American Buddhism
Subscribe to this topic via: RSS
Buddhism in the United States, beyond “convert” and “heritage” forms.
Caution! Under Construction
Please be aware that this tag is still under construction and as such is missing information and may be changed or removed at any time. For all the content under consideration for this tag, see the “American Buddhism” folder on Google Drive.
Table of Contents
Books (7)
Featured:
-
256 pages[recommended but under copyright]
See also:
Canonical Works (2)
Readings (33)
Featured:
-
⭐ Recommended
Drawing from interviews, participant observation, and online research, I examine two interconnected issues. First, how temple food practices—offering alms to monks and operating newly invented temple food courts—sustain temples spiritually and financially. Second, how temple food, which is consistently integrated into various events and rituals, enables Thai Americans and a diverse assortment of other participants to connect and work together.
-
Given the growing dilution of Buddhist identity and its tendency toward syncretism in Brazil, this paper works with the heuristic concept of a ‘Buddhism in Syncretic Shape.’ Since this concept is useful for better understanding some groups in Brazil, it is suggested that it can also provide interesting insights for the study of Buddhism in the West. This concept will be developed through a detailed description of Shingon in Brazil, which has undergone a religious synthesis with Catholicism and Afro-Brazilian religions.
-
This essay focuses on Albert J. Edmunds, a British-American Buddhist sympathizer, and it considers the ways that Western occult traditions, especially Swedenborgianism, moved back and forth across the Pacific and shaped the work of D. T. Suzuki.
-
While often associated with a liberal demographic, the increasing online visibility of rhetoric such as “snowflakes,” “politically correct,” “postmodern identity politics,” and “cultural Marxism” demonstrates the presence of right-wing sentiments and populations in American convert Buddhism.
-
Ministers in the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA) began performing same-sex marriages approximately forty years ago. These were among the first clergy-led religious ceremonies for same-sex couples performed in the modern era, and were apparently the first such marriages conducted in the history of Buddhism. In this article, I seek to explain why Jodo Shinshu Buddhists in America widely and easily affirmed same-sex weddings in the later 20th and early 21st centuries. My argument is that there are three factors in particular—institutional, historical, and theological elements of American Shin Buddhism—that must be attended to as contributing reasons why ministers were supportive of same-sex marriage.
-
Taking as its focus twentieth- and twenty-first-century semiautobiographical writings by black American Buddhists, this article explores how black American Buddhists engage with Buddhist teachings to understand themselves as racialized subjects on local, national, and transnational levels.
-
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.
-
like the Soka Gakkai cases, our respondents appear to be searching for miracles and spiritual fulfillment that they were not receiving by engaging solely in Christian practices. Although they might be considered “free riders” through a rational choice lens, Master Chu actually encourages this behavior
-
From Buddhist Hippies to Buddhist Geeks: The Emergence of Buddhist Postmodernism? (2014) – Ann Gleig
Buddhist Geeks is an online Buddhist media company and community that launched in 2007. It consists of a weekly audio podcast and a digital magazine component and since 2011, has hosted an annual conference. I will discuss the main characteristics and concerns of the Buddhist Geeks community and explore how it can be situated both in relationship to traditional Buddhism and Buddhist modernism. In conclusion, I reflect on whether Buddhist Geeks signals the emergence of a new, distinctly postmodern stage in the wider assimilation of Buddhism in America.
-
The present study extrapolates six distinct themes related to the experiences of racialized inclusion and exclusion [by eleven participants of color]. These themes are: 1) Interpersonal Barriers to Full Participation, 2) Institutional Barriers to Full Participation, 3) Strategies for Coping with Racialized Exclusion, 4) Failures of Leadership Support for People of Color, 5) Range of POC Experiences, and 6) Promoting Equity and Inclusion. Following the explication of themes, the authors offer recommendations for primarily white meditation communities to help guide their efforts toward greater inclusion
-
Theravada as practiced by most converts in the West is distinguished by the absence of monasticism, its dominant institution. Nevertheless, Thai Forest monasticism has managed to gain a foothold in the convert West, thanks to the efforts of convert monastics trained in Thailand. This article analyzes the missionary project to “monasticize” Western lay converts through the history of Birken Forest Monastery in British Columbia, Canada, founded in 1994.
-
These universities provide education in liberal arts and professional fields, while employing the time-tested methods of traditional Buddhist pedagogy. Because these universities are generally unknown to the public, I have provided information about their history, academic programs, and the educational success created on their campuses.
See also:
Audio/Video (29)
Featured:
-
A good introduction to some of the academic buzz-words thrown around when discussing contemporary, American Buddhism.
-
Willa Baker discusses her entwined academic and monastic career and why she thinks Western meditators would do well to focus more on the body.
-
The Buddha is like a physician that is capable of turning poison into medicine.
1h 20 m -
… the idea that you could be both Buddhist and American at the same time seemed contradictory.
1h 18 m -
An award-winning actor and heavy-metal singer explains how she found Buddhism and works her practice into everything she does.
59 min -
7 min
See also:
