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Wise man said:
As countries get rich, they turn towards spirituality. They obtained the physical and found that it didn't solve anything. Then, they start looking into spiritual riches.
That is a really excellent question, with no clear answers. If you Google the question you will get any answer of between two and four million Buddhists in the United States.
But those are just estimates. No one really knows. Unlike Christian churches which have baptismal records, there is no corollary in Buddhism.
The second question is what is a Buddhist? Traditionalists would say that it is when you accept the Three Gems, "I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dhamma. I take refuge in the Sangha". But if you say you are a Buddhist you are a Buddhist.
Is Buddhism growing as a wisdom tradition? Again, there is no way to know.
My personal opinion is that growth is static. I have no data, but in my 30 years of Buddhist activity in the San Francisco Bay Area I haven't noticed any avalanche of new Buddhists. Plus Buddhism, at least in the SF Bay Area, has splintered and these groups don't always get along.
Ethnic Buddhism is very common. These consist of the nicest facilities. There are two Ethnic Buddhist sanghas in Oakland where the church websiste was either in Chinese or Vietnamese exclusively. This sends a message of non-inclusion. Ethnic Buddhists know very little about their religion and do not meditate.
Evangelic Buddhism is SGI and all varieties of Nichiren Buddhism. Whether their numbers are growing is unknown.
There are the Secular Buddhists; these consist of all varieties of insight or vipassana meditation. Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, California is a good example. There are other groups of insight meditation. Jack Kornfield and Stephen Bachelor are the patron saints of the Vipassana groups. These are known to be non-sectarian Buddhist, sort of like Unitarianism in Christianity.
Finally, there are traditional Buddhist operations that cater to the white and affluent market such as the various Zen groups. According to Google there might be about 800,000 Buddhist converts.These are the ones who meditate and study the Dhamma.
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I don't think there will be many Americans who adopt all tenants of Buddhism but many Westerners admire many parts of Buddhist beliefs, like the need to find inner contentment, treat the Earth and animals with respect, etc. Yoga is very popular and originated with monks.
I am seventy-nine and an American. I have lived amongst the people of three Western countries, and in one I associated with large groups of Asians.
My impression is that American popular culture is fixated on the ideas of wrongness and injury, they are virulent in the society and it seems in day-to-day personal interactions as well. Just surf through a few dozen random threads on C-D Forums and this becomes very evident. The recent political campaign exposed that suppurating wound across the political and social spectrums. Moreover, greed is good, beauty and youth should be lifetime attributes and so on. (Just as an aside, I worked in advertising for a few years, and the level understanding and manipulation in that industry is incredible. If the U.S. has a national church, it is the advertising industry.)
The basic concepts of Buddhism (e.g. impermanence, lack of an unchanging self, etc.) horrify Americans; the idea of "letting go" arouses ferocious sputtering and on and on.
I am not saying that there is anything wrong with wondering about the number of Buddhists in the U.S. (or anywhere else), but remember in the U.S. culture, bigger is better. So, as an old emigrant Yank, I am leery of what significance might be read into the answer. As I recall the Buddha did not say that what he was teaching was for everyone, but was for people with only "a little dust in their eyes." And the teachings were offered on a "come and see" basis, and not through aggressive proselytizing and (in modern terms) hype. Christians and Muslims expect that their religions will each be embraced by the entire world, and world angrily and aggressively to make this come to fruition. I am unaware that this was a goal of the Buddha.
However as for "boots on the ground", I do know that the Buddhist Zen center that I attended in my NYC neighborhood is now physically twice as large as it was, and looking at its web sight my impression is that the membership/participants has doubled or tripled in twenty-five years. While I find the personal circumstances under which I embraced the Dhamma easy enough to grasp in recollection, but I am surprised that living in midtown Manhattan that I managed to persevere. I left in Jan. 2000 and now live in a country of about ten million people and estimates are that there are about 20,000 Buddhists of all persuasions. My best friend is Buddhist, but other than him I know of no other Buddhists in the town in which I live. I help support a monastery in the Thai forest monastic tradition of Ajahn Chah, but it is not near to me. There are a number of small Buddhist centers and retreats in the country. Once in awhile their are articles in our newspapers or on the web by people who are surprised to run across them.
I wish Americans well, and Buddhism in that country too; but I do not wish the latter big necessarily.
79 is about the right age to look into the eternal. get prepared. Now that time is there, available, meditate. Meditation is universal. Just as Sakyamuni's basic ideas: nothing is permanent; suffering is present in psychical life; suffering is result of clinging to physical and impermanent; one who frees from physical desires will obtain freedom from suffering. It's universal. Sakyamuni did not look at the world as people. This people or that people. Man or a woman. To him all were "beings". Everyone is invited. Everyone may step on that path. It's one's personal choice.
Wise man said:
As countries get rich, they turn towards spirituality. They obtained the physical and found that it didn't solve anything. Then, they start looking into spiritual riches.
More like unfair "spiritual/religious" tax-breaks, feel-good activities, and population-controlling tribalism.
I don't think there will be many Americans who adopt all tenants of Buddhism but many Westerners admire many parts of Buddhist beliefs, like the need to find inner contentment, treat the Earth and animals with respect, etc. Yoga is very popular and originated with monks.
Actual "spiritual" Yoga literally originated as a Hindu practice "to get closer to Vishnu, the preserver of existence" ... Buddhism out-right rejects the idea of gods being necessary. In fact, Buddhism is supposed to pity unenlinghted Gods who dwell ignorantly in bliss or chaotic power and thus only harm themselves and others without being aware or caring of it. Being closer to Vishnu would seem rather mundane and delusional as a goal being that Vishnu would probably just make the mistake of letting you fall away again at some point. These "creator/sustainer" gods seem unable to create or maintain constant perfections.
Yes, I think Buddhism is growing in the US. There are more Tibetan Buddhism centers now than there were 20 years ago. I don't know if Zen is growing, but I suspect so. And there are new Buddhist movements, like DharmaPunx, that appeal to Millennials. Also, there is the Thai Forest Tradition in the West, which didn't exist in the 70's and 80's, when Zen became popular, for example. Thich Nhat Hanh has popularized Vietnamese Buddhism. Buddhism in the US, among Westerners especially, has become more diverse. And that diversity includes now, Secular Buddhism, as someone else mentioned.
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