Lesson video

Hello, welcome back, my name's Miss Pauvaday.

Today we're going to be continuing with our lessons on Buddhism.

Today we're going to be looking at how Buddhism arrived here in the West.

So Buddhism, you probably have seen it's quite a popular tradition over here.

Given now that you know where it started, you're probably thinking, "Well, how did it come over here?" So that's what we're going to be doing today.

So stick with me and hopefully by the end of this lesson, you'll realise how it did come here, and how it's become so popular over here.

So today, you're going to need a pen, a paper, we need to have our curious mind switched on, ready to learn.

Make sure you go somewhere nice and quiet, if you can in your home away from any distractions.

Today's lesson is going to include some things that are slightly, will be quite different from your experiences, slightly controversial.

It might make you feel a little bit uncomfortable, and that's completely fine, that's totally fine.

So just to make sure that you have an adult with you or if you do watch the lesson by yourself and you need to talk to someone, then do speak to an adult afterwards.

Now go ahead and pause, make yourself nice and ready, nice and comfortable, and then let's get ready for our lesson today.

So today, what we're going to be looking at is we're going to be looking at how did Buddhism go from the East, how did it go from Northern India to the rest of India to Sri Lanka.

All those places that we've been focusing on, how did it start off there, and then end up over here in the West? Quite a popular tradition, quite influential, how did that even all of that happen? So that's what we're going to be looking at today.

So the history of Buddhism and the West, Western Buddhists, and we're just going to look at, we're going to finish off with looking at some interesting teachers that some of you might even know of as well.

So how did Buddhism come to the West? Well, just a little bit of history.

We can go back as far as King Ashoka.

Remember, Ashoka sent Mahendra his son,.

we're not sure if he was his son or not.

But he sent him to the monk to Sri Lanka on a mission to kind of teach the Dhamma.

And that's how Sri Lanka became a very very strong Buddhist country.

Ashoka was a great King and he actually kind of had lots of kingdoms. His kingdom grew and grew and grew and grew.

And to the point where when Alexander the Great came to India and tried to conquer parts, he did it, he did manage to conquer parts of India.

What was happening is the border of Ashoka's Kingdom, and then where Alexander the Great was meeting, Alexander the Great was an ancient Greek warrior.

Taught by Aristotle actually.

So Aristotle was one of his teachers.

So they kind of met, they didn't physically meet but they soon became very aware of each other.

I think they knew, they were aware of the different cultures anyway, before this time.

And what happened with some of the early Greeks who settled in India, they then converted to Buddhism.

And some of them even were part of teaching the Dhamma to the rest of the world and this kind of gives rise to this kind of Greco-Buddhist art, where if you ever get to go to museums sometimes you see statues of the Buddha that kind of looks like a Greek or Roman god, but actually it's the Buddha.

And that it comes from these people who actually moved at this time to India.

So, and these accounts are also found in the Mahavamsa, which is the Sri Lankan historical texts.

So we can kind of see that even as early as that, there is this kind of cross cultural kind of relationships going on, people are converting into Buddhism.

Some Indians are also trying to move over to the West and there is some conversion there.

But we do know the Greeks, some of the Greeks did follow and convert into Buddhism at that time.

So there's a continuation of Buddhism and kind of the Western Buddhism meeting.

Because yes we've seen the ancient Greeks moved to India and they did start to embrace the religion.

But we also know there is historical evidence to show that the Romans and very early Christians were also aware of this teacher known as the Buddha.

By the 16th century, you have Jesuit missionary.

So Jesuits are a type of Christian.

They are missionary, so what they're trying to do is they're trying to spread the message of Jesus across the world.

And they go to Asia and then they encounter Buddhism.

And in their teachings they're trying to teach Christianity to India and China.

But when they come back, they're also telling Europeans about Buddhism and it has this kind of counter effect where many European starts to become really interested in Buddhism.

They can't fully understand it because the texts have not been translated.

Remember they in a different language at this point.

It's not until the 18th century that you have people like Max Muller, he's a German translator.

And what he does is he is able to translate, he's one of many translators, who take these Vedic texts and these Pali texts, and they translate them.

