This chapter began with the contextualization of the historical circumstances in Burma and the United States that brought about the interactions between these two groups; namely, Burmese Buddhist specialists (monks and lay meditation teachers) and the American vipassana practitioners. It argues for a more comprehensive understanding of what “modern Buddhism” means for various constituents by...
This chapter examines the contemporary adaptation of vipassana meditation by convert Buddhists and sympathizers to the American context. It employs racial formation theory to distinguish between cultural and racial rearticulations of Buddhist ideas, beliefs, and practices. Cultural rearticulation is an ordinary means of taking Asian religious practices and rerepresent them in terms that are...