RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY invited several scholars to comment on the divisions and direction of Buddhism in America today.


Carl Bielefeldt is professor of religious studies and co-director of the Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University:

For more than a century, Buddhism has been on a remarkable ride in America. It has gone from the marginal religion of Chinese and Japanese immigrants on the West Coast (plus a few eccentric Euro-Americans who dabbled in Theosophy and spiritualism) to a religion practiced by millions of Americans throughout the country and known, at some level at least, to millions more through books, magazines, television, and movies.

American bookstores are filled with volumes on "Zen and the art of" this or that; Hollywood makes movies on the Dalai Lama and a Nazi's conversion to Tibetan Buddhism; and TIME magazine runs cover stories on America's fascination with Buddhism. Buddhist ideas appear in New Age religions, psychology, medicine, and even sports and business. Buddhist values are cited in social movements for feminism, peace, ecology, and animal rights. Buddhist temples pop up in unlikely places, from Hacienda Heights, California to the cornfields of Iowa. Buddhist studies flourish in colleges and universities from Smith to Stanford. We even have a new facial lotion called "Hydra-Zen," advertised as relieving skin stress, and a snack called "Zen Party Mix."

Clearly the "Zen" in the face cream and snack food has nothing to do with religion as we ordinarily understand it. We're dealing here with something else. An aura surrounds words like "Buddhism" and "Zen." There is a set of associations with familiar American values, such as simplicity, naturalness, peace, and harmony. There are the favorite values of the health and food industries, such as wholesomeness, well-being, and natural goodness; and there are the aesthetic values of the young urban sushi culture, such as tasteful understatement, sophisticated minimalism, and multicultural cosmopolitanism.

We seem to be dealing not with a religion, but with something that might be called American "secular spirituality" -- a longing among many (especially the white middle and upper classes) who are still not satisfied with what they have and who want something more; who have all they can eat, but are still searching for that special flavoring, some "psycho-spice" of self-acceptance, perhaps, some rare "inner herb" of guilt-free self-satisfaction. This longing for something more, though in most societies very often associated with religion, seems in our society to be associated with a suspicion of religion. We want something more than institutional religion -- something more personal, more private, more narrowly focused on "me" and how I feel about myself -- what might be called "I-dolatry."

Of all the religions in America (and ironically enough for a religion famous for denying the self), Buddhism seems to have been the one best able to tap into this desire for spirituality -- to transcend its status as a religion and present itself as a free-floating spiritual resource not tied to a particular institution, community, dogma, or ritual. We can add a dash of Buddhism whenever we need some spiritual flavor. We can market Buddhist cosmetics; we can have bars called "Buddha" and rock bands called "Nirvana"; we can have cartoons about Zen masters and jokes about how many it takes to change a light bulb -- all without imagining that we're being sacrilegious or insulting anyone's religion. We can even adopt Buddhist values or practices without converting to the Buddhist religion.

Does this mean, then, that Buddhism is not really a religion analogous to Christianity or Judaism -- that it's not an institution (or set of institutions) with members, but simply an intellectual style, point of view, or set of tastes, like, say, "feminism" or "postmodernism"? If so, what, then, are we supposed to think when we read that there are millions of Buddhists living in America? What about the hundreds of organizations that we find listed in directories of American Buddhist groups? No one seems to know just how many millions of Buddhists there are in America, in part because no one has figured out who "counts" as a Buddhist. Thomas Tweed, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, suggests that we need to take into account a large number of people who fall into a category he calls "nightstand Buddhists" -- people who read about Buddhism and are attracted to what they read, some of whom may even describe themselves as Buddhist, but who don't belong to any Buddhist organization. We might also call them "Buddhist sympathizers," and we might describe their nightstand reading as "public Buddhism" or "media Buddhism."

News coverage of Buddhism seems extraordinary. Not only is there quite a bit of it relative to other religions, but it tends to be highly positive. In international news, Buddhism is almost never blamed for the foibles of Asian societies. No one associates the state religion of Buddhism with the nasty politics in Burma; no one implicates the Buddhists of Sri Lanka in the bloody campaign against the Hindu Tamils. Rather, Buddhists tend to be [depicted as] peaceful victims of Asian politics -- Vietnamese monks burning themselves in protest against the government or Tibetan nuns tortured and jailed for their demonstrations against Chinese rule.

