American Buddhism Research Articles

Varieties of Buddhist Healing in Multiethnic Philadelphia

While an increasing amount of attention has been paid in the last decade to mindfulness meditation, the broader impact of Buddhism on healthcare in the United States, or any industrialized Western countries, is still much in need of scholarly investigation. The current article presents preliminary results from an ethnographic study exploring the impact of a wide range of Buddhist institutions, practices, and cultural orientations on the healthcare landscape of the Philadelphia metropolitan area. By particularly focusing on segments of the population that are non-white and that have limited English language skills, one of the main goals of this project is to bring more diverse voices into the contemporary conversation about Buddhism and wellbeing in America. Moreover, as it extends far beyond the topic of meditation, this study also is intended to highlight a wider range of practices and orientations toward health and healing that are current in contemporary American Buddhism. Finally, this paper also forwards the argument that the study of these activities should be grounded in an appreciation of how individual Buddhist institutions are situated within specific local contexts, and reflect unique configurations of local factors.

The Mountain of Youth: Converting American Buddhism and the Authority of the Monk-Convert Paradigm

Abstract English This article examines generational shifts in popular narratives pertaining to dominant formations of Buddhism in the United States from 1950 to the 1990s through a postcolonial lens particularly sensitive to age, children, and family dynamics. A close read of Jack Kerouac's novels and the film Little Buddha identifies important features of this genealogy. This analysis shows that white Buddhist American converts' power and visibility have been reinforced by the Orientalist notion of a monk-convert lineage which presents the convert—represented as a free white young adult—as the sole heroic incarnation of the present and future of Buddhism in the modern world. Key words: Buddhism, Conversion, Religion and Age, Orientalism

The Small Engage the Powerful: An American Buddhist–Liberation Theology–Quaker Trialogue

Due to American global heft as an outsized military power, economy, resource consumer, and cultural exporter, American behavior today has outsized consequences for the entire planet. This essay consequently speaks from and to the American context, focusing on what American Buddhists can and should do to engage the social, political, and environmental crises of our times. The reflections are framed in terms of interactions between American Buddhism and trialogue partners drawn from Christian Liberation theology and Quakerism.

'Buddhism in America: Global Religion, Local Contexts, by Scott Mitchell'

'Buddhism in America: Global Religion, Local Contexts, by Scott Mitchell'

Review:Cambodian Buddhism in the United Statesby Carol A. Mortland

Book Review| August 01 2018 Review: Cambodian Buddhism in the United States by Carol A. Mortland Cambodian Buddhism in the United States. By Carol A. Mortland. State University of New York Press, 2017. 366 pages. $95.00 cloth; $29.95 paper; ebook available. Natasha L. Mikles Natasha L. Mikles Texas State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2018) 22 (1): 147. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2018.22.1.147 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Natasha L. Mikles; Review: Cambodian Buddhism in the United States by Carol A. Mortland. Nova Religio 1 August 2018; 22 (1): 147–. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2018.22.1.147 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentNova Religio Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2014 by The Regents of the University of California2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Diverse Practices and Flexible Beliefs among Young Adult Asian American Buddhists

The increasingly criticized “two Buddhisms” dichotomy in scholarly and popular literature bifurcates American Buddhism into two separate groups: white converts who are focused on meditation, and Asian immigrants who engage in devotional practices. This paper builds on critiques of the “two Buddhisms” model by demonstrating the importance of attending to generation as a factor of analysis when studying American Buddhists. Specifically, this study analyzes the diverse practices and nuanced beliefs of twenty-six young adult Asian American Buddhists from a diverse range of ethnic and sectarian backgrounds. In their open-minded attitudes toward a wide range of Buddhist practices and multivalent interpretations of various Buddhist beliefs, these young adults challenge simplistic representations of Asian American Buddhists and present an inclusive vision of Buddhism that embraces nuance, ambiguity, and change.

Buddhism in America: Global Religion, Local Contexts By Scott A.Mitchell. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. Pp. 329; 39 black-and-white illustrations. $29.95.

Buddhism in America: Global Religion, Local Contexts By Scott A.Mitchell. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. Pp. 329; 39 black-and-white illustrations. $29.95.

