There is a sizable Buddhist community in the United States, one that constitutes a truly transnational community in that it not only is flourishing in the United States after having started elsewhere but also because it has spread from its origins in India to many different parts of the world. Buddhism is an important religion in China and Japan as well as in India, and the American component has also taken a leading role in perpetuating the teachings of the Buddha and the ideas embodied in this religious doctrine. Buddhism is not a doctrinal religion, though it does have core beliefs and a core world-view. However, it is also a versatile religious philosophy which has been reshaped to serve different populations and to accommodate, assimilate, and intertwine with different views and religious doctrines in the different countries and parts of the world into which Buddhism has moved. This is true in the United States as well, and there are a number of different Buddhist groups or factions with slightly different practices, beliefs, and congregations in different parts of the country.
Buddhism began at the time of the emergence of Upanishadic mysticism in ancient India, roughly during the period 800 B.C.E. to 600 B.C.E. The development of this ancient mysticism was a spiritual protest against the religion of the Vedas, which was aristocratic and based on sacrifice and magic. This was an ancient sacrificial religion that catered to an economic elite and imposed an aristocratic and priestly dominance on all of the people in every caste. However, Upanishadic mysticism undermined this Vedic social arrangement because it relegated sacrifices to a secondary position, placed after the cultivation of the spirit to achieve Union with Brahman, their name for the Absolute, or the central force of meaning and power in the Universe. The rejection of the sacrificial system contributed to the rise of a doctrine of non injury or Ahimsa, whi...