Rev. Danny Fisher

The Worst Horse points us to a piece in Salon.com that is largely about young Buddhist teachers Ethan Nichtern and Noah Levine. The article, written by Whitney Joiner, also discusses the not-so-changing face of American Buddhism and how the work of teachers like Nichtern and Levine might turn things around.

Between them, [Nichtern and Levine are] reaching people–most of them 35 or under–who might never walk into a traditional Buddhist center.

It might be just what American Buddhism needs. Ever since Buddhism gained a foothold during the late ’60s and early ’70s, when Asian teachers emigrated to America, the American face of the tradition hasn’t really changed. It’s just grown older. Most members of the 230 or so American Buddhist centers are over 48 years old, according to a 2001 Baylor University survey quoted in a recent article in the pan-Buddhist magazine Shambhala Sun. (Numbers are sketchy for “convert” Buddhists, ranging anywhere from 100,000 to 800,000.)

Nichtern and Levine have a lot of interesting things to say, and I’d encourage you to read the piece. (My friend Sumi Loundon, who was interviewed for the article, beautifully articulates what’s so neat about these guys when she compares their references to popular culture and such with the Buddha’s use of agrarian imagery to reach the people of his time and place.)

Personally, though, I was most struck by this call to action from my dear old Naropa professor Reggie Ray, who was also interviewed for the piece:

Buddhism will never survive in the West until it separates itself from the cultural forms that are specifically Tibetan or Japanese or whatever. In the ’70s, we had a whole generation of people who tried to be Tibetans, and the young people now see that not that much happened with an awful lot of those people. We should have a bunch of enlightened teachers, and we don’t. Young people look at that and say, ‘Huh, I don’t think this is what I want to spend my life doing.’ The lazy hippie dharma isn’t going to work anymore.

Let’s go to work.