American Buddhists Research Articles

FandangObon: Amplification, counter‐publics, and fugitive spaces of belonging in Los Angeles

AbstractThe festive celebration known as FandangObon is made possible by workshops and satellite performances that artivistas (art activists) stage throughout the year in a variety of community venues. The event transforms the annual Japanese American Buddhist Obon ceremony honoring ancestors into an antiracist polycultural performance. Through improvisation and invention, colorfully adorned participants blend the dances, songs, and costumes of the Japanese bon odori circle with Mexican son jarocho fandango practices and West African ballet and egungun drum and dance circles. Each of the groups represented in FandangObon brings to the mix its own form of circle dancing, collective singing, and instrument playing, yet bon odori, fandango, and egungun do not fuse together seamlessly in these gatherings. Instead they coalesce as a conversation among equals in which each tradition remains faithful to itself in the process of making changes through engagement with others The concepts of amplification, counterpublics, and fugitive spaces of belonging serve in this article as central interpretive frames of a cultural critique of the historical and cultural conditions for the celebration's emergence, articulation, and implementation (Marcus and Fischer 1986).

Listen and Learn: Equity, Embodied Pedagogies, and Engaging Asian American Buddhists

In this article, we consider the intersection of experiential learning and equity work through the lens of a 10-week project: “Listening to the Buddhists in Our Backyard” (L2BB), undertaken in collaboration with a group of six high school seniors at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in the spring of 2022. L2BB was part of a broader undertaking known as The Workshop, an experimental school-within-a-school that seeks to reimagine education beyond the restrictive norms or “grammar” of schooling. Mirroring the emergent and adaptive methods of L2BB, this article incorporates student voices, narrative interviews, and methodological reflections to advance our claim that an embodied, listening-first model of learning avoids common pitfalls of community-based learning while enabling students to develop a more accurate picture of racial and religious minorities in the United States.

A Brief Introduction to the American Buddhist Cultural Exchange during the Republic of China

A Brief Introduction to the American Buddhist Cultural Exchange during the Republic of China

Vietnamese Catholics in the United States and Americanization: A Sociological and Religious Perspective

abstract: Taking a cue from Carilyn Chen's book about the Americanization of Taiwanese immigrant Buddhists, Getting Saved in America: Taiwanese Immigration and Religious Experience (2009), this essay narrates the process by which Vietnamese Catholics are "Americanized." Compared with the Taiwanese Buddhists, Vietnamese Catholics had the advantage of being members of a global Church, were from the beginning incorporated into the American Catholic Church, thereby enjoying the many benefits that this institutional incorporation brought with it, and were cared for pastorally by their own clergy. On the other hand, because of their obligation to strict adherence to the legal structures of the Catholic Church, Vietnamese American Catholics were not free to innovate institutionally as they saw fit, as were their Buddhist counterparts. The essay ends with observations on the Americanization of Vietnamese American Buddhists.

Forgiveness American-Style: Origins and Status of Forgiveness in North American Buddhism

ABSTRACT Many Buddhist teachers in North America teach forgiveness: an attitude of non-anger not conditional on wrongdoers repairing their wrongs. Classical Buddhist texts and premodern Buddhist cultures also taught forgiveness: the act of reconciling after wrongdoers repaired wrongs. This article describes traditional Buddhist forgiveness processes, analyses how new processes to forgive arose in North America, and outlines the current state of Buddhist forgiveness teachings there. It shows that the predominant way North American Buddhists now teach forgiveness is new. It developed in the 1970–1990 period and incorporates non-Buddhist discourses. In addition to clarifying what forgiveness has long been in Buddhism and how, in North America, changes to that occurred, the article notes the frequent absence, among academic scholars and Buddhists alike, of awareness concerning (a) the replacement of longstanding Buddhist teachings on forgiveness by new teachings; (b) the predominantly non-Buddhist sources of the new teachings; and (c) the impact on victims, wrongdoers, relationships, and communities of the new teachings. The article contributes to scholarship on Buddhist ethics, forgiveness in Buddhism, and the development and hybridisation of Buddhism in North America.

