page_title: Buddhism in the West
section_title: Post-war developments
hierarchical_section_title: Buddhism in the West / 20th century / Post-war developments
caption_attribution_description: English: President George W. Bush, joined by U.S. Senator Robert Byrd and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, presents the Congressional Gold Medal to The Dalai Lama at a ceremony Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
context_page_description: Buddhism in the West broadly encompasses the knowledge and practice of Buddhism outside of Asia in the Western world. Occasional intersections between Western civilization and the Buddhist world have been occurring for thousands of years. The first Westerners to become Buddhists were Greeks who settled in Bactria and India during the Hellenistic period. They became influential figures during the reigns of the Indo-Greek kings, whose patronage of Buddhism led to the emergence of Greco-Buddhism and Greco-Buddhist art. There was little contact between the Western and Buddhist cultures during most of the Middle Ages but the early modern rise of global trade and mercantilism, improved navigation technology and the European colonization of Asian Buddhist countries led to increased knowledge of Buddhism among Westerners. This increased contact led to various responses from Buddhists and Westerners throughout the modern era. These include religious proselytism, religious polemics and debates, Buddhist modernism, Western convert Buddhists and the rise of Buddhist studies in Western academia.
context_section_description: After the Second World War, mainstream Western Buddhisms began to take shape, influenced by new Western writers on Buddhist thought and a new wave of immigration from Asian Buddhist countries. There was a dramatic rate of growth during the late 20th century. The Complete Guide to Buddhist America for example, listed more than one thousand meditation centers as of 1997 in comparison to the twenty-one centers founded between 1900 and the early 1960s.
  Those Westerners disaffected with the materialistic values of consumer culture and traditional Christianity (such as the beat generation and later the hippies), as well as those interested a more sober altered state of consciousness or psychedelic experience, were drawn to eastern religions like Buddhism during this period (this is known as the "Zen Boom"). Influential literary figures include the American writers Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums and The Scripture of the Golden Eternity) and Gary Snyder as well as the British writer Alan Watts (The Way of Zen). The steady influx of refugees from Tibet in the 1960s and from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the 1970s led to renewed interest in Buddhism, and the countercultural movements of the 1960s proved fertile ground for its Westward diffusion. Buddhism supposedly promised a more methodical path to happiness than Christianity and a way out of the perceived spiritual bankruptcy and complexity of Western life.
  In 1959, a Japanese teacher, Shunryu Suzuki, arrived in San Francisco. At the time of Suzuki's arrival, Zen had become a hot topic among some groups in the United States, especially beatniks. Suzuki's classes were filled with those wanting to learn more about Buddhism, and the presence of a Zen master inspired the students. Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (1970), quickly became one of America's Buddhist classics. He founded the San Francisco Zen Center during the middle of the 60s counterculture (1962).
  Another influential figure is the reformer Hakuun Yasutani, who founded his own school called Sanbo Kyodan in 1954. Many of his reforms, while controversial in Japan, became de rigueur for Western Zen. These reforms focused on laypersons, who were given teachings and care that was traditionally reserved for monastics, the use of intense lay meditation retreats, and a minimizing of ceremony. Influential students of his are Philip Kapleau, Toni Packer and Robert Aitken. Philip Kapleau founded the Rochester Zen Center in New York in 1965. At this time, there were few if any American citizens that had trained in Japan with ordained Buddhist teachers. Kapleau wrote his seminal work The Three Pillars of Zen in 1965, which addressed the actual practice of Zen and the experiences which result. Robert Aitken, known as the "dean of American Zen", founded Diamond Sangha in Hawaii in 1959 which has grown into a network of affiliated centers and he also translated numerous Zen texts. He also founded the Buddhist Peace Fellowship along with Beat poet Gary Snyder and Joanna Macy. In 1969, Jiyu Kennett, the first woman to study at Sōji-ji Temple since the 14th century, founded Shasta Abbey in California and was known for setting traditional Buddhist texts to Gregorian chant.
  In 1982, the popular Vietnamese Buddhist teacher and peace activist Thích Nhất Hạnh founded the Plum Village Monastery in Dordogne, France which, along with his hundreds of publications, has helped spread interest in Engaged Buddhism and Vietnamese Thiền (Zen).
  The sixties counterculture had already established an interest in Tibetan Buddhism, through Timothy Leary's publication of an adaptation of the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead under the title The Psychedelic Experience. Since the 1970s, interest in Tibetan Buddhism also grew dramatically, especially due to the arrival of Tibetan lamas in the West after the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the creation of a Tibetan diaspora. This was fueled in part by the romantic view of Tibet and also because Western media agencies (especially Hollywood) and celebrities are largely sympathetic with the 'Tibetan Cause'
caption: The Dalai Lama receiving a Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. From left: Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Senate President pro tempore Robert Byrd and U.S. President George W. Bush
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