So you now have Buddhist texts that are in Latin which have been in German, and they are also in Italian it makes it easier for people in Europe to start to understand the teachings better.

And direct consequence of that is you now have this it kind of blows up where you have lots of quite a few influential writers and philosophers who become really interested in Hinduism Buddhism, particularly people like Madam Blavatsky, people like Nietzsche or Schopenhauer how you might even come across those.

Or you can show your teachers about them.

They become very interested in particularly Buddhism.

And you've also got colonialism around the same time.

So those of you who are not sure what colonialism is this is where many, quite a few European nations, England for sure, France, Spain, Germany, they were going to other countries in Africa and in India and they were kind of colonising them.

So they really unpleasant, not very, kind of dark part of our history really where they were taking over these countries and taking a lot of resources.

So this is quite a negative thing.

But I suppose one of the positives if we can see a positive in something like colonialism, is that it did mean that again people were able to translate these ancient texts into European languages, making it more accessible.

And quite a few Europeans began to embrace Buddhism.

They converted and then they wanted to then bring it back to the West.

You can see you've got an image here of this is Charles Alfred bell, and this is the 13th Dalai Lama.

It just kind of shows he didn't convert, Alfred Bell, but it just shows how you've got this kind of, because of colonialism, you've got these different nations meeting and there's an exchange of information as well.

This helps bring Buddhism to the West.

By the sixties, so some of you might know about the sixties, interesting time.

What this was, I mean you might recognise it as a kind of like hippie, flower power kind of culture, lots of.

Really the sixties was about rebellion, lots and lots of rebellion against the traditional status quo.

So Britain, Western countries at the time were very kind of conservative Christian country.

So it wasn't necessarily against Christianity, it was just about this conservativism.

The sixties, people in the sixties, young people in sixties just didn't like the way the government were behaving.

They thought they were too conservative, too restrictive, so they couldn't do anything.

And their reaction was just to outright just rebel.

And the way that they rebelled was by just, being quite extreme.

So they would, wear lots and lots of colourful clothes, having wild hair, lots of drugs were happening at that time, which I guess obviously it's a bad things.

So do not go and do anything like that.

But that's, I guess the sixties is classified in one way of people kind of experimenting with drugs.

And again, it's because it was anti-establishment.

They were trying to be against the establishment.

They didn't like things like the gender roles.

So at this time you've got women who don't want to just be at home and be mothers.

They want to have careers, they're starting fight against that.

You've got people who were starting to fight against how homosexuality is seen as a bad thing.

So they're trying to fight for those rights, more equality for people of ethnic minorities, that kind of thing.

And also definitely anti-government because in the States, you've got the Vietnam war that's happening at the time, and people are saying it was a really controversial war.

many people didn't see it as a necessary war.

And they were really questioning the government, why do we have to do this? Why do we have to go and die for something that we don't really understand why we're doing this? So there was lots and lots of huge backlash at this time.

And one of the things that happened in the sixties was this interest in Buddhism and Hinduism just kind of blew up.

People suddenly become really really interested.

And I've got a picture there of John Lennon, The Beatles, even at the time you've got bands going out to India.

And learning from these gurus and almost trying to follow some of the paths of Indian ascetics, Buddhism became very very popular at this time.

And many of the Western teachers that we have now, start here.

This is where they start to become interested in Buddhism and Hinduism, because they would have been children of the sixties and then they would have passed their legacy on to newer teachers and what have you.

So the sixties are important and again really kind of creating this Western Buddhism.

Okay quick true or false, Alexander the Great Knew about the Buddha, is that true or false? It's true.

He was definitely aware of the Buddha.

Some Greeks taught the Dhamma.

Is that true or is that a false? It's true.

So yes, there's some Greeks they were about, they were walking around and they were trying to teach the Dhamma.

The ancient Greeks translated Buddhist texts.

Is that true or is that false? It's false, they didn't translate the texts, they just kind of they embraced, some of them embraced Buddhism, became Buddhist themselves and then learnt the local languages and then started to teaching it in the local languages.

Max Muller was a Buddhist.

False Max Muller was not a Buddhist, but he did translate many Indian texts.

The hippie movement in the sixties rejected a conservative way of life.

