Buddhism Project by Jennifer Kim

Summary of article

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 05:01:30 UTC

When I was reading this, it was explaining the movement of the Zen Buddhist and how it was established in different places at different times. As time passed, Buddhism began to spread a lot during the late 1900's.

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 05:05:01 UTC

This article explains that as Buddhism was spreading, the lineage of the Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche arrived and fused pop psychology with Tibetan Buddhism to try to appeal to younger American professionals. I assumed he had tried to do that because he wanted to spread the religion of Buddhism all over the country. After some time, there were lots of Dharmadhatu centers.

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 05:25:38 UTC

"The 1960s and 1970s found many young Americans in India and Thailand undertaking the serious practice of Buddhist meditation with some of the leading meditation masters of the Theravada tradition."

I find this to be interesting because as an American myself, I feel like it would be hard to practice since this is a practice where you have to be in the present moment. I try to be in the present moment, but it always leads to me being worried about the future. Another thing is also understanding the rising and passing away of all things. But to me, death is a hard concept for me to grasp.

Second article

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 07:18:05 UTC

I had read another article relating to Buddhism in the US and as I read, an American Essayist and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau, said he had translated the Lotus Sutra from French into English. In it, he wrote "I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha, for the love is the main thing."

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 07:29:27 UTC

When he had written that, before I had read past that, I really liked what he had said. He knew that some people wouldn't like what he had said, but said it anyway. I grew up in somewhat of a toxic religious household and ever since I was a kid, my mom had told me that being Christian was the only correct religion and that all other reiligions were sinful since they didn't obey "the one true God". For a while, I had believed that Christianity was the only religion that would send you to heaven and I tried to convert my friends who were any other religion or atheist to have them be Christian.

It was until I had reached around 8th grade, that the other religions weren't wrong or sinful. People just had other beliefs. The friends I had in middle school had filled me in on things I didn't know and taught me surface level things about their religions. That's when I had started to be more open about religion.

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 07:38:42 UTC

But since I grew up in a household where my mom would only fill my head saying that being Christian is the only way, I ended up becoming more open in learning about other religions since she was pushing the Christianity onto me so hard. My beliefs on religion became conflicted when I had also realized that my mom was solely Christian, but my mom's side of the family was fully Buddhist, along with my grandparents on my dad's side. But my dad's siblings were all atheist.

Whenever I was around my mom's side of the family in Korea, we would be visiting the temple they went to every other day, and I'd be so interested that I would join them. My mom's side of the family never really talked about their religion, but I was aware of how religious they were. My mom on the other hand who was heavily religious and incredibly reliant on the Bible, had always tried to bring up God or Christianity into a conversation whenever she could. It got to a point where I started to favor Buddhism a lot more, not really knowing much of it, but started to really feel negative feelings towards my mom's religion.

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 07:44:31 UTC

However, as I grew older, during the summer of 9th grade, I realized that due to so many things heard between specifically Christianity, but also Buddhism, it became too conflicting and had converted to Atheism. I hadn't told anyone since my brothers and my mom's side of the family wouldn't agree at all. But when I did tell them, they were disappointed, but still told me that they had loved me. To this day, my mom is still trying to make me convert back to Christianity.

Relation between course articles and chosen article

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 09:09:35 UTC

As I was reading Buddhism in the United States in the textbook, it brought up a few similar points in the passages I've read. One of the few points it brought up was Henry David Thoreau. In the textbook, it mentioned how he compared "their Christ" to "my Buddha"

In the textbook, it mentioned a bit about immigration from Asia. As the White converts were learning about Buddhism, all the immigrants from Asia started to define what Buddhism was on their own. The Chinese came to the US from Asia and they had brought their religion with them leading to them building their first Chinese temple, combining multiple influences.

Buddhism in the US in relation to the Birth of Gautama

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 09:50:23 UTC

Based on the article I had read, (Building "American Buddhism") American Buddhism is correlated to Gautama's birth since the Buddhist teachings started with him. It first started in Asia, and it still continues to spread throughout the West. His teachings shows the flexibility of the Buddhist principles.

They also showed that his teachings were the foundational inspiration for all types of Buddhism, including American Buddhism. But for American Buddhism, they used those to make them fit their cultural context in the US.

Birth of Gautama reading

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 10:04:13 UTC

"After his enlightenment, he is called the Buddha. " the enlightened one", and addressed as Bhagavan "the Lord.", Buddha, when speaking of himself..." (pg. 72, Beth Wright)

This quote from the course reading would symbolize the start of his spiritual journey and how it shows his adaptability, allowing it to flourish in many different settings, including the US

jennifersunhee1012 — 2025-03-04 10:09:16 UTC

I did the first draft of my work, but then used Grammarly AI to make suggestions.

I fixed grammar and spelling with the use of Grammarly AI.