Just say no to "American Buddhism"?

9th century fresco from the Bezeklik grottoes near Turfan, Tarim Basin, China. The person to the left is an European/Western Asian trader or monk (distinguishable by his red hair and full beard and face), to the right an East Asian buddhist monk. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've been coming across criticisms of the mostly white/upper middle class Buddhism of American bookstore shelves, magazines, and Dharma centers for years. This is often coupled with a criticism of an over-emphasis on Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, and Vippasna and their meditative elements. It is also sometimes accompanied by complaints such as unnecessary secularization, over-simplification, a neglect of Asian-American Buddhist communities, and commodification.

If you are curious about these criticisms, whether or not you find them valid, Angry Asian Buddhist is a good resource for the neglect of Asian Americans, and The Zennist argues forcefully against the secularization trend. Discussion of the other issues are spread throughout the Buddhist Blogisphere.

But I have yet to come across a criticism as blunt and unapologetic as found at buddhafolk:

Recently in media by Buddhist orientated sites online and in print through Tricycle, Buddhadharma, and Shambala Sun much has been made about the national form that Buddhist followers should or as they assume will eventually take in the USA.

Their Protestantism of Buddhism or rather a sanitizing or erasing/rewriting of Buddha’s history and rejection of what they identify as irrelevant to modern Americans today.  This means all the ethnic Buddhists from Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Korea, India, Tibet, Nepal, Indonesia, Phillipines, Malaysia or other American countries or Europe are to be cleansed and shunned from Americans or American Buddhists as it starts with white men who are protestants who already rejected the catholics because they have monks and nuns… or maybe they are jewish who didn’t like christians at all and or even those who prefer to embrace every oddball newly created religion and market it.

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This sanitizing of Buddhism is wrong.  It is a symptom of lack of effort and study of Buddha dharma.  It’s rote repetition of wrong teachings based on fear of loss of their own leadership due to aging and somehow they must keep their flame alive and make a historical memory so their efforts don’t seem wasted to others.  The fact of the matter is the hippies are old and their start into Buddhism was filled with false intentions, most are failed monks and they are damn mad that people did not support them when they were innocents in robes, so they formed their careers by damning the robes and those that wear them.  All of them… look up the writers for yourself in the rags, tricycle, shambala sun, buddha dharma, the big 3 have featured all white… and all secular people claiming to be experts and leaders of Americans ‘cuz they failed to be monks.

There are other issues woven into the full post, but this is fairly representative of the content and tone. Are these issues boiling under the tranquil surface of American Buddhism, or is this an outlier view? And in either case, what do you make of the complaints? What do you find valid in the critique?

Does the path begin with "me" or "we"?

Contemplation (Photo credit: Susan Hall Frazier)

No, I'm not answering the question. It's for you.

In the Summer 2012 issue of Tricycle magazine Fleet Maull ponders:

Conventional contemplative wisdom states clearly that the path begins with ourselves, that we have to do our own work of cultivating mindfulness and awareness. We are told that we need to make friends with ourselves and develop loving-kindness and compassion before venturing very far into the sphere of bodhisattva activity or engaged spirituality. But what if this is an unnecessarily limited or even mistaken view? What if the path actually begins with us, the collective us, with interbeing, as Vietnamese peace activist and Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn teaches? What if the paths to both genuine liberation and collective awakening are inseparable and best informed by a social view of spirituality from the beginning?

He does not give an answer. I have no idea how we would actually answer any of these questions. How would you answer them?

The thoughts that initially occurred to me centered on the fact that the traditional teachings of contemplative wisdom were framed in historical and cultural context in which the hyper-individualism of many industrialized nation states, particularly the modern United States, was practically unknown.

The basic precepts of Abrahamic and Dharmic teachings (along with other major and minor religious paradigms), which are heavy on ethics, charity, and introspection, would have assumed a more intimate and collectivistic sense of identity and associated relationships. These basic precepts and the teachings in which they were grounded would have been expected then to be worked out in close relationship to others. In fact, virtually all of them must be worked out in relationship to others. You cannot cultivate (or discover) qualities such as mindfulness, loving-kindness, and compassion in a social vacuum.

In that sense, the work one is supposed to do for herself through an exploration of her inner landscape is directly connected to her perceptions of and behaviors in her outer landscape.

Why does American Buddhism look so white?

Two Asian American boys playing at Aquatic Park in San Francisco, California. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Angry Asian Buddhist wants to know, and thanks to a recent feature on the Tricycle website about the blogger behind that site ("Arun") more people will not only be asking this question but learn a little more about Asian American Buddists and Buddhist communities.

The last time I approached a similar topic here was in 2005, although I did leave a comment on Monkey Mind not long ago that was lost in the shuffle when that site decided to ask about diversity in the sangha in the United States. I basically pointed to a 2003 article from Tricycle (the first article from a Buddhist magazine I ever read, around the time I was really starting to take notice of Buddhism) which was asking why the Soka Gakkai, one of Japan's post World War II new religions which sprang from Nichiren Shoshu, seemed to have a much more diverse membership than Zen and other more visible forms of Buddhism in America. Perhaps Rev. Ford thought my reply was an attempt to proselytize on behalf of SGI, who developed a reputation for aggressive recruiting methods.

I also linked to a classic article on white privilege, as often people with privilege (in this country that includes those are who white, male, and heterosexual) cannot see how their words and actions might send unintended signals to others who lack privilege. I figured this might help round out the insights offered in the Tricycle article.

Arun takes a different approach, although he doesn't ignore these issues. He suggests that the problem is the focus on what is sometimes called the "convert" community and the divisions (real and artificial) between those of non-Asian descent who adopted Buddhism later in life and everyone else. He isn't particularly fond of the ways in which such divisions are framed and discussed or that the general focus in discussions of "American Buddhism" is centered on white Buddhists (who make up the bulk of the non-Asian American Buddhist converts), ignoring the long history of Asian-American Buddhist communities in the United States.