Compare this with the media images of fanatical Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus (not to mention Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland). The domestic news almost never treats Buddhist groups as "cults" or plays up the (not uncommon) sexual misadventures of Buddhist leaders. Rather, it tends to focus on "human interest" feature stories: the latest peace mission of the Dalai Lama or interviews with Buddhist superstars like Richard Gere. Compare this with dark media images of black Muslims and Hindu guru cults, or the evil empire of the Korean Christian movement of Reverend Moon (not to mention lurid stories of televangelists and their prostitutes or Catholic priests and their choirboys).

To be sure, we still get occasional hints of something suspicious (as in the campaign fund-raising stories of Al Gore and the devious Taiwanese Buddhist nuns), but for the most part, Buddhism seems to have slipped free from our old images of an alien Oriental paganism, blending smoothly into the American scene as a familiar, if still somewhat exotic, feature of our cosmopolitan new multiculture. It is often said that we have adopted Asian Americans as our "model minority," and the media seem to have adopted Buddhism as our model minority religion.

The transformation of Buddhism from an alien Asiatic paganism to a modern, international spiritual resource capable of blending into the American scene owes much to the work of western academics. In the 19th century, while newly arrived immigrant Chinese were worshipping the Buddha in their temples in California, Caucasian Americans were beginning to read about the Buddha in books produced by scholars of classical Indian languages. The books often depicted the Buddha's teachings as a rational system of philosophical and moral thought -- nontheistic; free from myth and ritual, superstition and magic; emphasizing ethical conduct and psychological understanding -- this in marked contrast to Christian beliefs in a creator god, an immaculate conception, a miraculous resurrection, and Christian emphases on church ritual, piety and faith, hellfire and brimstone. To be sure, there were bits of the teachings that were difficult to swallow: reincarnation, and escape from reincarnation into what seemed the oblivion of nirvana. But with these bits overlooked or explained away, for the most part Buddhism seemed safely familiar and modern, surprisingly compatible with a scientific worldview and western way of life -- in short, a religion ideal for disaffected Christians and Jews looking for a spiritual alternative.

The academic study of Buddhism has come a long way since the 19th century, and we now know enough to see clearly how little that early western image of Buddhism corresponds to the actual history, teachings, and practices of the religion in Asia -- how many of the difficult bits were overlooked or explained away in the projection of modern western ideals onto the religion. Still, the projected image remains in our books and minds -- an image much more attractive and influential than all the more sophisticated studies we now produce, describing the often bizarre and alien views that Buddhists actually held and detailing the history of a religion riddled with myth and ritual, superstition and magic.

Recently, when Stanford's Center for Buddhist Studies organized a one-day retreat on Buddhism for the Continuing Studies Program, 100 people had signed up by noon on the first day of registration, and the list had to be closed. Some were simply curious about Buddhism; some were no doubt practicing Buddhists. But most seem to have been "sympathizers": people drawn to something they see in the religion who feel some "affinity," some spiritual possibility. Many of them wanted to talk during the discussion sessions not about the scholarly presentations on Buddhist history and culture, but about liberal American interests such as ecology and social justice. More than a few wanted to share their personal understanding of what Buddhism really is and what Buddhist values are or ought to be. Such people are almost all educated, affluent, and white. At the retreat, I did not see a single black or Latino, and only one or two Asians, in the group. Terms like "nightstand Buddhist" or "Buddhist sympathizer" don't really capture the full range of these people's relationship to Buddhism. We also need a subcategory like "freelance Buddhist" -- those who identify themselves as Buddhist without belonging to any Buddhist organization, and perhaps another category called "client Buddhist" -- those who make use of Buddhist organizations without belonging to them.

This last category is perhaps the most remarkable of all. At the Stanford retreat, about half the people came one hour early to participate in an optional instruction session on meditation taught by Buddhist monks. These people were, for that session at least, operating as "client Buddhists." Because of Buddhism's odd status as a "nonreligious" spiritual resource, Americans seem to feel relatively free to drop in on Buddhist events and participate in Buddhist practices. They would rarely think of dropping in at a synagogue for prayer if they weren't Jewish or taking the Eucharist if they weren't Catholic, but joining in a Buddhist meditation retreat seems to come quite naturally. They often tend to think of such participation along the lines of, say, going on a Sierra Club hike, doing massage therapy at a hot spring resort, or attending a golf clinic or an investment seminar. Some Buddhist groups, in fact, depend on such drop-in clients for income and cater to them with specially prepared programs. One of the best-known Buddhist monasteries in America, Tassajara, supports itself with a summer guest season, when it turns itself into a spiritual resort.

In institutional terms, Buddhists are a disorganized lot. There is no national Buddhist organization; there is very little interest in anything like an ecumenical movement. Some groups have ties to church organizations in Asia; some have networks of affiliated communities in this country. But for the most part, American Buddhism is splintered into many different groups and factions, each with its own organizational structure, teachings, and practices. These can be very different. Buddhist probably disagree on more than they agree on. No one "speaks for" or "represents" Buddhism in this country.

