The Making Of American Buddhism

Author : Scott A. Mitchell
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197641563
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Making of American Buddhism written by Scott A. Mitchell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As of 2010, there were approximately 3-4 million Buddhists in the United States, and that figure is expected to grow significantly. Beyond the numbers, the influence of Buddhism can be felt throughout the culture, with many more people practicing meditation, for example, than claiming Buddhist identity. A century ago, this would have been unthinkable. So how did Buddhism come to claim such a significant place in the American cultural landscape? The Making of American Buddhism offers an answer, showing how in the years on either side of World War II second-generation Japanese American Buddhists laid claim to an American identity inclusive of their religious identity. In the process they-and their allies-created a place for Buddhism in America. These sons and daughters of Japanese immigrants-known as "Nisei," Japanese for "second-generation"-clustered around the Berkeley Bussei, a magazine published from 1939 to 1960. In the pages of the Bussei and elsewhere, these Nisei Buddhists argued that Buddhism was both what made them good Americans and what they had to contribute to America-a rational and scientific religion of peace. The Making of American Buddhism also details the behind-the-scenes labor that made Buddhist modernism possible. The Bussei was one among many projects that were embedded within Japanese American Buddhist communities and connected to national and transnational networks that shaped and allowed for the spread of modernist Buddhist ideas. In creating communities, publishing magazines, and hosting scholarly conventions and translation projects, Nisei Buddhists built the religious infrastructure that allowed the later Buddhist modernists, Beat poets, and white converts who are often credited with popularizing Buddhism to flourish. Nisei activists didn't invent American Buddhism, but they made it possible.

Author : David L. McMahan
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199884781
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Making of Buddhist Modernism written by David L. McMahan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-11-14 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great deal of Buddhist literature and scholarly writing about Buddhism of the past 150 years reflects, and indeed constructs, a historically unique modern Buddhism, even while purporting to represent ancient tradition, timeless teaching, or the "essentials" of Buddhism. This literature, Asian as well as Western, weaves together the strands of different traditions to create a novel hybrid that brings Buddhism into alignment with many of the ideologies and sensibilities of the post-Enlightenment West. In this book, David McMahan charts the development of this "Buddhist modernism." McMahan examines and analyzes a wide range of popular and scholarly writings produced by Buddhists around the globe. He focuses on ideological and imaginative encounters between Buddhism and modernity, for example in the realms of science, mythology, literature, art, psychology, and religious pluralism. He shows how certain themes cut across cultural and geographical contexts, and how this form of Buddhism has been created by multiple agents in a variety of times and places. His position is critical but empathetic: while he presents Buddhist modernism as a construction of numerous parties with varying interests, he does not reduce it to a mistake, a misrepresentation, or fabrication. Rather, he presents it as a complex historical process constituted by a variety of responses -- sometimes trivial, often profound -- to some of the most important concerns of the modern era.

Author : Richard Hughes Seager
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231159730
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Buddhism in America written by Richard Hughes Seager and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This well-informed book provides a comprehensive survey of a variety of Buddhist traditions in the contemporary U.S. . . . [its] strength, apart from being a mine of information, is Seager's insistence on taking a historically informed and comparative perspective." - Religious Studies Review.

Author : Richard Hughes Seager
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231504373
Total Pages : 383 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Buddhism in America written by Richard Hughes Seager and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-03 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past half century in America, Buddhism has grown from a transplanted philosophy to a full-fledged religious movement, rich in its own practices, leaders, adherents, and institutions. Long favored as an essential guide to this history, Buddhism in America covers the three major groups that shape the tradition—an emerging Asian immigrant population, native-born converts, and old-line Asian American Buddhists—and their distinct, yet spiritually connected efforts to remake Buddhism in a Western context. This edition updates existing text and adds three new essays on contemporary developments in American Buddhism, particularly the aging of the baby boom population and its effect on American Buddhism's modern character. New material includes revised information on the full range of communities profiled in the first edition; an added study of a second generation of young, Euro-American leaders and teachers; an accessible look at the increasing importance of meditation and neurobiological research; and a provocative consideration of the mindfulness movement in American culture. The volume maintains its detailed account of South and East Asian influences on American Buddhist practices, as well as instances of interreligious dialogue, socially activist Buddhism, and complex gender roles within the community. Introductory chapters describe Buddhism's arrival in America with the nineteenth-century transcendentalists and rapid spread with the Beat poets of the 1950s. The volume now concludes with a frank assessment of the challenges and prospects of American Buddhism in the twenty-first century.