A Theory of Reciting as Asian American Buddhist Practice: The Young Buddhist Editorial as a Discursive Site of Recitation

A Theory of Reciting as Asian American Buddhist Practice: The Young Buddhist Editorial as a Discursive Site of Recitation

What led Asian American Buddhist background believers in Hawaii to become Christian: A grounded theory study

The question asked of this grounded theory study was what are the perceived reasons Asian American Buddhist background believers in Hawaii converted to evangelical Christianity? The following factors were perceived as reasons for participants converting to Christianity: an exposure to Christianity, a crisis, a quest or search, and a divine connection—either emotional or miraculous. Studies on transformation or conversion have found a similar pattern (Mezirow, 1991; Rambo, 1993; Tippett, 1992; Ullman, 1989). However, more recent studies have identified an emotional or even supernatural component to conversion that needs to be explored further (Hilderbrand, 2016, 2020, 2021; Iyadurai, 2015; Snook et al., 2018). The outcome of conversion was expressed as a feeling of peace, joy and happiness.

American JewBu: Jews, Buddhists, and Religious Change by Emily Sigalow (review)

Reviewed by: American JewBu: Jews, Buddhists, and Religious Change by Emily Sigalow Steven Kaplin Emily Sigalow. American JewBu: Jews, Buddhists, and Religious Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. 280 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009421000374 In the first section of her 2019 American JewBu, Emily Sigalow plots a clear historical trajectory of both American Judaism and American Buddhism through the lens of Jews who, in a variety of ways, engage with Buddhism. Eschewing histories that begin with the 1960s counterculture, Sigalow locates the earliest American JewBus in the spirituality movements of the nineteenth century. Her story commences with Charles T. Strauss, born Jewish, who publicly converted to Buddhism in Chicago during the famous World's Parliament of Religions. Sigalow finds in Strauss a Jewish exemplar of Buddhist modernism—empirical, scientific, universal—and the American Buddhist turn away from Asian Buddhist traditions and metaphysics. In chapters 2 and 3, Sigalow traces a JewBu tradition of Buddhist modernization, from Buddhism-interested Felix Adler at the turn of the twentieth century, to Julius Goldwater, an ordained Buddhist priest who took primary care of three Buddhist temples in Los Angeles during the Japanese internment, to more contemporary Jewish Buddhist teachers like Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, and Ram Dass, who have each been instrumental in spreading Buddhist-inspired meditation to a broad American audience. Thus, Sigalow argues, JewBus played an outsized role in shaping American Buddhism as modern. Sigalow makes this point without losing track of broader historical or theoretical trends; she intersperses her descriptions of well-known JewBus with analyses of colonialism and anti-Asian racism, as well as theoretical assessments of relevant terms like spirituality and syncretism. Sigalow uses these historically compelling early chapters to sidestep the pervasive question in other writings on JewBus (Why are so many American Buddhists Jewish?) in order to ask instead how the Jewishness of JewBus is relevant to their Buddhism. Sigalow conjectures that because modernism and universalism were particularly important to American Jews, American JewBus were especially ready to pick up on these elements in American Buddhism and fashion them into core elements of the American Buddhist tradition. Sigalow does not so much portray JewBus as distinct from other non-Asian Buddhist modernizers but as uniquely qualified agents of the burgeoning movement. In this sense, Sigalow reveals seemingly marginal JewBus to be central figures through which the historical development of Buddhism in America can be delineated. [End Page 492] The second section of American JewBu focuses more on Judaism. In the fourth chapter, Sigalow reveals ways in which the prevalence of JewBus helped create the conditions for the growth of contemplative Judaism in the second half of the twentieth century. For example, Sigalow notes a handful of conferences, including the meeting of a Jewish delegation with the Dalai Lama in India, made famous by Roger Kamenetz's The Jew in the Lotus (HarperCollins, 1994), that brought together Jews and JewBus invested in spiritual seeking. Sigalow finds within these gatherings evidence that Jews in Buddhist circles had significant impact on Jews attempting to fashion a Jewish spirituality. Sigalow more fully fleshes out this relationship in the fifth chapter, in which she recounts her ethnographic fieldwork in the Jewish Meditation Center of Brooklyn, by arguing that Jewish spirituality utilizes Buddhism's most significant practice—liberalized, universalized meditation—as its own core practice. The Jewish meditation of contemporary Jewish spirituality, then, was made possible precisely by the de-Asianized meditation made popular by JewBus. By taking meditation out of particular Asian contexts and presenting it as universally psychological and spiritual, JewBus helped to create the conditions for a notion of meditation onto which Jewish spiritual seekers could place their particular Jewish traditions (e.g., likening the quiet of Buddhist meditation to the Amidah prayer). The sixth chapter contextualizes the previous two by mapping the concept of Jewish Buddhist spirituality. To some extent, this is in order to contrast the emphases of JewBu spirituality with popular, Protestant-derived understandings of the term. JewBu spirituality is not, Sigalow argues, focused solely on interiority and self-improvement but is necessarily communal and thereby as external as it is internal. However, this chapter reveals that JewBu spirituality likewise functions as a critique of common...