Interview with Jan Willis

Interview with Jan Willis Emily Cohen (bio) and Jan Willis Keywords black women and spirituality, Buddhism, Buddhism and race, Jan Willis, women in Buddhism Click for larger view View full resolution Jan Willis Click for larger view View full resolution Emily Cohen Jan Willis is professor emerita of religion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and visiting professor of religion at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. She is author of The Diamond Light: An Introduction to Tibetan Buddhist Meditation (1972), On Knowing Reality: The Tattvartha Chapter of Asanga's Bodhisattvabhumi (1979), and Enlightened Beings: Life Stories from the Ganden Oral Tradition (1995); and editor [End Page 127] of Feminine Ground: Essays on Women and Tibet (1989).1 In addition, Willis has published numerous articles and essays on various topics in Buddhist studies, including Tibetan Buddhist meditation, hagiography, the role and authority of women in Buddhism, and the intersection of Buddhism and race. In her memoir, Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist—One Woman's Spiritual Journey (2008), Willis recounts her experiences of growing up in the Jim Crow South, leaving home to attend Cornell University, her brief and instructive involvement in the Black Panther Party, and her chance to travel to Nepal where she would meet her beloved teacher, Tibetan Lama Thubten Yeshe.2 Jan's work as a Buddhist philosopher, translator, and author continues to shape the field of Buddhist studies and is deeply influential in bringing forth the voices and stories of African American Buddhists in the United States. Her contributions to ongoing scholarship and conversations about gender, racism, and white supremacy in this country are rooted in her experiences of being black, Baptist, and Buddhist and, as such, put a spotlight on the real and enduring legacy of slavery in this country, including its current manifestations in our academic and religious institutions. Jan's was an early voice in conversations about race and Buddhism in the United States, through pieces such as "Buddhism and Race: An African American Baptist-Buddhist Perspective," in Marianne Dresser's edited volume Buddhist Women on the Edge (1996) and "Diversity and Race: New Koans for American Buddhism," in Women's Buddhism, Buddhism's Women (2000), a collection edited by Ellison Banks Findlay.3 Since then, Jan has done a number of interviews on the subject, published both in the United States and overseas. In addition to her own writing, Jan has received wide recognition for her contributions to the field of religious studies and the wider community. In 2000, she was named one of Time's "spiritual innovators for the new millennium."4 Her story and experience of religious hyphenation has been featured in texts that highlight uncommon religious narratives. For example, she is featured in William David Hart's text, Black Religion: Malcolm X, Julius Lester, and Jan Willis (2008), wherein Hart is arguing against Afro-centricity by giving examples of what he calls Afro-Eccentricity, or, "those figures who do not conform to standard expectations of what it means to be a black person and a religious [End Page 128] person."5 Jan is also highlighted in Stephanie Evans's Black Passports: Travel Memoirs as a Tool for Youth Empowerment (2014), which serves as a guidebook for young people to explore their own stories through the autobiographies of two hundred African Americans.6 No matter the entry point, Jan's life is an illuminating example of the richness that is brought to spiritual practices and religious traditions when women of color have a space and place to center their stories and voices. As she said to me during our conversation, "We have to include more of all of who we are." Jan is often asked to comment on being an African American and a Tibetan Buddhist. She admits the rarity of this combination but also says that "it hasn't seemed anomalous to me; it is, after all my life. It is me and it is what I do."7 I am someone who often uses "ands" and hyphens when speaking about who I am as well. I recently completed the master of divinity degree at Harvard Divinity School, where I studied gender-based violence, Buddhist ministry, and trauma...

Beat Buddhism and American Freedom

Critical views of Beat adaptations of Buddhism tend to fall into two groups. The first criticizes Beat adaptations of Buddhism as shallow and stereotyped. The second praises the Beats' uses of abstract Buddhist philosophy, but without engaging issues of cultural appropriation. Both of these views are limited. Rather, Beat Buddhism offers surprising syntheses of American freedom and Buddhist emptiness. I investigate this influential cross-cultural adaptation in three crucial writers linked to the Beat tradition: Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, and Tom Robbins. All three promote Americanized Buddhism as an alternative to consumerism. Within a shared commitment to shaping American Buddhism, there is diversity: Snyder sees a harmonious merging of cultures; Kerouac struggles with unresolved conflicts; and Robbins combines cross-cultural openness with ethnically sensitive caution.