Within this generally messy situation, we can make some distinctions of type. First, all commentators on the sociology of American Buddhism are quick to point out that we are dealing here with two distinct kinds of communities. Some use the unfortunate terms "American Buddhists" and "ethnic Buddhists," or the fighting words "white" and "yellow" Buddhists. Let's call them "convert" and "hereditary" Buddhists. Whatever we call them, the distinction between the two types is striking.

"Hereditary Buddhists" are mostly (so far) members of Asian immigrant groups or their Asian-American offspring. Buddhists from China and Japan, of course, have been living in America since the 19th century, but especially since the relaxation of quotas on Asian immigration in the 1960s, the number and variety of Asian Buddhists in America have grown dramatically. We now have representatives from virtually all the Buddhist cultures of Asia -- Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Tibet, and Mongolia -- as well as newer Buddhist groups continuing to enter from Japan and Taiwan. Of course, there is much variation in the types of Buddhism found in these communities, but sociologically speaking, they typically have deep roots in and reflect the ways of the old country. They serve to provide not only religious services, but also a sense of cultural continuity and a cultural center of gravity. Membership in the Buddhist organizations of such groups is typically not a matter of conscious choice or the result of a spiritual quest but a more or less unconscious cultural practice. In this sense, hereditary Buddhists are more like the majority of traditional, mainstream Christians and Jews than white convert Buddhists. And in fact, the functions of their religious organizations often look very familiar: worship services, church holiday festivals, church youth groups, fund-raisers, and maybe a scripture study class, as well as confirmation of the kids, pastoral care for the troubled, and funerals for the dearly departed.

The food may be sushi instead of hot dogs, the games may be mahjong instead of bingo, but the functions are more or less like that old-time religion that many nightstand Buddhists and white Buddhist converts are looking to escape. For the most part, laity in immigrant Buddhism, like laity in Asia, don't engage in meditation -- a practice for the ascetic monks who are imitating the Buddha's lifestyle of renunciation. They don't expect to become enlightened beings like the Buddha; they just want the Buddha to help them make it through this life and into better circumstances in the next. This kind of old-time Buddhism doesn't often get into the American media and doesn't attract many converts from outside the ethnic group.

There are, however, a few interesting groups that have managed to bridge the ethnic divide. Most notable is the Nichiren Shoshu of America (NSA) or Soka Gakkai, the American offspring of a large Japanese Buddhist lay movement. The American organization is very large, with centers throughout the country, and the ethnic makeup is diverse, mixing together not only Japanese and Euro-Americans but also many African-American converts. NSA is almost the only form of Buddhism that has significantly penetrated into the America that lies beyond the affluent, educated classes. Perhaps in part for this reason, it is typically ignored or dismissed by other Buddhists. More commonly, in those congregations where the clerical leadership has attracted a convert following from outside the ethnic group, it is quite usual for parallel programs to develop -- one for the ethnic community, based on traditional Asian Buddhist lay beliefs and practices, another for the mostly Euro-American converts that emphasizes their interest in the philosophical doctrines and spiritual practices traditionally left to the religious specialists or professionals.

The three basic forms of American Buddhism -- Zen, Vajrayana, and Vipassana -- represent only a small fraction of the various forms of Buddhism actually present in America. In fact, they exclude most of the forms followed by the immigrant Buddhist population that makes up the majority of Buddhists in this country. But they are the forms that have most appealed to convert Buddhists and the Buddhist sympathizers from whom most converts are drawn. Of these three forms, Zen is undoubtedly the best known. Zen Buddhism developed in medieval China and then spread throughout East Asia to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. It is by far the oldest and most successful form of Buddhism in America, introduced around the turn of the 20th century, discussed in both popular and academic books, and, at least since the Zen boom of the 1960s, widely practiced in many centers throughout the country. In recent decades, there have been popular Zen teachers from China, Korea, and Vietnam, but American Zen is dominated by styles imported from Japan (hence, the Japanese name "Zen"). The American versions are typically a package of traditional forms of monastic practice wrapped in western philosophy and psychology. This package was first developed by Japanese intellectuals in early 20th-century Japan, in response to their study of western ideas. Thus, the religion was already "prepackaged" for export to the West -- a fact that does much to explain its popularity here.

