November30, 2012 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

A roundup of the best tips of the week from Entrepreneur.com.

If you want to achieve your goals, help others achieve theirs. Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, who died Wednesday onNov. 28, 2012,did just that, reportedly traveling more than five million miles in his career and touching a quarter of a billion lives. Fortunately for us, he left behind a lot of sound advice.

"You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want," Ziglar famously said. Put his maxim into practice: Next time you're in a meeting, focus on discerning the other person's needs rather than your own. More:12 Powerfully Inspiring Quotes From Zig Ziglar

Form personal connections with customers.Customers often buy from the businesses and sales professionals whom they like on a personal level. Do a little research before meeting with your next client and look for common ground, advises sales pro Grant Cardone. More: How to Stop Offering Free Advice and Make the Sale

Find partners to grow your business.Keep your eyes open for other businesses in your space and how you can complement each other. Education-tech startup InstaEDU has made collaborating with partners part of its growth strategy. More: How InstaEDU Is Tapping the Online Education Market

Don't let your annoyance with angry customers show.When customers complain on social media, respond quickly and work toward a resolution rather than giving them a piece of your mind. Even negative feedback can be a brand-building opportunity. More: What to Do When Customers Get Mean on Social Media

Set long-term goals to overcome adversity.Adversity such as serious illness can threaten to knock your entrepreneurial dreams off course. To stay on track, set inspiring long-term goals while focusing on the short-term goals of recovery. More: How Young Entrepreneurs Stare Down Personal Crisis

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Zig Ziglar and the Importance of Helping Others

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Buddhism, once thought of as a mysterious religion from the East, has now become very popular in the West, and is one of the largest religions in the United States. As Buddhism does not require any formal "conversion", American Buddhists can easily incorporate dharma practice into their normal routines and traditions. The result is that American Buddhists come from every ethnicity, nationality and religious tradition.[1][2] In 2012, U-T San Diego estimated U.S. practitioners at 1.2 million people, of whom 40% are living in Southern California.[3] In terms of percentage, Hawaii has the most Buddhists at 8% of the population due to its large Asian American community.[4]

The term American Buddhism can be used to describe Buddhist groups within the U.S, which are largely made up of converts.[5] This contrasts with many Buddhist groups in Asia, which are largely made up of people who were born into the faith.[6]

Hawaii has the largest Buddhist population, amounting to 8% of the total Buddhist population of the United States. California follows Hawaii with 2%. Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming have 1% buddhist population.[7]

The following is the percentage of Buddhists in the U.S. territories as of 2010:

Buddhist American scholar Charles Prebish states there are three broad types of American Buddhism:

Soka Gakkai International (SGI) is perhaps the most successful of Japan's new religious movements that grew around the world after the end of World War II.[9] Soka Gakkai, which means "Value Creation Society," is one of three sects of Nichiren Buddhism that came to the United States during the 20th century.[10] The SGI expanded rapidly in the US, attracting non-Asian minority converts,[11] chiefly African Americans and Latino, as well as the support of celebrities, such as Tina Turner, Herbie Hancock, and Orlando Bloom.[12] Because of a rift with Nichiren Shsh in 1991, the SGI has no priests of its own.[13] Its main religious practice is chanting the mantra Nam Myh Renge Ky and sections of the Lotus Sutra. Unlike trends such as Zen, Vipassan, and Tibetan Buddhism, Soka Gakkai Buddhists do not practice meditative techniques other than chanting.[citation needed] An SGI YouTube series called "Buddhist in America" has over a quarter million views in total as of 2015.[14]

Buddhism was introduced into the USA by Asian immigrants in the 19th century, when significant numbers of immigrants from East Asia began to arrive in the New World. In the United States, immigrants from China entered around 1820, but began to arrive in large numbers following the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Immigrant Buddhist congregations in North America are as diverse as the different peoples of Asian Buddhist extraction who settled there. The US is home to Chinese Buddhists, Japanese Buddhists, Korean Buddhists, Sri Lankan Buddhists, Cambodian Buddhists, Vietnamese Buddhists, Thai Buddhists, and Buddhists with family backgrounds in most Buddhist countries and regions. The Immigration Act of 1965 increased the number of immigrants arriving from China, Vietnam, and the Theravada-practicing countries of Southeast Asia.

Fanciful accounts of a visit to North America at the end of the 5th century written by a Chinese monk named Huishen or Hushen can be found in the Wenxian Tongkao by Ma Tuan-Lin. This account is often challenged but it is "at least plausible" in the words of James Ishmael Ford.[15]

The first Buddhist temple in America was built in 1853 in San Francisco by the Sze Yap Company, a Chinese American fraternal society. Another society, the Ning Yeong Company, built a second in 1854; by 1875, there were eight temples, and by 1900 approximately 400 Chinese temples on the west coast of the United States, most of them containing some Buddhist elements. Unfortunately a casualty of racism,[15] these temples were often the subject of suspicion and ignorance by the rest of the population, and were dismissively called joss houses.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 curtailed growth of the Chinese American population, but large-scale immigration from Japan began in the late 1880s and from Korea around 1903. In both cases, immigration was at first primarily to Hawaii. Populations from other Asian Buddhist countries followed, and in each case, the new communities established Buddhist temples and organizations. For instance, the first Japanese temple in Hawaii was built in 1896 near Paauhau by the Honpa Hongwanji branch of Jodo Shinshu. In 1898, Japanese missionaries and immigrants established a Young Men's Buddhist Association, and the Rev. Sry Kagahi was dispatched from Japan to be the first Buddhist missionary in Hawaii.[16] The first Japanese Buddhist temple in the continental U.S. was built in San Francisco in 1899, and the first in Canada was built at the Ishikawa Hotel in Vancouver in 1905.[17] The first Buddhist clergy to take up residence in the continental U.S. were Shuye Sonoda and Kakuryo Nishimjima, missionaries from Japan who arrived in 1899.

The Buddhist Churches of America and the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii are immigrant Buddhist organizations in the United States. The BCA is an affiliate of Japan's Nishi Hongwanji, a sect of Jdo Shinsh, which is, in turn, a form of Pure Land Buddhism. Tracing its roots to the Young Men's Buddhist Association founded in San Francisco at the end of the 19th century and the Buddhist Mission of North America founded in 1899,[18] it took its current form in 1944. All of the Buddhist Mission's leadership, along with almost the entire Japanese American population, had been interned during World War II. The name Buddhist Churches of America was adopted at Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah; the word "church" was used similar to a Christian house of worship. After internment ended, some members returned to the West Coast and revitalized churches there, while a number of others moved to the Midwest and built new churches. During the 1960s and 1970s, the BCA was in a growth phase and was very successful at fund-raising. It also published two periodicals, one in Japanese and one in English. However, since 1980, BCA membership declined. The 36 temples in the state of Hawaii of the Honpa Hongwanji Mission have a similar history.

While a majority of the Buddhist Churches of America's membership are ethnically Japanese, some members have non-Asian backgrounds. Thus, it has limited aspects of export Buddhism. As involvement by its ethnic community declined, internal discussions advocated attracting the broader public.

Another US Buddhist institution is Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, California. Hsi Lai is the American headquarters of Fo Guang Shan, a modern Buddhist group in Taiwan. Hsi Lai was built in 1988 at a cost of $10 million and is often described as the largest Buddhist temple in the Western hemisphere. Although it caters primarily to Chinese Americans, it also has regular services and outreach programs in English. Hsi Lai was at the center of a campaign finance controversy by Vice President Al Gore.

While Asian immigrants were arriving, some American intellectuals examined Buddhism, based primarily on information from British colonies in India and East Asia.

In the last century, numbers of Asian Buddhist masters and teachers have immigrated to the U.S. in order to propagate their beliefs and practices. Most have belonged to three major Buddhist traditions or cultures: Zen, Tibetan, and Theravadan.

The Englishmen William Jones and Charles Wilkins translated Sanskrit texts into English. The American Transcendentalists and associated persons, in particular Henry David Thoreau took an interest in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. In 1844, The Dial, a small literary publication edited by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, published an English version of a portion of the Lotus Sutra; it had been translated by Dial business manager Elizabeth Palmer Peabody from a French version recently completed by Eugne Burnouf. His Indian readings may have influenced his later experiments in simple living: at one point in Walden Thoreau wrote: "I realized what the Orientals meant by contemplation and the forsaking of works." The poet Walt Whitman also admitted to an influence of Indian religion on his writings.

An early American to publicly convert to Buddhism was Henry Steel Olcott. Olcott, a former U.S. army colonel during the Civil War, had grown interested in reports of supernatural phenomena that were popular in the late 19th century. In 1875, he, Helena Blavatsky, and William Quan Judge founded the Theosophical Society, dedicated to the study of the occult and influenced by Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. The leaders claimed to believe that they were in contact, via visions and messages, with a secret order of adepts called the "Himalayan Brotherhood" or "the Masters". In 1879, Olcott and Blavatsky travelled to India and in 1880, to Sri Lanka, where they were met enthusiastically by local Buddhists, who saw them as allies against an aggressive Christian missionary movement. On May 25, Olcott and Blavatsky took the pancasila vows of a lay Buddhist before a monk and a large crowd. Although most of the Theosophists appear to have counted themselves as Buddhists, they held idiosyncratic beliefs that separated them from known Buddhist traditions; only Olcott was enthusiastic about following mainstream Buddhism. He returned twice to Sri Lanka, where he promoted Buddhist education, and visited Japan and Burma. Olcott authored a Buddhist Catechism, stating his view of the basic tenets of the religion.

Several publications increased knowledge of Buddhism in 19th-century America. In 1879, Edwin Arnold, an English aristocrat, published The Light of Asia,[19] an epic poem he had written about the life and teachings of the Buddha, expounded with much wealth of local color and not a little felicity of versification. The book became immensely popular in the United States, going through eighty editions and selling more than 500,000 copies. Paul Carus, a German American philosopher and theologian, was at work on a more scholarly prose treatment of the same subject. Carus was the director of Open Court Publishing Company, an academic publisher specializing in philosophy, science, and religion, and editor of The Monist, a journal with a similar focus, both based in La Salle, Illinois. In 1894, Carus published The Gospel of Buddha, compiled from a variety of Asian texts which, true to its name, presented the Buddha's story in a form resembling the Christian Gospels.