Review: Converting American Buddhism: Second-Generation Buddhist Americans, Orientalism, and the Politics of Family Religion, by Drew Baker

Despite the promise of the title, this is not so much a study of second-generation American Buddhists as it is a work of advocacy and theory. Baker repeatedly emphasizes that the presentation and study of Buddhism in the United States has been biased to accentuate the roles played by first-generation counterculture converts—mostly Beats and Hippies—with a corresponding neglect of Asian American, Native American, African American, Latino, and second, third and succeeding generations of practitioners. He locates the source of this distortion in the romantic idealism and self-importance of first-generation converts and the uncritical assumptions of the scholars who study them. Racism, colonialism, ageism, and white privilege all play their roles as well. Baker examines film, literature, and academic writing to support his arguments.Baker’s role as an advocate is clear in his plea for more scholarly focus on diverse populations to fill the gaping holes in the historical narrative of Buddhism in America. His personal interest in this is clear and compelling, and his arguments are convincing. Baker is more nuanced and thorough than this brief review might suggest, of course, and he makes many subsidiary buttressing arguments. Fortunately, readers who wish to sample the book need only go online for free downloadable access to the full text.

An Evaluation and Comparison of American Buddhist and Catholic Racial Projects through the Lens of Critical Race Theory

In this paper, I explore how American Buddhist and Catholic religious communities are dealing with racism both within and outside of their communities by analyzing two projects through the lens of critical race theory (CRT). The Buddhist project is Making the Invisible Visible: Healing Racism in Our Buddhist Communities, which aims to promote racial diversity in American Buddhist sanghas. The Catholic project is Open Wide Our Hearts, The Enduring Call to Love: A Pastoral Letter Against Racism, which aims toward spiritual conversion and social activism. I analyze how each project defines racism, how they approach the problem, and how they envision the role of tradition and the community in perpetuating and ameliorating racism. By analyzing these two projects, I demonstrate how religious communities could benefit from CRT as a critical theoretical framework for their racial projects.

Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom ed. by Pamela Ayo Yetunde and Cheryl Giles, and: Buddhist-Christian Dialogue, U.S. Law, and Womanist Theology for Transgender Spiritual Care by Pamela Ayo Yetunde

Reviewed by: Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom ed. by Pamela Ayo Yetunde and Cheryl Giles, and: Buddhist-Christian Dialogue, U.S. Law, and Womanist Theology for Transgender Spiritual Care by Pamela Ayo Yetunde Carolyn Jones Medine BLACK AND BUDDHIST: WHAT BUDDHISM CAN TEACH US ABOUT RACE, RESILIENCE, TRANSFORMATION, AND FREEDOM. Edited by Pamela Ayo Yetunde and Cheryl Giles. Boulder, CO: Shambhala Press, 2020. xxxii and 189 pp. BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE, U.S. LAW, AND WOMANIST THEOLOGY FOR TRANSGENDER SPIRITUAL CARE. By Pamela Ayo Yetunde. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. ix and 144 pp. Pamela Ayo Yetunde and Cheryl Giles offer a variety of Black Buddhist voices in their co-edited volume, Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom. Yetunde extends this work in her single author volume, Buddhist-Christian Dialogue, U.S. Law, and Womanist Theology for Transgender Spiritual Care. In this review essay, I, first, will give brief information about the two authors and turn to each work, looking at key themes and insights they offer us about African American Buddhist practice, in general, and about pastoral care and chaplaincy. Finally, I would like to suggest the importance of these two works. the work of two lives Pamela Ayo Yetunde has emerged as an innovative voice in Black Buddhist Studies. Dr. Yetunde is a Buddhist chaplain, having trained at the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, and pastoral counselor who has been active in hospice work, having founded the Zen Caregiving Project; she also co-founded the Center of the Heart and the Audre: Spiritual Care for Women with Cancer. She is a professor at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and a faculty member at the Upaya Institute and Zen Center and a Community Dharma Leader in the Insight Meditation tradition. [End Page 327] She has written for Buddhadharma, Lion's Roar, and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. In addition, she has a law degree and has written a book about women and finance. With other practitioners, she founded the Buddhist Justice Reporter: The George Floyd Trials (www.buddhistjustice.com). Yetunde brings all this to her intersectional work on Black Buddhists and on Buddhism and pastoral care, and her work is trailblazing, opening up conversations around race, gender, and religion in the books under review and in her 2018 work, Object Relations, Buddhism, and Relationality in Womanist Practical Theology, which includes interviews of African American lesbian Buddhist practitioners in the Theravada Insight Meditation tradition. Dr. Cheryl A. Giles is the Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecture on Pastoral Care and Counseling at Harvard University. She is a member of the Buddhist Ministry Initiative. Her books include the co-edited pioneering work, The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work, which gathered voices from a variety of Buddhist lineages to explore contemplative care in hospital chaplaincy, prison ministry, college and military chaplaincy, and end-of-life care. Her Buddhist-Christian writings include "Self-Care for the Beloved Community" in The Christian Century (2016), which asks important questions about compassionate leadership and the preparation and resources needed for the work.1 Her work focuses on adolescent psychology, healthcare and African Americans, and contemplative care—providing spiritual, emotional, and pastoral support in a way that is informed by a "personal, consistent contemplative, or mediation practice"2—at the end of life. A practitioner of Tibetan meditation, she is a member of the Natural Dharma Fellowship. In "Beyond the Color Line: Cultivating Fearlessness in Contemplative Care" in The Arts of Contemplative Care, Giles confronting the racism present in Buddhism and, therefore, in care, asks us to cultivate fearlessness and to bring this to our meditation, to our work, and to our interactions. None of us will ever be perfect nor can we expect to live without fear. But we can aspire to be open to the unfolding present moment. We can help in this small way to make a real impact: we can vow to practice fearlessness every day for ourselves and others to alleviate suffering. We can stay true to a strong intention while opening to our own vulnerability and that of...

