How Did Buddhism Reach the West? | The Sangha UK #79 | 9.4.22

The Sangha discuss how Buddhism spread to the West. #ashoka #blavatsky #thoreau 

Buddhism in the United Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_the_United_Kingdom

Buddhism in the United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_the_United_States

Helena Blavatsky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Blavatsky

Henry Steel Olcott

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Steel_Olcott

Pali Text Society

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pali_Text_Society

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00:00 How did Buddhism come to the West? Disruption in China; intentional wandering; Asokha’s emissaries 

05:33 The British in Sri Lanka; Thoreau, Emerson and Buddhism; Mme. Blavatsky, Olcott, and Krishnamurthi

09:09 D T Suzuki; Zen in California; lack of nobles in the West; cultural differences

14:28 Looking for nobility

15:49 Schopenhauer & Nietzsche; postmodern philosophers; consumerism

22:17 What’s the relationship between intellectuals and the rest of society?

24:27 Wholesome qualities in non-Western cultures; underlying anxiety and fear; questioning

30:23 Ignoble Buddhism in the West; the blind leading the blind

37:11 The Dhamma is difficult to understand without a teacher; nobles in the West are ignored

40:50 Kindling the fire of knowledge; rehabilitating the mind; good breathing