Through English language essays and books, such as Essays in Zen Buddhism (1927), he became a visible expositor of Zen Buddhism and its unofficial ambassador to Western readers, until his death in 1966. His 1949 book, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, featured a 30-page introduction by Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, an emblem of the deepening relationship between Buddhism and major Western thinkers.
Modern American Buddhism
Buddhist American scholar Charles Prebish believes there are three broad types of American Buddhism. The oldest and largest of these is "immigrant" or "ethnic Buddhism", those Buddhist traditions that arrived in America along with immigrants who were already believers and that largely remained with those immigrants and their descendants. The next oldest and arguably the most visible group Prebish refers to as "import Buddhists", because they came to America largely in response to interested American converts who sought them out, either by going abroad or by supporting foreign teachers; this is sometimes also called "elite Buddhism" because its practitioners, especially early ones, tended to come from social elites. A trend in Buddhism is "export" or "evangelical Buddhist" groups based in another country who actively recruit members in the US from various backgrounds. Modern Buddhism is not just an American phenomenon.Immigrant Buddhists
Buddhism in China
Chinese Buddhism refers collectively to the various schools of Buddhism that have flourished in China since ancient times. Buddhism has played an enormous role in shaping the mindset of the Chinese people, affecting their aesthetics, politics, literature, philosophy and medicine.At the peak of the...
, Textual Buddhists
Buddhist texts
Buddhist texts can be categorized in a number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized...
Japanese Buddhists, Korean Buddhists
Korean Buddhism
Korean Buddhism is distinguished from other forms of Buddhism by its attempt to resolve what it sees as inconsistencies in Mahayana Buddhism. Early Korean monks believed that the traditions they received from foreign countries were internally inconsistent. To address this, they developed a new...
, Sri Lankan Buddhists, Vietnamese Buddhists, Thai Buddhists
Buddhism in Thailand
Buddhism in Thailand is largely of the Theravada school. Nearly 95% of Thailand's population is Buddhist of the Theravada school, though Buddhism in this country has become integrated with folk beliefs as well as Chinese religions from the large Thai-Chinese population.Buddhist temples in Thailand...
, and Buddhists with family backgrounds in most Buddhist countries
Buddhism by country
Obtaining exact numbers of practicing Buddhists can be difficult and may be reliant on the definition used. Adherents of Eastern religions such as Buddhism with local Animism, Chinese folk religion, Confucianism, Shinto, and Taoism often have beliefs composed of a mix of religious ideas...
and regions. The Immigration Act of 1965 increased the number of immigrants arriving from China, Vietnam, and the Theravada
Theravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
-practicing countries of southeast Asia.
Japanese Buddhism
The Buddhist Churches of AmericaBuddhist Churches of America
The is the United States branch of the Honpa Hongan-ji sub-sect of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism. Jodo Shinshu is also popularly known as Shin Buddhism. The B.C.A. is one of several overseas kyodan belonging to the Nishi Hongwan-ji...
and the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii are immigrant Buddhist organizations in the United States. The BCA is an affiliate of Japan's Nishi Hongwanji, a sect of Jōdo Shinshū
Jodo Shinshu
, also known as Shin Buddhism, is a school of Pure Land Buddhism. It was founded by the former Tendai Japanese monk Shinran. Today, Shin Buddhism is considered the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan.-Shinran :...
, which is in turn a form of Pure Land Buddhism
Pure Land Buddhism
Pure Land Buddhism , also referred to as Amidism in English, is a broad branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism and currently one of the most popular traditions of Buddhism in East Asia. Pure Land is a branch of Buddhism focused on Amitābha Buddha...
. Tracing its roots to the Young Men's Buddhist Association founded in San Francisco at the end of the 19th century and the Buddhist Mission of North America founded in 1899, it took its current form in 1944. All of the Buddhist Mission's leadership, along with almost the entire Japanese American population, had been interned during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The name Buddhist Churches of America
Buddhist Churches of America
The is the United States branch of the Honpa Hongan-ji sub-sect of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism. Jodo Shinshu is also popularly known as Shin Buddhism. The B.C.A. is one of several overseas kyodan belonging to the Nishi Hongwan-ji...
was adopted at Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
; the word "church" was used similar to a Christian house of worship. After internment ended, some members returned to the West Coast and revitalized churches there, while a number of others moved to the Midwest and built new churches. During the 1960s and 1970s, the BCA was in a growth phase and was very successful at fund-raising. It also published two periodicals, one in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and one in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. However, since 1980, BCA membership declined. The 36 temples in the state of Hawaii of the Honpa Hongwanji Mission have a similar history.
Ethnic Japanese
Ethnic Japanese may mean:* Japanese people, when referring to people of Japanese descent** May also be used as a term to refer to the Yamato people as opposed to the minority peoples of Japan: the Ainu, Ryukyuans, Burakumin and immigrant groups such as the Han Chinese and Koreans.* Japanese...
, some members have non-Asian backgrounds. Thus, it has limited aspects of export Buddhism. As involvement by its ethnic community declined, internal discussions advocated attracting the broader public.
See also Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Buddhism
Nichiren Buddhism
Nichiren Buddhism is a branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th century Japanese monk Nichiren...
.
Taiwanese Buddhism
Another US Buddhist institution is Hsi Lai TempleHsi Lai Temple
Fo Guang Shan Hsi Lai Temple is a traditional Chinese Buddhist mountain monastery in the United States. It is located on the foothill region of Hacienda Heights, California, USA, a suburb of Los Angeles County...
in Hacienda Heights, California
Hacienda Heights, California
Hacienda Heights is an unincorporated census-designated place in and below the Puente Hills of the San Gabriel Valley, in Los Angeles County, California, United States...
. Hsi Lai is the American headquarters of Fo Guang Shan
Fo Guang Shan
Fo Guang Shan is an international Chinese Mahayana Buddhist monastic order based in the Republic of China , and one of the largest Buddhist organizations. The headquarters of Fo Guang Shan, located in Kaohsiung, is the largest Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. The organization itself is also one of...
, a modern Buddhist group in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. Hsi Lai was built in 1988 at a cost of $10 million and is often described as the largest Buddhist temple in the Western hemisphere. Although it caters primarily to Chinese Americans, it also has regular services and outreach programs in English. Hsi Lai was at the center of a campaign finance controversy by Vice President Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
.
Imported Asian Traditions
Theravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
.
Zen
Beginning with Soyen ShakuSoyen Shaku
Soyen Shaku was the first Zen Buddhist master to teach in the United States. He was a Roshi of the Rinzai school and was abbot of both Kencho-ji and Engaku-ji temples in Kamakura, Japan...
's invitation to San Francisco and the ministries of Nyogen Senzaki
Nyogen Senzaki
Nyogen Senzaki was a Rinzai Zen monk who was one of the 20th century's leading proponents of Zen Buddhism in the United States.-Early life:...
and Sokei-an
Sokei-an
Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki , born Yeita Sasaki, was a Japanese Rinzai roshi who founded the Buddhist Society of America in New York City in 1930. Influential in the growth of Zen Buddhism in the United States, Sokei-an was one of the first Japanese masters to live and teach in America...
, Zen Buddhism was the first import Buddhist trend to put down roots in North America. In the late 1940s and 1950s, writers associated with the Beat Movement, including Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...
, Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Philip Whalen
Philip Whalen
Philip Glenn Whalen was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and close to the Beat generation.-Biography:...
, and Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement...
took a serious interest in Zen, which increased its visibility. In 1951, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki was a Japanese author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in spreading interest in both Zen and Shin to the West. Suzuki was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit literature...
returned to the United States to take a visiting professorship at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where his open lectures attracted many members of the literary, artistic, and cultural elite.
Soyu Matsuoka
Soyu Matsuoka
Dr. Soyu Matsuoka , along with Sokei-an and Nyogen Senzaki, was one of the first Zen teachers to make the United States his home, and possibly the first official representative of the Sōtō tradition to do so. He established the Chicago Buddhist Temple in 1949 , and in the 1960s grew a following of...