Buddhist Teachers' Responses to Sexual Violence: Epistemological Violence in American Buddhism

In 2018, popular North American Buddhist teacher, Noah Levine, was accused of sexual assault and misconduct. Several Buddhist teachers responded in Levine’s defense through a seemingly neutral posture of “waiting to find out” the truth. This paper examines these teachers’ responses, asking the question: “Which Buddhist concepts are mobilized in responding to alleged sexual violence?” I find that these teachers respond to allegations with the language of not-knowing, equanimity, and right speech. They ask their communities to “wait and see” whether these allegations are true, with the unspoken assumption that they are not. I assert these responses use Buddhist teachings to uphold cis-masculine innocence by using hegemonic logics and commitments to downplay and delegitimize the phenomenon of sexual violence. I argue that these responses uphold hegemonic control within Buddhist communities, and conclude that a feminist response to allegations of misconduct requires centering survivors of sexual assault.

Affective Futures and Relative Eschatology in American Tibetan Buddhism

Tibetan Buddhist prophecies of decline are largely unattended when it comes to practitioners’ lived experiences. This article considers such narratives through a focus on a community of American Buddhists in California. The relationship between Buddhist narratives of degenerating future and the American landscape is played out through the creation and distribution of sacred objects, which are potent containers for—and portents of—prophetic futures. Ruptures in time and landscape become, through the frame of prophecy, imaginative spaces where the American topography is drawn into Tibetan history and prophetic future. Narratives of decline, this article argues, also find common ground with salient American rhetoric of preparedness and are therefore far from fringe beliefs, but a more widely available way of thinking through quotidian life.

American Buddhist Protection of Stones in Terms of Climate Change on Mars and Earth

ABSTRACT A number of scientific writers have proposed manipulating the ecology of Mars in order to make the planet more comfortable for future immigrants from Earth. However, the ethical acceptability of such ‘terraforming’ proposals remains unresolved. In response, in this article I explore some of these scientific proposals through the lens provided by Buddhist environmental ethics that are quantitatively expressed by practitioners in the ethnographic field of the United States. What I find is that contemporary Buddhists combine philosophical notions of interconnectedness with moral considerations not to harm others and then creatively extend this combined sensibility to the protection specifically of abiotic features of Mars. In so doing, these Buddhists significantly reject proposals to alter the Martian ecology planet-wide as beyond the ethical right of humans. Along the way these Buddhists also, importantly, provide an innovative basis for enriching Buddhist environmental ethical protection of abiotic locations, and this strengthening can assist in mitigating climate change on Earth.

Asian-American Buddhist Identity Talk

In this study, I explicate Asian-American Buddhist identity discourse and how talk surrounding this religious identity revealed a natural criticism of the current state of Buddhism in the U.S. Using cultural discourse analysis, I unveil how, as participants discussed what it means to be an American Buddhist, they also revealed deeper beliefs about social relationships and how they see themselves placed within the U.S. American religious landscape. Critiques toward Buddhism in the U.S. includes cultural appropriation and commercialization of the religion, as well as the use of the term “Buddhist” to further perpetuate the stereotype of Asian Americans as outsiders and foreigners.

