Western Buddhism

From Buddhist Encyclopedia

The Indo-Greek king Menander (155-130 BCE) is the first Western historical figure documented to have converted to Buddhism.

Occasional intersections between Western civilization and the Buddhist world have been occurring for thousands of years. Perhaps the most significant of these began in 334 BCE, early in the history of Buddhism, when the Macedonian king Alexander the Great conquered much of Central Asia. The Seleucids and the successive Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms established an important Hellenistic influence in the area, which interacted with Buddhism, as exemplified by the emergence of Greco-Buddhist art. The conversion to Buddhism of the Indo-Greek king Menander (155-130 BCE) is described in Indian sources (the Milinda Panha), and echoed in Western ones (Plutarch).

Greco Buddhism

Greco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Græco-Buddhism, is the cultural syncretism between the culture of Classical Greece and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 800 years in Central Asia in the area corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE. Greco-Buddhism influenced the artistic (and, possibly, conceptual) development of Buddhism, and in particular Mahayana Buddhism, before it was adopted by Central and Northeastern Asia from the 1st century CE, ultimately spreading to China, Korea, Japan, and Mongolia.

Buddhism and the Roman World

Several instances of interaction between Buddhism and the Roman world are documented by Classical and early Christian writers. Roman historical accounts describe an embassy sent by the "Indian king Pandion (Pandya?), also named Porus," to Caesar Augustus around 13 CE. The embassy was travelling with a diplomatic letter in Greek, and one of its members was a sramana who burned himself alive in Athens to demonstrate his faith. The event made a sensation and was described by Nicolaus of Damascus, who met the embassy at Antioch, and related by Strabo (XV,1,73 and Dio Cassius (liv, 9). A tomb was made to the sramana, still visible in the time of Plutarch, which bore the mention:

"ΖΑΡΜΑΝΟΧΗΓΑΣ ΙΝΔΟΣ ΑΠΟ ΒΑΡΓΟΣΗΣ"

("The sramana master from Barygaza in India")

These accounts at least indicate that Indian religious men (Sramanas, to which the Buddhists belonged, as opposed to Hindu Brahmanas) were circulating in the Levant during the time of Jesus.

Buddhism and Western Culture

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 Arthur 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.

The German Friedrich Nietzsche delivered praise to Buddhism in his 1895 work The Anti-Christ (exceptional in the case of this iconoclastic philosopher), taking care to exclude it from his condemnation of Christianity. He stated that "Buddhism is a hundred times more realistic than Christianity" (Nietzsche 2003:141), because unlike the dogmatic desire for a pleasurable afterlife through the avoidance of earthly sin, the Buddha's aims of non-suffering through adjustment of self were attainable in life. Nietzsche's own beliefs and his rare sympathy toward the Buddhist outlook have sparked various comparisons between the two philosophies.[1]

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. 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. 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.

Inflow of Buddhism

A hallway in California's Hsi Lai Temple.

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. 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. By the 1970s, Tibetan lamas such as the Karmapa (Rangjung Rigpe Dorje), Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Geshe Wangyal, Geshe Lhundub Sopa, Dezhung Rinpoche, Sermey Khensur Lobsang Tharchin, Tarthang Tulku, and Lama Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche had all established teaching centers in the West.

Certainly Tibetan Buddhism has seen dramatic growth in the West. Fuelled in part by the 'shangri-la' view of this country and due to the fact that Western media agencies are largely sympathetic with the 'Tibetan Cause'. All four of the main Tibetan Buddhist schools have had success. The Dalai Lama's Gelugpa school are well known and whenever he gives lectures in the West they are always very well attended. The Kagyu school are represented throughout Europe and the Americas. And both the Sakya and Nyingma schools are also very well known.

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 were eventually ordained as monks in the Theravadan tradition, and upon returning home became influential meditation teachers establishing such centres as IMS (Insight Meditation Society) in America. 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.

Western Buddhism

Today, Buddhism is practiced in large numbers in the Americas, Europe and Oceania. For the most part, Western Buddhism is identical to Buddhism in East Asia, borrowing Asian practicises such as the sangha and meditation (although most Asian Buddhist rituals are not borrowed). Usually, practicitioners do not see any reason to create a distinction between the śīla or enlightenment they aim for and the goals of Asian Buddhists. Western Buddhism, however, also has its roots in the Western concepts of freethought and secular humanism.

There is a general distinction between Buddhism brought to the West by Asian immigrants, which may be Mahayana or a traditional East Asian mix, and Buddhism as practiced by converts, which is often Zen, Pure Land, Indian Vipassana or Tibetan Buddhism. Some Western Buddhists are actually non-denominational and accept teachings from a variety of different sects, which is far less frequent in Asia.

A feature of Buddhism in the West has been the emergence of groups which, even though they draw on traditional Buddhism, are in fact an attempt at creating a new style of Buddhist practice. Chögyam Trungpa's Shambhala group is one example, and the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order founded by Sangharakshita is another. Some, mainly American convert Buddhists including Jack Kerouac, are recently incorporating Jesus into Buddhism. They claim that Jesus is a bodhisattva in that he achieved a very high degree of enlightenment.

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 (FWBO), founded by Sangharakshita in 1967. Lama Surya Das is a prominent Western-born teacher continuing to bring the teachings of Buddhism to Westerners.

Some of these new schools are not without criticism however, and in some quarters are not felt to represent an 'authentic' transmission of Buddhism.

See also

• Buddhism in America
• Buddhism in Austria
• Buddhism in the Russian Federation