In a brief ceremony conducted by Dharmapala, Charles T. Strauss, a New York businessman of Jewish descent, became one of the first to formally convert to Buddhism on American soil.[citation needed] A few fledgling attempts at establishing a Buddhism for Americans followed. Appearing with little fanfare in 1887: The Buddhist Ray, a Santa Cruz, California-based magazine published and edited by Phillangi Dasa, born Herman Carl (or Carl Herman) Veetering (or Vettering), a recluse about whom little is known. The Ray's tone was "ironic, light, saucy, self-assured ... one-hundred-percent American Buddhist".[20] It ceased publication in 1894. In 1900 six white San Franciscans, working with Japanese Jodo Shinshu missionaries, established the Dharma Sangha of Buddha and published a bimonthly magazine, The Light of Dharma. In Illinois, Paul Carus wrote more books about Buddhism and set portions of Buddhist scripture to Western classical music.

One American who attempted to establish an American Buddhist movement was Dwight Goddard (18611939). Goddard was a Christian missionary to China when he first came in contact with Buddhism. In 1928, he spent a year living at a Zen monastery in Japan. In 1934, he founded "The Followers of Buddha, an American Brotherhood", with the goal of applying the traditional monastic structure of Buddhism more strictly than Senzaki and Sokei-an. The group was largely unsuccessful: no Americans were recruited to join as monks and attempts failed to attract a Chinese Chan (Zen) master to come to the United States. However, Goddard's efforts as an author and publisher bore considerable fruit. In 1930, he began publishing ZEN: A Buddhist Magazine. In 1932, he collaborated with D. T. Suzuki, on a translation of the Lankavatara Sutra. That same year, he published the first edition of A Buddhist Bible, an anthology of Buddhist scriptures focusing on those used in Chinese and Japanese Zen.[21]

Zen was introduced to the United States by Japanese priests who were sent to serve local immigrant groups. A small group also came to study the American culture and way of life.

In 1893, Soyen Shaku was invited to speak at the World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago. In 1905, Shaku was invited to stay in the United States by a wealthy American couple. He lived for nine months near San Francisco, where he established a small zendo in the Alexander and Ida Russell home and gave regular zazen lessons, making him the first Zen Buddhist priest to teach in North America.[15]

Shaku was followed by Nyogen Senzaki, a young monk from Shaku's home temple in Japan. Senzaki briefly worked for the Russells and then as a hotel porter, manager and eventually, owner. In 1922 Senzaki rented a hall and gave an English talk on a paper by Shaku; his periodic talks at different locations became known as the "floating zendo". Senzaki established an itinerant sitting hall from San Francisco to Los Angeles in California, where he taught until his death in 1958.[22]

Sokatsu Shaku, one of Shaku's senior students, arrived in late 1906, founding a Zen meditation center called Ryomokyo-kai. One of his disciples, Shigetsu Sasaki, better known under his monastic name Sokei-an, came to New York to teach. In 1931, his small group incorporated as the Buddhist Society of America, later renamed the First Zen Institute of America. By the late 1930s, one of his most active supporters was Ruth Fuller Everett, an American socialite and the mother-in-law of Alan Watts. Shortly before Sokei-an's death in 1945, he and Everett would wed, at which point she took the name Ruth Fuller Sasaki.

D.T. Suzuki had a great literary impact. Through English language essays and books, such as Essays in Zen Buddhism (1927), he became a visible expositor of Zen Buddhism and its unofficial ambassador to Western readers. In 1951, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki returned to the United States to take a visiting professorship at Columbia University, where his open lectures attracted many members of the literary, artistic, and cultural elite.

In the mid-1950s, writers associated with the Beat Generation took a serious interest in Zen,[23] including Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Kenneth Rexroth, which increased its visibility. Prior to that, Philip Whalen had interest as early as 1946, and D. T. Suzuki began lecturing on Buddhism at Columbia in 1950.[24][25] By 1958, anticipating Kerouac's publication of The Dharma Bums by three months, Time magazine said, "Zen Buddhism is growing more chic by the minute."[25][26]

Contemporary Rinzai Zen teachers in United States have included Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi, Eido Tai Shimano Roshi, and Omori Sogen Roshi (d. 1994). Sasaki founded the Mount Baldy Zen Center and its branches after coming to Los Angeles from Japan in 1962. One of his students is the Canadian poet and musician Leonard Cohen. Eido Roshi founded Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji, a training center in New York state. Omori Roshi founded Daihonzan Chozen-ji, the first Rinzai headquarters temple established outside Japan, in Honolulu; under his students Tenshin Tanouye Roshi and Dogen Hosokawa Roshi and their dharma heirs, several other training centers were established including Daiyuzenji in Chicago and Korinji in Wisconsin.

In 1998 Sherry Chayat, born in Brooklyn, became the first American woman to receive transmission in the Rinzai school of Buddhism.[27][28]

In the 1930s Soyu Matsuoka-roshi was sent to America by Stsh, to establish the St Zen tradition in the United States. He established the Chicago Buddhist Temple in 1949. Matsuoka-roshi also served as superintendent and abbot of the Long Beach Zen Buddhist Temple and Zen Center. He relocated from Chicago to establish a temple at Long Beach in 1971 after leaving the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago to his dharma heir Kongo Richard Langlois, Roshi. He returned to Chicago in 1995, where he died in 1998.

St Zen priest Shunryu Suzuki (no relation to D.T. Suzuki), who was the son of a St priest, was sent to San Francisco in the late 1950s on a three-year temporary assignment to care for an established Japanese congregation at the St temple, Soko-ji.[29] Suzuki also taught zazen or sitting meditation which soon attracted American students and "beatniks", who formed a core of students who in 1962 would create the San Francisco Zen Center and its eventual network of highly influential Zen centers across the country, including the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the first Buddhist monastery in the Western world.[30] He provided innovation and creativity during San Francisco's countercultural movement of the 1960s but he died in 1971. His low-key teaching style was described in the popular book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a compilation of his talks.[31]

Taizan Maezumi arrived as a young priest to serve at Zenshuji, the North American St sect headquarters in Los Angeles, in 1956. Maezumi received dharma transmission (shiho) from Baian Hakujun Kuroda, his father and high-ranked St priest, in 1955. By the mid-1960s he had formed a regular zazen group. In 1967, he and his supporters founded the Zen Center of Los Angeles. Further, he received teaching permission (inka) from Koryu Osaka a Rinzai teacher and from Yasutani Hakuun of the Sanbo Kyodan. Maezumi, in turn, had several American dharma heirs, such as Bernie Glassman, John Daido Loori, Charlotte Joko Beck, and Dennis Genpo Merzel. His successors and their network of centers became the White Plum Sangha.[32] In 2006 Merle Kodo Boyd, born in Texas, became the first African-American woman ever to receive Dharma transmission in Zen Buddhism.[33]

Sanbo Kyodan is a contemporary Japanese Zen lineage which had an impact in the West disproportionate to its size in Japan. It is rooted in the reformist teachings of Harada Daiun Sogaku (18711961) and his disciple Yasutani Hakuun (18851971), who argued that the existing Zen institutions of Japan (St and Rinzai sects) had become complacent and were generally unable to convey real Dharma.

Sanbo Kyodan's first American member was Philip Kapleau, who first traveled to Japan in 1945 as a court reporter for the war crimes trials. In 1953, he returned to Japan, where he met with Nakagawa Soen, a protg of Nyogen Senzaki. In 1965, he published a book, The Three Pillars of Zen, which recorded a set of talks by Yasutani outlining his approach to practice, along with transcripts of dokusan interviews and some additional texts. In 1965 Kapleau returned to America and, in 1966, established the Rochester Zen Center in Rochester, New York. In 1967, Kapleau had a falling-out with Yasutani over Kapleau's moves to Americanize his temple, after which it became independent of Sanbo Kyodan. One of Kapleau's early disciples was Toni Packer, who left Rochester in 1981 to found a nonsectarian meditation center, not specifically Buddhist or Zen.

Robert Aitken was introduced to Zen as a prisoner in Japan during World War II. After returning to the United States, he studied with Nyogen Senzaki in Los Angeles in the early 1950s. In 1959, while still a Zen student, he founded the Diamond Sangha, a zendo in Honolulu, Hawaii. Aitken became a dharma heir of Yamada's, authored more than ten books, and developed the Diamond Sangha into an international network with temples in the United States, Argentina, Germany, and Australia. In 1995, he and his organization split with Sanbo Kyodan in response to reorganization of the latter following Yamada's death. The Pacific Zen Institute led by John Tarrant, Aitken's first Dharma successor, continues as an independent Zen line.

There are also Zen teachers of Chinese Chn, Korean Seon, and Vietnamese Thien.

In 1962, Hsuan Hua moved to San Francisco's Chinatown, where, in addition to Zen, he taught Chinese Pure Land, Tiantai, Vinaya, and Vajrayana Buddhism. Initially, his students were mostly ethnic Chinese, but he eventually attracted a range of followers.

Sheng-yen first visited the United States in 1978 under the sponsorship of the Buddhist Association of the United States, an organization of Chinese American Buddhists. In 1980, he founded the Chn Meditation Society in Queens, New York. In 1985, he founded the Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies in Taiwan, which sponsors Chinese Zen activities in the United States.[34]

Seung Sahn was a temple abbot in Seoul. After living in Hong Kong and Japan, he moved to the US in 1972 (not speaking any English) to establish the Kwan Um School of Zen. Shortly after arriving in Providence, he attracted students and founded the Providence Zen Center. The Kwan Um School has more than 100 Zen centers on six continents.

Another Korean Zen teacher, Samu Sunim, founded Toronto's Zen Buddhist Temple in 1971. He is head of the Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom, which has temples in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Mexico City, and New York City.