Is that true or false? It's true.

So that's very much what the sixties, the hippie movement was about was trying to reject kind of this really kind of being rigid to rules and rigid to a way of life.

They were really really questioning all of that.

Right, okay.

Let's have a quick look at Western Buddhism.

There are some differences.

So hopefully you've understood that in, Buddhism coming to the West, it started a very very long time ago.

A very very long time ago Western people in the West were so Romans, ancient Romans, ancient Greeks were well aware of the Buddha.

There was some understanding of him, not quite the religion but they would be aware of Indian religions.

And later on Christianity, you've got this the Jesuits who are translating texts and bringing them back.

So you hopefully can see that, Buddhism and Hinduism has slowly been coming to the West for a very long time.

And by the sixties, that's where it really blows up.

But that doesn't mean that it's exactly the same because we're coming back to this idea of, this kind of Western mind and Eastern mind.

Western minds and Eastern minds, we are all basically people are people, they all care about the same thing.

They all care about protecting their kids, surviving, being happy.

We all have the same things in common.

But because of our cultures, we might see things slightly differently.

So that's where things slightly change.

And that's it, that's just a normal thing, it's a quite a good thing I think that we all have different viewpoints.

So Buddhism, it does become very popular in the West after the sixties.

But one of the things that they don't particularly embrace is all this kind of ritualistic pooja stuff.

They don't really embrace that because again, it's not really something that fits with the Western mind system.

It's not something that we normally do here.

So that didn't really survive over here.

And the other thing is these kind of supernatural ideas about deities and body staffers and all of that.

Again, didn't really work here.

So you'll find in many Western Buddhist traditions, they might, it's not that they're saying these things don't agree because they don't agree with them because they will still follow the traditions of either Theravada, Mahayana or Tibetan schools.

So they will still take their teachings from these schools.

They just might downplay the rituals and the kind of anything related to supernatural ideas.

There's more of a focus on psychology.

So this is why I mentioned Carl Jung and the sixties movement.

Because at the time psychology is really becoming very very important, and people like Freud and Jung are very important psychologists.

So, and the Indian traditions are kind of merging with that as well.

So in the Western world there is more of a focus, Western Buddhism is more of a focus on, meditation really trying to unlock your mind rather than temple worship that kind of thing.

It's more about the psychology.

Less deity worship.

And another thing that you might find again culturally is that in Western Buddhism there might be more kind of equality.

So there are some issues in, let's say particularly Sri Lanka and Theravada Buddhism where it's harder for nuns to be ordained just because they simply aren't many of them.

It's much harder.

Whereas in the Western schools they don't mind going to another tradition and asking those nuns to ordain them and that kind of thing.

So there's more equality in Western Buddhism, arguably there is.

And we did mention that there was some experimentation with psychedelic drugs.

Now the reason that happened was because these people were trying to unlock their minds.

India had a bit of a tradition of that going really really far back, as far back as the Buddha himself further back.

But it's really dangerous, it's extremely dangerous.

So there was all these kinds of sad stories of people trying to, not really understanding really the Buddhism not really understanding Hinduism and just kind of doing these stupid things and getting involved in drugs thinking that they were going to somewhat open their minds.

And of course it was dangerous.

So there was some tradition, and we're talking about the sixties here, there was this kind of thing happening then.

But it's important to know that there is some relationship there with psychedelic drugs and Hinduism and Buddhism.

But it's not something that happens anymore, I would say.

So through this, all of this for the sixties through the changing of, more of a focus on psychology, less of a focus on the supernatural, less of a focus on pooja and deity worship.

This emerges a kind of different type of Buddhism known as modern Buddhism or Western Buddhism.

And again, it's important to note that, the teachings are the same, but they're just emphasising slightly different things which is something that might be more, people in the West might be more comfortable with.

So they're definitely there.

Today, there's lots of different types of Western schools of Buddhism.

They do embrace the traditional schools, and this has happened through people going out to Asia and learning it during the sixties, but let's not forget Asian migration and colonialism.

So one of the things that has happened through colonialism is there's been lots of migration to Europe, to Britain particularly, where Britain has asked people of different colonies to come to Britain, to help support the society, for example.