Some of the Zen organizations are very small -- just little meditation clubs meeting at someone's home. Some are quite large and include a network of residential meditation centers, monasteries, and businesses. Whether large or small, the focus is typically on lay meditation practice. In its early years, Zen groups often formed around Asian meditation teachers who were given almost complete authority over the group. But as they have matured and leadership has fallen to the converts themselves, the groups have increasingly taken on a more Protestant style: egalitarian and antiauthoritarian, with relatively little distinction between clerical and lay roles. In the process, women have increasingly moved into leadership roles.

To the right of the Zen groups are the organizations devoted to Vajrayana Buddhism. These represent a more recent development, largely of the last two or three decades. They are the result of the Tibetan diaspora, after the flight of the Dalai Lama to India in 1959, that led to the appearance of Tibetan monks in the West. Although this Tibetan Buddhism has attracted more or less the same segment of American society looking for more or less the same spiritual results, its religious style is rather different from Zen. Because it has arrived quite suddenly and recently, brought by monks steeped in the old ways of Tibetan culture and largely innocent of modern western values, it still retains more of the "raw" flavor of Tibetan religion. It tends to have a more "Catholic" feel, with a sharper division between monks and laymen; a greater emphasis on ritual practices of worship, chanting, initiation rites, healing, and empowerment ceremonies; and a less critical acceptance of traditional Buddhist scholasticism and the mystical theologies and cosmologies developed in medieval India and Tibet.

While modern Japanese Zen has the advantage of looking familiar, Tibetan Vajrayana has the lure of the exotic. Where Zen has appealed to Americans as a kind of this-worldly asceticism, Tibetan Buddhism has the attraction of other worlds -- of a distant pure land of Shangri-la beyond the Himalayas and the reach of international capitalism, an ancient magical realm of the spirit that preceded the modern disenchantment of the world. How this style of Buddhism will adapt to America, after Americans have become bored with Tibetan politics and leadership of the groups has passed to the American converts, remains one of the more interesting questions in the future of Buddhism in America.

If Tibetan Vajrayana is to [the] right of Zen, Vipassana is to the left. This style is also quite recent and growing rapidly. Its name comes from a Pali word meaning "observation" or "discernment," and it refers to certain forms of Buddhist meditation. The Vipassana movement represents a modern adaptation of traditional meditation practice to lay life. The movement began in Burma around the beginning of the 20th century. It is promulgated in America not by Burmese, but by American converts to the movement -- especially by the Insight Meditation Society.

Vipassana is the style of American Buddhism that has gone the farthest in breaking its ties with the Asian Buddhist tradition and adapting the religion to a secular American context. Although there are some residential Vipassana centers, the characteristic emphasis is on individual meditation practice in the home, supplemented by short retreats at the centers -- very much a "do-it-yourself" form of spirituality. Vipassana groups typically do not have a clerical leadership. They lack most forms of traditional Buddhist worship and depend little on the categories and vocabulary of traditional Buddhist theology. Instead, they often draw heavily on the concepts and techniques of American psychology -- especially the types known as transpersonal psychology and the Human Potential Movement.

Of all the forms of Buddhism in America, Vipassana comes closest to institutionalizing the notion of Buddhism as a nonreligious spiritual resource. And in fact, Vipassana teachings are now beginning to find their way into such best-selling books as Daniel Goleman's EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE and Jon Kabat-Zinn's FULL CATASTROPHE LIVING. In such books, Buddhism, even Vipassana itself, has almost completely disappeared, submerged in a spiritual soup in which the Asian religion of Buddhism has been so fully blended into American culture that we may no longer be able to speak of it either as "Asian" or as "religion." It will be interesting to watch what will happen to this "nonreligious" Buddhist spirituality as the Vipassana movement grows into national organizations.


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Donald K. Swearer is the Charles & Harriet Cox McDowell Professor of Religion at Swarthmore College:

Buddhism in America is characterized by a very broad sectarian, ethnic, and cultural diversity. Distinctions such as convert versus immigrant Buddhism or American versus Asian Buddhism necessarily gloss over this diversity. Even within a single Buddhist sectarian tradition, such as Japanese Jodo Shinshu (the Buddhist Churches of America), individual churches will vary considerably depending on the nature of the congregation. Among South and Southeast Asian Theravada groups, those that have been here the longest, such as the Washington, D.C. Buddhist Vihara (Sinhalese/Sri Lanka) (http://www.buddhistvihara.com), have tended to adapt to the American cultural environment more than recent arrivals, such as the Thai, Lao, and Khmer. Among first-generation Southeast Asian immigrants, many of whom came as refugees, Buddhist temples serve as important social/cultural centers, "safe spaces" in an alien cultural environment.