A recent New York Times article [here] discusses the state of Western Buddhism. Some highlights: A claim that Buddhism is the fourth largest religion in the United States and that more Americans convert to Buddhism than to Mormonism.
I haven’t been able to find data on the web to corroborate this claim, but:
- [This article] claims Buddhism in the U.S. grew 170% from 1990-2000 and is still growing at the same rate. [This related article] says Buddhism, alarmingly, has the second-lowest retention rate of American religions.
- [This Wikipedia entry] says Buddhism is recognized as the fastest growing western religion (and other interesting tidbits, like Buddhism being the fastest growing religion in British prisons).
- Mormonism is the fastest growing U.S. religion according to this [Huffington Post article] from last May. Mormonism, of course, has come under tremendous scrutiny due to a certain high-profile political candidate being a member of this uniquely American (arguably) Christian sect.
These statistics don’t really mean much. Categorization of Buddhism as a “religion” is controversial to begin with. Buddhist principles just don’t seem to be comparable to faiths for many of us. Then there are the “night-stand Buddhists,” “Jewddhists,” etc., who claim allegiance to another religion while benefiting from part-time study of the dhamma. Altogether it’s a nightmare for any statistician who wants an accurate report of the number of Buddhists in the U.S.
The original article points out that Western Buddhism is often not cased in the cultural leanings of the Eastern cultures from whence it came, which presents an interesting conundrum for the American Buddhist community. Are we going to follow traditional Buddhist paths, dressing in silly costumes and chanting incomprehensible eastern language mantras? Or are we, like every other culture Buddhism has encountered, going to incorporate the dhamma in a way that makes the most practical sense for our day-to-day lives?
I’m obviously not neutral here. Purists (fair to call them fundamentalists?) will argue that Buddhism has been passed down successfully through traditional paths for centuries, and that these time-honored traditions are therefore the best methods for us to adopt. But the fact remains that you can’t take the Japan out of Zen. You can’t take the Tibet out of the Dalai Lama. These methods came from a specific time and place where the dhamma was put into terms that were understandable to the people who lived there. Tibet should have its own style of Buddhism, even if it’s full of Tibetan culture magic and mysticism which objectively contradicts the original Buddha’s teachings in many ways, but nonetheless works as an effective metaphor for Tibetans to understand the dhamma in their own terms. We should also read and interpret the dhamma for ourselves. If we reject the uniforms and rituals of our Eastern Buddhist ancestors does that make us not-Buddhist? Rather, does it make us Newddhists (kudos to the original article for this hilarious moniker)?
In the end, different kinds of Buddhism work for different people. On an individual level it doesn’t matter which kind of Buddhism you subscribe to. All those extra bells and whistles of various cultural interpretations have kept the teachings from dying and disappearing over the centuries. Those cultural artifacts make the teachings seem exotic and exciting to a lot of westerners, but in order for Buddhist ideas to become mainstream (and therefore take up a permanent position in western culture) we will have to cut out the hocus-pocus and find ways for post-modern westerners to see the dhamma at work in the 21st century.
AnattaPunk 