Oriental Paintings :: Standing Buddha

All things have a story...

Although Buddhism has existed for 2,500 years as a religious philosophy in Asia, it did not make its way to America until the 19th century. It was only when a French translation of the Mahayana Buddhist Sutra called the Saddharma Pundarika reached the American writers and philosophers Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson in Concord, Massachussetts, were the echos of Buddhism finally heard in the United States. Thoreau was already a contemplative type, interested in silence and introspection, and the tenets of Buddhism suited him quite well. Then, in 1879, Edwin Arnold wrote a book called The Light of Asia, an epic poem about the Buddha that increased awareness of Buddhism in America. It sold nearly one million copies.

In 1893, the World Parliament of Religion was held in Chicago and representatives from many religions throughout the world attended. Buddhists from Japan, Thailand, China and other countries of Asia spread the word of Buddhism to Americans at the event. A Srilankan Buddhist named Anagarika Dharmapala was especially captivating and after another talk he gave in Chicago an American businessman was so moved by what he heard that he came forward to take refuge in the triple gems of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. The Dharma represents the “truth or way” and the Sangha represents the monastic community of Buddhism. This American businessman became the first person to official join the Buddhist Sangha on American soil.

A little more than a century later, approximately three million Buddhists live in America. About two-thirds are people who have brought their religion with them from Asia, or are descendants of such people. The remaining third are converted Americans who have either been influenced by Buddhist immigrants or converted to Buddhism on their own through the reading of books and such. Today, Zen Buddhism is followed by many American converts and was popularized in the 1960s by beat writers such as Alan Watts who eloquently wrote about it. Dozens of Zen monasteries are now dotted across the American landscape and American Buddhists from far and wide meditate in them, especially during the new year, when a week-long meditation service is offered.