What is Buddhism?

What is Buddhism? This is a hard question for most people to answer, from strangers to Buddhism, to practitioners and scholars of Buddhism. What is known for sure is that the Buddha lived around 500BCE and was a charismatic figure who set in motion the teachings that would come to be identified with Buddhism. How Buddhism evolved from these first teachings and how they changed as Buddhism spread to various places is where the question becomes complicated.

Buddhism moved from India to what would become primarily Buddhist countries. In one of the curious circumstances of history, Buddhism eventually became less popular in the land of its origin than the countries it spread to. From China, Buddhism spread to the rest of East Asia, countries like Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Buddhism also spread to Sri Lanka and the countries of Southeast Asia, including Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. The Himalayan lands of Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, Ladakh, and Sikkim also adopted Buddhism. Buddhism mixed with these cultures and changed, as it is doing currently in the form of American Buddhism.

There are various 'yanas' or wheels of Buddhism located in the different regions of Asia. Theravada, which used to be known as Hinayana, is the Buddhism that was adopted by Southeast Asian countries. In East Asia, Mahayana, including Zen and Ch'an, is practiced, and the Himalayan countries have a subset of Mahayana sometimes called Vajrayana or Tantra. However, these are loose categories with much overlap. It is difficult even to give the main characteristics of each without simplifying these yanas.

However, I am prepared to make the following distinctions. 1) Theravada Buddhists believe there was one Buddha who he reached Enlightenment (the ultimate Buddhist goal also known as nirvana) and is gone from the world. 2) Mahayana Buddhists have contributed the idea of many Buddhas over long periods of time, and Bodhisattvas who have opted out of Enlightenment in order to help others. 3) The main feature of Tantric Buddhism is the idea that Enlightenment can be reached in this lifetime, whereas the others believe it takes many thousands of lifetimes.

American Buddhism has adopted all of these practices and cultural features that go along with them. Some Americans practice a Tibetan kind of Buddhism, and some practice Japanese Zen or Theravada Insight Meditation. Nonetheless, this is American Buddhism because in order to make Buddhism appealing to Americans it had to change in some way. Lay American Buddhists do not give alms to monks like Asian Buddhists, but their practice focuses primarily on meditation. Even the Asian Buddhist diaspora in America has changed to fit its new environment in this country.