Why are most western Buddhists white?

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lyndon taylor
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by lyndon taylor »

I don't think most people realize how condescending they can be to others different from themselves, not saying everyone does it but I see a lot of it in interracial encounters.
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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cooran
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by cooran »

I live in a western country, Australia. The vast majority of Lay Upporters at Dhammagiri Forest Hermitage are Sri Lankan, Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian.

All are generous, friendly and supportive to "western" lay people.

http://www.dhammagiri.org.au/photos.html

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Chris
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binocular
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by binocular »

lyndon taylor wrote:I don't think most people realize how condescending they can be to others different from themselves, not saying everyone does it but I see a lot of it in interracial encounters.
Yes ...
Of course, on the surface, in formal situations, people are mostly polite, in some religious groups, everyone is super nice and everything and there seems to be no discrimination by race or socio-economic standard.
And sometimes, it's not until one finds oneself on the receiving end of a negative stereotype that one begins to notice at all what is going on.

On the other hand, stereotype threat and expecting to be negatively treated on the grounds of a negative stereotype that may be applied to one, can work as self-sabotaging, as self-fulfilling prophecy. However, if others would truly be free of stereotyping others, then one's own behavior, even if it is in line with the stereotype, wouldn't be the cause for being badly treated by others.
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Spiny Norman
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by Spiny Norman »

binocular wrote: We can only speculate how many people there are who do not regularly attend Buddhist groups, but who may otherwise be qualified as Buddhists.
Yes, you're right, though my assumption from experience in the UK is that most people who self-identify as Buddhists will have been to at least one Buddhist group in their "career".
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Jetavan
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by Jetavan »

David N. Snyder wrote:In a word one of the biggest things preventing more African-Americans from joining Sanhas is: culture. Take a look at this African-American church service:
....
I don't think that that is a church service.
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Anagarika
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by Anagarika »

Jetavan wrote:
David N. Snyder wrote:In a word one of the biggest things preventing more African-Americans from joining Sanhas is: culture. Take a look at this African-American church service:
....
I don't think that that is a church service.
I live in Chicago, Illinois USA. Chicago is a racially diverse city, and has as well enormous problems within its lower socio-economic Black communities...daily shootings, gang violence. Some of the children that attend the schools in these communities will say that when they study, or are carrying a book, or speak with correct grammar, they are punished or abused for "acting white." If a bright young Black man or woman can't even find a competent education, how then can something as esoteric as Dhamma finds its way into the hearts and minds of these young people? In the same way, I was watching a video of the announcement of the Higgs Boson discovery, and saw that the audience of physicists was predominately White. How many Buddhist teachers, how many great physicists, doctors, writers, has the world lost in the US Black community due to inner city violence and poor schools?

Buddhism in the west has reached (aside from native born Asians) a largely white audience simply because, IMO, like quantum physics, it is esoteric and challenging. It requires a healthy interactive community charged with intellectual inquiry....something largely missing from communities where street shootings occupy most of the energy each day.

To my mind, there's nothing that is racially predisposing about the Dhamma, and the Dhamma really would be a great antidote to the greed, anger, and delusion existing in communities of any race or ethnicity. Just as people like Fleet Maull have gone into prisons to teach meditation to inmates of all stripes, it will be good to see Buddhism one day identified as a practice without racial or ethnic attachments.
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DNS
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by DNS »

BuddhaSoup wrote:How many Buddhist teachers, how many great physicists, doctors, writers, has the world lost in the US Black community due to inner city violence and poor schools?
Neil de Grasse is great! But it does seem that there should have been more African-American physicists and scientists and certainly economics and violence may have played a role in preventing intelligent students from getting ahead in those conditions. My wife and I have started watching his Cosmos series on tv. It is very good.
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Anagarika
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by Anagarika »

David N. Snyder wrote:
BuddhaSoup wrote:How many Buddhist teachers, how many great physicists, doctors, writers, has the world lost in the US Black community due to inner city violence and poor schools?
Neil de Grasse is great! But it does seem that there should have been more African-American physicists and scientists and certainly economics and violence may have played a role in preventing intelligent students from getting ahead in those conditions. My wife and I have started watching his Cosmos series on tv. It is very good.
He is exceptional. I note from the wiki that "His mother, Sunchita Marie (Feliciano) Tyson, was a gerontologist, and his father, Cyril deGrasse Tyson, was a sociologist, human resource commissioner for the New York City mayor John Lindsay, and the first Director of Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited" Together with his formidable intellect, he must have had access to education and experiences that other children of color in inner cities routinely miss out on. The hope is that he will inspire other people of color to study astrophysics, and make it as "cool" as Carl Sagan did for my generation. :) He also refuses to be put into a box as to whether he is an agnostic, or atheist, or not, while rejecting a beneficent god and 'intelligent design." I sense a Buddhist to be....:)
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lyndon taylor
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by lyndon taylor »

White children in the same poor inner city neighborhoods don't particularly fair any better. And any advantage they do have is because of the colour of their skin and not their upbringing.
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
Shaswata_Panja
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by Shaswata_Panja »

IMO Most of Western Buddhists SHOULD BE WHITE...Whites have managed to convert many of my fellow Indians to their religion(Christianity)...Its only fair that we should be able to convert and exact number of whites into an Indian Reiligon
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Aloka
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by Aloka »

Shaswata_Panja wrote:IMO Most of Western Buddhists SHOULD BE WHITE...Whites have managed to convert many of my fellow Indians to their religion(Christianity)...Its only fair that we should be able to convert and exact number of whites into an Indian Reiligon
Except the notion of "convert" may not be appropriate for westerners like myself who haven't practiced Christianity, or any other religion to be converted from.

.
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waterchan
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by waterchan »

Shaswata_Panja wrote:IMO Most of Western Buddhists SHOULD BE WHITE...Whites have managed to convert many of my fellow Indians to their religion(Christianity)...Its only fair that we should be able to convert and exact number of whites into an Indian Reiligon
Ah, retributive proselytism, that's a new one to me.
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by DNS »

waterchan wrote:
Shaswata_Panja wrote:IMO Most of Western Buddhists SHOULD BE WHITE...Whites have managed to convert many of my fellow Indians to their religion(Christianity)...Its only fair that we should be able to convert and exact number of whites into an Indian Reiligon
Ah, retributive proselytism, that's a new one to me.
:lol:

However, white convert Buddhists came to Buddhism on their own volition. They were not converted by missionaries -- sure they may have met some wise monks from Asia, but only after going to the temple on their own choice. They were not converted by receiving schools, hospitals, basic needs as is sometimes done by missionaries from the former colonial powers who used humanitarianism as a tool to convert.

Shaswata,
Can you at least give us some free tuition to Naropa University or some Buddhist studies programs at a prestigious university? :tongue:
Shaswata_Panja
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by Shaswata_Panja »

as much as I can I would fund such study programs when I am well off
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