Buddhism’s Growth and Popularity

Abstract

Abstract Today, more Americans either practice Buddhism or express positive views about it than at any other time in U.S. history. This is largely the result of two important social trends that began in the 1960s: the ending of immigration restrictions against Asians, and the religious dissatisfactions of many Americans born after World War II. The “baby-boomers,” as they came to be called, grew into a generation of spiritual seekers. Some who had been raised as Christians or Jews sought alternative identities among the many new religious movements that sprouted in the 1960s and later, including several Buddhist groups new to the United States. A 1998 book called The Complete Guide to Buddhist America highlighted the dramatic increase in the practice of Buddhist meditation, listing nearly 1,100 meditation centers throughout the United States and Canada, ninety-eight percent of them founded since 1965 and fifty-eight percent since 1985.