Buddhism has its origin in South Asia, but it crossed cultural and geographical boundaries to make its presence felt in Western nations. Buddhism marched towards North America in around 1860s with the arrival of Chinese immigrants. The spread of Buddhism in America is also attributed to Americans and Europeans who visited Asia in the late1800s. Undoubtedly, Buddhism has blossomed fast in American culture since then.
Nonetheless, the gulf between Buddhist converts and immigrants is one of the prominent features specific to North America. This gulf is riven by deep social, cultural and linguistic variations. It is the point where the contrast between established norms and innovation seem to take a sharp turn. For converts, Dharma is more secular, but that is, unfortunately, not the case with immigrants who prefer to stick to worldviews of Asian Buddhism. For them, liberation and awakening are indelible, bodhisattvas are dynamic, and rituals are well established but non-ambiguous.
This paper aims to delineate similarities and differences between Buddhists notions and practices in Asia and America. The discussion automatically boils down to considering differences between the traditions of converts to that of Asian followers as immigrants still carry their original notions from their respective countries. Taking a cue from scholarly readings, the author has mingled his own perception also so as to present a detailed understanding of the topic.
In essence, the American version of Buddhism seems to have driven from established traditions in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and other Asian nations. Americans have imitated some other aspects quite faithfully. For instance, meditation practices are same, liturgies are chanted in Asian, and people wear Asian robes. Nonetheless, the religion has witnessed a colossal change in the context of American culture and society. While American converts have imparted a more secular tinge to otherwise to conservative Buddhists notions, it has become a philosophy and a way of life there, transcending beyond the reputation of a religious sect.
Apparently, core teachings of Buddha as compassion, nonviolence, and kindness find their space in North American culture in the same spirit as they are present in Asian contexts. Different forms including ethnic Buddhism of migrants, new Western Buddhism, and traditional Buddhism share many common threads as liberation from greed, hatred, and sufferings. Meditation rests at the core of Buddhist's techniques to transform and purify the mind. This holy practice directly finds its way from Asian monastic despite huge geographical and cultural differences between two continents.
Irrespective of this same substance and the common thread that Asia and America share, Buddhism has experienced some sharp deviations and curves when it comes to practicing the rituals. First and the foremost, while Asia experienced the origin of one of the most orthodox and conservative branches of Buddhism as Theravada, Westerns practitioners duly exhibited their unwillingness to succumb to voodoo rules and procedures.
As a result, Buddhism became more democratic and secular in America. Four Nobel Truths were interpreted with humanistic and secular tinge while they had been pigeonholed in a complex worldview throughout the history in Asia. It is because of this secular taste of Americans that the theme of gender equity has found its place in Americanized Buddhism.
While males have traditionally dominated the Buddhist philosophy in Asia, observers have noticed that a more equitable role for women is one of the special strands of American Buddhism. Women have been actively present in meditation centers and Buddhist forums. They stand at par with their male counterparts, rather than standing in isolation in some underfunded women-specific medication centers. Simply put, they have snatched the religion of its patriarchal past to impart it some novel dimensions of gender balance and equity. Among most of the people who have chosen the monastic path are women who underscore their contribution to the propagation of dhamma. Mrs. Alexander Russell, Ruth Fuller are some among earliest names who helped in disseminating Buddhism in America.
In the 90s, the quest for gender equity in American Buddhism was also expressed with respect to lesbian and gay issues. Questions were raised regarding intermingling of different sexual identities to religious traditionalism. Many Buddhists gays and lesbians were integrated into the social fabric despite residual homophobia that continued to an extent.
Among different sects of Buddhism, America embraced Zen Buddhism the most. One of the probable reasons for that was that Zen tradition belonged to Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism that stressed upon intuition and meditation than scriptures and rituals. Some scholars have refuted this hypothesis while confirming that it was only an American thought that made Zen a tradition sans ritual. It was not actually the case. Zen was introduced to the country via books; it might have led Americans to think that it was a philosophy than a religion. Without going into that controversy, it can be well ascertained that Americans practiced Buddhism with a more secular tone. Most of the Americans acquiesced institutional rigor found in Asian monasteries. They, instead, preferred to balance practice with the demands of nuclear family. They also did not accept the Asian tradition of imparting support to monastic. As such, the distinction between monks and layperson remains fluffy in American Buddhism. In Asia, monks are swayed by the whiff of reverence and holiness, but this is not the case in America where their practices and procedures are more focused.
Other than Zen, Vipassana and Vajrayana are the basic varieties that represent a small fraction of various forms of Buddhism present in America. While great numbers of Buddhist followers in America practice Mahayana probably because of its inclusive and pluralistic nature, Theravada form has been morphed into a more secular form that is known as Vipassana. Vipassana form has, in gist, broken ties from traditional Asian Buddhist notions to stay tuned to the secular American culture. Vipassana groups emphasize on the do-it-yourself form of spirituality and lack any clerical leadership. As of now, these groups have little to do with traditional Buddhist theology; they, rather, heavily draw upon techniques and concepts of American psychology.
Another striking difference between Asian and American Buddhism is that of heterogeneity and diversity. In America, different forms of Buddhism are better intermingled than their Asian counterparts. Though North Americans have adopted some forms quite well, almost all variations as Theravada, Mahayana, and Tibetan Traditions are present diminutively in a single nation, and even in a single city. Buddhism is characterized by varying cultural and ethnic identities, and separating those identities has not been an easy deal in America. Different sects, schools, and traditions flourish and prosper in neighborhoods-a rarity in Asia where different forms of Buddhism are separated by geographical boundaries . For instance, ethnic flavors have molded Buddhist traditions and practices in different geographic regions like Japan, China, Mongolia, Korea, and other countries. Little overlapping prevails, but different regions have a different set of notions and practices.
Eclecticism is another feature that sharply differentiates the Buddhists notions of Asia and America. While Theravada is a domineering sect in most of the Asian nations, other forms have been put on the backburner. There is little knowledge of Zen and other Buddhist developments from Eastern Asian regions. Teachers follow their own practices and traditions. By contrast, America is a real meeting place of different Buddhist forms. Though teachers follow a single tradition, they are open to embracing new insights from other notions and perspectives.
Works Cited
Benowitz, June Melby. Encyclopedia of American Women and Religion. ABC-CLIO, 1998.
Numrich, Paul David. North American Buddhists in Social Context. BRILL, 2008.
Seager, Richard Hughes. Buddhism in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.
Silk, Jonathan. "The Spread of Buddhism in Central Asia." Leiden University, 2014.
