The Buddha and Your News

There’s a misconception about Buddhists that they just hang out meditating and ignore current events or popular culture. In fact, Buddhism is about balance and focus rather than 24/7 navel-gazing. It’s also about social and political action—which, in a time of war and multiple social and economic crises, may make Buddhists an especially interesting and important community to connect with. 

For instance, right now in South Korea and Thailand, Buddhist monks are playing leading roles in large-scale demonstrations concerning their respective governments. Also, Buddhist economics is a key influence behind the increasingly popular cultural trend called Voluntary Simplicity.

Many Buddhists do watch the news closely, and there’s a global market for news from a Buddhist perspective—especially (but not exclusively) among immigrant communities from major Buddhist regions such as southeast Asia, Tibet, and Korea. Check out the Buddhist Channel for current headlines.

On the lighter side, there’s also the Buddhist Forum on Non-Buddhist Media. This mainly focuses on popular culture. Want to know what Buddhists think about Battlestar Galactica? Whether some Buddhists think “the Force” is like “the Way?” What kinds of music Buddhists think is cool? Here you go.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, most Buddhists in America live in western (45%) and southern (23%) states. Most are white (53%) or Asian (32%). Rough estimates of Buddhists in America range around five to six million—about three-quarters of whom are “ethnic Buddhists” (who consider Buddhism an inherited family tradition, whether recent or not). The remainder are converts of various backgrounds. Here’s a good Christian Science Monitor backgrounder on Buddhism in the US.

NOTE: This post is part of a special series on how news orgs can connect with communities of difference through communities of faith. See the series intro for links to the rest of this series.

Where are your local Buddhists? Because Buddhists are busy living an examined life (or perhaps examined in living a non-busy life), there are scores of available resources for finding Buddhist communities in the real world and online. A good place to start is this Buddhist media clearinghouse, which lists everything from bilingual Chinese-English resources, to mixed teachings in Polish, to resources for Buddhists in Alaska.

It’s remarkably easy to meet and talk to Buddhists. There are many organized sanghas (communities led by nuns and monks in residence), centers, and temples around the US. (Here’s a list.) Also, Buddhist meditation classes are available just about everywhere—even in the fundamentalist Christian bastion of Colorado Springs. Anyone who would like to learn to focus and relax a little bit, or is just curious, tends to be welcomed openly.

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