The Understanding and Awareness of Wonhyo in North American Buddhism

The Understanding and Awareness of Wonhyo in North American Buddhism

Buddhism, Mindfulness, and Transformative Politics

This article examines whether the American cultural phenomena of the practice of Buddhism or the Buddhism-derived technique of mindfulness are likely to be helpful to the political left. It summarizes the central teachings of the ancient Buddhist texts, with particular focus on the issues of mindfulness and politics. It also reviews the political history of Buddhist countries. The author argues that although modern Buddhism has shed its historical embrace of absolutist monarchy in favor of republicanism, and although there is some ideological overlap between Buddhism and the American Left, Buddhism in America is too small a movement for it to be of much significance for progressive politics. Mindfulness appears to be capable of becoming a much larger phenomenon, but its separation from its Buddhist origins makes it also unlikely to be strategically important for the Left.

Buddhism beyond borders: new perspectives on Buddhism in the United States

Buddhism beyond borders: new perspectives on Buddhism in the United States

'Buddhism beyond Borders, edited by Scott Mitchell and Natalie Quli'

Buddhism Beyond Borders: New Perspectives on Buddhism in the United States A volume in the SUNY Series in Buddhism and American Culture Edited By Scott A. Mitchell and Natalie E. F. Quli. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2015, xiii+287 $80.00 ISBN 978-1-4384-5637-9 (hardcover)The front cover of Buddhism Beyond Borders: New Perspectives on Buddhism in the United States is decorated with a flag. Not an American flag, as one might assume given the subtitle of the edited collection, but rather the Buddhist flag designed in 1885 by the Colombo Committee, a group of Ceylonese Buddhists, and modified by Henry Steel Olcott, the first White Buddhist. Although Olcott and the Protestant Buddhism he produced has generally been dismissed if not reviled by Western Buddhist scholars as inauthentic and diluted, he is still revered by Sri Lankan Buddhists in the U.S. who not only decorate their temples with the flag, but sometimes even include a statue of Olcott himself. The choice to represent the collection with a universal rather than national flag and the contrast in how such a symbol has been received in scholarly and practice communities signifies much of what is explored in Buddhism Beyond Borders. The text aims to expand both the geographical boundaries of American Buddhism and the theoretical parameters that have often defined its academic study. Hence it shifts attention from the bounded category of nation to the cultural flows of the transnational and replaces the static binary framework of traditional (authentic) Asian Buddhism vs modern (inauthentic) American Buddhism with a dynamic model that reveals/revels in fluidity, hybridity and multiplicity. In doing so, the collection also makes a compelling case for bringing the subfield out from the margins into the mainstream of Buddhist Studies by showing its subject matter is not a deviant from the norm but, in fact, exemplifies what Buddhism as a living, moving tradition has always done: creatively adapt, absorb and assimilate. As Richard Payne advocates in his Afterword, the text suggests the need to replace a rhetoric of rupture that emphasizes difference and opposition with a narrative of similarity and continuity that is more faithful to the historical complexity of Buddhism's spatial and temporal movement.Before reflecting on the text's conclusions, however, let's look further into its conception and content. The immediate origin of Buddhism Beyond Borders lies in a four-day conference held in March 2010 at the Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, but its editors look back further to a twelve week lecture series titled Buddhism in America: An Expanding Subfield held in 1994 at the same place for its inspiration. As Mitchell and Quli note, much had changed in the sixteen years since the scholarship produced from that series-Charles Prebish and Kenneth Tanaka's edited collection The Faces of Buddhism in America (1998) and Prebish's Luminous Practice: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America (1999)-laid down the foundations for the emerging subfield of Buddhism in America, and the intention of the 2010 conference was to pick up these tracks and to map the many new ones that had appeared in their wake. To do so adequately, they emphasize, requires studying US Buddhism with attention to both transnational accelerated with post-1965 immigration patterns and the spread of Buddhism via the Internet, and the unique expression of these transnational currents within the particular local U.S. context.To foster this both/and approach, the editors make the wise move of opening the collection with a theory of religion that forefronts it. Chapter one details Thomas Tweed's application of his translocative approach to religion to the study of Buddhism in the United States. Seeing religion as confluences of organic-cultural flows, Tweed calls on Buddhist scholars to abandon the standard area study focus on static fixed location in favor of a more fluid dynamic approach that can track both crossings and dwellings. …