-roshi established the Chicago Buddhist Temple in 1949 (now the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago) and provided Soto Zen training and lectures in both America and Japan. Matsuoka-roshi also served as superintendent and abbot of the Long Beach Zen Buddhist Temple and Zen Center. Matsuoka-Roshi was born in Japan into a family of Zen priests dating back six hundred years. In the 1930s he was sent to America by Sotoshu, the Soto Zen Buddhist authority in Japan to establish the Soto Zen tradition in the United States. He founded Soto Zen temples both in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He also furthered his graduate work at Columbia University with D.T. Suzuki. He relocated from Chicago to establish a temple at Long Beach in 1971 after leaving the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago to his dharma heir Kongo Richard Langlois, Roshi. He returned to Chicago in 1995, where he died in 1998.
Sanbo Kyodan
Sanbo Kyodan
Sanbo Kyodan is a Zen sect derived from both the Rinzai and Soto traditions of Japanese Zen.-History:...
is a contemporary Japanese Zen lineage which had an impact in the West disproportionate to its size in Japan. It is rooted in the reformist teachings of Harada Daiun Sogaku
Harada Daiun Sogaku
Daiun Sogaku Harada Rōshi was a Sōtō Zen monk who trained under both Soto and Rinzai teachers and became known for his teaching combining methods from both schools.- Biography :...
(1871–1961) and his disciple Yasutani Hakuun
Haku'un Yasutani
was a Sōtō Rōshi and the founder of the Sanbo Kyodan Zen Buddhist organization.-Biography:Ryōkō Yasutani was born in Japan in Shizuoka Prefecture....
(1885–1971), who argued that the existing Zen institutions of Japan (Sōtō
Soto
Sōtō Zen , or is, with Rinzai and Ōbaku, one of the three most populous sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism.The Sōtō sect was first established as the Caodong sect during the Tang Dynasty in China by Dongshan Liangjie in the 9th century, which Dōgen Zenji then brought to Japan in the 13th century...
and Rinzai sects) had become complacent and were generally unable to convey real Dharma
Dharma
Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...
. Harada had studied with both Soto and Rinzai teachers, and Yasutani founded Sanbo Kyodan in 1954 to preserve what he saw as the vital core of teachings from both schools. Sanbo Kyodan's first American member was Philip Kapleau
Philip Kapleau
Philip Kapleau was a teacher of Zen Buddhism in the Sanbo Kyodan tradition, a blending of Japanese Sōtō and Rinzai schools.-Early life:...
, who first traveled to Japan in 1945 as a court reporter for the war crimes trials. In 1947, Kapleau visited D. T. Suzuki at Engaku-ji in Japan and in the early 1950s was a frequent attendee of Suzuki's Columbia lectures. In 1953, he returned to Japan, where he met with Nakagawa Soen
Soen Nakagawa
Soen Nakagawa was a Taiwanese-born Japanese rōshi and Zen Buddhist master in the Rinzai tradition...
, a protégé of Nyogen Senzaki
Nyogen Senzaki
Nyogen Senzaki was a Rinzai Zen monk who was one of the 20th century's leading proponents of Zen Buddhism in the United States.-Early life:...
. At Nakagawa's recommendation, he began to study with Harada and later with Yasutani. In 1965, he published a book, The Three Pillars of Zen, which recorded a set of talks by Yasutani outlining his approach to practice, along with transcripts of dokusan interviews and some additional texts.
The book and Sanbo Kyodan's approach became popular in America and Europe. In 1965 Kapleau returned to America and, in 1966, established the Rochester Zen Center
Rochester Zen Center
The Rochester Zen Center is a Sōtō and Rinzai Zen Buddhist sangha in the Sanbo Kyodan lineage, located in Rochester, New York and established in 1966 by Philip Kapleau. It is one of the oldest Zen centers in the United States. The history of the Rochester Zen Center begins overseas with the...
in Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, making him the first American-born Zen priest to found a training temple. In 1967, Kapleau had a falling-out with Yasutani over Kapleau's moves to Americanize his temple, after which it became independent of Sanbo Kyodan. This created questions regarding lineage since Kapleau never officially was granted transmission from Yasutani. The Rochester Zen Center is now part of a network of related centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, and New Zealand, referred to collectively as the Cloud Water Sangha. One of Kapleau's early disciples was Toni Packer
Toni Packer
Toni Packer is the founder of Springwater Center, located in Springwater, in the finger lakes region of upstate New York, an hour south of Rochester. The center was founded in 1981 as the Genesee Valley Zen Center and has since been renamed...
, who left Rochester in 1981 to found a nonsectarian meditation center, not specifically Buddhist or Zen.
Robert Aitken
Robert Baker Aitken
Robert Baker Dairyu Chotan Aitken Roshi was a Zen teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. He co-founded the Honolulu Diamond Sangha in 1959...
is another American member of Sanbo Kyodan. He was introduced to Zen as a prisoner in Japan during World War II. After returning to the United States, he studied with Nyogen Senzaki in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in the early 1950s. In 1959, while still a Zen student, he founded the Diamond Sangha, a zendo in Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. Honolulu is the southernmost major U.S. city. Although the name "Honolulu" refers to the urban area on the southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, the city and county government are consolidated as the City and...
. Three years later the Diamond Sangha hosted the first US visit by Yasutani Hakuun, who visited the US six more times before 1969. Aitken traveled frequently to Japan and became a disciple of Yamada Koun
Yamada Koun
, or Koun Yamada, was the former leader of the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen Buddhism, the Dharma heir of his teacher Yasutani Haku'un Ryoko. Yamada was appointed the leader of the Sanbo Kyodan in 1967, 1970 or 1973 and continued to differentiate the lineage from other Japanese Zen traditions by...
, Yasutani's successor as head of the Sanbo Kyodan. Aitken and the Diamond Sangha first hosted Eido Tai Shimano's immigration to the U.S., encouraged by Soen Nakagawa. Aitken became a dharma heir of Yamada's, authored more than ten books, and developed the Diamond Sangha into an international network with temples in the United States, Argentina, Germany, and Australia. In 1995, he and his organization split with Sanbo Kyodan in response to reorganization of the latter following Yamada's death. The Diamond Sangha network includes a number of practice centers in the U.S. and abroad. The Diamond Sangha Teachers' Circle, an international group of Aitken Roshi's successors (1st and 2nd generation), meets every 18 months. The Pacific Zen Institute
Pacific Zen Institute
The Pacific Zen Institute, previously California Diamond Sangha, is a Zen Buddhist practice center with several affiliate centers in the lineage of John Tarrant—formerly of the Sanbo Kyodan school of Zen...
led by John Tarrant
John Tarrant
John Tarrant is a Western Zen teacher, currently director of the Pacific Zen Institute in Santa Rosa, California.-Biographical Portrait:...
, Aitken's first Dharma successor, continues as an independent Zen line.
Sōtō
Soto
Sōtō Zen , or is, with Rinzai and Ōbaku, one of the three most populous sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism.The Sōtō sect was first established as the Caodong sect during the Tang Dynasty in China by Dongshan Liangjie in the 9th century, which Dōgen Zenji then brought to Japan in the 13th century...
Zen Priest Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki was a Sōtō Zen roshi who popularized Zen Buddhism in the United States, particularly around San Francisco. Born in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan, Suzuki was occasionally mistaken for the Zen scholar D.T...
(no relation to D.T. Suzuki) arrived in San Francisco in 1959 to lead an established Japanese congregation. He soon attracted American students and "beatniks", who formed a core of students who would go on to create the San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center , is a network of affiliated Sōtō Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising the City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu...
and its eventual network of Zen centers across the country, including the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center
Tassajara Zen Mountain Center
-External links:*...
, the first Buddhist monastery in the Western world. His low-key teaching style was described in the popular book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is a book of teachings by the late Shunryu Suzuki, a compilation of talks given to his satellite Zen center in Los Altos, California. Published in 1970 by Weatherhill, the book is not academic. These are frank and direct transcriptions of Suzukis' talks recorded by his...
, a compilation of his talks.
Another Japanese Zen teacher was Taizan Maezumi
Taizan Maezumi
Hakuyū Taizan Maezumi was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher and rōshi, and lineage holder in the Sōtō, Rinzai and Harada-Yasutani traditions of Zen. He combined the Rinzai use of koans and the Sōtō emphasis on shikantaza in his teachings, influenced by his years studying under Hakuun Yasutani in the...
