Western Buddhists

New Blog: Dharma Mirror

| arun

A friend emailed me a link to a brand new blog, Dharma Mirror.

This is the Blog of Dharma Realm Buddhist Young Adults (DRBY). DRBY consists of college students and young adults who are interested in applying Buddhist principles to their daily lives. DRBY is a community of young people who are searching for wisdom and are committed to helping others while advancing on their own spiritual path. This community provides support for each other’s spiritual cultivation and inquiry into life’s deeper meaning in a friendly and open atmosphere.

They offer some unique perspectives on practice and community. Yes, they also have Asian American Buddhist authors, which you might imagine brings a little smile to my face. Check out the most recent post: Buddhism + Young Adults = Possible ?

Western Buddhism’s Likely Demise

| arun

On a recent post over at Progressive Buddhism, Kyle bemoans the contemporary fragility of Buddhism in the West.

We are now experiencing Buddhism in the West’s struggle through its own Valley Forge. Like Washington’s army and the hopes of the American Revolution that were in dire peril in 1777, so is the future of Buddhism in the West today.

I think his grumbles are well-founded. After all, the dominance of the West will only last for so much longer. With the end of Western superiority, the very existence of a Western Buddhism will be put in question. If Buddhism cannot thrive in a globally hegemonic culture, then how will it fare once that ascendant culture is tearing at the seams? In an ever more democratic and globalized humanity, the West will have to lose its prestige, and so will diminish whatever special Western prestige comes with “Western” Buddhism.

Buddhist Baubles and Western Baggage

| arun

Over at a recent post on Wandering Dhamma, I found a comment related to an issue I’ve never before considered.

I became interested in Buddhism after visiting the Tibetan regions of Nepal about two years ago. Probably the most obvious difference between what I saw there and what I see here is the rather garish presence of the Buddhist Marketplace in the West. Not the Marketplace of Ideas, mind you, but the Marketplace of Stuff. Material Goods. Consumer Items. Cushions, incense holders, relaxation music, mandalas, retreats, icons… Can’t say that I saw anything like that in Nepal! … Strangely, I haven’t found any discussion of this issue in the Buddhist media. Perhaps I’m not looking hard enough, but it seems to have been swept under the rug. Surely I’m not the only one to sense the irony between the anti-consumerist sentiments of Tricycle and Shambhala Sun magazines and the plethora of baubles and trinkets advertised on those same pages?

Is it fair to say this commenter is talking about Western cultural baggage? Perhaps. But from my personal experience, I’ve seen Buddhism commodified in Asia just as much as in North America—only along different cultural dimensions.

Emerging Trends in “Western” Buddhism

| arun

Over on Wandering Dhamma, Brooke Schedneck writes about new trends in ‘Western’ Buddhism and provides some thoughts on the Buddhist blogging community.

There is a whole close-knit community thriving on debate and discussion of a diversity of issues almost daily. This community of course, is the buddhoblogosphere. Tackling similar issues as recent scholars such as race and racism, the dynamic between culture and religion, and the secularization of meditation teachings, among others. This community comments on online and print Buddhist media and is more and more moving toward incorporating ideas of recent scholarship. The buddhobogosphere is on the cutting edge of what is going on within Buddhism in the West, and they will have increasing importance for scholarship about contemporary Buddhism.

Brooke also provides a list of some general trends in this emerging scholarship.

  1. New Age vs. Hard Core Dhamma
  2. Mindfulness Meditation and the Secularization of Meditation
  3. Is Buddhism a religion? (Buddhism and religious identity)
  4. The dialogue of Buddhism and science/psychology
  5. Buddhism and youth
  6. Buddhism and pop-culture
  7. Buddhism and happiness
  8. Modern-day commentaries of traditional Buddhist teachings
  9. Prison Dharma
  10. Racially Diverse Buddhism

These trends are discussed in more detail across posts here and here.

Buddhist Stuff

| arun

I’m trying to catch up on all the posting I neglected this weekend. This past Friday I got the chance to visit the Jodo Shinshu Center for the first time. Very cool indeed. Here are some highlights. It’s really hi-tech. Asian Americans abound! It’s a Buddhist resource right at the foot of UC Berkeley. Anglais se parle. They’ve got a huge bookstore with Buddhist stuff! On that last point by “Buddhist stuff” I mean to say that in addition to books, the bookstore has a great inventory of the sorts of things you’d need to set up your own shrine or to buy as a Dharma gift for a friend! If you happen to be in Berkeley, I strongly encourage checking it out.