Hye Am[35] (18841985) brought lineage Dharma to the United States. Hye Am's Dharma successor, Myo Vong[36] founded the Western Son Academy (1976), and his Korean disciple, Pohwa Sunim, founded World Zen Fellowship (1994) which includes various Zen centers in the United States, such as the Potomac Zen Sangha, the Patriarchal Zen Society and the Baltimore Zen Center.[37]

Recently, many Korean Buddhist monks have come to the United States to spread the Dharma. They are establishing temples and zen (Korean, 'Seon') centers all around the United States. For example, Hyeonho established the Goryosah Temple in Los Angeles in 1979, and Muil Woohak founded the Budzen Center in New York.

Vietnamese Zen (Thin) teachers in America include Thich Thien-An and Thich Nhat Hanh. Thich Thien-An came to America in 1966 as a visiting professor at UCLA and taught traditional Thien meditation.

Thich Nhat Hanh was a monk in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. In 1966, he left Vietnam in exile and founded the Plum Village Monastery in France. In his books and talks, Thich Nhat Hanh emphasizes mindfulness (sati) as the most important practice in daily life. His monastic students live and practice at three centers in the United States: Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California,[38] Blue Cliff Monastery in Pine Bush, New York,[39] and Magnolia Grove Monastery in Batesville, Mississippi.[40]

Perhaps the most widely visible Buddhist leader in the world is Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama, who first visited the United States in 1979. As the exiled political leader of Tibet, he has become a popular cause clbre, attracting celebrity religious followers such as Richard Gere and Adam Yauch. His early life was depicted in Hollywood films such as Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet. An early Western-born Tibetan Buddhist monk was Robert A. F. Thurman, now an academic supporter of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama maintains a North American headquarters in Ithaca, New York.

The Dalai Lama's family has strong ties to America. His brother Thubten Norbu fled China after being asked to assassinate his brother. He was himself a Lama, the Takster Rinpoche, and an abbot of the Kumbum Monastery in Tibet's Amdo region. He settled in Bloomington, Indiana, where he later founded the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center and Kumbum Chamtse Ling Temple. Since the death of the Takster Rinpoche it has served as a Kumbum of the West, with the current Arija Rinpochere serving as its leader.

Dilowa Gegen (Diluu Khudagt) was the first lama to immigrate to the United States in 1949 as a political refugee and joined Owen Lattimore's Mongolia Project. He was born in Tudevtei, Zavkhan, Mongolia and was one of the leading figures in declaration of independence of Mongolia. He was exiled from Mongolia, the reason remains unrevealed until today. After arriving in the US, he joined Johns Hopkins University and founded a monastery in New Jersey.

The first Tibetan Buddhist lama to have American students was Geshe Ngawang Wangyal, a Kalmyk-Mongolian of the Gelug lineage, who came to the United States in 1955 and founded the "Lamaist Buddhist Monastery of America" in New Jersey in 1958. Among his students were the future western scholars Robert Thurman, Jeffrey Hopkins, Alexander Berzin and Anne C. Klein. Other early arrivals included Dezhung Rinpoche, a Sakya lama who settled in Seattle, in 1960, and Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, the first Nyingma teacher in America, who arrived in the US in 1968 and established the "Tibetan Nyingma Meditation Center" in Berkeley, California in 1969.

The best-known Tibetan Buddhist lama to live in the United States was Chgyam Trungpa. Trungpa, part of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, moved to England in 1963, founded a temple in Scotland, and then relocated to Barnet, Vermont, and then Boulder, Colorado by 1970. He established what he named Dharmadhatu meditation centers, eventually organized under a national umbrella group called Vajradhatu (later to become Shambhala International). He developed a series of secular techniques he called Shambhala Training. Following Trungpa's death, his followers at the Shambhala Mountain Center built the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, a traditional reliquary monument, near Red Feather Lakes, Colorado consecrated in 2001.[41]

There are four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism: the Gelug, the Kagyu, the Nyingma, and the Sakya. Of these, the greatest impact in the West was made by the Gelug, led by the Dalai Lama, and the Kagyu, specifically its Karma Kagyu branch, led by the Karmapa. As of the early 1990s, there were several significant strands of Kagyu practice in the United States: Chgyam Trungpa's Shambhala movement; Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, a network of centers affiliated directly with the Karmapa's North American seat in Woodstock, New York; a network of centers founded by Kalu Rinpoche. The Drikung Kagyu lineage also has an established presence in the United States. Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen arrived in the US in 1982 and planted the seeds for many Drikung centers across the country. He also paved the way for the arrival of Garchen Rinpoche, who established the Garchen Buddhist Institute in Chino Valley, Arizona. Diamond Way Buddhism founded by Ole Nydahl and representing Karmapa is also active in the US.

In the 21st century, the Nyingma lineage is increasingly represented in the West by both Western and Tibetan teachers. Lama Surya Das is a Western-born teacher carrying on the "great rim", a non-sectarian form of Tibetan Buddhism. The late Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche founded centers in Seattle and Brazil. Gochen Tulku Sangak (sometimes spelled "Sang-Ngag") Rinpoche[42] is the founder and spiritual director of the first Ewam International Center located in the US. He is also the spiritual director of the Namchak Foundation in Montana and a primary lineage holder of the Namchak lineage.[43] Khandro Rinpoche is a female Tibetan teacher who has a presence in America. Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo is the first Western woman to be enthroned as a Tulku, and established Nyingma Kunzang Palyul Choling centers in Sedona, Arizona and Poolesville, Maryland.

The Gelug tradition is represented in America by the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), founded by Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa. Gelugpa teacher Geshe Michael Roach, the first American to be awarded a Geshe degree, established centers in New York and at Diamond Mountain University in Arizona.

Sravasti Abbey is the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery for Western monks and nuns in the U.S., established in Washington State by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodronin 2003. It is situated on 300 acres of forest and meadows, 11 miles (18km) outside of Newport, Washington, near the Idaho state line. It is open to visitors who want to learn about community life in a Tibetan Buddhist monastic setting.[44] The name Sravasti Abbey was chosen by the Dalai Lama. Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron had suggested the name, as Sravasti was the place in India where the Buddha spent 25 rains retreats (varsa in Sanskrit and yarne in Tibetan), and communities of both nuns and monks had resided there. This seemed auspicious to ensure the Buddhas teachings would be abundantly available to both male and female monastics at the monastery.[45]

Sravasti Abbey is notable because it is home to a growing group of fully ordained bhikshunis (Buddhist nuns) practicing in the Tibetan tradition. This is special because the tradition of full ordination for women was not transmitted from India to Tibet. Ordained women practicing in the Tibetan tradition usually hold a novice ordination. Venerable Thubten Chodron, while faithfully following the teachings of her Tibetan teachers, has arranged for her students to seek full ordination as bhikshunis in Taiwan.[46]

In January 2014, the Abbey, which then had seven bhikshunis and three novices, formally began its first winter varsa (three-month monastic retreat), which lasted until April 13, 2014. As far as the Abbey knows, this was the first time a Western bhikshuni sangha practicing in the Tibetan tradition had done this ritual in the United States and in English. On April 19, 2014 the Abbey held its first kathina ceremony to mark the end of the varsa. Also in 2014 the Abbey held its first Pavarana rite at the end of the varsa.[46] In October 2015 the Annual Western Buddhist Monastic Gathering was held at the Abbey for the first time; it was the 21st such gathering.[47]

In 2010 the first Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in North America was established in Vermont,[48] called Vajra Dakini Nunnery, offering novice ordination.[48] The abbot of this nunnery is an American woman named Khenmo Drolma who is the first "bhikkhunni," a fully ordained Buddhist nun, in the Drikung Kagyu tradition of Buddhism, having been ordained in Taiwan in 2002.[48] She is also the first westerner, male or female, to be installed as a Buddhist abbot, having been installed as abbot of Vajra Dakini Nunnery in 2004.[49]

Theravada is best known for Vipassana, roughly translated as "insight meditation", which is an ancient meditative practice described in the Pali Canon of the Theravada school of Buddhism and similar scriptures. Vipassana also refers to a distinct movement which was begun in the 20th century by reformers such as Mahsi Saydaw, a Burmese monk. Mahsi Saydaw was a Theravada bhikkhu and Vipassana is rooted in the Theravada teachings, but its goal is to simplify ritual and other peripheral activities in order to make meditative practice more effective and available both to monks and to laypeople.

In 1965, monks from Sri Lanka established the Washington Buddhist Vihara in Washington, DC, the first Theravada monastic community in the United States. The Vihara was accessible to English-speakers with Vipassana meditation part of its activities. However, the direct influence of the Vipassana movement would not reach the U.S. until a group of Americans returned there in the early 1970s after studying with Vipassana masters in Asia.

Joseph Goldstein, after journeying to Southeast Asia with the Peace Corps, lived in Bodhgaya as a student of Anagarika Munindra, the head monk of Mahabodhi Temple and himself a student of Mhsai Saydaw. Jack Kornfield also worked for the Peace Corps in Southeast Asia, and then studied and ordained in the Thai Forest Tradition under Ajahn Chah, a major figure in 20th-century Thai Buddhism. Sharon Salzberg went to India in 1971 and studied with Dipa Ma, a former Calcutta housewife trained in vipassana by Mhsai Saydaw.[53] The Thai Forest Tradition also has a number of branch monasteries in the United States, including Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery (Ajahn Pasanno, Abbot), Metta Forest Monastery (with Thanissaro Bhikkhu as Abbot) and Jetavana Temple Forest Monastery.

Goldstein and Kornfield met in 1974 while teaching at the Naropa Institute in Colorado. The next year, Goldstein, Kornfield, and Salzberg, who had very recently returned from Calcutta, along with Jacqueline Schwarz, founded the Insight Meditation Society on an 80-acre (324,000 m) property near Barre, Massachusetts. IMS hosted visits by Mhsi Saydaw, Munindra, Ajahn Chah, and Dipa Ma. In 1981, Kornfield moved to California, where he founded another Vipassana center, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, in Marin County. In 1985, Larry Rosenberg founded the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Another Vipassana center is the Vipassana Metta Foundation, located on Maui.

