Europe, Buddhism in
In 1966, when Kosho Yamamoto made his trip through Europe surveying the spread of Buddhism in the West, he found a fledgling community that was still in its first generation; the oldest Buddhist association was the Buddhist group at Leipzig, Germany, founded by Kurt Seidenstuxker (1876-1936). That picture is radically different from the image presented a mere 30 years later in 1996 by Peter Lorie and Julia Foakes in The Buddhist Directory, which surveys a thriving Buddhist community across Europe with all of the major elements—Theravada, Tibetan, Zen, Pure Land, Nichiren, and new Western forms of faith well represented.
BACKGROUND
The movement of Buddhism into Europe began with the first scholars (both professional and amateur) who became aware that Buddhism existed. This awareness followed close on the heels of the efforts of Great Britain to establish its hegemony in Southeast Asia and push northward into the Himalayas and even Tibet. Notable in the transmission of information about Buddhism would be, for example, Brian H. Hodgson (1800-94), who lived in Nepal and began publishing essays in Asiatic Researches as early as 1828. By the end of the century, travelogues and memoirs of Westerners who moved through Buddhist lands helped excite individuals about the exotic worlds and unfamiliar religious practices to be found in Asian lands.
Essential to the spread of Buddhism would be the availability of Buddhist sacred literature in Western languages. A few translations began to appear in the middle of the 19th century—as early as 1860 Albert Weber published a translation of the Dhammapada into German and Vincent Fausboll first issued a copy of the Jataka TALES in 1877. However, the real dissemination awaited the work of Max Muller’s Sacred Books of the East project and the massive translation of Thera-vada literature by the Pali Text Society, founded in 1881.
Because the publication of Buddhist texts originated with Sanskrit and Pali scholars, it is not surprising that the first hints of the conversion of Europeans to Buddhism was to Theravada Buddhism as found in Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), and Thailand. The first people who publicly identified themselves with Buddhism in England and Germany were followed by the first ordinations of Europeans into the sangha—C. H. Allan Bennett (1872-1923) in 1901 and Anton W. F Gueth (1878-1957)in 1904.
Meanwhile, in the British colony of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the cofounder of the Theo-sophical Society, the American Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907), had publicly identified with Buddhism and become an early supporter of Angarika Dharmapala and the Mahabodhi Society he founded to return the place of the Buddha’s enlightenment to Buddhist ownership. While Dharmapala’s earliest focus was on the united States and the 1894 World Parliament of Religions, his more persistent efforts would emphasize Europe in general and England in particular. In the meantime, while the Theosophical Society was more closely aligned to Hinduism, it persistently created avenues for the dissemination of Buddhism in the West.
In England, the emergence of Buddhism would build around the Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland, founded in 1907 by Thomas William Rhys Davids, who had earlier founded the Pali Text Society. That society would welcome the first Buddhist mission to Europe, in which Allan Bennett, now known as Ananda Metreyya, led a group of several Burmese monks to England in 1907. They stayed for eight months. In 1908, the first European Buddhist periodical, The Buddhist Review (the precursor of The Middle Way), made its appearance.
The original Buddhist Society was joined by the Buddhist Lodge of the Theosophical Society, founded by the great pioneering force in British Buddhism Christmas Humphreys (1901-83) at the beginning of the 1920s. Those two organizations merged in 1924 and became the current Buddhist Society. Dharmapala arrived in 1924 to found the British branch of the Mahabodhi Society and a short time later the London Buddhist Vihara. Though Humphreys would favor Zen Buddhism, and later invite Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki to England to teach, Theravada would dominate Buddhism in Britain well into the post-World War II period. Assisting this dominance would be the many German writings of Anton W. F Gueth, better known by his religious name Mahathera Nyanatiloka, who spent much of his career in Sri Lanka.
The same early dominance of Theravada Buddhism was manifest in Germany, both in the Leipzig group and in the other prominent early pioneers of Buddhism such as Paul Dahlke (1865-1928) and George Grimm (1868-1945). That dominance would not be broken until 1952 with the founding of the Arya Maitreya Man-dala, a Tibetan Buddhist group headed by Lama Anagarika Govinda, the religious name of E. L. Hoffmann (1898-1985), who beginning from Germany opened centers across Europe. Also in the 1950s an initial European branch of the Jodo Shinshu opened in Berlin under the leadership of Harry Pieper.
