What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

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Ben
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by Ben »

It looks like we have Utah surrounded.
Whaddya say we invade and give those Mormons a bit of a fright with some satipatthana practice?
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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chownah
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by chownah »

soapy3 wrote:Have you ever seen Christians with their crucifixes? It is about the same thing. What spooks me more is the reverence for monks as if they are something other than ordinary human beings.
It is the roman catholic christians who are really into crucifixes and many protestant christians hold that this constitutes idol worship among catholics goes against the bible.
chownah
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by daverupa »

Ben wrote:It looks like we have Utah surrounded.
Whaddya say we invade and give those Mormons a bit of a fright with some satipatthana practice?
I was actually surprised by that, since there was a large influx of Tibetan refugees once upon a time, as I recall. Otherwise, there is a bit of an insight meditation community, apparently, but I wouldn't know any details. Other than that, I think there are a few Wats scattered in the surrounding cities; my niece once attended one or another holiday celebration at one of them, I think.

---

One of the problems is relevance. Iron Age India had a renunciate culture that was pursuing a certain philosophical enterprise as one integrous facet; the United States has a Protestant background, so a pro-monastic Catholic history is unable to give the modern monastic Buddhist shape a boost here. The other side of that coin is the Protestant Work Ethic, strike two against the monastic model... & secular (miccha-) mindfulness is strike three, I think.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
chownah
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by chownah »

Ben wrote:
ihrjordan wrote:I agree with chownah, while not idol worship in the conventional sense it most definitely is in another. You'll see Buddhists with 100 statues of the buddha in their house, buddha necklaces, buddha lawn ornaments, Buddha Internet avatars, Buddha screen savers. While it might not be "worship" it's still a problem. Because of this most outsiders come to buddhism with the view that we send prayers to our all powerful Buddha God in the hopes that he'll save us...and to address the op I would say buddhism is doing fine in the U.S. But not necessarily Theravada...I would say this is due to westerners unwillingness to change and instead interpret the teachings with a "western lens" which is why the very liberal, vajraayana bodhisatva training is all the rage.
The charge that Buddhism is idolatry is very much a product of medieval christian polemicists that has persisted until the 19th century and beyond. Its just very unusual and disturbing to see it appear here. There is no idolatry in the theravada and whether some western converts or those in the west who are merely attracted to the image of the Buddha does not make the practice of keeping Buddha images idolatry. How other people interpret the act of Buddhists paying homage to the Buddha by prostrating in front of a Buddha-rupa, offering incense, gifts and food - that is their own affair and baggage.
As for interpreting the teachings through a western lens - no thanks. There's been a very long history of western ïnterpretation"" from Ancient Greece to the present day which has done a great deal of disservice to Buddhism and, in turn, the west.
kind regards,

Ben
I hope that you are not too disturbed by the mention of idolatry in buddhism. There are two things I would like to mention.
1. Westerners who think of buddhists as worshiping idols might be a wrong interpretation of what some buddhists are doing some times but from the standpoint of this topic it is the PERCEPTION of what the buddhists are doing which is the important factor as to why many westerners are averse to buddhism....and I can tell you from personal experience that many westerners are of the view that buddhists do worship idols and they probably think that they are taught to do this so it is in their view part and parcel of buddhist devotions. I am not vouching for the accuracy of those views but those views exist regardless of how well they are founded....and it is my sincere belief that idol worship is a hindrance in spreading the buddhist religion in the west.
2. I hope you don't find this too disturbing but in fact many buddhists do worship idols...I have seen it with my own eyes. Of course how can one know that they were in fact engaging in idolatry since the only way to know this would be to look into the hearts and minds of those people and see their inner views and intentions....something I can not do and probably no one here either. So how have I come to the brash statement that I have seen it? By asking people about their beliefs and seeing how buddha statues are treated. When my local temple got a new buddha statue they performed a ritual to "open the buddha's eyes". This means that the buddha statue has been "activated" as near as I can tell. Doesn't this seem like the statue is being considered as having some sentience or abilities or capabilities other than what is ususally attributed to the physical reality of the statue? And...what about the buddha statue in bangkok where the crown prince changes its close four times a year?....people say they want the buddha to be happier and it will be happier if it is more comfortably dressed....and why do they want the buddha to be happier?...so that it will be more effective in distributing merit. I could go on and on and on. As near as I can tell it is absolutely fact that many buddhists are idol worshipers.