, who arrived as a young priest to serve at Zenshuji, the North American Sōtō
Soto
Sōtō Zen , or is, with Rinzai and Ōbaku, one of the three most populous sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism.The Sōtō sect was first established as the Caodong sect during the Tang Dynasty in China by Dongshan Liangjie in the 9th century, which Dōgen Zenji then brought to Japan in the 13th century...
sect headquarters in Los Angeles, in 1956. Like Shunryu Suzuki, he showed considerable interest in teaching Zen to Americans of various backgrounds and, by the mid-1960s, had formed a regular zazen group. In 1967, he and his supporters founded the Zen Center of Los Angeles
Zen Center of Los Angeles
The Zen Center of Los Angeles , temple name Buddha Essence Temple, is a Zen center founded by Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi in 1967 that practices in the White Plum lineage.ZCLA observes a daily schedule of zazen, Buddhist services, and work practice...
. He was later instrumental in establishing the Kuroda Institute and the Soto Zen Buddhist Association
Soto Zen Buddhist Association
The Soto Zen Buddhist Association was formed in 1996 by American and Japanese Zen teachers in response to a perceived need to draw the various autonomous lineages of the North American Sōtō stream of Zen together for mutual support as well as the development of common training and ethical standards...
, the latter an organization of American teachers with ties to the Soto tradition. In addition to his membership in Soto, Maezumi was recognized as an heir by a Rinzai teacher and by Yasutani Hakuun
Haku'un Yasutani
was a Sōtō Rōshi and the founder of the Sanbo Kyodan Zen Buddhist organization.-Biography:Ryōkō Yasutani was born in Japan in Shizuoka Prefecture....
of the Sanbo Kyodan. Maezumi, in turn, had several American dharma heirs, such as Bernie Glassman
Tetsugen Bernard Glassman
Bernie Glassman , aka Tetsugen Bernard Glassman, is an American Zen Buddhist roshi and co-founder of the Zen Peacemakers , an organization established in 1996 with his late wife Sandra Jishu Holmes...
, John Daido Loori
John Daido Loori
John Daido Loori was a Zen Buddhist rōshi who served as the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery and was the founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order and CEO of Dharma Communications. Daido Loori received shiho from Taizan Maezumi in 1986 and also received a dendokyoshi certificate formally from the...
, Charlotte Joko Beck
Joko Beck
Charlotte Joko Beck was an American Zen teacher and the author of the books Everyday Zen: Love and Work and Nothing Special: Living Zen. Born in New Jersey, she studied music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and worked for some time as a pianist and piano teacher...
, and Dennis Genpo Merzel
Dennis Genpo Merzel
Dennis Merzel is an American Zen and spirituality teacher, also known as Genpo Merzel Roshi. He was a student and is heir of the Japanese-born Zen teacher Taizan Maezumi. Merzel obtained a Master's degree in educational administration from the University of Southern California and went on to...
. His successors and their network of centers became the White Plum Sangha.
Other Rinzai Zen teachers in United States include Kyozan Joshu Sasaki
Kyozan Joshu Sasaki
Kyozan Joshu Sasaki , Roshi is a Japanese Rinzai Zen teacher who has lived in the United States since 1962. Joshu Sasaki is the founder and head abbot of the Mount Baldy Zen Center, near Mount Baldy in California, and of the Rinzai-Ji order of affiliated Zen centers. As of , he is still actively...
Roshi, Eido Tai Shimano
Eido Tai Shimano
is a Rinzai Zen Buddhist roshi. He was the founding abbot of the New York Zendo Shobo-Ji in Manhattan and Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-Ji monastery in the Catskill mountains of New York; he retired from that position after 40 years amid controversy.-Biography:...
Roshi, and Omori Sogen
Omori Sogen
was a Japanese Rinzai Rōshi, a successor in the Tenryū-ji line of Rinzai Zen, a teacher of Kashima Shinden Jikishinkage-ryū swordsmanship, and a calligrapher in the Taishi school of Yamaoka Tesshū...
Roshi. Sasaki founded the Mount Baldy Zen Center
Mount Baldy Zen Center
Mount Baldy Zen Center is a Rinzai Zen monastery of the Nyorai-nyokyo sect, located in the San Gabriel Mountains of the Angeles National Forest region on and founded in 1971 by Kyozan Joshu Sasaki. The monastery — once a Boy Scout camp — became famous when musician Leonard Cohen joined the...
and its branches after coming to Los Angeles from Japan in 1962. One of his students is the Canadian poet and musician Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
. Eido Roshi founded Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji
Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji
Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji, or International Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji, is a Rinzai monastery and retreat center located in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. Maintained by the Zen Studies Society, Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji is led by Shinge-Shitsu Roko Sherry Chayat...
, a training center in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
state. Omori Roshi founded Daihonzan Chozen-ji, the first Rinzai headquarters temple established outside of Japan, in Honolulu; under his students Tenshin Tanouye Roshi and Dogen Hosokawa Roshi, several other training centers were established including Daiyuzenji
Daiyuzenji
Daiyuzenji is a Rinzai Zen Buddhist temple located on the north side of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States.Daiyuzenji began in 1982 as the Illinois betsuin of Daihonzan Chozen-ji, a Rinzai headquarter temple founded in 1979 in Honolulu, Hawaii by Omori Sogen Roshi , a successor in the...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
Not all successful Zen teachers in the United States have been from Japanese traditions. Some were teachers of Chinese Zen (known as Chán), Korean Zen (or Seon), and Vietnamese Zen (or Thien).
Hsuan Hua
Hsuan Hua , also known as An Tzu and Tu Lun, was a Chan Buddhist monk and a contributing figure in bringing Chinese Buddhism to the United States in the 20th century....
, a disciple of the 20th century Chan master, Hsu Yun
Hsu Yun
Hsu Yun , born Xiao Guyan 萧古巖, 26 August 1840 – 13 October 1959) was a renowned Zen Buddhist master and one of the most influential Buddhist teachers of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is often noted for his unusually long lifespan, having lived to age 119.-Early life:Hsu Yun was born on April 26...
. In 1962, Hsuan Hua moved to San Francisco's Chinatown, where, in addition to Zen, he taught Chinese Pure Land, Tiantai
Tiantai
Tiantai is an important school of Buddhism in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In Japan the school is known as Tendai, and in Korea it is known as Cheontae. Tiantai is also called the "Lotus School", due to its emphasis on the Lotus Sūtra as its doctrinal basis...
, Vinaya
Vinaya
The Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha, based in the canonical texts called Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Buddha, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: 'Dharma' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline...
, and Vajrayana
Vajrayana
Vajrayāna Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle...
Buddhism. Initially, his students were mostly ethnic Chinese, but he eventually attracted a range of followers. In 1970, Hsuan Hua founded Gold Mountain Monastery in San Francisco and in 1976 he established a retreat center, the City Of Ten Thousand Buddhas
City of Ten Thousand Buddhas
The City Of Ten Thousand Buddhas is an international Buddhist community and monastery founded by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, an important figure in Western Buddhism...
, on a 237 acre (959,000 m²) property in Talmage, California
Talmage, California
Talmage is a census-designated place in Mendocino County, California, United States. Talmage is located east-southeast of Ukiah, at an elevation of 627 feet . The population was 1,130 at the 2010 census, down from 1,141 at the 2000 census...
. These monasteries closely adhere to the vinaya
Vinaya
The Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha, based in the canonical texts called Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Buddha, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: 'Dharma' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline...
, the austere traditional Buddhist monastic code. Hsuan Hua also founded the Buddhist Text Translation Society, which translates scriptures into English.
Another Chinese Chán teacher with a Western following was Sheng-yen
Sheng-yen
Sheng-yen was a Buddhist monk, a religious scholar, and one of the mainstream teachers of Chinese Chan Buddhism. He was the 57th generational descendant of Linji in the Linji School and a 3rd generational descendant of Master Hsu Yun...
