page_title: Buddhism in the West
section_title: Contemporary modernism
hierarchical_section_title: Buddhism in the West / Contemporary Western Buddhism / Contemporary modernism
caption_attribution_description: English: Naropa's Arapahoe Campus, as seen from Arapahoe Avenue
context_page_description: Buddhism in the West broadly encompasses the knowledge and practice of Buddhism outside of Asia in the Western world. Occasional intersections between Western civilization and the Buddhist world have been occurring for thousands of years. The first Westerners to become Buddhists were Greeks who settled in Bactria and India during the Hellenistic period. They became influential figures during the reigns of the Indo-Greek kings, whose patronage of Buddhism led to the emergence of Greco-Buddhism and Greco-Buddhist art. There was little contact between the Western and Buddhist cultures during most of the Middle Ages but the early modern rise of global trade and mercantilism, improved navigation technology and the European colonization of Asian Buddhist countries led to increased knowledge of Buddhism among Westerners. This increased contact led to various responses from Buddhists and Westerners throughout the modern era. These include religious proselytism, religious polemics and debates, Buddhist modernism, Western convert Buddhists and the rise of Buddhist studies in Western academia.
context_section_description: The regular practice of meditation as a central focus is also a common feature of most modern Western Buddhist groups. The exception are those groups like Soka Gakkai which are chanting focused. Much of contemporary Buddhism in the West is influenced by the spread of lay practice centers, where laypersons meet for meditation practice and also may stay for meditation retreats. While rituals are not absent in contemporary traditions, they are less likely to be seen as providing supernatural benefits. The Vipassana or insight movement is one example that is particularly innovative and non-traditional. It is led by lay teachers, with democratic forms of organization and promoting mainly meditation with minimal doctrinal content and ritual.
  One feature of Buddhism in the West today (especially among convert Buddhists) is the emergence of other groups which, even though they draw on traditional Buddhism, are in fact an attempt at creating a new style of Buddhist practice.
  One of these is Shambhala, founded by controversial lama Chögyam Trungpa, who claimed in his teachings that his intention was to strip the ethnic baggage away from traditional methods of working with the mind and to deliver the essence of those teachings to his western students. His innovative Shambhala Training system was supposed to be a secular path for the cultivation of the contemplative life. Chögyam Trungpa also founded Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado in 1974. Trungpa's movement has also found particular success in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, Shambhala International being based out of Halifax. Other significant groups with new innovative and modernist approaches are the Triratna Buddhist Community (formerly the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order), which was founded by Sangharakshita in 1967, and the Diamond Way Organisation of Ole Nydahl, who has founded more than 600 Buddhist centers across the world. Diamond Way presents Buddhism in a modern context to lay practitioners, in over 30 languages. The "spiritual counsel" of the organisation is provided by the 17th Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje (India), Kunzing Shamar Rinpoche (India) and Jigme Rinpoche (France).
caption: Arapahoe Campus of Naropa University, a private liberal arts college in Colorado founded by Chögyam Trungpa. It was the first Buddhist-inspired academic institution to receive United States regional accreditation.
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