In 1989, the Insight Meditation Center established the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies near the IMS headquarters, to promote scholarly investigation of Buddhism. Its director is Mu Soeng, a former Korean Zen monk.[54]

In 1997 Dhamma Cetiya Vihara in Boston[55] was founded by Ven. Gotami of Thailand, then a 10 precept nun. Ven. Gotami received full ordination in 2000, at which time her dwelling became America's first Theravada Buddhist bhikkhuni vihara. "Vihara" translates as monastery or nunnery, and may be both dwelling and community center where one or more bhikkhus or bhikkhunis offer teachings on Buddhist scriptures, conduct traditional ceremonies, teach meditation, offer counseling and other community services, receive alms, and reside. More recently established Theravada bhikkhuni viharas include: Mahapajapati Monastery[56] where several nuns (bhikkhunis and novices) live together in the desert of southern California near Joshua Tree, founded by Ven. Gunasari Bhikkhuni of Burma in 2008; Aranya Bodhi Hermitage[57] founded by Ven. Tathaaloka Bhikkhuni in the forest near Jenner, CA, with Ven. Sobhana Bhikkhuni as Prioress, which opened officially in July 2010, where several bhikkhunis reside together along with trainees and lay supporters; and Sati Saraniya[58] in Ontario, founded by Ven. Medhanandi in appx 2009, where two bhikkhunis reside. (There are also quiet residences of individual bhikkhunis where they may receive visitors and give teachings, such as the residence of Ven. Amma Thanasanti Bhikkhuni[59] in 2009-2010 in Colorado Springs; and the Los Angeles residence of Ven. Susila Bhikkhuni; and the residence of Ven. Wimala Bhikkhuni in the mid-west.)

In 2010, in Northern California, 4 novice nuns were given the full bhikkhuni ordination in the Thai Theravada tradition, which included the double ordination ceremony. Bhante Gunaratana and other monks and nuns were in attendance. It was the first such ordination ever in the Western hemisphere.[60]

Bhante Gunaratana is currently the abbot of the Bhavana Society, a monastery and meditation retreat center that he founded in High View, West Virginia.[61][62]

S. N. Goenka was a Burmese-born meditation teacher of the Vipassana movement. His teacher, Sayagyi U Ba Khin of Burma, was a contemporary of Mhsi Saydaw's, and taught a style of Buddhism with similar emphasis on simplicity and accessibility to laypeople. Goenka established a method of instruction popular in Asia and throughout the world. In 1981, he established the Vipassana Research Institute in Igatpuri, India and his students built several centers in North America.[63]

The Association of American Buddhists was a group which promotes Buddhism through publications, ordination of monks, and classes.[64]

Organized in 1960 by American practitioners of Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhism, it does not espouse any particular school or schools of Buddhism. It respects all Buddhist traditions as equal, and encourages unity of Buddhism in thought and practice. It states that a different, American, form of Buddhism is possible, and that the cultural forms attached to the older schools of Buddhism need not necessarily be followed by westerners.

Rita M. Gross, a feminist religious scholar, claims that many people converted to Buddhism in the 1960s and '70s as an attempt to combat traditional American values. However, in their conversion, they have created a new form of Buddhism distinctly Western in thought and practice.[5] Democratization and the rise of women in leadership positions have been among the most influential characteristics of American Buddhism. However, another one of these characteristics is rationalism, which has allowed Buddhists to come to terms with the scientific and technological advances of the 21st century. Engagement in social issues, such as global warming, domestic violence, poverty and discrimination, has also shaped Buddhism in America. Privatization of ritual practices into home life has embodied Buddhism in America. The idea of living in the present life rather than focusing on the future or the past is also another characteristic of American Buddhism .[65]

American Buddhism was able to embed these new religious ideals into such a historically rich religious tradition and culture due to the high conversion rate in the late 20th century. Three important factors led to this conversion in America: the importance of religion, societal openness, and spirituality. American culture places a large emphasis on having a personal religious identity as a spiritual and ethical foundation. During the 1960s and onward, society also became more open to other religious practices outside of Protestantism, allowing more people to explore Buddhism. People also became more interested in spiritual and experiential religion rather than the traditional institutional religions of the time.[65]

The mass conversion of the 60s and 70s was also occurring alongside the second-wave feminist movement. While many of the women who became Buddhists at this time were drawn to its gender neutral teachings, in reality Buddhism is a traditionally patriarchal religion.[66] These two conflicting ideas caused uneasiness with American Buddhist women.[66] This uneasiness was further justified after 1983, when some male Buddhist teachers were exposed as sexual adventurers and abusers of power.[67] This spurred action among women in the American Buddhist community. After much dialogue within the community, including a series of conferences entitled The Feminine in Buddhism, Sandy Boucher, a feminist-Buddhist teacher, interviewed over one hundred Buddhist women.[66] She determined from their experiences and her own that American Buddhism has the possibility for the creation of a religion fully inclusive of womens realities, in which women hold both institutional and spiritual leadership.[67]

In recent years, there is a strong presence of women in American Buddhism, and many women are even in leadership roles.[68] This also may be due to the fact that American Buddhism tends to stress democratization over the traditional hierarchical structure of Buddhism in Asia.[6] One study of Theravada Buddhist centers in the U.S., however, found that although men and women thought that Buddhist teachings were gender-blind, there were still distinct gender roles in the organization, including more male guest teachers and more women volunteering as cooks and cleaners.[68]

In 2006, for the first time in American history, a Buddhist ordination was held where an American woman (Sister Khanti-Khema) took the Samaneri (novice) vows with an American monk (Bhante Vimalaramsi) presiding. This was done for the Buddhist American Forest Tradition at the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center in Missouri.[69]

Socially engaged Buddhism has developed in Buddhism in the West. While some critics[who?] assert the term is redundant, as it is mistaken to believe that Buddhism in the past has not affected and been affected by the surrounding society, others have suggested that Buddhism is sometimes seen as too passive toward public life. This is particularly true in the West, where almost all converts to Buddhism come to it outside of an existing family or community tradition. Engaged Buddhism is an attempt to apply Buddhist values to larger social problems, including war and environmental concerns. The term was coined by Thich Nhat Hanh, during his years as a peace activist in Vietnam. The Buddhist Peace Fellowship was founded in 1978 by Robert Aitken, Anne Aitken, Nelson Foster, and others and received early assistance from Gary Snyder, Jack Kornfield, and Joanna Macy.[70] Another engaged Buddhist group is the Zen Peacemaker Order, founded in 1996 by Bernie Glassman and Sandra Jishu Holmes.[71]In 2007, the American Buddhist scholar-monk, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, was invited to write an editorial essay for the Buddhist magazine Buddhadharma. In his essay, he called attention to the narrowly inward focus of American Buddhism, which has been pursued to the neglect of the active dimension of Buddhist compassion expressed through programs of social engagement. Several of Ven. Bodhis students who read the essay felt a desire to follow up on his suggestions. After a few rounds of discussions, they resolved to form a Buddhist relief organization dedicated to alleviating the suffering of the poor and disadvantaged in the developing world. At the initial meetings, seeking a point of focus, they decided to direct their relief efforts at the problem of global hunger, especially by supporting local efforts by those in developing countries to achieve self-sufficiency through improved food productivity. Contacts were made with leaders and members of other Buddhist communities in the greater New York area, and before long Buddhist Global Relief emerged as an inter-denominational organization comprising people of different Buddhist groups who share the vision of a Buddhism actively committed to the task of alleviating social and economic suffering.[72]

A number of groups and individuals have been implicated in scandals.[73] Sandra Bell has analysed the scandals at Vajradhatu and the San Francisco Zen Center and concluded that these kinds of scandals are most likely to occur in organisations that are in transition between the pure forms of charismatic authority that brought them into being and more rational, corporate forms of organization".[74]

Ford states that no one can express the "hurt and dismay" these events brought to each center, and that the centers have in many cases emerged stronger because they no longer depend on a "single charismatic leader".[75]

Robert Sharf also mentions charisma from which institutional power is derived, and the need to balance charismatic authority with institutional authority.[76] Elaborate analyses of these scandals are made by Stuart Lachs, who mentions the uncritical acceptance of religious narratives, such as lineages and dharma transmission, which aid in giving uncritical charismatic powers to teachers and leaders.[77][78][79][80][81]

Following is a partial list from reliable sources, limited to the United States and by no means all-inclusive.

Definitions and policies may differ greatly between different schools or sects: for example, "many, perhaps most" Soto priests "see no distinction between ordination and Dharma transmission". Disagreement and misunderstanding exist on this point, among lay practitioners and Zen teachers alike.[92]

James Ford writes,

[S]urprising numbers of people use the titles Zen teacher, master, roshi and sensei without any obvious connections to Zen [...] Often they obfuscate their Zen connections, raising the very real question whether they have any authentic relationship to the Zen world at all. In my studies I've run across literally dozens of such cases.[93]

James Ford claims that about eighty percent of authentic teachers in the United States belong to the American Zen Teachers Association or the Soto Zen Buddhist Association and are listed on their websites. This can help a prospective student sort out who is a "normative stream" teacher from someone who is perhaps not, but of course twenty percent do not participate.[93]

Accurate counts of Buddhists in the United States are difficult. Self-description has pitfalls. Because Buddhism is a cultural concept, individuals who self-describe as Buddhists may have little knowledge or commitment to Buddhism as a religion or practice; on the other hand, others may be deeply involved in meditation and committed to the Dharma, but may refuse the label "Buddhist". In the 1990s, Robert A. F. Thurman estimated there were 5 to 6 million Buddhists in America.

