Customer Reviews

Buddhism in America

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This "road map to the American Buddhist landscape" succeeds in being both "engaging and informative," as the author intended. While it could be used as a text for a college class, it will also be of interest to American practitioners of Buddhism (like me) who want to know more about our roots and about the variety of forms of Buddhism in America.

Part One provides background material on the history of Buddhism and its transmission to America and includes a short chapter on "Very Basic Buddhism" for those new to the subject or wanting a refresher. Part Two, the largest part, discusses the various forms of Buddhism in America, with chapters on Jodo Shinshu, Soka Gakkai, Zen, Tibetan, Theravada, and "other Pacific Rim migrations." And Part Three explores some "Selected Issues": gender equity, social engagement, intra-Buddhist and interreligious dialogue, and the Americanization of Buddhism.

Religious historian Richard Hughes Seager provides a revealing and candid portrait of the communities, practices and individuals who are central to the modern Buddhist life, examining not only Buddhist beliefs and history in Asia and the US, but providing profiles of Buddhist traditions which have been brought into the U.S. Buddhism In America rounds out our information and provides important insights into the Americanization of Buddhism and is an important addition to the growing library of Buddhist historical liteature.

In "Buddhism in America", Richard Seager gives a history of the events, people, and places that lead to the development of the Buddhism we now see as a separate, functioning, religion in the United States. In his first chapter, Seager gives a short overview of Buddhism as it is practiced today in America and introduces the reader to the different types of practitioners; he says these types are "convert Buddhists", "immigrant Buddhists", and those "who have practiced Buddhism in this country for four or five generations" (Seager 9-10). He then uses these categories to discuss differences in practice and ideology for the remainder of the book. In the following chapters he tells the history of Buddhism in America, starting with events that shaped it's beginning and development, moving into discussions of important groups and people, and finally talks about social issues that are specific to the religion in America. He uses extensive research and quotations directly from American Buddhist text as the background for his writing.

Seager does a great job of providing a thorough and detailed history while managing to stay accessible to readers who may be new to the topic. His goal is to show and explain how Buddhism has been Americanized since its arrival, and how it is now its own entity, different from the Buddhist sects around the world. He has example after example to support his statements; when talking about the "flower power" 60s, he quotes several different people and gives specific details about times and places such as "Storlie recalls finding himself at Sokoji for the first time in 1964, after an LSD trip on Mount Tamalpais" (Seager 99). There is no room for generalizations in his work, and this book represents a wealth of knowledge that could probably not be equaled in five other books on the subject.

The only problem with this book is that he spends so much time detailing events and the lives of the people involved in them, that he neglects to really discuss the practices and thoughts driving the Americanization. There are points where the reader is so caught up in keeping track of people, places, and events that when he makes a statement such as, "Some Buddhists are also concerned that Americanization will lead to a decline in the dharma if the aspiration to realize Buddha mind becomes overidentified with psychotherapy, or if practice becomes too accomodating to the economic and emotional needs of the American" (Seager 112), that the reader is too surprised to really pay attention to the point of the statement. These few ideological statements are usually posited at the very end of chapters, probably because he feels he needs to say something conclusive before moving on to the next sections. These would be much more interesting if he actually gave them attention in the bulk of the text, instead of as afterthoughts related to the history. The reader reaches the end of the work having gained a multitude of knowledge regarding specific information about Buddhist American history, but having no knowledge of the ideas and actual practices that were at the heart of Buddhist Americanization.

At the time this book was published in 1999, Richard Hughes Seager was associate professor of religious studies at Hamilton College; he has also written/edited the books, Encountering the Dharma: Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai, and the Globalization of Buddhist Humanism, The World's Parliament of Religions: The East/West Encounter, Chicago, 1893 (Religion in North America), and The Dawn of Religious Pluralism: Voices from the World's Parliament of Religions, 1893.

He wrote in the Introduction, "I was commissioned to write this book with a mandate to design it for the general reader... My primary goal has been to fashion an engaging and informative text to introduce interested people to the fascinating world created by Buddhists in the United States in the last half century. I have come to think of it as a road map to the American Buddhist landscape..."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"(Henry Steel) Olcott later became prominent when he helped Buddhist leaders in Sri Lanka defend themselves against Christian missionaries. He also worked to create a united front among Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist leaders in south, southeast, and northern Asia in an effort to resist the encroachment of Christianity in the age of European imperialism. Olcott is now regarded as a Sri Lankan national hero. (H.P.) Blavatsky and Annie Besant, Blavatsky's successor as head of the Theosophical Society, are remembered today as innovative spiritual leaders and as great sympathizers with the religious traditions of Asia." (Pg. 35)
"By and large, (American converts) have not been willing to submit themselves to the kind of institutional rigor found in Asian monasteries. Most are not celibate and need to balanace practice with the demands of the nuclear family. But most have also not adopted the Asian lay role of providing support for monastics as a form of religious activity." (Pg. 39)
"Nichiren Shoshu ... is primarily a form of convert Buddhism... as a result of its successful propogation in American cities, (Soko Gakkai International) also has a larger proportion of African American and Hispanic American members than other convert Buddhist groups." (Pg. 70)
"There are differences among Tibetan Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, and Vajrayana, but the terms are used more or less synonymously in this country." (Pg. 114)

Religious historian Richard Hughes Seager provides a revealing and candid portrait of the communities, practices and individuals who are central to the modern Buddhist life, examining not only Buddhist beliefs and history in Asia and the US, but providing profiles of Buddhist traditions which have been brought into the U.S. Buddhism in America rounds out our information and provides important insights into the Americanization of Buddhism and is an important addition to the growing library of Buddhist historical liteature.

I received this book in a couple of days after ordering it. Still reading, very educational and easy to follow.

Great book, received in good condition, shipped pretty fast, needed it for a class. Received book before semester started. Huge plus ++++