Rev. Danny Fisher

Photo by Phil Miller.
Today I submitted this photograph to the online project Don’t Forget Burma. The whole process of making my sign, having my picture taken, and submitting it to the website took about five to ten minutes. I encourage all of you reading to participate and upload a photo of your own to the project. And spread the word:

http://www.dontforgetburma.org

My interview with Ravenna Michalsen, which appeared at this blog on October 15th of last year, has been published in the latest issue of the Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia (Y.B.A.M.)‘s Eastern Horizon magazine (the issue is pictured to the left).

Ravenna will be in Kuala Lumpur this coming June as a guest of the Y.B.A.M. She will offer teachings and a concert during the Wesak International Film Festival.

I’ve written for Eastern Horizon several times in the past. (My obituary for Maha Ghosananda, which you can read here, was published in their last issue.) Editor Benny Liow (who also serves on the Buddhist Channel International Advisory Panel) is absolutely wonderful to work with, and I hope to continue working with him and the magazine for years to come.

If you want to see my interview with Ravenna in print, you can find it in Eastern Horizon, Issue No. 24 (January 2008). To read the interview here at the blog, just follow this link.

A few days ago, I posted about the Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. Because I have neither the time nor the inclination nor the ability to sift through all of the data provided by the survey and reflect critically on it, I have relied mostly on journalists and commentators to tell me about its findings. (However problematic that may be.)

Fortunately for folks like me, though, the brilliant minds over at The Buddhist Scholars Information Network (H-Buddhism) have been sussing out problems with the survey’s findings about Buddhism in America.

One problem identified has to do with language. Michael K. Jerryson, author of Mongolian Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of the Sangha and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, writes:

…I wanted to forward on a critique by [U.C.S.B. graduate student] Todd Perreira that merits reflection before using the statistics, particularly for American Buddhism.
“For those concerned with the study of Buddhism in America it should be noted that the 35,000 calls for the Pew study were conducted in Spanish or English. As we know, there are million of Asians living in America today who are Buddhists but do not speak Spanish or English. On this basis I would argue the methodology in this study is flawed. A more accurate demographic picture of Buddhism in American would necessarily have to draw on data gathered in the primary languages of Asian immigrants–especially Thai, Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, Korean, Japanese, & Chinese. This would not only alter the racial/ethnic composition graph but virtually all the other graphs as well. I would exercise great caution and restraint in the use of these numbers.”

The U.S Census shows that there are close to ten million Asians in the United States, forty percent of which do not speak English or Spanish. The 2000 U.S Census states, “Of the 9.5 million Asians aged 5 and over, 79 percent spoke a language other than English at home and about 40 percent spoke English less than ‘very well.’”

Another obvious problem has to do with the exclusion of Hawai’i from the survey. Alfred Bloom, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Religion at the University of Hawai’i, writes:

It should be noted also that the survey did not include Hawaii, they say because of time differentials. There are sizable number of Buddhists, taking the Chinese, Korean Japanese, Laotian and Vietnamese and others that are here.

These seem to me to be two very significant problems with the Pew Forum’s survey. While these sorts of surveys helpfully provide a very general picture of the religious make-up of the country, it seems clear that this particular survey is not very useful for those of us studying Buddhism in America. Personally speaking, I will not be using the Pew Forum’s data about Buddhism in America in the writing I do.

Koshin Paley Ellison, founder and co-executive director of training and education at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, sent the following message to the Buddhist_Chaplaincy Yahoo! Group this morning:

Applications for the 2008/9 Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program are now being accepted.

[Program Dates:] September 2008 to June 2009

As Buddhist spiritual practice finds an increasing presence within American society, there is both an opportunity and a need to train Buddhist practitioners to serve as spiritual caregivers and chaplains. The New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care is offering a yearlong training program to provide an introduction to spiritual care skills from a Buddhist perspective. This is a unique opportunity to study Buddhist principles and practices relevant to spiritual caregiving, as well as an introduction to the psychological, social, and ethical issues related to chaplaincy.

The program is designed to meet the needs of people in a variety of ways:

* Beginning training for those interested in becoming volunteer or professional chaplains in hospitals, hospices, jails, and other places where spiritual care is needed.

* Basic training in spiritual care: attending the sick and dying, performing memorials and other ceremonies, and offering spiritual direction for interested Buddhist clergy and lay practitioners.

Applications are due on May 1, 2008.

For more information, visit http://www.zencare.org.