And through that, I mean that's just one of the ways of migration in to Britain.

That's how some quite a few people arrived in Britain was from Britain asking them to come.

But you also have other migration where because Britain had these relationships with India and China, it made it easier for people to come over and start sharing their kind of cultures.

And by that time India and China were well aware of the British they'd had this kind of long relationship with them.

And when the Asian migrants did come here, they brought their religions naturally.

They would so by bringing their religions here, many of them started teaching or they might set up a temple and people in the, Westerners in the area might become interested, and then they might start joining.

So again, you've got this kind of new type of Buddhism that's arising where it's kind of mixing with the traditional form of Buddhism and modern Buddhism.

And of course you've got the emergence of Western teachers.

Another thing that's really important to mention is globalisation, because now we're at the point where we just kind of live in a globalised world.

So it's really easy to kind of contact, you get onto WhatsApp and call, you're out in Hong Kong or something like that or it's really easy.

We kind of have this globalised community.

So that means that we can, teachers can teach across cultures and languages.

The Dhamma can easily be taught across the world.

So it makes it a lot easier.

And that's another reason why Buddhism has become even more popular because people just, they're just more aware of it basically.

Okay quick true or false.

Western Buddhists, Western Buddhism was interested in gods.

Is that true or false? It's false, they're not really that interested in that.

That's not to say there isn't any Buddhist, Western Buddhists who are, it's exclusively that they're not interested.

There are of course some but generally it's not something that is really kind of focused on upon in the Western world.

Western Buddhism has greater equality for nuns.

Is that true or false? Okay, it's true.

There is a greater equality for Western, it's easier to become a nun in a Western tradition.

The sixties helped to create some Western Buddhist schools.

Is that true or false? Okay it's true because of this increased, massive increased interest in the East, this created lots of teachers went out to India, went out to China, started learning from masters and then they brought it back here.

Asian migrants helped bring Dhamma to the West.

Is that true or is that false? It's true.

So yeah, when Indian migrants Chinese migrants came here, then that's what happened was they were able to bring the Dhamma to the West.

So let's have a look at some great teachers.

So let's start with DT Suzuki.

So he's well known Zen teacher, Buddhism in the West.

So he was born and raised in Tokyo.

And he met another well known kind of Western, philosopher theologian, he was really interested in what we call interfaith.

So he was really interested in how Christianity and Buddhism could kind of connect and work together.

And DT Suzuki was quite inspired by this but he was also a Buddhist.

He trained as a Zen Buddhist.

So later on what happens is he then moves to the States.

He's working, he's teaching all over the place but he's teaching in mostly Asia, but then also in America.

And the reason he's really important is because he's often kind of given the honour of really bringing Zen Buddhism to America, to the West.

Zen Buddhism is really popular and has remained really popular for a very very long time.

And it's partly because of him.

He translated lots of Asian Zen texts for the Western audience.

And yeah, he taught both in Asia and in the West, he was instrumental in bringing this kind of thinking to the West.

And he ended up becoming a professor of Buddhist studies in American universities.

So he taught all over the States as well.

And in 1963, he was nominated for a Nobel Peace prize for this actually, for bringing this.

Very interesting, really interesting guy, very well respected across the East and the West.

Alan Watts now, yet another really interesting guy, born in Chiselhurst actually.

I've only just recently discovered that so those of you who are in Southeast London, yeah he was born in Chiselhurst, another great well known philosopher.

You can easily find his talks on YouTube.

And he basically, he was great philosopher, he became very interested in Eastern and Western philosophy and how they kind of merged together.

He was particularly interested in Buddhism, Daoism and Hinduism, and he wrote a lot about these religions.

And because of the way that he spoke about them, it really popularised these traditions in the West.

So his talks on these traditions they're really accessible.

So lots of people found themselves listening to him, and it just made it even more popular over here.

And like I said, he's written lots of books on Indian philosophy and psychology in the West.

So he's another really interesting teacher that we have over here.

Jack Kornfield, some of you might even recognise him.

He is really responsible for popularising, and bringing mindfulness practise to the West.

He is in the States.

He co-founded the Insight Meditation Society, Massachusetts.