In a 2007 Pew Research Center survey, at 0.7% Buddhism was the third largest religion in the US after Christianity (78.4%), no religion (10.3%) and Judaism (1.7%).[94] In 2012 on the occasion of a visit from the Dalai Lama, U-T San Diego said there are 1.2 million Buddhist practitioners in the U.S., and of them 40% live in Southern California.[95]

In 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Religious Landscape survey and the American Religious Identification Survey estimated Buddhists at 0.7 percent and 0.5 percent of the American population, respectively. ARIS estimated that the number of adherents rose by 170 percent between 1990 and 2000, reaching 1.2 million followers in 2008.[96] According to William Wilson Quinn "by all indications that remarkable rate of growth continues unabated."[97] But according to Robert Thurman,

Scholars are unsure whether the reports are accurate, as Americans who might dabble in various forms of Buddhism may not identify themselves as Buddhist on a survey. That makes it difficult to quantify the number of Buddhists in the United States.[96]

Others argued, in 2012, that Buddhists made up 1 percent of the American population (about three million people).[65]

A sociological survey conducted in 1999 found that relative to the US population as a whole, import Buddhists (i.e., those who are not Buddhist by birth) are proportionately more likely to be white, upper middle class, highly educated, and left-leaning in their political views. In terms of race, only 10% of survey respondents indicated they were a race other than white, a matter that has been cause of some concern among Buddhist leaders. Nearly a third of the respondents were college graduates, and more than half held advanced degrees. Politically, 60% identified themselves as Democrats, and Green Party affiliations outnumbered Republicans by 3 to 1. Import Buddhists were also proportionately more likely to have come from Catholic, and especially Jewish backgrounds. More than half of these adherents came to Buddhism through reading books on the topic, with the rest coming by way of martial arts and friends or acquaintances. The average age of the respondents was 46. Daily meditation was their most commonly cited Buddhist practice, with most meditating 30 minutes a day or more.[98]

In 2015 a Pew Foundation survey found 67% of American Buddhists were raised in a religion other than Buddhism.[99] 61% said their spouse has a religion other than Buddhism.[99] The survey was conducted only in English and Spanish, and may under-estimate Buddhist immigrants who speak Asian languages. A 2012 Pew study found Buddhism is practiced by 15% of surveyed Chinese Americans, 6% of Koreans, 25% of Japanese, 43% of Vietnamese and 1% of Filipinos.[100]

Only about a third (32%) of Buddhists in the United States are Asian; a majority (53%) are white. Buddhism in the America is primarily made up of native-born adherents, whites and converts.[101]

Discussion about Buddhism in America has sometimes focused on the issue of the visible ethnic divide separating ethnic Buddhist congregations from import Buddhist groups.[102] Although many Zen and Tibetan Buddhist temples were founded by Asians, they now attract fewer Asian-Americans. With the exception of Ska Gakkai,[11] almost all active Buddhist groups in America are either ethnic or import Buddhism based on the demographics of their membership. There is often limited contact between Buddhists of different ethnic groups.

However, the cultural divide should not necessarily be seen as pernicious. It is often argued that the differences between Buddhist groups arise benignly from the differing needs and interests of those involved. Convert Buddhists tend to be interested in meditation and philosophy, in some cases eschewing the trappings of religiosity altogether. On the other hand, for immigrants and their descendants, preserving tradition and maintaining a social framework assume a much greater relative importance, making their approach to religion naturally more conservative. Further, based on a survey of Asian-American Buddhists in San Francisco, "many Asian-American Buddhists view non-Asian Buddhism as still in a formative, experimental stage" and yet they believe that it "could eventually mature into a religious expression of exceptional quality".[1]

Additional questions come from the demographics within import Buddhism. The majority of American converts practicing at Buddhist centers are white, often from Christian or Jewish backgrounds. Only Ska Gakkai has attracted significant numbers of African-American or Latino members. A variety of ideas have been broached regarding the nature, causes, and significance of this racial uniformity. Journalist Clark Strand noted

Strand, writing for Tricycle (an American Buddhist journal) in 2004, notes that SGI has specifically targeted African-Americans, Latinos and Asians, and other writers have noted that this approach has begun to spread, with Vipassana and Theravada retreats aimed at non-white practitioners led by a handful of specific teachers.[104]

A question is the degree of importance ascribed to discrimination, which is suggested to be mostly unconscious, on the part of white converts toward potential minority converts.[105] To some extent, the racial divide indicates a class divide, because convert Buddhists tend to be more educated.[106] Among African American Buddhists who commented on the dynamics of the racial divide in convert Buddhism are Jan Willis and Charles R. Johnson.[107]

A Pew study shows that Americans tend to be less biased towards Buddhists when compared to other religions, such as Christianity, to which 18% of people were biased, when only 14% were biased towards Buddhists. American Buddhists are often not raised as Buddhists, with 32% of American Buddhists being raised Protestant, and 22% being raised Catholic, which means that over half of the American Buddhists were converted at some point in time. Also, Buddhism has had to adapt to America in order to garner more followers so that the concept would not seem so foreign, so they adopted "Catholic" words such as "worship" and "churches."[108]

Chgyam Trungpa founded Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, a four-year Buddhist college in the US (now Naropa University) in 1974.[109] Allen Ginsberg was an initial faculty member, christening the Institute's poetry department the "Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics". Now Naropa University, the school offers accredited degrees in a number of subjects, many not directly related to Buddhism.

The University of the West is affiliated with Hsi Lai Temple and was previously Hsi Lai University. Soka University of America, in Aliso Viejo California, was founded by the Ska Gakkai as a secular school committed to philosophic Buddhism. The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas is the site of Dharma Realm Buddhist University, a four-year college teaching courses primarily related to Buddhism but including some general-interest subjects. The Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California, in addition to offering a master's degree in Buddhist Studies acts as the ministerial training arm of the Buddhist Churches of America and is affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union. The school moved into the Jodo Shinshu Center in Berkeley.

The first Buddhist high school in the United States, Developing Virtue Secondary School, was founded in 1981 by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association at their branch monastery in the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah, California. In 1997, the Purple Lotus Buddhist School offered elementary-level classes in Union City, California, affiliated with the True Buddha School; it added a middle school in 1999 and a high school in 2001.[110] Another Buddhist high school, Tinicum Art and Science now The Lotus School of Liberal Arts |url=http://Lotusla.org, which combines Zen practice and traditional liberal arts, opened in Ottsville, Pennsylvania in 1998. It is associated informally with the World Shim Gum Do Association in Boston. The Pacific Buddhist Academy opened in Honolulu, Hawaii in 2003. It shares a campus with the Hongwanji Mission School, an elementary and middle school; both schools affiliated with the Honpa Hongwanji Jodo Shinshu mission.[111]

Juniper Foundation, founded in 2003, holds that Buddhist methods must become integrated into modern culture just as they were in other cultures.[112] Juniper Foundation calls its approach "Buddhist training for modern life"[113] and it emphasizes meditation, balancing emotions, cultivating compassion and developing insight as four building blocks of Buddhist training.[114]

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Buddhism in the United States - Wikipedia

St Zen or the St school (, St-sh) is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (the others being Rinzai and baku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Codng school, which was founded during the Tang dynasty by Dngshn Linji. It emphasizes Shikantaza, meditation with no objects, anchors, or content. The meditator strives to be aware of the stream of thoughts, allowing them to arise and pass away without interference.

The Japanese brand of the sect was imported in the 13th century by Dgen Zenji, who studied Codng Buddhism (Chinese: ; pinyin: Codng Zng) abroad in China. Dgen is remembered today as the co-patriarch of St Zen in Japan along with Keizan Jkin.

With about 14,000 temples, St is one of the largest Japanese Buddhist organizations.[a] St Zen is now also popular in the West, and in 1996 priests of the St Zen tradition formed the Soto Zen Buddhist Association based in North America.

The original Chinese version of St-sh, i.e. the Caodong-school () was established by the Tang dynasty monk Dongshan Liangjie ( Ja: Tzan Rykai) in the 9th century.

One prevalent view is that the sect's name was originally formed by taking one character each from the names of Dongshan and his disciple Caoshan Benji (, Tzan Rykai), and was originally called Dongcao sect (with the characters in transposed order). However, to paraphrase the Dongshan Yulu (, "Record of the Dialogues of Dongshan"), the sect's name denotes 'colleagues () of the teachings above the caves ()' who together follow the "black wind (teachings of Taoism?)"[citation needed] and admire the masters of various sects.[b]

Perhaps more significantly for the Japanese brand of this sect, Dgen among others advocated the reinterpretation that the "Cao" represents not Caoshan, but rather "Huineng of Caoxi temple" (Skei En); zh:). The branch that was founded by Caoshan died off, and Dgen was a student of the other branch that survived in China.

A precursor to the sect is Shtu Xqin (Ch. , ca.700 ca.790), the attributed author of the poem Sandokai, which formed the basis of Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi of Dongshan Liangjie (Jp. Tzan Rykai) and the teaching of the Five Ranks.

The Caodong-teachings were brought to Japan in 1227, when Dgen returned to Japan after studying Ch'an in China and settled at Kennin-ji in Kyoto. Dgen had received Dharma transmission from Tiantong Rujing at Qngd Temple, where Hongzhi Zhengjue once was abbot. Hongzhi's writings on "silent illumination" had greatly influenced Dgen's own conception of shikantaza.[8]

Dgen did return from China with various kan anthologies and other texts, contributing to the transmission of the koan tradition to Japan.[9] In the first works he wrote he emphasised the practice of zazen, which brought him into trouble at Kennin-ji:

This assertion of the primacy of Zen aroused the anger of the Enryaku-ji monks, who succeeded in driving Dgen from the Kennin-ji where he had settled after his return to the capital.

In 1243 Dgen founded Eihei-ji, one of the two head temples of St-sh today, choosing...

... to create new monastic institutions based on the Chinese model and risk incurring the open hostility and opposition of the established schools.

Daily routine was copied from Chinese practices, which went back to the Indian tradition:

The elements of St practice that contributed most to the success of the school in medieval Japan were precisely the generic Buddhist monastic practices inherited from Sung China, and ultimately from India. The St Zen style of group meditation on long platforms in a sangha hall, where the monks also took meals and slept at night, was the same as that prescribed in Indian Vinaya texts. The etiquette followed in St monasteries can also be traced back to the Indian Vinaya.