In the 1960s, Buddhism began its growth, a growth that paralleled the rise of a host of alternatives to the Christianity that had previously dominated the scene. A place for Buddhism had been prepared to some extent by the skeptical critique of Christianity, which caused some to search for a non-Western religious alternative. Also, as in North America, youthful Europeans, who had encountered Buddhism as a result of their service in World War II, pursued Buddhist studies in the East after the war. Finally, after the war the number of immigrants from countries dominated by Buddhism increased dramatically. In most cases, such immigration occurred unnoticed, as there were no barriers to immigration like those that prevented Asians from entering the united States.
POSTWAR GROWTH
After World War II, the rapid growth of Buddhism can be seen in three areas. First, Buddhist teachers moved to Europe and began new centers. Most notable among the new teachers were the two Japanese Zen exponents, Taisen Deshimaru Roshi (1914-82) and Testu Nagaya Kuchi Roshi (1895-1993), and Thich Nhat Hanh from Vietnam. Deshimaru Roshi settled in Paris in 1967 and founded the Association Zen Internationale, now the largest Zen organization in Europe with zendos in most European countries (and more than 90 places for meditation in France alone). Two years before Deshimaru’s arrival, Nagaya Kiichi, a lay Buddhist practitioner, settled in Berlin and began the propagation of Zen. His work soon spread through the German-speaking countries of Europe. Unable to return to Vietnam, in the 1970s Thich Nhat Hanh settled in France, where he built a large community called Plum Village and built an international following for his socially active spirituality, called engaged Buddhism.
Tibetan Buddhism, as popular in Europe as in America, was introduced to Europe in the person of Chogyam Trungpa, who moved to England in 1963 as a university student and stayed to found the Samye Ling meditation center, the first Tibetan Buddhist practice center in the West, in Scotland in 1967. Several years later, he moved to the united States and built a large organization in North America, but Samye Ling has continued as a pioneering Tibetan center. It was supplemented in the 1970s by the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, founded by two Gelug teachers, Lama Thubten Yeshe (1936-84) and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche. The foundation spread the form of Buddhism most associated with the Dalai Lama from its European headquarters in Pisa, Italy. No more important Tibetan teacher has moved to Europe than Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, the Gelug leader who in the 1990s had a falling out with the Dalai Lama, but who in the meantime had built the largest Buddhist organization in England and has subsequently established centers of the New Kadampa Tradition across Europe and around the world.
Along with Asian teachers moving to the West, Westerners traveled to the East to sit under leading Buddhist instructors. Notable among these Westerners was the Dane Ole Nydahl, who in 1969 met the head of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism and was later confirmed as a teacher. Since the 1970s he has built the largest Tibetan Buddhist organization, the Diamond Way, with centers across Europe and now reaching other continents.
Theravada Buddhism in Europe was reinforced by the movement of Ajahn Sumedho (also known as Robert Jackman) to England in the mid-1970s. In 1978 he founded the Chithurst Forest Monastery, destined to be the source of a number of centers in the Thai Forest Meditation Tradition across Great Britain and then Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.
In addition to the Europeans who became teachers of Buddhism are the Americans who became teachers, developed work in North America, and subsequently expanded their organizations to Europe. Prominent examples would include Jiyu Kennett Roshi, founder of the Order of Buddhist Contemplative (a Soto Zen group), and Philip Kapleau, founder of the Zen Center of Rochester, who has sanctioned teachers in Germany and Sweden. Supplementing the American teachers have been Asian teachers who settled in America and from there built international associations of Buddhist centers; Seung Sahn, founder of the Kwan um School of Zen, is a prominent example.
A third element of the burgeoning European Buddhist scene are the immigrant communities that became visible in the 1960s. Taking the lead were people from former British colonies (Sri Lanka, Burma/Myanmar, Malaysia, Hong Kong) who took advantage of liberal travel regulation through the British Commonwealth to move to England. People from the former Indochina (Vietnam) would move to France, and people from across Asia would begin to filter into different countries, many of them refugees who left their homes as political powers changed (most notably the Tibetans).
By the 1980s, first-generation immigrant Buddhists outnumbered European-born practitioners, and their organizations became a source from which the further spread of Buddhism among Europeans could proceed, in spite of their tendency to form somewhat separated ethnic religious conclaves. By the beginning of the 21st century, temples serving predominantly Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and southern Asian communities could be found scattered across Europe.
In light of the growth of European Buddhism, in 1975 a European Buddhist Union (EBU) was founded to include primarily those organizations serving European-born Buddhists, but reaching out to the ethnic communities. The formation of the EBu and similar national cooperative organizations highlights the gap between various segments of the Buddhist community (only a minority of Buddhist groups participate), especially the credentials of non-Asian Buddhist leadership. No more divisive issue emerged than that surrounding the Soka Gakkai. This expansive lay organization, which originated in the Japanese Nichiren Shoshu tradition, has become the largest Buddhist group in Europe and in various countries. In Italy, for example, it forms over half of the total Buddhist community. In spite of its impeccable Buddhist credentials, it has been a most controversial group. Many Buddhists refuse to engage in dialog or cooperative activities with Soka Gakkai.
The next question to be faced by the European Buddhist community, which will in all likelihood remain a distinct religious minority, is how the various elements will grow and change. European Buddhists have placed the different Asian traditions into relatively close proximity. Their minority status (with both Christian and irreligious communities continually challenging them) gives them motivation to develop a united front and to develop as a new Buddhist community at home in its European setting. At the same time, the different groups have a distinct investment in the diverse Asian traditions with which they practice. It is yet to be seen how Buddhism will respond to the new situation.
Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling
(1878-1965) early Western Buddhist and translator of the Tibetan Book of the Dead
W. Y. Evans-Wentz, who studied Buddhism in the early years of the 20th century, prepared the first English translation of the Bardo Thodol under the title The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Evans-Wentz was born and raised in a unitarian family in Trenton, New Jersey. He dropped out of high school to become a journalist. He worked at various jobs before landing in Palo Alto, California, in 1901. After taking some remedial courses, he was admitted to Stanford university in 1902. After graduation, Evans-Wentz pursued a master’s degree with a focus on the Celtic influence on English literature. He also met William James, the visiting professor of philosophy. With his master’s degree in hand (1907), he went to Europe and continued to study Celtic at the university of Rennes, where he received his doctorate in 1909. His studies led directly to his first book, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (1911).
By the time his first book appeared, Evans-Wentz had developed a primary interest in comparative religion, to which he now turned his attention. He traveled in the Mediterranean basin for several years and then wound up in India in 1917. He would spend the next five years in India, Sikkim (now a state in India), and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). His most important time was in the Himalayas, where he studied Tibetan Buddhism. He spent two years as a novice monk in Sikkim (1920-22).
In Sikkim he studied with Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup (d. 1922), who was at the time translating Tibetan Buddhist texts into English. Evans-Wentz took his translations, edited them for English-speaking readers, and published them in four books: Tibet’s Great Yogi, Milarepa (1928); The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1929); Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (1935); and The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation (1954). For this work, in 1931, Oxford University awarded him an honorary doctorate.
His last book, The Sacred Mountains of the Western World, remained unpublished at the time of his death in 1965. He left an inheritance to Stanford university, which is used to support an annual lectureship.
fa chang (fa ch’ang, rituals of method)
Fa chang is an exorcism ritual series performed to expel evil from a sick person. It is performed by "redhead" Daoists in northern Taiwan, ritual specialists who perform the sequence theatrically. The sequence involves some 16 separate ritual actions that take place over several hours. The specialist performs in front of an altar surrounded by nine deities, including the Queen Mother of the West as well as the Three Ladies, the original deities who are said to have learned the fa chang ritual from the deity Xu Zhenren on Mt. Lu. All objects involved in the ritual are divinized, meaning they are imbued with divine power. once an object is transformed into something divine, and the deities have been invoked, the priest performs some action that inverts or changes the situation and transfers the evil from the subject. The action may also involve a request that is sent to heaven.
faith, practice, and study
In the Japanese Buddhist leader Nichiren’s theory, faith, practice, and study are the three fundamentals. Faith refers to the belief in the Gohonzon of the Three Great Secret Laws. Practice refers to understanding the Buddha’s teachings, and Study means to teach on and help others chant the daimoku mantra and practice it oneself. Nichiren considered faith to be fundamental and believed that it gave rise to practice and study.
