Journey toward enlightenment: Buddhism in Utah can take many forms

We are emptying our minds. Or trying to (one of us is thinking entirely too much about the dull ache forming in the center of her back). We are sitting cross-legged on small cushions in an apartment in the Avenues, and we are focusing on our breathing. In the center of the circle a dog named Dawg breathes easily, his head on his paws.

And then, from somewhere outside, there is a bark. Dawg suddenly lifts his head, alert and suspicious. At least one of us begins thinking about dogs, watches Dawg get up and move across the room, begins thinking about the view from the window.

It's not easy, this long journey toward enlightenment. But in rooms across Utah — in this Avenues apartment where the Utah Sangha Ja Na Ling meets on Monday evenings; in Midge Hinline's Tibetan Buddhist Practice Center in La Verkin; in formal settings like the Kanzeon Zen Center in Salt Lake City and the less formal straw-bale building that houses the Asian American Meditation Center near Snowville — Utahns are hoping to find their Buddha nature.

These are, for the most part, people who have come to Buddhism as adults, and they make up a relatively small percentage of practicing Buddhists in the United States. Perhaps 80 percent of American Buddhists come from Asian countries or are the children or grandchildren of those immigrants. These "ethnic" or "inherited" Buddhists have been Buddhists since birth.

It's anybody's guess how many people total in America practice Buddhism or call themselves Buddhist — there's no central hierarchy, no lists kept, no clear definition of what a Buddhist is (there are Mormon Buddhists and Jewish Buddhists, and some people contend that anyone calling himself a Buddhist should be counted as one). There are maybe several million total, although the "several" could be somewhere between 4 million and 6 million or more.

It's clear, though, that the number of Buddhists in America grew "exponentially" between 1975 and 2000, says professor Charles Prebish, who holds the Charles Redd Chair in Religious Studies at Utah State University and is an expert on American Buddhism. The growth is largely a result of the wave of Asians who immigrated here in the last quarter of the 20th century. But there have also been people like Prebish himself, Americans drawn to teachings of compassion and mindfulness. He calls these people "converts"; some call them "volunteers."

Between the convert Buddhists and the ethnic Buddhists, Prebish says, there has been a "glaring divide." To the converts, meditation — their own meditation — is key. In the Buddhism practiced in temples such as Wat Dhammagunaram Buddhist Temple in Layton, as in Buddhist temples in countries like Thailand and Vietnam, it is mainly the monks who meditate, not the lay congregation.

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