Author : Ann Gleig
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300245041
Total Pages : 375 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book American Dharma written by Ann Gleig and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past couple of decades have witnessed Buddhist communities both continuing the modernization of Buddhism and questioning some of its limitations. In this fascinating portrait of a rapidly changing religious landscape, Ann Gleig illuminates the aspirations and struggles of younger North American Buddhists during a period she identifies as a distinct stage in the assimilation of Buddhism to the West. She observes both the emergence of new innovative forms of deinstitutionalized Buddhism that blur the boundaries between the religious and secular, and a revalorization of traditional elements of Buddhism such as ethics and community that were discarded in the modernization process. Based on extensive ethnographic and textual research, the book ranges from mindfulness debates in the Vipassana network to the sex scandals in American Zen, while exploring issues around racial diversity and social justice, the impact of new technologies, and generational differences between baby boomer, Gen X, and millennial teachers.

Author : Duncan Ryuken Williams
Publisher : Belknap Press
ISBN 13 : 0674986539
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book American Sutra written by Duncan Ryuken Williams and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is not only a tale of injustice; it is a moving story of faith. In this pathbreaking account, Duncan Ryūken Williams reveals how, even as they were stripped of their homes and imprisoned in camps, Japanese-American Buddhists launched one of the most inspiring defenses of religious freedom in our nation's history, insisting that they could be both Buddhist and American.--

Author : Chenxing Han
Publisher : North Atlantic Books
ISBN 13 : 1623175232
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Be the Refuge written by Chenxing Han and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A must-read for modern sanghas--Asian American Buddhists in their own words, on their own terms. Despite the fact that two thirds of U.S. Buddhists identify as Asian American, mainstream perceptions about what it means to be Buddhist in America often whitewash and invisibilize the diverse, inclusive, and intersectional communities that lie at the heart of American Buddhism. Be the Refuge is both critique and celebration, calling out the erasure of Asian American Buddhists while uplifting the complexity and nuance of their authentic stories and vital, thriving communities. Drawn from in-depth interviews with a pan-ethnic, pan-Buddhist group, Be the Refuge is the first book to center young Asian American Buddhists' own voices. With insights from multi-generational, second-generation, convert, and socially engaged Asian American Buddhists, Be the Refuge includes the stories of trailblazers, bridge-builders, integrators, and refuge-makers who hail from a wide range of cultural and religious backgrounds. Championing nuanced representation over stale stereotypes, Han and the 89 interviewees in Be the Refuge push back against false narratives like the Oriental monk, the superstitious immigrant, and the banana Buddhist--typecasting that collapses the multivocality of Asian American Buddhists into tired, essentialized tropes. Encouraging frank conversations about race, representation, and inclusivity among Buddhists of all backgrounds, Be the Refuge embodies the spirit of interconnection that glows at the heart of American Buddhism.

Author : Charles S. Prebish
Publisher : Brooks/Cole
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book American Buddhism written by Charles S. Prebish and published by Brooks/Cole. This book was released on 1979 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Gary Storhoff
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438430957
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book American Buddhism as a Way of Life written by Gary Storhoff and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2010-04-05 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores a range of Buddhist perspectives in a distinctly American context.

Author : Charles S. Prebish
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520213017
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Faces of Buddhism in America written by Charles S. Prebish and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1998-12-22 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The editors bring some of the leading voices in Buddhist studies to examine the debates surrounding contemporary Buddhism's many faces. Race, feminism, homosexuality, psychology, environmentalism, and notions of authority are some of the issues confronting the religion today. 9 photos.