No insult intended but I do think that one of the major hindrances to spreading the buddha's teachings in the west is the idol worshiping both real and imagined.
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Maitri
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by Maitri »

Chownah,

I don't disagree that the veneration of statues in Asia is prolific. But Bangkok is not Bangor, Maine; the West is not Asia. We aren't talking about the spread of Dhamma in Asia, but in the West.

The cultural dimensions of Buddhism in Thailand or India will most likely never be encountered by Westerners outside of a vacation travel. The fixation on ritual, amulets etc. is something for the East to resolve. That's not really an influence in the West as to why Buddhism is not more prevalent.

As someone mentioned above, the West has a lack of even a steady monastic Sangha which is a core aspect of the Buddhist religion. Concern for dressing statues doesn't really rank for western people when they can't even locate a temple or center within 50 miles of their home.
"Upon a heap of rubbish in the road-side ditch blooms a lotus, fragrant and pleasing.
Even so, on the rubbish heap of blinded mortals the disciple of the Supremely Enlightened One shines resplendent in wisdom." Dhammapada: Pupphavagga

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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by Dhammanando »

Ben wrote:It looks like we have Utah surrounded.
Whaddya say we invade and give those Mormons a bit of a fright with some satipatthana practice?
Your fellow Aussie, John Safran, once paid a visit to Utah, where he engaged in Mormon-style door-knocking, preaching Darwinism and atheism to the residents of Salt Lake City. It wasn't much appreciated. :)


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tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


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It turns out otherwise.
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Ben
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by Ben »

Dhammanando wrote:
Ben wrote:It looks like we have Utah surrounded.
Whaddya say we invade and give those Mormons a bit of a fright with some satipatthana practice?
Your fellow Aussie, John Safran, once paid a visit to Utah, where he engaged in Mormon-style door-knocking, preaching Darwinism and atheism to the residents of Salt Lake City. It wasn't much appreciated. :)


Yes, I remember that episode well when it was first screened.
I laughed like a hyena then quickly got back to my cantankerous ways.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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Anagarika
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by Anagarika »

I'd propose the argument that what has limited the propagation of the Dhamma in the US is the way that "Buddhism' arrived in the US, through the Japanese Zen tradition (ie Suzuki) and Vajrayana (Trungpa). Neither of these platforms I would consider dependable vessels for the Early Buddhist Texts, and combined with the hippie movement that embraced Zen and Trungpa, Buddhism in the west when it arrived was a lot of "ism" and not much Buddha.

In addition, I can't really identify a Theravada Bhikkhu or Bhikkhuni that someone on the street could name as being a representative of the Dhamma. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, for example, has broadcast the Dhamma well and freely, but the scope of the transmission is limited to a very small number of people. The same with Bhikkhu Bodhi, whose BGR NGO has notoriety among many Buddhists and non-Buddhists, but still a relatively small number of people in the US.

I suppose I'd argue that if someone like an American version of Ajahn Chah, or an Ajahn Brahm, had come to the US in the 1960's with a Dhammic message of freedom from suffering, kamma, and Brahmaviharas, a lot of people would have embraced it during the turbulent times of the late 60's and 70's in the US. The teachings of the Buddha from the Canon would be more familiar, and like with any great message, would have taken root and grown.