, trained in both the Caodong
Caodong
Cáodòng is a Chinese Zen Buddhist sect founded by Dongshan Liangjie and his Dharma-heirs in the 9th century. Some attribute the name "Cáodòng" as a union of "Dongshan" and "Caoshan" from one of his Dharma-heirs, Caoshan Benji; however, the "Cao" much more likely came from Cáoxī , the...
and Linji
Linji
Línjì Yìxuán was the founder of the Linji school of Chán Buddhism during Tang Dynasty China. Linji was born into a family named Xing in Caozhou , which he left at a young age to study Buddhism in many places....
schools (equivalent to the Japanese Soto and Rinzai, respectively). He first visited the United States in 1978 under the sponsorship of the Buddhist Association of the United States, an organization of Chinese American Buddhists. In 1980, he founded the Chán Mediation Society in Queens, New York. In 1985, he founded the Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies in Taiwan, which sponsors Chinese Zen activities in the United States.
In 1992, Shi Yan Ming
Shi Yan Ming
Shi Yan Ming is a 34th generation Shaolin warrior monk, teacher and actor, best known as the founder of USA Shaolin Temple...
, a 34th Generation Shaolin monk of the Caodong
Caodong
Cáodòng is a Chinese Zen Buddhist sect founded by Dongshan Liangjie and his Dharma-heirs in the 9th century. Some attribute the name "Cáodòng" as a union of "Dongshan" and "Caoshan" from one of his Dharma-heirs, Caoshan Benji; however, the "Cao" much more likely came from Cáoxī , the...
lineage, came to America and founded the USA Shaolin Temple in New York City. Construction has recently begun on a full-size Shaolin temple in Fleischmanns, New York
Fleischmanns, New York
Fleischmanns is a village in Delaware County, New York, United States. The population was 351 at the 2000 census. Fleischmanns is in the town of Middletown.- History :Early settlers of this area came from Germany, England, Holland and Ireland...
.
Seung Sahn
Seung Sahn
Seung Sahn Haeng Won Dae Soen-sa , born Dok-In Lee, was a Korean Jogye Seon master and founder of the international Kwan Um School of Zen—the largest Zen institution present in the Western world. He was the seventy-eighth teacher in his lineage...
was an influential Korean Zen teacher in America. He was a temple abbot in Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
and after living in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, he moved to the US in 1972, not speaking any English. On the flight to Los Angeles, a Korean American passenger offered him a job at a laundry in Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, which became headquarters of Seung Sahn's Kwan Um School of Zen
Kwan Um School of Zen
The Kwan Um School of Zen is an international school of Zen centers and groups, founded in 1983 by Seung Sahn Soen Sa Nim. The school's international head temple is located at the Providence Zen Center in Cumberland, Rhode Island, which was founded in 1972 shortly after Seung Sahn first came to...
. Shortly after arriving in Providence, he attracted students and founded the Providence Zen Center
Providence Zen Center
Providence Zen Center is the international headquarters for the Kwan Um School of Zen and the first Zen center established by Seung Sahn in the United States in October 1972. The PZC offers residential training where students and teachers live together under one roof, which was one of the...
. The Kwan Um School has more than 100 Zen centers on six continents.
Another Korean Zen teacher, Samu Sunim
Samu Sunim
Samu Sunim , born Sam-Woo Kim, is a Korean Seon sunim of the Jogye Order. He received Dharma transmission from Zen Master Weolha Sunim in 1983...
, founded Toronto's Zen Buddhist Temple in 1971. He is head of the Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom, which has temples in Ann Arbor, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
, and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
In the early 20th century, Master Kyong Ho
Kyong Ho
Kyong Ho Seonsa was a famous Korea Sŏn master, and the 75th Patriarch of Korean Sŏn. His original name was Song Tonguk; and his dharma name was Sŏng’u. He is known as the reviver of modern Korean Sŏn Buddhism. Song Tonguk was born in southern Korea , and entered the sangha at the age of nine in 1857...
(1849–1912), renergized Korean Seon. At the end of World War II, his disciple, Master Mann Gong (1871–1946), proclaimed that lineage Dharma should be transmitted worldwide to encourage peace through enlightenment. Consequently, his Dharma successor, Hye Am (1884–1985) brought lineage Dharma to the United States. Hye Am's Dharma successor, Myo Vong founded the Western Son Academy (1976), and his Korean disciple, Pohwa Sunim, founded World Zen Fellowship (1994) which includes various Zen centers in the United States, such as the Potomac Zen Sangha, the Patriarchal Zen Society and the Baltimore Zen Center.
Vietnamese Zen teachers in America include Thich Thien-An
Thien-An
Dr. Thich Thiên Ân was an influential teacher of Vietnamese Zen Buddhism who was active in the United States....
and Thich Nhat Hanh
Nhat Hanh
Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist who now lives in France. Born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo, Thích Nhất Hạnh joined a Zen monastery at the age of 16, and studied Buddhism as a novitiate. Upon his ordination as a monk in 1949, he assumed the Dharma name...
. Thich Thien-An
Thien-An
Dr. Thich Thiên Ân was an influential teacher of Vietnamese Zen Buddhism who was active in the United States....
came to America in 1966 as a visiting professor at UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
and taught traditional Thien meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh
Nhat Hanh
Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist who now lives in France. Born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo, Thích Nhất Hạnh joined a Zen monastery at the age of 16, and studied Buddhism as a novitiate. Upon his ordination as a monk in 1949, he assumed the Dharma name...
was a monk in Vietnam during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. He was a peace activist nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
in 1967 by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
In 1966, he left Vietnam in exile for Plum Village
Plum Village
Plum Village is a Buddhist meditation center in the Dordogne, in southern France. It was founded by Vietnamese monk Thích Nhất Hạnh, and his colleague Bhikkhuni Chân Không, in 1982.-History:...
, a monastery in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He has written more than one hundred books about Buddhism, which have made him a popular Buddhist author in the West. In his books and talks, Thich Nhat Hanh emphasizes mindfulness (sati) as the most important practice in daily life. His monastic students live and practice at three centers in the United States: Deer Park Monastery
Deer Park Monastery
Deer Park Monastery is a Buddhist sanctuary in Escondido, California. It was founded in July 2000 by monastic and lay practitioners from Plum Village in France....
in Escondido, California
Escondido, California
Escondido is a city occupying a shallow valley ringed by rocky hills, just north of the city of San Diego, California. Founded in 1888, it is one of the oldest cities in San Diego County. The city had a population of 143,911 at the 2010 census. Its municipal government set itself an operating...
, Blue Cliff Monastery
Blue Cliff Monastery
Blue Cliff Monastery is a Buddhist monastery located in Pine Bush, New York. It was founded in May 2007 by monastic and lay practitioners from Plum Village in France....
in Pine Bush, New York
Pine Bush, New York
Pine Bush is a hamlet located in the Town of Crawford, and Shawangunk, New York, in Orange/Ulster Counties, New York, U.S., roughly coterminous with the 12566 ZIP code and 744 telephone exchange in the 845 area code Pine Bush is a hamlet (and census-designated place) located in the Town of...
, and Magnolia Grove Monastery in Batesville, Mississippi
Batesville, Mississippi
Batesville is a city in Panola County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 7,113 at the 2000 census.-History:The Land upon which present day Batesville is situated originally belonged to a Chickasaw Indian called Ish-Sho-Nu-Nah...
.
Tibetan Buddhism
Perhaps the most widely visible Buddhist leader in the world is Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai LamaDalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...
, who first visited the United States in 1979. As the exiled political leader of Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
, he has become a popular cause célèbre. His early life was depicted in Hollywood films such as Kundun
Kundun
Kundun is a 1997 epic biographical film written by Melissa Mathison and directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the life and writings of the 14th Dalai Lama, the exiled political and spiritual leader of Tibet...
and Seven Years in Tibet
Seven Years in Tibet (1997 film)
Seven Years in Tibet is a 1997 film based on the book of the same name written by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer on his experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951 during the Second World War, the interim period, and the Chinese People's Liberation Army's invasion of Tibet in 1950. The film...
. He has attracted celebrity religious followers such as Richard Gere
Richard Gere
Richard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...
and Adam Yauch
Adam Yauch
Adam Nathaniel Yauch , , is a founding member of hip hop trio the Beastie Boys. He is frequently known by his stage name, MCA, and other pseudonyms such as Nathanial Hörnblowér.-Early life:...
. The first Western-born Tibetan Buddhist monk was Robert A. F. Thurman, now an academic supporter of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama maintains a North American headquarters at Namgyal Monastery
Namgyal Monastery
Namgyal Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery associated with the Dalai Lamas. Founded in 1575 by the Third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso, Namgyal Monastery was historically housed within the Potala Palace...
in Ithaca, New York
Ithaca, New York
The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...