Religion and American cultures: tradition, diversity, and popular expression

Religion and American Cultures: Tradition, Diversity, and Popular Expression. 2nd ed. Edited by Gary Laderman and Luis Leon. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2015. 4 vols. Acid free $399 (ISBN: 978-1-91069-109-3). E-book Available (978-1-61069-110-9), call for pricing. The second edition of this work has been expanded to four volumes and has increased its coverage greatly. Although the editors state clearly that the work is not meant to be comprehensive, it does provide an excellent, and general, overview of religion within American culture. Each volume, in many ways, can stand alone, but together they provide a wonderful introduction to the state of religion in the United States and its influence on American culture. Volume 1 focuses on ethnicity, institutions, and communities. The broad topics include African American religions, Asian American religious communities, Buddhism in America, Catholicism in America, Hinduism in America, Islam in America, Judaism in America, Latina/Latino religious communities, Native American religions and politics, New Age, new religious traditions, Orthodox Christianity, and Protestantism in America. Under each major topic are from four to six related articles. For example, under the section on Asian American religious communities are separate entries for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Pacific Islander, and South Asian religious communities in America. Under New Age are shorter articles on channeling, goddess spirituality, New Age bestsellers, Raelian Movement, Whiteshamanism, and Wicca. Thus, the full range of organized religion is covered with the exception of groups such as Unitarian-Universalists, atheists, and humanists. Many of the topics from this work, especially on specific religions, are covered in a variety of other resources such as the Encyclopedia of Religion in America (CQ Press, 2010) which provide greater historical depth. The strengths of the articles in the current set are their currency and their specificity, especially as related to popular expression of religion in the United States. Volume 2 covers broad, general topics that are not covered in other encyclopedias of religion in the United States. These topics include the body, death, generations, material culture, popular culture, popular theodicies, public theologies and political culture, ritual and performance, sacred space, sacred time, science, sexuality, and violence. These general articles and the more specific entries associated with them are among the more interesting readings within the work. …

Spiritually Bilingual: Buddhist Christians and the Process of Dual Religious Belonging

Spiritually Bilingual:Buddhist Christians and the Process of Dual Religious Belonging Jonathan Homrighausen Sociologists studying convert Buddhism in America have found that a surprisingly large number of Buddhists also identify as Christian.1 However, little empirical literature examines these Buddhist-Christian “dual religious belongers.”2 This study aims to fill that gap. Based on extensive interviews with eight self-identified “Buddhist Christians” of varying levels of doctrinal and experiential understanding, this study examines the conversion process of these dual belongers and how they combine these religious traditions. Building on Michael von Brück’s contention that one’s first religion is like a mother tongue, I compare taking on a second religious tradition to learning a second language.3 As practitioners become more “fluent” in the second religion, they differentiate the two religions more clearly while combining them more seamlessly in their daily lives. methodology This study employs grounded theory and a qualitative, inductive methodology. Grounded theory is designed to elucidate the dynamic changes involved in a social process, with rich descriptions of categories and explanations for variations between different people’s experiences.4 While the use of qualitative methods with a small sample size means that my results have little statistical significance, such methods have been used in recent research on conversion and dual belonging and yield deep theoretical insight.5 Eight participants for this study were solicited via word of mouth, personal acquaintance, and posting in a Buddhist-Christian Yahoo Group. In particular, I focused on Buddhist-Catholic practitioners to limit my sample group. Interviews were conducted and recorded in person or on the phone over a three-month period in fall, 2011. Interviews were open-ended, each lasting from sixty to ninety minutes. Several participants later received a draft of the paper to ensure they felt adequately represented; five participants responded. Names of participants have been changed for [End Page 57] confidentiality. To complement these interviews, I also incorporate written accounts of Buddhist-Christian conversion from both Catholic and Protestant authors.6 participants’ backgrounds It can be difficult to define Buddhist identity in the West, as many people who regularly practice meditation in a sangha do not self-identify as Buddhist.7 This study focuses on those who both practice Buddhist and Christian spirituality and belong to religious groups of both traditions. The eight participants have a range of religious expertise and commitment to both traditions. In terms of Catholic identity, six are laypeople (one in a secular religious order), one a priest, and one a nun. Three participants are theology professors. Seven have been Catholics from birth. One spent a decade living in a Buddhist monastery, two of them are roshis, and five give Buddhist teaching or meditation instruction formally. Seven of them practice various forms of Ch’an or Zen, while one practices Tibetan Buddhism. Cathy went not from Catholicism to Buddhism, but from Buddhism to Catholicism. A former Mormon and Unitarian, she began learning meditation at a Ch’an temple. This Ch’an temple normally only reached out to the Chinese community, but there was a Taiwanese nun there who wanted to reach out to non-Chinese community members. After practicing there for a few years, Cathy moved to another location, where she could not find any sangha that fit her needs. After attending Mass with a friend, she decided to become Catholic because she needed a community. It was not a hard transition for Cathy, who described feeling in meditation “some kind of entity, whether you call it God or Creator or atomic process.” She was confirmed as a Catholic in 2011. Rachel has been a nun for fifty years and a practicing Zen Buddhist for thirty, ten of those years living and working in a Zen monastery in the mountains of California. She described feeling an emptiness in her faith, a lack of practical knowledge of how to attain the spiritual goals that her Catholic tradition had for her. After hearing Zen teacher Cheri Huber speak at a conference, she took Huber on as her teacher. She has facilitated meditation workshops for many years. Though meditation instruction is not her full-time ministry, “meditation is my life … so in a sense...

