Question

discuss how american buddhism developed

Answer 1

Ans. The emergence of Buddhism in the US was initiated by Asians in the 19th century. This took place particularly in the 1840s when some Chinese immigrated to the US. Since Buddhism has been a widespread religion and millions of practice and preach especially in Asia, the so the starting point is Asia. Then many Americans and Europeans who went to Asia where they saw flourishing Buddhism, they were influenced and they brought those ideologies to the US. They also brought along with them some manuscripts of Buddhism.

The rapid acceptance and emergence of Buddhism became first evident in the programme held in 1893 as the World Parliament of Religion and Chicago World Fair. Here different Buddhist monks and followers had participated notably Anagarika Dharmapala from Sri Lanka, who delivered lectures on Buddhism and its significance. With time, the increase in migration of Buddhist monks and preachers in the US took place. By that time the Buddhist Mission of America was already established and was later transformed into the Buddhist Church of America and still exists as the epitome of Buddhism in the US. The immigration of the Buddhists and the followers increased the spread of Buddhism. There is a big reason behind acceptance of Buddhism. This is that it spreads a lot of peace. The US has always been an imperialist country so it rapidly accepted the Buddhism practice. Due to continuous tensions, terrorisms, wars, conflicts going on in the country, Buddhism gave people solace. One of the practices of Buddhism is meditation, which has become popular throughout the world, not only the US.

Another reason is the huge participation of women in practicing and preaching Buddhism. It also went to be accepted by some of the celebrities like Herbie Hancock, Alice Walker etc. There are several Hollywood movies on Buddhism, like The Last Dalai Lama, Zen Dog, Kundun, Seven Years in Tibet and a lot more. So Buddhism has been spread in the US in every possible aspect. Buddhism ideologies are followed everywhere - right from sports, medicine, psychology protocols. There is a huge contribution of Japanese named Zen Master. He had preached Buddhism in major parts of the US. In the 1970 a Buddhist monastery was built in New York. It works on different types of learning and teaching experiences like maintaining silence and austerity and following ancient texts. However, now the teaching process is quite short but effective. Zen Buddhism is widespread along with Tibetan mode of Buddhism. The Tibetan Buddhism emphasizes on preparing oneself before death, whereas Zen Buddhism deals with little or no attention to death. However one thing is common in every Buddhism practice which is patience. It is something which has also attracted many Americans since with the type of lifestyle they have, it gets difficult to have patience. So the entire teaching of Buddhism aims to make life of people better, which is well accepted by the Americans.