From October 15 to 17, 2010, the Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program convened an international conference on “Buddhism in Canada: Global Causes, Local Conditions.” The conference was an opportunity to investigate the contours of Buddhism in Canada and its dramatic growth over the last forty years. All together, the conference drew around one hundred participants to UBC, including forty students and scholars of Buddhism from North America, East Asia, and Western Europe.
On both Friday and Saturday evenings, a keynote address summarized important developments in the history of the study of Buddhism in North America and in globalizing societies. The first speaker, Professor Charles Prebish, Director of the Religious Studies program at the Utah State University, charted the emergence of Canadian and American Buddhism as a sub-discipline in Buddhist Studies in his paper, “The Swans Came to Canada Too: Looking Backward and Looking Forward”:
The second speaker, ProfessorRaphaëlLiogier, from the Institut d’études politiques d’Aix-en-Provence, spoke about how Buddhism is similar to other religious movements in advanced industrial countries: differences in taste and style between different types of Buddhism cover an underlying uniformity. His lecture entitled, “Buddhism and the Hypothesis on Individuo-globalism” may be viewed in full here:
On that sunny weekend, over twenty papers were presented in eight panel sessions–the majority representing new research. Within a wide range of topics (see the conference program for details and abstracts), they raised several common points regarding the way the “globalization” of North American Buddhism has: (1) spurred innovations of traditional ideas and in worship practices; (2) created new typologies, epistemologies, and ontologies; (3) reimagined the Buddhist community to reflect not only its actual but also its virtual spatiality / temporality; and (4) complicated the relationship between the “global” and “local” producing potentialities on one hand and anxieties on the other.
One of the well-attended panels was “Establishing Buddhism in Canada.” In this panel chaired by Paul Crowe of Simon Fraser University, Alexander Soucy, Daniel Métraux, and Manuel Litalien explained the complex attraction of new Buddhist movements in this country. In “The Lotus and the Maple Leaf: The Evolution of Soka Gakkai Buddhism in Canada,” Métraux pointed out that its message of successful self-empowerment through chanting draws Canadians to Soka Gakkai Buddhism. Litalien compared the different strategies (e.g. social media, word-of-mouth) of two Buddhist groups in recruiting new members in “Buddhism in Canada: The Transnational Strategy of the Dhammakaya Foundation in Comparison.” Soucy, in “The Charisma of a Vietnamese Diasporic Leader,” reflected on the attempts of a group of Vietnamese immigrants to revitalize their homeland practices and recompose their faith in a new country as a way to address their traumatic displacement.
There were many notable presentations. Angela Sumegi in “The Play of Meaning: Reflections on a Canadian Buddhist Death Ritual,” an auto-ethnographic approach to the creation of new ritual, posed two considerations for Buddhist funeral rituals for Canadians. One, these rituals must be underpinned by the philosophy and practice of Buddhism, which for most westerners is the most crucial aspect of this religion. Two, these rituals need to provide contexts for non-Buddhists in attendance. Another was entitled “Sri Lankan Buddhists Transmissions Strategies and Culturally Negotiated Buddhist Tradition in Toronto” by D. Mitra Bhikku. Bhikku noted the negotiations of emphasis and commitment between Sinhalese who were born in Canada and those who were born here. In “Are You Buddhist?: ‘Westerners’ in India Traveling on the Path of the Buddha,” François Thibeault conducted a series of interviews with westerners engaged in Buddhist practices in South Asia, and found out that one’s affiliation influences the way these people self-identify in relation to Buddhism.
An enjoyable evening reception at St. John’s College capped the conference. Many thanks to all the student volunteers.
The conference was made possible by the generous support of The Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation, in collaboration with the Institute of Asian Research and the Department of Asian Studies. Additional funding provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Numata Foundation.
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