B

“Buddhism in America might have surprised the Buddha only because he hadn’t expected the dharma to survive this long. He thought it impermanent, like all mental events and physical states, with no unchanging essence, and had, in fact, predicted its disappearance. But he would have agreed that his ideas, too, were subject to specific causes and conditions, and so could assume a very different form in America from the one they had in China and Japan. After all, they had first gained resonance partly because they emerged at a mature phase in the civilization of North India. They had then travelled variously and found different forms everywhere else they went”

“The idea of an ‘engaged Buddhism’ took deeper root as Tibetan refugees fleeing the Chinese Communist takeover of Tibet began to arrive in the West in large numbers in the 1960s and 70s. Among these refugees were young masters, such as Allen Ginsberg’s controversial later mentor, Chogyam Trungpa, who went on to have a large western following as teachers of Buddhism. But it was the Dalai Lama who, as the head of the Tibetan diaspora, helped give Buddhism a political edge in the West.”

“Meditation, particularly Vipasyana, became the central practice of Buddhism in America. The Buddha’s emphasis on meditation may not have been the only reason for this. Meditation was one of the few viable forms of practice still available to modern man. As an ancient form of mystical experience, it offered him release from the nervous, irritable, disciplined and information-heavy consciousness he was required to possess in his everyday world of work and responsibility. At the same time, it did not sunder him from the sources of his livelihood – a lesson learned by the New Age gurus who offered it as a substitute for psychotherapy and by the corporate managers who introduced meditation to their employees.”