Dgen was succeeded around 1236 by his disciple Koun Ej (11981280), who originally was a member of the Daruma school of Nnin, but joined Dgen in 1229.Ej started his Buddhist studies at Mount Hiei, the center of Tendai studies. following his stay there he studied Pure Land Buddhism under Shk, whereafter he joined the Daruma school of Nnin by then led by Kakuan.

Ej, like Dgen, believed in the primacy of Zen Buddhism. He resisted efforts from outside to water down the tradition with other beliefs.

A large group from the Daruma-school under the leadership of Ekan joined the Dogen-school in 1241, after severe conflicts with the Tendai and Rinzai schools. Among this group were Gikai, Gien and Giin, who were to become influential members of Dgen's school.

After the death of Ej, a controversy called the sandai sron occurred. In 1267 Ej retired as Abbot of Eihei-ji, giving way to Gikai, who was already favored by Dogen. Gikai too originally was a member of the Daruma school, but joined Dgen's school in 1241, together with a group from the Nnin school led by Ekan. Gikai introduced esoteric elements into the practice:

[W]ith the premature death of Dgen the group lost its focus and internal conflicts led to a split. Dgen's followers soon introduced such esoteric elements as prayers and incantations into the teaching.

Opposition arose, and in 1272 Ej resumed the position of abbot. After his death in 1280, Gikai became abbot again, strengthened by the support of the military for magical practices. Opposition arose again, and Gikai was forced to leave Eihei-ji, and exiled to Kaga Province, Daj-ji (in Ishikawa Prefecture). He was succeeded by Gien, who was first trained in the Daruma-school of Nnin. His supporters designated him as the third abbot, rejecting the legitimacy of Gikai.

The second most important figure in St, Keizan, belonged to this dissident branch. Keizan received ordination from Ej when he was, twelve years old, shortly before Ej's death When he was seventeen he went on a pilgrimage for three years throughout Japan. During this period, he studied Rinzai, Shingon and Tendai. After returning to Daij-ji, Keizan received dharma transmission from Gikai in 1294, and established Joman-ji. In 1303 Gikai appointed Keizan as abbot of Daij-ji, a position he maintained until 1311.

Keizan enlarged the Shingon-temple Yk-ji in Ishikawa prefecture, turning it into a Zen monastery in 1312. Thereafter he inherited the Shingon temple Shogaku-ji in 1322, renaming it Sji-ji, which was recognized as an official monastery. In 1324 he put Gasan Jseki in charge of Sojo-ji, and returned to Yk-ji. Yko-ji was Keizan's main temple, but Sji-ji thrived better, thanks to Gasan Jseki

Though today Dgen is referred as the founder of St, for a long period St history recognized several important ancestors, next to Dgen. In 1877 the heads of the St community acknowledged Keizan for a brief period as the overall founder of the St sect.

Dogen is known as the "koso", where Keizan is known as the "taiso";

Both terms mean the original patriarch, that is, the founder of Japanese St Zen tradition.

At the end of the Kamakura period, Dgen's school centered around four centers, namely Eihei-ji, Daijo-ji monastery, and the temples Yoko-ji and Soji-ji. Soji-ji became the most influential center of the Dgen school.

During the Muromachi period the Rinzai school was the most successful of the schools, since it was favoured by the shgun. But Soto too spread out over Japan.

Gasan Jseki (12751365) and Meiho Sotetsu were Keizan's most prominent students.

Gasan too started his Buddhist studies at mount Hiei. He became head of Soji-ji in 1324. Gasan adopted the Five Ranks of Tung-shan as a fit vehicle to explain the Mahayana teachings.

Sotetsu became head of Yoko-ji in 1325. Initially his influence soon grew. In 1337 Sotetsu was appointed as abbot of Daijo-ji.

After a period of war Japan was re-united in the AzuchiMomoyama period. Neo-Confucianism gained influence at the expense of Buddhism, which came under strict state control. The power of Buddhism decreased during the Tokugawa period. Buddhism had become a strong political and military force in Japan and was seen as a threat by the ruling clan. Measures were taken to control the Buddhist organisations, and to limit their power and influence. The temple hierarchy system was centralized and unified.

Japan closed the gates to the rest of the world. New doctrines and methods were not to be introduced, nor were new temples and schools. The only exception was the baku lineage, which was introduced in the 17th century during the Edo period by Ingen, a Chinese monk. The presence of these Chinese monks also influenced the existing Zen-schools, spreading new ideas about monastic discipline and the rules for dharma transmission.

The St school started to place a growing emphasis on textual authority. In 1615 the bakufu declared that "Eheiji's standards (kakun) must be the rule for all St monks". In time this came to mean all the writings of Dgen, which thereby became the normative source for the doctrines and organisation of the St school.

A key factor in this growing emphasis on Dogen was Manzan's appeal to change the rules for dharma transmission, based on arguments derived from the Shbgenz. From its beginnings, St-sh has laid a strong emphasis on the right lineage and dharma transmission. In time, dharma transmission became synonymous with the transmission of temple ownership. When an abbot changed position, becoming abbot of another temple, he also had to discard his lineage and adopt the lineage of his new temple. This was changed by Manzan Dokahu (16361714), a St reformer, who...

[P]ropagated the view that Dharma transmission was dependent on personal initiation between a Master and disciple rather than on the disciple's enlightenment. He maintained this view in the face of strong opposition, citing as authority the towering figure of Japanese Zen, Dgen... This became and continues to this day to be the official St Zen view.

Dgen scholarship came to a central position in the St sect with the writings of Menzan Zuih (16831769), who wrote over a hundred works, including many commentaries on Dgen's major texts and analysis of his doctrines. Menzan promoted reforms of monastic regulations and practice, based on his reading of Dgen.

Another reformation was implemented by Gent Sokuch (17291807), the 11th abbot of Eihei-ji, who tried to purify the St school, de-emphasizing the use of kans. In the Middle Ages kan study was widely practiced in the St school. Gent Sokuch started the elevation of Dgen to the status he has nowadays, when he implemented new regulations, based on Dgen's regulations.

This growing status of Dgen as textual authority also posed a problem for the St school:

The St hierarchy, no doubt afraid of what other radical reformers might find in Dgen's Shobo Genzo, a work open to a variety of interpretations, immediately took steps to restrict access to this traditional symbol of sectarian authority. Acting at the request of the St prelates, in 1722 the government prohibited the copying or publication of any part of Shobo Genzo.

During the Meiji period (18681912) Japan abandoned its feudal system and opened up to Western modernism. Shinto became the state religion, and Buddhism was coerced to adapt to the new regime. Rinzai and St Zen chose to adapt, with embarrassing consequences when Japanese nationalism was endorsed by the Zen institutions. War endeavours against Russia, China and finally during the Pacific War were supported by the Zen establishment.

Within the Buddhist establishment the Western world was seen as a threat, but also as a challenge to stand up to. Parties within the Zen establishment sought to modernize Zen in accord with Western insights, while simultaneously maintaining a Japanese identity.

During this period a reappraisal of Dgen started. The memory of Dgen was used to ensure Eihei-ji's central place in the St organisation, and "to cement closer ties with lay people". In 1899 the first lay ordination ceremony was organized in Eihei-ji. Eihei-ji also promoted the study of Dgen's works, especially the Shbgenz, which changed the view of Dgen in St's history. An image of Dgen was created that suited the specific interests of Eihei-ji:

Dgen's memory has helped keep Eihei-ji financially secure, in good repair, and filled with monks and lay pilgrims who look to Dgen for religious inspiration... the Dgen we remember is a constructed image, an image constructed in large measure to serve the sectarian agendas of Eihei-ji in its rivalry with Sji-ji. We should remember that the Dgen of the Shbgenz, the Dgen who is held up as a profound religious philosopher, is a fairly recent innovation in the history of Dgen remembrances.

Funerals continue to play an important role as a point of contact between the monks and the laity. Statistics published by the St school state that 80 percent of St laymen visit their temple only for reasons having to do with funerals and death, while only 17 percent visit for spiritual reasons and a mere 3 percent visit a Zen priest at a time of personal trouble or crisis.

In a piece of advice to western practitioners, Kojun Kishigami Osho, a dharma heir of Kd Sawaki, writes:

Every year, about 150 novices arrive. About 90 percent of them are sons of temple heads, which leaves only 10 percent who chose this path for themselves. For the autumn session, about 250 monks come together. Essentially what they are learning in these temples is the ability to officiate all kinds of ceremonies and rites practiced by the St School the methods for fulfilling their role. Apart from this aspect, practicing with the idea of developing ones own spirituality is not prevalent.[web 1]

According to Kishigami, practice may as well be undertaken elsewhere:

If you want to study Buddhism, I recommend the Japanese universities. If you want to learn the ceremonies practiced by the St School, you need only head for Eihei-ji or Soji-ji.

But if your goal is to seriously learn the practice of zazen, unfortunately, I have no Japanese temple to recommend to you. Of course, you can go to Antai-ji, if you want; but if you want to deepen your practice of true Zen, you can do it in Europe. If you go to Japan for this, you will be disappointed. Don't expect to find anything wonderful there.[web 1]

In the 20th century St Zen spread out to the west.

Shunry Suzuki played a central role in bringing St to the west. Suzuki studied at Komazawa University, the St Zen university in Tokyo. In 1959 Suzuki arrived in California to attend to Soko-ji, at that time the sole St temple in San Francisco. His book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind has become a classic in western Zen culture. Suzuki's teaching of Shikantaza and Zen practice led to the formation of the San Francisco Zen Center, one of the largest and most successful Zen organizations in the West. The training monastery of the San Francisco Zen center, at Tassajara Hot Springs in central California, was the first Buddhist Monastery to be established outside Asia. Today SFZC includes Tassajara Monastery, Green Gulch Farm, and City Center. Various Zen Centers around the U.S. are part of the dharma lineage of San Francisco Zen Center and maintain close organizational ties with it.

