Buddhism: Encyclopedia II - Buddhism - Buddhism and the West

Buddhism - Buddhism and the West

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 most 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. 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).

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.

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.

In 1880 a committee comprised of Ven Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera (Chairman), Ven. Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera, Don Carolis Hewavitharana (father of Anagarika Dharmapala), Andiris Perera Dharmagunawardhana (maternal grandfather of Anagarika Dharmapala), William de Abrew, Charles A. de Silva, Peter de Abrew, H. William Fernando, N. S. Fernando and Carolis Pujitha Gunawardena (Secretary) designed the International Buddhist flag to celebrate the revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and (Theosophist) Henry Steel Olcott made suggestions for modifying it [6]. 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 and power.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Buddhism and the West", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki