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This is a history of the American school of Japanese Buddhism called the True Pure Land (Jodo Shinshu), which also styles itself Buddhist Churches of America, from its earliest 19th-century exponents to the present.
Winner of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion A Los Angeles Times Bestseller “Raises timely and important questions about what religious freedom in America truly means.” —Ruth Ozeki “A must-read for anyone interested in the implacable quest for civil liberties, social and racial justice, religious freedom, and American belonging.” —George Takei On December 7, 1941, as the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, the first person detained was the leader of the Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist sect in Hawai‘i. Nearly all Japanese Americans were subject to accusations of disloyalty, but Buddhists aroused particular suspicion. From the White House to the local town council, many believed that Buddhism was...
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Buddhism in the United States is often viewed in connection with practitioners in the Northeast and on the West Coast, but in fact, it has been spreading and evolving throughout the United States since the mid-nineteenth century. In Dixie Dharma, J
Japan’s largest Buddhist denomination, the Jodo Shinshu Honpa Honganji sect of Pure Land Buddhism, began to conduct fact-finding missions, and missionaries argued that greater religious observance among the Japanese would curb undesirable behavior and make them better workers. The result was the founding of the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii and first Jodo Shinshu temple in Hilo in 1889, the first Jodo Shinshu temple in San Francisco in 1898, and the Buddhist Mission of North America (also in San Francisco) in 1899. The Japanese temples and their umbrella organizations persisted, by contrast, in part owing to the greater cohesion resulting from Japanese Buddhism’s higher degree of sectarianism; their reliance on trained missionary ministers; their support by large, relatively wealthy parent denominations in Japan; and their fundamentally religious nature. Founded and run as temples, the member congregations of the Buddhist Mission of North America and similar organizations drew the greater Japanese American community together while allowing cultural activities to take place at the temples, rather than having religion be merely one of numerous sponsored activities.
This is the first scholarly treatment of the emergence of American Buddhist Studies as a significant research field. Until now, few investigators have turned their attention to the interpretive challenge posed by the presence of all the traditional lineages of Asian Buddhism in a consciously multicultural society. Nor have scholars considered the place of their own contributions as writers, teachers, and practising Buddhists in this unfolding saga. In thirteen chapters and a critical introduction to the field, the book treats issues such as Asian American Buddhist identity, the new Buddhism, Buddhism and American culture, and the scholar's place in American Buddhist Studies. The volume offers complete lists of dissertations and theses on American Buddhism and North American dissertations and theses on topics related to Buddhism since 1892.
The first scholarly study of the emergence of American Buddhist Studies as a significant research field, approaching issues such as identity in Asian-American Buddhism, the new Buddhism, and the scholar's place in American Buddhist Studies.
This volume marks an important milestone in the growing literature on North American Buddhists—the first multi-author collection of social scientific scholarship on the topic. Chapters examine the current state of research and key aspects of Buddhist life and experience in social context, including group identity and status, religious practices, organizational structures, generational dynamics, relations with non-Buddhist groups and the larger society, and migratory and adaptive processes. Case studies feature Southeast Asian, Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean, meditation-oriented, and socially engaged Buddhists. For social scientists, this volume provides a convenient overview of scholarship heretofore available only piecemeal. All readers will discover how social scientific perspectives and approaches helpfully inform the study of North American Buddhists.