Suzuki's assistant Dainin Katagiri was invited to come to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he moved in 1972 after Suzuki's death. Katagiri and his students built four St Zen centers within MinneapolisSaint Paul.[web 2][web 3][web 4]

The Sanbo Kyodan, in which St and Rinzai are merged, is also of central importance western St Zen. Their lineage, starting with Hakuun Yasutani, includes Taizan Maezumi, who gave dharma transmission to various American students, among them Tetsugen Bernard Glassman, Dennis Genpo Merzel disrobed in disgrace, Charlotte Joko Beck and John Daido Loori.

In Europe the Sanbo Kyodan has been influential via Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, and via students of Dennis Genpo Merzel, especially in the Netherlands.

Sanbo Kyodan was also connected to the Soen NakagawaEido Tai Shimano lineage, (disgraced), due to a personal fondness of Soen for the teaching practices of Harada roshi, who was the teacher of Hakuun Yasutani.

The Antaiji-based lineage of Kd Sawaki is also widespread. Sawaki's student and successor as abbot Ksh Uchiyama was the teacher of Shhaku Okumura who established the Sanshin Zen Community in Bloomington, Indiana, and his student Gud Wafu Nishijima was Brad Warner's teacher.

Houn Jiyu-Kennett (1924-1996) was the first western female Soto Zen priest. She converted to Buddhism in the early 1950s, and studied in Sojiji, Japan, from 1962 to 1963.[46] Formally, Keido Chisan Koho Zenji was her teacher, but practically, one of Koho Zenji's senior officers, Suigan Yogo roshi, was her main instructor. She became Osh, i.e. "priest" or "teacher," in 1963. In 1969 she returned to the west, founding Shasta Abbey in 1970.[46]

The larger majority of North American St priests[c] joined together in 1996 to form the Soto Zen Buddhist Association. While institutionally independent of the Japanese Stsh, the St Zen Buddhist Association works closely with what most members see as their parent organization. With about one hundred fully transmitted priests, the St Zen Buddhist Association now represents about 80% of Western St teachers.[48] The Soto Zen Buddhist Association approved a document honoring the women ancestors in the Zen tradition at its biannual meeting on October 8, 2010. Female ancestors, dating back 2,500 years from India, China, and Japan, may now be included in the curriculum, ritual, and training offered to Western Zen students.[49]

Daily services in St monasteries include chanting of sutras and dharanis.[web 5]

In the St school of Zen, Shikantaza, meditation with no objects, anchors, or content, is the primary form of practice. The meditator strives to be aware of the stream of thoughts, allowing them to arise and pass away without interference.

Considerable textual, philosophical, and phenomenological justification of this practice can be found throughout Dgen's works:

In the first works he wrote after his return to Japan, the Fukan zazengi (Principles for the universal promotion of zazen) and Bendwa (Distinguishing the Way), he advocated zazen (seated meditation) as the supreme Buddhist practice for both monks and laypersons.

Other important texts promoting zazen are the Shbgenz, and the "Principles of Zazen"[web 6] and the "Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen".[web 7]

St Zen was often given the derogatory name "farmer Zen" because of its mass appeal. Some teachers of Zen would say that the reason why it was called "farmer Zen" was because of its down-to-earth approach, while the Rinzai school was often called "samurai Zen" because of the larger samurai following.[50][51] The latter term for the Rinzai can be somewhat misleading, however, as the St school also had samurai among its rosters.[52]

St Zen, like all of Zen, relies on the Prajnaparamita Sutras, as well as general Mahayana Buddhist sutras, such as the Lotus Sutra, the Brahma Net Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra. Zen is influenced in large part by the Yogacara school of philosophy as well as the Huayan school.

Until the promotion of Dogen studies in modern times, the study of Chinese texts was prevalent in St:

After textual learning was revived during the early Tokugawa period, most Japanese St monks still studied only well-known Chinese Buddhist scriptures or classic Chinese Zen texts. Eventually a few scholarly monks like Menzan Zuih began to study Dgen's writings, but they were the exceptions. Even when scholarly monks read Dgen's writings, they usually did not lecture on them to their disciples.

Shih-t'ou Hsi-ch'ien's (Shitou Xiqien, Sekito Kisen, 700790) poem "The Harmony of Difference and Sameness" is an important early expression of Zen Buddhism and is chanted in St temples to this day.

One of the poems of Tung-shan Liang-chieh, the founder of St, "The Song of the Jewel Mirror Awareness" is also chanted in St temples. Another set of his poems on the Five Positions (Five Ranks) of Absolute and Relative is important as a set of kans in the Rinzai school.

Other texts typically chanted in St Zen temples include the Heart Sutra (Hannyashingy), and Dgen's Fukanzazengi (Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen).

Dgen's teaching is characterized by the identification of practice as enlightenment itself. This is to be found in the Shbgenz. The popularity of this huge body of texts is from a relatively recent date:

Today, when someone remembers Dgen or thinks of St Zen, most often that person automatically thinks of Dgen's Shbgenz. This kind of automatic association of Dgen with this work is very much a modern development. By the end of the fifteenth century most of Dgen's writings had been hidden from view in temple vaults where they became secret treasures... In earlier generations only one Zen teacher, Nishiari Bokusan (18211910), is known to have ever lectured on how the Shbgenz should be read and understood.

The study of Dgen, and especially his Shobogenzo, has become the norm in the 20th century:

Beginning in 1905 Eiheiji organized its first Shbgenz conference (Genz e)... Since 1905 it has become an annual event at Eiheiji, and over time it gradually changed the direction of St Zen monastic education... Stan's lectures provided a model that could be emulated by each of the other Zen monks who came to Eiheiji. This model has become the norm, not the exception. Today every St Zen teacher lectures on Dgen's Shbgenz.

St's head temples (honzan)

The St-sh organisation has an elaborate organisation.[d] It consists of about 15,000 temples. There are circa 30 training centers, where St monks can train to become an osh or priest and run their own temple.[web 8]

St-shu has a centralised organisation, run by a head:

St-sh is a democratic organization with a head (called Shmusch) that is elected by a parliament. The parliament in turn consist of 72 priests that are elected in 36 districts throughout Japan, 2 from each district. The Shmusch selects a cabinet that consists of him and seven other priests who together govern the organization. It is commonly believed that the Kanch, who is either the head of Eiheiji or Sjiji, the two head temples, is the boss of St-sh. This is not the case. The Kanch has only representational functions; the real power lies with the Shmusch and his cabinet.[web 8]

Contemporary St-sh has four classes of temples:

While Eihei-ji owes its existence to Dgen, throughout history this head temple has had significantly fewer sub-temple affiliates than the Sji-ji. During the Tokugawa period, Eiheiji had approximately 1,300 affiliate temples compared to Sji-ji's 16,200. Furthermore, out of the more than 14,000 temples of the St sect today, 13,850 of those identify themselves as affiliates of Sji-ji. Additionally, most of the some 148 temples that are affiliates of Eiheiji today are only minor temples located in Hokkaidofounded during a period of colonization during the Meiji period. Therefore, it is often said that Eiheiji is a head temple only in the sense that it is head of all St dharma lineages.

The St-sh is an "umbrella (hokatsu) organization for affiliated temples and organizations".[attribution needed] It has "three sets of governing documents":[attribution needed]

Persons

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General

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History and academic studies

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St - Wikipedia

Sivananda Ashram Beacon Yoga Centre has been serving the Western Australian community for more than 40 years.

Our Ashram has been the matrix of yoga in Western Australia since 1976 when it was founded by the great Indian sage and yogi Swami Venkatesananda.

Assisting the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of the many thousands of people who have attended its yoga classes, meditation workshops, live-in retreats and a multitude of other wellbeing activities over that time.

It is a beehive of spiritual activity. Every week it offers more than twenty classes in the practice and study of yoga and meditation as well as a variety of other courses and workshops.

Our ashram's meditation hall, vast library and residential buildings are accessible to members of the public who would like to gain an experience of what this amazing centre has to offer and to all who wish to avail themselves of its peace and serenity.

Set on half an acre, high atop a hill in Beaconsfield the ashram also offers residential accommodation for those who wish to live the yogic lifestyle whether short or long-term.

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Sivananda Ashram Fremantle Western Australia

Many of the tropes of science fiction can be viewed as similar to the goals of transhumanism. Science fiction literature contains many positive depictions of technologically enhanced human life, occasionally set in utopian (especially techno-utopian) societies. However, science fiction's depictions of technologically enhanced humans or other posthuman beings frequently come with a cautionary twist. The more pessimistic scenarios include many dystopian tales of human bioengineering gone wrong.

Examples of "transhumanist fiction" include novels by Linda Nagata, Greg Egan, Zoltan Istvan, and Hannu Rajaniemi. Transhuman novels are often philosophical in nature, exploring the impact such technologies might have on human life. Nagata's novels, for example, explore the relationship between the natural and artificial, and suggest that while transhuman modifications of nature may be beneficial, they may also be hazardous, so should not be lightly undertaken.[1] Egan's Diaspora explores the nature of ideas such as reproduction and questions if they make sense in a post-human context. Istvan's novel The Transhumanist Wager explores how far one person would go to achieve an indefinite lifespan via science and technology.[2] Rajaniemi's novel, while more action oriented, still explores themes such as death and finitude in post-human life.

Fictional depictions of transhumanist scenarios are also seen in other media, such as movies (Transcendence), television series (the Ancients of Stargate SG-1), manga and anime (Ghost in the Shell), role-playing games (Rifts and Eclipse Phase) and video games (Deus Ex or BioShock).

