Buddhism

American Buddhism

Of all the regions of America, the Pacific Northwest is perhaps the most prodigal. They do not look the East for their culture but the East that is the West by their reckoning. The exchange of commercial goods and spiritual philosophy means the cities of Portand, Seattle and Vancouver lean towards Buddhism. Or perhaps more accurately, a Buddhism in their image, descended from the prosperous Asian American community and hippie counterculture.

The cities of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver—once filled with yoga studios and start-ups—preserved fragments of a dozen Eastern philosophies: Zen, Daoism, mindfulness therapy, environmental mysticism. Over centuries, the remnants fused into a single, placid doctrine that now governs the coastal valleys and river kingdoms from the Cascades to the Pacific. Before the collapse, Buddhism in America had already been diluted into slogans: go with the flow, find your center, be present. When the noise of the old world died, these fragments took on the weight of scripture. The surviving monasteries—half eco-commune, half zen retreat—became civic sanctuaries. Monks who once sold mindfulness classes became tribal leaders.

By the third century of the new age, the Pacific Dharma had crystallized: a practical faith for a temperate land, equal parts meditation and maintenance. The Pacific Dharma borrows freely: the vegetarianism of old California, the animism of the Plateau peoples, the minimalism of the ancient Japanese, the slogans of protesters. Daoist symbols mingle with the Sanskrit chants of long-lost sutras, and somewhere among them lies the echo of a therapist’s advice. There is no fixed hierarchy. One can find enlightenment in a cosmopolitan city state or an isolated Mountain retreat. All are part of the greater cycle, though when when thought leaders excite the youth of Cascadia, they will flock to their home bases, camping outside.

There aren’t a lot of martyrs in the movement, or a lot of lot of apostates, theoretically Buddhism is supposed to be open. But some do go a bridge too far, for instance in in the 2700’s when Seattle’s Leslie Park unearthed old Marxist texts tried to stir up anti-Merchant fever and disappeared under mysterious circumstances. In 2876 Alex Lang was censured for trying to push forward the idea that having to clean up after yourself was “emotional” slavery, and the Earth will absorb its garbage.