Rev. Danny Fisher

In a recent post at his Tricycle blog, my friend Jeff Wilson reported that the Duke University Divinity School Library has “agreed to undertake [the] systematic collection of American Buddhist periodicals.”

I suspect that the Duke Divinity School Library’s willingness to take on this project will represent a quantum leap forward in the efforts to record and preserve the history of Buddhism in America. I think it will prove to be a momentous decision.

In Buddhism, it is certainly true that we strive to accept the ultimate truth that “all conditioned things are impermanent,” but that should not diminish the importance a project like this one has to the study and understanding of Buddhism at the relative level. As Jeff puts it:

At the end of the day, we really know so little about how Buddhism spread from India to other countries. Documents are lost, important meetings never recorded, artwork destroyed–whole teachings, practices, and schools of Buddhism have been swallowed by time with barely a trace left to let us know they were there…The library [at the Duke Divinity School] will be able to catalog and preserve [American Buddhist periodicals], making them permanently available to researchers today and far into the future. Someday your great-great-great-great grandson may visit the library, read a temple newsletter from the twentieth century, and get a glimpse of how the Dharma took root on these shores.

Tricycle has “kick-started the process” by offering back issues of the magazine missing from the library’s collection. Temples, centers, groups, and publishers can be similarly helpful to this undertaking by submitting back issues or complete collections of periodicals, or by “simply adding the library to their mailing list.” Jeff writes that examples of what the library is looking for “might include Shambhala Sun, Windbell, Turning Wheel, Chan Magazine, or just the newsletter for your local Dharma center.”

If you would like to contribute to the Duke Divinity School Library’s project, please arrange for your group’s periodicals to be sent to:

Divinity School Library
Box 90972
102 Chapel Drive
Durham, NC 27708-0972