Customer Reviews

How the swans came to the lake: A narrative history of Buddhism in America

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wow -- only five reviews for a uniquely priceless 400 page history of Buddhism in America? Not to mention what's likely the best 12 page summary in print of Siddhartha Buddha's life and legacy? Erudite American Buddhist author and old hippie character Rick Fields (1942-1999) left an enthusiastic storyteller's history that brings to life every remotely key player -- starting even far before the unforgettable English rogue scholar Sir William Jones (1736-1794) singlehandedly sent the first translations from the East to England and our American Transcendentalists. Chinese Buddhist monks in Mexico in A.D. 458, the real kindly Quetzalcoatl? If you think the history of Buddhism in America started at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893 and can be told largely through D. T. Suzuki, Jack Kerouac, Alan Watts, Shunryu Suzuki, Tarthang Tulku and Chogyam Trungpa -- think again. Here is every gossipy thing you ever wanted to know and more about how and why Buddhism came to America, up to and beyond the Roshi Baker scandals (that mercifully ended the "silent denial of lies and abuse" and pointed the way to practice increasingly integrated with psychotherapy and more). The author's note and acknowledgments are priceless in themselves. (I confess to a long time habit of reading acknowledgments and indexes first.) Very highly recommended.

I've been interested in the history of Buddhism and zen in the west for a number of years and was fortunate to pick out "How the Swans Came to the Lake" from the library at Mt. Baldy Zen Center in March.

I found the work to be a well told story. The detail of the common threads and relationships is fascinating. I really think this book is an important piece for anyone interested in how this wonderful flowering of the Dharma in the West was planted and fed.

A great read not only for those interested in Buddhim but in American social history as well. In a scholarly, yet engaging writing style, the author takes the reader from Pre-Columbian America to the Present with sharply-drawn and vivid characters and their searches. A subject that could easily be dry comes to life and kept this readers' pages turning.

I had read Surya Das's Awakening the Buddha Within and several other books on Buddhism from a western/American perspective. By the time I got to this book I was ready for it, and I could not put it down (literally; I got out of bed in the middle of the night to read more chapters). I have so much respect for this author, for having provided us with such a thought-provoking and comprehensive study. If you are interested in Buddhism, you must read it.

Rick Fields (1942-1999) has written several other books about Buddhism (e.g., Chop Wood, Carry Water, The Code of the Warrior in History, Myth, and Everyday Life), as well as served as editor of several Buddhist periodicals. In this book (the 3rd revised edition was published in 1992), he has revised and expanded what was already the finest one-volume history of Buddhism in America.

Fields begins with a very helpful survey of Buddhism (including the life of Siddhartha Gautama; the migration of Buddhism from India to China, Japan, etc.), to its early days in England and this country, led by men like Sir William Jones (1746-1794), the founder of the Asiatic Society. The influence of Buddhism upon the Transcendentalist thinkers such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott is covered in an entire chapter. The immigration of Chinese and Japanese immigrants to this country (to build the railroads, etc.)---along with the religion they brought with them---is covered in sympathetic detail. Then (perhaps somewhat surprisingly), Fields covers the rise of the Theosophical Society and its unique (and quite heterodox) version of "Esoteric Buddhism"; Theosophy, however, was a very influential factor if making Buddhism better-known in this country. Of course, the World Parliament of Religions in 1893 is surveyed, along with figures such as Paul Carus and particularly the Zen authority D.T. Suzuki.

"Book Two" begins with the 1905-1945 period, covering the establishment of the first Zen Community in America, the London Buddhist Society and English expatriates like Alan Watts, the American Buddhist Brotherhood, etc. The "Beat Zen" period of the 1950s is covered in particular detail, as well as the more substantive movements of the 1960s (e.g., Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi, Philip Kapleau, Richard Baker and the San Francisco Zen Center). Another chapter is devoted to the forced emigration of the Dalal Lama from Tibet, and the emergence of Tibetan Buddhist scholars such as Chogyam Trungpa and Tarthang Tulku.

The final chapters cover more recent figures such as the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hahn, and the changes made as a result of the various sexual and financial scandals involving prominent figures in American Buddhism, as well as the rise of a more indigenous "American Buddhism," influenced by feminism, psychotherapy, and social action. Fields does not flinch from reporting "messy" details (such as the AIDS that Chogyam Trungpa's successor died of), to his credit.

