Dalai Lama, 300 leaders to meet

NEW YORK — The 14th Dalai Lama is simultaneously the exiled monarch of Tibet, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning statesman and Buddhism's most renowned world leader — aspects that are all evident during his current U.S. tour.

But a private event, carrying out his religious role, may be the most significant moment in the India-based lama's visit — a conference in the upstate New York community of Garrison for 300 leaders of local Buddhist centers in the Western Hemisphere.

This is apparently the biggest gathering of Buddhist teachers ever held in the United States. Only followers of the Dalai Lama's own Tibetan form of the faith are invited, although some speakers will come from other traditions. The lama has previously encouraged smaller meetings for teachers representing all Buddhist branches, most recently in 2001.

Such get-togethers are rare because North American Buddhism is highly individualistic and decentralized, with less unity and nationwide cooperation than is found in Christianity, Judaism or Islam.

The Dalai Lama is asking the teachers to take stock after a period of notable New World expansion for all of Buddhism. The 1998 "Complete Guide to Buddhist America" listed over 1,000 dharma ("teaching") centers in North America, more than double the total a decade earlier.

One survey puts U.S. Buddhists at 3 million to 4 million. Most are immigrants, their numbers swelled by the 1965 liberalization of U.S. immigration laws.

But an estimated 800,000 are native-born converts or "new Buddhists," including such celebrities as movie actor Richard Gere, who helped plan the Sept. 22-23 Garrison meeting.

Such progress owes much to the magnetism of the 68-year-old Dalai Lama, who by Tibetan tradition was recognized at age 2 as an incarnation of Avalokiteshvar, the Buddha of Compassion, and the reincarnation of his deceased predecessor.

Tibetan Buddhism, known as Tantrism or Vajrayana ("the Diamond Vehicle," denoting clarity of experience) is one of Buddhism's three main branches. The others are Theravada ("the Way of the Elders") and Mahayana ("the Greater Vehicle," which includes Zen).

All three, and their many subgroups and spinoffs, are active in contemporary North America. In fact, this is "the first time in history you have all these diverse traditions in one place," says historian Jan Willis, a Baptist-turned-Buddhist who will speak at Garrison. She tells her Wesleyan University students to speak of "Buddhisms," plural, underscoring these varieties.