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Understanding Buddhism
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Buddhism in America

In this paper I have chosen to explore the growing phenomenon of Western Buddhism, specifically the rise of Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist religion and its various sects in the United States of America. There is little consensus on an explanation for the growing popularity of American Buddhism. Unlike in Asia where there is century's worth of social and political background for Buddhism, America has almost none by comparison.
Although it is now rather common to refer to Oriental influences in the writing of such prominent American literary figures as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Walt Whitman, the more specific beginnings of Buddhism in America can be traced to the Chinese immigrants who began to appear on the West Coast in the 1840's. Rick Fields, author of How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America, has suggested that by 1852 twenty thousand......

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Approximate Word Count: 2576
Approximate Pages: 11 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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