If you are interested in Buddhism, American Buddhism, or contemporary spirituality in general, Fields' book is essential reading.

Wow, what an ambitious, wide-ranging book! (It covers a span of time between about 1730-1990). I'm sure some people will think it's TOO ambitious, incorporating too many people from around the world with their attendant stories. But I found it to be very readable and entertaining despite the proliferation of characters. It was wonderful to read about how Eastern and Western Buddhist enthusiasts inspired each other. For all those who say, "But doesn't it seem contrived to practice an Eastern religion in the West?", read this to get some idea of how the winds of human culture have blown Buddhism around the world, transforming and renewing it in each place and each time. The wind still blows and knows no national boundary and no skin color.

Though this book is currently out of print, I recommend it to all Buddhists; it is the best history book I've read about the Western Sangha and fills in alot of gaps between the centuries--Gassho All Beings!

I am only about halfway through this book but can already say that it is an excellent read and very informative. It is full of interesting little pieces of Buddhist history you're unlikely to find elsewhere (such as a brief sketching of the history of Buddhism coming to Hawaii - I had never even thought to look into such a topic, personally). Further, and much to Fields's credit, he tends to outline the characters involved (Jones, Thoreau, Blavatsky, Dharmapala, etc.) in a very intimate way such that even in a brief chapter you feel you've gotten to know them, as well as absorbed the key historical part they've played in bringing Buddhism to the West.

One star is taken off because I agree with another reviewer: the book is very uncritical of the various teachers and movements. Not that it is lauding them all, but in the chapter on Blavatsky for instance, he seems mighty credulous regarding what was generally considered (even in its own time) as a lot of charlatanism. Fields of course claims to be writing a "narrative," not a "critical," history, but still, a little more judgment on his part would have improved the book. Maybe he is simply attempting in a Buddhist way to refrain from judgments; or maybe his involvement with the Shambhala and various Zen schools in America (many of them mired in controversies from drug and alcohol abuse to rape) forced him to realize that criticizing all schools equally would not necessarily reflect favorably on his own teachers...

Either way this is a well-written and interesting history of the latest 'transmission' of Buddhadharma to a new land - this time crossing not just mountains, but oceans. A great read and highly recommended to any interested in the (recent and fairly ancient, too) history of Buddhism.

I don't know of any other books that tries to put together a complete picture of how Buddhism came to America starting from far BEFORE the mid 20th century, as is the common misperception. Fields has done an admirable job, his book is for the most part quite readably and enjoyable.

The only two weak spots I found were an overabundance of dry historical data (names, places, dates, and other mundane details) that are often not presented economically nor within any larger narrative/interpretative structure. Nietzsche once compared academians to bees, who are constantly amassing bigger and bigger storehouses of knowledge that they don't even know what to do with or why they are doing it. Fields does fall into that worker-bee pattern at times, during which I found myself quickly skimming through considerable chunks of his book in which he just dumps mountains of information on us that have no particular relevancy to the larger themes or flow of the book.

This is indeed an ecyclopedic view of Buddhism in America, but I feel the author is a bit too uncritical in drawing from some of his sources. Or to put it another way, he's not drawing from enough sources.

There's a long section on Ms. Blavatsky. There's alot to be said here, but I can't help but get the feeling that the whole Spiritualist movement needs more criticism than he gives it.

Another, IMO, glaring deficiency is Field's introjected re-rendering of why Philip Kapleau came to break with Yasutani-roshi. It CAN'T be purely over "sutras in English or Japanese," and no doubt is much deeper culturally than merely an attempt to "Westernize" certain forms of services. What Fields doesn't quite come out and say - probably because he doesn't really know- is that the Chinese versions of sutras & dharanis are themselves translitterated from Sanskrit! (He does get it straight that the Japanse/Korean ones are translitterated from Chinese). What this all means is basically summed up by what my Chinese wife told me when we saw a video of Chinese monks chanting and I asked what they were chanting: she said "I don't know!"

Kapleau must have known this- or should have.

More stuff I'd like to know: why Sambokyodan broke from the Soto sect, and more up to date stuff. I will admit as of this time I haven't found out the stuff about Richard Baker.

My preference, as an American Buddhist, is to present the history of Buddhism in America warts and all. That might clash with more Eastern notions of Buddhism, but I do think more accuracy is needed in a history.