Recent Scholarship in Quaker Studies

Recent Scholarship in Quaker Studies Jordan Landes Abolition, Manumission, Enslavement Crowder, Michael A. "Human Capital: The Moral and Political Economy of Northeastern Abolitionism, 1763–1833." Ph.D. diss. New York: City University of New York, 2019. Gerbner, Katharine. Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Huzzey, Richard. "A Microhistory of British Antislavery Petitioning." Social Science History 43 (Fall 2019): 599–623. Makovi, Kinga. "The Signatures of Social Structure: Petitioning for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Manchester." Social Science History 43 (Fall 2019): 625–52. Parks, Jacob. "The Price of Bondage: Slavery, Slave Valuation, and Economics in the Albemarle." M.A. thesis. Greenville, North Carolina: East Carolina University, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10342/6737/. Richmond, Stephanie J. "Race, Class, and Antislavery: African American Women in the Transatlantic Antislavery Movement." Journal of Women's History 31 (Fall 2019): 57–77. The Arts Eubanks, Emily Rebecca. "Managing Modernist Musicians: Quaker Stewardship in the Work of Blanche Wetherill Walton." M.M. thesis. Tallahassee, Florida: The Florida State University, 2019. http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/2019_Spring_Eubanks_fsu_0071N_15204/. Ecclesiology Birch, Jonathan C. P "Revolutionary Contexts for the Quest Jesus in the Rhetoric and Methods of Early Modern Intellectual History." Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 17 (May 2019): 35–80. [End Page 63] Coutts, Peter J. F Evolution of Tithes as a Source of Ecclesiastical and Economic Information. Morrisville, NC: LuLu Press, 2018. Dandelion, Pink. The Creation of Quaker Theory: Insider Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2019. Giri, Ananta Kumar, ed. Practical Spirituality and Human Development: Transformations in Religions and Societies. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Grant, Rhiannon. Quaker Quicks–Telling the Truth About God: Quaker Approaches to Theology. Ridgefield, CT: Christian Alternative, 2019. Holt, Helen. "The Enigma of Humanism in the Transformational Mysticism of Rufus Jones." Quaker Studies 24 (June 2019): 49-68. Kershner, Jon R., ed. Quakers and Mysticism: Comparative and Syncretic Approaches to Spirituality. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. King, Sallie B. "The Small Engage the Powerful: An American Buddhist–Liberation Theology–Quaker Trialogue." Buddhist-Christian Studies 39 (2019): 103–14. Langford, Michael. Becoming Fully Human: Writings on Quakers and Christian Thought. Morrisville, NC.: LuLu Press, 2019. Ritter, Ann S. "Spiritual Consciousness and Direct Experiences of the Divine within the Quaker Lineage." Ph.D. diss. Santa Barbara, California: Fielding Graduate University, 2018. Ward, Madeleine. "Robert Barclay's Christology." Quaker Religious Thought, no. 131 (September 2018): 25–32. Economics, Business, Management Burton, Nicholas, and Richard Turnbull, eds. Quakers, Business and Corporate Responsibility Lessons and Cases for Responsible Management. Switzerland: Springer, 2019. Fox, Elizabeth. "Like Clockwork: The Mechanical Ingenuity and Craftsmanship of Isaiah Lukens (1779–1846)." M.A. thesis. District of Columbia: The George Washington University, 2018. [End Page 64] Logan, David. Corporate Citizenship: The Role of Companies as Citizens of the Modern World. St Albans, Herts, UK: Panoma Press, 2018. Peltola, Jarmo. "The British Contribution to the Birth of the Finnish Cotton Industry (1820–1870)." Continuity and Change 34 (May 2019): 63–89. Read, Mark J. "'Doing Belief': British Quakers in the Twenty-First-Century Workplace." Quaker Studies 24 (June 2019): 141-159. Walker, Robert G. "Quakers, Shoemakers, and Thomas Cumming." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles Notes and Reviews (July 2019), https://doi.org/10.1080/0895769X.2019.1637708/. Education Grant, Rhiannon. "Faith and Experience in Education: Essays from Quaker Perspectives." Journal of Beliefs & Values Studies in Religion & Education 40 (2019): 490-503. Jones-Branch, Cherisse. "'To Raise Standards among the Negroes': Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teachers in Rural Jim Crow Arkansas, 1909–1950." Agricultural History 93 (Summer 2019): 412–36. Environment and Ecology Bock, Cherice, Stephen Potthoff, Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser, Mike Heller, Douglas J. Burks, Jean Mulhern, Cathy Pitzer, Christy Randazzo, and Jon R. Kershner. Quakers, Creation Care, and Sustainability: Quakers and the Disciplines: Volume 6. Edited by Paul Anderson. Longmeadow, Massachusetts: Full Media Services, 2019. Tittler, Robert. Two Weather Diaries from Northern England, 1779-1807: The Journals of John Chipchase and Elihu Robinson. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Surtees Society, 2019. Walsham, Alexandra. "Nature and Nurture in the Early Quaker Movement: Creating the Next Generation of Friends." Studies in Church History 55 (June 2019): 161–76. [End Page 65] Friends during Times of...