Instead we got Trungpa, "crazy wisdom," Vajra Regents with HIV, and Japanese Zen that brought many positives, but also introduced Roshis for whom the observance of 5 precepts was anathema. I don't mean to take shots at these traditions ( I am focusing on the negatives in the US, and not the many positives of these traditions worldwide), but had there been a dynamic, Dhamma learned Theravada monk or nun in these early days, I feel the Dhamma would be far more visible in western culture. Tragic, really, when one thinks of how the Dhamma would have been a welcome prescription for so many ills in the US at that time.
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by daverupa »

Anagarika wrote:Instead we got Trungpa, "crazy wisdom," Vajra Regents with HIV, and Japanese Zen
...which gave us Alan Watts, and there was also the Beat Generation that got into it a little bit (Kerouac's Dharma Bums, Gary Snyder's interest, etc.), but you're right that we got some wild, fringe Buddhisms at first (I don't mind taking timely shots: the first exempla of Buddhism here were basically the skewed, relatively ahistorically-related refractions of distal Mahayana).
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by chownah »

Maitri wrote:Chownah,

I don't disagree that the veneration of statues in Asia is prolific. But Bangkok is not Bangor, Maine; the West is not Asia. We aren't talking about the spread of Dhamma in Asia, but in the West.
We are in agreement in this. We are talking about the spread of the buddha's teachings in the west and it is my opinion that there is a widespread belief in specifically the US that buddhists worship idols. As a young person living in the US I was of the opinion that buddhists were idol worshippers.
Maitri wrote: The cultural dimensions of Buddhism in Thailand or India will most likely never be encountered by Westerners outside of a vacation travel. The fixation on ritual, amulets etc. is something for the East to resolve. That's not really an influence in the West as to why Buddhism is not more prevalent.
It seems you must be living in the 19th century before the advent of television adventure and travel shows. As a young person in the US I watched many of these and they probably are the basis for my views at that time that buddhists worshipped idols. Given that now we have the internet it is probably not at all uncommon for people to see what happens in buddhist temples in asia and everywhere else around the world and I am reasonably sure that upon seeing those images many americans will come up with the same ill informed opinion that buddhists are idolators.
Maitri wrote: As someone mentioned above, the West has a lack of even a steady monastic Sangha which is a core aspect of the Buddhist religion. Concern for dressing statues doesn't really rank for western people when they can't even locate a temple or center within 50 miles of their home.
My mentioning of the seasonal change of clothes for a particular statue and the reasoning of some Thai people was not meant to be as an influence on westerners although I think that undenialbly it is an influence for those who know of it. I mentioned it as part of the evidence that I use to claim that infact idol worship does exist among buddhists today.

You mention not being able to locate a temple.....indeed they do not want to locate a temple...why should they even want to do so? That is the question here....why don't they even want to investigate a buddhist temple?....my answer is that in a great part it is because they have no interest in idol worship which is what they wrongly or rightly think buddhists promote.

I guess the bottom line is that in my view one of the main reasons why it is difficult to spread buddhism to the US is that there is a wide spread belief based on uninformed bias AND BASED on FACT that buddhists worship idols. If there is one thing that a vast number of americans will not endorse it is idol worship....there is a very strong bias against it coming from the christian influence in the US and perhaps from other places as well.
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by chownah »

In the US many people do not really consider zen to be buddhism....they intellectually know that zen is actually zen buddhism but usually it is just called zen and the buddhism part is just sort of mostly forgotten.

Zen, however is one of the more popular forms of buddhism in the US if you just consider how many non-buddhists express an interest in learning. I looked at the tassajara zen center website and could not find even one buddha image at all (didn't look on every page but did look on a few) nor could I find a single buddha image at the san fransisco zen center website. You won't see people worshipping idols at either of these zen related venues. My view is that this is one of the reasons why zen is more readily accepted in the US.
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by DNS »

Southern California has a lot of Buddhists from the Asian immigration. A lot of Asian Buddhists settled along the West coast since it is 'closer' to their places of origin. Just as the Mexican immigrants mostly settle along the neighboring states of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas; the Asians mostly settled along the West coast. In many parts of Southern Nevada and coastal California, the workers are all bilingual, either English-Spanish or English-Chinese.