Mindfulness is everywhere.

You've probably seen it in school, people are doing it in school.

Really good for you.

The government actually invested loads of money into mindfulness, particularly in schools, in the NHS and in the prison system, where there people are under a lot of stress basically because the evidence is showing just how good it is.

Mindfulness remember is not the same as meditation.

It's not, about becoming a Buddhist and becoming enlightened.

It's just about having awareness of your mind and what you're doing.

And that's a healthy thing because it can help you make informed decisions, and learn to take care of yourself as well.

So that's why it's really being pushed over here particularly in schools, prison system, those kind of thing.

Now Jack Kornfield, he actually trained as a monk in the Theravada tradition, and he really saw the benefits of meditation so he brought over here.

He's not the only person because in the West we've got doc Bay, we've got the very Southern mindfulness masters over here who have what organisations are really pushing mindfulness.

But he's kind of well known for writing lots of books on mindfulness.

And what he does is he teaches Vipassana meditation, which is insight meditation.

It's just again, watching your mind becoming aware of how you feel, how you think, where your thoughts are coming from, 'cause that can help you be a healthier person according to the Vipassana.

Tenzin Gyatso, you're probably thinking that's a weird name.

You very probably know who this person is.

This is the 14th Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama isn't his name, the Dalai Lama is a title for a spiritual being basically, spiritual teacher.

And he's the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

He has written lots and lots of books, there he's sitting there with Barack Obama.

He kind of pops up in lots of places.

He's really a real advocate for peace, global peace.

He's a real advocate for interfaith, so different faith kind of connecting with each other.

And when we talk about interfaith we're also talking about, atheism as well.

So people who don't really believe in God.

Remember a lots of Buddhists are not interested in God.

So you might find Buddhists who are, who believe in God but quite a lot of them might not.

They're not interested.

So particularly the Dalai Lama, he's trying to foster this relationship between all these different religions to create peace and to create respect.

He teaches all over the world and he is considered the living Bodhi, but it's out of compassion.

And because of that you you'll find him getting involved in politics of peace.

So often he's working with the UN or those kinds of organisations to try and help bring peace.

Thich Nhat Hanh, we've kind of come across him before.

He's a Zen Buddhist monk.

He's well known for peaceful opposition to the Vietnam war.

He has co-founded the Sweet Potato and Plum Village monasteries in France, as a way of helping Western Buddhists access the Sangha and the Dhamma, because it's not as easy as you would find in India of course, And well, sorry not India in China, in Sri Lanka, those kinds of places it's harder to join monastery.

So, one of the things that he did with his companion was to create these monasteries.

And he's written lots of books on joyful living, and he teaches all over the world as well.

Okay quick think, which teacher popularised Zen Buddhism in the West? Okay, that would be DT Suzuki.

There we go.

DT Suzuki.

Which teacher is the 14th Dalai Lama? It's a bit of a tough one, you're going to have to remember his name.

Tenzin Gyatso.

Which teacher popularised Buddhism, Daoism and Hinduism in the West? That's Alan Watts.

Which teacher helped bring Vipassana mindfulness to the West? That's Jack Kornfield.

And which teachers set up Plum Village monastery in France? And that would be Thich Nhat Hanh.

Okay, right.

So have a go at this task, you've been creating a kind of booklet on different types of denominations, different types of Buddhism in general.

Today is the last one.

So you know that now, you just need to create your factfile on Buddhism in the West.

Separate the information into these three areas.

So the history of Buddhism in the West, Western Buddhists schools, and famous teachers.

And don't forget to use colour and images.

So well done again for another brilliant lesson.

I'm sure you did really really well, I'm sure you found that really interesting.

And also we've learned something about our own history here in the UK as well, and how we've always had this kind of connection with other countries as well.

Really interesting.

It just shows that we've always kind of been connected.

Two things that you need to do as usual, you need to make sure that you do the summary quiz to really again, consolidate those key terms. consolidate the base knowledge that you need to keep with you.

And as usual go and talk to people about it, explain what you've learned.

It's always just good to just keep consolidating that knowledge.

And if you can share your work with us, we would really really love to see it, but make sure you get permission.

And I will see you again soon.