(back to list)

On the Path:  Cultural Transmission of Asian Buddhism to the United States

John Whalen-Bridge - Associate Professor and Convenor of Religious Studies Minor Program,
National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

My paper will consider the ways in which Buddhism was constructed as utterly rational (a "philosophy" rather than a "religion") in the early moments of its transmission to the United States, and I will discuss the ways in which this rationalization was in part a side effect of colonial management.  The key Japanese figure in the transmission of Buddhism to the United States was D.T. Suzuki, and I will look at the ways in which Japanese Buddhism was presented as aesthetic and rational rather than magical/devotional in various issues of his journal THE EASTERN BUDDHIST.  Finally, I will show that the line between "rationalism" and "devotion" is currently being blurred in interesting ways by the most scientific approaches imaginable, the MRI-based "Mind/Science" research popularized by figures such as the Dalai Lama and the French writer-monk Matthew Ricard (author of HAPPINESS).