And where the Asian Buddhists settle, the converts tend to come as they get more exposure to Buddhist temples, monks, and nuns.

And then of course, San Diego has the best beaches and best weather. :tongue:
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by Maitri »

Chownah,

You clearly have an ax to grind regarding this idolatry angle.

As an American I can say that I've never been accused of being an idol worshiper when telling others I am Buddhist. Most reactions have ranged around the confused and amused spectrum.

Regarding Buddhism's spread in America the largest majority of people fall into two camps: apathetic or Christian. Most people just aren't that interested in pursuing a spiritual tradition, or if they are, stay within their own culture and comfort. To some hard core Christians all non-Christian religions are pretty much the same- no Jesus=hell. Most Americans couldn't being to tell you the differences between between a Buddhist monk an Iman or a Hare Krishna monk- they simply don't know and don't care.

Those who are inclined to learn more seek out temples or centers in their locality. Depending on where they are located, this may be difficult to achieve.
"Upon a heap of rubbish in the road-side ditch blooms a lotus, fragrant and pleasing.
Even so, on the rubbish heap of blinded mortals the disciple of the Supremely Enlightened One shines resplendent in wisdom." Dhammapada: Pupphavagga

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by jnak »

Anagarika wrote:...had there been a dynamic, Dhamma learned Theravada monk or nun in these early days, I feel the Dhamma would be far more visible in western culture.
I don't really see this. Theravada is a conservative religion. I once met an American monk in one of the Tibetan traditions who compared Theravada to Southern Baptists in the US. I'm not sure he was so far off the mark.

Looking at the US, the strongholds of conservatve religions tend to be the most economically disadvantaged populations. Those of more comfortable means seem to prefer religions that are more indulgent of one's interests in worldly pleasures or no religion at all.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu makes a point of saying that the Dhamma is countercultural, even in socities that are culturally Buddhist. I agree and for this reason, I have a hard time seeing Buddhism ever appealing to more than a small minority in the West.
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Re: What are the hurdles hindering Dhamma propagation in the US?

Post by chownah »

Maitri wrote:Chownah,

You clearly have an ax to grind regarding this idolatry angle.

As an American I can say that I've never been accused of being an idol worshiper when telling others I am Buddhist. Most reactions have ranged around the confused and amused spectrum.

Regarding Buddhism's spread in America the largest majority of people fall into two camps: apathetic or Christian. Most people just aren't that interested in pursuing a spiritual tradition, or if they are, stay within their own culture and comfort. To some hard core Christians all non-Christian religions are pretty much the same- no Jesus=hell. Most Americans couldn't being to tell you the differences between between a Buddhist monk an Iman or a Hare Krishna monk- they simply don't know and don't care.

Those who are inclined to learn more seek out temples or centers in their locality. Depending on where they are located, this may be difficult to achieve.
Any ax grinding is a product of your imagination. I have no problem with veneration of statues whether it constitutes idol worship or not. If people are going to worship idols it is probably better if they do so in a setting where they might encounter what the buddha taught. If people don't worship idols then so much the better. I do however think that it is idol worship whether real or imagined which is a major reason why americans are put off by buddhism.

I am not surprised that no one would call you an idol worshipper. Even those who think you are an idol worshipper are not likely to voice some kind of accusation like that.....they are more likely to just be confused or amused and to say nothing. Since idol worship is very likely seen as irrational and people are not usually into berating people over their irrationalities unless there is some issue which brings up the issue directly, it is not likely that you will hear an accusation of idolatry. Even when as a your person I thought that idolatry was the major part if not all of buddhism I would not have been so crude as to suggest to a buddhist directly that they were idol worshippers.....

I agree with your views that americans by and large just don't care about any sort of religious endeavor which might take them out of their comfort zone.
chownah
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