Seager, Richard Hughes. Buddhism in America. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. Print.

At first I did not know which religion to search for in the library. I was torn between Hinduism and Buddhism. I ruled out Jainism because I found it to be a religion that was surrounded by negative thoughts. Ultimately I decided on finding a book that related to Buddhism. I chose this religion as a whole because we are learning it now, and I wanted to understand how its practices stay the same and change as the country they are in changes. I chose a book that specifically related to the United States because I thought it would be more interesting to us as students considering the fact that we live here. While Chapters one and four specifically reference “The American Buddhist Landscape” and “The American Setting” respectively, the rest of the book either talks about major traditions or specific issues associated with Buddhism.

I found the cover to be very interesting, It is a white woman with her hands clasped together in prayer form. I thought this was important because when we think of Buddhism we tend to think of people from India, despite it being a world religion. The book as a whole is divided into three sections. Part one talks about background and establishes a setting of Buddhism in America. Part two talks about major traditions, such as different lines of buddhism. Lastly, part three talks about selected issues such as gender equality. I thought the division of this book was interesting because it went from how buddhism was established in America to Buddhism around the world back to selected issues associated with Buddhism in America. Looking through the book I found that the author used many verses and pictures to send the message across about how Buddhism works. I thought this was a smart way for people to try and understand Buddhism, especially for people like me who had never learned about it. The chapters that I would further expand on in a paper would be Chapter One “The American Buddhist Landscape” as well as Chapter Four “The American Setting” and Chapter Fourteen “Making Some Sense of Americanization.”

Overall, I found this book to be an interesting read. The author did a good job at connecting the Buddhism established centuries ago to the American adaptation and implementation of this religion. He was able to talk about how bringing Buddhism abroad caused some changes and how it was eventually Americanized. Apart from focusing on America the author is able to talk about present day issues in Buddhism such as gender equality. He addresses how women and men are treated different in this religion. Although this would not relate to the general underlying of my paper, I would find it to be an interesting topic to address. In the end, I found this book to go in depth about the transformation of Buddhism in America.