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?

American Buddhists

Most American Buddhists are Asian immigrants or the descendants of Asian immigrants, but what about the converts? And what is the general overall picture of Buddhism in the US?

Here are some numbers from The New Buddhism by James Coleman (as opposed to the book by David Brazier) as cited in "Buddhadharma" magazine--

When asked about their family's religious background, 8.6 percent said it was nonreligious, 16.5 percent Jewish, 25.6 percent Roman Catholic, 42.2 percent Protestant, and 1.9 percent Buddhist. A comparison of these findings with the demographic of the entire U.S. population confirms that the often made observation than Jews--who make up only 3 percent of the total population of the United States but more than five times the percentage of my respondents--are more likely to be attracted to Buddhism than other Americans. My survey did not, however, support the common belief that people with a Catholic background are also more likely to become involved with Buddhism. The percentage of Buddhists from a Catholic family was virtually identical with the overall percentage of Catholics in the American population. Those with Protestant backgrounds, on the other hand, appear less likely to get involved. Whereas they made up 42 percent of my respondents, they constitute 56 percent of the total American population. My data clearly indicate that American Buddhism appeals most strongly to the middle and upper-middle class--another fact that is generally recognized in the Buddhist community. About a third of the respondents reported their family income to be between $30,000 and $60,000, while another 19 percent fell in the $60,000 to $90,000 range. About 20 percent of the respondents had incomes over $90,000 and about 30 percent fell on the other end of the spectrum, making less than $30,000. Although these income figures were somewhat higher than the national average at the time the survey was conducted, the education level of American Buddhists was right off the charts. Of the 353 people who responded to the question on educational achievement, only a single person reported having failed to finish high school, and less than one in twenty said that their education stopped with high school graduation. Eleven percent said they had some college, 32 percent were college graduates, and surprisingly, more than hald of the respondents (51 percent) had advanced degrees. Thus it may be that the participants in the new Buddhism represent the most highly educated group in the West today. Just as these Buddhists are far more educated than the average American, they are far more liberal as well. Almost 60 percent of the respondents said they were Democrats, while only 2.6 percent reported a Reublican affiliation. Surprisingly, the Republicans were outnumbered by the members of the tiny Green Party by more than three to one (the Greens were 9.9 percent of the total sample). A self-ranking on a left-to-right political scale also produced a distribution heavily skewed to the left. On a one to ten scale, with one being the furthest right and ten the furthest left, the average respondent ranked him- or herself as an eight.

I haven't had a chance to read the book, but I would wonder how the following numbers would look--what percentage are affiliated with a more congregational practice and a group with a nationwide set of affiliated sanghas like the Buddhist Churches of America or Soka Gakkai? How does the distribution look for different types of Buddhism (Nichiren, Pure Land, Zen, Vipassana, Tibetan, etc.)? How does race and income correlate to type of Buddhism and congregational versus more individualistic/less formal sanghas? To what degree does being a current college student as opposed to being in a lower-paying full-time job account for the chunk of people who are in the under 30K per annum bracket? It would also be interesting to look at familial religious background on a scale of more conservative/fundamentalist to more moderate to more open/liberal as well as by Protestant denomination.