anthropocentric as is Christianity or Judaism. Buddhism is in agreement with ideas of modern medicine that see mind and body as one, and this has been one appeal in America. Some find Buddhism in agreement with the most abstruse conceptions of quantum physics:
Articles on the latest breakthrough in particle physics bear a remarkable resemblance to the doctrine of "impermanence" that the universe is changing all the time expounded by the Buddha. It is also worth noting that in the Buddha's sutras he frequently recounts fantastic experiences on remote planets and speaks of innumerable worlds outside our own (Hochswender 169).
Buddhism also tends to be nonmoralistic, which serves well in a world characterized by a great diversity of peoples, cultures, and lifestyles, again in keeping with American values. Buddhism does not prescribe one's way of living:
People in the West tend to think of a religion as being a code. But Buddhism is defined by practice rather than a rigid set of beliefs (Hochswender 169).
Buddhism has come to America first accompanying different immigrant groups. It first arrived in the 1820s with the first wave of Chinese immigrants, and by 1875, there were 400 "joss houses" in California, usually incense soaked, top story dens crowded with ancestral relics, little lacquered Buddhas and dusty sutra scrolls ("Buddhism in the USA" www.spiritweb.org/
HinduismToday/94 07 Buddhism_in_the_USA.html). Buddhism had a resurgence in the 1970s as a number of Asian groups emigrated to the United States from places like Thailand and Vietnam. The pace of growth has increased recently. Since 1988, the number of English language Buddhist teaching centers has jumped from 429 to more than 1,062 (Van Biema www.pathfinder.com/@@8Vbc@AUAjRyHjyXp/
time/magazine/1997/dom/971013/cover2.html).
Buddhism has been gaining converts in the West in recent years, and a number of reasons have been offered for this trend. T...