Border country dharma : Buddhism, Ireland and peripherality

Abstract

Buddhist tradition distinguishes a "central region" where suitable conditions for practice – notably a well-developed sangha – are to be found, from "border regions" where there are fewer or no monks, nuns, laymen or laywomen (1). If, in the last 150 years, Buddhist Asia has acted as the "central region" to the "border regions" of western Buddhism, Ireland is arguably a border region to the border regions, a second-hand recipient of developments in more powerful societies. These categories (relational as so many Buddhist concepts) are similar to sociological discussions of core and periphery within the global order. However, some of the most influential accounts of the arrival of Buddhism in the west (such as Almond 1988 and Tweed 2000) stress rather the indigenous, and essentially bounded, development of Victorian Buddhism.