Krdytkyu

Buddhism is practiced in many countries by many different peoples. How do Buddhists in America differ in their beliefs, values, rituals, practices etc? Or, is Buddhism fairly uniform wherever it is practiced?

The following answer is of strong examples of how do Buddhists in America differ in their beliefs, values, rituals, practices etc.

Often American Buddhism is Cultural Marxism. American Buddhism is often the hijacking of 'Buddhism' by the political and cultural left, including it early domination by Jewish individuals (also here), Sexual Liberals (such as Noah Levine), Sexual Deviants (such as Chögyam Trungpa), Hippies, Druggies, Feminists & Identitarians. For example, simply browsing the website called 'North American Buddhist Alliance' will show it is largely a left-wing political site engaged in racial & sexual politics (rather than related to Buddhism).

Another phenomena that appears unique to American-Jewish Buddhism is introducing psychotherapy into Buddhist practise; which possibly contributed to mass-market Buddhism, such as McMindfulness. "McMindfulness" (often the suspension of moral judgment) is actually not Buddhist mindfulness (which is the gatekeeper of allowing & prohibiting various thoughts).

Many of the leading Buddhist teachers in America come from Jewish families, including Bernard Glassman, Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Norman Fischer, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Natalie Goldberg, Thubten Chodron (Cherry Greene), Sylvia Boorstein, Alan Ginsberg, and Lama Surya Das (Jeffrey Miller), to name just a few.

The American Jewish Fascination with Buddhism

I feel any comment underscoring the need to keep partisan politics out of Buddhism is "apt". Mostly in the USA/West, we see
liberal/progressive/activist politics being melded with "Buddhism".
This has nothing to do with the dhamma. The dhamma is there to
liberate being from suffering, including the suffering from clinging
to views and opinions found in politics as a whole. Which yes, is even
present in whatever your preferred political view is.

If you've been in Buddhist circles in the west for a while, you really shouldn't need examples to see partisan/left wing political
bias among practitioners. If you don't see it then there probably
isn't much use me giving you examples because it would be like
explaining water to a fish.

Dhammacorps

For example, in the 2016 American Presidential election, many prominent American affiliated Buddhists, particularly monks & nuns, conducted political campaigns against Donald Trump merely due to Trump's apparent 'racist', 'aggressive' & 'anti-abortion' comments; even though Trump promised to stop the Obama created wars in the Middle-East (which Trump has partially but not fully done as President). Here, the American Buddhists completely ignored the horrendous war crimes (in Iraq. Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan & elsewhere) of the Obama regime (one hour video) in favour of left-wing abortion feminist racial politics. The fact that the leading Buddhist translator named Bhikkhu Bodhi spoke against Trump because Trump threatened to stop abortion shows how dominated American Buddhism is by the political left-wing (since monks are forbidden from promoting abortion; which is an unforgivable disrobing offense). Bhikkhu Bodhi's comments & criticism of him can be read here, on his own website.

Trump’s presidential campaign challenged each of the ethical ideals I cherish, and if he acts upon his campaign pledges, his policies may
entail misery for people in the United States and all across the
world. His campaign repeatedly demeaned people because of their
ethnicity, religion, and national origins. He threatened to deny women
their reproductive rights...

Bhikkhu Bodhi - American-Jewish monk

A comment:

Although Bhikkhu Bodhi lost all credibility as a Dhamma teacher for me with his advocacy for a doctrine of Just War, here, though he
couches it as "defending women's reproductive rights," he's advocating
for women's right to have an abortion. No matter how much I'd like to
sugarcoat it, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that once again
Bhikkhu Bodhi is encouraging people to violate the first precept. I
take it as further evidence of a fundamental failure by Bhikkhu Bodhi
to understand the Dhamma at even a basic level despite his deep
familiarity with the suttas. Shocking, I know. But his statements are
absolutely irreconcilable with the Dhamma unless you are willing to
throw out the teachings of all the Ajahns and the Pali Canon itself.
Myself, the only way to reconcile the irreconcilable is to reluctantly
admit that despite his admirable efforts in translating the Canon, I
cannot hold him up as any sort of Dhamma teacher.

At least on the internet, a serious division arose among internet Buddhists as a result of the behaviour of certain American Buddhists during the American Presidential election. In short, they (who publicly campaigned for Obama because he was black and Clinton because she was a woman; completely ignoring their kamma of crimes against humanity) don't represent us or Buddhism.

This Wikipedia article -- Buddhism in the United States -- says that Buddhism migrated into America via different people[s] and different schools.

If you look at the World Buddhist Directory for the USA, you'll see that each entry has a "Tradition" listed, e.g.

• "Mahayana, Zen/Pureland"


• "Theravada, Forest Sangha"


• "Mahayana, Zen Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hahn"


• "Vajrayana, Tibetan, Gelugpa"


• etc.

So to the extent that there is any difference -- between schools, and/or the various national forms of Buddhism -- so Buddhists within America differ (in their doctrine, practice, and ritual, as you said).

But perhaps see also the topic, What teachings do all schools of Buddhism share?

There's also something called Secular Buddhism.

I think that some people and/or organisations call themselves "secular" -- which might mean somethng more-or-less as described in that Wikipedia article -- that article says that it is "Part of a series on Western Buddhism", so maybe it is peculiarly Western.

Not all "Western" Buddhists would be "secular" though -- e.g. there are bhikkhus who were born in the West (I imagine it's they who helped write many of the English-language translations), and so on.