Whose Dharma Is It Anyway? Identity and Belonging in American Buddhist (Post)Modernities

This study engages some aspects of the conversations, implicit and explicit, between American(ized) Buddhism in non-heritage/convert communities and religious nationalism in the U.S. Specifically, how does a Buddhist understanding of emptiness and interdependence call into question some of the fundamental assumptions behind conflations of divine and political order, as expressed through ideologies of “God and Country”, or ideas about American providence or exceptionalism? What does belonging to a nation or transnational community mean when all individual and collective formations of identity are understood to be nonessential, contingent and impermanent? Finally, how can some of the discourses within American Buddhism contribute to a more inclusive national identity and a reconfigured understanding of the intersection of spiritual and national belonging? The focus here will be on exploring how an understanding of identity and lineage in Buddhist contexts offers a counter-narrative to the way national and spiritual belonging is expressed through tribalist formations of family genealogy, nationalism and transnational religious affiliation in the dominant Judeo-Christian context, and how this understanding has been, and is being, expressed in non-heritage American(ized) Buddhist communities.

The search for microbial Martian life and American Buddhist ethics

AbstractMultiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fossil and possible extant life on Mars have not been sufficiently delineated. In response, in this essay, I propose a tripartite ethic for searches for microbial Martian life that consists of default non-harm towards potential living beings, default non-harm to the habitats of potential living beings, but also responsible, restrained scientific harvesting of some microbes in limited transgression of these default non-harm modes. Although this multifaceted ethic remains secular and hence adaptable to space research settings, it arises from both a qualitative analysis of authoritative Buddhist scriptural ethics as well as the quantified ethnographic survey voices of contemporary American Buddhists. The resulting tripartite ethic, while developed for Mars, contains ramifications for the study of microbes on Earth and further retains application to other research locations in our Solar system.

Imagining Buddhist modernism: the shared religious categories of scholars and American Buddhists

ABSTRACT Scholarship on religion has often centered on the gaps between academic analysis and the self-understanding of religious people. In the study of Buddhism in America, however, many scholars and practitioners share cultural histories, material circumstances, and textual space. This article examines the nature of the relationship between particular academics and particular convert Buddhists to argue that they share a way of thinking about religion: perceiving a strong dichotomy between modernity and tradition, and a resulting willingness to take Buddhist modernist narratives at face value as descriptions of religious life. This normative modernism, along with reactions against it, leads to the collapse of descriptive and prescriptive discourse on American Buddhism. By contrast, scholarship that does not participate in the dichotomy between modern and traditional religion reveals a much richer, messier, and more accurate picture of Buddhism in America, and the Buddhists whose practices and self-representations exceed the boundaries of modernism.

Contesting “Conversion” and “Reversion” among Young Adult Asian American Buddhists

This paper engages the perspectives of thirty young adult Asian American Buddhists (YAAABs) raised in non-Buddhist households. Grounded in semi-structured, one-on-one in-person and email interviews, my research reveals the family tensions and challenges of belonging faced by a group straddling multiple religious and cultural worlds. These young adults articulate their alienation from both predominantly white and predominantly Asian Buddhist communities in America. On the one hand, they express ambivalence over adopting the label of “convert” because of its Christian connotations as well as its associations with whiteness in the American Buddhist context. On the other hand, they lack the familiarity with Asian Buddhist cultures experienced by second- or multi-generation YAAABs who grew up in Buddhist families. In their nuanced responses to arguments that (1) American convert Buddhism is a non-Asian phenomenon, and (2) Asians in the West can only “revert” to Buddhism, these young adults assert the plurality and hybridity of their lived experiences as representative of all American Buddhists, rather than incidental characteristics of a fringe group within a white-dominated category.