.
The first Tibetan Buddhist lama to come to the United States was Geshe Ngawang Wangyal, a Kalmyk-Mongolian of the Gelug
Gelug
The Gelug or Gelug-pa , also known as the Yellow Hat sect, is a school of Buddhism founded by Je Tsongkhapa , a philosopher and Tibetan religious leader...
lineage, who came to the United States in 1955 and founded the "Lamaist Buddhist Monastery of America" in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
in 1958. Among his students were the future western scholars Robert Thurman
Robert Thurman
Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman is an influential and prolific American Buddhist writer and academic who has authored, edited or translated several books on Tibetan Buddhism. He is the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, holding the first endowed chair...
, Jeffrey Hopkins, Alexander Berzin and Anne C. Klein
Anne C. Klein
Anne Carolyn Klein is Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas and founding director and resident teacher at Dawn Mountain, a Tibetan temple, community center and research institute....
. Other early arrivals included Deshung Rinpoche, a Sakya
Sakya
The Sakya school is one of four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the others being the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelug...
lama who settled in Seattle, in 1960, and Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, the first Nyingma
Nyingma
The Nyingma tradition is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism . "Nyingma" literally means "ancient," and is often referred to as Nga'gyur or the "old school" because it is founded on the first translations of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Tibetan, in the eighth century...
teacher in America, who arrived in the US in 1968 and established the "Tibetan Nyingma Meditation Center" in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
in 1969.
The best-known Tibetan Buddhist lama to live in the United States was Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was a Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages, the eleventh Trungpa tülku, a tertön, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and originator of a radical re-presentation of Shambhala vision.Recognized...
. Trungpa, part of the Kagyu
Kagyu
The Kagyu, Kagyupa, or Kagyud school, also known as the "Oral Lineage" or Whispered Transmission school, is today regarded as one of six main schools of Himalayan or Tibetan Buddhism, the other five being the Nyingma, Sakya, Jonang, Bon and Gelug...
school of Tibetan Buddhism, moved to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1963, founded a temple in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, and then relocated to Barnet, Vermont
Barnet, Vermont
Barnet is a town in Caledonia County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,690 at the 2000 census. Barnet contains the locations of Barnet Center, East Barnet, McIndoe Falls, Mosquitoville, Passumpsic and West Barnet.-Geography:...
, and then Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
by 1970. He established what he named Dharmadhatu meditation centers, eventually organized under a national umbrella group called Vajradhatu
Vajradhatu
Vajradhatu was the name of the umbrella organization of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, one of the first Tibetan Buddhist lamas to visit and teach in the West. It served as the vehicle for the promulgation of his Buddhist teachings, and was also the name by which his community was known from 1973 until...
(later to become Shambhala International). He developed a series of secular techniques he called Shambhala Training
Shambhala Training
Shambhala Training is a secular approach to meditation developed by the late Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa and his students. It is based on what Trungpa calls Shambhala Vision, which sees enlightened society as not purely mythical, but as realizable by people of all faiths through...
. Following Trungpa's death, his followers at the Shambhala Mountain Center
Shambhala Mountain Center
The Shambhala Mountain Center was founded by Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1970 at Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. Trungpa arrived in 1971 with a number of students from Tail of the Tiger in Barnet, Vermont, now known as Karmê Chöling....
built the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya
The Great Stupa of Dharmakaya Which Liberates Upon Seeing
The Great Stupa of Dharmakaya is located at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado, USA. It was built to inter the ashes of Chogyam Trungpa, who died in 1987. In many Buddhist traditions it is common to build a stupa to honour a respected teacher after their death.Construction of the stupa began...
, a traditional reliquary monument, near Red Feather Lakes, Colorado
Red Feather Lakes, Colorado
Red Feather Lakes is a census-designated place in Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The population was 525 at the 2000 census. The Red Feather Lakes Post Office has the ZIP Code 80545.-Geography:...
consecrated in 2001.
Kagyu
The Kagyu, Kagyupa, or Kagyud school, also known as the "Oral Lineage" or Whispered Transmission school, is today regarded as one of six main schools of Himalayan or Tibetan Buddhism, the other five being the Nyingma, Sakya, Jonang, Bon and Gelug...
, the Nyingma, and the Sakya
Sakya
The Sakya school is one of four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the others being the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelug...
. Of these, the greatest impact in the West was made by the Gelug, led by the Dalai Lama, and the Kagyu, specifically its Karma Kagyu
Karma Kagyu
Karma Kagyu , or Kamtsang Kagyu, is probably the largest and certainly the most widely practiced lineage within the Kagyu school, one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The lineage has long-standing monasteries in Tibet, China, Russia, Mongolia, India, Nepal, and Bhutan, and current...
branch, led by the Karmapa
Karmapa
The Karmapa is the head of the Karma Kagyu, the largest sub-school of the Kagyupa , itself one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism....
. As of the early 1990s, there were several significant strands of Kagyu practice in the United States: Chögyam Trungpa's Shambhala movement; Karma Triyana Dharmachakra
Karma Triyana Dharmachakra
Karma Triyana Dharmachakra is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Woodstock, New York, USA, which serves as the North American seat of His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu lineage. It was founded in 1976 by the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa. The abbot has been Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche...
, a network of centers affiliated directly with the Karmapa's North American seat in Woodstock, New York
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 at the 2000 census.The Town of Woodstock is in the northern part of the county...
; a network of centers founded by Kalu
Kalu
Kalu may refer to:*Kalu, Afghanistan*Kalu river, a river in Sri Lanka*Kalu , a district in Ethiopia-People:*Kalu Rinpoche, Tibetan Buddhist*Orji Uzor Kalu, a Nigerian politician*Maxwell Kalu, Nigerian footballer...
Rinpoche.
In the 21st century, the Nyingma lineage is increasingly represented in the West by both Western and Tibetan teachers. Lama Surya Das is a Western-born teacher carrying on the "great rimé", a non-sectarian form of Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India . It is the state religion of Bhutan...
. The late Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche
Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche
Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche was a teacher of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. He was known and respected in the West for his teachings, his melodic chanting voice, his artistry as a sculptor and painter, and his skill as a physician...
founded centers in Seattle and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. Khandro Rinpoche
Khandro Rinpoche
Mindrolling Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche is a rare example of a female Tibetan Buddhist lama...
is a female Tibetan teacher who has a presence in America. Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo is an enthroned tulku within the Palyul lineage of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. In the late 1980s, she gained international attention as the first Western woman to be named a reincarnate lama...
is the first Western woman to be enthroned as a Tulku
Tulku
In Tibetan Buddhism, a tulku is a particular high-ranking lama, of whom the Dalai Lama is one, who can choose the manner of his rebirth. Normally the lama would be reincarnated as a human, and of the same sex as his predecessor. In contrast to a tulku, all other sentient beings including other...
, and established Nyingma Kunzang Palyul Choling
Kunzang Palyul Choling
Kunzang Palyul Choling is a center for Buddhist study and practice in the Nyingma tradition . Founded as the Center for Discovery and New Life in 1985, and then given to His Holiness Penor Rinpoche and renamed by him in 1987, KPC was Penor Rinpoche's first Dharma Center in the US.- Teachers :The...
centers in Sedona, Arizona
Sedona, Arizona
Sedona is a city that straddles the county line between Coconino and Yavapai counties in the northern Verde Valley region of the U.S. state of Arizona...
and Poolesville, Maryland
Poolesville, Maryland
Poolesville is a town in Montgomery County, Maryland United States with a population of approximately 5000 people. It is surrounded by the Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve, and is considered a distant bedroom community for commuters to Washington, DC.The name of the town comes from the...
.
The Gelug
Gelug
The Gelug or Gelug-pa , also known as the Yellow Hat sect, is a school of Buddhism founded by Je Tsongkhapa , a philosopher and Tibetan religious leader...
tradition is represented in America by the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition
Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition
The Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition is a network of Buddhist centers focusing on the Gelugpa tradition of Tibet. Founded in 1975 by Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, who began teaching Buddhism to Western students in Nepal, the FPMT has grown to encompass...
