Notice Board

Vehicles from East Asia Overcoming Western Bias:  Mahāyāna Buddhism in North America and Europe
by Dr. John Harding

Monday, Nov. 4
2 p.m.
AH100
Refreshments provided

A century before Western dismissal of cars from Japan shifted to widespread enthusiasm, Great Vehicle (Mahāyāna) Buddhism confronted formidable bias in the West. Well-known for its skillful and adaptive spread throughout Asia, this wide-ranging religious export from East Asia faced unique challenges and opportunities both in the shared context of late-19th-century modernity as well as in the divergent paths to the contemporary situation for Buddhism in North America and Europe.

 This talk will navigate some of the twists along the way. Beyond early European scholars’ anti-Mahāyāna bias and the effective challenge by Japanese Buddhists, who asserted the value of their tradition at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions, we will explore the important role of early immigrant Buddhist communities in North America (including right here in southern Alberta) in contrast to the European situation. We also discover more recent convergences of globalization — marked both by the strong worldwide presence of organizations headquartered in East Asia as well as by more local groups and individuals variously engaged with Buddhism in North  America and Europe today.