Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived between approximately 566 and 486 BCE in India. Buddhism gradually spread from India throughout Asia to Central Asia, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Southeast Asia, as well as to East Asian countries such as China, Korea, and Japan.

Buddhism in the modern world

:Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.

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:Albert Einstein

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Estimates of the number of Buddhists vary between 230 and 500 million, with 350 million as the most commonly cited figure. http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

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Modern Asia

In northern Asia, Mahāyāna remains the most common form of Buddhism in China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, (parts of) Indonesia and Singapore. Theravāda predominates in most of Southeast Asia, including Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, as well as Sri Lanka. It has seats in Malaysia and Singapore. Vajrayāna is predominant in Tibet, Mongolia, portions of Siberia and portions of India, especially those areas bordering Tibet. Kalmykia, while geographically located in Europe, is culturally closely related to Mongolia and thus its Buddhism is more properly grouped with Asian than with Western Buddhism.

Related Topics:
Mahāyāna - China - Japan - Korea - Vietnam - Singapore - Theravāda - Southeast Asia - Burma - Cambodia - Laos - Thailand - Sri Lanka - Vajrayāna - Tibet - Mongolia - Siberia - India - Kalmykia - Europe

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While in the West, Buddhism is often seen as exotic and progressive; in the East, Buddhism is regarded as familiar and part of the establishment. Buddhist organizations in Asia frequently are well-funded and enjoy support from the wealthy and influential. In some cases, this has led critics to charge that certain monks and organizations are too closely associated with the powerful and are neglecting their duties to the poor.

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Buddhism and the West

In the latter half of the 19th century, Buddhism (along with many other of the world's religions and philosophies) came to the attention of Western intellectuals. These included the pessimistic German philosopher Schopenhauer-- who encountered Buddhism, and Eastern thought in general, after having devised a philosophical system of considerable compatibility, and the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, who translated a Buddhist sutra from French into English. Western spiritual seekers were attracted to what they saw as the exotic and mystical tone of the Asian traditions, and created esoteric societies such as the Theosophical Society of H.P. Blavatsky. The Buddhist Society, London was founded by Theosophist Christmas Humphreys in 1924.

Related Topics:
19th century - Schopenhauer - Henry David Thoreau - Theosophical Society - H.P. Blavatsky - Buddhist Society, London - Christmas Humphreys - 1924

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At first Western Buddhology was hampered by poor translations (often translations of translations), but soon Western scholars such as Max Müller began to learn Asian languages and translate Asian texts.

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In 1880 J.R. de Silva and (Theosophist) Henry Steel Olcott designed the International Buddhist flag to celebrate the revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Its stripes symbolise universal compassion, the middle path, blessings, purity and liberation, wisdom, and the conglomeration of these. The flag was accepted as the International Buddhist Flag by the 1952 World Buddhist Congress.

Related Topics:
Henry Steel Olcott - International Buddhist flag - Sri Lanka - 1952 - World Buddhist Congress

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In 1899 Gordon Douglas became the first Westerner to be ordained as a Buddhist monk.

Related Topics:
1899 - Gordon Douglas

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The first Buddhists to arrive in the United States were Chinese. Hired as cheap labor for the railroads and other expanding industries, they established temples in their settlements along the rail lines. See the article on Buddhism in America for further information.

Related Topics:
United States - Railroads - Buddhism in America

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During the 20th century the German writer Hermann Hesse showed great interest in Eastern religions, writing a book entitled Siddhartha. American beat generation poet Jack Kerouac became a well-known literary Buddhist, for his roman-a-clef The Dharma Bums and other works. The cultural re-evaluations of the hippie generation in the late 1960s and early 1970s led to a re-discovery of Buddhism, which seemed to promise a more methodical path to happiness than Christianity and a way out of the perceived spiritual bankruptcy of Western life.

Related Topics:
20th century - Hermann Hesse - Beat generation - Jack Kerouac - Roman-a-clef - The Dharma Bums - Hippie - 1960s - 1970s

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Many of these 'seekers', traveling to Asia in pursuit of gurus and ancient wisdom, first encountered Buddhism in Nepal or northern India through contact with Tibetan monks who had fled the Chinese occupancy in 1959. Within a few years Tibetan lamas such as Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Geshe Ngawang Wangyal and the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, were invited to teach in the West.

Related Topics:
Chögyam Trungpa - Ngawang Wangyal - Dalai Lama - Tenzin Gyatso

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In addition to this a number of Americans who had served in the Korean or Vietnam Wars stayed out in Asia, seeking to understand both the horror they had witnessed and its context. A few of these eventually ordained as monks in the Theravadan tradition, and upon returning home became influential meditation teachers establishing such centres as IMS in America.

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Another contributing factor in the flowering of Buddhist thought in the West was the popularity of Zen amongst the counter-culture poets and activists of the 60's, due to the writings of Alan Watts and D.T. Suzuki. Since that time Buddhism has become the fastest-growing religion in Australia and many other Western nations.

Related Topics:
Alan Watts - D.T. Suzuki

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A distinctive feature of Buddhism has been the continuous evolution of the practice as it was transmitted from one country to another. This dynamic aspect is particularly evident today in the West. Chögyam Trungpa, the founder of the Shambhala meditation movement, claimed in his teachings that his intention was to strip the ethnic baggage away from traditional methods of working with the mind and to deliver the essence of those teachings to his western students. Another example of a school evolving new idioms for the transmission of the dharma is the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, founded by Sangharakshita. Lama Surya Das is a prominent Western-born teacher continuing to bring the teachings of Buddhism to Westerners.

Related Topics:
Chögyam Trungpa - Shambhala - Friends of the Western Buddhist Order - Sangharakshita - Lama Surya Das

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Sogyal Rinpoche is well known for the Modern Classic 'The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying' and along with his brother Dzogchen Rinpoche are the founders of the intenational RIGPA sangha (http://www.rigpa.org.uk/).

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