Buddhist Demographics of the Future

| arun

I’m taking off my P.C. gloves, so beware! This post at the New York Timesgot me thinking about the demographics of Buddhist America. It’s currently taken for granted that Asian Americans constitute the majority of Buddhist Americans. But there are some who quietly anticipate the scales tipping, when white Buddhists become a solid demographic majority. If this shift should occur, the increase will come almost exclusively from converts. White Buddhists generally don’t have that many kids. In two generations, Asian Americans will more than double their share of the national population – much of it not due to immigration – while the proportion of white Americans will steadily decrease. If we were to base the size of the Buddhist community solely on the kids of people who today identify as Buddhist, then the future numbers of white Buddhist Americans would likely halve before long. A future white majority would have a much larger contingent of second and third generation white Buddhists, but these “Dharma brats” would still be vastly outnumbered by white converts. Asian American Buddhists will ever increasingly consist of native-born Americans – for example, the kids of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese Buddhist refugees are getting married and raising their own kids right now, just to mention one group. Add to that the ranks of all the other Buddhists of color, parent and young alike. Will the future of Buddhist America be one where white converts dominate Buddhist minorities both culturally and numerically? If so, I wonder whether this white Buddhist majority (who come with white privilege) would have any greater urge for diversity (say, in TheBigThree) than they do now as a distinct minority.

The Surface of Buddhism

| arun

Atlasien’s recent blog post touches on superficial perspectives on Islam and Buddhism, and also that pernicious East-West mindset.

Islamic mystique diverged from the pattern somewhere in the 20th century. The value of the white mediator became not so romantic. Racialization of Islam swelled to truly amazing proportions. Today in the United States, the negative stereotypes of Islam I listed above are not just applicable to Muslims; they stretch to Sikhs, Arab Christians, anyone who looks vaguely Middle Eastern. On the other hand, the positive stereotypes of Buddhism do not extend to East Asians! East Asian cultures are still stereotyped as repressive towards women, lovers of hierarchy and haters of individuality, unchanging and ahistorical, superficially clever but not really innovative, etcetera.

Should you read the piece, keep in mind that the audience is “predominantly people of color who are not Buddhists.”

Racialicious Buddhism

| arun

On the race and pop culture blog, Racialicious, guest writer Atlasien kicks off a series on race and Buddhism by discussing Buddhism through the prism of her family history.

The next installment of the series — Is Buddhism the Anti-Islam? — will talk more about cultural Christianity and how Buddhism and Islam are often stereotyped as polar opposites from a culturally Christian perspective. Complicity and Conflict will discuss representations of global power struggles involving Buddhism, including examples in which Buddhism has been complicit in state repression. Yes, I will be touching Tibet, but gingerly, with a ten-foot pole. Converts and Immigrants will outline the sociology and history of Buddhism in the United States, and provide an alternate narrative than the one in which white converts represent the face of modern American Buddhism. I might change the order and add or subtract from the series based on comments and suggestions, so feel free to comment on other issues you want to hear about. I might not have the space to include it, but I’ll probably try.

There’s already nervous sweat on my palms, I can sense the coming storm. It feels as though every time Asian Americans speak out about the complicated issues of race and Buddhism, there’s an instant backlash from self-proclaimed white progressives. A handful of them defend us, but most stand by and watch in silence. I am profoundly grateful to have found Atlasien’s voice, and I look forward to her upcoming pieces.

What Western Buddhism Shouldn’t Be

| arun

Bhante Yuttadhammo posts a wonderful quote by President Barack Obama on his blog.

“We all have many identities – of tribe and ethnicity; of religion and nationality. But defining oneself in opposition to someone who belongs to a different tribe, or who worships a different prophet, has no place in the 21st Century.”

Again, my main gripe is when self-styled Western Buddhism is defined in explicit contrast to other forms of Buddhism. More often than not, this definition entails a gross negative stereotype over the hundreds of millions of Buddhists who don’t consider themselves Western Buddhists, my grandma included. Perhaps a Western Buddhist is just someone who’s preoccupied with what it means to be a Western Buddhist.

A Western Buddhist Superiority Complex

| arun

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I skimmed through old posts and came across the Western Buddhist Feminist Oppressors post again. From Cheng Wei-yi’s conclusion…

While Buddhism has a long history and is practiced in a wide range of cultures, it is essential to avoid using one’s own values to evaluate Buddhist practices of others … Generalizing non-Western Buddhists and universalizing Western values are two problems needed to avoid.

I have also shown that during the process of discoursing Asian Buddhism, a ‘Western Buddhism’ arises. It is done through the process of comparison between and reflection on the practices of Asian Buddhists and Western Buddhists that a ‘Western Buddhism’ is formulated. I am not saying that there can be no ‘Western Buddhism’ without the comparison between and reflection on Asian Buddhism, for there has to be a ‘Western Buddhism’ (or Western Buddhisms). Since the social, economic and political conditions vary in different societies, one cannot expect that the practices of Western Buddhists remain entirely the same as those who live in a different social, economic and political condition. The problem lies in the process of identifying or formulating Western Buddhism, in which Western superiority is habitually created or sustained. While I must admit that works of many Western feminist Buddhists such as Rita Gross’ inspiring, I must also draw attention to the oppression and racial hierarchy created in these works. There can be no liberation for all women if the notion of Western superiority is to continue.

The self-styled Western Buddhists need to move away from a self-definition that involves over-generalizing and marginalizing Asian Buddhists and our diverse heritage and traditions. After all, we’re not mutually exclusive.