American Freshman (AF), and the American Reli-
gious Identification Survey (ARIS)—concluded that
1 million to 2.1 million adults (61% Asian American)
and 1.4 million to 2.8 million in the total population
affiliated with Buddhism. Scholars who defend the
lower figure (1.4 million) argue that only the surveys
of high school seniors and college freshmen (MF and
AF) point toward the higher end. Those who concur
with the larger estimate (2.8 million) note that the
other studies (GSS and ARIS) were telephone surveys
that excluded those who did not speak English and,
therefore, undercounted Asian refugees and immi-
grants. Other evidence, or lack of evidence, also in-
clines some toward the high-end estimates: the religion
survey (ARIS) failed to contact residents of Hawaii,
which had the counties with the highest concentrations
of Asian Americans according to the 2000 U.S. census,
and the survey of high school seniors (MF) failed to
include California, a state with a significant Buddhist
presence.
To put these estimates in perspective, if we assume
the lowest available figures, Buddhists still outnum-
bered more than seventeen U.S. Christian denomina-
tions, including the Disciples of Christ and the Quakers
(ARIS). And even if the highest estimates—more than
five million—seem exaggerated, they revealed two im-
portant features of the contemporary religious context,
as demographer Tom Smith pointed out. First, ob-
servers might unwittingly inflate estimates of adher-
ents because the building of Asian-American temples
and the media’s celebration of celebrity converts have
made Buddhism more visible. Second, there are many
sympathizers, or nightstand Buddhists, who read Bud-
dhist popular books and practice meditation sporadi-
cally but do not affiliate formally or fully.
By almost any measure Buddhism had found its
place in the American religious landscape by the start
of the twenty-first century, and of those Americans
who identified themselves as Buddhist adherents, ap-
proximately one-third were converts (ARIS). A small
proportion were Asians who discovered or reaffirmed
Buddhism in the United States, but most of the 341,000
(ARIS) to 800,000 (Baumann) converts were Ameri-
cans of European or African descent. There was more
diversity among converts who affiliated with Soka
Gakkai, the Japanese sect that venerates the teachings
of NICHIREN(1222–1282). They were more ethnically
diverse than both the U.S. population and other Bud-
dhist converts: 15 percent African American, 15 per-
cent “other,” 23 percent Asian, and 6 percent Latino.
However, most Buddhist converts tended to be white,
as James William Coleman’s study revealed. Converts
also were middle and upper middle class, with a very
high level of education: more than half (51%) held ad-
vanced degrees. Their range of religious backgrounds
made them typical of the American population, except
that convert Buddhists were disproportionately of Jew-
ish heritage (16.5%, as compared with 3% in the U.S.
population).
Although converts have embraced almost every
form of Buddhism, since 1965 most have affiliated with
one of several traditions. Through the efforts of Amer-
ican converts who had studied in Burma and Thailand
during the 1960s, Theravada Buddhism attracted in-
terest, and efforts to transplant Southeast Asian Bud-
dhism, especially VIPASSANA (or insight) meditation,
took institutional form during the 1970s and 1980s. In
1975 Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Gold-
stein, and others founded the Insight Meditation So-
ciety in Barre, Massachusetts. Soon after, teachers
extended the movement to California: In 1977 Ruth
Denison, who also had practiced in Asia, purchasedUNITEDSTATESThai-American Buddhists celebrate the Thai New Year festival at
a temple in New York City, 2001. AP/Wide World Photos. Re-
produced by permission.