(FPMT), founded by Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa. Gelugpa teacher Geshe Michael Roach, the first American to be awarded a Geshe
Geshe
Geshe is a Tibetan Buddhist academic degree for monks...
degree, established centers in New York and at Diamond Mountain University
Diamond Mountain University
Diamond Mountain is a Tibetan Buddhist seminary and retreat center located south of Bowie, Arizona in the Sonoran Desert. Oriented towards the Gelugpa school, it was founded by Geshe Michael Roach in 2000 and opened to students in September 2004. It is not an accredited university...
in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
.
New Kadampa Tradition
New Kadampa Tradition
The New Kadampa Tradition ~ International Kadampa Buddhist Union is a global Buddhist organisation founded by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in England in 1991. In 2003 the words "International Kadampa Buddhist Union" were added to the original name "New Kadampa Tradition"...
(NKT) was established by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. An offshoot of the Gelug school founded in the 1990s in the UK, the NKT has over 50 Kadampa (NKT) Buddhist Centers and branches in the United States. Most members of the organization are Westerners or in the far east, principally in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Diamond Way Buddhism
Diamond Way Buddhism
Diamond Way Buddhism is a lay organization within the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. The first Diamond Way Buddhist centre was founded in 1972 by Hannah and Ole Nydahl...
founded by Ole Nydahl
Ole Nydahl
Ole Nydahl is a lama in the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism under guidance of Trinley Thaye Dorje. Since the early 1970s, Nydahl has toured the world giving lectures and meditation courses. With his wife, Hannah Nydahl, he founded Diamond Way Buddhism, a worldwide lay organization of Karma...
is also active in the US.
Vipassana
VipassanaVipassana
Vipassanā or vipaśyanā in the Buddhist tradition means insight into the true nature of reality. A regular practitioner of Vipassana is known as a Vipassi . Vipassana is one of the world's most ancient techniques of meditation, the inception of which is attributed to Gautama Buddha...
, roughly translated as "insight meditation", is an ancient meditative practice described in the Pali Canon
Pāli Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...
of the Theravada
Theravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
school of Buddhism and similar scriptures. Vipassana also refers to a distinct movement which was begun in the 20th century by reformers such as Mahāsi Sayādaw
Mahasi Sayadaw
The Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw U Sobhana was a Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk and meditation master who had a significant impact on the teaching of Vipassana meditation in the West and throughout Asia...
, a Burmese monk. Mahāsi Sayādaw was a Theravada bhikkhu
Bhikkhu
A Bhikkhu or Bhikṣu is an ordained male Buddhist monastic. A female monastic is called a Bhikkhuni Nepali: ). The life of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis is governed by a set of rules called the patimokkha within the vinaya's framework of monastic discipline...
and Vipassana is rooted in the Theravada teachings, but its goal is to simplify ritual and other peripheral activities in order to make meditative practice more effective and available both to monks and to laypeople. This openness to lay involvement is unusual in Theravada, which normally focused on monasticism.
In 1965, monks from Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
established the Washington Buddhist Vihara in Washington, DC, the first Theravada monastic community in the United States. The Vihara was accessible to English-speakers with Vipassana meditation part of it activities. However, the direct influence of the Vipassana movement would not reach the U.S. until a group of Americans returned there in the early 1970s after studying with Vipassana masters in Asia. Joseph Goldstein
Joseph Goldstein
Joseph Goldstein is one of the first American vipassana teachers , co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg, contemporary author of numerous popular books on Buddhism , resident guiding teacher at IMS, and leader of retreats worldwide on insight and...
, after journeying to Southeast Asia with the Peace Corps
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...
, lived in Bodhgaya as a student of Anagarika Munindra
Anagarika Munindra
Anagarika Shri Munindra , also called Munindraji by his disciples, was a Bengali vipassana meditation teacher, who taught many notable teachers including Dipa Ma, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Surya Das. Anagarika simply means a practicing Buddhist who leads a homeless life without...
, the head monk of Mahabodhi Temple
Mahabodhi Temple
The Mahabodhi Temple is a Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, the location where Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, attained enlightenment. Bodh Gaya is located about from Patna, Bihar state, India. Next to the temple, to its western side, is the holy Bodhi tree...
and himself a student of Māhāsai Sayādaw. Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield is a teacher in the vipassana movement of American Theravada Buddhism. He trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, including as a student of the Thai monk Ajahn Chah...
also worked for the Peace Corps in Southeast Asia, and then studied and ordained in the Thai Forest Tradition
Thai Forest Tradition
The Thai Forest Tradition is a tradition of Buddhist monasticism within Thai Theravada Buddhism. Practitioners inhabit remote wilderness and forest dwellings as spiritual practice training grounds. Maha Nikaya and Dhammayuttika Nikaya are the two major monastic orders in Thailand that have forest...
under Ajahn Chah
Ajahn Chah
Venerable Ajahn Chah Subhaddo was an influential teacher of the Buddhadhamma and a founder of two major monasteries in the Thai Forest Tradition....
, a major figure in 20th century Thai Buddhism
Buddhism in Thailand
Buddhism in Thailand is largely of the Theravada school. Nearly 95% of Thailand's population is Buddhist of the Theravada school, though Buddhism in this country has become integrated with folk beliefs as well as Chinese religions from the large Thai-Chinese population.Buddhist temples in Thailand...
. Sharon Salzberg
Sharon Salzberg
Sharon Salzberg is a New York Times Best selling author and influential teacher of Buddhist meditation practices in West. She co-founded the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein, in 1974...
went to India in 1971 and studied with Dipa Ma
Dipa Ma
Dipa Ma was born Nani Bala Barua in a small village named Chittagong in East Bengal , moving to join her husband in Burma when she was 16...
, a former Calcutta housewife trained in vipassana by Māhāsai Sayādaw.
Goldstein and Kornfield met in 1974 while teaching at the Naropa Institute in Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
. The next year, Goldstein, Kornfield, and Salzberg, who had very recently returned from Calcutta, along with Jacqueline Schwarz, founded the Insight Meditation Society
Insight Meditation Society
The Insight Meditation Society is a non-profit organization for study of Buddhism located in Barre, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1975, by Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Joseph Goldstein, and is rooted in the Theravada tradition. IMS meditation practices are based on the teachings of the...
on an 80 acre (324,000 m²) property near Barre, Massachusetts
Barre, Massachusetts
Barre is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,398 at the 2010 census.-History:Originally called the Northwest District of Rutland, it was first settled in 1720. The town was incorporated on June 17, 1774, as Hutchinson after Thomas Hutchinson, colonial...
. IMS hosted visits by Māhāsi Sayādaw, Munindra, Ajahn Chah, and Dipa Ma. In 1981, Kornfield moved to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where he founded another Vipassana center, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, in Marin County
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...
. In 1985, Larry Rosenberg
Larry Rosenberg
Larry Rosenberg is an American Buddhist teacher who founded the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also a resident teacher there. Rosenberg was a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and Harvard Medical School...
founded the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
. Another Vipassana center is the Vipassana Metta Foundation, located on Maui
Maui
The island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is part of the state of Hawaii and is the largest of Maui County's four islands, bigger than Lānai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai. In 2010, Maui had a population of 144,444,...
.
In 1989, the Insight Meditation Center established the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies near the IMS headquarters, to promote scholarly investigation of Buddhism. Its director is Mu Seong, a former Korean Zen monk.
S. N. Goenka
S. N. Goenka
Satya Narayan Goenka is a leading lay teacher of Vipassanā meditation and a student of U Ba Khin. He has trained more than 800 assistant teachers and each year more than 100,000 people attend Goenka sponsored Vipassana courses....
is a Burmese-born meditation teacher of the Vipassana movement. His teacher, Sayagyi U Ba Khin
U Ba Khin
Saya Gyi U Ba Khin was the first Accountant General of the Union of Burma. He is principally known as a leading twentieth century authority on Vipassana meditation. -Life and works:...
of Burma, was a contemporary of Māhāsi Sayādaw's, and taught a style of Buddhism with similar emphasis on simplicity and accessibility to laypeople. Goenka established a method of instruction popular in Asia and throughout the world. In 1981, he established the Vipassana Research Institute in Igatpuri, India
Igatpuri
Igatpuri is a city and a Hill Station municipal council in Nashik District in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is located in the Western Ghats. The station lies in Nashik District between Mumbai and Nashik Road on the Central Railway. Igatpuri is known for its Buddhist Pagoda for Meditation...
and his students built several centers in North America.