Falun Gong (Falun Dafa)
Falun Gong is a new Chinese religion that draws on a variety of older themes. Most notably it gives a central role to the practice of QIGONG, a set of practices that are believed to yield health and well-being. Qigong practice is based upon the idea of QI (chi or ki), the universal energy believed to undergird the cosmos, the same belief that underlies acupuncture. In Chinese theory, the body has a set of channels through which the qi flows. When that flow is obstructed, various negative conditions result. When it flows freely, the individual is healthy, vigorous, and mentally alert. According to Falun Gong teachings, the most critical part of the human anatomy is the Falun, a center of energy located in the region of the lower abdomen. It is a microcosm of the universe and contains all of its secrets.
On April 25, 1999, the movement emerged out of obscurity when some 10,000 of its members, without prior warning, appeared on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, to protest some articles that had appeared in several periodicals attacking it. Before the Chinese parliament, the protesters quietly practiced their spiritual exercises and then disappeared into the city. The Communist Party leadership felt threatened and the security forces were embarrassed.
After a period in which information was gathered on this group that had had the demonstration, the government acted. on July 22, 1999, Falun Gong was outlawed. It was declared a destructive cult and the government accused it of a laundry list of negative traits. Most significantly it had threatened the government and was harming the nation’s social fabric. In the months ahead, the government moved to discredit it in the eyes of the public with a massive propaganda campaign. Members of the group who did not immediately withdraw were in many cases arrested.
The attempts to suppress the group within China led followers in other countries to launch public protests based upon religious freedom considerations. In the wake of the attacks upon the movement inside China, protests have been held outside Chinese embassies and consulate offices around the world daily to the present. Meanwhile, Falun Gong has been totally suppressed within China and no longer exists in any public or communal form, although there are underground members.
The controversy surrounding Falun Gong has somewhat obscured its existence as a religious community. It was founded by Master Li Hongzhi. Master Li claims to have been born in Changchun, Jilin, China, on May 13, 1951; according to the group’s literature, that would give him the same birthday as Gautama Buddha. His claim is contested by the Chinese government, whose records indicate a birthday of July 7, 1952. Be that as it may, he founded Falun Gong in 1992 and has authored its two main textbooks, Zhuan Falun (Revolving the Law Wheel) and China Falun Gong.
In China, qigong practices were traditionally passed orally from teachers to students. Knowledge of the qigong methods was otherwise found in closely guarded secret texts. After the Chinese Revolution, many of these texts were destroyed or confiscated and placed in government archives. Then, after the Cultural Revolution, the practice of qigong resurfaced and was even promoted by the government as part of a new emphasis on traditional culture. A national qigong federation emerged with chapters across the country. The foundation of Falun Gong coincides with Master Li’s withdrawal from the national qigong federation.
Master Li offers an expansive form of qigong that includes not only the performance of specific exercises (five basic exercises) but also the "cultivation of the xinsheng," a way of life that emphasizes truthfulness, benevolence, and forbearance. Practice leads to enlightenment. Li had, on the one hand, suggested that he alone knew the exact format of exercises people should practice, but he also made all of this information public in his book China Falun Gong.
Master Li has also taught that individuals must pass through tribulations in this life, and that dealing with tribulations is a means of ridding oneself of past karmic debts. He pictures a universe of many spiritual entities, including evil ones that interfere with life on earth.
In 1998, the year before Falun Gong was outlawed in China, Master Li moved to the united States. By this time the movement had already become international, spreading quietly through the Chinese diaspora. The controversy has attracted many people to it and with the translation of the basic texts into different languages it has been able to move out beyond the Chinese communities. The movement has a massive presence on the Internet, including the complete texts of Master Li’s two books.
Fa Xian (Fa-hsien)
(377-422) first Chinese pilgrim to visit Indian Buddhist sites
Fa Xian was a Chinese monk who traveled to India, Sri Lanka, and Sumatra, studying with masters and collecting Buddhist scriptures. He left a record of his experiences in Travels to Buddhistic Kingdoms (Foguo Ji), one of the earliest and most detailed records of early Indian cultures.
