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Tiana Stewart

Professor Harvey

REL 181

July 29, 2019

Essay Assignment #9

With so many religions of the world today, things can get confusing really fast. This

week, we focus on Buddhism in America as it is practiced today, and it has opened my eyes

more that I could have imagined. Before this lesson, I thought Buddhism was simply a relative or

a branch of Hinduism, and as I learned I was completely wrong. As Carl Bielefeldt professor of

religious studies and co-director of the Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University, and

co-contributor of the article “The Direction of Buddhism in America Today” writes, “we seem to

be dealing not with a religion, but with something that might be called American ‘secular

spirituality’.” He writes of the irony of Buddhism as the religion is “famous for denying the

self,” but “of all the religions in America, Buddhism seems to have been the one best able to tap

into this desire for spirituality” (Bielefeldt). Americans today, have developed the status of the

religion into an almost resource for spirituality that floats freely and is not “tied to a particular

institution, community, dogma, or ritual” (Bielefeldt).

Another contributor of the article, “The Direction of Buddhism in America Today,” Jan

Nattier who is associate professor of Buddhism at Indiana University at Bloomington states that

American Buddhism within its inclusion extends to “the wealthy and the poor, single people and

multigeneration families, immigrants with advanced technical degrees, and refugees who can

barely communicate in English”. American Buddhism brings together those whose individual

Buddhism highlights the significance of living life with morals, and those who think morals are

too much of a constraint. It brings those who focus on making merit or contributing to their
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monastic community, and those who exclusively focus on meditation. As Nattier writes,

American Buddhism “includes those who believe that our actions (in Buddhist terminology, our

"karma") determine what our next incarnation will be and those who believe that this life is all

there is.” As Charles S. Prebish, a fellow contributor of the article and professor of religious

studies at Pennsylvania State University states, the disagreement between researchers is close to

none, pertaining to the fact that “Asian immigrant Buddhist communities and American convert

communities engage in significantly different Buddhist practices.” Americans almost exclusively

practice meditation which has caused conflict and worry to manifest in some immigrant Asian

communities.

Buddhism came to North America the way that many other popular religions did. It

arrived with Chinese immigration, and the people that settled in the western parts of the United

States starting in the 1840’s. People wanted religious freedom, and the ability to practice and

believe what they wanted. It also came through the travel of Europeans and North Americans

who visited Asia and brought back Buddhist texts. In the late 1800’s, Buddhist thought and

influence began to be written of in the literary works of Walt Whitman, Henry Thoreau, and

Ralph Waldo Emerson. Author of the article, "How Buddhism Came to the West,” Maia Duerr

writes that the “World Parliament of Religions, held in 1893 in conjunction with the Chicago

World’s Fair, was also a key event in the transmission of Buddhism to the West.” One of the

participants was Japanese Zen master Shaku Soen, who returned to the U.S. many years later to

travel the country and give Buddhism lectures. According to Duerr, “Three of his students went

on to help establish Buddhism in the U.S., including Daistz Teitaro Suzuki, author of An

Introduction to Zen Buddhism and many other books.”

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During the current time of increased living with “fear and anxiety generated by an

unstable economy, terrorist threats, social unrest, and environmental peril,” people are looking to

Buddhism in the West, which has also caused its rapid rise in numbers (Duerr). According to

Jane Lampman, staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor and author of “American

Buddhism on the Rise,” the religion was born in India and has been in the United States since the

19th century, and the “the number of adherents rose by 170 percent between 1990 and 2000,

according to the American Religious Identity Survey.” Buddhism is rapidly rising due to people

being attracted to the role that the Dalai Lama has played, and others testifying that the “non-

missionizing” approach conveniently fits with the popular American quest for purposeful

“spiritual paths” (Lampman).

As Maia Duerr writes, “There is as much pluralism in Buddhism as there is in

Christianity.” In relation to other religions, Donald S. Lopez Jr. and Robert E. Buswell Jr.,

writers of the article “One way to Nirvana,” state that “In recent years, there have been growing

numbers of Buddhist-Christian dialogues and Buddhist-Jewish dialogues. The Dalai Lama has

even commented on the gospels.” However, this statement does not mean that in the Buddhist

world, there is unity between all religions. Throughout history, Buddhists have claimed to be the

only ones to achieve liberation from rebirth, and that it is impossible through any other religion.

From Lopez and Buswell, “other religions can at best lead to a better rebirth, either as a human

or as a god in one of the many heavens; only Buddhism leads to Nirvana.” Up to this point is

where the harmony divides, as there is much disagreement in regard to which form of Buddhism

reaches Nirvana, as “each of the many schools across Asia claiming that theirs alone does”

(Lopez, Buswell).
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In my opinion, it would be very hard for people who are culturally disposed to American

attitudes to fully appreciate and take part in the Buddhist lifestyle of renunciation and discipline.

The American culture is not very disciplined as many people get what they want when they want

it and we have a bit of an impatient culture. However as Jan Nattier, associate professor of

Buddhism at Indiana University at Bloomington and co-contributor of “The Direction of

Buddhism in America Today,” writes, “American Buddhism, in short, resembles American

religion in general: its most striking feature is its variety,” so Americans do have some

experience in that category of being able to adapt to their belief systems. I believe that it would

just take a lot of dedication and separation from the many distractions that we have in American

society.
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Works Cited

Bielefeldt, Carl, et al. “The Direction of Buddhism in America Today.” The Direction of Buddhism

in America, PBS.org, www.urbandharma.org/udharma5/tension2.html.

Due, Maia. “How Buddhism Came to the West.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service,

www.pbs.org/thebuddha/blog/2010/mar/17/how-buddhism-came-west-maia-duerr/.  

Lampman, Jane. “American Buddhism on the Rise.” The Christian Science Monitor, The Christian

Science Monitor, 14 Sept. 2006, www.csmonitor.com/2006/0914/p14s01-lire.html.  

Lopez, Donald S., and Robert E. Buswell. “One Way to Nirvana.” Tricycle, Tricycle, 3 July 2014,

tricycle.org/trikedaily/buddhist-view-other-religions/.