Religion and the Japanese American Incarceration

AbstractAbundant scholarship analyzes the United States' incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, but the subject of religion in the camps and religious responses to the incarceration has been long overlooked. The government promised freedom of religion in the camps while encouraging Japanese Americans to consolidate worship into one Buddhist, one Catholic, and one Protestant church in each incarceration center. Incarcerees found strength through fellowship and religious faith. Outside of the camps, progressive Christians tried to alleviate the harms caused by the injustice and increase tolerance around the country. The field offers examples of early race relations work within American Protestantism and introduces the ways in which the government prioritized and attempted to enforce freedom of religion within a fabricated and restricted wartime environment. Further examination of these events will complement studies of 20th century liberal Christianity, American Buddhism, religious liberty and the state, the early civil rights movement, religion and World War II, and Asian American theology.

Race and Religion in American Buddhism: White Supremacy and Immigrant Adaptation

Race and Religion in American Buddhism: White Supremacy and Immigrant Adaptation

Dharma Diversity and Deep Inclusivity at the East Bay Meditation Center: From Buddhist Modernism to Buddhist Postmodernism?

Through an ethnographic study of the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) in Oakland, California, this paper examines recent attempts to diversify meditation-based convert American Buddhism. Celebrated as the ‘one of the most diverse Buddhist sanghas in the world’, EBMC opened its doors in January 2007 with the goal of offering a more diverse alternative to the predominantly white, middle-class populated American Buddhist groups in the Bay Area. The EBMC is rooted in a ‘gift economy’ and offers weekly meditation groups for People of Color, LGBTQI populations, and people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. While the EBMC houses separate identity-based groups, it is its attention to the multiple axes of difference—race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and disability— what I identify as ‘dharma diversity’—that mark it as unique. In conclusion, I suggest that EBMC's diversity culture might indicate the emergence of a new postmodern stage in the assimilation of Buddhism in America.

Buddhism in the United States: an ethnographic study

This paper focuses on Buddhism in America, an neglected area of inquiry in anthropological study. There is a need for modern ethnographic studies to shed light on historical issues, paradigms for comparative inquiry, and thus, explore the impact of Buddhism on modern American society (Glazier, 1997). The enormous growth of Buddhism in the last quarter century (Smith, 2002) makes this an especially pertinent topic in American anthropology. We utilize Glazier’s model to add Buddhism as a topic in the area of modernity studies. This is a preliminary study of the nature of Buddhism in America. We conducted participant observation with a Buddhist meditation group in a north eastern state in the US for four months in the spring of 2010. Based on our preliminary ethnographic data, we believe that a unique perspectives of Buddhism in America can be identified: nonreligious and therapeutic involvement or use of Buddhism. Also, new forms of practice become evident, for example, ‘walking meditation’ and ‘bowing to other Buddhists,’ are identified as characteristics of Buddhism in America. It is interesting to note that at the end of meditation sessions, participants not only bow to the Buddha statue, but also bow to each other. This is a unique ritual dynamic which appears to be consistent with the worldview of American people - being equal and individual. The meditation group also practiced ‘walking meditation’ which is easy to do in everyday life. Additionally, we observed that American meditation rooms provide additional cushions to sit on which are a further element, along with walking meditation, which help American beginners to meditate more easily. These study observations shed light on the current situation by providing new lenses from which to understand and focus on different ritual performances/interpretations of Buddhism, and their meanings and functions in society. The most important reflection is that religious change is not an isolated cultural phenomenon but that it happens within multiple aspects of social change (Winzeler, 2008). Thus, ‘a change in symbolic contents can be meaningfully achieved only if the social reality changes as well’ (Malefijt, 1968: 359). Spiro states that ‘ritual activities can be a form of expressive culture’ (p. 120), and the different and unique forms of rituals of Buddhism may be expressive of different elements of American culture.

Buddhism in America

Buddhism in America