His work has cleared a path for those, like myself, who follow. And he has done this not only as a scholar but as a scholar-practitioner, a meditator for thirty years. Throughout Passage Prebish provides vignettes of his experience in both camps, as scholar and as practitioner. The fact that this interconnectedness lies also in him makes Prebish the perfect person to shape this field and to write this book treating the growth of American scholarship as well as of American Buddhism. I always wanted more , more extended reflection, more personal observation.
Passage contains six chapters.
Chapter one provides fifty pages of dense description of the history of Buddhism in America. For those who do not have Faces handy, this is something of a substitute. Indeed Prebish frequently refers to and quotes from Faces in this chapter. It ends with a sixth issue, ecumenism, which Prebish sees as key for the growth of the tradition in America. Chapter three gives the reader extended descriptions of seven American sanghas .