A leisurely survey of Buddhist encounters with the West, for better
or worse.Much of the literature on that matter has come from
Buddhists such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Catholics such as Thomas
Merton. Sutin (Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley, 2000,
etc.) professes no religious attachment, and his emphasis is
historical rather than doctrinal. He begins with the age of
Alexander the Great, when Greeks were exposed to Buddhist teachings
during the short-lived conquest of northwestern India; Aristotle
even asked Alexander to send a "gymnosophist" back to Greece for a
conversation, though a Buddhist met a trio of Greek thinkers with
the impatient remark, "It is impossible to explain philosophical
doctrines through the medium of three interpreters who understand
nothing we say any more than the vulgar; it is like asking water to
flow through pure mud." Such incomprehension marked subsequent
East-West encounters, though in time, Nestorian Christians would
live alongside Buddhists in Asia, giving each a better idea of the
other's beliefs. Sutin examines the controversial view that
Buddhist thought influenced the Gnostics (and thus, perhaps, early
Christianity), for which there is scant evidence for or against,
before moving on to the better-documented travels of Christian
missionaries in Asia; his narrative is peopled by memorable
characters such as the Japanese Buddhist monk who converted to
Catholicism only to denounce it, "making him an apostate, perhaps
the first in world history, of both Buddhism and Christianity."
Later, he provides a fine brief on the flim-flam artist who did
much to introduce sort-of-Tibetan doctrine to the West, T. Lobsang
Rampa. Sutin reaches familiar ground when he turns to the influence
of Buddhism on the American transcendentalists and, later, the
Beats and their followers, more fluently chronicled in Rick
Fields's How the Swans Came to the Lake (1992).Readers familiar
with Merton and Suzuki will know most of this story. For others,
though, this is a solid overview. (Kirkus Reviews)
The modern-day creation of a distinctly Western Buddhism is
arguably the most significant spiritual development of our time.
Few realize, however, that the complicated dance between Western
and Eastern religions has gone on for more than two millennia. ALL
IS CHANGE is the definitive account of the two-thousand year
transmission of Buddhism to the West. From the early exchanges
between the Classical Greeks and the Buddhists of India to the
encounters between Buddhist and Christian traders and missionaries
in China to the influence of Buddhism on Western philosophers and
the current fascination with the Dalai Lama, this is a riveting
tale of the seekers, sages, explorers and charlatans through whom
Buddhism has made its way to become a part of the cultural
landscape in the West.
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