Buddhism

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Buddhism in America Interest in and practiceof BUDDHISM in the Western Hemisphere. This entryconcentrates on Buddhism in the United States.Buddhism was already in the United States inthe 19th century (1800s). On the East Coast someeducated Americans of European descent showedan interest in it. They included the "New Englandtranscendentalists," a group of writers who gatheredaround Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) inthe 1830s and 1840s. More serious were the interestsof a Russian noblewoman, Helena P. Blavatsky(1831–91), and an American, Henry S. Olcott(1832–1907). In 1875 they founded the TheosophicalSociety in New York. Later they traveled tosouth Asia and took Buddhist vows.During the late 19th century Buddhism alsoappeared on the West Coast. There it was not associatedwith an intellectual elite. Rather, immigrantsfrom east Asia who came to the West Coast andthe island of Hawaii brought Buddhism with them.The Chinese fi rst came to California in the headydays of the Gold Rush (1848–49). Japanese begancoming to the West Coast at the end of the 19thcentury. Among the Buddhist traditions that theJapanese brought was a school very popular inJapan: the True Pure Land school (see PURE LANDBUDDHISM). Its adherents rely solely upon the powerof the Buddha AMIDA to be reborn in the Pure Landafter death. True Pure Land Buddhists formed theBuddhist Church of America. It grew into a majorinstitution.During the 1960s two other schools of Buddhismtook root in American soil. NICHIREN Buddhismattracted many non-Asian adherents. It honorsthe Japanese "prophet" Nichiren (1222–82) asthe BUDDHA for the present age and teaches its followersto chant a phrase known as the Daimoku:Nam Myoho Renge Kyo (Hail to the LOTUS SUTRA).In 1991 the community split. The branch knownas Nichiren Shoshu preserves the tradition of Buddhistmonks and maintains temples in Chicago,Hawaii, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco,and Washington, D.C. The other group, known asSoka Gakkai, has no monks. Its members, led bylay leaders, gather at community centers spreadwidely across the United States.During the 1960s a different group of immigrantsalso brought Buddhism to the UnitedStates. In the previous decade, China had annexedTibet and closed down its monasteries. Manymonks fl ed into exile. Their leader, the DALAILAMA, occasionally visited the United States. He became highly visible, especially after he won theNobel Prize for peace in 1989. Among his betterknown followers was the movie actor, RichardGere. Some Tibetan monks established monasteriesand Buddhist schools in the United States. Agood example is the Naropa Institute in Boulder,Colorado, founded by the Tibetan monk ChogyamTrungpa.The Tibetan monks saw the United States asan opportunity to teach the Buddhist DHARMA ina foreign land. Other Buddhist groups did, too.One of the most important of these was the schoolknown as Zen (see ZEN BUDDHISM). It has attracted alarge number of non-Asian followers in the UnitedStates. Indeed, it has broadly infl uenced Americanculture.American awareness of Zen dates from theWorld's Parliament of Religion held in Chicago in1893. Among the religious fi gures who attendedthe parliament was a Japanese Zen master, ShakuSoen. Later, the books of a lay follower of Soen,D. T. Suzuki, helped popularize Zen in the UnitedStates and around the world. In the 1950s Zenattracted the attention of the Beat poets. By the1970s Americans of non-Asian descent had beencertifi ed as Zen masters. By the end of the centuryZen MEDITATION centers were common in manyparts of the United States.Zen has become a feature of the Americanconsciousness. Good examples are Robert Pirsig'snovel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance(1974) and a World-Wide-Web site hostedby America Online in 1996 called "Zen and theInternet." Such titles show the extent to which Zenhas fascinated Americans. These uses of the word"Zen," however, have little or nothing to do withthe practice of Buddhism.