Sōka Gakkai
Sōka Gakkai, which means "Value Creation Society", was founded in Japan in 1930 as a fraternal auxiliary to Nichiren ShoshuNichiren Shoshu
Nichiren Shōshū is a branch of Nichiren Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese monk Nichiren . Nichiren Shōshū claims Nichiren as its founder through his disciple Nikkō , the founder of the school's Head Temple Taiseki-ji...
, a minor sect of Nichiren Buddhism. It was perhaps the most successful of Japan's new religious movements, which grew after the end of the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. During the occupation of Japan, some American soldiers became aware of it, and Japanese wives of veterans became the first active Sōka Gakkai members in the West. A US branch was formally organized on October 13, 1960. Its Korean-Japanese leader took the name George M. Williams to emphasize reaching the English-speaking public. Sōka Gakkai expanded rapidly in the US, attracting non-Asian minority converts, chiefly African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
and Latino, to Buddhism. It also attracted the support of celebrities, such as Tina Turner
Tina Turner
Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, and Orlando Bloom
Orlando Bloom
Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom is an English actor. He had his break-through roles in 2001 as the elf-prince Legolas in The Lord of the Rings and starring in 2003 as blacksmith Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, and subsequently established himself as a lead in Hollywood...
.
Sōka Gakkai has no priests of its own. The United States branch was originally named Nichiren Shoshu America (NSA). In 1991, Sōka Gakkai split from Nichiren Shoshu and became a separate organization; at that time, the U.S. branch changed its name to Sōka Gakkai International—United States of America (SGI-USA). Nichiren Shoshu proper maintains six temples of its own in the U.S. and another Nichiren group exists which is primarily the domain of ethnic Japanese.
The main religious practice of Sōka Gakkai, like other Nichiren Buddhists, is chanting the mantra Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō is a mantra that is chanted as the central practice of all forms of Nichiren Buddhism...
and sections of the Lotus Sutra
Lotus Sutra
The Lotus Sūtra is one of the most popular and influential Mahāyāna sūtras, and the basis on which the Tiantai and Nichiren sects of Buddhism were established.-Title:...
. Unlike import Buddhist trends such as Zen, Vipassana, and Tibetan Buddhism, Sōka Gakkai does not teach meditative techniques other than chanting.
Demographics of Buddhism in the United States
Accurate counts of Buddhists in the United States are difficult. Self-description has pitfalls. Because Buddhism is a cultural concept, individuals who self-describe as Buddhists may have little knowledge nor commitment to Buddhism as a religion or practice; on the other hand, others may be deeply involved in meditation and committed to the Dharma, but may refuse the label "Buddhist". Studies have indicated a Buddhist population in the United States of between 2 and 10 million. In the 1990s, Robert A. F. Thurman estimated there were 5 to 6 million Buddhists in America.In a 2007 Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is an American think tank organization based in Washington, D.C. that provides information on issues, attitudes and trends shaping the United States and the world. The Center and its projects receive funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 1990, Donald S...
survey, at 0.7% Buddhism was the fourth largest religion in the US after Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
(78.4%), no religion (10.3%) and Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
(1.7%).
Ethnic divide
Discussion about Buddhism in America has sometimes focused on the issue of the visible ethnic divide separating ethnic Buddhist congregations from import Buddhist groups. Although many Zen and Tibetan Buddhist temples were founded by Asians, they now attract fewer Asian-Americans. With the exception of Sōka Gakkai, almost all active Buddhist groups in America are either ethnic or import Buddhism based on the demographics of their membership. There is often limited contact between Buddhists of different ethnic groups.However, the cultural divide should not necessarily be seen as pernicious. It is often argued that the differences between Buddhist groups arise benignly from the differing needs and interests of those involved. Convert Buddhists tend to be interested in meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, in some cases eschewing the trappings of religiosity altogether. On the other hand, for immigrants and their descendants, preserving tradition and maintaining a social framework assume a much greater relative importance, making their approach to religion naturally more conservative. Further, based on a survey of Asian-American Buddhists in San Francisco, "many Asian-American Buddhists view non-Asian Buddhism as still in a formative, experimental stage" and yet they believe that it "could eventually mature into a religious expression of exceptional quality".
Additional questions come from the demographics within import Buddhism. The majority of American converts practicing at Buddhist centers are white, often from Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
or Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
backgrounds. Only Sōka Gakkai has attracted significant numbers of African-American or Latino members. A variety of ideas have been broached regarding the nature, causes, and significance of this racial uniformity. Journalist Clark Strand noted
- …that it has tried to recruit [African-Americans] at all makes Sōka Gakkai International utterly unique in American Buddhism.
Strand, writing for Tricycle (an American Buddhist journal) in 2004, notes that SGI has specifically targeted African-Americans, Latinos and Asians, and other writers have noted that this approach has begun to spread, with Vipassana and Theravada retreats aimed at non-white practitioners led by a handful of specific teachers.
A question is the degree of importance ascribed to discrimination, which is suggested to be mostly unconscious, on the part of white converts toward potential minority converts. To some extent, the racial divide indicates a class divide, because convert Buddhists tend to be more educated. Among African American Buddhists who commented on the dynamics of the racial divide in convert Buddhism are Jan Willis
Jan Willis
Janice Dean Willis, or Jan Willis is Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University, where she has taught since 1977; and the author of books on Tibetan Buddhism. She has been called influential by Time Magazine, Newsweek , and Ebony Magazine...
and Charles R. Johnson
Charles R. Johnson
Charles R. Johnson is an American scholar and author of novels, short stories, and essays. Johnson, an African-American, has directly addressed the issues of black life in America in novels such as Middle Passage and Dreamer....
.
Engaged Buddhism
Socially engaged BuddhismEngaged Buddhism
Engaged Buddhism refers to Buddhists who are seeking ways to apply the insights from meditation practice and dharma teachings to situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering and injustice...
has developed in Buddhism in the West. While some critics assert the term is redundant, as it is mistaken to believe that Buddhism in the past has not affected and been affected by the surrounding society, others have suggested that Buddhism is sometimes seen as too passive toward public life. This is particularly true in the West, where almost all converts to Buddhism come to it outside of an existing family or community tradition. Engaged Buddhism is an attempt to apply Buddhist values to larger social problems, including war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
and environmental concerns
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
. The term was coined by Thich Nhat Hanh
Nhat Hanh
Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist who now lives in France. Born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo, Thích Nhất Hạnh joined a Zen monastery at the age of 16, and studied Buddhism as a novitiate. Upon his ordination as a monk in 1949, he assumed the Dharma name...
, during his years as a peace activist in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. The Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Buddhist Peace Fellowship
The Buddhist Peace Fellowship is a nonsectarian international network of engaged Buddhists participating in various forms of nonviolent social activism and environmentalism with chapters all over the world...
was founded in 1978 by Robert Aitken
Robert Baker Aitken
Robert Baker Dairyu Chotan Aitken Roshi was a Zen teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. He co-founded the Honolulu Diamond Sangha in 1959...
, Anne Aitken, Nelson Foster, and others and received early assistance from Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...
, Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield is a teacher in the vipassana movement of American Theravada Buddhism. He trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, including as a student of the Thai monk Ajahn Chah...
, and Joanna Macy. Another engaged Buddhist group is the Zen Peacemaker Order
Zen Peacemaker Order
The Zen Peacemakers is an organization of socially engaged Buddhists. It was founded by Zen Master Bernie Glassman and his wife Sandra Jishu Holmes in 1996, as a means of continuing the work begun with the Greyston Foundation in 1980 of expanding Zen practice into larger spheres of influence such...
, founded in 1996 by Bernie Glassman
Tetsugen Bernard Glassman
Bernie Glassman , aka Tetsugen Bernard Glassman, is an American Zen Buddhist roshi and co-founder of the Zen Peacemakers , an organization established in 1996 with his late wife Sandra Jishu Holmes...
and Sandra Jishu Holmes.
