Hi Sharon,
Over the past few years, there have been some wonderful articles
in Shambhala Sun about the efforts of Buddhist brothers and sisters
such as Chogyam Trungpa, Pema Chodron, and D.T. Suzuki to bring
Buddhist teachings to the United States, and their efforts through
institutions such as the Naropa Institute in Boulder to reach out
to the American public. Some of these articles have also touched
on the composition of membership. You will also be able to find
some useful information in Tricycle, particularly a recent article
a few issues back on African-Americans and the dharma. The author
was an African-American man reflecting on his experiences, but he
also discussed the efforts of Buddhists to reach out to the
African-American community, and mentioned some of Buddhism's more
famous African-American adherents or sympathizers (most notably,
Alice Walker). This would be a good starting point. There are
also numerous books that contain reflections by Western dharma
teachers on Buddhism in North America. I know that Lama Surya
Das, a Westerner, has written at length about his efforts to
bring Dzogchen teachings to North America (interestingly, his
real name is Jeffrey Miller, and he was deeply sympathetic to
the antiwar movement, but he was obviously not the Jeffrey
Miller who was killed at Kent State). A good place to start
would be the Shambhala Sun page (http://www.shambhala.org),
which has a lot of great links, including some to Shambhala
Books (which has published books on Buddhism in the West); and
the Tricycle page (http://www.tricycle.com). Sadly, one of the
best Buddhist web sites, Buddhanet (http:/www.buddhanet.net) is
down, and I don't have a new address. But good luck in your
search.
Kindest regards,
Andrew Hunt
-----------------------------------------------------------
Andrew E. Hunt aehunt@watarts.uwaterloo.ca
Associate Professor ANDREWEHUNT@aol.com
Department of History
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1
519.888.4567, ex.2767
fax: 519.746.2658
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~aehunt
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