The science fiction film genre has always had a hand in exploring transhumanism and the ethics and implications surrounding it. In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, however, there has been a surge of films and television shows focusing on the superhero genre. There are many superheroes whose stories are propelled or entirely result from dealings with transhumanism. From The Incredibles, to Iron Man, to The Batman saga, there have been plenty of heroes who did not receive their powers naturally, and therefore represent the great leap human beings may take into improving their own condition. Additionally, because these films represent the most popular trend in the medium today, they indeed represent a glimpse into the ideological shift of western culture as a whole. The fixation on normal men and women improving themselves artificially seems to have become a very widely accepted and celebrated idea.[3]

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Transhumanism in fiction - Wikipedia

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The Nietzsche

Introduction Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc.Photos.com/Jupiterimages

The main goal of the wide-ranging intellectual movement called the Enlightenment was to understand the natural world and humankinds place in it solely on the basis of reason. The movement claimed the allegiance of a majority of thinkers in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, a period that Thomas Paine called the Age of Reason. German philosopher Immanuel Kant saw the essential characteristic of the Enlightenment as a freeing from superstition and ignorance. At its heart the movement became a conflict between established religion and the inquiring mind that wanted to know and understand through reason based on evidence and proof.

The Enlightenment was inspired by a common faith in the possibility of a better world. Enlightenment thinkers wanted to reform society. They celebrated reason not only as the power by which human beings understand the universe but also as the means by which they improve the human condition. The goals of rational humans were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness. The movement led to revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics.

The Enlightenment was especially prominent in France, where its leaders were known as the philosophes. One of the great works of the philosophes was the publication of a multivolume encyclopedia, the Encyclopdie. The Enlightenment occurred all across Europe, however, notably also in Scotland (where it was called the Scottish Enlightenment) and Germany (where it was known as the Aufklrung).

Like all historical movements, the Enlightenment had its roots in the past. Three of the chief sources for Enlightenment thought were the ideas of the ancient Greek philosophers, the Renaissance, and the scientific revolution of the late Middle Ages.

The ancient philosophers had noticed the regularity in the operation of the natural world and concluded that the reasoning mind could see and explain this regularity. Among these philosophers Aristotle was preeminent in discovering and explaining the natural world.

The birth of Christianity interrupted philosophical attempts to analyze and explain purely on the basis of reason. Christianity built a complicated worldview that relied on both faith and reason to explain reality.

The Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation ended the worldview that the church had presented for a thousand years. The Renaissance revived classical learning, while the Reformation broke up the Christian church in western Europe. Coupled with these events was the scientific revolution, a modern movement that soon lost patience with religious quibbling and the attempts of churches to hamper progress in thought. Among the leaders of this revolution were Francis Bacon, Ren Descartes, Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, andmost significant of allIsaac Newton. Among other achievements, Newton captured in a few mathematical equations the laws that govern the motions of the planets. This success of Newtons contributed to a growing faith in the capacity of human beings to attain knowledge.

The response of organized religion to the avalanche of new ideas and facts was far from friendly. A perfect example of this is that Galileo was called before the Roman Catholic Inquisition in Rome and forced to take back his statements that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the solar system. Churches in the 17th and 18th centuries sought to defend themselves against Enlightenment rationalism, and the great number of new denominations after the Protestant Reformation made a united front impossible.

While most early supporters of rationalism and new scientific methods did not deny either God or religion, they brought both under the microscope of reason. They rejected religious knowledge acquired through either revelation or the teaching of any church. Instead, they accepted a certain body of religious knowledge that they thought was inborn in every person or that could be acquired by the use of reason. Advocates of this natural, or rational, religious attitude expressed a belief in a benevolent and loving God who was the author of natures wonders, a God who had set the world in motion and formulated the laws by which it operated. They also believed in the obligation of people to lead virtuous and pious lives. This religious viewcalled Deismfound many followers during the Enlightenment, but it was never an organized religion like Christianity.

Eventually both Christianity and its deistic opponents were faced with a rejection of religion in an upsurge of atheism, the disbelief in the existence of a god or gods. This reaction had its roots in the ancient philosophy of materialism that had been set forth by Epicurus and his followersa world of atoms and empty space and nothing more (see Epicureanism). If reason could not discover a god, said the atheists, there was no purpose served by deciding there was one.

Very little escaped examination by Enlightenment thinkers. Besides criticizing established religion and broadening the range of scientific effort, they provided new points of view on society, politics, law, economics, and the course of history.

The Deist search for a natural religion led to an investigation of peoples in all parts of the world. The conclusion was, according to Scottish philosopher David Hume, that there is a great uniformity among the acts of men in all nations and ages. This led to a sense that all people are linked together in a universal brotherhood. The Swiss lawyer Emmerich de Vattel urged the creation of a society of states living in peace under the binding rules of natural law. Toward the end of the 18th century, Immanuel Kant wrote Toward Perpetual Peace, but by then Europe was embroiled in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.

The optimistic view of a universal brotherhood was reinforced by the English philosopher John Lockes notion that people are the result of their environment. He believed that humans are born without qualities such as goodness or evil and that an individuals character is formed by experiences of the world. Locke likened the human mind at birth to a tabula rasa, or blank slate or writing tablet, on which experience writes.

Beliefs, like other human differences, were thought to be the product of environment. For this reason, Enlightenment leaders argued that moral improvement should be the responsibility of society. Lockes theories led to the idea that the existing social, economic, and political abuses should be corrected. The brutality of law enforcement and the institution of slavery were both attacked. Moreover, human irrationality was believed to be the result of false ideas, instilled by faulty schooling. Enlightenment thinkers thus believed that education should be a prime concern of society.

The Enlightenment gave rise to what were then considered radical political theories. Several important Enlightenment thinkers criticized arbitrary, authoritarian governments. They began to propose a different form of social organization, based on the idea of natural rights that all people had.

The French writer Voltaire, a major figure of the Enlightenment, was a staunch advocate of the principles of reason, liberty, justice, and toleration. He used his sharp wit to skewer the absurdities of religious intolerance and of the absolute rule of kings.

In England, John Lockes highly influential theories supported democracy as a better form of government. Locke believed that each person is naturally free and equal under the law of nature. He argued that chief among the natural rights are the rights to life, liberty (freedom from arbitrary rule), and property. Locke wrote that legitimate government represents a social contract, in which people consent to be governed by majority rule but do not give up their natural rights. The ultimate source of government authority is the people, not a king or other ruler. Locke argued that if a government abuses its trust and violates the peoples fundamental rights, the people are entitled to rebel. They can then replace that government with another to whose laws they can willingly give their consent.

The French political philosopher Montesquieu developed the theory that political authority should be separated into legislative, executive, and judicial branches. He believed that this separation and balance of powers would help to prevent the abuse of government authority and protect individual liberties. Montesquieu also classified governments by their manner of conducting policy. He wrote that democracies (and other republics) are based on the quality of public virtue, or the motivation to achieve the public good.

Montesquieu was a strong influence on the Swiss-born French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau, in his treatise The Social Contract, argued for a society in which the separate wills of individuals are combined to govern as the general willthe public spirit seeking the common good of liberty and equality. This general will is expressed in laws to which all submit. Rousseaus book was an emotionally charged work calling for political democracy.

Before the end of the 18th century, Enlightenment ideas about democracy won significant victories. Locke himself had helped draft the English Bill of Rights in the late 17th century. About a century later, Enlightenment political philosophy strongly influenced the Founding Fathers of what became the United States. Thomas Jefferson wove the principles of Lockean rights into the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The framers of the U.S. Constitution embraced Montesquieus ideas about the separation of powers. In France, during the French Revolution, the thought of Montesquieu and Rousseau influenced the creation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which proclaims that men are born and remain free and equal in rights and that the Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take part, personally or through their representatives, in its making. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes.

The thinkers of the Enlightenment realized that for all of history the hand of law had been turned against the masses and in favor of the few. Law was therefore criticized on the ground that it was invalid unless it conformed to the natural law. Law was not made by rules but was discovered by right reason.

Enlightenment thinkers proposed changes in government involvement in economic affairs. In both France and Great Britain early classical economistsincluding Adam Smith of Scotlandclaimed that individuals freed from government interference would serve their own economic interest, and by so doing they would serve the general good of society as well. Smith has been hailed by politicians and economists in the United States and the United Kingdom as the founder of, and inspiration for, capitalism. In Smiths The Wealth of Nations (1776), the fundamental principles of capitalism are fashioned into the powerful economic and social theory that today dominates politics in much of the developed world.

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that the history of humankind moved in cyclesfrom growth and prosperity to decay and death. The Christian church looked forward to the heavenly kingdom of God. Thinkers such as Francis Bacon, however, criticized these views. He believed that by the proper methods of inquiry humankind could move to greater benefits through the conquest of nature. By the end of the 18th century, the idea of scientific and intellectual progress turned into a general belief in the progress of humankind, a progress that was both moral and material but that would depend on the rule of sound reason.

The Enlightenment ended as people began to react against its extremes. The celebration of abstract reason provoked contrary spirits to begin exploring the world of sensation and emotion in the cultural movement known as Romanticism. People seeking religious solace or salvation began to turn away from the rationalist Deism. Moreover, the French Revolution entered a period in which the revolutionaries executed many thousands of nobles, priests, and others suspected of being opponents. This Reign of Terror severely tested the belief that people could govern themselves well without a king.

Many of the effects of the Age of Reason persist today, however, particularly in the respect given to science and in the growth of democracy. The high optimism that marked much of Enlightenment thought survived as one of the movements most enduring legacies the belief that human history is a record of general progress.

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Enlightenment - Students | Britannica Kids | Homework Help

Life coaching addresses people across cultures and backgrounds, supporting to achieve clarity, awareness, more confidence and peace of mind. Whetheryou feel overwhelmed, misunderstood, low energized or just want to continue your personal growth and development, coaching is the tool to embark on.

We will understand your past and work with it to meet you in the present and focus on moving you forward in your life. As opposed to other methods and therapies, personal coaching will focus on building you further capabilities to deal with life today and in future events.

Coaching focuses on you and you will be the most important person in the room. We will work together to find your goals and design programs to support you at all levels, emotional, cognitive and somatic. Expect to gain long term capabilities to deal with life difficulties on your own and let go of behaviors, patterns or people that no longer serve you. Long lasting change may take some time, but once tapped into, you will have more clarity, presence and balance in your life, and an overall sense of positivity and abundance.

What can you expect as a result?

What a coaching session is and is not?

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Life Coaching - Camelia Krupp (Mihai), Switzerland