Fa Xian lived during the turbulent period following the fall of the Han dynasty (221 B.C.E.-220 C.E.). It was precisely at this time of uncertainty that Buddhism began to make a strong impact on Chinese culture. There was a great hunger for more knowledge of the new teachings reaching China overland from Central Asia.
Fa Xian left China in 399 c.e. via Dunhuang, the Central Asian state of Khotan, and the Himalayas to India. Along the way he collected many important Buddhist scriptures, such as the Nirvana Sutra. He studied with masters active in India. He visited many major sites in India, Sri Lanka, and Sumatra (then a largely Buddhist culture). He finally returned to China by sea, in 414 c.e.
In China he continued to work on the material he had collected. He translated the Mahaparinir-vana Sutra, with Buddhabhadra.
Fa Zang (Fa-tsang)
(643-712) systematizer of Hua Yan Buddhist doctrine
Fa Zang was the third patriarch of the Hua Yan school of Chinese Buddhism. Although he was born in the Tang dynasty capital of Chang An (now Xian), his parents were from Sogdia, or Samarkand, one of the Central Asian ministates. When he was 16 he was said to have burned off one finger to show his devotion to the Buddha. After the death of his first master, Zhi Yan, in 668, Fa Zang was ordained and joined the newly constructed Taiyuan Temple built by the Empress Wu Chao in Chang An. He early on was an assistant to Xuan Zang, the great translator. He left Xuan Zang after disagreements and began to develop his own line of thinking based on the perspective of the monks Du Shun (557-640) and Zhi Yan (602-68).
Fa Zang’s most famous work is probably the Jin shizi zhang (Essay on the gold lion). In this work he uses the allegory of a golden lion to represent the nature of substance. Substance is the true dharma nature, pure and complete in its own nature. Fa Zang argued that the outward appearance of the lion image is characterized by SUNYATA, voidness, yet the lion is nevertheless real. He then proceeded to explain the 10 "gates" or stages by which one may achieve nirvana, using the image of the golden lion to illustrate the nature of each gate. For instance, the fact that the lion may be revised, melted down, modified, while the gold itself remains intact, illustrates the principle of nongeneration.
Fa Zang is also well known as the system-atizer of Hua Yan doctrine. As did the Tian Tai founder ZHI YI, and the later Hua Yan master MI ZoNG, Fa Zang worked with classification systems, called PANJIAO. Fa Zang used his writings to argue that Hua Yan was the highest form of Buddhist teaching.
Fa Zang was also known for clarifying a vision of pratitya-samutpada, codependent arising. In Fa Zang’s formulation, matter and truth were identical. All phenomena, he taught, interacted and interpenetrated infinitely.
Feng shui
Literally "wind and water," feng shui is traditional Chinese geomancy, divination through study of the land and interaction between geophysical and human energies. It is widely practiced by professional feng shui experts in nearly all places with Chinese populations, as well as related East Asian cultures such as Korea and Japan. In recent years the principles of feng shui have also been picked up by other cultures; today awareness of this practice in Europe and America is being spread along with understanding of Chinese culture and religions.
There were antecedents for feng shui practice dating to the Han (221 B.C.E.-220 c.e.) and Tang (618-960 c.e.) periods. Classic texts dating from those periods include the Zang Shu (Burial Book), Zai Jing (Classic of Dwellings), and Guanshi Dili Zhinan (Geographic Guide of the Guan Clan). However, as a systematic practice feng shui dates from the Song dynasty (960-1278). In the Song two distinct schools of feng shui appeared, the Jiangxi school and the Fujian (or magical) school. In general the Fujian school emphasizes the use of the geomancy compass, the luopan, while the Jiangxi school emphasizes observation of the environment and symptoms of "dragon" and "tiger" energies.
Feng shui incorporates a wide spectrum of popular religious thought, including Chinese astrology, Yijing divination, and a healthy dose of common sense. For instance, feng shui incorporates such religious concepts as QI (energy) and taiji, the "great absolute." Feng shui theory is also a repository of religious linguistic terms. While the details of feng shui theory cannot be adequately covered here, they are a fascinating and barely understood window on the Chinese imagination. The popularity of feng shui ideas in today’s society is perhaps a reflection of people’s desire to mix well into a complex industrial environment and not lose touch with the energy flows of nature.
