Buddhism comes West
Asian immigrants, Zen and Tibetan teachers and Western seekers bring Buddhism to Europe and the Americas, where meditation becomes mainstream as "mindfulness".
- Buddhism in America (rev. ed.) — Richard Hughes Seager, Columbia University Press (2012)
- Mindful America: The Mutual Transformation of Buddhist Meditation and American Culture — Jeff Wilson, Oxford University Press (2014)
- The Making of Buddhist Modernism — David L. McMahan, Oxford University Press (2008)
- Religious Landscape Study 2023-24 — Pew Research Center (2025)
Chinese and Japanese immigrants built the first Buddhist temples in America in the nineteenth century. At the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, Anagarika Dharmapala and the Zen master Sōen Shaku spoke to Western audiences; Sōen’s student D. T. Suzuki went on to make Zen famous in English.
- Buddhism in America (rev. ed.) — Richard Hughes Seager, Columbia University Press (2012)
- The Making of Buddhist Modernism — David L. McMahan, Oxford University Press (2008)
After 1945 interest grew fast: the Beat writers took up Zen, Shunryu Suzuki founded the San Francisco Zen Center in 1962, and after 1959 Tibetan lamas in exile taught across Europe and America. New waves of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Lao, Thai, Korean and Sri Lankan immigrants built temples of their own.
- Buddhism in America (rev. ed.) — Richard Hughes Seager, Columbia University Press (2012)
- Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West — Donald S. Lopez Jr., University of Chicago Press (1998)
In 1979 Jon Kabat-Zinn founded Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, adapting Buddhist meditation into a secular programme. “Mindfulness” spread into healthcare, schools and business, admired by some Buddhists and criticised by others as cut off from Buddhist ethics.
- Mindful America: The Mutual Transformation of Buddhist Meditation and American Culture — Jeff Wilson, Oxford University Press (2014)
- The Making of Buddhist Modernism — David L. McMahan, Oxford University Press (2008)
- Religious Landscape Study 2023-24 — Pew Research Center (2025)
Why it matters today
Buddhism is now part of Western life, from Asian American temples to meditation apps. Around 1% of American adults identify as Buddhist, and many more have tried meditation. Debates about "McMindfulness", cultural appropriation and the place of heritage Asian communities are very much alive.