Buddhist Education in the United States
Chögyam Trungpa founded Naropa Institute in Boulder, ColoradoBoulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
, a four-year Buddhist college in the US (now Naropa University) in 1974. Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
was an initial faculty member, christening the Institute's poetry department the "Jack Kerouac School
Jack Kerouac School
The Jack Kerouac School was founded at Naropa University in 1974 by Chögyam Trungpa, and Beat Generation poets Allen Ginsbergand Anne Waldman. The school consists of the Summer Writing Program and the Department of Writing and Poetics, which administers the Master of Fine Arts in Writing and...
of Disembodied Poetics". Now Naropa University, the school offers accredited degrees in a number of subjects, many not directly related to Buddhism.
The University of the West
University of the West
The University of the West is a university in Rosemead, California. It was founded in 1991 by Venerable Master Hsing Yun, founder of the Taiwan-based Buddhist order Fo Guang Shan and Hsi Lai Temple, the North American order headquarters...
is affiliated with Hsi Lai Temple and was previously Hsi Lai University. Soka University of America
Soka University of America
Soka University of America is a university located in Aliso Viejo, California, United States. It describes its mission as the fostering of a steady stream of global citizens committed to living a contributive life—with an emphasis on principles of pacifism, human rights, and the creative...
, in Aliso Viejo California, was founded by the Sōka Gakkai as a secular school committed to philosophic Buddhism. The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas is the site of Dharma Realm Buddhist University, a four-year college teaching courses primarily related to Buddhism but including some general-interest subjects. The Institute of Buddhist Studies
Institute of Buddhist Studies
The is a Jodo Shinshu-affiliated seminary and graduate school, located in Berkeley, California. It is an affiliate member of the Graduate Theological Union, also located in Berkeley. Its primary mission is to train Jodo Shinshu ministers for service in temples in the United States through the...
in Berkeley, California, in addition to offering a Masters Degree in Buddhist Studies acts as the ministerial training arm of the Buddhist Churches of America and is affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union
Graduate Theological Union
The Graduate Theological Union ' is a consortium of nine independent theological schools, and eleven centers and affiliates. Eight of the theological schools are located in Berkeley, California. The GTU was founded in 1962. It maintains the Graduate Theological Union Library, one of the most...
. The school moved into the Jodo Shinshu Center in Berkeley.
The first Buddhist high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
in the United States, Developing Virtue Secondary School
Developing Virtue Secondary School
Developing Virtue Secondary School is a private Buddhist school located in the town of Talmage, California, and also the first Buddhist high school founded in the United States....
, was founded in 1981 by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association
Dharma Realm Buddhist Association
The Dharma Realm Buddhist Association is an international, non-profit Buddhist organization founded by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua in 1959 to bring the orthodox teachings of the Buddha to the entire world...
at their branch monastery in the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas
City of Ten Thousand Buddhas
The City Of Ten Thousand Buddhas is an international Buddhist community and monastery founded by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, an important figure in Western Buddhism...
in Ukiah, California
Ukiah, California
The average high temperature is 73.5 °F . Average low temperature is 46.1 °F . Temperatures reach 90 °F on an average of 65.6 days annually and 100 °F on an average of 14.4 days annually. Due to frequent low humidity, summer temperatures normally drop into the fifties at night. Freezing...
. In 1997, the Purple Lotus Buddhist School offered elementary-level classes in Union City, California
Union City, California
Union City is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It was incorporated in 1959, combining the communities of Alvarado and Decoto. Alvarado was the original county seat of Alameda County, and the site of the first county courthouse is a California Historical Landmark . The city...
, affiliated with the True Buddha School
True Buddha School
The True Buddha School is a modern Vajrayana Buddhist sect based in Taiwan and parts of East Asia with influence from Sutrayana and Taoism.Founded in the late 1980s, the founder of this sect is Lu Sheng-yen , often referred to by his followers as a tulku, a Tibetan term for a reincarnated teacher...
; it added a middle school in 1999 and a high school in 2001. Another Buddhist high school, Tinicum Art and Science, which combines Zen practice and traditional liberal arts, opened in Ottsville, Pennsylvania in 1998. It is associated informally with the World Shim Gum Do Association in Boston. The Pacific Buddhist Academy
Pacific Buddhist Academy
The Pacific Buddhist Academy is a private, co-educational college preparatory high school in Honolulu, Hawai'i.The school’s stated mission is "To prepare students for college through academic excellence, enrich their lives with Buddhist values, and develop their courage to nurture peace." Students...
opened in Honolulu, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
in 2003. It shares a campus with the Hongwanji Mission School
Hongwanji Mission School
Hongwanji Mission School is a private co-educational preparatory school located in Nuuanu Valley and adjacent to Downtown Honolulu...
, an elementary and middle school; both schools affiliated with the Honpa Hongwanji Jodo Shinshu mission.
Juniper Foundation
Juniper Foundation
Juniper Foundationis an organization that works to adapt and promote Buddhist practice in the modern world. It was founded in 2003 by five individuals, Segyu Choepel Rinpoche, Hillary Brook Levy, Christina Juskiewicz, Pam Moriarty and Lawrence Levy...
, founded in 2003, holds that Buddhist methods must become integrated into modern culture just as they were in other cultures. Juniper Foundation calls its approach "Buddhist training for modern life" and it emphasizes meditation, balancing emotions, cultivating compassion and developing insight as four building blocks of Buddhist training.
See also
- Western Buddhism
- Buddhism in CanadaBuddhism in CanadaThere is a small, rapidly growing Buddhist community in Canada. As of the 2001 count, 300,346 Canadians identified their religion as Buddhist ....
- American Zen Teachers AssociationAmerican Zen Teachers AssociationThe American Zen Teachers Association was founded in the late 1980s as the Second Generation Zen Teachers Group. It is a peer-group organization of ordained and lay Zen Buddhist teachers, all of whom have received either teaching authorization or dharma transmission from the mostly Asian Zen...
- Religion in the United StatesReligion in the United StatesReligion in the United States is characterized by both a wide diversity in religious beliefs and practices, and by a high adherence level. According to recent surveys, 83 percent of Americans claim to belong to a religious denomination, 40 percent claim to attend services nearly every week or...
- United States religious history
- List of religious topics
Further reading
- Tomek Lehnert (1997). Rogues in Robes. Nevada City, California: Blue Dolphin Publishing. ISBN 1-57733-026-9.
- Charles Prebish (2003). Buddhism — the American Experience. Journal of Buddhist Ethics Online Books, Inc. ISBN 0-9747055-0-0.
External links
- American Buddhist Net: Buddhist News & Forums
- "Surveying the Buddhist Landscape", article by Charles Prebish, from Shambhala SunShambhala SunThe Shambhala Sun is an independent, bimonthly magazine that offers a nonsectarian view of 'Buddhism, Culture, Meditation, and Life.' Presented are teachings from the Buddhist and other contemplative traditions, with an emphasis on applying the principles of mindfulness and awareness practices to...
- "Global Buddhism: Developmental Periods, Regional Histories, and a New Analytical Perspective", article by Martin Baumann
- "Buddhism Comes to Main Street", article by Jan Nattier on UrbanDharma.org
- "Buddhist Studies and its Impact on Buddhism in Western Societies", article by Max Deeg
- Archives of American Tibetan Buddhist scholar Alexander Berzin
- "Buddhism evolves as followers multiply", article from the Poughkeepsie JournalPoughkeepsie JournalThe Poughkeepsie Journal is a newspaper based in Poughkeepsie, New York owned by the Gannett Company, who bought the paper in 1977. Founded in 1785 , the Journal is the oldest paper in New York state, and is the third-oldest in the nation...
, April 23, 2004 - "Shin Buddhism in the American Context", article by Dr. Alfred BloomAlfred Bloom (Buddhist)- Alfred Bloom :Alfred Bloom is a pioneer of Jodo Shinshu studies in the English-speaking world. Born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1926 Bloom was the youngest child of a Jewish father. At the time of Alfred Bloom’s birth, his mother had been a recent convert to a fundamentalist tradition of...
- Chronology of the lives of important persons in the history of Zen in America, from Terebess Online
- A chronology of Theravada Buddhism, from accesstoinsight.org
- Building Buddha Maitreya Church of Shambhala Monastery in Northern California, video
- Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, an independent voice of dharma in the West
- The New Georgia Encyclopedia: Buddhism in the U.S.
- American Buddhism Survey - American Buddhism Research Project